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New Neddick Release - Tech Preview Release 4, Patch 'A' - mindcrime
https://github.com/fogbeam/Neddick/releases/tag/v0.0.0-tpr4a
======
mindcrime
This release fixes a problem with saving both tags, and comments.
For any of you who haven't seen Neddick before, it's something like "Reddit
for the Enterprise", but not exactly. If you want to check out a demo, just
visit
[http://demo.fogbeam.org:8080/neddick/](http://demo.fogbeam.org:8080/neddick/)
and login as:
testuser1 / secret
Some useful things you can do with Neddick: Link a "channel" (more or less
analogous to a sub-reddit) to 0 or more RSS feeds, and let it populate itself
from those feeds over time. Set filters on the channel so you will only see
content which matches your criteria (body keyword, title keyword, tag, etc.).
Set "triggers" on channels (or globally) so that matching content can invoke
actions like: Email the content to somebody, IM it via XMPP, do an HTTP POST
in ActivityStrea.ms format, etc.
You can also explicitly "share" content with other users by email or XMPP or
via HTTP POST using ActivityStrea.ms format.
Neddick also has free-form tagging, and the ability "save" (bookmark) entries,
as well as hide entries you don't want to see.
Of course, that's just the tip of the iceberg and we have a ton of other great
stuff coming up...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Possibly the easiest way to register to vote - etruong42
https://www.gottaregister.com/
======
dpcx
This seems like an interesting idea, and the cert is for www.barackobama.com,
so in theory, it's legit.
~~~
etruong42
To be honest, I got it from Barack Obama's AMA on Reddit
[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/z1c9z/i_am_barack_obam...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/z1c9z/i_am_barack_obama_president_of_the_united_states/),
so the endorsement of the website comes from the POTUS himself.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Milton Friedman Was Wrong - gilad
https://www.theatlantic.com/article/596545/
======
WheelsAtLarge
I have been waiting for this change for years. Shareholders are only 1 of many
stakeholders, an important one, but there should be a better balance. No,
money is not everything.
>>While the statement is a welcome repudiation of a highly influential but
spurious theory of corporate responsibility, this new philosophy will not
likely change the way corporations behave.
While I think that many of the old established companies will not change their
ways, new companies will be looking at the new definition and be influenced by
it. We should all welcome the change! It's a big change going forward.
>>The only way to force corporations to act in the public interest is to
subject them to legal regulation.
Yes, that's one way but public pressure and new thinking in the education
system is the best way to proceed. Pressuring companies thru the legal system
is just one way to enact change but not always the best. Companies that are
forced into something they don't want to do will find ways to hack the system
so they don't have to do anything. By enacting change organically we get
better outcomes long term.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Concourse CI - _qc3o
https://concourse.ci
======
joeseeder
Have been working with it for a few months, and I am not positive about it.
UI is pretty but often breaks. Is unusable when you have a pipeline with
dozens of concurrent jobs.
Concept of teams is fine, but when you have to switch between them, even with
oauth authentication, it is a pain.
Job concurrency control is binary.
We never have been able to have worker pool scale down without a hiccup,
always some darn worker hogging containers and atc not removing it, leading to
stalled pipelines.
That overlay network it comes with, garden thingy, creates so many problems
and solves just one...
Oh and not having BUILD_ vars available in tasks is rude, thank you very much,
but there are cases when it is just mandatory and concourse makes it
impossible to do.
At least new version has better secrets handling, previously it was a joke.
~~~
henryaj
> UI is pretty but often breaks. Is unusable when you have a pipeline with
> dozens of concurrent jobs.
Find this hard to believe - we have some pretty spectacular pipelines which
render without a hiccup.
~~~
krakensden
100+ jobs will break your browser. RabbitMQ has been complaining about it for
a while.
~~~
jadeklerk
100+ jobs in one pipeline?
~~~
joeseeder
Yes, some systems we work with have over 100 items ( jobs and resources) in
one pipeline ... because microservices...
------
nstart
Not sure when it came about, but when I first evaluated Concourse, not being
able to trigger jobs manually was a primary blocker. Glad this showed up on HN
again, because they've added it in at some point. My favourite thing about
Concourse was really its ideas around "Resources". This always felt so much
better than this idea of plugins due to how unified the experience was. Also,
the ability to implement resources for yourself is extremely easy. So if I had
an internal software running, being able to build something for it meant
defining three bash scripts.
That said, the docs around implementing resources still needs some
improvements. Whatever I learnt was from cloning and modifying existing
resources.
~~~
fatterypt
This is also close to my experience. Improving, but not there yet.
Unfortunately, it will retrigger the same job with the updated version of the
resources. With other CI tools, it was possible to replay the same job, with
whatever inputs they took by the time they ran, with concourse it does not
seem t be possible.
A practical impact of this issue is that we cannot simply reprocess a previous
deploy step, with the old artifacts and inputs in a middle of an outage.
~~~
wlamartin
You can achieve this by clicking on a resource and hitting toggling the "power
button" to off for each of the resources you don't want to include in the
build.
~~~
fatterypt
While this may even work, it is not practical and it is a disappointing
experience for a pipeline centric type of CI such as concourse.
In other tools, hitting re-run would simply replay the job, with the same
state it was executed in the first run. I would expect concourse to behave
similarly, but no.
~~~
jacques_chester
> _In other tools, hitting re-run would simply replay the job, with the same
> state it was executed in the first run._
If the job failed, you get this. Otherwise I figure that the idea is that
you're satisfied with those versions of the resources acted on by the job.
Disclosure: I work for Pivotal.
------
mugsie
I know everyone hates on Jenkins these days, but (at least for the workloads I
am building) Concourse feels like a toy.
My issues:
\- everything _has_ to be in a docker container (not all things can run in
garden)
\- Just trying to find logs is a pain, and getting the UI to show a full log
output is basically impossible
\- each install of concourse may need an entirely different version of fly
\- There was no way of retriggering a CI run on a single PR (without force
pushing to the branch, which removes Github reviews)
Jenkins + Jenkinsfiles + Pipelines provides all of the good bits of Concourse,
with none of the Pivitol enforced workflow + tools.
I get why CloudFoundry uses Concourse - the build process is so arcane that
you basically need to run the full CI locally, but I really do not get the
hype for other projects.
~~~
samueloph
Jenkins has some serious problems when you want to work with CD.
Its currently impossible* to use Jenkins in a CD environment where you want to
deploy by tagging your git project[1] and allow rollbacks because Jenkins
doesn't treat tag's hashes (only the commits the tag points to).
Unfortunately, hack such a fix is not very pleasant either, because Java, and
i don't think the Jenkins developers are interested in it either, at least not
if just a few people ask for it.
It may look as a silly usecase, but i believe its one that mostly fits when
you have a dynamic server farm (hosting on aws with autoscalling, for example)
and don't want to auto-deploy on master commit.
[1][https://groups.google.com/d/msg/jenkinsci-
users/mYxtDNMz1ZI/...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/jenkinsci-
users/mYxtDNMz1ZI/xbX9-xM9BQAJ)
edit-> * aktually its not impossible, but pretty hacky and ugly, it would be
nice to be able to rely on jenkins own tools for this.
~~~
mugsie
> Jenkins has some serious problems when you want to work with CD.
When you want to work with CD in a particular way.
A simple fix to the above issue would be to have a "production" branch. When
you want to do a release, you merge to the production branch. A roll back
would just be a revert of the commits since the last merge to production, and
could even be tagged.
If you are doing CD by allowing devs to tag random branches, cool, but I would
not call it a "failure" on the Jenkins side.
> Unfortunately, hack such a fix is not very pleasant either, because Java,
> and i don't think the Jenkins developers are interested in it either, at
> least not if just a few people ask for it.
Its a webhook - that can be in any language, or if you use Git(hub|lab) a
config item.
~~~
falsedan
> _When you want to work with CD in a particular way._
I think that I, as the user of the project, should get to decide how I want to
deploy my software. So, yes, I do want to CD things in a particular way: one
that matches my developer's expectations and my business requirements.
> _CD_
Jenkins isn't a deployment tool. It can act like one, but this (rollback) is a
classic example of how it's a build, not release, tool.
To address OP's complaint: we rebuild steps from the previous pipeline to
perform a rollback, and we have all our deployment logic in a separate system
which works with commit IDs, if the previous pipeline has been pushed out of
the list of recent pipeline runs.
~~~
mugsie
> I think that I, as the user of the project, should get to decide how I want
> to deploy my software. So, yes, I do want to CD things in a particular way:
> one that matches my developer's expectations and my business requirements.
Sure - it definitely is. But we all have to do that within the limitations of
the tools we use. Jenkins makes an assumption (in the default mode) of a
continuously moving HEAD - which may or may not be what you want. It doesn't
make Jenkins bad - it makes it not suitable for your use case.
FWIW - adapting to using a moving HEAD is not that hard - `git reset <old-tag>
&& git commit -a -m "Revert deploy <failed-tag> && git tag <failed-tag+1> &&
git push` - but I totally understand why people would not like to use that
style. It is a personal / culture choice.
------
webo
Mostly off-topic but I've been looking for more than a CI for some quite time,
more on the CD side. How are you guys handling some of these cases? Bonus
points for hosted options.
\- Truly a pipeline based stages. No messing around with git branches/tags for
each environment release.
\- Ability to combine multiple builds together.
\- Build dependencies. Ability to trigger project-B build when project-A build
succeeds. (Docker Cloud Builds have something like this.)
\- Use the same artifact across multiple build stages.
\- An option to promote a build to the next step either manually or
automatically.
Amazon's internal Apollo system was amazing. AWS Code Pipelines kind of does
some of these things but it's every limited and hard to work with.
~~~
argon81
[https://buildkite.com](https://buildkite.com) has all those features, and
very easy to work with.
It's a hybrid hosted model -you supply your own workers (they provide a CFN
template to make that part easy), everything else (e.g. web UI/API) is hosted
~~~
kawsper
Buildkite is hands down the best tool we have used.
------
zimbatm
Avoid! Concourse looks good on the surface but it's really not that great.
The UI is clunky.
The abstraction layer is too low and leads to a lot of repeated YAML. Which
leads to YAML programming.
There are simple scenarios like deployment rollbacks who are hard to do.
For some reason they decided to develop their own container engine which leads
to all sorts of trouble and maintenance issue. It's generally slow and we had
100% CPU usage when the worker was doing almost nothing.
I have used for 4 months and it was only problems. Gitlab CI is much better.
Or even Jenkins is better.
~~~
jadeklerk
> Concourse looks good on the surface but it's really not that great.
I've used teamcity, jenkins, gocd, circleci, concourse, and travisci. For
multi-project systems, concourse is king. (I like travisci for by-itself, non-
system projects)
> The UI is clunky.
What? You just said the UI looks good... It's simple and clean; everything is
async javascript (no page loads).
> The abstraction layer is too low and leads to a lot of repeated YAML. Which
> leads to YAML programming.
Which is an intentional choice. If you don't like YAML, use one of the MANY
yaml abstraction layers of your choice...
> There are simple scenarios like deployment rollbacks who are hard to do.
First of all, a CI system shouldn't be your answer to rollbacks. Your
deployment system should handle that. Secondly, assuming your deployment
system can do rollbacks, concourse has on-fail jobs that can trigger rollbacks
just fine.
> For some reason they decided to develop their own container engine which
> leads to all sorts of trouble and maintenance issue. It's generally slow and
> we had 100% CPU usage when the worker was doing almost nothing.
garden is used because cloudfoundry builds it. It is not slow... it is a light
layer on top of runc (as opposed to docker which is a rather heavy layer on
top of runc). You should pretty much never have to care about it, and in 3
years of using concourse I haven't had to - and we have some pretty gnarly
large pipelines.
Also I call rubbish on your 100% CPU. I have two workers t2.xlarge workers
running 22 and 30 containers (like, right NOW) and neither is above 10% CPU
(which, actually, I should make those a lot smaller). Don't run workers on a
potato and you'll be fine.
> Gitlab CI is much better. Or even Jenkins is better.
Ohhh you're trolling.
~~~
zimbatm
> What? You just said the UI looks good... It's simple and clean; everything
> is async javascript (no page loads).
I meant that when just looking at the website, Concourse looks good in terms
of what it has to offer. For example it offers proper build pipelines,
something that is lacking in most other CIs.
Maybe it's clean to you, I found that our developers where generally confused
by how the releases were working.
> Which is an intentional choice. If you don't like YAML, use one of the MANY
> yaml abstraction layers of your choice...
I don't mind YAML too much but adding a templating language on top is
generally clunky. Gitlab CI also uses YAML, can also build pipelines and
doesn't require to generate the YAML.
> Also I call rubbish on your 100% CPU.
It might have been due to a misconfiguration (we were using c4.4xlarge). I bet
that you have deployed Concourse using BOSH, the only truly tested deployment
method.
------
kieranajp
We're using Concourse extensively at HelloFresh (>130 devs). It's not without
its quirks, but I've little to complain about so far, except perhaps the
polish of the UI.
~~~
EngineerBetter
Cool - did you folks know about the Concourse London User Group? The last two
have been held just around the corner from you:
[https://www.meetup.com/Concourse-London-User-
Group/](https://www.meetup.com/Concourse-London-User-Group/)
~~~
kieranajp
All our developers are Berlin based, so the London office isn't a great
metric. Thanks anyway, though!
------
rememberlenny
We use concourse.ci to successfully run cloud.gov at 18F.
------
gerhardlazu
Disclaimer: I work for Pivotal, on the RabbitMQ team. We push Concourse to its
limits every day. We work closely with Jenkins, GoCD, Travis & Concourse. They
all have their limitations.
All things will break horribly if the conditions are right. It's unreasonable
to assume that the things which work in [insert your current CI] will work in
Concourse. It's still a new and relatively immature product, but it works well
in most cases.
Half the secret to a good Concourse experience is not upgrading it in-place -
stand up fresh deployments. The other half is gradually transitioning between
Concourse deployments, because bad versions have been and will continue to be
released - mistakes are only human. As long as you share the Concourse vision
and are willing to keep up with the pace of change - not everyone can or wants
to - then it's an amazing CI.
Concourse still makes me excited, even after many years of hard lessons,
because it is a genuinely innovative approach to building better software.
Most miss this, and I understand why, but give it time - the ideas behind it
will mature and become the norm.
Even though Concourse can work really well, it's not always the best choice.
Make it better if you can & want to, use something else if it's easier. There
is no right or wrong, just preferences : )
------
jacques_chester
I'm late to the party.
Concourse is difficult to come to from other CI tools. A little more aloof.
There have been real, serious implementation difficulties.
But I kinda love it, because it's a handful of simple ideas that unlock
incredible power. It goes beyond "build and test each commit" to becoming a
full project automation tool, a software manufacturing robot. When I talk to
people about Concourse, I tell them: your pipeline and your tasks are
_production code_. Keep the discipline, care and engineering practices that
you bring to the apps and services you create.
The problem is that most of the deep tribal knowledge about how to get started
and how to best apply it is locked up inside a handful of organisations, most
notably Pivotal. I had been working on a video series which was meant to walk
through both the concrete business of building pipelines, as well as the
concepts of how best to do so.
Unfortunately visa conditions got in the way and I have abandoned that effort.
Interested persons are welcome to email me for links to the first 4 episodes
that I made, but be aware that it stops even more suddenly than Firefly.
Disclosure: I work for Pivotal.
~~~
boundlessdreamz
Why not put it up on youtube?
~~~
jacques_chester
It's an hour of work per minute of screen time. For now it ends at 4 episodes.
------
bdcravens
Kind of odd to see the homepage show Vagrant as the install mechanism, even
though it supports Docker as well. In 2017, I'd think more developers are
likely to run Docker than Vagrant workloads on their machine.
~~~
fenollp
Probably easier to run Docker inside Vagrant than Docker inside Docker.
~~~
EngineerBetter
Concourse doesn't run Docker, it uses something called Garden to run OCI
containers from Docker images.
Those containers can run the Docker daemon though, if you like.
~~~
krakensden
The version of Garden it uses basically just shells out to Docker. Run 'top'
on a busy Concourse worker, it's fun.
~~~
wlamartin
Garden makes use of runc (an Open Container Initiative project with a lot of
contributions from Docker), in the same way containerd (component included in
Docker) makes use of runc to run images. You won't find the docker engine
being used by Garden.
Edit: I _think_ what you're likely seeing (if you are seeing docker in the top
output) is Concourse using the docker-image-resource to pull images for your
tasks to a local docker registry.
------
rjzzleep
I've been eyeing Concourse and Go.CD over Jenkins for a while.
The main criticism I saw on Jenkins and Go.CD vs. Concourse was that Jenkins
Pipelines aren't first class and that it's easier to export configuration(in
that regard Concourse > Go.CD > Jenkins). On the other hand Jenkins and Go.CD
supports extensions, which Concourse touts as a feature.
I also want the CI builds to create my base boxes with packer in multiple
steps. And I somewhat want to be able to hand over the stuff to ops at some
point to be able just stay alive for the next 5 years or more. Would anyone
know if it makes sense to even consider concourse or go.cd or some other CI/CD
solution and if so which?
Obviously the boxes need to be used as artifacts and everything has be on
premise as well.
~~~
i386
How are Pipelines not first class in Jenkins? Pipelines are provided in the
default installation and they are the first thing we talk about in the docs
[https://jenkins.io/doc/pipeline/tour/hello-
world/](https://jenkins.io/doc/pipeline/tour/hello-world/)
Disclosure: I work on Jenkins.
~~~
arwineap
I think that the features are very different.
Admittedly I ditched jenkins before pipelines became a full feature, but my
understanding of them in jenkins was that they are mostly for scheduling of
jobs. IE, run job A after job B
Concourse passes inputs, outputs and resources between jobs as the ONLY STATE,
and jobs trigger based off of changes on resources or the availability of new
inputs.
I think that when you sit down and look at the two products, jenkins is great
at running scripts, and concourse is great at managing code versions.
In the end we actually run both concouse + a script runner; this allows
concourse to manage the tagging, builds, releases, and testing; but still
allows us to run ad hoc scripts that concourse doesn't do well.
I'd be interested in taking another look at jenkins now that pipelines and the
groovy DSL is solidified, but I get the idea that they still fill slightly
different needs
------
boyter
My number one complaint with Concourse (which I suspect is due to Go) is that
you need to have it hosted with a valid TLS/SSL cert in order to use the fly
command. At least this was an issue in the 2.6.0 days, but I couldn't see
anything to change this in the recent versions.
This is rather annoying if you want to run a copy on your local network say at
home. Its very frustrating because the fly command solves the biggest issue
with IWOMM (it works on my machine) by allowing you to run code and tests on
another machine before committing anything.
I think from memory I tried using self signed certs and this also had issues
for one reason or another.
That said it is still the best CI system I have used to date.
~~~
captn3m0
I issue valid TLS certs for my internal servers using letsencrypt DNS
challenge (there is a nice cloudflare hook for dehydrated that I use). Runs on
cron, haven't had to worry about it once I set it up. (Haven't tried with
concourse, but don't think that would be a problem)
~~~
voltagex_
Do you worry about your internal names being exposed via Certificate
Transparency?
~~~
captn3m0
Not much.
------
Ataraxic
A little late to this discussion, but although I'm a big fan of many of the
concepts in Concourse, I think it's lacking a lot of polish.
For example, I have actually implemented patterns within Jenkins to force all
jobs to run inside of containers. A job is just a container + command with
some linking using the jenkins pipeline plugin that reads some json
configuration to determine how jobs are linked.
The primary issues I have surround the fact that my company uses kubernetes,
thus we have no insight into the runc containers. Load balancing in concourse
is non-existent. If a worker goes down due to load, if you bring it back up,
it's going to go down immediately from all the jobs that have been triggered
while the worker was offline. Not only that, the resource requirements seem
pretty high. Recently a concourse worker stalled because the amount of
volumes/images it was caching was over 100 gigs, and not knowing the
internals, I wasn't sure what the best way was to clear this cache. Having to
tell the infrastructure team that we just need to spend more money is a hard
sell when we've upped the cpu, memory, storage, postgres disk, all more than
once. I understand that different images have vastly different sizes, and jobs
different amounts of work, but their need to be some clear suggestions for
sizing. If there exist them now, I apologize but I haven't seen them.
So yeah I've had some fun developing in it, but more help making it reliable
would be really nice. Also if kubernetes is absolutely the wrong way to run
it, which it seems like, I'd have to be provided a better/easier alternative
to really become an advocate.
Final note: has anyone actually setup metrics/monitoring for concourse that
doesn't know BOSH? The docs describing it seem huge unless you already have
the infrastructure pieces. Let's setup riemann (we already have statsd and no
experience with riemann), emit to influxDB (we have prometheus, no experience
with influxDB), then use Grafana (ok we already have that). I just wanted a
better idea of disk, cpu, mem, # of containers, lifecycle without having to
setup all these new pieces of infrastructure. Finally, just not that
interested in BOSH, which all of the example metrics repo's are.
------
witten
I took part in evaluating Concourse CI for the needs of my company (30+ devs).
While it has amazing CI pipeline capabilities, we ultimately didn't select
Concourse because it felt much more like a CI toolbox, requiring some
development to put those tools to use. And what we really wanted was more of a
turnkey CI product.
Perhaps ironically, we ended up doing some development around the edges of the
CI product we ultimately selected (GitLab).
~~~
sytse
Cool to hear you selected GitLab. We recently added multi project pipeline
visualization. That was partially inspired by concourse CI. Is there anything
else you would like to see?
~~~
witten
Interesting you should mention that. Right around the time you implemented
multi-project pipeline visualization, we built a bot that listens for GitLab
build completion events, hits the (undocumented /unsupported) internal GitLab
global code search ElasticSearch index, finds downstream dependencies of the
completed build (as declared in setup.py/package.json), and triggers their
builds as well.. Taking full advantage of your nifty visualization.
So I think the feature we'd want to make that easier is an actual global code
search API!
~~~
grzesiekb
Thanks for this proposal! It might be a cool feature indeed. I created an
issue about it in our issue tracker, see [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-
org/gitlab-ce/issues/35186](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-
ce/issues/35186).
We do not have immediate plans to ship that yet, but I pinged our product team
member there. However we do have plans to ship multi-project pipeline with an
"inversion of control".
You will be able to specify pipeline relation with an upstream project, and
when someone pushes a commit to it, a downstream pipeline is going to be
trigger automatically. See an issue about cross-project dependencies -
[https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-
ee/issues/1681](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/1681)!
~~~
witten
Awesome, thanks for filing!
------
aarondl0
Excellently designed system. Very poorly implemented.
Our team's been using it since it's initial releases. It's been nothing short
of disastrous for all but the smallest pipelines.
The design is great. Keeping configs in yaml instead of little white boxes in
a Jenkins database is much better. Pipelines as a first class concept. It
feels inspired by a functional programming language. You get great build
reproducibility since there are no workers that get dirtier over time if you
forget to clean up. The resource model is awesome. Very cool stuff. I'm hoping
every CI system learns from what's here. Second to none in design.
However it performs like a dud. No scheduling to speak of, just runs
everything as soon as it can. We've run into nodes dying under load (-not-
underprovisioned, could run all these jobs manually at once on these
monsters). We've run into problems with volume reaping, fork bombs, ui
freezes, everything under the sun.
I really like Concourse and will hopefully one day be able to come back to it
when its implementation is as solid as its paradigms are.
But I'd avoid use for now.
~~~
jadeklerk
> However it performs like a dud. No scheduling to speak of, just runs
> everything as soon as it can. We've run into nodes dying under load (-not-
> underprovisioned, could run all these jobs manually at once on these
> monsters). We've run into problems with volume reaping, fork bombs, ui
> freezes, everything under the sun.
I've used concourse as a consumer for 3 years and I've very, very rarely seen
any of the problems you're describing, even on the older versions and
certainly not in the last year or so.
> no scheduling to speak of
Concourse has a massive scheduling system built into it..
[https://github.com/concourse/atc](https://github.com/concourse/atc)
Furthermore, you can configure jobs to run in serial (default is parallel).
> ui freezes
Put your `web` binary on a decently-sized VM and your problem should
disappear. Also, don't have your workers on the same VM as your `web`.
~~~
aarondl0
UI freezes are completely client side and related to the elm implementation
and your browser's execution of the code. The size of your VM doesn't matter
at all.
ATC is a more of a dependency scheduler. The code [1] shows that it basically
gets all pending jobs, and then runs them. There's no concept of queueing or
maximum number of jobs, you just have to hope your limits are high enough (max
containers, max tasks in systemd, max fds in the same) and that your machine
doesn't fall over in the attempts.
The "massive" scheduling system also has no idea what nodes need work and
which do not [2] so the idea is to heavily overprovision until it doesn't fall
over (on top of already beefy requirements which others have alluded to in
this thread).
You can not serialize multiple pipelines. Only within pipelines. If I have 10
pipelines, they will all run independently and there's nothing you can do
about it other than attempt serialization with the pool resource (which we've
recently had problems with - it also appears to be buggy and we're looking at
submitting patches).
I've got a tremendous amount of experience with this system and I believe it's
everything I made it out to be. The rebuttals you've provided to my issues are
simply a lack of understanding of our context, not every user will have the
same experience with any given product.
[1]
[https://github.com/concourse/atc/blob/master/scheduler/sched...](https://github.com/concourse/atc/blob/master/scheduler/scheduler.go#L46)
[2]
[https://github.com/concourse/concourse/issues/675](https://github.com/concourse/concourse/issues/675)
------
rukenshia
We are using concourse at work right now and have 50-ish pipelines for various
repositories. IMO, there's definitely some work you have to put into it
because you'll sooner or later run into a problem with the existing resources
and need a custom one. Writing custom resources is pretty easy however.
Concourse also isn't really made to work well with the Git Flow, there is no
builtin way to run the CI on multiple branches (there's a git-multibranch
community resource which requires redis at some point). we're basically
thinking about changing our workflow to trunk-based, but it still feels weird
to me that we might change our workflow to fit our CI better.
that being said, I personally still really like concourse and it's fun to work
with.
------
ckok
I like how it looks, but first impressions after trying to make it run on
windows ended up in failures:
Refused to execute script from
'[http://127.0.0.1:8080/public/index.js?id=932c553753eec4ef375...](http://127.0.0.1:8080/public/index.js?id=932c553753eec4ef375e1c17f4b28c10')
because its MIME type ('text/plain') is not executable, and strict MIME type
checking is enabled.
------
abraham_s
I evaluated concourse CI and I was impressed by the concept.
Pros \- Setup was really easy.(I didn't use bosh). \- Both server and build
pipeline configuration (Yaml file) are easy to backup and recreate.
Cons \- When I evaluated it , it had a few bugs which forced me to restart the
server almost daily to keep it working. It should be more stable now.
-
~~~
jadeklerk
Did your evaluation happen a long time ago? Or, another question... did you
run the binaries and appropriately screen them? I had the same problem until I
realized I sucked at making a binary live a long time, and my eyes were opened
to screen :)
~~~
abraham_s
It was a known bug in the some go library. It was recently fixed. But at the
time it caused concourse to stop working until restarted.
------
org3432
We looked at Concourse deeply, while we didn't go with it, it's inspired a
number of projects I know and I think has pointed out the obvious;
representing how you think about a problem is how you should represent it
visually, great insight that has been overlooked in CI.
------
skrebbel
I hadn't heard of this, it looks nice! Would I be far off if I'd say that
Concourse is an open source clone of Travis CI and CircleCI? Any strong pluses
of the SaaS offerings over Concourse I should know about?
~~~
sytse
Concourse is developed independently, it is focused more on multi project
workflows.
------
Siecje
During my Jenkins build I am creating a file with the number of database
queries per test, since I am generating the file it can be in any format.
How can I feed this to Jenkins and plot it over time?
------
arsenico
Curious to know why no one actually mentions Bamboo - definitely a great
alternative to Jenkins, especially for those, who are into Atlassian
infrastructure.
~~~
witten
At least last I looked, Bamboo requires manual configuration of all builds.
This doesn't scale to more than a handful of build plans. It also doesn't have
much in the way of modern CI pipeline functionality.
------
paloaltokid
Concourse is a really amazing piece of software, but the BOSH requirement I
think will keep adoption low for small companies.
~~~
acidus
I use Concourse every day and I don't know yet what BOSH is and I hope I'll
never have to. The installation was pretty standard. I followed a tutorial
written by Justin Ellingwood, a great technical writer working for
DigitalOcean - [https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-
inst...](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-
concourse-ci-on-ubuntu-16-04).
------
Jedd
Typo on front page.
Rather than "Rather than a myriad of checkboxes..." it should be "Rather than
myriad checkboxes..."
~~~
kapep
[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/myriad](http://www.thefreedictionary.com/myriad)
> Usage Note: Throughout most of its history in English myriad was used as a
> noun, as in a myriad of reasons. In the 1800s, it began to be used in poetry
> as an adjective, as in myriad dreams. Both usages in English are acceptable,
> as in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Myriad myriads of lives." This poetic,
> adjectival use became so well entrenched generally that many people came to
> consider it as the only correct use. In fact, however, both uses are
> acceptable today.
~~~
Jedd
There are many of reasons why I'm not going to calmly agree with the audacious
claim that 'both uses are acceptable today'.
~~~
superplussed
Of course both are acceptable, why is this an audacious claim?
~~~
Jedd
Because it invites (not begs) the question 'to whom are they both
acceptable?'.
People that contribute to thefreedictionary.com, evidently.
~~~
randallsquared
And people who contribute to the OED, in both the 1989 and 2003 editions,
evidently.
[http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/124538](http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/124538)
[http://www.oed.com/oed2/00154839;jsessionid=AC4DB817EFBADA5F...](http://www.oed.com/oed2/00154839;jsessionid=AC4DB817EFBADA5F500874E63F5A5E38)
I have had similar experiences, though, where I was convinced that some word
or phrase usage was just incorrect, and where it turned out that I had just
not happened across it. Fortunately, a minute of research can today fix any
such misconceptions!
------
joneholland
We've been happy teamcity users for years.
------
manigandham
We're using Buddy - [https://buddy.works/](https://buddy.works/) \- and it
seems to be easier, faster and more reliable than most of these other CI
solutions so far.
~~~
PetrolMan
Interesting. How does it compare to other CI software like Jenkins? I'm always
a bit skeptic about tools that look nice but turn out to be limited when put
to real work.
~~~
manigandham
Works well for us, docker/container native so every step in a pipeline is a
persistent volume with the environment changing based on what image you need.
Also easily builds/pushes your own images and lots of other built-in task
runners to make pipelines. Has .yaml or ui config and they have an enterprise
version which runs on-prem.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Progressive Enhancement Is Dead - avolcano
http://tomdale.net/2013/09/progressive-enhancement-is-dead/
======
glesica
"And most importantly: Don’t be ashamed to build 100% JavaScript applications.
You may get some incensed priests vituperating you in their blogs. But there
will be an army of users (like me) who will fall in love with using your app."
This statement needs a huge, HUGE caveat that you should only be building 100%
JavaScript apps in situations where doing so _makes sense_. For example, I
find the new Blogger "web app" infuriating. I shouldn't have to stare at a
loading screen to read a half-dozen paragraphs of text, that's just stupid.
Just serve the HTML. No one is going to "fall in love" with your app if your
app shouldn't exist in the first place because the old-school solution
provided a superior experience.
~~~
jenius
I think that issue, while valid, is entirely different from what OP is talking
about. That is the question of client to server side rendering tradeoff, and
it looks something like this in my view:
\- If you have a website that people will come to then spend a bit of time in
different views (like gmail, facebook, or an analytics dashboard), it will
usually pay off to dock the initial load time a bit in exchange for much
faster loads of subsequent views. This is the base tradeoff made by switching
to client-side rendering.
\- If you have a website where most people will come check out one page then
bounce (like a news site, a blog, a page with directions or info, anything
where an article will be linked to rather than something that's used like an
app), you won't want to make that same trade, since the extra blow to load
time initially is going to hit most people _and_ they won't see the benefits
of the reduced load time for slowly adds up as you hit more views on the page,
because they will read the info then leave.
Any page can be built as a single page app, and many people will do this
automatically since it's the new hotness. But the question we should be asking
ourselves is whether what you are building actually will be used as an app or
not. I'll close out with an interesting example:
If you are building a news site, you should not build as a single page app
because it's likely that you'll have a lot of single page views and a high
bounce rate. Those single pages should be rendered as quickly as humanly
possible. However, if you are building something like a feed reader, the
situation would be the opposite. People will likely spend a bit of time in
your interface reading a variety of articles, so the additional load time at
the beginning will quickly pay itself off in faster renders for each item they
read.
EDIT: An interesting approach for a news site would be to render single
article views straight from the server or have them compiled, but render their
homepage as a single page app. Tailor different parts of your website to the
way that they are viewed. Has anyone written about this? Maybe I should write
about it...
~~~
cia_plant
Template rendering is rarely a bottleneck. When JS-only pages seem slow, it is
often because they are loading large JS libraries or are waiting for after
page load to begin fetching AJAX data. By prerendering the initial JSON data
for the page in script tags, and keeping javascript to the minimum necessary
to render the page, pure javascript can render very quickly.
------
integraton
Sometimes I wonder whether advocates for heavy client-side JavaScript ever
bother to test on mobile devices, because it very much seems that in the
majority of cases they don't. The vast majority of JavaScript-based "show HN"
submissions I've seen don't work on mobile browsers well or at all, to the
point where I've been trained not to click them. This submission from a few
days ago is an example, and last I checked it caused browser crashes and, even
if you managed to load it, was unusable with an iPad:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6270451](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6270451)
Edit: Here is another example from the past few days that's unusable on
mobile:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6302825](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6302825)
This is a common problem with media sites. I dread trying to load quartz, usa
today, gawker, etc since every thick-client media site is intermittently a bad
citizen on mobile browsers (for example, gawker in Chrome on iOS currently
perpetually reloads the page). Even when these kinds of sites work, there's
often a multi-second delay where where the user has to sit and watch elements
fly around as the page is built.
Edit again: just to be clear, if you are a non-technical product manager or
CEO type, my comment should not be interpreted in any way as an implication
that the web or JavaScript is somehow inherently bad and therefore your
developers must build a "native app." My comment's intended audience is
developers with a deep, working understanding of these technologies.
~~~
leif
I think you just invented an internet forum with a proof-of-technical-
proficiency requirement for each post. Well done, sir.
------
Pinckney
I think the point that's overlooked here is that the offenders aren't the
clever apps that would be impossible to write without javascript. Go ahead and
write those. I'm happy for you, really.
The problem is pages that require javascript to display static content. There
are very few good reasons for an article, or an image gallery, or a homepage
that could have been displayed just fine a decade ago to now need javascript
so it can do some stupid flashy thing that breaks the expected interface
behaviour. And frankly, that's most of what I'm seeing in "Sigh, Javascript."
~~~
leokun
Check out meteor.js for why JavaScript would be needed for "static only
content". Real time updates. That's why. Everything is an app.
~~~
mynameisme
Is this something people even want in content driven sites though? Imagine
reddit in real time, it would be a mess and impossible to keep track of what
you last read.
~~~
kansface
Why should users have to click refresh for pages to load more comments or to
see when someone replies to you? The fact that reddit does not do this is not
evidence that it would be confusing.
~~~
icebraining
Because sites that distract me from what I'm reading to tell me that there are
new comments are extremely annoying.
Sure, you could add, say, auto-loading for new comments when you reach the
bottom of the page, or setting the message icon to orange when you get a
reply, but that hardly requires a full-blown web app, it's a simple addon to a
static site.
~~~
camus
disqus deals with this issue quite well , disqus will just notify you there
are new comments ,it's up to you to load them or not.
------
padolsey
> Don’t be ashamed to build 100% JavaScript applications. You may get some
> incensed priests vituperating you in their blogs. But there will be an army
> of users (like me) who will fall in love with using your app.
We all want wonderful experiences as users. The crux is almost a question of
"how we want things to be" and "how we want to get there".
For me, the 100% JS MV __movement is wonderful for a specific genre of app: An
app that is:
* Behind an intranet
* Behind a paywall
* Behind a login-wall
* Prototypes / Demos / PoCs / etc.
But for the open web -- wikipedia, blogs, discussion forums, journalism (etc.)
this movement detracts from the web as a whole, in that it excuses developers
from having to worry about degraded and/or non-human consumption of their
websites' data.
We have to ask ourselves what we, as humanity, want from the web. Do we really
want a web of 100% bespoke JavaScript MV __web-apps with no publicly
consumable APIs nor semantic representations? If that is the intent and desire
of the developers, designers and otherwise educated-concerned web-goers, then
fine, let 's do that and hope it works out okay...
But there is an alternative that has its roots already planted deep in the web
-- the idea and virtue of a web where you can:
* Request an HTTP resource and get back a meaningful and semantically enriched representation
* Access and mash-up each-others' data, so as to better further understanding & enlightenment
* Equally access data and insight via any medium, the latest Chrome or the oldest Nokia
So, please, go ahead and create a 100% JS front-end but, if you are creating
something for the open web, consider exposing alternative representations for
degraded/non-human consumption. It doesn't have to be progressively enhanced.
Imagine for a moment if Wikipedia was one massive Ember App... And no,
Wikipedia is not an exception from the norm -- it is the embodiment of the
open web.
~~~
tomdale
Every Ember.js app, by definition, connects to an API that does all of the
things you are asking for.
Seriously, open up any Ember.js app and look at the network traffic. You'll
see a series of requests, usually using very RESTful URLs, that requests the
document.
The only difference is that, instead of HTML, where you are conflating the
markup and the content, you get a nice, easily-consumable version of the
document in JSON form.
There is literally no change to the web here, other than the UIs are faster
and better, and it's easier for me to consume JSON documents than trying to
scrape HTML.
~~~
padolsey
That could work -- if the JSON is intended for public consumption, and if it
is documented as so. The problem, I'd argue, with JSON is that it does not
intentionally facilitate semantic annotations, unlike HTML(5). I'd argue that
a properly marked-up HTML5 representation of a piece of data is more useful
than a bespoke JSON structure with crude naming liable to change without
notice. The benefit I get with an HTML representation is that it's the exact
thing that was intended for the user to read/consume, whereas JSON is awkward
to divine meaning from without the crucial app-specific view-logic that turns
it into DOM.
How would you reconcile the need for an open-semantic-web with arbitrary JSON
structures with no governing semantic standard?
EDIT: An example of a potential problem: Please take a look at how the Bustle
app you referenced brings its article content to the front-end:
E.g. [http://www.bustle.com/articles/4470-why-we-should-root-
for-l...](http://www.bustle.com/articles/4470-why-we-should-root-for-lamar-
odom)
View source. It's not a public REST API (not visibly so); it's awkwardly
embedded as literal JS in the HTML document itself... That'd be hell to
publicly consume through any kind of automation.
~~~
tomdale
You are building up a strawman against JSON without acknowledging that every
problem you outline applies just as much, if not more, to HTML.
Is the HTML of any popular website publicly documented? Is there any guarantee
that an XPath to a particular value won't change? Is there any guarantee the
data I need is marked up with semantically accurate class names? No.
HTML is intended for public consumption—by a human, at a particular time. It
is not a data interchange format.
Contrast that with things like Twitter or GitHub, which provide a versioned
JSON API that is guaranteed not to change. Your web site becomes just another
consumer of that API.
JSON contains all of the data you need, but in a way designed to be consumed
by computers, and you don't have to do all of that awful HTML scraping.
And as for Bustle not having a public JSON API, well, here you go:
curl -H "Accept: application/json"
[http://www.bustle.com/api/v1/sections/home.json](http://www.bustle.com/api/v1/sections/home.json)
A versioned JSON API that is guaranteed not to change. Can any public site on
the internet guarantee that about its HTML?
~~~
padolsey
A versioned JSON API is awesome, I am not denying that. I also don't deny that
the current state of the HTML markup on most sites is semantically rubbish.
Regardless of this entire PE debate, we would still have a problem, on the
web, of data being out of reach due to walled apps that only serve rubbish
HTML.
The problem of open + semantic data is very relevant to this discussion but
we're pretending that one "side" has all the answers. I want a better web --
more open -- more semantic -- and maybe some shimmer of a truly semantic
web[1] will emerge in the next 20 years.
So, yes, a 100% JS App is 100% awesome if, IMHO, it has:
* A publicly documented and consumable REST API
* Semantically enriched data through that API
* Some kind of degraded state NOT just for search-engines but for older devices and restrictive access (e.g. behind national/corporate firewalls)
I am not interested in being one side or another regarding this PE feud, and I
am sure you're not either. I am trying to question what is best for the web
and humanity as a whole. I don't think we have a silver-bullet answer. I do
think it's necessary to dichotomize walled web-apps and open websites, and the
latter deserve additional thought regarding usability, accessibility and
semantics.
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web)
~~~
phpnode
and in fact that particular bustle link you posted is a perfect example of
where using HTML5 + microdata would be not only faster to render and crawlable
but also allow the underlying data structure to be consumed by javascript.
There's no reason why
Bustle.pageData.article.title
couldn't have been extracted from
<article itemscope itemtype="/article">
<h1 itemprop="title">Why We Should Root for Lamar Odom</h1>
...
</article>
~~~
iopq
It's a real bitch to implement when your use case is complicated and nested.
From experience, I have no idea how to mark up a document "correctly" because
of like recursive definitions of some microdata. Like flingy can contain
thingy. A thingy can contain flingy.
Should I mark my concrete item as flingy where some elements are thingies or
should that be a thingy with some subelements as flingies?
I just did my best and called it a day. Then spend a lot of time debugging it
in the microdata analyzer tool.
~~~
phpnode
you can mark sub-scopes with their own itemscope property, so you could have
this:
<article itemscope itemtype="/article">
<h1 itemprop="title">My Title</h1>
<div class="related-thing" itemscope itemtype="/author" itemprop="author">
<h1>
<span itemprop="firstName">John</span>
<span itemprop="lastName">Smith</span>
</h1>
</div>
<aside class="incidental-unrelated-thing" itemscope itemtype="/sausage">
<span itemprop="type">Cumberland</span>
<span itemprop="ingredients">Mystery Meat</span>
</aside>
</article>
in the example above, we define an article that has a related author property,
that author property is its own scope so has firstName and lastName properties
of its own. We also define an _unrelated_ itemscope (unrelated because it has
no itemprop) that happens to be nested in the same element, so this would
parse to:
[
{
"type": "/article",
"properties": {
"title": ["My Title"],
"author": [{
"type": "/author",
"properties": {
"firstName": ["John"],
"lastName": ["Smith"]
}
}]
}
},
{
"type": "/sausage",
"properties": {
"type": ["Cumberland"],
"ingredients": ["Mystery Meat"]
}
}
]
------
kleiba
There are dinosaurs like me who use the web _mostly_ for reading stuff on
websites. I also happen to use an old, quite slow computer as my default
machine.
It aggrevates me when a site that I try to open because of its textual content
takes 30 seconds to render since there's too much Javascript going on. Then
I'm typically sitting there thinking: "how hard can it be to display a piece
of text?" Because of this, when I see my CPU spike as I try to open a website
in a new tab, I very often decide to simply close the tab again and do without
the information I originally came there to see. This happens a lot for me with
online magazines, such as wired or techcrunch. One trick is to invoke the
"Readability" bookmarklet if I can get to it fast enough, i.e., before the
JavaScript has frozen my browser completely.
Of course I understand that I am part of a tiny minority. And probably I'm not
part of your target group anyway. And the web is so much more in 2013 than
pages with text on them.
If you _do_ , however, want someone like me to come to your site, you better
remember to keep it dinosaur-friendly.
~~~
trafficlight
In all honesty, why should I care about you, the tiny minority? Why should I
waste any time at all worrying about you?
~~~
mwcampbell
There are two different kinds of minority to consider:
1\. People who are part of a minority by choice. For instance, they choose to
use an old computer, old OS, old web browser, etc. even though it is within
their means to upgrade. Or they have current software but intentionally
restrict it with add-ons like NoScript. You might be justified in not catering
to these minorities, because it's just not profitable and you have no moral
obligation to do so. Maybe the GP falls in that category; I don't know.
2\. People who are in a minority through no choice of their own, and have no
power to change their circumstance. One example would be a poor student or
job-seeker who's stuck with an old computer and can't do anything about it.
People with disabilities also fall in this latter category. I know someone who
once lost a job because he is blind and some inaccessible software barred him
from doing that job. He described how that felt in this blog post:
[http://blindaccessjournal.com/2006/02/torn-from-the-
collecti...](http://blindaccessjournal.com/2006/02/torn-from-the-collective/)
All that to say that your comment is quite insensitive. Those are real people
in that small minority, and depending on why they're in that minority, we
developers might have an obligation to accommodate them.
EDIT: Yes, I know that JavaScript apps can be accessible.
~~~
trafficlight
I should've phrased it better, but I was asking him as a person of minority by
choice.
I fully understand making a site accessible for those who need it, but I don't
understand the NoScript people.
~~~
psionski
What is there to understand about NoScript people? They just dislike malware,
having their accounts stolen and having their personal data up for sale.
Also, if you don't have an unlimited Internet plan, not having to download 5MB
of trackers, "analytics" scripts and Flash ads can be a pretty significant
advantage.
------
thezilch
_What I’ve found, counter-intuitively, is that apps that embrace JavaScript
actually end up having less JavaScript. Yeah, I know, it’s some Zen koan shit.
But the numbers speak for themselves._
The author does very little to support his claims. The Boston Globe page also
has lot of scripts to support advertising and the advertising itself. As well,
entirely different engineering teams and probably cultures. There's not even
any research into The Boston Globe's use of progressive JS; it makes ZERO
sense why the two homepages could not have the same JS footprint, with The
Boston Globe continuing to work and Bustle continuing to not work, while JS is
disabled.
I'm all for not supporting progressive JS; Bustle is certainly within their
right to not work without JS; the author is just caught in a confirmation-bias
bubble. His conclusions don't make sense; our intuitions are right; it doesn't
take [much] more JS to progressively enhance a site.
------
crazygringo
> _Worrying about browsers without JavaScript is like worrying about whether
> you’re backwards compatible with HTML 3.2 or CSS2. At some point, you have
> to accept that some things are just part of the platform._
This is the key bit.
It's a pretty popular attitude on HN to dismiss supporting IE, or IE7, or even
IE8 or IE9 -- despite having significant user bases. But there's still a
strong vocal contingent which argues for webpages to still work fine with
without JavaScript, despite it being a miniscule user base. They both seem to
come from philosophical standpoints, rather than anything practical. (Granted,
SEO is a valid consideration, but that's fundamentally a different
conversation.)
~~~
hollerith
It's not just the people with JavaScript turned off: it's people who, for
example, rely on the Readability or Readable bookmarklets or Safari's Reader
functionality.
In general turning documents into programs deprives users of those documents
of a kind flexibility that they enjoyed when documents were just data.
And does it not bother you that web-browser development has gotten so
complicated and labor-intensive that there are exactly five organizations with
the resources to maintain a web browser?
What hope do operating systems with very small userbases like Plan 9 have of
_ever_ running a web browser capable of displaying correctly the majority of
web site?
Browser complexity closes off certain opportunities: e.g., about 15 years ago,
a blind programmer named Karl Dahlke wrote a "command-line web browser" called
"edbrowse" that has a command language similar to the line editor ed. Is it OK
with you that the fraction of web pages browsable with edbrowse keeps going
down?
Another way that making the web a richer application-delivery platform reduces
the options available to users: approximately nobody bothers to maintain a
local copy of the web pages they have browsed (which would be among other
things a useful insurance against web pages disappearing from the web) because
it is so complicated to do.
And then there is the loss of consistency useful to readers. For example, when
you click on a link, then hit the Back button, the browser used to always put
you back at the same place in the web page that you were when you clicked the
link. Not anymore: for example, if you click a search result on hnsearch.com,
then hit Back, you are taken to the start of the web page containing the
search results with the result that you have to scroll through results you've
already sifted through just to get back to the state of progress you were in
when you clicked the link.
A possible reply to that is that the maintainer of hnsearch.com should fix his
web site. But the number and variety of "losses" or "regressions" like that
one is so large -- and increasing so fast -- as to make me doubt that
webmasters will ever get around to fixing most of them, particularly since
webmasters on average are less technically knowledgeable than, e.g.,
programmers are.
Selecting an extent of text in preparation for copying it is another thing
that has become less consistent and controllable over time: sometimes when I
just want to select a few words, slight movement of the cursor while dragging
will cause an entire adjacent column of text to be selected or de-selected
according to rules that are essentially unknowable to the reader.
In the past, for about 15 years, the space key consistently meant "scroll down
a screenful" (provided the page as a whole has the focus -- as opposed to,
e.g., a TEXTAREA in the page). The desire to turn the web into an
applications-delivery platform caused the web site to gain the discretion to
map the space key to something else, which is a gain for authors of web apps,
but a loss for readers who used to be able to depend on consistent behavior
from the space key.
In summary, although I am happy that many thousands of applications developers
are now able to make good livings without becoming a "tenant" or a "captive"
of a platform owned by a single corporation, I am sad about how complicated,
tedious and mystifying it has become to use the web to consume static content
-- and how expensive (in programmer time and effort) it has become to put
static web content to uses not foreseen and provided for by the author of the
content.
~~~
dredmorbius
Amen to Readability.
Increasingly, site design does little but piss me off. I use a set of tools,
Readability and Stylebot included (484 styles and counting, several of those
applying to multiple sites) to address the more severe annoyances (H/N is one
of my restyled sites). What's particularly annoying are content-heavy sites
(blogs, online periodicals) which break Readability and/or aren't restylable
with Stylebot (I recenty encountered a Blogger template which _navigated to a
different page_ when I tried editing CSS in the Stylebot editor).
In the original article, Tom notes:
_At some point recently, the browser transformed from being an awesome
interactive document viewer into being the world’s most advanced, widely-
distributed application runtime._
That's pretty much the conclusion I'd reached, though my preference is that
tools _which are useful for presenting and managing content_ would be
developed:
[https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/LR7jubsX...](https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/LR7jubsXBgu)
Readability is useful, but addresses only a subset of the features I'd like.
I've been collecting a large set of literature through it and using Calibre.
In particular I want bibliographic capabilities and indexing, as well as much
larger tag lists (I ran into Readability's 500 tags per user limit within 3-4
days).
The other problem with JS is that I'm increasingly running into single Web
apps which consume, literally, a gigabyte or more of memory (Google+ is
perhaps the worst of these).
Which means: I could run a lightweight desktop application which provides a
basic set of functionality ... or I can run a browser with perhaps a handful
of tabs open, and absolutely pig out my system.
The browser is a decent rapid-development and rapid-deployment environment,
but it's still seriously wanting for real productivity.
------
shawnz
This author is making an assumption that progressive enhancement exists only
so that people who are browsing without Javascript can have a better
experience. Of course, this isn't true. Progressive enhancement is a good
thing because it encourages you to be as descriptive as possible at every
layer of your technology stack.
Why does it matter in practice? Well, there's more than one reason, but
consider that not every user agent is a browser with a person sitting in front
of it. Your website also should be interpretable by content indexers like
search engines, accessibility devices like screen readers, and so on.
Some services don't fit this model and really are better off being designed
like desktop applications written in HTML and JS. But in my experience, most
services can be modelled more like websites without making the design any more
difficult to reason about, and almost all users' experiences are bettered by
it.
~~~
tomdale
First, the accessibility argument is a red herring that I'm getting frustrated
people continue to try to throw around. Screen readers support JS, okay? Let's
put this argument to bed.
[http://words.steveklabnik.com/emberjs-and-
accessibility](http://words.steveklabnik.com/emberjs-and-accessibility)
Okay, thank you for letting me get that off my chest.
Second, one nice thing about "embracing 100% JavaScript" that I talk about in
the post is that it requires you to implement a really solid JSON API, because
your web site is now a true client that consumes an API. This makes it really
easy to integrate with third-party services that consume your content. I agree
that putting content behind JavaScript sucks; I'm just advocating that the
content be JSON (or some other normalized format), not HTML.
~~~
sergiosgc
Can you give an example of one of your sites with a "really solid JSON API"?
I'm afraid there's a gap in this definition, as good APIs are rare and good
JSON APIs with a single client are virtually non-existant.
~~~
steveklabnik
Here's Bustle's:
[http://www.bustle.com/api/v1/sections/home.json](http://www.bustle.com/api/v1/sections/home.json)
It needs run through a pretty-iffier, of course, but seems straightforward to
me.
------
__alexs
"Friendly reminder that "people with JS disabled" includes those on high-
latency networks, bad firewalls, and browsers you don't support." \- @jcoglan
[https://twitter.com/jcoglan/status/370173041193406464](https://twitter.com/jcoglan/status/370173041193406464)
~~~
ebiester
I've thought about this.
If I have a blog or similar media site, and require javascript, I might offer
a 15/month option to allow access to a text only interface and an RSS feed. No
graphics, no pictures, a very simple link and text interface.
And the moment I start seeing subscriptions coming in, I'll believe in
progressive enhancement again.
(Progressive enhancement doesn't affect me as an application developer in the
web space. But if it did...)
~~~
qu4z-2
Realistically most of your readers will come through links and the like, and
thus not be willing to pay a subscription.
If it were a site I frequent, I'd probably be willing to pay $3-4/month for a
simple, clean, static html version (no need to remove the pictures though -- I
can choose whether to load those client-side). Something like this, say:
[[http://mnmlist.com/unknown/](http://mnmlist.com/unknown/)] I'd only pay
15-20/month if I could get the entire web like that :)
Most likely, at 15/month I'd just not visit your site.
EDIT: PLEASE don't use the navigation from that site though. It's ... way too
vertical.
------
ritchiea
_At some point recently, the browser transformed from being an awesome
interactive document viewer into being the world’s most advanced, widely-
distributed application runtime._
This is the key sentence in the article and this is why I was motivated to
become a web developer. Recently someone asked me if I felt like I was missing
out by doing most of my programming on the web since desktop apps are "real
programming" and I said no because the web is the best environment for writing
apps today. I don't have to choose whether I want to write for Mac OS which I
use myself, or Windows which most consumers use or Linux which hardcore
techies use. I don't have to choose if my mobile app is iOS or Android first.
Sure there are still tradeoffs, and sometimes a desktop or native mobile app
is still going to be a good choice. But the browser today is an amazing
environment that everyone on the web has access to and it's only getting
better. And we should be excited about leveraging everything modern browsers
can do to make great software.
~~~
rimantas
That key sentence is at least half wrong. The „most advanced“ part at least.
And web was never the best environment for writing apps. And it never will be.
It's like hoping to transform the fork into the spoon. I have spent one and a
half decades in it, and it may be becoming bearable environment, but far far
from the best. Unless it's the only thing you know, then it is the best by
definition.
~~~
ritchiea
Maybe we're reading that sentence differently? I read it as "the most widely
distributed runtime that is also relatively advanced." I took it as a given
that Tom Dale does not believe the web is the most advanced programming
environment.
------
andrenotgiant
Progressive Enhancement is still important for CONTENT SITES
Why? Search Engine accessibility.
It used to be that Googlebot wouldn't find content loaded asynchronously, or
links that rely on Javascript. Now it's different - You can confirm that
Googlebot discovers a lot of Javascript links using Webmaster Tools:
[https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en](https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en)
BUT - There's still no way to break from the "Page Paradigm" \- Google needs
URLs to send searchers to. They don't yet send people to specific states of a
page. That's why I still use Progressive Enhancement, it forces me to ensure
each piece of content has a URL that points to it.
~~~
bluepnume
Having URLs which point to specific resources is still 100% possible for
javascript web apps. Take a look at Ember, as an example, those guys place a
load of emphasis on URLs as 1st class citizens in frontend web apps.
------
thecoffman
This post does nothing to address the biggest reason people might have
Javascript disabled: security. If I'm browsing through Tor (or whatever), I'm
not going to turn on Javascript to use your site. If your site doesn't work
without it, you've lost a customer.
Granted, people who disable javascript are obviously vastly outnumbered, but
just saying "fuck you" to security conscious (and most likely tech-savvy)
users seems like a mistake.
~~~
robbyking
I think the real question is which group is larger: the customers I'll gain by
enabling a feature that requires JavaScript or the customers I'll lose because
they're unable to view a feature that requires JavaScript.
According to developer.yahoo.com[1],
> After crunching the numbers, we found a consistent rate of JavaScript-
> disabled requests hovering around 1% of the actual visitor traffic[...].
I work for a medium sized company that version tests almost every change we
make, and in the end the version that wins is the feature with the higher
conversion rate.
[1] [http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/many-users-
javascript-d...](http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/many-users-javascript-
disabled-14121.html)
~~~
kintamanimatt
1% is a small percentage but can make up quite a large number of people.
~~~
robbyking
I completely agree, but if a version test wins by more than a few percentage
points, it usually makes sense to implement the feature even if it does make
the page inaccessible to 1% of users.
~~~
kintamanimatt
I honestly doubt you'd be saying that if you were part of that 1%!
~~~
ewang1
Except here, the 1% chose to be in the 1%.
------
wmt
I tried the Bustle.com, showcased in the article as a good example of a pure
Javascript website, on my Android browser, and the Javascript was used to
reserve 25 % of my screen to show me a "BUSTLE"-banner that doesn't go away
when I scroll down.
Don't expect your users to have a mouse. The share of web users on their
mobile phone has grown from 6,5 % to 17,25 % since June 2011. Any bets on what
the share will be in a year or two from now?
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Sta...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#StatCounter_.28July_2008_to_present.29))
------
mynameisme
There's no reasons sites like tumblr shouldn't work without javascript.
Period. And while there are some things on the web that are genuine
applications (trello, dashboards, etc.), the vast majority of things are
content driven, which should never require js.
~~~
d0m
You claim facts without explaining your reasoning.. Let me put it this way
using your own vocabulary:
There's no reasons sites like tumblr *should work without javascript*. Period.
Why why!
~~~
ris
I rather think the onus is on people like you to come up with a reason that
they _shouldn't_.
~~~
d0m
Well, philosophically, I think having static content served in a backward
compatible way is perfect. Pragmatically, I haven't found a good solution to
do it without duplicating all the code. That by itself might be a very good
reason as to why one would focus the development efforts on the 95% of users.
You say _people like me_. I'm more agnostic here.. just interested to
understand the arguments of both side. I just think that a post saying "This
is black. Period" doesn't add much to the discussion.
~~~
mynameisme
What duplication? Why do you need to use js to render text? I'm not saying
that a user without js should expect all, or any of the bells and whistles.
But to use client side js rendering to show a user a paragraph or two (like
blogger), or literally a sentence (when twitter did client side rendering) is
just insane. It breaks stuff, and is MORE work than just doing it the right
way.
~~~
d0m
Well, without getting into details and irrelevant domain specific examples,
let's say you want to load new content as you scroll down.
\---------------- HTML static content way:
1\. The new content will be fetched using ajax. Already some problems. From
the server-side rendering, it needs to fetch it from the DB, then load it in
the template. Using django, for instance, the view will fetch it and we'd show
it using {{variables}}.
However, to fetch the data using ajax, it's not just the view making a query,
it needs to have an API standpoint, i.e. /api/fetch-new-data/. So, already,
the code is duplicated. Yes, the server-side could use the same API, but
there's always the problem of returning JSON vs django-ORM-queries, etc.
2\. Once the data is fetched (say in json), it needs to be rendered. How? Do
you simply do a
$.get('/api/whatever', function(data) {
$('.some-div').append('<p>' + data + '</p>');
});
It's fine if it's just a <p>. But usually we'd have a more complex html and
thus we'd be using client-side template. So, the server-side templates need to
be duplicated. There are various ways to do it, varying from complexity, but
there is clearly some duplication here. And, bear with me, it's usually not a
simple .append, more javascript needs to be done which can alter the data,
etc.
\------------------------- Javascript way
1\. Load pure html. 2\. Fetch initial data and render it using client-side
template. (It can also be bootstrapped since it's in the same JSON format).
3\. On scroll, fetch more data, and render it using the exact same code /
client-side template. \----------------------
Lastly, bear with me that it's just a simple example. It's rarely 100% static
content only. I.e. there would be forms with error validation, etc. If you
want to do it the no-javascript way, you need to have it submit, reload the
view with validation error, etc. Only then, you can add some javascript to
enhance it. Contrast that to simply validate on javascript submit. Yes,
obviously, the server needs to validate it, but that's part of the api,
nothing needs to be re-rendered.
All in all, if you agree that the same code would do the pre-loading and the
dynamic real-time stuff, you usually save yourself lots of headache and
complexity.
I believe blogger had that problem as they show different views for the same
content. When you switch between views, it dynamically updates it in
javascript, rather than doing a page reload. Could it be made better by having
a html/css content for no-js browser, sure thing. Would that duplicate the
code? Sure thing. And again, there are different varying of complexity. Maybe
that example wouldn't be too complex, but it's more code to maintain, to test,
etc.
It's a bit late here, but hopefully you understand what I mean. And by the
way, I'm still not 100% certain about what's the best approach. I know that I
used to be pro html static first for backward compatibility and no-js users,
and only javascript to enhance the page. But recently, I've tested it by doing
it in javascript on the client and it's seriously so much faster and cleaner.
And yes, there are some good frameworks to deal with the duplication, but it
adds lots of complexity. For instance, see airbnb Rendr which try to solve
that exact problem that I'm talking about. I.e. being able to load backbone.js
on the server during the pre-rendering stuff.
------
acjohnson55
... _the browser transformed from being an awesome interactive document viewer
into being the world’s most advanced, widely-distributed application runtime._
If only that were actually true. In reality, we're designing the interfaces
for these applications using a presentation language made basically for
desktop publishing. For interactivity, we essentially have one more or less
shite language ([http://bonsaiden.github.io/JavaScript-
Garden/](http://bonsaiden.github.io/JavaScript-Garden/)) to choose from. We're
still arguing over the very basics on whether we should use callbacks,
promises, generators, etc. for _simple sequential operations_. Hell, we're
still trying to figure out how to get a reasonable call stack record to debug
when working with any of these options. And God help you if you want to use a
modern language that compiles to Javascript _and_ have your debugger too.
But to address the author's original point, I think progressive enhancement is
alive and well. While the majority of browsing is done on the desktop, I just
think it makes way more sense to think first about presenting your basic
content and _then_ enhancing it than how you're going to strip out all the
bells and whistles to get your design across on less capable platforms. In the
long run, the former will probably save you more time and QA effort. It's just
more natural to think about using capabilities when present then working
around their absence.
And no one says your baseline should to a screen reader for all possible web
apps. Just pick a the baseline that makes sense for what your doing, and
enhance from there. At some point, it may make more sense to fork your
platform and have separate implementations for different pieces of your
interface. It doesn't have to be one monolithic project that magically
enhances from mobile phone screen reader all the way up to VR cave.
------
ronaldx
I disagree strongly. Concisely:
JS has many potential UI/UX benefits which should be used for the users'
benefit: although they can also be used to users' disadvantage.
If your (static?) website shows blank with no-JS, I find it unlikely that
you've considered UI/UX at all. I therefore assume that you are more likely to
fall on the disadvantageous side.
------
Xcelerate
I agree with all of his points. I think a lot of the counter-arguments are
centered around "Yeah, but I see websites that unnecessarily use Javascript
when a simple text-based solution will work". That's not a Javascript problem;
that's a site-design problem.
I'm sure you could make a dynamic page that has a negligibly different loading
time compared to a static page that both display similar (static) content, but
it's the way that you do it that matters. Loading a page, that loads a
library, that pulls in another library once the page is loaded, that then
displays spinning gears while pulling in a bunch of static content is of
course the wrong way to do it for a lot of things. But that's a design
problem.
------
dham
First of all you still get html in the end. So whether you get the slightly
reduced json payload size and use the users cpu to generate html or just get
cached html from the server you still end up with the same thing, and
arguably, similar response times.
I find the answer is not one or the other it's both. If a certain page
requires interactivity then embrace Javascript and do the interactivity with
Angular or Ember. You end up writing less Javascript. If you do it as
decorating html using jQuery then you will end up with more javascript. Most
pages in web apps don't require this much interactivity on every page though.
There may be a few pages here and there. Most of it is just document viewing.
In that case just send down cached html. Sure Bustle.com is fast, but so is
Basecamp, both take entirely different approaches to display pages.
When I first got into Knockout a few years ago, I was a kid in a candy store.
I wanted to do everything with Javascript and Knockout. Soon I grew up and
realized you just don't need all that crap to display an f'in table. It's just
a table for God's sake. We have been displaying tables since the dawn of web
browser. In fact you will pay client CPU cost trying to display a table in
Angular when you could just send it over in HTML.
Now if that table requires heavy editing(not filtering, or sorting, that stuff
is easy as decoration), then sure bring in Angular.
On the other hand if I need drag and drop, validation, on complex forms, I'll
definitely bring in Angular.
Choose the right tool.
------
josephscott
Stating that one approach or the other is always the right way is the problem.
Figure out which one works best for the type of site you are working on.
How your site will be used is often a high level indicator of which approach
will provide a better experience for your users. Gmail for example, no public
part of the site, not uncommon for users to leave it open in a tab all day.
Often great for all Javascript approach.
Twitter on the opposite end. Lots of public facing pages, performance was
worse when they required Javascript just to render 140 characters on the
screen. This style of site is generally better off with a progressive
enhancement approach.
------
Joeboy
Great, I'm going to be debugging other people's websites in my spare time as
well as at work.
~~~
qu4z-2
I experienced this recently. I had to look through the source of a site
because their image gallery javascript was broken.
I was already looking at a gallery of thumbnails... how hard can it be to make
each thumbnail a link to the image in question, and at runtime attach a
javascript handler to open the image in a pop-up or whatever?
------
andybak
A great javascript app is wonderful thing but if you fail, you tend to fail
hard.
A HTML/CSS page + progressive enhancement tends to involve much less shooting-
oneself-in-the-foot.
If you've got the talent, time and budget to do it well (note that is 'AND'
not 'OR'. Gawker being a case of 2 out of 3 not being enough) then please go
ahead.
However - if you have any doubts about your ability to see the whole thing
through to perfection then a half-assed website is much less awful for your
audience than a half-assed app.
------
tlrobinson
If you live somewhere with a decent internet connection and don't travel often
you may have forgotten that lots of places still have slow or unreliable
internet connections. Most of those people probably have JavaScript enabled
too, but every extra request required to use the site is a point of failure.
I'll be the first to advocate requiring JavaScript when doing so significantly
increases value, but for content sites please at least include the main
content directly in the HTML.
------
toddmorey
I pretty much agree with all of the points in this article. I do wonder,
though, why Bustle.com (the example used) is an Ember.js app and why it
displays nothing but a blank page if Javascript is turned off. Skylight makes
perfect sense as a full JS app. But Bustle, a content site, seems to be more
of an "interactive document" (as he mentions).
~~~
tomdale
Bustle actually uses PhantomJS to create static versions of the site, for
serving to search spiders.
The advantage of using Ember.js for Bustle is that it's really, really,
ridiculously fast. Seriously, try it. Go to bustle.com and click around.
They could make it work without JavaScript, but they're a new company with a
long list of technical challenges to solve. They ran the numbers and the
percentage of users with JS disabled is so microscopic it just doesn't make
sense to spend time on it.
~~~
Isofarro
"Bustle actually uses PhantomJS to create static versions of the site, for
serving to search spiders."
What value dose using PhantomJS offer above what progressive enhancement gives
you for free?
This feels like a contradiction. Avoiding progressive enhancement, and then
bolting on a hack for search spiders in a way that is less robust than the
technique you're avoiding.
"The advantage of using Ember.js for Bustle is that it's really, really,
ridiculously fast. Seriously, try it. Go to bustle.com and click around."
The initial load is horribly slow. For example:
[http://www.bustle.com/articles/4549-pew-poll-american-
people...](http://www.bustle.com/articles/4549-pew-poll-american-people-dont-
support-syrian-strike) took 10 seconds. That's very slow for a one page
article.
That's gonna hurt people following links to the page. That's exactly the
reason why Twitter walked away from it's JavaScript driven content and went
for progressive enhancement. A substantial portion of new visitors will have a
cold cache, and have this annoying wait for what is effectively a one page
article. (cf. [http://statichtml.com/2011/google-ajax-libraries-
caching.htm...](http://statichtml.com/2011/google-ajax-libraries-caching.html)
)
"They could make it work without JavaScript, but they're a new company with a
long list of technical challenges to solve. They ran the numbers and the
percentage of users with JS disabled is so microscopic it just doesn't make
sense to spend time on it."
Another contradiction. Progressive enhancement isn't a technical challenge, it
is so brain dead simple.
So they figured out the number of users with JavaScript disabled is too small
to warrant supporting. Interesting, except, progressive enhancement isn't
solely about people with JavaScript disabled, right? cf:
[http://isolani.co.uk/blog/javascript/DisablingJavaScriptAski...](http://isolani.co.uk/blog/javascript/DisablingJavaScriptAskingTheWrongQuestion)
Also, so they ran the numbers of these, under the incorrect assertion that
progressive enhancement only impacts people with JavaScript disabled. But did
they run those same numbers that determined the number of search spiders
wasn't microscopic, to justify the PhantomJS bodge you initially mentioned?
Are you really implicitly asserting that there are far more search spider
visitors to bustle.com than visitors with JavaScript disabled? (I'd love to
understand the logic that lead to that determination).
So, what justification was there to spend time on building a PhantomJS site
scraper to provide static content to search engine spiders, and yet fail to
appreciate that progressive enhancement would have served that spider
audience, as well as the JavaScript audience, as well as the variety of issues
that progressive enhancement helps alleviate?
But, if bustle.com were a content site, then progressive enhancement is the
way to go, right? But this is an ember app, so it is not a content site
(clearly). Except when search spiders visit, then there's a need for a static
version of each page. It's very confusion. is bustle.com an app or a website?
Also, how does bustle.com / ember, guarantee perfect delivery of assets other
than HTML to a visitor's browser? How does it guarantee robustness?
For example, when using a CDN, how does it manage when this happens:
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/05/google_opendns_clash...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/05/google_opendns_clash/)
How does bustle.com / ember protect your JavaScript so that when a third-party
chunk of JavaScript (like Google Analytics, Disqus, Facebook, ChartBeat,
Quantcase, WebTrends) does something funky, or hiccups and causes a JavaScript
error?
------
EGreg
Javascript is great for making more efficient sites. Here's why:
1) Static resources can be cached on a CDN and composited on the client
instead of an overloaded app server
2) You can load data instead of heavy and repetitive HTML over the wire
3) You can cache the data in the client and re-use it later, making for
snappier interfaces
That said, you have to watch out for URLs. Just because you can write
everything with javascript doesn't mean you should break URLs. And of course,
crawlers other than google's crawler will probably not be able to execute your
JS.
~~~
mariusz79
1 has been possible since the beginning of time. Every modern browser as cache
built-in.
~~~
EGreg
The browser requests CDN resources directly and Javascript is used to combine
those static files into something that the user sees. Since the code is
executing on the client, the app server is not overloaded.
------
asgard1024
I like to save every document I read online (including discussion, if
possible, these often contain insightful posts). Maybe it's obsessive, but I
do it.
Some documents, especially those using Ajax for loading content or multiple
pages, make this difficult. I hate them. (Hacker News, oddly, does it too -
when a discussion is archived, it becomes paged, which makes it more
complicated to store.)
I wish there would be a standard way to store page offline, including all the
JS changes made to its looks, all the external content etc.
------
mkilling
Lots of absolute views in this thread.
How about: If it's profitable for your site to offer a non-JS fallback, do it.
If it isn't, don't.
~~~
drdaeman
There are other things besides personal financial profits. Think of them as
taxes to maintain Internet working and flexible.
If you don't pay that tax, you're personally contributing to a future when
simple documents become full-fledged programs, and everyone lose abilities to
easily manipulate and interact with them in any but author-defined ways.
There are cases where you can be exempt from that tax - if your site is not
about documents, but their transformations, i.e. it's more of a process, not
data. (Then you should call it app, not site). But vast majority of sites
isn't.
------
mistercow
Are there good tools out there for helping to ensure that a JavaScript web app
without progressive enhancement is accessible to the disabled (e.g. screen
readers can parse it, speech recognition software can interact with it).
I ask because I've recently discovered that Google has massively failed in
this department with some of their products, at least as far as speech
recognition is concerned. Google Docs is a great example of what I'm talking
about. If you try to use it with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, buttons and menu
items are often not recognized, text entry is only reliable by using the
separate (and inconvenient) Dragon "dictation box", editing is a nightmare,
and review comments can only be placed by actually copying from a separate
program. Your best bet if you need to collaborate is honestly to just use
Microsoft Word, and then either upload and convert, or copy and paste, and
then accept the fact that a lot of collaboration tools won't be usable by you
or any of your collaborators.
I can't imagine how frustrating it must be to try to use modern web apps as
someone who can't type effectively or read a screen, and it seems like the
problem is only going to get worse as people rely more on canvas without
taking accessibility into consideration.
------
jhh
While I agree that you can assume Javascript being enabled I really think that
"conventional" web development has still many advantages over making SPAs.
Business logic on the server, HTML generated on the server, conventional mvc-
architecture, use ajax and push state to make it highly interactive.
Fine - you can assume JS being available, but from that it simply does not
follow that you have to throw away the traditional (rails style) dev model of
the web.
------
hcarvalhoalves
You can have your hypermedia on api.<yourdomain> and then your AngularJS or
whatever on app.<yourdomain>, consuming your api. Then all you need to do is
serve HTML from your api when the User-agent accepts html (bonus points: set a
canonical meta tag pointing to your foshizzle app so you don't lose SEO).
Best of both worlds.
PS: All this crazy talk stems from the fact Javascript created an apartheid on
the web. We need to make a clear distinction between the HTTP-web and the
Javascript-enabled-web. The fact the same software (browser) serves this dual
purpose adds to the confusion and allows bad architecture decisions,
interwinding content and rich interfaces inside the same hypertext mudball.
------
dep_b
Well I guess you wouldn't want your monitoring tool indexed by Google anyway,
right? As soon as you only have JavaScript as the only way for accessing some
data it will be harder to index. There are some solutions provided by Google
[https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-
crawling/](https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/) but the
situation still is not satisfactory.
For my clients it's usually the case that being found well in Google is a
major part of their business case. PE makes sure that a basic crawlable
version of your website exists with proper titles and tags.
------
tambourine_man
Not a single mention of SEO on the article. I guess Google is dead too.
~~~
elliotanderson
Try viewing meta.discourse.org without Javascript on then look under the hood
- it's a pretty easy problem to solve with some <noscript> tags. Other
approaches use PhantomJS to create a "rendered" copy that is accessible to
primitive clients/scrapers.
~~~
drdaeman
> Other approaches use PhantomJS to create a "rendered" copy that is
> accessible to primitive clients/scrapers.
Then your site does not require client-side JS support.
The point is not about what technologies you use to produce documents, the
point is what data you [can] serve.
------
soljin2000
Only if you never need any referrals from search engines. I know a site that
has this awesome locally sourced food delivery/pickup system. Connecting
consumers directly with the growers.
Their site is 100% in JS. And if you google for anything even remotely close
to what this site sells you simply cannot find them.
Unless you are a members only app site would I say progressive enhancement is
dead. Well that is unless you care about the millions of users on slower
mobile connections with crappy smart phones.
~~~
kmfrk
It’s a myth that if you use a client side MVC framework
that your application’s content cannot be indexed by
search engines. In fact, Discourse forums were indexable
by Google the day we launched.
[http://eviltrout.com/2013/06/19/adding-support-for-search-
en...](http://eviltrout.com/2013/06/19/adding-support-for-search-engines-to-
your-javascript-applications.html)
They are probably a good case to follow, if you want to see what people's
experiences with SEO for JS-based services are.
~~~
asdasf
Why do people who are against server side templates always provide "well, just
use server side templates _and_ client side rendering both!" as a solution?
Hooray, I can write my app twice for no reason! Way to sell me on pure
javascript for delivering content.
------
pcunite
I'm ready for JavaScript sites ... but notice a very important nugget in the
authors post, "web apps need to have good URLs". This cannot be overstated.
1\. Stop preventing middle and right clicks on JavaScript enabled links. For
left clicks, sure ... control the flow.
2\. Respect the fact that this is NOT a desktop environment, therefore my view
of your program's "screens" should be on a per URL basis. I actually might
want to view a list you generated in my own separate "window" or "screen" with
the URL visible, usable, and savable in the browser.
------
cpursley
Wow, the size of the Ember app vs. Typical webapp + JavaScript is impressive.
Inspecting the Bustle app with the new Chrome Ember Inspector is very cool.
Has Bustle open sourced any of their components or written on how they
developed the app?
~~~
bti
One of the engineers wrote a little bit about it on Reddit[1] awhile ago.
[1]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1kf84d/bustlecoms_sp...](http://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1kf84d/bustlecoms_speed/)
------
kenster07
I doubt devs are "ashamed" of making js web apps. The main issue is that it
takes more effort to do so than a traditional web app. There are browser
specific quirks. Frameworks like rails are so well-integrated with the db
layer that it will be difficult to match that productivity with pure JS apps.
And finally, a lot of devs don't want to take the time to learn, when the
current standard is perfectly acceptable for most use cases.
------
pkroll
140 comments in and no mention of TurboLinks? You hit a URL, you get the
content. You click a link, it just gets the body and replaces that: no
reloading the CSS, or JavaScript, so content gets rendered faster. Search
engines get the actual content from the URLs, users get the speed. Issues
having to do with making your scripts idempotent are problematic, but it
certainly sounds like a good base.
------
netmute
The problem is not Javascript per se. Personally, I like a good webapp.
What annoys me is the tendency of Javascript guys to rebuild every damn
application there is as a webapp, and rave about it like it's the best thing
ever. Javascript has become their hammer, and the whole world looks like it
needs a good pounding.
Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
------
aufreak3
For me, the real indicator that progressive enhancement is "dead" was that as
I began reading the post, I was left wondering "what the &*%^ is this
progressive enhancement that he's declaring as dead?" until, pretty much, when
I finished the post.
------
spacecadet
I still teach both "graceful degradation" and "progressive enhancement" to
students in my "Web101 - Introduction to Web Development and Design"...
------
BobbyBobby
This post doesn't address the main reasons for PE.
\- Accessibility \- Spiderability by search engines
If you want to say PE is dead please explain how these don't matter to most
websites.
------
Theriac25
Javascript is cancer.
------
nraynaud
Yeah, i like to split the world in 2: web pages and web apps. For web apps, i
don't hesitate to assume javascript.
------
AdrianRossouw
the one thing that i think is still kind of uncovered ground for javascript
frameworks is proper i18n and l10n support.
------
KaoruAoiShiho
Has been dead for a while. The people who complain on HN about "I get a white
page" are treated like trolls.
~~~
camus
you are the troll obviously, calling people that disagree with you trolls.
------
oelmekki
Edit : actually, I'll make an article out of this, because I came late in the
discussion (I'm from european timezone) and the message probably won't be
heard.
People that consider app should be usable entirely without javascript
certainly miss the point. So do people that consider progressive enhancement
is only about supporting people that deactivated javascript.
As author mentioned, the browser is now more an execution environment rather
than a document viewer. You know what it means ? It means that developers have
no control over the execution environment. With server side, if it works for
you, it works for everyone. With client side, you'll never know. You don't
know what extensions your user use. You don't know how stable his system is.
You don't know how stable his connection is. And you can't ask your users to
have a such carefully crafted environment as your servers.
What this should make us concludes is that the most heavily your app rely on
javascript, the better it should be at error handling.
How do you handle error in javascript ? If an error occurs in a callback
function, clicking that <a href="#"> again and again will simply do nothing,
and your user will get frustrated and yell : "it does not work !".
With progressive enhancement and graceful degradation, it suddenly becomes
simple. Your link has a real href. You can deactivate all event handlers using
the event "window.onerror". That way, clicking a link after a crash will
follow it.
You even don't have to implement the feature totally on server side. If your
client side feature can be emulated on server side, do it (and your user won't
even realize something went wrong) ; if it can't, simply warn your user about
it. Anyway, javascript runtime will have been reinitialized.
So, for all of this to work and make sense, we just have to use modern
definitions :
* progressive enhancement is ensuring no link / button / whatever would "freeze" if javascript crash
* graceful degradation is ensuring interface get reversed back to an useful state when an error occurs (like, showing again submit button for what was ajax forms). This can easily be done if your page is composed of objects that respond to some kind of destructor method.
If you think client side errors do not happen that much, just put something
like that in your code :
window.onerror = function( error, url, lineno ){
$.post( my_exception_url, error: { error, url: url, lineno: lineno, page_url: window.location.href );
}
This will post all exceptions to a server side url, where you can relay it to
your exception management system (I simply raise a system exception using the
passed parameters) or store them. You'll be surprised.
~~~
oelmekki
Article posted :
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6319738](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6319738)
------
leokun
The websites as applications is correct. I see grumblings from some old time
grumpy folk about why does this site need JavaScript. Because it's a runtime
now. The web has evolved, and aren't you glad it did because flash is dying.
~~~
gergles
I'd rather have Flash + HTML that I can parse and view on any application
rather than JS that works on the list of Approved Browsers that were all
released within the past week.
Nobody would've made a Flash-only site but for some reason JS-only sites that
shut out anyone with slow computers, old computers, mobile browsers that
aren't Safari, etc. are totally okay.
~~~
kreper
All kinds of wrong here.
------
brokenparser
It ain't dead until Netcraft confirms it.
------
asdasf
Why on earth is he framing it as though it has something to do with time?
Like, there was a time when you couldn't rely on browsers having javascript,
so progressive enhancement? Progressive enhancement wasn't because browsers
didn't have javascript, it was because people turned it off. They still do.
And horrible javascript "apps" that just show some text and pictures are only
going to make that number get bigger.
------
crassus
What bugs me about web apps is that I need to download a new copy of it every
time I go back to it (or at least send all the AJAX requests again). Load
times suck.
------
goatslacker
Just for fun I made
[http://sighinternet.tumblr.com/](http://sighinternet.tumblr.com/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Sr Software Management Positions Perks? - someuber
Hi everyone,<p>I have been offered fairly senior positions with a couple of Fortune 100 companies. I have a non-traditional background and would appreciate insights from folks who have been there and done that.<p>I would appreciate your insights to help with negotiations.<p>What are usual perks for Director/Sr Director/VP of software engineering/ops positions?<p>Guaranteed contract? Severance? Premium benefits? Bonus target (offered is 30%)? Anything else that should be considered part of standard package?<p>Thank-you all!
======
techjuice
Quarterly bonuses of 8%-25% or guaranteed (in your employee/promotion offer
letter and added to your contract) end of year bonuses and if it is a startup
quarterly additional stock options based on company, sector, team performance.
Some may even pay for your home, car, and offer fully paid
tuition/books/university fees.
You may also gain the ability to ride (company paid) business or first class
for all of your domestic and international flights or if if your in a really
profitable company or high position in a government agency you get to fly on
the company/agency/chartered jet(s) for some or all flights. You may also get
an assistant or assistants to help you out with personal and business related
activities since you should be pretty busy and may forget things, they will
normally keep your schedule and keep you on schedule 24/7/365.
You normally get a pretty nice severance package that is only offered to
C-Level management which is only VP and above. Though if it is your first time
you should have a sit down with an attorney to make sure what you get from the
company is good to go and a financial advisor and tax accountant to help you
make a plan for what to do with those extra benefits and how they can affect
you tax wise so you know what is seen as income and what treated as gifts.
This way you will have a full picture of what you are really getting. As
sometimes it may look like more, but may push you into a new tax bracket or
increase your taxes to not make much of a difference in the end. Either way it
is good to have a full overview so there are no surprises at the end of the
year.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Canadian pilots no longer have to fly real aircraft to keep valid licences - drittich
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canadian-pilots-no-longer-have-to-fly-real-aircraft-to-keep-valid-licences/article32204718/
======
dleslie
I built one of these certified simulators; they are not what you will find at
most people's desks. We built a cave with a large number of 120Hz 1080
projectors custom modified to sync in tandem to shutter glasses, and used a
medical device for sub-millimeter head position tracking. The cockpit was an
actual, decommissioned helicopter with working interfaces.
It was an incredible experience to build and operate; I never did stick around
for the final install, which was going to mount the cockpit onto a platform
capable of rotating and lifting in a variety of crazy ways.
~~~
annerajb
What is the purpose of the head position tracking? Did the aircraft you build
the simulator for has some sort of advanced HUD that always shows correctly no
matter the position of the pilot head??
~~~
dleslie
So it would feel real; you could look out the side window, or shift your
weight to look around trees or to get a better view down the side of the
helicopter.
I work in VR now and honestly nothing comes close to the experience we built.
~~~
fit2rule
>I work in VR now and honestly nothing comes close to the experience we built.
This is an interesting statement, because in all the wide sphere of points
where VR can be applied, it seems to me that the only place of any 'validity'
or .. true social value .. (i.e. not gaming/entertainment) .. is in the realm
of training for high-performance/life-critical operator scenarios.
Which is not to say that these things can/can not be gamified - but perhaps
that the end result of such a stringent effort by society to apply VR
technology to training and simulation of otherwise-life-threatening
roles/responsibilities/duties is that it all becomes a bit of a game.
What I mean to say is, why is there such a gap between "work in VR" and "built
serious simulator system", in your opinion?
~~~
jdietrich
> in all the wide sphere of points where VR can be applied, it seems to me
> that the only place of any 'validity'... is in the realm of training for
> high-performance/life-critical operator scenarios.
We're already seeing socially important applications outside of training. VR
is being used as part of treatment for PTSD and phobia; it can provide a very
believable experience of a traumatic stimulus in a safe environment. VR may
prove to be a powerful tool for psychotherapists.
More broadly, I think we have underestimated the psychological significance of
presence. Users respond to convincing VR experiences in a totally different
way to other media. This difference seems to be relatively durable and does
not fully diminish when the novelty wears off. Pilots in simulators experience
real physiological stress, even when they are experienced simulator users.
How would the world change if most of us got our news through VR - if we felt
that we were stood in Mosul or Aleppo, flinching at every bang, reflexively
crouching down for safety?
>What I mean to say is, why is there such a gap between "work in VR" and
"built serious simulator system", in your opinion?
There's a vast difference between a $2000 consumer system and a $2,000,000
simulator. A headset can't approach the fidelity of a real cockpit with real
controls and instruments, mounted on a huge hydraulic motion rig. VR
technology is constantly advancing, but there will always be a gap between an
expensive single-purpose system and a cheap general-purpose system.
------
afarrell
It would be nice if we had either public driving simulators or classes that
you could use to improve your driving and response to erratic other drivers. I
suspect that the lack of this deliberate training is one reason why driving is
much more dangerous than flying. Back when I owned a car, it seemed like all
of the classes on driving marketed themselves as either:
1) A totally unchallenging formality that will satisfy the requirements for
keeping your license.
2) Training for police to use a car as tactically while being shot at.
There didn't seem to be any middle ground for people who just felt like they'd
like to reduce their chances of killing a cyclist.
I wonder if it would profitable to build an arcade machine and charge people
to play a more immersive version of Crazy Taxi, GTA, or some prohibition
bootlegger simulator.
~~~
sigstoat
Bridgestone's Winter Driving School comes to mind immediately,
[http://winterdrive.com/](http://winterdrive.com/)
Fundamentally, I think most drivers view driving as just a thing they do, and
give no thought to the possibility of improving. So having classes or
simulators isn't going to help, because they wouldn't take advantage of them.
~~~
userbinator
_So having classes or simulators isn 't going to help, because they wouldn't
take advantage of them._
...unless it becomes a requirement for a license.
------
mymuss
This article is factually incorrect. Here's some glaring examples:
> United States and European Union, which still compel pilots to meet
> stringent standards to keep their licences valid, including a requirement to
> actually fly a plane.
Not true, at least not in the US. According to 14 CFR 61.56 (i) "A flight
simulator or flight training device may be used to meet the flight review
requirements of this section"
> There is a whole host of skills you don’t exercise in a simulator
True, but the opposite is also true. I can think of number of scenarios that
can be practiced in a sim but cannot be safely or legally practiced in
aircraft. Example of such scenario: engine failure in instrument
meteorological conditions.
> If you had a heart issue, would you go and see a heart surgeon that hadn’t
> operated in five years
I wonder if Mr. McConnell is aware that every single line pilot who files B787
or A380 today did all their training for that airframe and passed the rating
test in a flight simulator.
The reality is all airline pilots train in flight sims these day. There is no
practical way of doing that in actual aircraft. If one can do all their
training and pass the license test in a sim why can't they do periodic flight
review in a sim?
------
raverbashing
Simulators are not the problem for renewal, they get increasingly better with
time.
The problem is relying on automation instead of real piloting skills
I trust much more a pilot practicing manual flying in a simulator than doing
real flying in "Children of Magenta" mode
~~~
tobych
For those like me who, though not a pilot, enjoy watching Aircrash
Investigation and similar programs, and finds the investigations and findings
inspiring/sobering/educational as a software engineer, and like me weren't
aware of the "Children of [the] Magenta" phrase, this article and audio piece
[1] looks a good place to start. The phrase was used in a 1997 presentation -
available publicly [2] - by American Airlines captain Warren Van Der Burgh,
who said that (quoting the article's summary of his words): "The industry has
turned pilots into “Children of the Magenta” who are too dependent on the
guiding magenta-colored lines on their screens." He makes his case with some
very funny lines, too. Quite the humorist: "I got stuff to worry about, don't
I. Heads up stuff. It's probably not a good time to be typing." [3]
immediately precedes his explanation of the phrase.
[1] [http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/children-of-the-
magent...](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/children-of-the-magenta-
automation-paradox-pt-1/)
[2] [https://youtu.be/pN41LvuSz10](https://youtu.be/pN41LvuSz10)
[3] [https://youtu.be/pN41LvuSz10?t=510](https://youtu.be/pN41LvuSz10?t=510)
~~~
ghaff
It's an area of ongoing research as well, e.g. the Humans and Autonomy Lab at
Duke. (Missy Cummings, who is the director of the lab, used to be a Navy
fighter pilot.)
I expect we'll hear a lot more on this topic. Assuming you're at all skeptical
about the timeframe for full automobile driving automation, it seems a
certainty that we'll have a (significant) period when stuff works most of the
time--until it doesn't. And, given that lots of people drive distracted today,
what's it going to look like when the car can drive down the highway most of
the time on its own?
------
trelliscoded
It seems to me that the #1 way to predict pilot performance in emergencies is
whether the pilot has encountered the emergency before and lived. If so,
running the pilot through the most scenarios possible in a given unit time
would seem to be a good strategy to train pilots, and simulators would
increase the rate of scenarios per unit time versus a real aircraft.
However, you can't get away from actually flying a plane. There's little
things you don't practice in the simulator, like making sure you have your
handheld VHF radio, checking for water in the fuel tanks, and how to balance
cargo, that you'll never learn in front of a computer screen.
If it's anything like network administration, I'd say something like 20% real
experience vs 80% simulated might be a good mix. People who favor just one or
the other lack performance under adverse circumstances compared to admins who
do both, I've noticed.
------
cm2187
I was under the impression that 95% of the time, the pilot sits in the cockpit
doing nothing, other that watching the autopilot by a clear sunny day. Whereas
in a simulator the pilot is busy practicing challenging environments.
I am not qualified to have an opinion on whether a pilot can do simulators
only but intuitively, an hour of simulator seems to be worth more than one
hour of real life flight.
~~~
adamfeldman
American B2 bomber pilots practice 14+ hour long-endurance missions in
simulators before they're ever allowed near a real ($2B+) aircraft
~~~
ghaff
I suspect though that knowing you're being tested in a simulator, even if it
is a boring long-endurance mission, could still affect how you think about it
and approach it.
------
jt2190
Ah politics. It appears that this story is really about getting more funding
for flight time for aviation inspectors.
From TFA:
> Many of Transport Canada’s aviation inspectors, some of whom are licensed
> pilots, are not able to keep their licences current because Conservative
> spending cuts imposed in 2011 curtailed their ability to fly government
> aircraft. He believes the department changed the rules to ensure federal
> aviation inspectors maintain the proper credentials.
> A CFPA survey of licensed aviation inspectors, conducted in April, found
> that about half have not been assigned flight training for more than a year
> and one in 10 has not been assigned to flight training for up to 10 years or
> more.
> “With the stroke of a pen, Transport Canada has devised a work-around so
> their own pilots comply with Canadian Aviation Regulations,” Mr. McConnell
> said. “Aviation inspectors who are pilots are becoming like traffic cops
> without a driver’s licence. This situation undermines public safety and
> inspectors’ credibility with the industry they are supposed to oversee.”
------
clarry
Is CAE a major player among flight sim companies? Because in that case,
there's clear economic incentive in making simulator training accepted.. first
in Canada, with the hope that other countries will follow. Big company will
get a good chance to export their product.
~~~
nas
Yes they are. For military and commercial aircraft.
------
drittich
Some relevant links:
[http://www.tc.gc.ca/media/documents/ca-
publications/9-LRA-e....](http://www.tc.gc.ca/media/documents/ca-
publications/9-LRA-e.pdf)
[http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2016/10/04/pilots-licence-
simulator-...](http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2016/10/04/pilots-licence-simulator-
fly-regulation-change/)
I would love it if a developer involved in Transport Canada approved simulator
software could comment.
------
wired8
My father is a flight instructor in New Zealand, he said simulator use there
is credited towards yearly flying hours.
The only difference I can see between a modern simulator and the real thing is
lack of consequence.
------
finid
Quoting Marc Garneau, the Transport Minister:
_I am sure it has been done based on a serious look at what is important for
our pilots to do._
Yeah, except fly a real plane to maintain that pilot's license.
------
swingbridge
Simulators are great for training on emergency scenarios that can't easily or
safely be done in a real airplane, or practicing and learning new avionics or
systems but they shouldn't be a substitute for real flying experience. This is
a bad decision.
~~~
annerajb
As a pilot that is learning. Why can't a simulator recreate the real flying
experience? Especially on this fly by wire aircrafts?
~~~
drittich
Completely putting aside the question of the quality of the simulation of the
aircraft and physics involved, one possible reason is that simulations can
remove extreme emotions from the equation. The pilot _knows_ they won't die in
the simulator if they make an error. (This can be both a positive and negative
gain.)
To take it to the extreme, would you be willing to attempt landing a real 747
solo, having only ever flown using simulators?
~~~
venomsnake
I will be willing to do it. I won't be willing to be present in an aircraft
while someone elae does it. Not because I am a pilot - just I am ok with dying
from my own mistake.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Property Inspection and Insurance for Home-Sharing - ivanzhou
http://www.comethome.com/
======
ivanzhou
Hi HN!
We put together a product to help bring safety and transparency to home-
sharing. We offer free property inspections and give hosts a property profile
with a score (x/100) that they can share on their listings. This way guests
can get an objective view before booking vs. relying on traditional ratings.
We also offer home-sharing liability insurance that is platform agnostic! We
calculate insurance premiums based on traditional risk modeling combined with
our own inspections. Our prices have come out 20-30% cheaper than legacy
insurance providers.
Let us know if you have any thoughts/questions!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Launch HN: Station (YC W18) – One place for all your web apps - jberthom
Hi HN,<p>We're Alex and Julien, the founders of Station (<a href="https://getstation.com/" rel="nofollow">https://getstation.com/</a>). Our free desktop app unifies all your work applications in one neat interface. Think of it as an efficient workspace for all your web tools.<p>We've always had a love / hate relationship with our browser: it's been our main work environment for the last 6 years but we keep struggling to stay focused and never found an efficient technique that would fix my natural impulse to open a new tab and get distracted.<p>After trying quite a few methods (Pomodoro, White noise, Do Not Disturb, ...) & tools (Franz, Toby, Rambox, OneTab, etc.), we came to the conclusion that distraction is a core-design issue in modern browsers that can't be solved with cosmetic changes or simple hacks. If you look at the very first Chrome interface (released 10 years ago!) you'll notice that it isn't significantly different from today's v69. What has dramatically changed is the number of working hours you spend in it.<p>That's why we built Station: it's a SaaS focused, distraction-free platform (600+ apps) that's not meant for browsing but solely for working with web apps. This translates in the first features we shipped: a "Quick-Switch" (a la Alfred) that allows you to quickly change page without losing focus, a "Smart Dock" that segments your workspace by automatically linking all pages to an app, a "Focus Mode" that kills all notifications with 1 click and an "Autosleep" (a la The Great Suspender) that intelligently unloads unused apps from your computer's memory.<p>We realize we still have a long way to go to offer the delightful experience we aim for, but we're committed to it. There are quite a few technical challenges, the main one being pushing the Electron framework to its limits: copy/pasting is sometimes erratic, CPU load can spike, embedded Chrome is constantly obsolete, support of extensions is experimental, multi-window is a bit laggy, and I could go on and on :)<p>We won PH's Product of the Year award last year (<a href="https://www.producthunt.com/posts/station-3" rel="nofollow">https://www.producthunt.com/posts/station-3</a>) which led to a huge boost in active users. This comes with increased pressure to ship features and kill bugs: the community-fed roadmap (<a href="https://community.getstation.com/" rel="nofollow">https://community.getstation.com/</a>) is completely crammed but our team of 8 is truly grateful for the user feedback we've been getting. It's been really precious, both motivation and product-wise.<p>This is just the beginning. Our vision is to build an entire operating system for SaaS applications. We want to provide a platform so 3rd party developers can build new features on top of existing web apps, offering users a more native and integrated experience across all of their work tools. Ultimately, anyone using web apps at work would find value in using Station.<p>We're really excited to get your insights on what we're building. On average, our users are active 5h per day in the app: we hope you find it nearly as useful!<p>PS. You can download the app here: <a href="https://getstation.com" rel="nofollow">https://getstation.com</a>.
It's available for free on Mac, Windows and Linux.
======
acconrad
As a freelancer and consultant I find this app to be incredibly useful because
it essentially puts all of my client work into one app. I basically run this,
my terminal, and Sublime and I've got everything I need that is fast and
quickly toggle-able. Thank you for putting out a great product!
A few suggestions, after having used it for quite a few months now:
\- I have probably 15-16 apps connected and it would be great to get keyboard
shortcuts for them all. They stop at 9, but would be great to extend the top
row further for app tab movement.
\- The notifications bar is dominated by slack and feels redundant. I would
like a "do not disturb" for Station only...so I can turn off the redundant
notifications that Station sends me _without_ putting my on do not disturb
_in_ Slack.
\- Zeplin integration is funky. Other apps will move to the correct page (like
a pull request in Github) but Zeplin for some reason doesn't move to the
correct page of the mockups I want to see. Would love to have this fixed.
Thanks!
~~~
jberthom
Thanks a lot!
\- Good point. It's exactly facing this issue that we build a feature called
the "Quick-Switch. Not sure if you had a chance to give it a try. Basically
hit "Cmd+T" and you will see a spotlight type of search bar. From there you
can search for any app or even page opened within an app. For GDrive (if you
connect it) you can search for any document directly there, on Slack you can
search any channel or person. We are working on even more integrations. We
have built an algorithm that learns from it as you use it, therefore the
results will get even better overtime!
\- You can already do that by clicking on the bell icon on the left bar
(Disable Notifications). It will snooze all notifications from all your app so
you can stay focused. We obviously need to communicate better about it :)
\- I see what you mean with Zeplin, some of our team members have the same
issue. That's because we do not handle well when a URL has a "#" and whatever
comes after. We are investigating this issue to fix it.
------
mychael
I've always disliked intense cynicism in Show HN and Launch HN, but...
It's a web browser, but instead of being open source (Chromium) or a non-
profit (Mozilla Foundation), it's run completely by a single for-profit
company. Seems pretty backwards to me, but maybe I'm missing something?
~~~
jberthom
It's a fair point. We are actually based on Chromium (we run on Electron). So
we are a for-profit company building a browser based on an open source project
- just like Google with Chrome.
------
justkez
This isn't an Electron bash, but I tried this a few weeks ago (found via
Product Hunt) and after adding a few apps (G Suite, Trello, Slack, Workflowy),
I found the UI frustratingly sluggish and ultimately counter-productive. This
is on a well specced 16gb MBP.
Should I try again?! It seems you'd have to move the needle on performance
quite significantly to remove the lag. In a non-Station workflow I'd just cull
the offending tabs/browsers.
~~~
jberthom
14 days ago we have released improvements on the performance of the app (see
release note:
[https://community.getstation.com/t/station-1-24-0/4015](https://community.getstation.com/t/station-1-24-0/4015)).
If you tried the app before the app you might see a difference. Let us know
how it goes.
Performance is a priority and an ongoing work for us. We know Electron has
limitations and we are working hard to limit memory & CPU usage.
------
wink
This sounds useful.
I haven't tried it yet so please excuse if this has been answered - but this
sounds just like I use several browsers, being logged in to different
accounts. And also why I don't like webapps as much (lack of alt-tab and
separation).
But I have a pressing question: How does it handle opening links in new tabs?
Imagine me going through a pinned TweetDeck and looking at all the links? It's
hard to describe, but if I "break out" a webapp via chrome for example, I
either get a lot of windows or all the tabs in the wrong window. How are
people using this? will I have all e.g. articles on random websites inside
Station or in my default browser?
~~~
jberthom
Interesting point!
If I understand what you mean correctly, you are concerned about how we handle
links that are not from an app (articles or anything that does not belong to
an app we support). It's a big question for us we are still discussing.
Ultimately I think we will want to handle links so you are not constantly sent
back to the browser if all you want to do is just quickly read an article from
a link you clicked. The question remains on whether we also want to handle
full-on navigation.
You can divide navigation in two categories: 1\. quick read you won't access
again 2\. longer term navigation including articles or pages you wish to read
again later
For case n.1 I think we should definitely handle it (the same way when you
click a link on a mobile app you are usually sent to a provisory browser and
can later decide to open it in your default browser) For case n.2 there are
still discussions on whether we should leave this to the default web browser,
integrate an existing web browser inside Station to handle all external links
or build our own within Station.
~~~
wink
Yes, thanks. Meanwhile I could think of a good example.
Someone shares a Google+ post via Twitter. Right now I have TweetDeck in my
normal chrome instance where I am not logged in to Google (for reasons). So
everytime I click this link I have to copy/paste the link from the newly
opened tab into Firefox, where I am logged in to Google.
And yes, this is a homemade problem, I should just be reading RSS feeds, but
some people seem to prefer G+ and so I get no RSS feed :(
------
CharlesW
It surprised me how many different services it wants to connect to at first
launch (thanks, Little Snitch!), not to mention access to System Events.
Do you document all the services you're connecting to, and what data is being
collected?
~~~
jberthom
Yes you can find more information about the data being collected here:
[https://faq.getstation.com/data-and-privacy/what-are-your-
pr...](https://faq.getstation.com/data-and-privacy/what-are-your-privacy-
policies)
------
ankit219
Had tried it early this year, when you guys were covered by Techcrunch or some
other publication I think.
I liked the idea, and gave it a shot. I think that was a very early version,
and while I did like some of the features, I returned to doing it on chrome.
What I liked: \- Use of apps. \- Design: I liked the thought behind using both
horizontal and vertical switching (not sure I described it right) which would
means less tabs. More familiar for me since me taskbar is always on left.
Why I went back to chrome: \- I usually have two gmail accounts open
simultaneously (one personal), so if I were to use station, I would still have
to use Chrome anyways. \- No way to import history from chrome. (useful if I
wanted to visit the same websites that I do now) \- Memory usage and
performance (I am sure that would have been fixed now.) \- Autostart on every
reboot: I am sorry, but this was the only reason I uninstalled it. I used it
sparingly when I needed to focus, but autostart was really irritating so I
uninstalled it.
Wish you all the best, and would love to use it more, but right now, I can
focus with Chrome itself.
~~~
jberthom
Thanks for your feedbacks! On some of your points: \- we do allow you to use
multiple Gmail accounts, back when you used it it might not have been obvious
enough but you can use as many Google accounts as you'd like \- indeed we are
working hard on memory usage and performance at the moment. Since the
TechCrunch cover you should definitely see a difference. Let us know in our
community if this is not the case \- we've fixed that since then, you can
remove autostart in the settings and it works now
~~~
ankit219
Hey, one more reason I preferred Chrome was Adblocker. Sorry, forgot to
mention this in previous post. Not so sure if it can be integrated in this,
but I had gotten used to it, so it's weird to see the ads popup again.
Especially when you are looking at marketing channels, and browse Instagram
and Twitter too.
Have installed the app yesterday. The interface is more intuitive now. Looks
good. Love the collection of apps too. And the quick switch as well.
~~~
jberthom
Yes we didn't dedicate efforts to integrating an ad blocker because we mostly
integrate applications in which you shouldn't see ads but Twitter or Instagram
are good examples of where it's needed. We are working hard to integrate more
extensions in the future and Ad blockers rank high on the list.
------
atombender
This seems like a potentially very useful app, bordering on capturing the idea
that I've described on HN several times (recently here [1]).
That said, I don't use Gmail. I'm forced to have a Google account since my
employer uses G-Suite, but I pretty much don't use their apps and Google is
not what I would use Station for. I'm disappointed to see that this is so
Google-oriented. I get that it's an early MVP and a work in progress, but
seriously.
From the looks of it, Station is entirely app-oriented. It would be
disappointing to me if you could only choose from Station's own roster of
apps. Back in the day, there was a macOS app that could create a desktop app
from any web site — basically starting a special version of Firefox in its own
instance — so that you could run, say, Github as a desktop app. It makes sense
because obviously web sites can be considered "apps".
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18054150](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18054150)
~~~
jberthom
We've limited to Google login indeed as it was the first version of the app
and we wanted to make it easy for as many users to sign up and get started on
Station. We will very soon release a username/password login which will answer
your concern.
Yes I think see which app you are referring to, it's Fluid app (and there's
been others of the same type since then). It was one of our inspirations in
fact. I think that type of app is useful if what you are looking for is to
turn a few specific websites into native apps in your dock (Github is a good
example). But it does not make it easier to switch between those apps,
essentially it just encapsulates a webview into an OS window. What we want to
do is go much further and add extra functionalities that make it feel like you
are really consuming a native app (ex: searching for information across all
your apps, quickly accessing various parts of this app, giving an overview of
notifications from all your apps, etc.).
Checked your link, it's really interesting actually. It really goes along the
line of how we think about Station. When you say Google Doc is not something
that works well as a tab, I think it's true for a lot of SaaS applications.
They've leveraged the browser to work because it guaranteed massive adoption
and instantly worked cross platform, however browsers were built to - as its
name indicates - browse the web, mostly reading content. If you can offer a
tailored experience for each doc, chat, note taking app, etc. that you use on
a daily basis, I think there is no reason why you wouldn't switch from the
browse. To use another analogy: the same way you prefer to use the Gmail app
on your smartphone than go on gmail.com on your mobile browser.
------
bradknowles
So, the only way you can use Station is to log in with your corporate Google
account?
Is there no way that I, as a private individual, can use Station with my
various personal accounts?
~~~
jberthom
For now we've limited to Google accounts indeed but we will soon release the
option to login with username & password. We do say corporate accounts because
we see Station as a work environment and therefore think it's best if you can
connect your work account to then use it to login to other work apps (assuming
they use Google login). However you can use your personal Gmail account, it
works just as well.
------
FreezerburnV
I quickly scrolled through the list of supported “apps”, and one of them is
Reddit. Doesn’t that kind of go against the “don’t be distracted” idea of
Station if something supported as a first class citizen is a distraction site?
Also is it possible to add custom sites to Station? Like if I have an internal
tool at work, which can’t be supported by Station at large due to it being
custom for my job. And does it support stuff only available on an internal
work network? Eg: even if JIRA is supported, if my work has an on premises
deployment of it I wouldn’t be able to use the JIRA app if I can’t point to
that instance.
EDIT: otherwise I think the idea is interesting. Considering I basically put
my life into workflowy, having a nice wrapper around it sounds pretty great.
Among the other sites I use.
~~~
jberthom
Very good points. We discussed a lot internally before adding content websites
like Reddit. There are 2 reasons why we decided to add them in the end. First
some people actually use such sites for work (they look up for information
they need for work). Second, we offer a "Disable Notifications" option so you
can avoid receiving notifications from all or specific apps hence giving you
control over what can capture your attention or not.
Yes since recently you can add custom sites to Station. Simply go to the app
store in the Station app and click on the "+" button on the bottom right. You
will be able to request a custom app (available either just for yourself or
your entire team).
Look forward to your feedbacks as you test the app!
------
pedalpete
An integration with lastpass or other password managers would be great. At the
moment I have to copy my passwords into my apps in station. I am sitting here
hoping station will keep those logins active.
~~~
jberthom
Yes we plan on adding more password managers including LastPass and Dashlane
which are the most requested ones on top of 1Password which we have already
integrated.
------
mkjonesuk
I'm already a Wavebox user which is pretty great for this:
[https://wavebox.io/](https://wavebox.io/)
Any improvements offered?
What's the plan to monetise. Wavebox is about $50 a year.
~~~
jberthom
Wavebox is a great tool. One thing we focus on is making switching between
apps easier and faster. We have a feature called the Quick-Switch that allows
you to easily switch to a different channels on Slack or search information
across applications. It's still a work in progress.
As for monetization we do not plan on charging the end user but rather charge
for team functionalities but we haven't yet worked on that. We are focused on
the end-user experience first.
------
rajekas
I have used it off and on from the time it came out and love how it aggregates
many of the apps I use everyday. Nevertheless, I find myself leaving Station
for standalone apps/web apps for three reasons:
1\. By aggregating all the apps I use, it invites almost as much distraction
as the open web :) I would love it if there was a distraction free mode that
locks Station for X amount of time in a pre-chosen cluster of apps. That way,
I get to work with all the apps in my current workflow while being protected
from the big bad web out there.
2\. Resource use: not only does it become slower with multiple apps open, my
laptop fan spins like crazy. Not the silent meditation I want as I attempt to
enter a flow state.
3\. My mental UNIX wants to work on one thing at a time and do that well. When
I am in UNIX mode (i.e., whenever I am not distracted by the spawn of Zuck and
Jack) I use the native/web app for that specific use case. I know switching
out of that one app into another takes time, but it's still under _my_
control.
In all, I am wondering if by recreating a full-fledged OS for apps Station is
replicating the very problem that it's trying to eradicate.
~~~
jberthom
1\. Good idea, this is definitely something we have in mind as we look to
revamp our dock and the way we handle notifications across all your apps
2\. Improving performances is one of our main focus at the moment. You should
definitely see improvements over the next few weeks and months.
3\. Interesting. Actually one of the developers in our team has edited the app
to remove the dock so he is not distracted by the icons on the left side.
Essentially what would help you here is having some sort of full-screen mode
that allows you to stay focused on one app only without being distracted by
the Station interface.
The frustration we are trying to address is the way browsers handle
applications. Indeed we could end up replicating the very problem we were
trying to eradicate if we end up just creating yet another browser. We started
from a blank page for that very reason - so we could in fact build the best
experience possible for web apps. I do believe it gives us enough freedom to
avoid running into the same issues you can find on traditional browsers. The
future will tell!
------
runaway
I really love the concept and I've used it since August, but I frequently
return to the app and it starts "reloading" making me concerned that I'm
missing notifications. It's also frustrating that my configuration doesn't
transfer between computers which I do frequently.
~~~
jberthom
Indeed the reason why you see this reloading is because we have built an auto-
sleep algorithm that allows us to make sure you never have more than 8
processes open at the same time (and therefore affecting CPU or memory usage).
For apps like Gmail or Slack (apps on which you are expected to receive
notifications) we always keep the page active. Ultimately we plan on
supporting notifications for apps even if they are inactive but it's not
possible for all apps.
For which app are you experiencing reloading that makes you fear you are
missing applications? We might have missed some use cases.
Yes we plan on allowing you to use Station across different devices, it's been
requested by a lot of users.
~~~
runaway
I could swear I've seen it reload on slack, whatsapp, circleci, and clubhouse.
Can't wait for the cross-device features. Thanks!
~~~
jberthom
Whatsapp, Circleci and Clubhouse definitely possible if you haven't looked at
it in a while and opened a lot of new pages.
As for Slack it shouldn't!
------
indigodaddy
Station finally getting some HN love. That's great to see. I use this everyday
at work for Slack, Outlook Pro/365, Salesforce, DataDog..
I would like to see the ability to specify jira.mydomain.com for the main Jira
app (eg kind of like how you can do custom domain login to the Salesforce app,
but I do understand that that is actually accomplished by Salesforce WebUI
functionality itself there). Having Jira accessible within Station would
really complete the circle for me.
I know we can request custom/private Station apps, but not sure I want to
request that, as I'm really the only one at the company who uses it... I've
shown Station to co-workers and they think it's cool, but they love all their
individual apps I guess... :)
I wish the Station team continued success and all the best!
~~~
jberthom
Thanks a lot!! When you request a custom app you can pick the option to have
it just for yourself and not for your co-workers.
------
newscracker
I have an aversion to any site or service that doesn't have a "Pricing" link
right on the home page. I feel like the site doesn't want to expose this
information because it's either not straightforward or very expensive.
I searched on your help site and found the answer on pricing [1], which is
well written. But ideally it shouldn't be this hard to know. Please add this
link on your homepage and everywhere else that you'd add FAQ, Help, etc.
P.S.: Your help documentation looks well written so far (except for some
typos).
[1]: [https://intercom.help/station/general-questions/is-there-
a-p...](https://intercom.help/station/general-questions/is-there-a-pricing-
for-station-how-do-you-make-money)
~~~
jberthom
Thanks for the feedback. We plan on insisting on the "Free" aspect on the V.2
of our website so it's clear that it is free for the individual user. Once we
price for teams we'll have a dedicated page.
------
dzek69
There is Franz, there is Rambox (which seems a bit abandoned because of
premium version), there are few another I can't remember.
How is your app better than these? I switched from Franz to Rambox because of
support of self-hosted and/or custom apps. Is there a reason for another
switch? After a quick look - it looks like you don't support self-hosted apps.
And a bit aside of main topic - I really hope everything will get PWA support
eventually. It's much better experience to make an app really an app. Still
waiting for Google to deliver their apps as PWA, like promised. I could ditch
Rambox then.
~~~
jberthom
Franz is all about handling messaging app while we handle all types of web
applications. As for Rambox, indeed they are closer to what we do with a
different type of interface though.
We do support self-hosted apps (any kind of custom apps) but as of today it
requires a few weeks before it is added. In all honesty if that's a key factor
for you, I would stay on Rambox and wait for us to have released the V.2 of
custom applications before bothering to try it :)
Indeed PWA would be amazing especially for offline functionalities and push
notifications.
------
reitanqild
Take a tour sends me to a video.
As someone who entered the Internet more than half a life I assumed it would
be a a screenshot tour, maybe with animated gifs.
Like many others here I can't stand videos so I left that page immediately and
slightly disappointed. I was not able to glance another place to find what I
looked for either (screenshots and text explanations).
By all means, -keep the video, some people seems to prefer them but
\- use a less confusing link text ("Watch a screencast tour" or something that
indicates that this is a video)
\- if you care about people like me: add a single page with images, possibly
animations and text.
~~~
jberthom
Yes I agree with you. We are currently working on a V.2 of our website that
will offer a faster way to get a tour of the different features through
animations. We might not even need to keep the "Take a tour" part.
------
theseanstewart
Any plans to support custom icons/colors for apps? I just set up multiple
gmail accounts in Station, but it's really hard to distinguish between the
different accounts. I can see the account's avatar at the bottom right of the
Gmail icon, but it's __really __small. Another idea would be to provide an
option for adding a separator on the menu bar.
Also, another nitpick. The "on" toggle button is really ugly and doesn't fit
with the rest of the UI design (which is really nice looking overall).
~~~
jberthom
Good points. I agree the avatar app is too small and does not help much. We
plan on fixing this either by making the profile page more obvious or maybe as
you suggest allow for custom colors.
As for adding a separator on the menu bar, indeed we plan on doing a revamp of
the dock and the ability to separate apps in different groups is a feedback we
will take into consideration (if I understand correctly what you meant here)
Agree on the toggle button. Feedback forwarded to our brand new Product
Designer who is currently working on our design system and will fix that.
~~~
theseanstewart
Thanks for the response. Loving Station so far. Keep up the great work.
------
UltimateFloofy
I know this seems petty, but I cannot see "Get Station" as the url. I
continually read "gestation.com", which doesn't have quite the same
connotation.
~~~
jberthom
haha indeed, that's actually an inside joke in the team :) It's a provisory
domain name and we should have a shorter one soon.
------
davidmorris
I've installed station and created a distinct application password for station
in my google apps suite. However when I try to authenticate in station then
the app password is not accepted and only the password to my whole google
account is accepted.
The pop up box for station login doesn't show me which website it is
authenticating via and if I try the "copy current pages URL" in the
authentication pop up then the URL is not copied (at least not in ubuntu
18.04).
~~~
jberthom
This is the first time I hear of this case as I think few people create
distinct applications. We use Auth0 for authentication and we'll check with
them as it seems the issue is on their side. I'll let you know when we've
figured it out.
------
ttcbj
I downloaded this app, and really like it. Its a simple concept, but it would
be really useful for me. That said, in order for it to be useful I need to be
able to add an internal administrative app which I use frequently (its just a
website). If I could just do that, it would be really useful as-is.
Ideally, I'd also like to add an internal electron-based web app that runs
only on my machine as well, though that is lower priority than the standard
web app.
~~~
jberthom
Yes you can do that since recently! If you open the app store in the Station
app and click on the "+" button at the bottom right of the screen, you can
request an custom app such as an internal admin app you are referring to.
As for adding an internal electron-based web app it's not yet possible but
it's something we could imagine indeed!
~~~
ttcbj
Thanks, I just tried adding two apps (our internal one, and bank-of-america
small business login page).
------
Beefin
I used Station for a couple weeks and then I looked at my activity monitor...
it was eating up more cpu than 15+ chrome tabs. Have you fixed this?
~~~
jberthom
Indeed we are aware that we have issues with performance and we are working
hard to identify ways to fix it. We released 15 days ago but it's a work in
progress.
~~~
Beefin
Giving it another try. Would be cool if you had a "saved layout" where I could
just download a template that had all the apps I want to load up on new
installations.
------
Lenad
Any insight into what will be your business model?
~~~
jberthom
We plan on remaining entirely free for individual users and only charge for
team features (we are still discussing what those could be). Hence it's only
businesses that decide to use Station across an entire team that would
eventually have to pay.
------
owenconti
Your post says 600+ apps, but your landing page says "400 apps... and
counting"
If you're at 600+, update your landing page!
~~~
jberthom
Yes good point, we will update it!
------
xixixao
In what sense is station not a web browser?
~~~
jberthom
In the sense that we do not handle classic browsing tasks: searching on Google
and read articles across tabs. Our users do not stop using the browser when
they start using Station, they use both in combination: the browser for
browsing & Station for their apps.
We are building a platform for you to access all your web applications.
Ultimately what we aim to build is closer to an operating system for all your
apps than a traditional web browser.
------
qiqing
I'd be really interested to find out more about the security model of Station,
which would be useful for finding out if our infosec department would be
willing to approve it for internal use.
Also, ditto on the pointing to an internal Jira instance. Would love to know
the answer to that question.
~~~
jberthom
Good question. We are based on Chromium, the open-source Web browser project
started by Google that powers Google Chrome. Therefore on that part the same
security model as Chrome applies. On the data side, most information is stored
locally on your computer. Very few information is actually stored in our
database therefore reducing the risk. For instance we do not store any
username, passwords or token you use to login into your app in our database.
Now we haven't yet worked directly with infosec departments so we are well
aware that there is still work to be done for us to be fully vetted.
As for adding an internal Jira instance, you can do that directly from the app
store in the Station app. Click on the "+" button at the bottom right of the
screen and you can request a custom app (visible either just to you or your
entire team).
~~~
insomniacity
When we add a custom app, do you see those URLs?
Remember that even a URL could contain confidential information, such as a
project planning board for a corporate takeover or new product launch.
~~~
jberthom
Good point, I definitely understand the concern. We only see the main domain,
whatever comes after the "/" in the URL isn't visible to us or anyone else.
------
bradknowles
How would you use this tool with AWS console, where you might want to be
logged into multiple different accounts at the same time?
Normally, it forces you to log out of one account before you can log into
another, unless you use a different browser, or you're using something like
container tabs.
~~~
jberthom
Indeed for now we do not handle multi-account for all applications, AWS being
one of them. But we plan on supporting multi-account across all applications
by isolating cookies. You can see our public roadmap here:
[https://www.notion.so/stationhq/4fc4be71cb2f4ddcb59b8b38858c...](https://www.notion.so/stationhq/4fc4be71cb2f4ddcb59b8b38858cdd62?v=bcc00a702d7a4b7ba1837622f8a4f3c0)
------
aclave1
This is a really cool app! I downloaded it and added my most used apps which
allowed me to close some pinned chrome tabs! It's just like franz, but for
everything. It does feel a bit sluggish though but I do understand that's
mostly a limitation of electron.
~~~
jberthom
Thanks! Electron indeed has some drawbacks but we are working hard to improve
performance as we speak.
~~~
aclave1
So i'm using the system now and whenever i try to use it after stopping for a
few minutes, the entire ui is unresponsive. It doesn't appear to have
suspended the application. It looks like it happens for around 10 seconds
before it finally decides to let me use it.
~~~
jberthom
Indeed we know few users have this specific issue you are referring to. We are
looking into it.
------
FabianBeiner
Is there no unread count for each service? This is an immediate deal breaker
for me. :( I don't want to check the notification center to realize which
messages I've been missing. Also, I'd want the notifications to go the OS
based one.
~~~
jberthom
1\. Indeed we've removed it as it really made the interface distracting (with
numbers on every app). We could imagine having this information on hover on
the next version of the dock. We just want to make sure we don't make the dock
too messy with information (once you add up notification number, profile icon,
etc.) it starts looking really overwhelming.
2\. Good point, that's something we'll keep in mind once we start focusing on
notifications again.
------
shafyy
Just installed it and I like it. It's one of those things that don't really
make sense in theory until you try it out for yourself. Like Slack, or
Twitter. Cool, looking forward to how you evolve this!
~~~
jberthom
Thanks! Yes a lot of users tell us the exact same thing. It's not always easy
to understand what it does until you've tried it. That means we also need to
improve the way we communicate around the product and make the value prop
clearer. A new version of the website is coming soon!
------
kjvperspective
Awesome idea. One thing that would be really valuable to me would be multi-
account support even for apps that don't have it built in. Firefox's multi-
account containers are how I solve this now.
~~~
jberthom
Thanks! Indeed we plan on supporting multi-account for all applications soon.
You can find it in our public roadmap here:
[https://www.notion.so/stationhq/Station-s-
roadmap-030f47e10b...](https://www.notion.so/stationhq/Station-s-
roadmap-030f47e10b36450f91377035949b51ba)
------
aeschenbach
When using google analytics, when I try to switch to my default property/view
(which GA knows), Station opens it a separate window, meaning i can't navigate
there from within the app.
~~~
jberthom
Indeed we are aware of this bug and we plan on fixing it!
------
faitswulff
This is very compelling. Can you add a local dev server as one of the tabs? If
I do work on localhost:3000, for instance. I could see myself using Station
and pomodoro quite effectively.
~~~
jberthom
Good question, our own dev team would love to have that too and it's
definitely something we are considering :)
------
stephenr
So this seems to be basically, a bunch of web apps loaded in vertical tabs
rather than horizontally, and it's built on electron.
So it's a browser built on a browser, with vertical tabs.
~~~
jberthom
Yes at first glance from a UI perspective it's essentially what it is. A
friend of mine often jokes about it and tells me "ok so you just took the tabs
and put them on the left" :) We started from that bias in the interface but we
are building features that really differentiate us from traditional web
browsers: a Quick-Switch that allows you to switch across all your apps (kind
of like Alfred), a notification center that unifies all of your applications,
a performance algorithm that kills tabs you don't use to preserve memory & CPU
usage, a unified app store for teams, etc.
------
jason_wang
I have been using Station for ~6months now. Fantastic product! The biggest win
for me is I no longer have to hunt down which tab has email app and which tab
has the calendar cap.
~~~
jberthom
Great to hear! :) Means a lot to the whole team reading this.
------
drewmol
Looks interesting. Is auth0 the only option or am I missing something? Also,
just FYI I'm getting an Access Denied when clicking on the auth0.com privacy
policy link.
~~~
jberthom
For now only Google login indeed but you will soon be able to login with
username & password if you do not have a Google account.
Thanks for letting us know on the privacy policy link, we are going to check
that out.
------
bradknowles
Have you checked to see how well your site works in other browsers?
Like Firefox?
~~~
jberthom
I haven't in a little while personally but some of our team members use
Firefox and so far we never had any issues. Did you spot anything?
------
applecore
Can I limit resources per tab?
I'd like to give Slack 1GB of memory and one processor core so I don't have it
maxing out my CPU and cache every day.
~~~
jberthom
Currently you do not have the option to do it yourself. For now what Station
does is it run an algorithm that detects the apps you use the most often and
only keep 8 tabs open at any given time. We believe it's best if we can do it
intelligently rather than manually. But we also see that some power users
would like to be given control over that. Ultimately if we do a good job at
doing it intelligently, there shouldn't be any need to do it manually. It's
still a work in progress.
------
crooked-v
This desperately needs an option for a plain solid background and actual
contrast for the sidebar icons. Also, badging on the sidebar icons.
~~~
jberthom
Very good points. Indeed we plan on revamping the background of the app that
can be disturbing and make the app icons more visible.
------
blitzo
Pardon me if I 'don't get it' but is this an OS on top of OS? but instead of
hosting native app, this thing hosting sass app?
~~~
jberthom
Yes exactly. We use the term "OS" because it's an analogy we find well
represents our vision. We aim to become the app you use to access your web
applications and have built the app following a lot of the codes you find in
an OS (notification center, spotlight type of search, etc.). Essentially our
web browsers have become the operating system for the web but we think web
apps deserve a dedicated environment. The same way consuming Gmail in the
Gmail app in your smartphone is way better than consuming it in your mobile
web browser, we want to make consuming your web apps in Station better than on
your browser.
------
pbreit
Neat!
One thing for me: I could not find any sizable things to grab on to to move
the window, especially on non-Google apps (using Mac version).
~~~
jberthom
Indeed good point. We have slightly increased the area for moving the window
since previous versions but this is something we can still optimize.
------
aeschenbach
Your website says pagerduty is an integration, but i cannot add it from within
the app.
~~~
jberthom
Indeed it is an app we added just yesterday and that will actually be
available starting tomorrow. There is a slight delay between the time it is
available in the public app store and in the app store of the application.
------
nkg
It sound useful and it looks good. I am giving it a try
~~~
jberthom
Look forward to your feedbacks!
------
muhammetd
I could not able to connect multiple aws accounts.
~~~
jberthom
Indeed we do not support multi-account for all apps yet but it is part of our
roadmap (you can see a public version here:
[https://www.notion.so/stationhq/4fc4be71cb2f4ddcb59b8b38858c...](https://www.notion.so/stationhq/4fc4be71cb2f4ddcb59b8b38858cdd62?v=bcc00a702d7a4b7ba1837622f8a4f3c0))
------
lucasverra
how do you compare with Front app ? [0]
[0] : [https://frontapp.com](https://frontapp.com)
~~~
jberthom
Front app is a centralized interface to access your various inboxes. Station
unifies all of your web applications (e-mail, chat, tasks, notes etc.) in one
single app. Front is closer to being an e-mail client handling various inboxed
but in the cloud (and collaborative) while were are a better alternative to
the browser for all your web applications. You could use Front in Station :)
------
holychiz
what tool/service are you using for your Community Forum site? It looks very
well-designed.
~~~
mahesh_rm
Discourse. I personally don't like its design or functionality, though.
~~~
jberthom
Indeed we use Discourse. It requires quite a lot of customization to look
really good. But the depth of feature and the flexibility are unbeatable!
------
jirir
Can it run on/inside Safari?
~~~
jberthom
No it's a native application you install and run on your OS.
------
andrewmcwatters
The real golden paradigm shift here is that this treats web apps like _apps_ ,
rather than web apps as some sort of hack on top of the web, instead of the
natural evolution that has occurred.
If a web browser is for web pages on the world wide web, then maybe it's time
to start considering that we need an app browser. Something more distinct than
browsing the web for documents, and something that has first-class support for
truly browsing for apps.
This seems to be the sell, and I find it very convincing to think about in
this regard rather than some "glorified web browser." There is potential here,
and I'd like to see this explored.
Does this open up the potential for a faster browsing experience? Perhaps
there's a double win here. What if we move towards a world with web browsers
reverting to their original nature; a document browser that explores just
hypermedia, while tailoring app browsers to handle web applications
specifically.
We essentially have this already in a crippled form on mobile devices with
deep-linking.
~~~
shafyy
Haha, I like the idea. But isn't this then an infinite circle in the end?
~~~
jberthom
What do you mean by "infinite circle"?
------
jbverschoor
Tried it. Didn't like it. Sticking to manageyum for now
~~~
jberthom
Interesting. Would love to know what you like about Manageyum that you
couldn't find in Station.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ars Technica Interview with an Ultima Online Addict (1999) - et2o
https://web.archive.org/web/20000414130308/http://www.arstechnica.com:80/etc/1q99/uo-interview-1.html
======
rpiguy
Why did you link to archive.org when the original article is still live on Ars
Technica.
~~~
et2o
Best appreciated with vintage website aesthetic.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Live streamed design meetings-ft. Stephen Wolfram? Pretty much what you'd expect - canttakethesky
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/181269427
======
daniellerommel
He's not that bad. and it is interesting to watch language design as it's
happening
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
On the Tesla Model 3 - jseliger
https://medium.com/@elanf/on-the-tesla-model-3-6b5acabd8ff5
======
ocdtrekkie
Best line, IMHO: "This isn’t difficult (again, idiomatic), but every single
person has first ended up stuck outside, and then trapped inside, which is
probably a great metaphor for Tesla ownership in general."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Amazing css styleguide for big applications. Much polemic, though - samsiqueira
https://github.com/grvcoelho/css-styleguide
======
murilohenrique
I don't agree with the way he talks about nesting! i also missed some
preprocessor guideline like sass, less or even postcss.
enjoyed everything else though
~~~
samsiqueira
I like the nesting part the most!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mystery Man Who Moves Japanese Markets Made More Than 1M Trades - ra
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-09-25/mystery-man-moving-japan-made-more-than-1-million-trades
======
ersii
If you're generally interested in asset trading and came looking at this story
for lessons to learn, these are the two I found in the story:
* Cut your losses quickly and with determination, while you should let your winners run as long as possible.
* Buy stocks that is being bought. Sell stocks that are being sold. (In other words, keep track of the stock order flow. Bid/asks).
Feel free to complement this, if I missed anything. In general an interesting
read/story.
~~~
pumpkinattwelve
This was pure gambling. Unless he statistically did the sums (nothing
mentioned in the article), this was pure and simple gambling (probably going
off candlestick trading which is big in Japan). In the finance world, this is
also called dumb money.
Remember kids, there are two types of traders:
1. Quants
2. Gamblers
Know which one you are.
~~~
antr
From your generalisation we can then say that LTCM falls under "Quants", and
Warren Buffet under "Gamblers".
~~~
seanmcdirmid
Warren buffet is definitely a quant (he does his homework) even if he doesn't
use heavy duty math (though I'm sure he has access to that).
~~~
antr
Then you are using the wrong term. Value investors (those who use models such
as DCF and DDM) are not considered 'quants' in the investment community. My
point is, quants can be speculators too (and more often than not they are). I
just wanted to point out (in a somewhat pedantic manner) that the above
comment is just a random comment, without any substance.
------
Humjob
It's incredibly difficult in the long run to make money by day trading. You
need to be in the top 20% of trading ability to just break even (meaning, 80%
of people who day trade outright lose money) and among the top 2-3% of traders
if you want to make any substantial profits.
I personally take Charlie Munger's approach of going long a US equity index
with most of my money and then using leftover funds to exploit what I perceive
as structural mispricings in different asset classes/financial markets that I
think will correct themselves in the short/medium term. Bitcoins, for example,
have been a fun ride since I bought some at the start of 2013.
See this study on day traders for more info:
[http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/odean/papers/Day%20Traders/...](http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/odean/papers/Day%20Traders/Day%20Trade%20040330.pdf)
------
rurounijones
"he owns two apartment buildings, the larger of which—a modernist cube in
central Tokyo with a French bar on the ground floor"
Hmm, that information seems a little too identifying.
~~~
seanmcdirmid
Not for Tokyo.
~~~
thret
Street addresses barely qualify as identifying in Tokyo.
------
fdsary
How can we make this title a complete aliteration?
~~~
JacobAldridge
Moments Matter: Marvelous Mystery Man Makes Movements, Moves Markets,
Multiplies Millions. Maybe.
------
thirdtruck
Reminds me of a Ghost in the Shell plot, where one man wrote software that
dominates the Japanese market. I'd make a joke, but that would fall into
spoiler territory.
------
Tycho
BBC recently ran a two part documentary about traders and day-traders. It was
called Millions By The Minute. It was quite entertaining (not very informative
though).
------
greeneggs
I don't know if day trading and currency trading are more common in Japan than
other countries, but low interest rates certainly encourage gambling. Here are
two more articles on Japanese amateur currency traders and day traders:
[1]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/business/worldbusiness/16h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/business/worldbusiness/16housewives.html)
[2]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/business/yourmoney/19day.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/business/yourmoney/19day.html)
------
JacobAldridge
Single page -
[http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/818014?type=blo...](http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/818014?type=bloomberg)
------
leoh
For the curious, here is the Japanese Wikipedia page about cis which the
article mentions:
[http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cis_(%E6%8A%95%E8%B3%87%E5%AE%B...](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cis_\(%E6%8A%95%E8%B3%87%E5%AE%B6\))
------
VexXtreme
Most Japanese day traders are ex-pachinko players, i.e. degenerate gamblers.
Nothing to see here.
~~~
_random_
But day trading _is_ gambling. Also degenerates don't make money.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: features you'd love in a hiring app? - petervandijck
I'm thinking about creating a hiring app. Do you hire people? If so, I would love to hear about your process, and about the parts that you would like to see automated. Hiring is painful, I'd like to make it just a little easier. I'm especially focusing on people hiring for web product teams, ie. hire designers, devs, ...
======
petervandijck
Additionally, I'd love to hear from people who I can contact personally to
discuss their hiring needs :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Small Functions Considered Harmful - signa11
https://medium.com/@copyconstruct/small-functions-considered-harmful-91035d316c29
======
tinus_hn
[https://meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html](https://meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html)
‘Considered harmful’ essays considered harmful.
------
Noumenon72
Needs an example. The closest it gets is when you add "function x, function y"
between "function a, function b" and I didn't see why that was bad.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How I got screwed up by Google Checkout - IvoGeorgiev
First of all - technically, it was my mistake.<p>I registered an Android Developer account, configured Google Wallet with my VISA, paid the license, and developed an app I hoped to make money from. This took 2 months.<p>The product is almost ready, when I decide to get a closer look at the "Upload application" section and I realize that Google Checkout is not supported in my country (Bulgaria).<p>Yes - I did not research that before I started the project.
But I wonder - was it stupid to make the assumption that one can sell his/her app in one of the world's leading software markets from an EU country?<p>Or is there something I'm overlooking?
======
nextparadigms
Ever since they made Google Checkout, Google has been very lazy with it. I
understand that maybe they still couldn't have beaten Paypal by now, seeing
how they are the market leader and all, but I still find it inexcusable how
slow they've been moving with Google Checkout over the years. It's still not
working like Paypal in many countries, and perhaps even more importantly not
too many people use it right now.
This has come back to haunt them for their mistake, now that they have
Android, because they could've really used a larger Checkout userbase with
Android, to help both users and developers to buy and sell apps, and also for
other of their services.
------
itsprofitbaron
This issue has been consistently reported by developers from unsupported
countries to Google regarding this - yet nothing seems to be done about it.
For instance, [http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/how-to-sell-android-apps-
fr...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/how-to-sell-android-apps-from-
unsupported-countries/2211) covered this issue in 2010 amongst many others.
However, if you are looking to still sell your app then you should look into
alternative Android markets such as:
<http://slideme.org/> and <http://mall.soc.io/> ETC there are loads of them :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Reading Is Forgetting - prostoalex
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2015/jun/26/reading-is-forgetting/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR+STEM+frenzy+Boko+Haram+Midsummer+Nights+Dream&utm_content=NYR+STEM+frenzy+Boko+Haram+Midsummer+Nights+Dream+CID_869a7e4df211b9f2091810c10f23c98f&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=Reading%20Is%20Forgetting
======
Kenji
Ever since my first year at uni, my reading has been transformed. The lectures
forced me to read highly mathematical and algorithmic books, some of which
took multiple hours per page if you want to comprehend everything. Now, my
reading has slowed down drastically (10-100 times slower) but when I'm done
with reading something, I understand it well enough to explain all the key
concepts to someone else. Another thing is that I somehow memorize where
things are, that is, when I remember some passage, I know where to look in the
book almost down to the page (this doesn't work for PDFs which is one of the
reasons why I avoid them). But I've lost the ability to read for pleasure, I
used to be able to finish a novel in an evening.
~~~
somerandomone
I'm curious because once you have the ability to understand several-hour-per-
page materials reading novels should be a breeze?
~~~
vanderZwan
I suspect it's similar to my experience with many video-lectures: on one hand,
they are almost always filled with enough new information to keep my
attention. However, the pace at which this information is fed to me can be
just a bit too slow, meaning that my brain has to do too little work to
process it. This combination of keeping attention while not activating my own
thinking has an ability to put me sleep in a very drastic fashion. As in,
trying to pay attention to the lecture and literally falling asleep in the
blink of an eye.
The only way to counter this is to download the lectures and play them back at
an increased pace - 1.2x to 1.5x, depending on the difficulty of the subject.
Perhaps the novels have the same issue for Kenji: too little stimulation to
keep the mind going, even if it keeps your attention.
------
pkkim
I've never read any book more than seven or eight times, but here's another
view from a "centireader" (should that be "hectoreader"?):
[http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/09/centireading-
fo...](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/09/centireading-force-
reading-book-100-times-great-idea)
------
TodPunk
My sister will read a novel in about 4 hours, and I'll take 14 hours for the
same. Afterward, I'll remember just about everything, and she will remember
major plot points but few details. I don't know if the hours and retention
rates are related, but I will say that reading and retention rates are not
universal between people and should be separate as concepts from remembering
and memory in general.
The artistic understanding aspects of the article are far more interesting to
me, though I have little to add there.
~~~
lfowles
I like to blaze through fiction. But I'm reading for the effects and emotions
it stirs up inside of me, not the actual content. (I will note this is an
issue for long running series if I ever have to take time off inbetween
books.)
If I try the same with nonfiction/technical books, the retention is abysmal.
------
j_s
I wonder how this concept ties in with my preference to be vaguely aware of as
much as possible, filling in the blanks (via Google, etc.) only when needed?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
All of New Relic's open source projects - nwiser
https://blog.newrelic.com/product-news/announcing-new-relic-open-source/
======
nwiser
Looks like they launched a new website that documents all of their open source
projects and contributions.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Australia gets 'deluge' of US secret data, prompting a new data facility - ra
http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/security-it/australia-gets-deluge-of-us-secret-data-prompting-a-new-data-facility-20130612-2o4kf.html
======
thisrod
_US signals intelligence is also described as "absolutely critical" to
Australia's diplomatic campaign to win a seat on the United Nations Security
Council.
"Without intelligence support, overwhelmingly provided by US capabilities, we
would not have won the seat," one Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
officer recently said._
Spying on other countries is something Australians want our government to do
when it can't be avoided, not just because they can and Stalin did worse.
Doing it to win an election is wrong. Here's another reason to make these
activities as transparent as possible: it's obvious to everyone in Australia,
except for Kevin Rudd and a few DSD agents, that we have always gained more by
not doing things like this than we could possibly gain from some diplomat
sitting on a committee in New York.
------
Volpe
I don't get it... why does Australia need to store a copy of US secret data?
Isn't this why the Defence Industry invented the internet?
~~~
DanBC
NSA isn't allowed to spy on its own citizens.
Australia is allowed to spy on US citizens.
US and Australia pool their collected intelligence. The US gives a list of
names to Australia and asks if Australia has any information on those names.
This is pretty much how ECHELON worked, with UK, US, Australia, Canada and New
Zealand all cooperating.
~~~
freakyterrorist
Wow, I'd never thought of that way, We'll spy on your people if you spy
ours...
------
coopdog
Great, now we get access to the worlds corporate secrets too. I wonder which
companies will be the beneficiaries..
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Twitter Plans Hundreds More Job Cuts as Soon as This Week - bentlegen
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-25/twitter-said-to-plan-hundreds-more-job-cuts-as-soon-as-this-week
======
artursapek
I've always sort of had this question that continues to feel naive - but I'm
not sure I know the answer: why do so many companies feel like they have to
grow perpetually? Why can't Twitter just be happy being Twitter, knowing its
limits and making a stable profit? Instead it's more users, more VC money,
more staff... constantly burning as quickly as possible. There's a ceiling on
every business; it's all bound to come crashing down eventually if you don't
stop somewhere. Either you do it gracefully or hundreds of folks have to
eventually lose their job unexpectedly (very sad).
Is the answer simply that earlier VCs put pressure on the executives to keep
growing so they can multiply their investment?
Personally I dream of making a living establishing a patio11-type software
business. Something where I can do a high quality job and own all of the
decision-making. The ceiling doesn't have to be very high for one guy to
sustain himself, and software is appealing because you can automate away
nearly all of the "work".
~~~
Analemma_
People have answered this before, and what it boils down to is: because they
took VC money, and then went public. If you bootstrap a business from nothing
and grow it on its own, then sustainable growth and stable profit is fine. But
Twitter got VC and IPO money with a promise that it would have Facebook-like
growth in return. I think the analogy I saw used was that they promised
investors a Porsche and instead delivered a Toyota Corolla- it might be solid
and reliable, and perfectly fit for purpose, but it's not what they promised
when they took that money.
~~~
laluser
Are they liable for those promises though? I am legitimately curious to know
if they are contractually obligated to grow at a certain rate or be at certain
valuation at this point in time.
~~~
hibikir
Companies stop growing all the time: it happens all the time, and no company
grows forever. A stock price is not just the value of a company's business
today: It has future growth and risk priced in. What the stock market has been
saying to Twitter is that the public believes that Twitter's ceiling is far
lower than we thought in 2014.
In practice, this says that all the bets on hypergrowth were wrong, and the
company must adapt: The stock grants that looked competitive before don't look
competitive today, so top engineers leave. Staffing plans designed to keep a
system operable at 10x of Twitter's current volume stop making sense, so
projects change, and people are laid off.
So this has nothing to do with liability to promises (they've already IPO'd),
but with the pain of becoming a less promising company. Twitter is too
important to disappear in the near term; all you have to do is look at how big
they are for journalists and presidential candidates to figure that out. There
is, however, an opportunity for someone to make a competing product that fits
the same needs and is easier to monetize.
~~~
kmonsen
If they are staying stable, do they really need those top engineers? The
probably need a different set of engineers who can find a cheaper way of doing
what they are already doing.
~~~
yeukhon
Staying stable finanically is okay, but staying stable and no optimization
(better algorithms) might hurt. Hiring good engineers is surprisingly
expensive and hard.
------
xenadu02
I still maintain that screwing over client developers had something to do with
it. At the very least it didn't help them "control the twitter experience".
Every time I see one of their new ads about how much Twitter loves developers
I laugh out loud. There is zero chance I'll ever integrate Twitter into
anything I do, period. I'll fight against it anywhere I work and encourage all
my peers to do the same.
Did everyone forget they didn't even invent the word "Tweet"? Nor did they
write their mobile clients. They had no idea what they were doing and stumbled
into success. Then the MBAs turned around and stabbed us in the back.
Twitter can fuck right off.
~~~
teej
They didn't invent the hashtag either.
~~~
k__
Yes, Twitter should become a non-profit. They just were spitballing around,
then the users came and made them what they are today. All their good ideas,
besides starting a micro-blogging platform, came from outside the company.
And how did they thank them? Cutting of 3rd party clients and shadowbanning
users?
~~~
aikah
> Yes, Twitter should become a non-profit.
And what do you tell Twitter's investors ? "Thanks for the money, we are now
going non profit!". A public company just can't do that, that's not how it
work, investors want return on their investments and they didn't invest in a
"non-profit".
~~~
k__
yes, I know they won't do this. But one can dream.
------
nikcub
No offense to the people I know working at Twitter, but these cuts aren't deep
enough to stem the losses.
While Twitter revenue grew $664M, $1,403M to $2,218M over the past three
years, it is going to be a lot flatter than that at the end of this year - and
despite that growth they've consistently been losing about $500M p.a ($645M,
$577M and $521M respectively)
3,800 people work there - and equivalent cuts last year can barely be noticed
on the financials.
The good times are over - they've spent billions over the last few years and
not done anything to save them from flat user growth. They really need a
wholesale shakeup and doing it over time, like Yahoo did, will just make it
worse.
edit: here's a more brutal analysis [0][1]:
> PS. Twitter staff - I am not exaggerating. Look at the young man on your
> left and the young woman on your right. Only one of you three will keep your
> job.
[0] part 1 - [http://brontecapital.blogspot.com.au/2016/10/some-comment-
on...](http://brontecapital.blogspot.com.au/2016/10/some-comment-on-twitter-
buyout-rumours.html)
[1] part 2 - [http://brontecapital.blogspot.com.au/2016/10/measuring-
how-b...](http://brontecapital.blogspot.com.au/2016/10/measuring-how-bad-
twitter-is.html)
~~~
rattray
Woah, they only have 3800 employees and spend 2.7Bn/yr? That's 700k per
employee. What's all that money for?
~~~
nikcub
Stock options. It starts at the top:
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cuplqd1XEAEre6n.jpg:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cuplqd1XEAEre6n.jpg:large)
Being paid $72M p.a to oversee ~$500M p.a in losses. Great job if you can get
it.
~~~
nikcub
more info from their filing[0]:
> During the twelve months ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, we recognized
> $682.1 million and $631.6 million of expense related to stock-based
> compensation, respectively. As of December 31, 2015, we had unrecognized
> stock-based compensation expense of approximately $1.25 billion related to
> outstanding equity awards
[0] see page 47
[https://investor.twitterinc.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=15645...](https://investor.twitterinc.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1564590-16-13646&CIK=1418091)
------
madengr
You'd think they would have figured out targeted ads by now. If I follow
people who post about RF/Microwave, antennas, SDR, and ham radio, one would
think I'd see ads from Keysight and Tektronix, but no, it's garbage like
football and pop music. FAIL!
I also don't like that I don't see all the tweets from a person. They are
pruning the timeline.
Good riddance to twitter.
~~~
nameisu
Is there a third party app which would not show promoted tweets? they are so
annoying and un related
~~~
groby_b
IIRC, that'd get the apps API access cut off.
But if you want to have fun, keep blocking promoted tweets. After a month or
two, things get... "interesting" in terms of what you see. Well, at least
entertaining.
~~~
x5315
Please see my comment here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12789001](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12789001)
Only one third party app receives Promoted Tweets, and no third party apps are
required to display them.
------
_Codemonkeyism
Says the frog to the scorpion: "Why have you stung me? We will both die." and
the scorpion answers "I'm a VC and I will always aim for the 10x exit, this is
my nature"
------
josep2
Twitter is by far the #1 service I use everyday. It's been the most valuable
to me from a networking perspective where I've made friends and professional
connections. I also happen to be a shareholder. It's been disappointing to
watch Twitter try to become a business and completely falling flat.
The acquisition of Vine and Periscope haven't led to much and the user growth
from Live video is still t be seen.
The product is immensely complicated compared to something like Instagram or
Snapchat. It manages to be everything and nothing at the same time. I've been
a fan of Jack Dorsey's work at Square but monetization is a complete different
animal in that industry.
To summarize I just don't know what the future of Twitter as a business will
hold but I guess I'm here for the ride.
~~~
cookiecaper
Twitter needs to find a frictionless way to get paid _by their regular users_
that most users won't notice or think much about. Several potentials exist:
can charge to follow additional users above a certain threshold; can charge to
expand publishing platform (i.e., to be followed by more than a certain
quantity of users); can have "premium channel"-style users that only paid
members can follow (this may also be a way to allow publishers to monetize;
set your feed "paid follower only" and split the revenue with Twitter), and so
forth.
The FREE! model only works out when you can sell your users' attention.
Twitter has proven that it can't do that -- for whatever reason, user
attention on Twitter is not worth what it's worth on Facebook or Google and
they can't make a profit from it. So they need another way to monetize, and
IMO that should be the tried and true "make people pay for what they use".
~~~
bad_user
Paying in order to increase the maximum count of followers sounds really bad,
given that those are the users that also generate content and hence _the
reason_ for why you also have lurkers with under 100 followers that just
consume content.
Your proposal is a terrible idea, because Twitter should be paying those that
genuinely attract an audience, not vice versa, since those people can always
switch. Popular people will be popular anywhere. E.g. Linus Tolvards has a big
and active audience on Google+, even though it is in general a ghost town.
------
niftich
Can we talk about Fabric again? Fabric [1] is a product done by Twitter but
heavily de-emphasizes the Twitter association -- it's a value-added Twitter
SDK that apps can build into themselves and get crash reporting (ex-
Crashlytics) and ad network integration (MoPub) too.
In the scheme of Twitter's self-reflection trying to figure out how to cut
costs and find what it wants to do, do you feel Fabric fits into it? Do you
feel the 'core platform' i.e. the microblogging site fits into it? Should the
less strategic one of these be spun out; or should they be less separated?
[1] [https://get.fabric.io](https://get.fabric.io)
~~~
zedred
And think about how much this costs Twitter! The Fabric SDK allows apps to do
phone number verification (SMS/Voice calls) for _free_. This is usually the
single greatest cost associated with running any app that does phone number
verification (often even above engineering salaries). Multiply the number of
SDK users by the cost of SMS/voice delivery, and that's a ton of money out the
door every month.
There were some rumors that Twitter has tried to spin off Fabric into another
home, but it sounds like potential buyers balked when they saw the costs
associated with it.
The prevailing theory is that Twitter originally saw this as a way to collect
user data in the mobile app paradigm in the same way that the Twitter "follow"
and "tweet" buttons do in the web paradigm. It sounds like it hasn't paid off,
though.
~~~
netik
You forget that Twitter purchased an SMS aggregator a few years back. SMS
sending is near free for Twitter. I still remember integrating all of the VPNs
to the carriers to support this mess.
~~~
zedred
"Near free" is expensive at that scale. Look at Twilio's S1, Twitter's costs
can't be much lower than theirs.
------
user5994461
3800 employees, $2700M spent a year.
That's 700k per employee. IT'S FREAKING INSANE!
There are only 4 tech companies in the world who ever made more than $700k in
revenue per head, in any recent years: SoftBank, Microsoft, Google, Apple
[http://uk.businessinsider.com/top-tech-companies-revenue-
per...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/top-tech-companies-revenue-per-
employee-2015-10)
~~~
criddell
I don't understand how Twitter ended up with almost four thousand employees.
If I had to guess how many people worked there, I would have guessed at least
an order of magnitude less than that.
When Facebook acquired Instagram, didn't they have something like 15
employees?
~~~
VLM
Snekay VLM skill, don't tell anyone... business leaders will pretend internal
organization is confidential, so all the twitter.com website reports is 40% of
personnel are technical and if you've been around the block a few times, thats
a way of saying 60% are in sales. So secret of them like trying to peer into
the NSA. Then HR posts 50 bazillion job openings totally dropping the docs on
every strategy the company has ... if I know which cities are hiring data
center operations employees and what skill set they want, then I can tell you
where the data centers roughly are, and in some cases exactly how they
operate.
So don't tell any business leaders, let them stay in the dark about secrecy,
but I can tell you purely as an outsider using their own websites for "about"
and "careers" they have about 2000 people in sales, about 200 in engineering
support of sales (aka data engineers). About 600 in operations (even 24x7 what
is that small army doing?). Several hundred software developers of various
requirement sets. A couple hundred deep research R+D types. My numbers are
wrong and not in a quantity large enough to matter, at least for investment
decisions.
In a way your estimate is about right, takes a couple hundred front line
people to literally make it roll. Everyone else is trying to sell or support
or develop or otherwise glom on. And are more or less disposable in that they
aren't needed day to day to make the place roll. Yeah yeah I know, no
accounting dept will get noticed after a couple quarterly taxes are missed,
but just on a pure "who needs to show up tomorrow or else the doors close
forever" that number is only in the hundreds.
I've been doing this since the 80s for my own investment purposes and stock
trading based on published newspaper job reqs and more recently based on job
postings is not legally insider trading. If I were to apply and gather data
with or without signing a NDA that would be open and shut example of insider
trading, so I never invest in companies I apply to work at, just to keep
things perfectly clean.
I do extensively research jobs I apply to, and that sometimes freaks people
out when I walk in and have insider level knowledge of their operations just
from reading the last couple years of employment ads. Gotta keep the power
level masked when its unnecessary. "wait wait wait, how could you know we're
secretly opening a new engineering center in XYZ when we haven't even told our
current employees they're all getting downsized?" "Well you put an ad in the
paper to hire them in XYZ so what do you think I should assume, not my problem
if your employees don't read the papers."
I was originally inspired by blackhat social engineering stuff from decades
ago.. if they're trying to hide the make and model of the minicomputer you're
dialing into, don't spend days trying everything when you can just read off
the info from the employment ad for the "rsts 10.0 sysadmin" in the newspaper
a year ago or whatever.
------
system16
Apart from killing their third-party ecosystem, I think Twitter's biggest
failure has been their inability to monetize their huge celebrity and brand
base, and I wonder if this partly has to do with their "verified account"
system. How to charge celebrities/brands without pissing everyone off?
Top-tier celebrities and brands can and would easily fork out high fees to use
Twitter. But Twitter can't just charge some blanket fee to verified accounts
because right now, "verified accounts" are not exclusive enough. They also
include "key influencers", bloggers, industry people, other hangers-on (let's
call them Group B) and they can't/won't support the high fees and would
revolt.
Twitter could try and create a new way to categorize celebs/brands, but that
would confuse things and may make Group B users feel less elite: so they'd
revolt as well.
------
rch
My sense is that while Twitter has been able to hire some very talented
engineers (incl. but not limited to those I know personally), the high-level
technical leadership hasn't been particularly successful.
Is there room for an independent 'moonshot' team reporting directly to the
board?
------
jswny
I've thought long and hard about why I believe Twitter as a service isn't very
valuable to me and I thing I've come up with the answer. Twitter is great at
delivering live information. If I'm following my favorite artist on twitter
then I know immediately when his album drops. However, that one important
tweet that matters to me is mixed in with a 100 other tweets of people I
follow retweeting or posting irrelevant things. For that reason the situation
in which Twitter truly shines for me (instant, up to date information) is
overshadowed by the fact that many people also use Twitter to post funny
things which I don't care about.
~~~
davidbarker
Have you experimented with turning mobile notifications on for certain
accounts? By doing that, I've got a steady stream of tweets from interesting
people when I open the app and browse my timeline, but I don't miss tweets
from accounts I want to see immediately because their tweets are pushed to my
iPhone.
The drawback is that you have to get all of that account's tweets pushed to
you even if you only care about a few of them.
------
Raed667
Twitter should be bought by a non-profit and get re-opened to 3rd party tools
like it used to be.
I hate the current Twitter, but can't neglect the benefits it has for the
entire world (and not only twitter users)
------
throw2016
There is value in twitter. Even the people who joke about twitter probably
realise there is value in it.
There is still nothing that enables one to broadcast information and enable
real time conversations better than twitter for companies, governments orgs or
celebrities.
That twitter cannot extract value from these cash rich and price insensitive
entities is a gigantic mystery.
~~~
niftich
It's risky -- it's hard to compete with 'free', because it takes no money and
very little effort.
If Twitter charges even just a little for influencers to post, lots of them
will just shift more of their announcements to Facebook status updates -- a
somewhat similar feature of the other social app everyone already has
installed.
Despite no one platform offering exact feature+UX parity with Twitter, there
are several other free platforms that are good enough for people. If Twitter
makes changes that make posting on it harder, its still-organically-growing
competitors could see an influx of people who will choose to abandon Twitter.
~~~
Ar-Curunir
I'm used to seeing junk on Fb and constantly ignore it; I don't think Twitter
suffers from that.
~~~
fwn
In both cases, Twitter and Facebook, the content you see is entirely based on
who you follow.
------
bluthru
Twitter should have a tweet quota and charge people who tweet too much. People
who chase hashtags and reply with reaction gifs have turned it into low-brow
garbage.
~~~
kbart
I'm pretty sure tweet count is used as a growth metric somewhere, so it's not
gonna happen.
~~~
felipeerias
Same story with bots and "active users".
------
butner
Why the 4a PDT earning call? Ahead of opening of (TYO) Tokyo stock exchange
Friday am which trades Softbank?
~~~
JamesMcMinn
Their explanation, I believe, was that their planned time would have
overlapped with several other calls, so analysis requested that they moved it.
[https://investor.twitterinc.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=...](https://investor.twitterinc.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=995072)
------
booleanbetrayal
I have a market need of being able to broadcast messages megaphone-style to
the internet, but they have to be artificially constrained to ..
------
ricksplat
I'm just back from a holiday in south east Asia. All the time I was there I
was getting ads on twitter targetted to the local market (in the local
language) presumably based on my roaming IP.
Maybe my grasp is a bit simplistic but isn't this just intensely stupid? My
twitter profile is explicitly Western European is twitter's location based
advertising really just as dumb as matching IP addresses to regions?
If I were an advertiser I wouldn't be too happy about twitter claiming
'impressions' like this.
~~~
glandium
This is not limited to Twitter. I live in Japan, most ads I see all around the
web are in Japanese for Japanese stuff. I went to Germany a couple years ago,
and everything was German when I was there. This is even more ridiculous for
the unskippable 30s video ads on Youtube.
~~~
detaro
Meanwhile I'm German, live in Germany and for a while got english ads of the
style "Welcome in Germany! As an expat, let us sell you some private health
insurance!". What a mess.
------
dbg31415
How many people does it really take to run Twitter?
If they need more than 100 people I'd be really shocked.
~~~
adrenalinelol
I'd wager a bit more than that to _maintain_ existing services. But they
haven't given up on growth yet, disappointing news doesn't = throw in the
towel. If these rumors are true, best of luck to those affected.
~~~
notfromhere
Even to grow, does twitter really need 3,800 employees? The site hasn't
exactly seen much change in the past few years.
~~~
forgettableuser
Jonathan Blow gave a talk to Berekley college students a few months ago,
complaining about the poor quality in modern software.
He picks on Twitter in one part, showing the graph of the number of employees
by year, challenges their claims to the complexity of implementing Twitter,
and mocks a UI problem he just had.
Twitter starts at 7 minutes:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k56wra39lwA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k56wra39lwA)
~~~
dbg31415
[http://i.imgur.com/U4mHId3.png](http://i.imgur.com/U4mHId3.png)
Thanks. Good video.
~~~
flukus
How do you even grow like that? The current staff during that spike must have
spent most of their time interviewing people.
~~~
cpeterso
That spike is misleading because the chart jumps from "Jan '11" to "Dec '13",
23 months. The other columns are all 12 months apart.
~~~
sjnsjn
still, 100+ joining every month, that surely was not an easy task by any
means.
------
mrmondo
I don't really have any insightful input into this other than to say, I hope
they're cutting the people they most likely don't need.
Twitter is the only social platform I actually like and still use, and the
only thing that could replace it would be similar but decentralised and as
widely adopted.
Why / where are they failing - are they failing? I know more people on and
using Twitter than ever, many of those have left other aging social networks
after finding them irrelevant or too invasive of privacy.
Twitter is simple, Twitter is what it is and it doesn't try to be more than
that, it does what it does well and it always has done. This - I enjoy in a
product.
~~~
ghuntley
Agree. I would happily pay $50 to $100 a year just to keep the twitter
experience as-is.
------
pmiller2
I know this is premature, but I can't help but wonder what the effect of
Twitter going under would have on the Bay Area tech scene.
~~~
mmanfrin
Twitter employs around 3900 people total, 2300 in San Francisco (numbers are
from some random google sources, so may be off by a bit/time).
In the first quarter, Yahoo laid off 3,135 people in the Bay Area.
Twitter going under would be newsworthy, but I don't think make too much of a
splash in the job market -- at least not any more than the normal tides.
~~~
pmiller2
Maybe the loss of Twitter as a platform for social media self-promotion would
be more significant than the direct effects of 2300 people suddenly on the job
market?
~~~
niftich
Conversely, other platforms have already come along that target some of
Twitter's use-cases and offered better UX and user engagement. I'm sure they,
or a new player, could fill the void (successfully).
This is also less of a problem today (as opposed to years ago) when everyone
with a meaningful social presence cross-posts or maintains a split presence on
multiple platforms.
~~~
Ar-Curunir
Is this true? At least within the niche of security and crypto academia, I
find Twitter to be a _very_ useful tool.
------
bad_user
Came here to say that I love Twitter and am online on it far more than on any
other service.
I even clicked on its served commercials, because Twitter has my professional
network and managed to score some ads that triggered my interest, versus on
Facebook where I have a list of friends and acquaintances with which I've got
little in common with.
Their problem is their ad inventory and their targeting. They should serve
more ads and improve their targeting.
------
krzrak
Not cool for Twitter employees to learn about such thing from the press, not
officially from their management.
------
Overtonwindow
Something I've never been able to wrap my head around is how does Twitter make
money? I mean real money. Not valuation of eyeballs, not VC cash, but honest
to God profit? It has always baffled me and I wish I knew what the unicorns
say to the VC's when (hopefully) someone asks this question.
~~~
niftich
Selling display ads (ie. the same way Facebook and Google have done and
succeeded)
~~~
shard972
Didn't twitter say years ago they had a business model plan that _didn 't_
revolve around advertising?
------
jqueryin
One of Twitter's problem is not properly controlling their feed. I never use
their mobile or web client. I solely use a highly customized Tweetdeck. With
this experience, I never once see an advertisement. That's a huge loss for
Twitter.
Perhaps it's just me, but I wouldn't have a problem seeing advertisements in
my Tweetdeck feed if it meant they'd remain successful. I'd much rather see
Twitter succeed as it's the only platform I use to keep up with thousands of
professionals and news sources. It's entirely a different experience than
Facebook.
I think the Twitter community should suck it up and accept the fact that they
get served a couple of advertisements in order to support a news service and
contend delivery network unlike any other in existence.
~~~
system16
What's bizarre is I thought the whole purpose of cutting off/restricting
third-party clients was so that they could control what was in the feed i.e.,
serve advertisements.
If they still allow some/limited third-party clients and don't force ads into
those feeds, what was the point of burning their bridges with the developer
community?
~~~
snowwrestler
What Twitter did was install rate limits on free access to the API. This means
that to provide a full-service 3rd party client, the app developer has to pay
Twitter to get above the rate limits.
So: if your 3rd party app is not showing ads (as most don't), Twitter is still
getting some revenue from the app developer.
Personally, to me this seems like a reasonable trade off.
But a lot of 3rd party app developers could not afford to pay those fees, and
so lost their businesses. You can see how that would piss them off. But from
Twitter's perspective, they were just freeloaders.
------
sixtypoundhound
Was pondering this for another business and it seems relevant here. How many
people would be required to run "the core" of twitter (basic microblogs)?
Seems like that could be very lean...simple UI. A feed. A huge database. For
web and apps for the two major mobile O/S.
Now go one step out. Running ads on that feed. Core sales team (those with
paying accts) and administrative team. Need a revenue source. Add them back.
Now....what does everyone else do and is it generating cash?
My suspicion is:
\- First two groups are lean & covered by revenue \- Most of the rest of the
team is "strategic" yet not revenue generating \- The rest is support and will
scale up/down with headcount
Standalone twitter + ads feels like a business you can make ramen profitable.
------
s0me0ne
Wonder if Twitter will end up like Delicious. Even with Pocket, Diigo and
such, I'm not sure what people use to save bookmaks these days. Delicious went
through several hands, Diigo was almost there but their bookmarklet doesnt let
you know if you already have something tagged. Delicious abandoned their FF
plugin and so its basically not worth using the site anymore.
I'll be honest, I wont miss Twitter if it dies out, as I'm not a user. The
thing I hate is how Twitter killed RSS for many browsers and users. So if
Twitter dies, so be it for causing that to happen.
------
prirun
I can always tell when Twitter is in trouble, because I get a security notice
from them that there has been suspicious activity on my account, it has been
locked, and I need to login with an assigned password. (I never use my Twitter
account). Happened after the last quarterly earnings report and also
yesterday.
In other words, "We need more active users, so please log in soon so we can
count you as an active user."
------
chinese_dan
Twitter lost the trust of many users and are now suffering the consequences.
It was once supposed to be the place for the freedom of speech and truth and
is now just another arm of the left-leaning politicians in the US.
So many conservative/libertarian political figures and personalities have been
permanently banned from Twitter in the last year for only posting an opinion
that it can no longer be chalked up to circumstance.
Good riddance.
~~~
efdee
I would be interested in seeing a list of political figures and personalities
that got banned and the reason for their ban.
------
kriro
I feel like a takeover is only a matter of time. If you're Alphabet or
Facebook you're probably interested (I'd say Alphabet should be more
interested, for Facebook it's probably mostly a blocker play). The question is
how long do you let them "rot" to drive down the acquisition price?
------
mrcsparker
I wonder why Twitter doesn't do consulting. They have developed a lot of the
big data frameworks that we use today and understand how to scale.
They have the talent and are in a unique position of being Twitter.
~~~
Rapzid
Just out of curiosity, which ones have they developed?
~~~
niftich
Some software that Twitter has put out:
[1] Heron, a realtime, distributed, fault-tolerant stream processing engine -
[https://github.com/twitter/heron](https://github.com/twitter/heron)
[2] Finagle, a fault tolerant, protocol-agnostic RPC system -
[https://github.com/twitter/finagle/](https://github.com/twitter/finagle/)
[3] FlockDB, a distributed, fault-tolerant graph database -
[https://github.com/twitter/flockdb](https://github.com/twitter/flockdb)
[4] Gizzard, a flexible sharding framework for creating eventually-consistent
distributed datastores -
[https://github.com/twitter/gizzard](https://github.com/twitter/gizzard)
[5] Twemcache, a Twitter fork of Memcached -
[https://github.com/twitter/twemcache](https://github.com/twitter/twemcache)
[6] Twemproxy, a fast, light-weight proxy for memcached and redis -
[https://github.com/twitter/twemproxy](https://github.com/twitter/twemproxy)
~~~
moderation
[7] Mesos, abstracts CPU, memory, storage, and other compute resources away
from machines (physical or virtual), enabling fault-tolerant and elastic
distributed systems to easily be built and run effectively. -
[http://mesos.apache.org/](http://mesos.apache.org/)
Mesos was invented at UC Berkeley but developed and battle tested at Twitter.
------
netik
The sad thing is that the market will love this and the stock will go up,
while many engineers wonder where their job went, and mid-managers/execs will
reap a profit.
------
wh0rth
Cuts could mean a different direction which would be good for many peoples'
stock portfolios. Time will tell I'm sure but I'm hopeful.
------
santaclaus
app.net should have waited three years to pivot into a Twitter competitor...
------
cicero
I was at a presentation for high school students last week. At the end, the
presenter gave out contact information for Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.
There was no mention of Twitter.
~~~
yolesaber
Cool anecdote, bro
------
NietTim
Ah, maybe people won't get shadow banned at the same rates anymore now. Just
maybe it's a good thing
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Ruby, not loosely typed enough? - seasoup
I've spent a half day debugging a ruby on rails app having to figure out where to put the .to_f so it doesn't screw things up (in more then one place in the code).<p>Why does Ruby have explicit integer and float classes instead of just one numeric class? I understand the precision has to cut off somewhere, but having to handle this int vs float is just silly.
======
spooneybarger
because integer and float math are very different.
because for some, 1/3 should not be a float but a ratio. if precision matters,
you need ratios not floats. however if you just want speed, you want floats.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Please help us evolve social sharing. - lenkendall
https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/42-get-things-centup/invited/4349
======
lenkendall
OR if you want to simply sign up for more info in the future. Check out
CentUp.org
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Auto Insurance Comparison Startup Leaky Launches Nationally, Raises $670K - jasontraff
http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/05/leaky-national-launch-seed-funding/
======
JimA
Tried it and the lowest priced company it showed had a rate that was ~$250
cheaper than the actual quote I could get on the insurers web site. Plus my
current company (Safeco) wasn't in the comparison list, which means the
cheapest company (for me) isn't shown.
~~~
Nursie
Not being in the US I'm not going to try it, but does this not work like the
UK ones, where that's a real actual price and you click straight through to
buying with the company at that quote?
\--EDIT-- no I see that it does not work like this, now that I've read more
about it, it predicts rates. Here's hoping they can actually integrate with
insurers in future because the services like that here in the UK are pretty
useful.
------
ismarc
This has the exact same issue that nearly all insurance companies seem to have
and is the reason I'm with my current insurance company.
I have a 1978 Datsun/Nissan 280Z. Only one insurance company allowed an
online/unattended quote for insuring that age car. Only one other company was
able to give a quote after talking with them on the phone, all of the others
didn't have the ability to do a quote, even for liability only insurance. I
went in person to several places and the result was the same. The company that
allowed me to get a quote online now has all my other insurance related
business (renters/property/full coverage on my new car/etc.). It just so
happens that they've been an amazing company to work with, particularly when
we've had car related issues (getting rear-ended while stopped at a stoplight,
hitting an animal in the middle of the night when there was no room to
swerve/stop and rendering the vehicle undrivable, etc.).
Trying to go through the process to see what things are like, the list of
makes of cars is an abomination. It tries to filter based on years the make
was available, but isn't inclusive (Nissan starts at ~85, but Datsun doesn't
exist for older dates, etc.) and ends up being an incomplete list for a large
number of years (I sampled the most recent ~5 years and the oldest ~5 years
and several major manufacturers are missing) as well as model of cars being
incomplete for at least a few makes from those years as well.
~~~
objclxt
There are _lots_ of UI problems involved with car insurance - some are (in my
opinion) actually fairly interesting. In established comparison markets
outside the US the big players invest a lot of money in getting the user
experience right so that users complete the process (there is a large drop-
off).
By far the easiest way to solve this is to do a registration plate lookup:
however, I don't know if this is even possible in the US, and it would be on a
state-by-state level so a bit of a nightmare. In countries like the UK, where
there is a single source of plates that companies can buy access to, it's a
lot easier.
Leaky could probably learn a far bit from how insurance quotation engines in
the EU and other less complex markets handle this. Here in the UK there are
many well established players doing what Leaky do, probably with more success
(which is totally down to the fact the UK insurance market is much more
centralised).
~~~
ismarc
Registration plate lookup would be a chicken/egg problem here in the States.
You need proof of insurance in order to get your registration, so on a vehicle
that has no plates, there's no number to give, so wouldn't be able to get
insurance. VIN is really the way to handle it, and once you get through the
"quote" stage to actually buying it, all the insurance companies can take any
VIN (and your info, of course) and spit out how much it actually costs. On a
state by state level, I don't imagine it would be difficult to build a system
to accurately compare rates. The fact that each state has its own system of
minimum requirements, as well as what can be covered, and insurance companies
are isolated to a single state (the larger insurance providers are actually
corporations with wholly owned subsidiaries in each state) increase this
complexity when dealt with on a national level. It's extremely similar to the
issues with comparing health insurance plans.
------
kamjam
Welcome to doing something that has been done in Europe for many years now,
and not just on auto-isnurance:
<http://www.confused.com/>
<http://www.comparethemarket.com/>
<http://www.moneysupermarket.com/car-insurance/>
to name a few...
I understand that this was a legal issue due to the insurers (but even so,
they only launched a year ago...) but what is it with American companies that
they just don't seem to _get_ the internet?
Comparing price of auto-insurance is really no different than comparing the
price of flights, travel insurance, cars, houses, whatever. It's a
product/service and it is not going to be one size fits all. Some insurance
companies will be a better fit in terms of price and options available, so
insurance companies that are competitive will actually get _more_ customers by
being on the comparison sites.
~~~
kpommerenke
There are legal reasons why the U.S. doesn't have true comparison sites,
unlike the UK. Screen-scraping is illegal here, but not in the UK, so you need
the cooperation of the carrier to show their quotes.
Most U.S. carriers don't cooperate with independent comparison sites, since
they don't want to see their product commoditized.
~~~
Jach
It's not illegal, but it's not very strongly settled one way or another.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping#Legal_issues>
------
graffitishark
This is a great, much-needed product. I picked Progressive years ago because
it seemed like the easiest onboarding process (and I'm lazy) -- I just didn't
want to deal with the hassles of comparison shopping and negotiation. That
said, I had no idea how bad I was getting ripped off until just now. Anyway,
congrats on the launch. You can consider me a new, happy Leaky customer.
------
Aloisius
I plugged in my current policy (as close as I could get it) into Leaky and it
got reasonably close. I have a custom policy ($200 deductible for
comprehensive and $500 for collision) and higher than normal coverage for BI
and Uninsured ($100k/$300k).
Leaky told me that Geico's 6 month for a policy very similar to mine would be
$681. It is actually $516, but it correctly stated that Geico was the cheapest
(which it was as of a month ago when I compared them manually).
------
cloudwalking
Instead of an insurance comparison service, these guys should start an actual
auto insurance company.
Nobody likes insurance companies, so there's certainly a market for an
insurance company that people love.
Be ambitious. Build something big. Comparison sites are not a big or ambitious
idea. Comparison sites are a feature of bigger platforms. If you're building a
platform, call it that. Otherwise, build something bigger.
~~~
schrodinger
Agreed. I thought that's what it was at first, and I got really excited :)
~~~
cloudwalking
Me too! :(
------
csmatt
One tip for them would be to allow a user to upload driving record and
insurance coverage information from the company a user is currently with.
~~~
yellow
My first thought is that companies would not want to forward data to a company
that enables a current customer to possibly leave for better rates.
------
josephjrobison
It might be boring, but affiliates make a killing with auto insurance. Just
like Mint did with banks and credit cards. Killing.
------
anywherenotes
Is there a place where I can compare car-insurance + house insurance + any
other insurance among companies?
Most companies give discounts on bundling few types of insurances, and so it
would be great if entire price could be compared. I am under impression that
not all insurance companies provide full coverage for what people need, so
just because car insurance is lower, total price may increase if you split the
needs across few companies.
~~~
jasontraff
I don't think it's currently possible to do entirely online at the moment.
Your best chance would be with an independent agent at the moment (though
we're trying to change that).
------
csmatt
I like that they'll monitor the profile and alert if a price drops. Even if
they don't have the lowest on there, it's a good trigger for me to shop around
again.
------
bdavisx
There's no way this is accurate for all locations. Some algorithms for
insurance calculations are proprietary trade secrets and only the general
information about them is filed with the states (not true for all states, but
for many it is).
In other words, just going from the State filings is not going to take into
account a lot of details that insurance companies are using to calculate your
premium.
~~~
debacle
It depends on the state. If your state has crappy regulations, then you're
probably right.
If you're in NY, CA, or MA, you're probably in good shape as those states have
strong regulations.
------
webjprgm
Can we get congress, or at least state congresses one by one, to pass a law
that says, rather than filing their rates, they must provide a web API for
accessing them. That would make the records much more accessible to everyone
and solve this comparison accuracy problem. It is definitely in the interests
of the consumers.
------
kirpekar
Tried it, but the prices were no better than what I currently pay. Also the UI
is horrible.
------
mkhalil
What language is the backend in?
------
joering2
Its interesting to see YC going after such a risky ideas. Perhaps its just a
sign of huge cohones, which is good, or maybe just a pure desperation? I mean,
they hit jackpot with AirBNB and decided to invested, despite the fact the co-
founder was or still is on FBI scamers list [1] and he ran his scheme off of
government servers that you and I had to paid for in tax-dollars.
But aside this, I get the deception here that they don't get pricing directly
from Geico, but rather they calculate the price per Geico per State (if that
is really true, because what stops them from harvesting the data off of a
carrier website anyways and switch algorithm just in case they get subpoena or
something - can you see a similar pattern of questionable legality of business
practices with AirBNB?).
But the issue remains: what stops Geico from requesting their name to be
removed from said website? After all, Geico is a protected trademark, and if
Geico can prove that this website was providing incorrect information in
regards to their rates, then they can claim that said misleading information
is harming their business. To me, its a straightforward quick court case.
[1] [http://gawker.com/5853754/the-seedy-spammy-past-of-
airbnbs-c...](http://gawker.com/5853754/the-seedy-spammy-past-of-airbnbs-
co+founder)
Side note: its really sad to think YC would go after such a business idea.
Whats next? YC-founded youporn version 2.0??
EDIT: I never treated hackernews as a popularity contest. I always stay behind
my word even if it may hurt someones feelings. I knew I will get heavily
downvoted (which is fine) since YC is investing into this idea, but perhaps
when you do so, maybe you can point out where I am being wrong, instead of
just clicking down-arrow. That's kind of covardishy, if you ask me. :)
~~~
sp332
Trademarks are primarily to protect consumers, not companies. As long as you
are referring to Geico, and not trying to name some _other_ company "Geico",
you cannot fall afoul of their trademark. The trademark is to make sure that
you are referring to the right company, and that's all.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Advice needed re: adsense vs. adbrite - endlessvoid94
I built a site with a few friends over the weekend and it's getting some significant traffic. I'd like to maximize as much as possible, and I'd heard that Adbrite was a better choice than adsense, so I went with that.<p>2 days later, I've made 2.75 from 20 clicks in adbrite. a friend with a blog using adsense has 3 clicks and has the same profit we do.<p>am i doing something wrong? or does adbrite really suck? i heard that you need to somehow optimize and select ads in adbrite, but I wanted confirmation from someone on HN with solid experience.<p>btw the website is http://www.thathigh.com<p>thanks
======
Travis
Well, you're going to see drastically different numbers depending on content.
The CPC ranges from pennies to around $50 for specific ads. So you can't make
any sort of comparison between your site and your friend's.
I recommend that you just run a/b tests. Is there a reason why you don't want
to switch to adsense for a week? Then just compare your numbers and go with
whatever is better.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Interview about building website without a portfolio - crindy
I just got off the phone with someone who needs a website built for their company. On thursday, I am meeting with them in person. The guy on the phone said it was to discuss what needs to be done, talk about how much I charge, and to show him some stuff I've built.<p>It's that last part that has me worried.I've built a handful of toy websites, a couple of wordpress sites for family/friends, but from his description over the phone, he wants a lot more than that. I don't actually have any evidence that I can get the job done, although I'm quite confident in my abilities.<p>How would you approach this situation?
======
404error
It's been tough for me as well. I work for a newspaper and most of my time is
spent here duck taping things together. I don't have much free time to work on
side project and what little free time I do have I like to spend away from a
computer.
I recently had an interview and was asked to show some of my previous work.
Like you all I had were small project sites and any real work for me is
sitting behind a firewall on server that is only accessed at work.
I had a phone interview then a face to face. Everything went well, but with
out any real work to show I feel I was at a disadvantage. Good luck. Let me
know what how it goes. Maybe your interview strategy can shed some light.
------
rajacombinator
Be upfront. If your "toy" portfolio is impressive enough maybe he'll pay you
to learn, which is what you're offering.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley - backpropaganda
https://medium.com/@jasoncrawford/what-people-think-you-cant-say-in-silicon-valley-a6d04f632a00
======
stared
My impression is that it is not only about topics, but also _perceived_
intentions (and if you step, however unintentionally, on a trigger (of a
landmine)).
I wrote Dating for Nerds: Gender differences
([http://p.migdal.pl/2017/09/30/dating-for-nerds-gender-
differ...](http://p.migdal.pl/2017/09/30/dating-for-nerds-gender-
differences.html)) and got no backlash (much to my surprise, though).
From my experience nerds (and aspies in particular) talk mostly to exchange
information (learn, share). Same questions are being understood by
neurotypicals as expressing intentions, in a covert way.
Nerd: I read that X, on the average, are less interested in tech.
A non-nerd reads it as: I want to kick out all X from tech. / I consider X
inferior.
A non-nerd disagrees with the perceived intention and fights back, while a
nerd perceives it as immunity to facts and unwillingness for a discussion.
That said:
\- not all nerds are well-intentioned and open-minded
\- workplace is not a place for all possible talks (or other social
activities); if it makes people feel bad, excluded or less productive - it may
be an argument to keep such discussions outside of the workplace; in
particular, workplace is not an evolutionary biology discussion club
And BTW, from "Interpersonal Traits of Aspies Placed in Context":
[https://gist.github.com/stared/00ce50e95f9bcecc8965feb04650c...](https://gist.github.com/stared/00ce50e95f9bcecc8965feb04650c19d)
see "Not Recognizing 'Yellow Light' Conditions" and even more: "Doesn't
Apologize Readily".
~~~
insickness
"A non-nerd reads it as: I want to kick out all X from tech. / I consider X
inferior."
I was out on an internet date with Scandinavian woman a few years ago. She was
some type of sociological researcher, which interested me. I told her that
part of the discrepancy in representation between genders in tech could be
biologically oriented and she immediately said, "I don't want to hear
arguments from biology!" She said it with the same tone and conviction you'd
label someone a racist.
It's as if once we allow these facts into the argument, it means we can say
the fight for gender equality is finished, that whenever equality exists, we
can all throw our hands up in the air and say, "It's biology!" I can see the
danger but at the same time, the alternative--denying reality--is far more
insidious.
~~~
tarsinge
I can of understand her reaction (I would have had the same) and for me it’s
in fact not very dangerous:
\- to my knowledge it’s impossible to separate biology and culture with the
data we have
\- some discriminations were and are made by wrongfully attributing it to
biological traits
\- since it’s hard or impossible to separate things a lot of people (myself
included) adopt « it’s not biology it’s culture » by default because we think
if we are wrong it causes less harm and is less dangerous than falsely
attributing something to biology, and if it’s right then it helps the society
progress.
I understand closing the debate is frustrating for the scientifically minded
and rationale people, but my opinion is that it’s not a bad heuristic for
society as a whole at least until we make progress. But obviously the debate
can happen in the right context, but I find it dangerous to introduce it in
the actual climate of crtitical thinking we are in
~~~
korax
This leaves me wondering:
What do you consider to be the right context for public debates about these
thorny issues?
What besides communicating with each other about those issues will move us
forward?
I don't think they will go away by themselves and I agree that some cannot be
resolved, but then we should politely agree to disagree, after having
explained our reasoning for each other's viewpoints, no?
Disclaimer: I work in this space and we get this reaction quite often, so I am
happy to read your thoughts on this.
~~~
tarsinge
It depends of the issues we are talking of.
What I'm saying is that introducing biology at this point in the debate, by
looking if the inequality is "natural" because phenotype A or chromosome B
gives you some edge or not in science or other discipline, is kind of
irrelevant given the weight of culture in our societies.
I find it even dangerous because I don't think a lot of people are ready to
understand the subtleties of a shift in a normal distribution (if one is
present), and it'll just give them a wrong/misused "scientific" evidence for
reinforcing their prejudices. Because I can't teach critical thinking in
minutes I now resort to "it's always cultural" and try to move the debate
forward to the (IMHO) main causes.
(not a native english speaker so sorry if I missed your point)
~~~
insickness
You're saying you want to keep science out of the 'debate.' That's not a
debate. That's religion. You refuse to allow scientific evidence into the
discussion because you don't trust people with that knowledge. We can't
discuss science is what you're saying. We're supposed to keep our heads in the
sand and pretend that genetics don't exist to support your agenda. No thank
you.
~~~
tarsinge
I’m not saying I want to keep science out of the debate, I’m saying with our
current state of knowledge there is no evidence to help conclude anything and
tell things apart between biology and culture in complex high level chain of
decisions like choosing a career path.
We can’t say “biology=true science!” and try to shoehorn it in the debate no
matter what, this, is unscientific.
Yes, given that we don’t know, assuming it’s always culture to help society
progress (and implicitly saying society needs a change) is a political and
philosophical opinion, and on this we can disagree, but don’t invoke religion
vs science to create a false dichotomy and paint me on the irrational side.
------
sddfd
I read through the list.
My only comment is that if you cannot discuss an idea then the idea cannot
evolve, and you probably won't change your mind.
Maybe the problem is not oppression of ideas, but the lack of a discussion
culture which can tolerate a wider spectrum of ideas for the sake of debunking
some of them.
~~~
Aloha
I think this is key.
In the south (and other places) you're more apt to spot people who have deep
bias against people for intrinsic things - in the North (including CA, and
Northwest) those ideas are so completely unacceptable, that those people never
get called out on them.
~~~
aaron-lebo
How did you write that without realizing how oxymoronic it is? Were you trying
to be an example of: "people who have deep bias against people for intrinsic
things"?
Besides your suggestion that prejudice doesn't exist in the north (lol),
you're writing from the Pacific Northwest, one of the least diverse places in
the country. Oregon is 83% white; Texas hasn't been that white since 1970,
currently 45% non-Hispanic white. Washington state is 72% non-Hispanic. We
deal with a diverse culture every day, most of us aren't racist and ignorant.
Why did you say that?
~~~
wwweston
The assertion seems to be that racism -- perhaps even a specific manifestation
of racism -- is more prevalent in the south than in other areas of the
country. Not that _everyone in the south is racist_ , or that everyone in the
north isn't.
Perhaps you would like it if even this more carefully worded thing was
something people didn't say. If so, it'd probably be interesting to unpack
why.
Also, I'm not sure that geographic location counts as an intrinsic trait. And
no matter how diverse your circle of association is, beware of assuming
they're representative of what you'd see in a geographic cross section. Based
on my survey of my Republican acquaintances in my home state, I would have
assumed that Trump wouldn't have won the primary there.
~~~
aaron-lebo
I'm not averse to the discussion, but it was not carefully worded, by any
means.
------
cowpig
It's funny, I don't see it on the list but by far the biggest taboo in SV in
my experience is talking about things going badly. You're doing great, killing
it even, or you should keep it to yourself.
~~~
malmsteen
I don't know if it's really specific to startup. In life in general no one
cares about you and people tend to avoid you if it's going badly (except very
close friends).
~~~
cowpig
Well, I grew up in NYC where sarcasm and cynicism reign supreme. SV culture is
really jarring.
------
to_bpr
SV has championed a super toxic, toe-the-liberal-line-question-nothing
atmosphere in the workplace for years now. The damage is done.
You'd have to be a total fool to bring up any of the non-left-wing, yet
totally valid comments on that post in a tech workplace in 2017.
~~~
gaius
Here's how it works in London: a right-wing racist will call you a racist
epithet to your face. A left-wing racist will talk a lot about diversity but
work behind the scenes to ethnically cleanse your neighbourhood (aka
"gentrification").
------
aestetix
What I read about the current climate in the US reminds me a lot of how things
were in the months after 9/11\. While I don't have unbiased data like in the
link, I can share a personal anecdote:
In the months after 9/11, if you spoke up and said you didn't agree with US
foreign policy (invading Afghanistan) or that you didn't approve of Bush and
wanted him to resign, you got blacklisted.
I had a friend, every house in his neighborhood had an American flag except
for his, because his dad was an introverted engineer and uninterested in
politics. The absence of the flag was obvious, and after a few nights of
things like eggs on the door, flaming dog shit, and finally a dead animal left
on the door mat, he put up an American flag and all the drama went away.
~~~
briandear
Try putting up a Ted Cruz sign in Mountain View.
~~~
paloaltokid
That’d be kinda silly since Ted Cruz is a Texas senator. But if you mean for
President, probably you’d take some heat.
------
olavk
As someone living far away from SV, this is fascinating reading. But I think
the survey could be more precise about what "can't say" really means. Will you
get literally ostracized for holding the viewpoint in private or on a blog, or
will you get fired for bringing it up in the workplace?
I personally believe some viewpoints really _are_ inappropriate to bring up in
a professional working environment. If I genuinely believe read-headed people
have a brain structure which makes them inferior developers, I don't think I
should bring this issue up during a meeting. Sure, my red-headed coworkers
have the option of challenging my viewpoints and perhaps a fruitful discussion
will follow - where I will convince them with rational arguments and evidence
that my viewpoint is correct. But I think it is fair if said red-headed
colleagues would prefer not to have the discussion at all.
I notice the top taboo subjects are diversity, racism, sexism etc - exactly
subjects where you can indirectly question a colleagues competence.
~~~
rectang
> _Will you get literally ostracized for holding the viewpoint in private or
> on a blog_
Yes, that can happen. If you argue on your blog that red-headed people are
inherently inferior developers and it gets back to your colleagues, there will
be people who treat you differently.
~~~
olavk
Oh certainly, but that does not necessarily mean you "can't say" such things.
I would definitely treat a colleague differently if I discover they write a
blog arguing in favor of Hungarian Notation. Of course people will judge your
character. But if such a blog post would get you fired then it would be fair
to say you "can't say" it.
As an example, Peter Thiel (if I remember correctly) criticized women having
the vote. Certainly a controversial viewpoint, but not controversial enough to
get him ostracized. But his support for Trump _did_ get him ostracized to some
extent. I think this shows the difference between what is just controversial
and what is considered unacceptable in SV.
------
EmilStenstrom
There's a big difference between ideas that weaken minorities, and ideas that
weaken majorities, because you get blowback for different reasons. When you
attack minorities the people that get upset with you, are people that are
worried that weakening an already weak group is a bad thing. When you attack
majorities however, you get blowback from the people that are afraid to lose
their power.
I agree that there are problems with not allowing people to express all kinds
of ideas, but there's a big difference in the two types above: You should be
more careful when attacking the already weak, for their position is already
brittle.
~~~
kazagistar
(I'm going to assume from context you don't mean minority as in population,
but rather power dynamics as you talk about for the rest of the post.) The
problem distinguishing stronger and weaker sides is that there isn't an
objective metric that both sides can agree on. The reason gender issues are so
prevalent on this list and are such a hot topic is exactly because it is a
debate about which side is weaker, about which measures of power are valid and
invalid, and so on.
~~~
EmilStenstrom
That there isn't a metric is a really interesting problem. I think most
debates should start with talking about metrics.
For instance, when talking about skewed power dynamics when it come to gender,
you could look at the number of men vs. women in management positions. Being
able to fire someone is a form of power. Or you could look at raw salaries,
and say that money is a form of power. And so on. Would make many discussions
a lot clearer.
------
geff82
Interesting thing is about gender and technology jobs. In „evil“ Iran, about
50% of students of computer science are women. Being a female software
developer is common. Cousin of my wife is a programmer, another female friend
of the family is a IBM mainframe programmer(now retired), my wife is an
engineer with interest in computer science. So its not all about „brain
structures“, it is about society. When Iran can do it, how will we westeners?
~~~
pas
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-
exagger...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-
differences/) \- in particular see Iran vs Sweden, how more egalitarian
cultures show more gender difference for occupations
~~~
geff82
Thanks, very interesting.
------
vxNsr
So basically people with opinions on both extremes feel marginalized and
unheard. I guess that's maybe a message to consider a more nuanced position.
~~~
spiznnx
I want Silicon Valley to be a place where you can publicly hold extreme views
and not be a huge social liability to anyone you associate with (employer,
friends).
~~~
gjjrfcbugxbhf
The thing is you are free to hold and expose extreme views - and I strongly
support your right to do so and not to be subject to persecution from the
state for doing so. However I also have the right to not associate with you if
I think that you are a dick.
~~~
vxNsr
Ugh, so done with this xkcd.
Ignoring people who we don't agree with is how we got to a place where
supporting your political party was more important than having an ideology you
could morally justify.
I personally lean fairly far to the right but I spend a lot of time listening
to NPR, reading slate, and other pretty lefty publications. When I talk to
people who only consume one side of the media, whether it's right or left, I
feel like I'm talking to a wall of nonsense. People have so little
understanding of those they disagree with and will dismiss them with "they're
a bunch of idiots" so quickly that their position has no basis in reality. I'm
not saying we should give everyone a platform, I'm saying that if someone says
"all the rich should be killed" or "gay men don't know love" each position
despite being on diametrically opposite sides of our current political
landscape need to be understood if we want to move forward.
~~~
gjjrfcbugxbhf
The OP is talking about extreme views like racism (or in their case hating
trans people).
You are talking about listening to Democrat opinions.
Very very different thing.
I am quite happy to be friends with people with different political opinions
or who vote for another party.
I am also happy to know who is spouting racist, sexist or crazy drivel. This
allows me personally to avoid them.
Others may choose to engage with the extremists I choose not to waste my time.
This is a matter for individual free will.
NB once again listening to Democrat/republican media when you are voting for
the other party is just normal and has nothing to do with choosing not to
associate with e.g Klansman.
------
azinman2
The lack of self-awareness in many of these comments is really quite shocking
— Id say it’s probably better that they’re not typically expressed.
------
perfmode
It seems regardless of one’s viewpoint, there is a strong reluctance to
digging deeper to examine the roots of one’s beliefs.
A lot of these people might not believe what they believe if they were to
attempt to justify their beliefs in a rigorous and intellectually honest way.
------
bdamm
"Silicon Valley" is a workplace, and it's generally considered rude to bring
your political views into the workplace. Everyone has met the very passionate
on both the left and the right, and having someone stand outside your cube or
in the lunch line trying to "win" you over to their view just isn't conducive
to getting your work done and making money.
~~~
Cookingboy
>"Silicon Valley" is a workplace, and it's generally considered rude to bring
your political views into the workplace.
In theory, yes, but in practice it's only considered "rude" when you bring
_unpopular_ political views into the workplace. In a partisan locale such as
SV people openly talk about the popular political view at work, all the time.
A Googler can go to TGIF Q&A and openly bash Trump/GOP and he'd get
sympathetic responses from Larry, if not cheers from the audience (and a bunch
of new memegen entries), but I highly doubt the same would be true for someone
expressing opposite views.
~~~
cinquemb
I used to work for a start up in Boston (co-lo'd with a bunch of other
startups) a couple years ago, and people would openly talk about politics of
the left-wing establishment variety and go around patting each other on the
back for it.
The stuff rude awakenings are made of…
------
evangelista
“A lot of the ideas here will not actually get you ostracized from Silicon
Valley society.”
Oh dude you have just not been paying attention.
Can you show me a single example of someone in tech who publicly expresses, at
any point, any of the beliefs which are “not allowed?”
I’m looking for one.
Find me one person on Twitter in tech aside from John McAfee or Peter Theil
who would dare. Sam Altman was good enough to step forward, I hope he won’t be
the last. The complete and total castigation of the dude by every tech media
outlet showed exactly what happens to anyone who isn’t rich enough not to
care.
While Sam Altman can take a beating, a standard employee like James Damore
can’t. Did we forget about him? Apparently we did!
Show me a single tech luminary staying that diversity is overrated and has
numerous downsides (such as the degradation of communal trust which had swept
the valley), that we don’t actually need additional codes of conduct to add
protections that are already covered in the US legal code at every Meetup,
that all gender bathrooms are lunacy or that most of the Millenials coming
into the job market have an incredibly broken and fearful view of the world
that is unwarranted by the available evidence.
Show me a single tech luminary willing to say that women should realize they
have advantages and disadvantages and should take responsibility for guarding
themselves st off-site social events to avoid being approached by men.
One! Show me one!
I can find these opinions on conservative podcasts but I have never seen
anyone express them in tech. Ever!
I see a non-stop avalanche of one set of these opinions on every social media
feed, internal company meeting and industry conference.
I have NEVER seen ANYONE notable in tech aside from Peter Thiel, who has been
made untouchable st this point.
Why is that? It’s because they know it’s not good business and they will get
to join Peter Theil in the excommunicated pile.
A great example is Scott Adams. Scott used to make hundreds of thousands of
dollars per year giving paid speeches.
When he began writing about Trump, he was excommunicated and all of his
speaking gigs were cancelled.
Another great example is the systematic and deliberate demonetization of
conservative YouTube videos. People who are very balanced and fair like Dave
Rubin have had their videos defunded for having conservative speakers as
interview guests.
Twitter has been notorious for slowing down or “never getting around to”
giving Blue Check Marks to conservative speakers - If I remember correctly,
Scott Adams had to reach a simply insane number of followers before being
given the check.
The hatred of conservatives and direct, persecutory and economic attacks on
them is real, ongoing and getting worse.
Seriously - if you believe most of these opinions won’t harm your career if
expressed publicly, you have really not been paying attention.
If you don’t believe me - Try it. Go on Twitter right now and say: “all gender
bathrooms are stupid.”
Watch what happens.
~~~
tstactplsignore
I don't think I could convince you of anything. But can I ask: if the other
side were right, and some of these views are so abhorrent that the outrage
against people who express them is almost entirely justified- would you be
able to tell?
There are definitely some political views that should be socially discouraged
and attacked and there should be social repercussions for the people who
express them. You disagree on whether some particular views fit in this
category. You must admit that from your position, it can be very difficult to
distinguish between unfair persecution and genuine persecution.
For the record, if a company I work for invited someone as purely evil / anti-
intellectual and vapid as Scott Adams to give a speech, I would absolutely
resign in protest.
~~~
Cookingboy
> some of these views are so abhorrent that the outrage against people who
> express them is almost entirely justified- would you be able to tell?
Yes, we can tell most of the time, and yes even if it gets difficult sometimes
and we fail to distinguish unfair and genuine persecution, we will try our
best to discuss it, study it, and get better at it. That's how we should
approach the problem. That, is the intellectual way.
Your method of automatically shutting down discussion of controversial ideas
just because a small percentage of them are truly evil, is in fact more anti-
intellectual than anything Scott Adams has ever said/written.
~~~
tstactplsignore
I certainly never said that was "my method".
I disagree that we can tell most of the time. I think we _can 't_ tell most of
the time. Most Americans couldn't tell in the 60s- about 33% of the country
had a favorable view of MLK. Most Germans couldn't tell in the 30s. And so on
and so on. If we were any good at tellint, then evil wouldn't be so scary!
My point is that here you are again, in a similar situation to those, saying
the exact same sorts of things the people who were wrong in those
circumstances said. It's possible we're _not_ in that kind of situation, but I
hope that you realize that (a) some of the things that you're upset about
(educated people pushing some ideas out of their institutions; radicals and
communists protesting in the streets; highly charged and accusatory language)
were the exact same sorts of things the people who ended up being wrong in
those circumstances were upset about, and (b) historically, people sympathetic
towards these bad ideas or unsympathetic to their opponents could not tell the
difference in their own times.
~~~
Cookingboy
So? That's my exact point. In all of your examples the righteous eventually
prevailed due to their own merits, and history proved that they were on the
right side.
You don't get claim victory by shutting down the debate at the beginning. You
don't get to moral high ground by "proclaiming" it, you get there by engaging
the opposition in debates and by fighting to change people's mind with
positive examples.
MLK knew he was right, and he worked hard to convince the remaining 66% of the
country by engaging with them, by changing one mind at a time.
>My point is that here you are again, in a similar situation to those, saying
the exact same sorts of things the people who were wrong in those
circumstances said.
That's some crazy logic fallacy. Just because you are pushing new agenda
doesn't mean you are automatically correct and your opposition are literally
the same as Nazis. You also automatically assume that your ideas are the "good
ones" and anything that differs even slightly to your opinion is "bad ideas".
How can you tell that you are not the one being sympathetic toward "bad
ideas", it is after all, like you said, hard to tell right?
You know who used the same kind of logic? Literally Nazis and Communists. They
automatically proclaimed their ideology as the "righteous ones" and brutally
shut down any debates.
I'm of the opinion that if you have to forcefully shut down opposite views
from even debating you, then your idea is not worth debating in the first
place, and you are just some immature child putting himself on a moral
pedestal.
I don't know how old you are, but I wish one day you get to learn that the
world is not black and white, but different shades of gray. And yes, even your
_own_ opinions will change throughout time, for different reasons.
------
thuris
Age discrimination did not make the list. Maybe the survey poster's audience
is not affected by it or maybe it's not controversial to admit that it is
common practice.
------
cousin_it
I wonder what percentage of HN users would subscribe to this sentence for some
values of X and Y: "I am worse at task X than person Y for genetic reasons."
~~~
falcolas
Well, add one. "I am worse at interpersonal interactions than my brother-in-
law for genetic reasons."
I'd also say that this is actually very easy to say, since you can also pick
out genetic anomalies: I could say the sentence about swimming and Michael
Phelps, or running and Usain Bolt, without a single person being offended or
disagreeing.
If you want to make the sentence controversial, you need to replace "person Y"
with "genetic group Y"; i.e. men, women, caucasians, blacks, asians,
mongoloids, or so on.
------
dvfjsdhgfv
This one is interesting:
> “Most successful entrepreneurs are simply lucky.”
Probably it's because "common wisdom" says it's the result of being smart and
hard work. But if luck plays such a big role (and let's be honest, it does -
there are also studies confirming that), it's difficult to be proud of your
success. Happy - yes. Proud? No more than a lottery winner. For many
successful people this would be an insult.
~~~
curun1r
There's an old saying (IIRC, attributed to Seneca) that luck is what happens
when preparation meets opportunity. I like that way of looking at things
because it neither minimizes the work and insight that someone put into their
success nor refuses to acknowledge that factors outside their control also
contributed.
------
pjc50
For reference, a discussion of what you genuinely can't say in China:
[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=35663&utm_source=dlv...](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=35663&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter)
------
ksec
So what am I suppose to talk about if I went to US or Silicon Valley? Also
wondering if this is _just_ silicon valley or US in general?
For those who have never been to US, and just reading news and watching TV on
it, it surely is a place full of controversy.
As a matter of fact, I am starting to see this isn't US only at all. It is the
same with UK on certain issues ( Mainly Brexit ) but in typical Brit fashion
they seems to be much more sensible about it when people disagree.
What happens to the old days where we agree to disagree. Take it on the chin,
put a smile on your face and walk away?
This isn't just social media's echo chamber, a lot of people seems to want to
blame them. But i think the social media only amplify the problem. Not the
course of it.
------
GuiA
_Both sides feel oppressed! For example, some people think you can’t question
diversity efforts; others think you can’t speak out about racism. Some think
you can’t praise capitalism; others think you can’t suggest socialism. It’s
theoretically possible that the Overton window could be in the middle and
exclude both extremes, but to my mind it’s more likely that people just like
to think or claim that their views are an oppressed minority._
That’s the real insight here. You wanted a fully networked society, well
that’s what comes with a fully networked society.
------
rdiddly
The "taboo" list is surprisingly run-of-the-mill. All of it seems like stuff I
see people discussing on the internet all the time. I thought there might be a
few original thoughts, but even the things they claim they can't say are
things they're kind of supposed to think. Different sides of boring issues.
Anyway rest assured there's no need to stifle heretical ideas with these
people. The ones thinking anything truly original were probably either the
ones left out of the 108, or never bothered answering or are already in
institutions etc.
~~~
blfr
These cannot be original ideas because they must have been expressed a few
times before people learned you shouldn't discuss them.
------
korax
Does anyone know of good research on how our ability to confront and discuss
controversial matters has changed over the last 50 years?
I am wondering whether previous generations were better able to handle intra-
and intergroup differences of ideology.
------
wolco
One quote I picked out. Early stage employees have it bad. This is true but
the increase freedom can balance this out.
Stock options are generally useless and in many ways force employees not to
move on to better opportunities.
------
thomzi12
To echo someone else's post, saying you work at [a boring tech company]
working on [boring ideas] is what is truly taboo in Silicon Valley.
------
hardlianotion
The survey is not very big.
------
venomsnake
I can think of one taboo opinion - supporting prop 8. Results - being fired.
Also it was made effective with back date. The firing of Brendan Eich was as
chilling effect as possible.
In the current climate you could get a pitchfork mob after you extremely easy
for even stuff perceived as homophobic - as the recent suicide of August Ames
showed.
------
anonbanker
This is a fantastic HN thread to scroll to the very bottom, and see which
opinions have been greyed-out from heavy downvote bombardments. Highly
recommended.
------
danieltillett
I think the most interesting thing about the recent debate is our true rulers
must be getting worried that things are getting out of control. They have not
forgotten about the Reign of Terror [0] or where this sort of thing can lead.
There is the real risk the masses actually might not be distracted by the
usual left/right pointless bickering and actually follow the money.
0\.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror)
Edit. Good to see what the real topic is you can't discuss in SV ;)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Trouble in orbit: the growing problem of space junk - dharma1
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33782943
======
CapitalistCartr
For those of you interested in this subject, I subscribe to this quarterly
newsletter and find it worthwhile:
[http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/newsletter/newsletter.html](http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/newsletter/newsletter.html)
------
acd
Is it not possible to just make satellite behave like comets so they burn up
in the atmosphere? Say that you add a rocket thruster that thrust the
satellite in a downwards path so it burns up?
~~~
emgeee
Only larger satellites have active propulsion that would be capable of doing
this.
------
debacle
All of these problems can be solved with money. If a growing problem can be
solved with money, it just hasn't grown enough yet.
------
carapace
If you could figure out a way to collect it then you've got resources that
have already been accelerated to orbit...
------
dharma1
lasers! [http://www.space.com/29271-space-station-laser-cannon-
orbita...](http://www.space.com/29271-space-station-laser-cannon-orbital-
debris.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: My Passion - kcodey
Hey HN,<p>My site http://RealtyPerks.com, just went live a few days ago and I have always sifted through HN admiring and gaining advice from everyone out there, so I thought I would show my start up, and would love any feedback from the HN community. It's far from done but it gets the message across. We have been establishing relationships with Realtors on the northeast and are gearing up to start Rewarding some new homeowners.<p>Real Estate isn't sexy, and is hardly ever attacked my entrepreneurs, even though its a 60 Billion dollar market. Although recently sites like 42floors have come up and are attacking commercial real estate, which is another vertical within the real estate industry ripe for disruption. (I love their site/concept)<p>I also find it intriguing that there are so many start ups dedicated to gaming, mobile payments, fashion, etc. but literally you never hear about a real estate start up, but the industry is so antiquated! We still have companies like Coldwell Banker dominating their marketplace. Yes, Coldwell Banker where you walk into one of their offices and see chairs with gold and oil paintings and their agent's don't have email but rely on fax machines.<p>Enough of my rant, I just wish real estate marketing got up to speed with the rest of the world, and I hope RealtyPerks does just that.
======
burrisj
One thing you're wrong about- RE brokerage is under heavy fire right now and
is being attacked by many, many startups.
The strongest moat that’s defended residential RE brokerage from disruption is
the interdependent nature of the business. Because both the buyer and seller
are represented by agents in most transactions, brokers must collaborate to
close deals at the same time as they compete for listings. Buyers’ agents have
an incentive only to show their clients homes whose sellers offer them a
standard 3% commission. To attract more listings and still retain interest,
sometimes seller’s agents offer to cut their own fees while still offering the
full price to the buying agent. The reason that this approach hasn’t become
widespread and significantly whittled down commission standards is that the
vast majority of sellers’ agents are also buyers’ agents, meaning that both
parties have a vested interest in preserving the commissions on either side of
the table.
Because of this solidarity among buyers’ and sellers’ agents, the only way for
the brokerage business to be hacked and rendered truly competitive is for one
half of the equation to vanish. Either FSBO listings will have to become so
widespread that sellers’ agents largely disappear from the picture or property
search, negotiations, and closings have to be made so simple that buyers’
agents fade to irrelevance. But when one side crumbles, both sides do.
IMO, it's far easier to hack the buying-side process than the selling process.
RealDirect and DotLoop are interesting in that they try to essentially
automate the process of selling a property yourself (RealDirect by providing
appraisal services, submitting listings to MLSes, and curating marketing
channels etc. and DotLoop by standardizing legal docs/paperwork), but these
companies face an uphill battle in convincing sellers that they are every bit
as talented at receiving top dollar for their home.
IMO, the best way to hack the industry is to streamline combine a
Trulia/Zillow/StreetEasy proprietary MLS with DotLoop's standardized
legal/paperwork management system. The one missing piece is data-driven
appraisals accurate enough to convince buyers of their worthiness. Nobody's
quite got this down yet, but Kwelia seems to be closest. The trouble is that
not enough sales data is available to accurately correlate prices to
location/amenities/property info. Although most US cities maintain public data
mines that contain title documents, many buyers mask their purchase prices
with evasive chicanery that reads along the lines of "sold for $10 and other
goods of significant consideration".
All that being said, your model of offering perks is an interesting way of
convincing attracting clients to an existing brokerage. Partner with some
furniture suppliers/local businesses to offer some exclusive discounts and I
think you're onto something.
------
ezl
Interesting. Real estate is definitely technologically underserved relative to
its market size.
I think this is a play at incentivizing residential buyers/sellers to let you
refer them to the local Realtor the first referral and taking the referral to
let the user buy things with "points"? If so, I love it.
for giggles: existing home sales 5mm/yr * 200k/house. Assuming a full
commision of 3% on one side and if you get 25% as a referral:
A typical transaction could be worth:
$200k * 3% * 25% == $1500 (less redemption value in points, so basically a
redeemable user point has to be less than .03 _.25_ purchase price)
If you owned one side of every single existing home sale, that is worth: 5mm *
1500 == $7.5B/yr
How do you intend to reach users? I guess with a value of $1500 per
conversion, you can afford to spend liberally on adwords to catch users as
they are searching, but I suspect the words in that space are competitive and
expensive. Even if you get the a 25% referral on the full commission, someone
else is able to pay up to 100% of the referral on the commission in user
acquisition costs, so you'll never be able to outspend the actual broker in
paid search.
Basically you'll have to be creative with how you pay for traffic.
Which isn't to say its not doable... This sort of reminds me of deal
aggregators like Yipit -- they get a commission of the transaction from
someone like Groupon, so that means groupon can always outspend them, so you
ahve to find some other way to get your leads.
What is your plan?
~~~
kcodey
More or less your on target, our rev comes from referral fees, which vary, and
also monthly subscriptions from local Realtors who would "own" their market,
similar to how they can own their market on Zillow or Trulia.
Your are 100% correct that this space is competitive and expensive to catch
users, and being creative is key, which is why we are going after strategic
partners to help with the acquisition costs.
------
debacle
> and is hardly ever attacked my entrepreneurs
> but literally you never hear about a real estate start up
I don't think you're looking hard enough: Zillow, Trulia, 42Floors, Yahoo Real
Estate, Redfin, Movoto
I'm sure there are many more.
Realty has poor technology because realtors generally don't utilize technology
well. The MLS is a festering mess of non-normalized data, and no one cares
because real estate is still very much people-driven.
~~~
kcodey
I am aware of all of them and do agree that real estate is still very much
people-driven, and in my opinion always will be. That being said, the way
Realtors market themselves these days is not effective enough, that coupled
with just the sheer number of Realtors, (Over 1 Million), makes for a bunch of
marketing noise.
------
GoofyGewber
I like the site so far, one of the things that annoyed me is when your
choosing to buy or sell a house. You should add a hover effect so the user
knows what they're about to click.
~~~
kcodey
Makes sense.. Thanks!
~~~
GoofyGewber
It's actually a pretty cool idea, good job!
~~~
kcodey
Thanks!
------
tonyjwang
Cool site. What tool did you use to design it?
------
az
link: <http://RealtyPerks.com>
------
dreamdu5t
You illustrate how real estate is under-served by technology, but your startup
doesn't solve an offline problem with technology. Where's the Salesforce for
realtors or property managers? Where's the service that makes selling your
home _easier_? There are huge problems to solve in Real Estate.
Finding/getting in touch with a realtor isn't one of them IMHO.
------
yashchandra
Not to criticize, but what is the value from this particular service to
someone who is buying or selling a home ? Are you making the process easier or
just giving rewards like a credit card cashback etc ? I am asking since I
would love to work with something that makes my buying or selling part easier.
I want to know good realtors in my area, recommendations for my housing
preference (based on factors such as affordability, choices, what matters to
me most etc). I do not care about reward points necessarily. Just my 2 cents.
~~~
kcodey
Our service may not be for everyone. If you are not concerned about a reward
program, than most likely you would not use it. However, we do our best to
connect our members with excellent Realtors in their marketplace, who are
extremely knowledgeable in regards to affordability, what's on the market,
etc..
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lucretian Prehistory: An Epicurean view of the pros and cons of civilization - diodorus
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/lucretian-prehistory
======
Merrill
Whether pre-agricultural societies were generally peaceful is a matter of some
debate. If they were, it is probably because disease, accident and predators
kept the population in balance with resources. See, for example, "Resource
scarcity drives lethal aggression among prehistoric hunter-gatherers in
central California" at
[https://www.pnas.org/content/113/43/12120](https://www.pnas.org/content/113/43/12120)
>Results reveal that sharp force trauma, the most common form of violence in
the record, is better predicted by resource scarcity than relative
sociopolitical complexity. Blunt force cranial trauma shows no correlation
with mean net primary productivity or political complexity and may reflect a
different form of close contact violence. This study provides no support for
the position that violence originated with the development of more complex
hunter-gatherer adaptations in the fairly recent past. Instead, findings show
that individuals are prone to violence in times and places of resource
scarcity.
~~~
ptah
they were more peaceful in the sense that violence was individual and local to
a large extent whereas once metals were introduced incidents took on a larger
scale according to the article
------
Zigurd
Just as the Greeks thought they lived comfortably compared to their image of
naked foragers in the wilderness, we have some misperceptions of our own
advanced state.
For example, a common mismeasurement of the misery of pre-industrial life is
very low life expectancy. On average, you'll be dead at about 35 years. But
that number is skewed by a very high infant and child mortality rate. If you
make it to adulthood, you're still subject to lack of modern medicine, but
you'll probably make it farther than 35.
That sucks compared to present day low infant mortality, which has many
benefits beyond just fewer dead children. But low infant mortality skews our
view of the harshness of pre-industrial adult life. Relative comfort can
impart smugness.
------
ptah
> But the search for power and gratification by the few at the expense of the
> many is an inevitable feature of civilization that could be better
> controlled than it is, even if it can never be banished once and for all.
It's disappointing that there are no suggestions around how to better control
this
------
briga
For a 2000 year old poem, De rerum natura offers a surprisingly scientific
take on the world, as well as a fascinating insight into what was going on at
the edge on Roman thought at the time. It's still a great and fairly
accessible read, and if reading ancient poems is your thing I'd recommend the
Rolfe Humphries translation.
~~~
jfengel
Indeed. Lucretius is often credited for his prescient understanding of
"atoms", but that's really a red herring. His view of atoms isn't all that
similar to the 19th century atomic theory, and even less to modern atomic
theory.
What he really had going for him was empricism. The win was the notion that
the universe is governed by a small set of physical laws, and that we can
understand those laws. The sun and moon operate by the same principles as our
bodies do.
He anticipated what this would mean for free will, and cobbled in a "swerve"
to allow for it. But it was still a world dominated by natural forces, not
supernatural ones, in which science could be a thing.
------
ricc
This reminds me of Jared Diamond's article about humanity's biggest mistake...
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Abraham valentino ceo imetros.com on Las Vegas Real Estate - sfluxury
http://activerain.trulia.com/blogsview/4384228/abraham-valentino-ceo-imetros-com-on-las-vegas-real-estate-investment
======
sfluxury
Las vegas real estate investing by Abraham Valentino
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On the Complexity of Processing Massive, Unordered, Distributed Data - Rickasaurus
http://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0611108
======
isyourfriend
?
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What went wrong with economics - danh
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14031376&source=hptextfeature
======
voisine
Nothing went wrong with economics. The austrian school of economics predicted
the great depression, the economic failure of communism, the '01 nasdaq crash,
and the recent housing bubble. If you keep looking to the keynsians after the
stagflation of the 70's completely refuted the core tenant of their entire
economic view, well, you've got no one to blame but yourself.
~~~
philwelch
Economics isn't not a battle between Keynes and the Austrians, though. There
are numerous neoclassical schools with varying degrees of prominence.
Greenspan, for instance, was a monetarist, not a Keynesian. Other fields
include behavioral economics. Meanwhile, while the early Austrian School
provided a lot of important insights, most of them have been accepted by the
neoclassicals.
Most of "Austrian economics" today is merely an apologia for anarcho-
capitalism, popular among libertarians who have studied the early Austrians,
lack grounding in economics otherwise, and are more interested in
rationalizing libertarian economic policies than honestly learning economics.
~~~
kirubakaran
Are there some interesting engaging books that I can read to honestly learn
about economics without having to pick a side or hold political beliefs?
(something that will be really useful for me to understand the world better...
not something that will attempt to convert me...)
~~~
davidw
This textbook is free on line, and as far as I can tell is fairly "standard"
economics:
<http://www.introecon.com/>
One that is very relevant to our field is "Information Rules" by Varian and
Shapiro. I can't recommend it enough.
Definitely look for standard stuff and get that figured out before you go
looking at mises.org or marxist.org or whatever. Those guys definitely have an
Agenda with a capital A. It's difficult to separate economics and politics
completely (which is why I flagged this too), and it's a guarantee that
someone will start hauling out all the mises and Austrian links on any given
thread on the subject here.
In other words, learn enough to reason on the subject for yourself, rather
than joining some sort of echo chamber. The best place to do that is with
what's considered the "state of the art" by mainstream practitioners. Maybe
they're wrong, and Marx or Mises is right, but it's certainly the best
starting point.
~~~
tc
You're basically suggesting that people learn the current fashions. Which is
fine, as far as it goes, just stay skeptical, because unlearning falsehoods is
extremely difficult for most people. Empirically speaking, it seems almost
(but not absolutely) impossible for humans.
People should learn economics like you learn physics [1]. You don't start out
with string theory (fortunately). You start with the Greeks, then move to
Galileo, Euler, Newton, Laplace, Maxwell, Bohr, Einstein, Feynman, etc.
In macro economics, that might read: Bastiat, Locke, Smith, Mill, Malthus,
Marx, Engels, Mussolini (who would typically be expunged, despite his
continuing relevance, for obvious political reasons), Mises, Keynes, Hayek,
Friedman, Rothbard.
[1] There are obvious differences, of course. Economics has more forks and
fewer merges in the tree of thought (which makes knowing the history all the
more important). And unlike physics, old, discredited theories get dug back
up, polished, and repeated for a new generation (how many times do we have to
endure CNN talking about how a hurricane will help the economy before people
understand the broken window fallacy that Bastiat articulated in _1850_?). And
economics also overlaps with both politics and morality. Value-free economics
exists only if you consider "you could do X, but more people will starve" to
be a value-free argument.
~~~
philwelch
I took some intro physics courses in college. We didn't take a historical
approach: we just started with the most recently well-understood Newtonian
framework, and then moved onto EM where we worked our way up to Maxwell's
equations. We never touched the Greeks--in fact, there's no point studying any
pre-Newtonian physics unless you're a scientific historian, because Newton had
the first usable theory. And even then you learn it using a jumble of
Newtonian and Leibnizian calculus!
In economics, we started with things everyone agreed on (supply and demand
curves) and moved onto some facts about how centrally-banked currencies work
(what the FED does, what M1, M2, and M3 are, what fractional reserve banking
is). It's the upper level classes in econ, and the graduate classes in
physics, where you really get into the controversial bits. But there's a lot
of econ to learn before you get into anything that's controversial among
economists (though the common beliefs of economists may be quite controversial
among laypeople!)
------
asdlfj2sd33
I'm not sure anything is broken, we just had plain old regulatory capture.
Greenspan himself admitted he thought that people would protect their own self
interest. But those people get bonuses if their risks pay off and have no real
downside if they lose. They are gambling with other people's money, not their
own money.
And it's not as if self interest and lack of government bailouts prevent the
Dutch tulip bubble, or any other speculative bubble.
~~~
tc
... but it did prevent the speculative losses from being socialized while
keeping gains private. Only people who bought tulips lost money.
It's also widely thought today that the tulip mania was brought on in part by
a parliamentary decree that weakened contractual protections on tulip
contracts -- making it easy to speculate on inflated tulip prices without a
correspondingly strong fear of loss.
There is also a strong case to be made that, similar to the current situation,
the tulip mania was prompted or sustained by a sudden increase in the monetary
base. Apparently the balance sheet of the Bank of Amsterdam was surging during
this period.
~~~
redcap
Out of interest, do you have a link or source for your last comment regarding
the Bank of Amsterdam?
~~~
tc
No, it was from memory. But fortunately Wikipedia cites its sources:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_Mania>
------
gaika
Same happened before with chemestry / alchemy and astronomy / astrology -
there were alchemists that were trying to please their king with promises of
gold out of nothing or horoscopes, and there were scientists, that used it as
a source of funding for their real research. Chemistry and Astronomy won,
unfortunately our economic alchemy refuses to die.
~~~
redcap
But of course, with the current financial system it looks as though large
financial companies have managed to create wealth out of nothing or
horoscopes.
------
timwiseman
This article is remarkably well balanced and correctly points out that both
those who previously blindly followed economicists and those who blindly
ignore them now are wrong. The truth of course is in between.
Economics is both a comparitively young science (at least in terms of when it
was formalized) and one that deals with (or is influenced by) a very
unpedictable factor, human actions. It gets many things right, and some things
wrong. With time, it will be refined though by its nature it is likely to
never reach the rigour and predictive power of some of the hard sciences such
as physics.
This current upset is rightly forcing a reevaluation of many beliefs, but when
the dust finally settles in the future, economics will emerge stronger and
more accurate than before.
------
teilo
But does that mean that Keynsianism is going to die? Not a chance. Keynsians
control the entire monetary system. It does not matter how often their
theories are debunked by history itself. They are the ones in power, and so
they will continue to do what they do best: Rob from the poor and give to the
rich through the hidden tax of inflation born of deficit spending and the
centralized control of interest rates.
~~~
padmanabhan01
and by printing currency out of thin air.
------
chinfuilan
I got hold of the article rather accidentally and was attracted by it.
Somehow, it was then put aside due to some preoccupation but it keeps
returning and flashing to me like owl’s-carrying-letters sent in to Harry
Potter, demanding my involvement to perhaps save the world. Yes, the world is
in big trouble and economists can’t help due to perhaps lack of genes and
consequentially severe loss of sights.
“What went wrong with economics” is: Economics lacks at least one fundamental
foundation. Installing this fundamental will elevate Economics to another
platform.
What is this fundamental? It is something that sciences cling on tightly, but
economics does not. So, economics has departed from this fundamental, perhaps
unconsciously.
What is it then? It is the Fundamental Axiom or Law of Causality, simply
means: Cause gives rise to Effect, In = Out, Debit = Credit, a Source for
every Outcome, etc which are common senses or self-evident truths.
Tell us in what way the Economics runs away from this fundamental? If you ask:
You win, I win, everyone wins, who then is the loser or provider of wealth?
Most of economists will tell you that there is no loser. The Economics
textbooks also say so. But it cannot be no loser, as it violates the
fundamental Law of Causality. So, we must insist for the presence of loser, as
dictated by the Fundamental Law of Causality.
On this insistence, one great researcher by the name of HNM had successfully
uncovered the identity of the loser and the mask of wealth after an effort of
several decades. Needless to say, he has restored the Fundamental Law of
Causality back to the economics and make it a strong and real science. Using
his new theory, all events in the past or present could be explained with
ease, and that it could predict and even provide future policies and
directions for our world.
If you are really interested to find out more, please write to me via my
email: [email protected]
------
mhartl
Let's check the index:
What went wrong with economics. See Keynes, John Maynard
------
known
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry> has played its role in
economic depression.
------
monological
greed
------
lyudmil
I am a little baffled by the article's thesis. There is very little evidence
to support a "failure" of economics in the case of this current crisis.
Several economists (mainly Dean Baker) were able to see the housing bubble and
to accurately predict that its burst would lead to a recession.
I suspect the real failure being discussed in the article is the belief many
at the Fed (especially Greenspan) had in self-regulating markets. Good
arguments have been made that the lack of regulation was a major factor in
creating the bubble-prone economy the US has had for 15 years (or more). So
yes, in that respect, the "economic models" have failed.
In reality, most of this was completely predictable and avoidable. I would
again point people to Dean Baker as a great resource in understanding the
crisis: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrSrL0lBorE>
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Why Astronomers Love Python [video] - licorna
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9dwGZ6yY0k
======
Y_Y
Astronomers are, for the most part, terrible programmers. This is true of the
general population too, but unfortunately almost every astronomer has to
actually write programs. Python and co. are probably more of a help than a
hindrance as it replaces things like old-school Fortran, IDL, gnuplot and
Matlab. Clever groups are starting to wise up to this and have dedicated
programmers supporting astronomers, rather than assuming that the computer is
just a glorified calculator that everyone needs to be able to use.
For the record I am a numerical astrophysicist and I read and write plenty of
bad code every day.
~~~
kensai
I don't exactly agree with this. As a scientist myself, the term "terrible
programmer" is a little bit harsh.
Scientists (and the general population) are not professional programmers. If
the need arises, they hire one. Scientists usually need to jot down a
prototype and a model in order to see if their theory works.
It's like comparing a physician with a prepper. A prepper might know how to
use some first-aid methods and tools, but is not expected to act as a trauma
surgeon or emergency doctor. She has just the right knowledge for the task in
hand. Yeah, Python might simply be Hansaplast in this case, but who cares if
you are alone? :p
~~~
Chris2048
Isn't it fair to say a prepper is a "terrible trauma surgeon" in context of
whether or not a professional should be brought in or not?
~~~
kensai
No, because his "terrible-ness" has to do with priorities. A scientist's
priority is usually to make a fast prototype or model of her theory. I see it
at least in my own field (biomedicine).
IF you need a real software developer for some extended work, you hire one.
But to call scientists lousy programmers is like calling every driver on this
earth lousy driver (in respect to Formula 1 drivers, for example).
~~~
Chris2048
> A scientist's priority is..
Don't you mean a programmer? A fine scientist can still be a terrible
programmer.
> to call scientists lousy programmers is like calling every driver on this
> earth lousy driver
Why? Most drivers on earth are fine drivers, terrible F1 drivers.
Maybe most scientists are fine scientists, terrible programmers?
~~~
hobarrera
Most drivers on earth are terrible drivers.
------
marrs
Video's been taken town
------
wibergify
inb4
from astronomy import find_planet
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How a self-taught teenager built an operating system that runs in your browser - hariis
https://medium.freecodecamp.org/how-a-self-taught-teenager-built-an-operating-system-that-runs-in-your-browser-47da735ac919
======
hariis
Concise description of how it was done [https://www.quora.com/How-did-Aaron-
develop-the-Aaron-OS](https://www.quora.com/How-did-Aaron-develop-the-Aaron-
OS)
| {
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Why I don't use recent travel startups - dlitwak
http://blog.mozio.com/why-the-recent-wave-of-travel-startups-are-mo
======
dkrich
Awesome post. I'm in 100% agreement with the author. It takes courage to write
an analysis like this, knowing that there are some high-profile people backing
Hipmunk, which in turn causes a lot of people on HN to defend it as well.
The first time I read about Hipmunk solving "the problem of travel search",
the first thought I had was "what problem?" I looked at Hipmunk and I couldn't
see what it did that was so radically better than Kayak, which I think
actually does a great job. If there are people who enjoy Hipmunk, then I say
fantastic, but to me, travel search is not actually broken.
In the comments section I wrote what I believed to be a well-reasoned comment
making similar comments to those made in the OP's post and was promptly
downvoted and even received a sarcastic response from one of the founders. No
big deal, but after close to a year, I still maintain that what I said was
valid. Sometimes I think people get stuck working aggressively on a problem
before they really confront the reality of whether the problem is real or an
illusion that was created in order to build a business.
That said, I do think the site looks great and I hope it does phenomenally
well. I don't have any ill-will towards the company or its founders, but I'm
just not convinced that this is a startup that is built to solve its users'
problems. It seems that a lot of successful smart people proclaimed that
travel search was a major problem and that this was the solution, and that in
turn got the business a lot of support. I'm just not convinced.
~~~
dlitwak
Thansk dkrich. What I find pretty funny is that I definitely complimented
hipmunk. Pretty sure I said it was useful and had a wonderful interface haha.
I never insulted them but merely stated the reason why I don't use it. But for
some reason not being head over heels in love with the product, having
something slightly critical to say gets people incredibly defensive.
I also don't have any ill will towards Hipmunk, I think the product looks
great. But yes, I also agree that, for flights, travel isn't 'broken' so
badly. If it was, Hipmunk would be overflowing with users. Last article I read
they were having trouble attracting new users.
Now for other forms of transportation . . . I'm going to have to disagree with
you that travel isn't broken.
------
gameshot911
For me the main appeal of Hipmunk's interface is that it makes it easy to use
'soft' search parameters.
Every travel agency will let you search for flights based on price range,
departure time, arrival time, and layover time. However, I usually don't care
if a flight leaves at 5 or 4:45, or I'm willing to pay an extra $20 if it
means my layover is reduced by an hour. With a normal search interface I'd
either have to do multiple searches, or relax the limits of all the parameters
and have to sort though a large breadth of results. On top of this, the
results are presented in such a way that I need to consider a single variable
at a time ("hmm okay this flight leaves a bit earlier, but it costs __ and
arrives at ___. This flight has a minimal layover, but it leaves at ___ and
costs ___").
In contrast, the interface Hipmunk has developed makes it exceedingly easy to
view all the variables at once, and to quickly narrow down flights I'd
potentially be interested in. Not only is the timeline interface much easier
to understand than say expedia's "sort results by one variable at a time", but
it's an intuitive way to compare the overall utility of multiple flights at
once. And since at the end of the day that's exactly what I'm looking for in a
travel website - an intuitive way to quickly compare numerous options and
choose the 'best' one according to my personal heuristics - I use Hipmunk when
I need to book a flight.
------
brd
I could be mistaken here but pushing out negative marketing before you release
your product seems like an awfully bad idea for a startup. This isn't the kind
of attention you want and you run the risk of completely turning off potential
customers who are currently fans of the services you're frowning upon.
~~~
robryan
If they found the current options to be great there wouldn't be a lot of
motivation to start their alternative.
~~~
sliverstorm
Your parents' argument is that coming right out of the gate publicly putting
down your competitors may not be the best way to enter the race.
~~~
dlitwak
and my argument silverstorm is that I didn't insult them: "Hipmunk. Don't get
me wrong, the interface is beautiful. However, I don't use it. This is pretty
cool, I won't deny, and it looks gorgeous." Apparently not being completely
100% head over heels for a YC company is interpreted as 'insulting' them.
------
silverlight
I just have to say that I have never tried any of these other tools, but
lumping Hipmunk in with them is doing it a disservice. It's not about social
travel or any other gimmick -- it's about better travel searches. Period.
I've used it the last 3 times I've booked a flight, and I would never use
anything else. It makes it so easy to get the flight we prefer it's
ridiculous.
~~~
dlitwak
I agree, but the title of the blog post is why I don't use them. I don't use
Hipmunk. I don't use many of these new services, all for different reasons. I
don't use Hipmunk not because its useless, far from it, but because my habit
is to use Kayak, and I guess for the type of travel searches I do on a regular
basis, I don't see a reason to switch.
------
eof
Hrm.. I don't use any social travel whatevers; but I have used hipmunk
exclusively to look for flights since the first time I ever tried it.
It is an order of magnitude better than kayak/priceline/whatever.
Putting down hipmunk before launching when you are going to compete with them
with weak arguments like "sure its good but I use something inferior anyway"--
seems.. transparent.
~~~
martey
" _Putting down hipmunk before launching when you are going to compete with
them..._ "
I argue that this is the main problem with the entire blog post. I would
rather than Mozio actually showed _why_ they are better than all of the social
travel startups they mention, as opposed to disparaging them while their own
homepage links to a Launchrock signup page.
~~~
dlitwak
We aren't social travel martey. Never said we were. The post was about the
entire travel industry. We barely mention our own project in the post exactly
because we thought it would take away from the argument: we aren't making a
sales pitch or trying to sell anything as we aren't in the social travel
discovery space and aren't really catering to the same market as hipmunk (we
are targeting budget travelers who want to compare buses, trains, the
backpacker type).
------
wdewind
I totally disagree about the usefulness of the Hipmunk interface: visualizing
it is exactly what I need because for $X dollars I'm wiling to wake up a
little earlier, or get in a little later and the opposite.
The reason I no longer use Hipmunk is that every ticket I've gotten from them
(4 round trips total) has been standby, and I was never told that when I
bought it. I was moved to a later flight because I was standby on the last one
and the experience was soiled for me.
------
spravin
When I look for flights, I check bing, kayak, orbitz as well as hipmunk. Which
one do I prefer? Simple: the one that gives me the best fare. Unfortunately it
ends up being a different one each time.
~~~
amorphid
I like Kayak, too. Hipmunk is neat, but it's almost too slick. I essentially
want to know the price, departure time, and arrival time. Everything beyond
that doesn't really add much. What I'd love too see is something that simply
allows me to see the cheapest flight between too points without having to put
in the travel dates.
~~~
calbear81
Without dates, do you mean you're flexible and you just want to see the best
price in the next 60 days or something? Kayak explore might work
(kayak.com/explore)
------
vgurgov
i am so happy someone finally said this about Hipmunk! i can sign for every
word in this.
about me: i travel across the globe 1-4 times a month. see absolutely no
reason to prefer it to kayak
i found that some YC-hardcore fans of hipmunk that love-love-love it travel
few times/year at most.
~~~
adebelov
@vgurgov, guess who inspired @dlitwak to post this? :)
------
yason
I must say I didn't even know of this "social travel" thing. I've heard of
some of those startups before but I've probably just dismissed them right off
the bat if they didn't happen to immediately give me not only a good answer
but a good problem, too.
What I usually do is find the cheapest offers for flights from a few selected
places such as Hipmunk, Kayak, Ebookers and Momondo, and then proceed to find
accommodation by myself. I have a few known places in certain cities already,
found empirically and if I don't, I'll just search the web until I find a
place I like. And that's pretty much it when it comes to travel.
What would make travel better, I don't know. The availability and access to
good offers and good information over internet generally pretty much did it, I
think.
------
guelo
The airlines are not going to let anyone fix the big problems in ticket search
because they create those problems on purpose to get more revenue. Things like
knowing whether you should wait to buy the ticket at a lower price, comparing
total price including baggage and other fees, searching across all airlines
including those that are not listed with the main data providers. Until
someone figures these things out there's nothing to see in this space besides
the gimmicky features we see now.
------
peteforde
I think it's darkly amusing that someone from a pre-launch travel startup
(that could only generously be described as a "feature not a product") would
blog about how Hipmunk is all rounded corners and Ashton Kutcher. I have no
affiliation to any of these companies except that I'm a HN regular who used to
use Kayak and then immediately, intuitively saw that Hipmunk was a vastly more
useable experience. Do I think I'm absolutely right? No, because it's deeply
subjective. Vive la différence.
Generally I'm immediately wary of any negative post that starts off with a
disclaimer about how much respect the author has for the soon-to-be casualties
of their rant. You're all buds, but you have no idea why their business needs
to exist. Right.
People roll the bones on all sorts of dumb-sounding concepts, and yet we're
all still humbled every time there's a big win and we didn't built it. So
here's to hoping I'm wrong about nobody having a Mozio-shaped hole in their
lives, right? Respect!
~~~
dlitwak
Apparently Hipmunk is a soft spot here . . . it is definitely curious that no
one has vehemently defended any of the other startups. I wonder if it would
have elicited the same response if I had criticized Expedia or some company
that wasn't so dear to the YC community.
I'm also a bit surprised at all the presumably "startup" people who feel the
need to lecture me on being a young upstart who doesn't know what he's talking
about, with an unlaunched product, who supposedly knows better. Oh the irony
of a bunch of people who rock the boat for a living jumping down the throat of
a kid who has the audacity to criticize. It seems that criticism of the big
bad companies is ok, criticism of one of our own, not so much.
Again, the article is from my perspective, on why I don't use it. You can say
what you please about how intuitive it is and all the reasons why, but I don't
use it, and I was trying to give some insight as to why. And I don't
appreciate you making it seem like I don't respect Hipmunk, i made it
abundantly clear I thought they had a wonderful product, I merely described
why I didn't use it, and it seems like I'm not the only one who feels that
way.
I'll ignore the quip about my own project haha.
------
sudoscience
I hope this doesn't come across as too negative, but I think it is pretty
strange for a blog of a travel aggregator site to say other travel aggregator
sites are essentially worthless. Either it stinks of bias or the conclusion is
that Mozio is just as non-game-changing and unworthy as these other sites.
FWIW I agree with the trying-too-hard aspect of forcing the square peg of
social into a round hole sometimes, but the visualization of Hipmunk is better
than Kayak. (I don't use Hipmunk to purchase because I find flights to be
significantly cheaper direct from the airlines, however.) If you were used to
Hipmunk you would also be loathe to change to new technologies that were
marginally, but noticeably better. It is the nature of human "comfort cost"
and the reason why poorer, older products still retain customers, at least for
some period of time.
~~~
dlitwak
Please point out where in the post I said that these other travel aggregator
sites are "essentially worthless". I'd really like to know. If I recall I
merely pointed out that I don't see it as noticeably better than kayak. I'm
pretty sure this is a direct quote: "Hipmunk is a useful product . . . I want
to make that clear."
------
emeltzer
disclosure: i'm currently selling a printed map
(kickstarter.com/projects/1147214836/toc-guide-to-sf)
I think social data is much more useful as a filter for a curated list than it
is when used on the set of ALL establishments in a city.
If the list is prefiltered to only include establishments that are at least
excellent examples of whatever they are trying to be, social data is a useful
way to figure out what to show the user.
Seeing what places my friends have been going to is much much less useful to
me than a carefully assembled list of excellent places. For a great example of
this, see "Tokyo by Tokyo." _much_ better than any social algorithmic solution
can currently do.
~~~
pchristensen
Let me put in a plug for the toc-guide-to-sf. It's a really smart, useful
project.
Here's that link again: kickstarter.com/projects/1147214836/toc-guide-to-sf
------
tnuc
The Hipmunk write up is more or less what I think of it.
The data it presents is great. It looks great, nice bells and whistles.
But it doesn't really improve over kayak. In fact it is slower and in some
ways less useful. There is still a lot of room for improvement in the flight
booking space.
------
kapitalx
Ah, Google flight search though has shown me that you can innovate in flight
search. <http://google.com/flights> (don't forget to click on the little graph
icon next to the "return date"
------
adsyoung
My favourite travel startup is Adioso.com because they focus on simply finding
you the cheapest flight whether you are looking to go somewhere specific or
just anywhere international. Direct and to the point, no pointless social
features.
------
AznHisoka
Hipmunk can't survive with just tech startup buzz/YC kool-aid. They need to do
actual TV advertisements or aggressive Adwords. And forget about relying on
search engines because the other players got a 8-10 year head start in that
area...
~~~
dlitwak
I think they are cool enough that they will get enough funding to be able to
compete with the big players. But that is precisely my point, they aren't
different enough that they will attract organic traffic from people saying
'wow, my kayak experience was truly awful, let me try an alternative service'.
They are better, so perhaps a gradual migration will occur, but yes, I think
with the product they have not being different enough, they need to pursue
some aggressive advertising etc.
~~~
calbear81
I've been seeing some more Hipmunk ads on Google and they have some billboards
on the 101 freeway in the Bay Area. Unfortunately, air search is a low margin
business so it's hard to get aggressive on advertising and expect to break
even w/o the ability to upsell to packages like the online travel agencies do.
------
adamtmca
Am I missing some nuance in hipmunk's interface?
I've always thought hipmunk was basically indistinguishable from ITA Matrix
flight search (do a search and click "view time bars" to see what I mean) and
ITA has been around forever.
------
jasonjei
I didn't see anything disruptive about Hipmunk. ITA Software's Matrix UI and
iOS app are already excellent. Isn't Hipmunk already using ITA anyway for
data?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: California health insurance enrollment complaints growing 111%/year - everybodyknows
https://wpso.dmhc.ca.gov/dashboard/ComplaintsIMRs.aspx
======
everybodyknows
That's 111%/year, smoothed over the last 3 years, 2013 to 2016. Greatest
proportionate jump was in 2013.
Select "Enrollment" from the drop-down menu of the line chart.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Security Flaw in Mifare Classic RFID chips - parenthesis
http://www.ru.nl/ds/research/rfid/
======
parenthesis
More info:
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/7655292.s...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/7655292.stm)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How to promote social startup? - dont_click
Hi guys, let me make a little intro: we're making a dream contest platform - www.dreamise.com This is a public wishilst where all dreams have a rating, every month we realize top rated dreams. Anyone can post their own wishes, get votes and boos rating and receive what he/she want.<p>So the main question is what are the best ways to attract users to this kind of startup and how to promote it?
======
nashequilibrium
make it useful first, social second.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A minimal js stopwatch+timer - ianjorgensen
http://www.ianjorgensen.com/timer
I could not find a simple timer that would count up and down i.e. stopwatch+timer so i quickly put this together. Let me know what you think :)
======
thehodge
This a nice simple implementation, really like it, the only thing I would ask
is that at the 10 second point or something, the screen turns red during the
countdown as a little warning
~~~
ianjorgensen
Good idea! i just made that change :)
------
iworkforthem
I think you can mod it to be an Egg Timer, some people still find it useful,
paid version is selling for USD $5.
~~~
ianjorgensen
what do you mean by an Egg Timer?
~~~
iworkforthem
A Web version - <http://e.ggtimer.com/> A Windows XP version -
<http://www.sardinesoftware.com/eggtimerplus.php>
~~~
ianjorgensen
It kind of does an what e.ggtimer.com does but only for minutes (just type in
the minutes and hit enter). I could add some visual indicator of the
percentage time left. You can also link to a time like this
<http://www.ianjorgensen.com/timer#10> or
<http://www.ianjorgensen.com/timer#0> to count up.
I like <http://www.sardinesoftware.com/>, he sels the most simple apps 5 bucks
a piece! Its not a bad idea.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tell HN: New twitter HN feed with links to comments @YCHackerNews - jazzychad
http://twitter.com/ychackernews
======
jazzychad
I know there are other HN twitter accounts, but I couldn't find one that also
links to the comments (which I usually enjoy more than the articles). So, I
created @YCHackerNews to link to both the article and the comments.
------
jrnkntl
Great! Thanks for this, I was too lazy/busy to code it myself ;)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Android Users Aren’t Cheap (but cheap users use Android) - scottporad
http://blog.stewtopia.com/2013/05/30/android-users-arent-cheap-but-cheap-users-use-android/
======
scottporad
As I see it, Android is the low-cost, mass-market provider. To me, it's
perfectly analogous to desktops: Microsoft was the low-cost mass-market
provider and Apple was the high-end, premium provider. With mobile, Android
has simply replaced Microsoft.
~~~
threeseed
Actually the analogy is a bit off. Most people aren't buying Android phones
they are buying Samsung phones.
With the PC market Microsoft tightly controlled the Windows experience so it
looked and worked the same regardless of the hardware. With the Android
platform this isn't the case. HTC phones looks and behave quite differently
from a Samsung or a stock Android. Each company is trying to differentiate the
experience as much as possible.
And the low-end/high-end split isn't playing out the same this time around.
Samsung is very much in the high end and Apple is tipped to be releasing a
low-cost iPhone shortly. And if Apple manages to gain low end traction like
they did with the iPod then that could change the game a bit as well.
------
rganguly
This is spot on. Really important to recognize that a large swath of the
population still makes phone calls, cares about voice communication and
doesn't care about data as much. This probably also speaks to the rising
popularity of some of the voice and video apps - a segment of the app universe
that might be able to pull these customers into the data world over time.
------
jasonlgrimes
+1 for Scott, Agreed, Android replaced MS.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple faces boycott over worker abuse - saket123
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/29/apple-faces-boycott-worker-abuses
======
saket123
I just wonder why apple products are so popular in China where apparently it
is killing people
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Red Hat to Acquire CoreOS - noahl
https://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/red-hat-acquire-coreos-expanding-its-kubernetes-and-containers-leadership
======
gtirloni
This makes sense. Red Hat has been investing in Project Atomic for a while now
and CoreOS still seems like a better option, if you're looking for a
container-only OS that has been battle tested.
Additionally, both companies seem like good places to work, with leadership
that's often praised and has the results to show. I'm happy for CoreOS on this
one, they're joining a company that I admire.
Looking forward to see how this will impact RHEL8.
~~~
Avshalom
Probably rhel9. I have no professional insight into this but the historic
timeline implies 8 will be out soon, I suspect they are just waiting for
Wayland to get some where they feel comfortable with. Anything past Wayland is
probably a 9 feature.
~~~
bonzini
Atomic Host was introduced in RHEL7.2 if I remember correctly. There's a lot
of room for introducing CoreOS technology before RHEL9, which would probably
be 4-5 years from now.
(disclaimer: working at Red Hat, though not on anything related to
containers).
------
jacques_chester
This is a good move for CoreOS and Red Hat, I think.
I've thought for a while that the platform market would shake out and be left
with one and at most two winners. Previously we saw Deis fold into Microsoft
and now CoreOS into Red Hat.
I expect that Docker will run independently for another few years before their
investors realise it's time to push for an acquisition exit, but it's unclear
by whom. I figure Heptio will go to one of Red Hat, Google or Microsoft.
As for CoreOS's technologies, my guess is that Red Hat will be gently herding
Tectonic and Container Linux users to OpenShift and RHEL respectively. About
the only products I expect to survive fully intact would be Quay and etcd.
Disclosure: I work for Pivotal, we compete with Red Hat and Docker. So read my
remarks with whatever mix of skepticism and mirth you think is appropriate.
~~~
politician
I agree that this is a good move by Red Hat to position themselves with rkt
and Quay ahead of Docker going to Microsoft (who will pay a premium to try to
put this genie back into the bottle)
Given their self-inflicted XHR debacle that dethroned Office, I just don't see
Microsoft passing up this opportunity.
Google, on the other hand, doesn't need Docker to plug any holes in their go
to market unless it's a blocking play. However, Docker is already cozy with
Microsoft, so I don't see a Google acquisition going anywhere.
~~~
zapita
> _this is a good move by Red Hat to position themselves with rkt_
Red Hat does not give a damn about rkt. They care about Kubernetes,
specifically establishing and consolidating a dominant position in upstream
kubernetes development. CoreOS helps them do that.
rkt on the other hand is a dead project and completely useless to Red Hat.
> _Google, on the other hand, doesn 't need Docker to plug any holes in their
> go to market unless it's a blocking play._
Google has a massive hole in their go to market. They have no clue how to sell
to enterprises, and because of that they are falling behind AWS and Microsoft
in the cloud market. However you're right that it would take much more than a
Docker to plug that hole.
Honestly if I were Google I would try to buy Red Hat, or an even larger
enterprise vendor like SAP or Oracle. Not only would they be buying the
enterprise distribution they lack, but they would also secure a major customer
for their own infrastructure and keep up with the economies of scale AMZN and
MSFT are building up. But I don't know that they will develop the humility to
admit that they need that - and even if they do there's no guarantee that the
integration would work... Culturally they are worlds apart.
EDIT: another interesting acquisition target for Google Cloud would be Vmware.
Diane Greene founded it, then got fired by EMC post-acquisition, something I
am betting she still holds a grudge over. Now she runs Google Cloud. If I'm
her, I like the idea of buying the place and savoring a triumphal Steve Jobs
takeover moment. I don't know to what extent this is complicated by this
week's announcement of a Vmware/Dell reverse merger. Maybe they buy the whole
thing? But then would Michael Dell want to run this new mega-Cloud group? And
how does that play with Diane's ambitions? This might bool down to whether
Diane likes the idea of working for Michael Dell. He has vastly more go-to-
market experience which is what matters most in their position.
I really think there should be an HBO Silicon Valley - Enterprise spinoff :-)
~~~
kakwa_
Frankly, I'm not sure why Google would acquire RedHat, SAP or Oracle.
I'm not sure what will be gain from that. Google probably doesn't care about
the softwares these companies provides as it has its own internal
alternatives/derivative and Google is not really a software vendor, so it's a
bit outside of their core business.
What would make more sense in my opinion would be for Google to have a
partnership with a big Enterprise player (or several in fact) and promote it
loudly.
~~~
sah2ed
> What would make more sense in my opinion would be for Google to have a
> partnership with a big Enterprise player (or several in fact) and promote it
> loudly.
They do: they have a Cisco partnership for Google Cloud.
[https://cloud.google.com/cisco/](https://cloud.google.com/cisco/)
~~~
moderation
Cisco's reach beyond the network silo is very small.
------
mankash666
From a financial viewpoint, CoreOs took in an investment of ~$50M [1] and sold
for $250M. Assuming the $50M investment comprised 50% of the equity pool, a
2.5X return on investment isn't too bad.
[1]:
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/coreos](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/coreos)
~~~
ZiiS
That seems an unlikely assumption. $30M of series B in May 2016 would have
been at around $200M valuation. Given the risks that is a disappointing
return.
~~~
zapita
It's worse than that, their series B valuation was closer to $300M.
Great for the founders, hopefully great for the team, solid for early
investors. Disappointing for latest investors, but shit happens - and the best
investors understand the long-term value of graciously allowing the founders
to follow their heart, even at the cost of a short-term disappointment.
~~~
kaushikt
This is true. CoreOS was doing well and i am sure could grow on their own too.
Why did CoreOS go for this deal though? also, how could the investors agree?
~~~
zapita
They want for the deal because, in spite of doing well on the community side,
they did not go as well on the business side. Enterprise Linux and Enterprise
Kubernetes are very crowded and difficult markets. Being popular with startups
is a big advantage in many ways, but it doesn't pay the bills.
~~~
Terretta
This is important. A startup has to get beyond upstart.
Despite being a ‘buyer’ it was virtually impossible to get traditional
enterprise risk management processes to bet the farm on an upstart OS +
platform.
Now a vendor that enterprise starts to trust can offer this and everyone wins.
It’s just what the doctor ordered for the K8s roadmap at RedHat.
------
tomdec
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s content, the foundation of our application
ecosystem will remain our only Linux offering. Whereas, some of the delivery
mechanisms pioneered by Container Linux will be reviewed by a joint
integration team and reconciled with Atomic."
So long, Container Linux, we hardly knew ye... ?
~~~
micah_chatt
What is the source? I didn't see that in the linked article.
~~~
tomdec
From their FAQ: [https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/faq-red-hat-acquire-
coreos](https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/faq-red-hat-acquire-coreos)
------
merb
well it would be cool if some of their stuff would be 100% open source than.
Like the CoreUpdate interface.
But well CoreOS is already extremly extremly simple for running k8s and stuff.
We've used CoreOS basically from the beginning. We are small and so had a
fleet cluster with 3 nodes. It worked, kinda but due to docker it wasn't a
nice experience. Docker just had a too fast changing cycle and to much things
didn't worked as we liked.
However now we run more and more internal stuff on k8s self hosted cluster and
it's basically a breeze. we use ignition to bootstrap the nodes and then we
just need to run kubeadm join on every node. everything else is self
configuring.
bootstrapping k8s was basically just 3x kubeadm init. with calico we can even
bgp route every pod and can access them.
the only pain point is storage, but this is not a problem of coreos. small
scale high available disks would be cool, but this is not an easy problem. we
have nfs but it is not on k8s and minio is only good for object storage (and
needs 4 nodes, while I would prefer a solution that uses either etcd or k8s
configmap as a backing store for HA).
Edit: I completly forgotten. Thanks for all what you guys did and I hope you
will be good under the RedHat umbrella.
(P.S.: if tectonic would be free to use for all sizes, that would be even more
amazing, but I'm probably dreaming).
~~~
jacques_chester
Red Hat typically opensources everything, which is one of the things I admire
about them, so you should see repos going up sooner or later.
Disclosure: I work for Pivotal, we compete with Red Hat.
------
grey-area
Not great news if you use container Linux:
[https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/faq-red-hat-acquire-
coreos](https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/faq-red-hat-acquire-coreos)
_Container Linux and its investment in container-optimized Linux and
automated “over the air” software updates are complementary to Red Hat
Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host and Red Hat’s
integrated container runtime and platform management capabilities. Red Hat
Enterprise Linux’s content, the foundation of our application ecosystem will
remain our only Linux offering. Whereas, some of the delivery mechanisms
pioneered by Container Linux will be reviewed by a joint integration team and
reconciled with Atomic._
~~~
numbsafari
Super disappointed in this part of it. Is anyone else aware/familiar with a
decent immutable lightweight Linux distro like Container Linux?
~~~
pierrebeaucamp
If you're looking for immutability, I can recommend NixOS. However what is
drawing me to container Linux is mainly its update process
~~~
chrissnell
The draw of CoreOS Linux for me is its curated pairing of the Linux kernel,
Docker, and etcd. There was a commercial entity reviewing upstream changelogs
and making sure that they were pairing components appropriately. I wonder if
an non-commercial district can really get this right.
~~~
zapita
Take a look at Linuxkit by Docker:
[https://github.com/linuxkit/linuxkit](https://github.com/linuxkit/linuxkit) .
I didn't develop it, but I use it indirectly via Docker for Mac, which I use a
lot. The latest version supports Kubernetes. This means Docker commercially
maintains a Linux/Docker/Kubernetes stack that needs to run reliably on what I
think is a very large install base. They have open-sourced the system they use
for this, it's called Linuxkit and it's a very cool, underrated project.
------
syvanen
Blog post from Red Hat: [https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/coreos-
bet](https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/coreos-bet)
Red Hat FAQ: [https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/faq-red-hat-acquire-
coreos](https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/faq-red-hat-acquire-coreos)
CoreOS Blog post: [https://coreos.com/blog/coreos-agrees-to-join-red-
hat/](https://coreos.com/blog/coreos-agrees-to-join-red-hat/)
(Added FAQ and CoreOS links)
------
pm90
Red Hat acquired Ansible, now CoreOS. They seem to be really gunning for the
DevOps marketplace.
~~~
emmelaich
And their Kubernetes - Openshift - seems like one of the best options for K8S
with it's extra sauces.
~~~
lima
It is, couldn't be happier as a user.
------
jedberg
Congrats to Alex and his team! I've loved their technology since their alpha
days. Glad to see it working out and hopefully getting into more hands with
the acquisition.
------
mack1001
Congratulations Alex & co for a great exit. I think the price is great
considering that it is pretty much impossible to survive as an independent
company in the infra space.
------
gigatexal
And they say there's no money in open source... ;-)
Anyone want to wager that MS buys Canonical?
~~~
scriptingnerd
This is something I have long thought about. For a long time, I thought they
might set their sights on SUSE as well, but they haven't. I dislike the idea
of Microsoft acquiring a Linux company. Despite my primary current bread and
butter being PowerShell and Windows Servers, I have, in a past life been a
UNIX admin, and would prefer the two camps to remain divided. Microsoft
embracing "open source" cuts both ways in my opinion. They may well indeed
give back, promote GitHub and give away a few trinkets, but they are still the
wolf they were under Ballmer, only now led by a much smarter, more saavy CEO.
~~~
gigatexal
Microsoft is constantly being chummy with Canonical. Coming to Canonical
events — offering the WSL based on Ubuntu, etc. it makes total sense. It’s
such a Microsoft thing to do: they could buy them and then offer them as a
alternative to Windows and still make a ton of money. Or buy them an make WSL
even better and shut everything else down. I really think it’s going to
happen. And if they get flack from regulators they can just point to RedHat
~~~
zaat
They also befriend RedHat nowadays.They partner with them around MSSQL on
OpenShift and RedHat offerings (RHEL, OpenShift) on Azure. They also invite
RedHat to their events, let them have sessions and so on.
I don't think that the warming relationships means anything in the way of
acquisition, what do Microsoft have to gain from such a deal? I think they are
far better to work with them as partners.
------
thedevopsguy
It's all about Openshift. Redhat developers have actively contributed to
Kubernetes for about two years now.
Now they'll own the entire stack and have a great integration story for
enterprises. Even though containers have been around 3+ year's in the form of
docker, corporations still don't have a scooby on how to integrate their
existing deployment and development workflows.
~~~
planar_vector
> Now they'll own the entire stack and have a great integration story for
> enterprises. Even though containers have been around 3+ year's in the form
> of docker, corporations still don't have a scooby on how to integrate their
> existing deployment and development workflows.
I second this. If its a legacy stack, enterprises struggle to fully
containerize their apps and commit to deploying with a container orchestration
layer like OpenShift or Kubernetes. IMHO, we need more enterprises to get over
this barrier, than view it as a passion project by over eager devops' teams...
------
anubhavmishra
This is great news! I am not sure what happens to tectonic? Is is going to be
part of OpenShift?
~~~
jkaplowitz
As per the question in the FAQ about open sourcing CoreOS's technology, we can
assume it's going to become open source, at least:
[https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/faq-red-hat-acquire-
coreos](https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/faq-red-hat-acquire-coreos)
It will probably continue to be available in some paid commercial offering
with well defined releases and lifecycles, as well as a community-supported
free-in-both-senses offering which moves faster. Red Hat repeatedly uses this
model across their portfolio.
Can't answer the OpenShift question - I have no inside info from either
company. But open sourcing it is the bigger impact.
~~~
anubhavmishra
Thanks, I didn't see the FAQ link. Yea, let's see what happens with OpenShift.
------
wowtip
Is this a good technical fit? Is this good for the tech community as a whole?
I am a bit disheartened to see discussions often going in the direction of big
corporation politics / power play, rather than how it benefits the community.
~~~
baldfat
The only thing positive I can say is I MUCH rather have Redhat buy them than
Oracle. I think Redhat has been a positive community member and well I will
invoke the mom rule for Oracle.
~~~
haikuginger
Mom rule == "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all"?
------
michaelsbradley
I suspect an announcement re: Docker's acquisition by a major tech player may
follow closely on the heels of this news.
~~~
fapjacks
I don't think so. Docker Inc seems to want to take this as far as they can on
their own, and I haven't seen anything to indicate a deviation from their
stated and implied goal of becoming an entrenched brand of enterprise
platform. I don't think they've done much in the way of positioning themselves
to be bought, though I'm sure some of the bigger players would like to buy
them. I'm interested in this kind of discussion, though, and would like to
hear all about why I may not be right.
~~~
zapita
I think you're right. CoreOS never made the transition from technology and
community leader to a sustainable enterprise business. I think Docker has made
that transition. They are at a completely different stage than CoreOS and
facing vastly different challenges.
For Docker the question is: can they carve out enough of the enterprise IT
budget to reach IPO-level revenue growth before either A) their direct
competition (Red Hat and Vmware) catches up to them, or B) Big Cloud
commoditizes the entire container platform space, eventually nuking the growth
of Docker, Red Hat and Vmware alike.
~~~
ealexhudson
I'm not sure their direct competition really is Red Hat or VMware to be
honest. Their product is Containers-as-a-Service, which is becoming a table-
stakes service in cloud: everyone offers k8s management at a starting price of
"free".
Docker is in a kind of weird place in the market where they're selling as-a-
service for on-premise. Puts them in the same place as OpenStack and
CloudFoundry for me - the former is already squished; jury's out on the second
(IMHO). I don't see their current strategy succeeding, personally.
------
stmw
Great to see their innovation recognized and hopefully it will become even
more popular & widespread with RedHat's distribution muscle and enterprise
customer relationships.
------
sturadnidge
Congrats to the CoreOS team, although I’m a little bit sad to see this happen
it’s a way better outcome than what happened with RethinkDB!
------
willow9886
A quick D&B search on CoreOS, Inc. shows revenues of ~$550,000 [1], which
means at $250m acquisition price, RH paid ~454X revenues..!
[1] [http://www.hoovers.com/company-information/company-
search.ht...](http://www.hoovers.com/company-information/company-
search.html?term=coreos)
~~~
aberoham
I have personally seen checks cut to CoreOS that were larger than the D&B
number you quote. The set of similar corporate customers we'd run into was
surprisingly vast and diverse. Redhat's made a brilliant move here.
~~~
zapita
I doubt CoreOS has any meaningful revenue (my guess is they are between $5M
and $10M of recurring annual revenue). I also doubt they have a single
customer that isn't either A. already a Red Hat customer, or B. too small to
be interesting to them.
For $250M Red Hat bought outstanding technology, a strong R&D team with
community street cred, and upstream influence in Kubernetes. They know how to
monetize these things. They definitely did not buy revenue or customers. In
fact they got a great price precisely because CoreOS failed to monetize these
things sustainably, and needed a way out. It's a great outcome for the team,
and a great match for Red Hat.
~~~
chrissnell
As someone who used CoreOS in a commercial setting, I think you are spot on.
We wanted to pay them but we were never big enough to afford their commercial
offerings. They wanted a lot of cash for their subscriptions and I think most
would-be customers were looking for something less expensive--basically open
source with support.
Redhat offers an existing and proven enterprise customer base that will cut
the big checks. Redhat customers are the customers that CoreOS always wanted
but likely struggled to acquire.
~~~
greglindahl
So are you predicting a CentOS/Red Hat split for existing CoreOS users, or do
you think existing customers will migrate to something different?
~~~
zapita
Probably a mix. A lot of it depends on how they handle the sunsetting and
migration.
Assuming the industry norm, which is a botched sunsetting and incomplete
migration, the majority of free CoreOS users would go looking elsewhere. And
they would probably scatter to the wind rather than flock to a single winner,
since the OS space is quite crowded and fragmented.
------
wyldfire
It seems like early 2018 is rife with acquisitions and mergers. Was the recent
tax law a factor? Seems like these acquisitions take so much time that it
couldn't have been dependent on that. So why all this activity?
~~~
nikanj
New financial year, fresh budgets
~~~
syvanen
Except Red Hat is financially now in Q4.
~~~
JosephRedfern
End of financial year... budgets to spend?
------
fredland
Long live the Farm!
~~~
arreyder
\o/
------
codergr
What i dont get is why Google ventures gave it ? Perhaps because CoreOS was
based on chromeos and doesnt fit to fuschia OS and the new microkernel ?
Anyways congrats to both RH & CoreOS. RH got passionate people in love with
problem and CoreOS Core team monetised the value and innovation which they
shared openly to the community. Thanks CoreOS team good luck !
------
spraak
Why was "Expanding its Kubernetes and Containers Leadership" removed from the
title here when it is part of the original article title?
~~~
codefreakxff
my two cents: "Red Hat to Acquire CoreOS" is fact "Expanding its Kubernetes
and Containers Leadership" is hyperbole
~~~
jwildeboer
Just some facts: Red Hat is #2 corporate committer (after Google and
"independent") to Kubernetes[1]. With the acquisition of CoreOS Red Hat
engineers now lead or co-lead 15 of the Kubernetes SIGs[2].
Disclaimer: I'm a Red Hatter
[1]
[http://stackalytics.com/?metric=commits&project_type=kuberne...](http://stackalytics.com/?metric=commits&project_type=kubernetes-
group&release=all&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_detail_base%3BMdxCr4kgQkGZvd7EJdg1fQ%3D%3D)
[2]
[https://twitter.com/openshift/status/958454802605846528](https://twitter.com/openshift/status/958454802605846528)
------
tiuPapa
I started learning about containerization just this week. I didn't even know
there were other popular alternatives to docker. So from what I gather,
coreOS/rkt is an alternative to alpine/docker, with kubernetes instead of
docker swarm as their primary orchestration solution?
~~~
dahidahi1
Calling rkt a competitor to docker would be a stretch. Docker has undergone
really vast improvements since its inception which is not really true for rkt.
------
segmondy
Happy for the team, sad for the product. I've always wondered how long they
would survive for. I was actually afraid they would go out of business.
------
knutster
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ln9RU1PLOA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ln9RU1PLOA)
------
pankajdoharey
Since it has Red Hat in its name now i dont feel like using it anymore. Would
use BusyBox or Ubuntu Core instead.
------
sandGorgon
i wonder if it will mean that coreos becomes the official server-side fedora
to rhel ... and replaces the community powered centos.
~~~
kuschku
The RedHat press release states that RedHat won't maintain any distro aside of
those they previously maintained, which many interpret as that all Core OS
distros are now EOL.
This is painful and sad.
~~~
smarterclayton
The exact quote is “Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s content, the foundation of our
application ecosystem will remain our only Linux offering”
The key point is “content”, which means the packages and kernel. Atomic itself
is only based on RHEL content at the same schedule as RHEL (rpm-ostree and
some of the tooling is the difference). So it’s not quite about Container
Linux the concept being dead, just that Red Hat isn’t going to create a new
packaging stream (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, RHEL, SUSE are all independent
streams) because then Red Hat would have to duplicate all that work.
I can’t speak to what the plans will be, but the FAQ is not saying Container
Linux is dead.
Disclaimer: Red Hat employee
~~~
kuschku
That's a nice way to talk around the bush, but that doesn't solve the issue
that, without warning or deprecation plan container linux will at some point
just stop working.
There's no timeline or FAQ telling us how we can keep our container linux
deployments, with the same software, with the same configs, working for the
next years.
~~~
smarterclayton
This is the current official message:
[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/coreos-
user/GR4YlF2c...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/coreos-
user/GR4YlF2c1dM)
We plan to revise and update this as soon as we have plans in place.
~~~
kuschku
Okay, where does that tell me how updates wil continue until you have a plan?
Will they just continue being maintained by CoreOS? Will they stop? What is
happening now? If we'll have to manually migrate, how much time will we get
before we have to? How much time will we get between you announcing a plan,
and it being put into action? When can we expect a plan?
We've got no info, and are supposed to run production systems with that.
This is a corporate acquisition, these things don't happen randomly. Why was
there no plan made ahead of time? I'm disappointed and confused.
------
quotemstr
So CoreOS's claim to fame is that it _only_ runs containers? How is that
useful? You can run containers on any distribution.
~~~
kuschku
Because it does the rest for you, magically.
You mount a config file into the system, but CoreOS on it (or boot per PXE),
and coreOS does the entire rest for you. You never have to install or
reinstall, never have to deal with updates. If you put that config file on any
system with coreOS, it'll be exactly like yours.
This means I can create a config to tell a server to join a kubernetes
cluster, and then whenever I create a new server I simply mount the config in,
and am done. I never have to set up or configure servers. Everything is
handled automatically. No more fighting with Ubuntu wiping all repos 10
minutes (!) after a version is replaced by the successor, never dealing with
misconfiguration.
It's truly amazing, and I loved using it. Going back to normal distros is
painful.
~~~
quotemstr
Ah, I see. So it's basically integrated Puppet, but with first class support
from the configured system
~~~
kuschku
Yes, and this is _fast_. I can spin up a new server, have it configured,
started, updated, and joined to my kubernetes cluster in 12 seconds (!).
And it automatically handles updates across the cluster - only a certain
amount of servers restarts at a time, allowing you to stay constantly up while
handling updates automatically, and potentially scaling out in seconds.
It's sad RedHat EOL'd it immediately.
~~~
op00to
Red Hat EOLd what immediately?
~~~
kuschku
On the question if Red Hat will let container linux continue, the official
answer was
“Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s content, the foundation of our application
ecosystem will remain our only Linux offering”
TL;DR: container linux, as we know it today, is dead.
------
justinclift
Wondered when that would happen. ;)
------
simonebrunozzi
This should be in the title, by the way: "for a purchase price of $250
million"
~~~
codefreakxff
Why is everyone critiquing headlines?
The essence is that RedHat bought CoreOS. I didn't realize HN was a place
people expected to see purchase prices in headlines.
~~~
simonebrunozzi
I think a headline with the price tag would have simply been more useful. I
had to spend 30 seconds to find it, and that's the main piece of information I
wanted.
------
cdelsolar
sup polvi
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Welcoming Our New Robotic Overlords - stefie10
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/welcoming-our-new-robot-overlords
======
boundring
The article is focused on robotic automation of menial tasks, primarily in
industrial settings (factories, warehouses), not automation of judgements
which could be subject to bias...
Thriftwy raises an interesting point, speculatively, but there's little bias
to be found in supply logistics or assembly of parts.
Marginally touched upon in the article was the displacement of lower-class
workers. Is expansion of automation going to lead humanity toward
dispossession of low-income workers, or will universal welfare become the
result of outmoded jobs?
I don't think Asimov's "Aurorans,"\--elite-yet-few humans supported by legions
of robotic servants--is possible, but it's a thing.
~~~
stefie10
I started working in robotics because I wanted to empower people and make the
world a better place. But what I have started to appreciate is that increasing
automation is by default a transfer of wealth from labor to capital owners.
The two million long-haul truck drivers who are going to be replaced by self-
driving trucks are going to lose income; the owners of the self-driving trucks
are going to capture that wealth. I am not sure what the right social policies
are to address this; retraining, basic income, and universal healthcare all
seem reasonable. But I think a lot of people don't appreciate how automation
leads to both increased productivity and also increased inequality.
~~~
indigochill
Although I agree automation necessarily moves wealth from labor to capital
sources, I think an underappreciated concept by those concerned about
automation is how increased productivity at least historically has benefited
the overall economy. The industrial revolution went a long way towards
advancing economic inequality, but had it not happened we collectively
wouldn't enjoy anywhere near the quality of life we now do (and that goes for
pretty much anyone who's worn a t-shirt).
But yes, it would be best if we could find ways to help laborers adapt to new
automation and advance technology in a socially responsible way. Not that I
have any great ideas for how that would work.
~~~
ryandrake
Problem is: Tell that to the people losing their jobs. "Sorry you have to
choose between medication and rent now. But hey, the _overall economy_ is
doing great so you should feel happy!" This idea that a rising overall economy
benefits everyone is a lie told by the smaller number of people who it
actually benefits.
------
thriftwy
I think that soon it will be considered a bad practice to possess a skill or
to use some knowledge for decisions..
If you have learned to do something, you will proceed by teaching a machine
learning system that. And then you will use that, and not your internal
knowledge.
The reason will be cited as follows: If you know something, this introduces
bus factor. People can't get in your head to validate if you're applying your
knowledge fairly, or biased, or maliciously misappropriating things. Your
reasoning is unverifiable. You can leave for greener pastures, carrying your
skills and knowledge with you.
While machine learning system is repeatable, you can have all kinds of checks
and KPIs. And it's protected by IP laws.
Human domain knowledge will be discouraged.
~~~
s_kilk
This would effectively freeze all development and leave us collectively stuck
at the current level of expertise.
If every doctor trains an ML algo, then forgets how to be a doctor, then
medicine stops dead at that level.
~~~
mholmes680
i dunno... i just read about alphago zero. Only needed to teach it the rules
of the game, and it thrashed the current level of cumulative human expertise
(alpha go) 100-0 matches, which had just thrashed a single human the year
before.
This seems like its happening at some hedge funds as well for stock picking.
I guess the closed system of the game rules is more manageable than all of
medicine, but... I can't agree with "stuck as the current level of expertise".
~~~
knicholes
I wasn't able to determine from what I read yesterday if AlphaGo Zero played
vs AlphaGo or vs itself (AlphaGo Zero). This probably isn't the place to ask,
but if it is, do you know?
~~~
nschucher
It was trained with self-play and evaluated on AlphaGo Lee (the version that
beat Lee Sedol) and AlphaGo Master (the version that beat Ke Jie and I believe
a number of online matches against top-ranked professional players).
------
lubesGordi
Every single technological advancement relieves someone of work. This allows
people to put their money towards things that they would rather put money
towards, creating more jobs there. This makes the world a better place.
~~~
stefie10
I agree, but technical advancements can also lead to a transfer of wealth from
worker to capital owner. For example, there are roughly two million long-haul
truck drivers in the US today. When we have self-driving trucks, they will
lose their jobs. It's not a very fun job, and self-driving trucks will be
better and safer. But it will also transfer wealth from the worker to the
capital owner.
It may also create other jobs etc., but clearly the wealth transfer is one
part of the effect. I think that as a result it is important to pursue social
policies to mitigate the disruption experienced by displaced workers, and to
spread the benefit of the technology to a larger fraction of society.
------
TYPE_FASTER
Jobs have been made obsolete many times over. There are fewer blacksmiths than
there used to be when a horse was a primary method of transportation.
Manufacturing jobs declined during globalization/offshoring during the
eighties. Did knowledge work take the place of those manufacturing jobs? Would
the employment numbers look different if VisiCalc hadn't come along?
The questions are: what do the population numbers look like that are impacted
by these changes in job-type demand? How many blacksmiths were many obsolete
by the car? How many manufacturing jobs were removed from the pool by moving
to offshore manufacturing? How many manufacturing/warehouse/etc. jobs will be
replaced by automation?
The last question is probably the hardest to answer, because we don't know
yet. It depends on the evolution of the sensors (solid state LIDAR), other
hardware, and automation methods.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Urbanism and Standards of Respectability - apsec112
https://pedestrianobservations.com/2018/03/03/urbanism-and-standards-of-respectability/
======
RcouF1uZ4gsC
I found most insightful the following comment by David Edmondson
> Something drilled home to me at my Cornell planning program was the American
> idea of rural as utopia, urban as dystopia. As my professor would put it,
> our culture strives for a return to the Garden of Eden – it’s seen in our
> art, our land-use patterns (pre- and post-independence), our mythology, and
> our politics. Even Philadelphia was laid out with that idea in mind.
I think that is one of the core issues. The idea of having your own home on
your own plot of land is something that is deep in the American psyche.
And it is something that can be accomplished. Why is there not more remote
work even at the big tech companies? If everybody was not forced to crowd into
Silicon Valley in order to work for the large tech companies, Silicon Valley
and San Francisco home prices would get much better quickly.
Many times, people feel like they are forced to live in cities, not because
they want to, but because they have to for their job. If we promoted a culture
of remote work, then people could live where they wanted, more wealth would
get spread out through the country rather than being concentrated in NYC and
Silicon Valley, and the affordability of living in cities would rise.
~~~
electricslpnsld
> Many times, people feel like they are forced to live in cities, not because
> they want to, but because they have to for their job.
Is this true? I work in a suburbanish portion of the bay area, and 90% of my
coworkers commute in from San Francisco and Western Oakland. San Francisco is
more expensive and is further away, but the advantages of urban living are
multi-fold. Walkable neighborhoods, access to more restaurants, bars, and
nightlife, access to more culture (museums, openings, concerts, etc), more
people to meet and talk to, etc. Given the choice I would almost certainly
choose to live in a city vs. a suburb or rural area.
~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
What is your coworkers' age range. In the past, young people would start in
the city. Once they married/had children, they would move out the suburbs.
~~~
refurb
That's the trend I've noticed. Lots of 20 and 30 year old live in SF. Once the
family expands, the first question is "when do we move out of the city?".
When you've got kids, things like bars and restaurants take a back seat to
good schools and family-friendly neighborhoods.
Of all my coworkers with children, maybe 10% chose to stick it out in SF and
they seem to bitch non-stop about the schools.
~~~
xxpor
It's not predetermined that neighborhoods in the city aren't "family friendly"
though, that's a choice we've made though policy.
~~~
michaelt
Well, part of the family-unfriendliness is competition for cities' limited
housing supply.
If a family with two adults and three children wants a 3-bedroom property,
their budget depends on two adults' salaries minus the costs of three
children.
On the other hand, if it's house-shared by four childless adults in their mid
20s, their budget is four adults' salaries, with none of the costs of
children.
~~~
bobthepanda
Lots of cities manage to do well with children; New York is an above-average
performing urban school district with a million kids enrolled.
The problem is that with the rise of housing as an investment vehicle, cities
have rapidly increased in price. In most countries housing is not a high-yield
investment like stocks, it's a safer, low-yield investment like bonds. REITs
have managed to destroy the goal of affordable housing for most people.
~~~
xapata
I wouldn't blame it on REITs but the vastly greater real lifetime income of
the previous generations. Wages have been declining since the 70s.
------
politician
> A long-forgotten, under-appreciated aspect of encouraging widely dispersed
> suburbs was rooted in Cold War defense against nuclear attack.
[https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly10/suburbs-
defense-07-10....](https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly10/suburbs-
defense-07-10.html)
~~~
Bensch
It's an interesting paper, but there's no evidence it was ever used in HUD
policy.
~~~
politician
The national dispersion strategy was established in the late 40s and early
50s, almost 20 years before the Department of Housing and Urban Development
was founded [1]. By that time, suburbanization was well advanced.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Ho...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Housing_and_Urban_Development)
------
slr555
The author fundamentally misunderstands some of the economic drivers of family
life in NYC.
In Manhattan only 20% of households have children. This is not driven by
dreams of the suburbs or a love of mega-commutes but dollars. Even good New
York public schools are highly competitive. Assuming you can afford an
apartment in a neighborhood with a good public school, your child still needs
to be able to test into the gifted and talented program to get a good
education. The alternative is to spend 50K to send your child to private
schools which are insanely competitive.
Additionally, you have to have space for those children and adding a bedroom
to your real estate holdings is at least a six if not seven figure
proposition. Virtually all the people I know who have left the city have done
so for at least one of these reasons. No one says, "Hey cool I get to move to
Jersey and look forward to riding a bus into Port Authority". I have lived in
Manhattan for 26 years and know that of which I speak. Can't say anything
about the Bay area.
------
jeffreyrogers
I don't understand the tweet early in the article. It seems to imply that
cities aren't accommodating enough of people with alternative lifestyles?
They're more accommodating than anywhere else. Maybe I'm reading what the
author meant backwards.
In any case, we are currently working out as a society how to make cities
livable as more and more people try to move into the same space, but I don't
think bringing up distinctions like straight/gay, liberal/conservative, etc.
is very productive.
And developers don't build single family homes in the suburbs and luxury
highrises downtown for nefarious reasons. They build them there because you
make more money that way.
~~~
Karrot_Kream
I believe (though am not sure) that the tweet is posed in the context of San
Francisco Bay Area. The Sunset neighborhood, which is shown in subsequent
pictures, is a neighborhood with remarkably lower density than the
neighborhoods in SF that lie East of Stanyan. Likewise, the proposal to ensure
that zoning is more permissive around mass transit stops (pushed by Weiner) is
specifically attacking cities that have refused to increase zoning density
despite the inflix of residents.
I also do think bringing up this distinction is important. A conservative,
landed gentry has controlled Bay Area cities and their zoning laws for decades
now and are ferociously resisting a change to their ideas of normal. The
article presents examples with how this gentry specifically casts the pro-
urban Bloc, with a hammer and sickle flag, and hippie clothing, not to mention
the minorities falling out of the buildings. Folks who made those images seem
to explicitly see high density housing as not only an affront to the look of
the neighborhood, but an afront on their values. To deny that this is a war
between 2 different views of the way a city should behave culturally, and to
explicitly ignore the anti-queer and anti-minority imagery, is to be both
intellectually dishonest and inaccurate.
~~~
jeffreyrogers
I don't know anything about San Francisco, so I can't comment on any anti-
queer/anti-minority imagery. The article certainly didn't provide evidence for
it. But is this really a liberal vs. conservative issue? I've heard Berkeley
has similar NIMBYism, and that's a very liberal area, right? Is Sunset really
that conservative?
~~~
Karrot_Kream
You're right, the article didn't provide evidence for it, though it did add
two pictures with anti-minority and anti-hippie imagery (without attribution).
> But is this really a liberal vs. conservative issue?
I wish I could provide you something more than this, but in my anecdotal
experience as a minority in many ways, yes. I don't have the statistical
evidence to agree or disagree though.
> I've heard Berkeley has similar NIMBYism, and that's a very liberal area,
> right?
Berkeley has less of it (again, in my anecdotal experience as a minority) than
most other parts of the Bay. Most of Berkeley's NIMBYism seems to be confined
to parts around North Berkeley.
> Is Sunset really that conservative?
From my time in the neighborhood, yes. It was older and more racially
segregated than other parts of SF for sure. The neighborhood tended to be
split into Chinese (mostly Cantonese) and white sections, and even when
neighbors were of different races, most people stuck to a clique. Residents
were also much older (older than my parents). Again though, this is just my
anecdotal experience.
------
gumby
While the essay is about (and contrasting) American urbanism, this point is
not specific to the US:
> Not for nothing, urbanism in the United States tends to disproportionately
> feature people who have other reasons to be dissatisfied with traditional
> culture.
Some cities the author mentions contrast with this (Stockholm, Paris,
Singapore) but plenty of others, even in contemporary Europe, are more
consistent (e.g. Berlin). In general cities are where people have gone to
abandon the entrenched social order for one reason or another (because they
are misfits or because they need financial opportunities not available in the
countryside). Because of this cities have "always" (OK, I don't know about Ur)
challenged the dominant power structure, even when (as in Paris or Rome) they
co-opt it.
There would be no revolutions without cities.
------
deltron3030
Self driving mobile homes could become a thing, many advantages of cities and
rural life could be combined this way. The routing of the individual homes
would just happen based on your personal and work shedule and preferences,
including the composition of your neighborhood. basically a decentralization
of cities.
------
golergka
> Haredi Jews are notable in being an oppressed minority in Israel
Forgive my french, but what the actual fuck? Haredim are almost dictating the
whole country their religious laws, calling them "oppressed" is as far from
reality as you could get right now.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
iPhone App Digitizes Sheet Music, Teaches You Piano - dangrover
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/etude-iphone-app/
======
jgilliam
Huge congrats on the app... with the iPad coming out, it's the perfect time
for this.
A possible area for expansion (or maybe even a new app entirely). There's a
whole world of classical music that is extremely competitive. Since you've got
the iPad sitting on their piano, use the microphone to record yourself playing
the song, and then it can be uploaded automatically and rated alongside others
who've played the song.
Then you can have a leaderboard for each song, and even an overall
leaderboard, like a global tennis rankings. They could challenge each other to
a "duel" like a tennis match, or there could be a tournament. People can have
their ranking, a profile, how old they are.
It would be hugely motivating to kids learning to play, and very
disruptive/democratizing to the whole classical music world.
~~~
wheels
Guitar Hero against other people online with real instruments could be an epic
music education tool.
~~~
ThomPete
That's what Jesse Schell talks about in his great talk at Dice.
[http://fury.com/2010/02/jesse-shells-mindblowing-talk-on-
the...](http://fury.com/2010/02/jesse-shells-mindblowing-talk-on-the-future-
of-games-dice-2010/)
------
gridspy
Congratulations Dan. Looks like you have created a useful, highly polished
little app. I'd buy it if I had an iPhone.
Have you considered making the keys on the keyboard start off a lighter shade
of blue and fade down to dark blue as they are held?
------
redcap
Currently 6 months into learning the piano again, downloaded the app to give
it a whirl.
Very first impression, but the Continuous scrolling seems to be a little jerky
in places.
Edit: it's synching up with the notes as they scroll by which is your design
choice I guess. Smooth continuous scrolling wasn't something that seemed
appropriate?
~~~
redcap
After listening to the following TED talk, I feel that your store could do
with some Chopin.
[http://www.ted.com/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passio...](http://www.ted.com/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html)
~~~
dangrover
There was a last-minute problem with the 2 Chopin songs that were ready to go
live with the app. Hopefully have em next week.
~~~
redcap
Another comment: when playing through For Elise, it plows right through the 1
and 2 endings for each section when it should play the 1 ending before
doubling back and playing through again before playing the 2 ending.
------
kellogs
The UI looks good, but I have a hard time imagining it in use. Isn't the
iPhone screen tiny for this purpose? Why not make a general laptop app or web
app?
~~~
dangrover
Because I don't think Wired would cover it if it were a desktop/web app :)
~~~
duck
Dan, was it your post on HN that got you on wired.com? Or how did that work?
~~~
dangrover
No, unrelated.
------
TrevorBurnham
I wouldn't have thought of sheet music as a killer app for the iPad, but now
that I think about it, that makes perfect sense. Anyone working on iPad stands
for instrumentalists yet?
I'm picturing entire orchestras switching from sheet music to digital
displays. The article mentions the portability and findability benefits of
replacing stacks of paper with a single screen synced to a sheet music
library. jgilliam posted here about the potential benefits of building games
on top of sheet music. But just in terms of simple usability for
instrumentalists, imagine sheet music that automatically flips to the next
page at the right time.
------
wallflower
When I was in elementary school (even though I have not developed any musical
talent), my favorite part of music class was when the teacher (who was a
talented pianist) would sit down and play at his then-state-of-the-art
keyboard towards the end of class. His actual notes would show up on a huge
keyboard display where keys would light up, just like in your app. It was
fascinating and mesmerizing to see the visual patterns of some songs - and
that some complex songs weren't that complex.
Thanks for the beautiful app and memory trip.
~~~
yardie
When I was younger I played a cello solo of Cavalleria Rusticana Intermezzo.
It was almost 4 minutes in length and filled, at most, half a music sheet (~8
bars). Graphically the music wasn't complex, but it was all the little details
(soft, loud, fast, slow, extremely long holds) that made it interesting. Just
looking at it you wouldn't be able to make sense of it. Only through playing
it would the timing and pattern emerge.
------
msg
I'm sure you've already thought of this, but it seems like now that you have
input of OCR sheet music, you should strongly consider output of OCR sheet
music.
Allow your player to set the metronome, then capture what they play on Etude.
Output a sheet music transcript that they can tweak, replay, and publish in a
marketplace of free music. People can transcribe public domain music, share
original compositions, or (tricky part maybe) cover licensed music.
------
dejb
It looks like a nice app but does it actually do anything that is different
from the multitude of desktop apps in this genre?
~~~
pchristensen
Primarily, it doesn't require a desktop - useful if you're sitting at a piano.
It's also a very polished app with a convenient in-app sheet music store.
~~~
dejb
> Primarily, it doesn't require a desktop - useful if you're sitting at a
> piano.
Yes I had worked that part out. My question wasn't intended as criticism. The
context it appeared in lead me to believe there was something else new about
this but I couldn't find it so I asked. I have an interested in this area. By
the looks of things this would be particularly good with a larger screen such
as the ipad.
------
Heston
Great idea, poor hardware choice.
Really - this would be an amazing app for an aspiring musician but the iPhone
screen would make this experience much less enjoyable than it should be.
~~~
ryanhuff
I think that's where the ipad would do a better job at simulating full sheet
music. I suspect the developer has this in mind already.
------
Raphael
You're in the money!
------
fmeyer
wired wrong again, if it's using midi I'm pretty sure the application doesn't
digitizes anything.
~~~
sp332
It's digital _sheet_ music, not audio.
~~~
CoreDumpling
The point still stands, though: the app doesn't digitize the sheet music, it
displays it from sources that have already digitized it.
Unless the scores are beying keyed in by hand, the actual digitization of the
sheet music is basically a specialized OCR:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_OCR>
~~~
asmosoinio
Doesn't it mean it digitizes the "process" of sheet music -- the whole thing
from notes to someone playing it? Not just the sheets with the notes on them.
This meaning for "the app digitizes sheet music" makes sense, at least for me.
------
ww520
Big congratulations to Dan. Excellent app. I like it when people deliver real
apps.
------
jasonlbaptiste
Fuckin baller!
------
stuntmouse
Kudos.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google division aims to fix public transit in US by shifting control to Google - Jerry2
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/27/google-flow-sidewalk-labs-columbus-ohio-parking-transit
======
sverige
The problem with this is that public policy decisions are being made in
secret, without any transparency other than what the press can dig up. Why not
discuss this publicly?
~~~
wNk6A23YB
Because public/private partnerships are a terrible idea designed to channel
public money into the pockets of the wealthy. You can only make that kind of
terrible policy public after it's too late to change. See the Chicago parking
meter debacle for an example.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Launch HN: Muzmatch (YC S17) – A place where 400M single Muslims can meet - brod_ie
Hey HN!<p>Ryan and Shaz here. We’re building muzmatch (<a href="https://muzmatch.com" rel="nofollow">https://muzmatch.com</a>), an app that helps single Muslims meet their partner. We refer to ourselves as a dating app largely for SEO but the reality is our users don’t tend to date, they marry!<p>Marriage is central to many Muslims’ upbringings and ethnic, family, and religious pressures make it a difficult search. The casual Western apps don’t cater for this market and the existing Islam-specific offerings are outdated, ineffective websites.<p>As a practising Muslim, Shaz experienced this problem firsthand. He quit a 10 year career in banking to write and release an MVP back in April ’15. With promising traction, he found me (Ryan) on LinkedIn in the then New Year. It was clear it could be a massive opportunity but I believed it needed to broaden its appeal (then it was as an ultra serious marriage service) and modernise its branding/marketing to position it for the new generation: this seemed like a great challenge!<p>We’ve tried to build a product that feels fun and light but respects our demographic’s culture and sensibilities, being halal is essential. Some unique features:<p>- Chaperones: In keeping with Islamic tradition, users can opt to have a “Wali” present in their conversations
- Full privacy: Users can blur their photos and use a nickname to remain anonymous to friends and family
- Fully verified: All manually approved, Selfie, GPS, and SMS verified users
- Relevant: Profile information that matters to many in their search, like Islamic, sect, and ethnicity filters<p>We’re now ~2 years in with 200,000 users and are thrilled to have helped over 6,000 find their partner.<p>We’d love to hear your feedback and answer any questions!
======
tboyd47
My wife is a user of this app (she has used to to help her sisters look for
husbands) and so far I think it's a good product. You were wise to include the
wali/chaperone option because that is clearly a key feature for many sisters.
She always mentions how she's puzzled over the "Always pray / sometimes pray /
never pray" options under religious practice. Can you explain your thought
process in coming up with those options?
I want to say that I can see why your app would be a tremendous challenge from
a product development standpoint. What you have as a user base in America are
basically a mix of many different immigrant cultures that each have their own
idea of Islamic traditional marriage customs - Somalian vs. Arab vs. Indopak
vs. West African vs. Cham vs. vs. vs..., as well as clashes between youth &
elder viewpoints, as well as a large indigenous (I use the term loosely -
we're all immigrants to an extent) American Muslim population as well
(something that foreigners usually are shocked to hear - Americans becoming
Muslim?! What!!). Do your research well & don't give up
I ask Allah to guide you to a product that is beneficial for the Muslims - and
also materially successful!
Edit: Also, my email address was used at one point as the "wali" contact but I
stopped getting digest emails from the conversations inexplicably. You may
need tighter QA around that pipeline
~~~
brod_ie
Very happy to hear that and thank you
Absolutely it's a challenge and we're aiming to be as inclusive as possible
Interesting, if you email me ([email protected]) I can look into this further
for you
Thanks again
~~~
tboyd47
Thanks. I think she's taking a break from the searching for now but I'll save
your email address in case it happens again.
------
1123581321
Commenting on the wali/chaperone feature: I'm actually surprised that MuzMatch
is the first network I've seen with support for unobtrusive third parties in
conversations. I think there might be a general business opportunity there if
they execute the limited dating application well. CCing/BCCing in a business
setting is a limited communication management tool vulnerable to political
distractions. Idling in chat is unproductive.
~~~
brod_ie
Totally
Don't get me started on email..!
------
philsit
Great market. You should look for some help with the copy writing. I had to
read some sentences twice.
------
anindha
Dating apps right now feel a little like pre-Facebook social networks. There
is one for every niche.
I wonder why there isn't a platform for single people where dating companies
are just apps on top of the platform. Seems like bad user experience that a
user needs to maintain multiple accounts.
Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great idea but I think the really big
company in this space will be a platform for single people.
~~~
detroitcoder
You mean facebook?
~~~
losteric
Facebook doesn't have open APIs and blatantly opposes non-advertising
extensions
~~~
anindha
Facebook login works fairly well to grab data once.
------
JessOpearlo
How many marriages have happened through your app our of interest?
~~~
brod_ie
We've had 600 confirmed weddings and 6,000 couples leave after finding each
other within the app
We think the former is likely higher too as many choose to keep it private
~~~
bogomipz
So if people leave after finding each other but don't get married wouldn't
that technically be dating?
~~~
brod_ie
We see dating to be non-exclusive where as these 6,000 couples are in
committed relationships
~~~
bogomipz
So if people use your app until they agree to be in an exclusive relationship
aren't they "dating" until then?
------
ashayh
The HN description says: "users can opt to have a “Wali” present in their
conversations "
The site says: _Women_ can include a guardian in their conversation for extra
peace of mind.
Which is correct?
~~~
brod_ie
The chaperone feature is coming to both genders in the next major version.
Historically it was just for women as we used to refer to it as a "Wali" which
Islamically is only for this sex
------
the_common_man
Can you explain, how you make money? In the play store there are some bad
reviews about in-app purchases. What is your pricing and what do you price
for? Thanks
~~~
brod_ie
We monetised through a mix of In App Purchases for products like Extra Swipes
(see more profiles daily) and Instant Match (guaranteed to be seen to a
soecified user) as well as a Premium subscription offering that includes some
supplemental features as well as bundles of the IAPs. People don't always like
the realities of the app economy but in truth we didn't monetise anything that
was previously free. The free product is still as functional as ever. We
modify pricing from time to time, you can see these in-app and in-stores,
thanks.
------
biztos
This looks like a really good idea. I wonder if there is a wider opportunity
beyond the Muslim-specific context for some kind of Anti-Tinder.
Out of curiosity, how does "all profiles being verified manually" scale?
~~~
brod_ie
Thank you
It definitely keeps us busy 24/7 but we've built some internal tools to make
this as quick and efficient as possible
We're definitely nearing the point of needing a dedicated Community Manager to
take over this function
------
navalsaini
Pretty cool guys. I can see from the play store comments that your users love
the app. Best wishes.
Whats 'Halal, free, and fun'?
Whats you tech stack like?
~~~
brod_ie
Thank you!
Halal being "ok" Islamically, free as the old competition are very expensive,
and fun so the process sounds noncommittal (many are put off by fearing being
rushed into something they're not necessarily ready for)
It's a LEMP stack heavily utilising Memcached for performance and XMPP for
real time functionality
~~~
frik
How have you initially launched it so hat it got traction? Sending mails to
your friends? at an event? posting in FB group?
------
teej
I'm annoyed that you came in, advertised your product, took up front page
space, and didn't bother to answer any of the interesting questions. I feel as
if you are taking from the community and not giving back.
~~~
brod_ie
Sorry to hear that, I thought I chimed in on most topics! All hands on deck
for demo day, having another read through now
------
marrone12
Your hero div has some weird overlap issues in smaller screen heights
[http://imgur.com/a/yxyHr](http://imgur.com/a/yxyHr)
~~~
brod_ie
Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I never foresaw such a small
vertical to horizontal ratio screen!
------
praneshp
Nice service!
Is the "Wali" a human being? If yes, how will that scale?
~~~
newscracker
It'll be a verified email address that the member selects, to whom the chat
transcripts are sent. [1]
> How do I include a Wali or Guardian on muzmatch?
> We want muzmatch to be a Halal and safe place for all our members to find
> their partner.
> Women can enter a Wali or Guardian's email address in Menu → Settings to
> give them extra peace of mind.
> Once their email has been confirmed they’ll receive weekly transcripts of
> your Chats on muzmatch.
[1]: [https://muzmatch.com/faq/how-do-i-include-a-wali-or-
guardian...](https://muzmatch.com/faq/how-do-i-include-a-wali-or-guardian-on-
muzmatch)
~~~
brod_ie
Thanks, I love seeing the FAQ being used! You can probably tell this is our
own custom tool, we want to build more of a community around product Q&A and
support in the future.
------
MarkMc
Interesting that you seem to have gained traction even though your competition
has been around for 10 years or more.
Good luck!
~~~
brod_ie
Thank you! The older the company (typically) the harder and slower it is to
innovate, we think they've completely missed to opportunities smartphone
present.
------
nrclark
How does the Wali part work? do you employ conversation reviewers? Does one
dater recruit an outside person?
------
funwithjustin
Who did your icon illustrations? They're great!
~~~
brod_ie
Thanks, I do all of our design but I can't take credit for these other than
some colouring and minor alterations, they're from a generic set I bought a
while back
------
botrot
In terms of gender, I am fluid. Does muzmatch have plans to support additional
gender options? The current format only allows "Male" or "Female".
~~~
leesalminen
Does the religion allow for this? Not sure that it does.
~~~
botrot
I don't think this is the place for a discussion on theology. Might I suggest
a slightly different question: do gay and gender fluid Muslims exist? The
answer is clearly yes. One need not go far to see stories of extremist groups
throwing them off of buildings for being so.
So, this leads to my original question of whether the product will enable
this. I'd hate (probably too strong of a word) to see a product get awesome HN
coverage that actively works against ('discriminate') LGBTQX folks.
@abbasiddartha > beat me to it. I agree.
~~~
xupybd
They are serving a narrow niche. I don't think you can term that
discrimination.
Perhaps if You see a business opportunity you could create an app that serves
the Muslim LGBTQX community?
~~~
botrot
If I create an app that delivers cup cakes and cakes to people having weddings
- but only to people who have "straight" marriages, would this be a "narrow
niche" and "business opportunity", or would I have the shit sued out of me?
~~~
xupybd
I don't think that is a fair comparison.
A dating service serving a niche can help people pre-filter their matches. For
example someone of higher education or earning might want to only find people
of similar education. It would be discrimination to prevent people of lower
education from purchasing from a cup cake delivery service. But not to filter
them from a dating service.
As I understand it there are dating services that specialise in matching non
straight couples. Is this discrimination against straight people?
~~~
botrot
You can have a dating app which uses filters and so forth to find your mate.
RESTRICTING access (as opposed to a search filter) based on race, gender, etc.
is pretty damn iffy. Especially when the app is owned by a company. Has this
been tested in the courts yet? How is a digital "filter" (in the way that you
are using the word) any different than a physical "filter" beginning at the
entrance of my cake shop?
In any case, brod_ie has said "We're supportive of this and is definitely on
our radar reply", so I'm sufficiently satisfied! ^.^
------
smegel
> Chaperones: In keeping with Islamic tradition, users can opt to have a
> “Wali” present in their conversations
Sounds like a pretty unique feature in the world of chat apps. Were there any
technical difficulties in implementing that?
~~~
brod_ie
Great question. Not particularly as the current Chaperone system works as an
email digest of conversations sent to your confirmed guardian. In the future
we want to explore adding full muzmatch account functionality here so the
chaperone can sign into the native apps and view conversations in a more
realtime manor.
------
frik
Would be interested in your relaunch 2015+ - how have it got traction? Was it
rebranding? How have you got the initial traction? Sending emails to closed
real world community? Postings on FB?
------
Cenk
Link for the lazy: [https://muzmatch.com](https://muzmatch.com)
~~~
dang
Added above. Thanks!
| {
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BBC accidentally tweets Queen's death - SimplyUseless
http://www.3news.co.nz/entertainment/bbc-accidentally-tweets-queens-death-2015060406
======
byoung2
For a rehearsal, why not always use a fake name?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
8-bit Color Cycling Pixel Art - Rexxar
http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle
======
chrisgagne
Very pretty. I came across this about a year ago when building out a LED
"discosuit" for the playa. I used color cycling to power my suit's effects:
[https://github.com/chrisgagne/ColorCyclingLEDs](https://github.com/chrisgagne/ColorCyclingLEDs).
Nirvana Engine from 1996-1998 used this in a night club context:
[http://www.clusterworks.net/ClusterWorks/NvClusterWorksGalle...](http://www.clusterworks.net/ClusterWorks/NvClusterWorksGallery.html#NE).
| {
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The Groovy Conundrum - llambda
http://www.drdobbs.com/jvm/the-groovy-conundrum/240147731
======
vorg
This article's concluding paragraph...
> The endless variety of features requires considerable documentation, which
> is simply not available, especially for the advanced features that give
> Groovy much of its benefit. And so, if you jump in today, you'll find the
> language is easy to learn, but hard to master. Fortunately, this limitation
> is not incurable. However, time is of the essence as Groovy's principal
> competitor for the hearts and minds of Java developers — Scala — has a
> small, laser-focused company behind it, which revs the product frequently
> and generates considerable documentation. If Groovy acts soon, it can retain
> leadership among Java alternatives. If not, it will have to resign itself to
> being an also-ran.
The author is missing the point of Grails and Groovy's business model. A lack
of usable documentation means developers must pay for SpringSource consultants
and seats at conferences, where lots of money is made and divvied up. The
Groovy "Bible" didn't bring in much profit for its authors so why should they
bother with a 2nd edn? Grails and Groovy is about making money _now_ for those
involved, not investing it. Even the "groovymag" charges money for an online
subscription, while the "Week with Scala" is free! If someone seriously
creates independent doco for Groovy, the next version of Groovy would change
slightly to lessen the value of the doco and increase the need for a
consultant or conference.
The author does correctly conclude that Groovy will soon be an also-ran
because of that business strategy. Rod Johnson, former CEO of Grails company
SpringSource, is now leading the board of that laser-focused Scala company. He
no doubt understands the value of "taking a cut of a huge pie" instead of
"owning all of a tiny pie", and is investing in growing Scala instead of
strangling it. The project managers behind Groovy, Graeme Rocher and Guillaume
Laforge, are probably incapable of changing their ingrained habits to steer
Groovy in a new direction.
| {
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Nintendo gets UK ISPs to block Switch piracy sites - 99chrisbard
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/09/nintendo-gets-uk-isps-to-block-switch-piracy-sites/
======
scoobyyabbadoo
THat's great. Software piracy raises the costs of software for non-pirates
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
MailCare.io – Open source disposable email address service - dvfjsdhgfv
https://github.com/mailcare/mailcare
======
dvfjsdhgfv
Someone submitted it recently but it was flagged quickly. Undeservedly in my
opinion as the service seems very useful - it's just like your own personal
copy of Mailinator, therefore practically impossible to blacklist.
~~~
eXorus84
Thanks, I don't know very well how HN works so I posted it to inform the
community. I know there are a lot of similar services but the first goal 6-7
years ago was to learn how to build this in PHP and it was a success. eXorus -
MailCare.io Founder
| {
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Idea Feedback: CMS Vault - Slmnhq
A few ideas have been bouncing around my head for a while now so I decided to codify them on a Osterwalder-style business model canvas.<p>This particular concept is called CMS Vault. It addresses hosting disasters that I personally faced with clients' sites over the past few years, including failed upgrades, hackings, site-jackings, and buggy plugins.<p>What I'm looking for from the HN community is the following:<p>- intuitiveness of the overall concept.<p>- validation of stated problem.<p>- viability of the solution.<p>- tips for execution.<p>- market segmentation.<p>- cautionary tales.<p>The canvas can be viewed here:<p>http://www.scribd.com/doc/75834784/CMS-Vault<p>I will appreciate any and all feedback from the HN community.
======
trussi
The problem I think you are trying to solve isn't much of a problem.
I've been developing with CMS applications for 12+ years and have never once
ran into any of the issues you described above (failed upgrades, hackings,
site-jackings, buggy plugins) to such a degree that I wanted/needed to
completely switch the CMS platform.
I'd urge you to NOT build a product for developers. I know it's tempting
because the ideas we (developers) come up with follow the 'scratch your itch'
advice. I wrote a blog post about this: [http://www.travisdoes.com/you-itch-
sucks-scratch-somebody-el...](http://www.travisdoes.com/you-itch-sucks-
scratch-somebody-elses)
I'd highly recommend you focus your efforts on building a B2B SaaS product.
There are millions of great opportunities to build boring, but profitable
niche products.
If you need help finding some ideas, shoot me an email.
~~~
Slmnhq
First of all... good blog post. Money quote: "Your universe is small and very
hard to sell to."
Secondly, I hope I am not misunderstanding your comment, "... completely
switch the CMS platform." While it may not be clear in the slide, this is not
a new CMS. It is a backup and security service for popular CMSes.
Secondly, I am not aiming this service at other developers. It's partially
omitted in the slide but the market segment is administrators of sites that
receive >15K uniques per month.
Administrators != Developers. 15K+ uniques per month implies traffic is high
enough to monetize which means uptime is critical.
Does that alter your opinion? Or generally, are there any parameters on the
slide that could be tweaked to reach a threshold of viability in your opinion?
------
scottyallen
Clickable: <http://www.scribd.com/doc/75834784/CMS-Vault>
| {
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Australian Government and Opposition do deal on crypto backdoor bill - vermilingua
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/dec/04/coalition-and-labor-do-deal-on-law-enforcement-access-to-encrypted-messages
======
LegendaryLegend
> Under the terms of the deal, law enforcement agencies will not be able to
> issue technical capability notices for companies to build back doors unless
> both the attorney general and communications minister approve.
"unless both the attorney general and communications minister approve"?
seriously? so this is actually a possibility... wow.
~~~
alfiedotwtf
And people thought I was exaggerating
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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ASK PG/HN: Questions before interview for S11 batch: Part 2 - throaway_s11
How do you decide how much equity you would expect for YC's investment? I was on wompt and conovore the other day when all of this was going down and people were sharing their startups and many seemed very far along.<p>They way I see it YC adds the following value:<p>1. Operational Help (incorporation, UX, UI etc)<p>2. Strategic Advise (PG/JL/HT and others)<p>3. Cohort Batch<p>4. Alumni Network<p>5. Demo Day and Access to Investors<p>Anything I am missing? Thanks.
======
pg
There's a bit more to it. We do a lot of talking to investors about the
startups. We offer some amount of protection against being maltreated. We have
a lawyer in house who does the startups' basic legal work for free, and now a
designer too. We mediate founder conflicts. There are many companies that give
the startups free services and/or access to otherwise unavailable APIs. We do
a lot of press intros. We help the startups recruit people. And probably a few
things I'm forgetting; I just got home after traveling all day.
| {
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Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt. - tomeast
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/09/30/130249425/thanks-for-paying-taxes-here-s-your-receipt?ft=1&f=93559255
======
DanielBMarkham
The late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan supported sending people statements
of what was in their social security. His idea was that if people never saw
what was in there, they'd never miss it when it was gone.
I think this is a logical extension of that idea, and its great. I'd also like
to see the flip side of the receipt contain a guess for how the same tax
amount would break down the following year based on current budget trends.
That way you could see how the coming year is different from the current year.
Complaining about NASA funding is one thing -- seeing that they only get 20
bucks while Social Security gets over a thousand? Puts the situation in much
sharper contrast.
It's strange that the government works in such an arcane fashion. A simple
thing like a receipt for your taxes is probably very hard or impossible to
accomplish. It took many years for Moynihan to get his SS statements. I have
doubts that this would ever fly.
But it is certainly a simple and profound idea.
~~~
ataggart
>His idea was that if people never saw what was in there...
The problem of course is there's no "there" there. Any funds collected today
by payroll taxes, and not used for today's benefits, are lent to the general
fund and spent. There are no funds being saved for next year's benefits, much
less the current tax payers.
Now, it is true that the Social Security system then holds "assets" in
exchange for that cash, namely, government bonds. But this is just accounting
fiction.
Imagine you are a new parent and wish to save for your child's college
tuition. Here are some scenarios:
A) Every pay day you put some money in a jar. When your child goes to college
you take the money out of the jar to pay the tuition.
B) Every pay day you spend every dime. When your child is ready to go to
college, you scramble to find the funds to pay the tuition.
C) Every pay day you put some money in a jar, then you replace the money in
the jar with an IOU, and spend the money. When your child is ready to go to
college, you scramble to find the funds to pay the IOUs to pay the tuition.
There is no substantive difference between B and C.
~~~
Ratufa
Your scenarios, while technically accurate, leave something out. Here's
another version:
D) Your child spends his/her high-school years mowing lawns, doing part-time
jobs, etc, in order to save some money to help pay their way through college.
You encourage them to do so. The money earned is put in a jar. You take that
money, replace it with an IOU, and use it to pay for household expenses along
with more frivolous things. Now it's college time and you scramble to find the
money to pay the IOUs.
~~~
ataggart
True, but there's an easy solution: take out a loan in your yet-to-be-born
grandkids' name.
~~~
encoderer
...after all, they benefit by their mother/father having a college
education......
~~~
jimmyk
I suppose you have no problem with the underlying assumption in this scheme,
which is that adults should be treated like children.
------
hugh3
Not a bad idea. But why does it say "selected items"?
I haven't added the numbers up myself, but one of the comments says that the
listed things add up to only sixty-something percent of the total. Where's the
other money gone? One might almost think they're trying to make a political
point with their careful selection of items (eg. "Combat operations in Iraq
and Afghanistan" somehow got to fifth place on the list while "bailouts" and
"stimulus" are entirely missing despite this being 2009).
Anyway, I certainly wouldn't trust the government to give me a receipt which
said "selected items" -- deceptive information is worse than no information.
Also, since the US federal expenditure is currently about 25% larger than tax
receipts, how is this taken into account?
~~~
Aetius
This is, after all, NPR...no surprise the war was prominent as they have a
decidedly progressive news team. I won't call NPR liberal, but certainly left
of center, and very critical (as they should be) of the wars.
~~~
kscaldef
I think the bias in the table actually goes the other way. By breaking down,
and omitting parts of, military spending, they make it look relatively minor
compared to SS, Medicare, and Medicaid. They have also chosen to display SS
intakes, not outflows, which is a $400B difference.
~~~
hugh3
If you look at the pdf from the think tank which came up with it, you'll see
that one of their arguments for doing it this way is that "An educated
taxpayer is a progressive's best customer", leaving no doubt what their
political agenda is.
Somewhat disingenuous from a think tank called the "Third Way", which was
originally intended to imply centrism. Still, it's a general law of NPR
reporting that a left-wing think tank is called a "think tank" and a right-
wing think tank is called a "right-wing think tank".
~~~
Poiesis
_Still, it's a general law of NPR reporting that a left-wing think tank is
called a "think tank" and a right-wing think tank is called a "right-wing
think tank"._
I don't really have a dog in this fight, but a quick search suggests you may
be mistaken. [site:npr.org "right-wing think tank"] os 8 results;
[site:npr.org "think tank"] has about 2380. Nothing funny in robots.txt.
But you never know, maybe there aren't that many transcripts on there or
something...
~~~
hugh3
Or perhaps they rarely quote right-wing think tanks?
Still, a bit more googling:
7 hits for "right-wing think tank" vs 4 hits for "left-wing think tank", so
apparently they don't use either term very often.
1200 hits for "liberal think tank" vs 285 for "conservative think tank" vs 447
for "libertarian think tank" (all of which seem to be Cato) vs 6 for "moderate
think tank".
3 for "Republican think tank", 345 for "Democratic think tank" and 57 for
"non-partisan think tank"
I take your point, though. What you'd really need to do in order to analyze
bias would be to check out "think tank" is used without an adjective and
figure out what kind of think tanks those are.
~~~
yv
These numbers of grossly inaccurate. Go to the last results page of each query
to see the real hit count.
------
jasonkester
Screw receipts. What I want is a bill.
The IRS seems plenty good at figuring out how much I should have paid in taxes
and hounding me about it. Why not do those calculations in February and send
me a bill:
"We calculated that you owe $14,278 in taxes this year. Please submit payment
along with the stub below. Alternately, you may choose to submit a tax return
for our review."
Government gets their money. I save a bit of hassle in April. Sorted.
I mean sure, they'd end up overcharging you by a few percent, but really that
amounts to <$1,000. My time is worth a lot more to me than that. Send me a
bill telling me what I owe and I'll pay it.
~~~
TGJ
I don't think your idea would ever work. I think the way the tax system gets
by everyday with all the corruption and waste associated with it is by the
simple premise "Out of sight, out of mind". Taxes are paid by the average Joe
a little at a time, I think most Joe's would simply freak out if they received
a total sum bill at the end of the year. Actually, your idea would work in a
perfect system, but we know how rare those are.
~~~
jasonkester
I imagine they'd keep track of your withholding, so the "bill" would be for
the difference between what you'd paid already and what you owe. Just like
your current tax return.
In the case of a refund, it might even take the form of a check that, if
cashed signifies your intention not to file a return.
~~~
TGJ
When you put it like that, I'd sign up.
------
ck2
There's something bogus about those war numbers, it's far too low.
The US has a $700 Billion ANNUAL military budget (more than every other
country combined).
Something is being hidden in other numbers because of all the cost to support
military and their families (taxpayer paid "free" housing?) and thousands of
military are coming back with traumatic injuries that previously would have
been a one-time funeral cost but now are surviving with extremely expensive,
continuous medical support and therapy costs (and disability pay for
them/family).
Where is the "homeland security" portion in that receipt? Are we to believe
the billions in security theater at airports is free and not funded by taxes?
What about the billions doled out to local governments under the guise of
"homeland security" so law enforcement can buy new toys to abuse?
Where are the secret military projects budget in that receipt (like their own
space shuttle, military satellites and other stuff we aren't supposed to know
about so their budgets are hidden?)
------
wuputah
I do like the idea, but a cursory look at their 'receipt' and where the
numbers come from showed a pretty large flaw: half of social security and
medicare is paid for by employers. Unless you consider your salary to be an
extra 8.65% than it really is, you're not accounting for all the taxes the
government receives based on your paycheck. Although this is really a "hidden
tax" on your paycheck, most people don't think of it as part of their salary
(which is why they do it this way).
There's also other types of taxes paid by non-individuals, like corporate
taxes, estate taxes, and the like.
In any case, it means the numbers in their receipt for SS and Medicare are off
by a factor of 2, so you should evaluate this only based on the idea, not on
their actual numbers. (Not to mention there are likely an abundance of other
problems with this method, like spending that is not part of the budget, or
when the government is over-budget and issues bonds to pay for it.)
------
aresant
Nice viral night's project would be building a simple yourtaxreceipt.com
website, reverse engineering those numbers and making a calculator.
~~~
dkasper
Your wish is my command: <http://www.incometaxreceipt.com>
~~~
taxreceipt
I built one too. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1745574>
~~~
gnaritas
Where is it?
~~~
volare
It is <http://www.yourtaxreceipt.org>
------
zach
From the report:
_"At best, motivated taxpayers can locate a pie chart on a government website
that gives percentage allocations about how large categories of spending are
distributed.
But these are difficult to find and difficult to understand."_
This is disingenuous puffery. It's in every copy of the 1040 instructions and
is simple to understand.
They're actually suggesting a far more complex and entirely non-visual
spending report. That's useful, but the existing report is neither hard to
find nor understand.
------
ihodes
Original paper (not blogspam, if you feel okay calling some of NPR that):
[http://content.thirdway.org/publications/335/Third_Way_Idea_...](http://content.thirdway.org/publications/335/Third_Way_Idea_Brief_-
_A_Taxpayer_Receipt.pdf)
This is a brilliant idea, and in the spirit of a democratic republic, I'd say.
I'm paying taxes; it'd be nice to know what exactly I'm paying for.
I'm also for listing all the expenses; down to the ones that end up costing
you a millicent.
Perhaps yet more feasible would be setting up a real tax website, with real
information, and accessible tax records for all. On this website you could
also find your receipt. If only…
~~~
city41
But it's not the entire story. Just because X dollars was spent on the
military for example, how much of that X was actually put to good use? As a
former employee of a military contractor, I can attest there are entire
companies built around taking advantage of how inefficiently the government
spends its money.
------
mkn
There's a lot of naive love here for a deeply flawed idea.
First, what is suggested in this article is not a receipt, but a breakdown. A
sales receipt for a car, for example, doesn't start out, "5 tires (4 on
vehicle, 1 spare), 2 axles..." It just doesn't work that way. You buy
"government" with your taxes.
Even if you did get an itemized receipt for a car, _that_ would be far easier
than what's proposed here. You can always just point to the car and account
for the parts. The part is either there or not, and meets specifications or
not. The reason that government and spending are these intractable issues is
that the parts can be arguably there or not, and arguably working or not.
As long as you can't opt out of all or a portion of your taxes, in other
words, as long as tax policy is sane, the only "receipt" you should get should
specify that you paid the amount you calculated. Any other discussion or
education about costs and allotment should happen in a forum that at least has
a chance of shedding some real light.
Finally, if the receipt ever became the focus of public attention, politicians
will just monkey with the categories until you're happy again. It will cease
to be an information tool and become an influence tool. It will merely add
another layer of intractability to an already byzantine bureaucratic system.
------
julian37
I wonder if these numbers are made up or have any basis in reality.
One item that caught my eye was spending on the DEA of only $3.14: Wikipedia
puts yearly spending on law enforcement related to the War On Drugs at about
$44 billion [1] and gross federal tax revenue for 2009 at about $2.1 trillion
[2]. This works out to roughly 2% of tax revenue spent on the War On Drugs.
For the $5,400 of federal income tax in the linked example that would work out
to more like $100 rather than $3, no?
Of course, the Wikipedia article doesn't state how much of the $44 billion
goes to the DEA and how much goes to other law enforcement agencies.
[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs#Costs_to_taxpayers>
[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Ma...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Major_receipt_categories)
~~~
mediaman
DEA's budget is much smaller than total spending on the "War On Drugs" (not
sure how that number is calculated; spending against illegal drug
manufacturing, distribution and consumption happens at many levels of law
enforcement).
Their 2009 appropriations were $2.6bn.
<http://www.justice.gov/dea/agency/staffing.htm>
~~~
julian37
Makes sense, but assuming that the $44bn figure in the Wikipedia article is
correct I'm still wondering where the remaining ~$97 dollars are hidden. In
"Military Personnel" and "Health Care Research"? I guess it goes to show that
even with a fairly detailed list of expense positions, you still don't really
know where your tax dollars go.
~~~
_djo_
I am open to correction, but as I understand it the $44 billion figure is a
calculated estimate of the money being spent in total by any and all
government institutions in the US, including that spent by local and state
police departments and prison services to investigate, catch and incarcerate
narcotics suppliers and users.
Considering the nature of the War on Drugs I'd expect most of the expenditure
to be at the local and state level, but the biggest chunks at the federal
level aside from the DEA's budget would probably be the proportion of Coast
Guard and CBP time and resources dedicated to counter-drug operations and the
military and policing aid given to countries like Mexico and Colombia. This is
a bit hard to quantify though, as the Coast Guard and CBP usually conduct
counter-drug operations as part of their usual duties and not all the aid
being sent to Colombia and Mexico is motivated solely by the desire to contain
drug production and shipment.
So you would not necessarily find the remaining funding hidden within the
federal budget.
------
stuaxo
Things should be grouped e.g. all military stuff with a subtotal in there.
------
hansef
Totally offtopic, but m company did the site for Third Way earlier this year
and I love the S3 CNAME'ing I added at the last minute before launch:
[http://content.thirdway.org/publications/335/Third_Way_Idea_...](http://content.thirdway.org/publications/335/Third_Way_Idea_Brief_-
_A_Taxpayer_Receipt.pdf)
Always fun to see a project you were involved surface on NPR. ;)
------
JeffJenkins
I've always liked the idea of a receipt to be given to Canadians at the end of
every year telling them what healthcare benefits they got and how much they
cost.
It seemed like it would make people grateful that they had that service, but
it also might make the people who pay disproportionately more than they use
angry (and the nature of insurance is that most people put in more than they
get)
~~~
mattm
If you are under 60, chances are you are paying disproportionately more in
healthcare than you are getting. But this is how it goes. A large percentage
of your lifetime's healthcare spending occurs in the last 6-12 months of your
life.
Given the choice, I would much rather pay more for healthcare than I am using.
It means I am healthy. My health is more valuable than money.
------
japherwocky
Take it one step further and let people specify what their money goes to.
Automate the politicians!
~~~
hugh3
It seems like a nice idea on the face of it, but apart from the inevitable
chaos which comes from having budgets of government departments fluctuate
wildly from year to year, I think it would lead to a world where government
departments spend about half their time and money begging taxpayers for money.
Every television ad for the first four months of the year would probably be
some variation on:
_"Remember, the FBI does good work! Be sure to remember to contribute to the
FBI on your next tax return!"_
~~~
1053r
Honestly, the receipts for MOST businesses are fairly predictable (within
10-20%, at least), so why would we think that the government would be any
different?
Also, I'm not sure why making government departments beg for money and have to
live in the free market is on the face of it a bad thing. Would it be any
different than the current system, where politicians beg us for money while
promising to allocate our taxes a particular way, but then usually fail to
follow through completely on? Having the departments beg for money directly
seems more efficient somehow.
Of course, I think what would really suffer is bold new infrastructure
programs. People would be willing to allocate money to roads once a couple
high profile bridges collapse, but would we ever see a space elevator?
~~~
SapphireSun
Would be nice, but what happens when you contribute to a government program?
Nothing. Your money is far too small to have any effect and you will likely
receive a particular service whether you personally contribute or not. With a
business, you get what you pay for. Fast.
------
JohnAllen
The denominator should be tax receipts, not federal spending. Foreign
countries and our Federal Reserve actually made large contributions this past
year (both do every year we have a budget deficit and every year the money
supply increase- this is most every year for the past few decades). This is
not to suggest that Americans won't eventually pay for all of this year's
expenditures, we eventually will. In the case of the Fed, consider their new
money printing and subsequent spending to be a tax of everyone that holds
dollars at the time of the printing/spending.
------
arethuza
I would dearly love the UK government to send me a statement every year
explaining what it has done with my taxes and detailing my share of the
liabilities it has been running up on my behalf.
In fact, I want it online and I want to be able to drill down as far as I want
into the data.
Of course, my desire for such a thing is balanced by the fact that such a
project if carried out in the same way as most public sector IT projects would
probably cost a hundred billion and not actually work.
------
kqr2
Here's another nice visualization of US government spending:
<http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/>
~~~
illumin8
This is amazing. I find it incredible that only .100 billion is going towards
"Financial Crimes and Enforcement" given the huge amount of fraud and outright
criminal activity that has occurred in our banking sector. This is actually
down 10% from last year.
Regardless of your political views, left or right, this shows you what the
priorities of our government are.
After the S&L crisis in the 80s, over 1000 banksters and fraudsters were
convicted and imprisoned. Why is it that none have been convicted and
imprisoned now?
~~~
yummyfajitas
While I'd love to see all the home borrowers who lied on their loan
applications jailed, it just isn't going to happen. They are "victims" who
need a bailout.
Besides, it's probably also not that useful to do. From now on, you can expect
banks to do a little more verification, so creating disincentives for mortgage
application fraud is not that pressing an issue.
------
uptown
My unrealistic idea for changing how taxes work is allowing me to designate
which programs my cash goes towards. Make it kinda like the old Wheel of
Fortune ... where you've got $x to spend on stuff that's priced 5 times what
it's supposed to cost. If I want to buy 0.003% of that winter's salt supply
for the road, or 0.00001% of a Predator drone ... at least I'd know where my
taxes supposedly went.
------
untamedmedley
The way some of the line items are written/described is very misleading.
Setting aside money for "Low Income K-12 students" or Foreign Aid or Amtrak
(with prices as high as flying and quadruple the travel time) does not
necessarily mean that investment is getting results.
I'd only trust a receipt like this if it were annotated with hard numbers on
how my dollars turn into meaningful progress.
------
jsz0
I always thought it would be a good idea to let people decide how part of
their tax dollars were going to be spent. Set aside maybe 20-30% and let them
choose which programs to give extra funding to. I imagine most of it would end
up in education and social programs.
~~~
kitt
And this is what I was about to post, but instead of 20-30%, make it 51%.
Allow taxpayers to decide where (the broad categories the receipt listed are a
perfect starting point) their tax dollars are going. The remaining 49% can be
discretionary, let the government decide where that goes: fill in the gaps for
items needed, but that no one wants to pay for.
Such a policy would give people a sense of power over the money they're
paying. I, for one, would begrudge less the paying of taxes if the monies went
to programs important to me.
~~~
zumda
But then the rich would have a lot more power over the budget then the poor.
~~~
kitt
1\. That's pretty much already the case (lobbyists are paid by someone, and
that someone isn't the poor).
2\. You make that sound like a bad thing, when it's not.
Given the categories listed on the receipt, which one of those would you
really be upset if a rich person decided to put 51% of his taxes to? Medicaid?
Pell Grants? How about the National Parks?
"If the wars are important to you, use your money to pay for it, stop using
mine," is pretty much my philosophy. Having no control over where my taxes go
makes me significantly less pleased with paying them.
------
emit_time_n3rgy
Here's a breakdown of how much of one dollar goes to what
<http://www.nationalpriorities.org/taxday2010>
26.5 cents/military, 20.1c/health, 13.6c/debt, 3.5c/vets, 2c/edu
------
olegkikin
Taxpayers should be able to choose where their taxes go. Like when you file
your tax return, check some boxes. If you like paying for renewable energy,
great. If you like funding the war, your choice.
------
aguynamedben
Interest on the National Debt: $287.03 Principle on the National Debt: ???
------
joezydeco
Funny, my local county government lists where all the taxes go. It's amusing
(or enraging, I guess) to see we still pay for a Tuberculosis sanitarium.
~~~
brettmjohnson
Why does this surprise you? Since deficit spending is generally disallowed for
state and local governments, nearly all sizable projects are funded through
bonds. Bonds are basically loans with a promise to pay back in the future,
generally with tax revenues. So you are paying off that 99 year bond to build
a TB sanatorium built in the 1930s.
We are doing the same thing today. My grandchildren will be paying for the
school repair and high-speed rail bonds that passed a couple of years ago here
in California. Their grandchildren will be paying off the anti-global-warming
school air conditioning and hyper mag-lev rail bonds that will be put forth 25
years from now.
~~~
joezydeco
Didn't think about the bond angle. Thanks!
------
grandalf
I've been suggesting this idea for a few years.
A few issues: It should also indicate how much money was actually spent on
said item (in the event of deficit spending).
------
d_c
No secret services?
------
mmaunder
If an administration ran with this as their only platform, they would probably
get my vote. It's brilliant.
------
monos
in austria everyone pays ~7% into the public health fund. by law the
insurrance is bound to send you a letter listing the benefits you recieved
(per quarter i think).
sometimes mind boggeling number - e.g., several thousand euro for a short
hospital stay - sometimes zero.
------
xsive
I don't see the point. If you want a "receipt", read a Budget overview
article.
------
eof
Missing like 2.2k
------
sportsTAKES
Love this idea -
Would also like to see:
Return policy - don't like how much the government spent on Amtrak, get a
refund (no questions asked).
Customer loyalty program - earn points towards postage stamps or a national
park pass.
Discounts from partner programs - i.e., paying, loyal customers of the US
government get discounts with China, GM, Goldman Sachs and other US
'partners'.
~~~
jonursenbach
If there's a return policy then most people are going to be asking for a
return on _everything_.
~~~
zacharycohn
The counter to that would be that you can only ask for one return per year.
The counter to THAT is that people would just ask for the largest amount to be
returned to them (Take that, Social Security!)
~~~
anthonyb
Except that if you've already gotten your money back, you haven't actually
bought it. No security for you if you lose your job!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Free 7-Day Remote Job Course - gibbiv
http://remotejobcourse.com
======
gibbiv
Hey HN crew - I hate giving my email away unless I'm confident the thing I'm
giving it to is worth it. So if you want to look at all of the course
material, I made it available here:
[https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6BahD3pAp2ySURBSGlDZFFPRW...](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6BahD3pAp2ySURBSGlDZFFPRWc).
This course is based on the approach I used to land 3 remote jobs in my career
as a marketer. I structured it though so anyone who can work from their
computer can implement it - from accountants to developers.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Qualitative vs. Quantitative Feedback: how to use your tools. - tallgreentree
http://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/1gnl0z/qualitative_vs_quantitative_feedback_how_to_use/
======
stefap2
there doesn't seem to be anything here
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask YC: Minneapolis startups? Or, non-"startup hub" startups? - philcrissman
Does anyone know of (or is involved in) startups in Minneapolis/St. Paul? I'm interested to hear how that's working. <p>Or, <i>any</i> startup that is not in a more well-known "startup hub", for that matter.
======
akardell
I am located in Minneapolis and co-founded a startup in 2001 that was acquired
in 2004. We had a less traditional funding route -- a single private investor
/ angel who helped get everything going. We pulled most of our engineering
talent from a local college and I used connections with a past professor to
cherry pick the best of a couple of soon to be graduating classes.
I'm still living in Minneapolis, but having since worked with a number of
people in the Bay area and having traveled there frequently, I can say that
the environment does seem quite a bit different.
There are a lot of advantages to being in a "startup hub"... More talent
that's easier to find, more people to bounce ideas off of, more access to
traditional and non-traditional funding sources, etc.
One advantage to starting out in Minneapolis that we found was that salaries
for our first employees were significantly cheaper than what we've heard from
friends in the Bay area. In addition, the work ethic here is quite high -- it
seems easy to find committed, dedicated employees.
Here's a recent article about Minneapolis being rated the top metro center for
business (in general, not startups or technology specific).
[http://news.morningstar.com/news/ViewNews.asp?article=/DJ/20...](http://news.morningstar.com/news/ViewNews.asp?article=/DJ/200709211031DOWJONESDJONLINE000534_univ.xml&t1=1191628462)
Here's a startup that I recently found out is in the Minneapolis area --
<http://www.yugma.com/> \-- I'm at times surprised to learn of all the
startups that are more or less under the radar here.
If you have the engineering talent and the funding sources, I think you can
absolutely get started in a non-"startup hub". Having said that, there are
definite advantages to being in a startup hub.
------
bmaier
Well I think that one of the problems is that there just isn't enough
information and coverage out there.
I just launched it but I'm gonna start using <http://GeekHeartland.com> to
cover technology and entrepreneurial activity thats happening away from the
hubs on the coasts.
It rose out of the geek.windylabs.com and www.chicagobeta.com
Soon it will have news coverage along with geek guides to a lot of the non-hub
startup areas.
I encourage everyone to subscribe to the feed and keep checking back. Its
about time startups in "flyover country" got more press.
------
damon
There is growing startup interest in Minneapolis. There is a group of folks
(10 or 15 I believe) that are meeting bi-weekly to talk shop. Some have
started, others starting. Take a look at the following links.
I hope the trend continues, I think Minneapolis has a lot to offer alpha geeks
and entrepreneurs.
<http://barcamp.org/MinneDemo> <http://groups.google.com/group/startupcamp>
------
ALee
I don't know if Washington DC is a startup hub (it generally doesn't feel like
it). Even though we're close to northern VA, we just don't get the same vibe
of internet culture. It took the community quite a long time to host a Barcamp
here. My complaints have been: It's tough because it's sometimes lonely
because we can't share that experience with many others because there just
aren't as many web startups. 1) East Coast is oddly dominated by families with
control over media empires. So talking about equity is just weird with them
because they don't want to give any up (no matter how much their website looks
like Geocities). 2) I hate having to explain the "long tail" over and over
when I'm trying to explain a wholly different concept. The buzz takes time to
reach the East. 3) Although accessibility to capital is generally based on
good referrals, it's more difficult in the East because those circles are much
tighter. 4) We heard from a good advisor that just being in the Silicon Valley
will always improve your chances of success, but we moved out to DC because
we're working in the "political sphere." I don't have any reference for
comparison, so I don't exactly know what to say about that. 5) That said,
since we spend a lot of time inside programming, it probably isn't as
different if we were somewhere else. I think as a result of the internet, you
can still make quite an impact, but closing a business deal is so much easier
when it's in person.
------
bmaier
Also, if you have an inland startup (the midwest, the great lakes, texas,
colorado, elsewhere...) that you'd like me to cover, send me a note through
the contact form on <http://GeekHeartland.com>.
I have some free advertising slots for early stage companies as well if anyone
is interested.
------
davedash
I worked for a startup in Minneapolis. They are quite different than at the
hubs. There's not as much support as you'd get out on the West Coast.
Also the talent pool isn't as easy to tap into here. There are quality
developers but its hard to find em.
~~~
damon
need a ruby hacker? :)
~~~
bmaier
where are you located?
~~~
damon
Minneapolis. feel free to contact me
damon at damonallison dot com
------
jdavid
I am located in Milwaukee, WI
you can meet all of our alpha geeks at <http://barcampMilwaukee.com> which is
happening on october 12th-14th
We are a sponsor of it with <http://socialhelix.com>
and I know a few people in the st.paul area that i meet at the last minnebar,
and minnedemo that i attended.
out of the ones i remember, a few were web2, one was into music social
publishing, another was a startup within the local newspaper "vitamin," and
then there were a lot of ruby shops up there.
------
carpal
I'm in mid-stage development for a startup in Atlanta.
It is not going well. There aren't many people here that are available,
willing, and smart. I'm finding that the biggest advantage to the "startup
hubs" is that there are more people nearby with a similar mentality. Be it
employees, cofounders or investors. In Atlanta, there's hardly anybody whose
brain is wired the same way mine is.
The solution for me is to move out to the west coast as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to make it out there for at least
another year.
~~~
mattculbreth
Are you participating in any of the local groups? I know the Ruby and Python
groups are well attended, and the web entrepreneurs group gets good marks.
There's also Barcamp and Startup Weekend coming up soon.
~~~
carpal
I didn't find out about either Barcamp or Startup Weekend before they were
sold out.
I go to the Atlanta Ruby User's Group meetings and AtlHack
(<http://www.atlhack.org/>).
------
projectileboy
I live in St. Paul (just to the east of Minneapolis, for you non-Minnesotans).
I love the area, but it really is a harder environment for a startup. My buddy
and I had a fun startup back in 1996. We had an OK run for about a year, but
we just felt like we were living on a deserted island.
I'm married now with three kids, and if I were to start something again, I
would _still_ seriously consider relocating to Boston or San Francisco.
------
samb
chicago's kicking. but we're b2b.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fix Reddit with Bitcoin - 666_howitzer
https://medium.com/@ryanxcharles/fix-reddit-with-bitcoin-7da3f85fb9ba
======
jedberg
No offense as I'm sure you're a great guy, but I'm really glad they cancelled
the project if that is what you were hired for. There's so many reasons this
could never work (I would loved to be proven wrong though).
1) I'd say about 10% of the reddit user base even knows what bitcoin is, and
far less have any. I don't see people willing to acquire bitcoin just to
participate.
2) At some point you have to host the content on a computer somewhere. Time on
computers costs money. In the case of reddit, this is 1000s of dollars a day
(and would be even more in a decentralized system due to the overhead of
coordination). Right now the bitcoin economy is not robust enough to extract
1000s of dollars a day, and there isn't any provider that will accept bitcoin
in exchange for compute at that level, or even close to it.
3) Fewer and fewer people have the ability to host content anymore, be it at
home or in a datacenter. So you'd be relying on just a few people who would be
willing to host content. This basically leaves you very open to an "attack" on
the network by a bad actor, who could take it over with reltive ease if they
were just one of a few that were hosting content.
4) Child porn. It would be way too easy for someone to put that on the network
and then everyone would be at risk, further reducing the number of people
willing to host (see the list of Tor exit nodes that aren't government spy
nodes as an example of how few people would be willing to participate).
5) Related to number 4, the laws in different countries are different. If I
host in the USA and you host in say Sweden, content that is legal for you may
not be legal for me, again opening me up to liability unless I closely police
the content, and unlike reddit Inc, I don't have the lawyers and common
carrier protections.
Like I said, I'd love to be proven wrong, but given my experience actually
running reddit, I just don't think the bitcoin ecosystem is big enough to
support it today or even in the medium future.
~~~
yafujifide
> I'm really glad they cancelled the project if that is what you were hired
> for.
The idea sketched out here is not equivalent to the project I was hired for.
That project was never sketched out in detail and probably would not have
involved bitcoin.
> 1) I'd say about 10% of the reddit user base even knows what bitcoin is, and
> far less have any. I don't see people willing to acquire bitcoin just to
> participate.
Today, most reddit users would not participate in this system. But we don't
need 100 million users on Day 1.
> 2) At some point you have to host the content on a computer somewhere. Time
> on computers costs money. In the case of reddit, this is 1000s of dollars a
> day (and would be even more in a decentralized system due to the overhead of
> coordination). Right now the bitcoin economy is not robust enough to extract
> 1000s of dollars a day, and there isn't any provider that will accept
> bitcoin in exchange for compute at that level, or even close to it.
Yep. Probably the best way to do this is to found a company that hosts servers
that host a lot of the content. Anybody could do this, of course, and the
company's servers are not privileged in any way. However, by being the first
and best service provider on a new decentralized platform, they would profit
(I call this business plan the "Satoshi model"). Note how in the article I
explain that the users actually pay to download content - a possibility that
was not available when reddit was founded.
> 3) Fewer and fewer people have the ability to host content anymore, be it at
> home or in a datacenter. So you'd be relying on just a few people who would
> be willing to host content. This basically leaves you very open to an
> "attack" on the network by a bad actor, who could take it over with reltive
> ease if they were just one of a few that were hosting content.
Think of the hosters as being more like bitcoin miners or bitcoin full nodes.
Anyone can do it, technically, but almost no one bothers to. The people that
do make a business out of it.
> 4) Child porn. It would be way too easy for someone to put that on the
> network and then everyone would be at risk, further reducing the number of
> people willing to host (see the list of Tor exit nodes that aren't
> government spy nodes as an example of how few people would be willing to
> participate).
Don't host content you don't agree with. There could even be a flagging system
for stuff like this so that you never download it in the first place where
possible.
> 5) Related to number 4, the laws in different countries are different. If I
> host in the USA and you host in say Sweden, content that is legal for you
> may not be legal for me, again opening me up to liability unless I closely
> police the content, and unlike reddit Inc, I don't have the lawyers and
> common carrier protections.
Yes. As I said, you do not have to host content you don't like (but you also
can't prevent other people from hosting/sending whatever they want to other
people).
> Like I said, I'd love to be proven wrong, but given my experience actually
> running reddit, I just don't think the bitcoin ecosystem is big enough to
> support it today or even in the medium future.
The bitcoin ecosystem is not mature enough to be as big as reddit today, but
it is big enough to be as big as reddit on reddit's Day 1, or maybe reddit's
Day 365 or so. This system and bitcoin could grow to ultimately be as large as
reddit is today or larger, in 10 or so years (in a hypothetical best-case
scenario).
~~~
jedberg
> Yep. Probably the best way to do this is to found a company that hosts
> servers that host a lot of the content. Anybody could do this, of course,
> and the company's servers are not privileged in any way. However, by being
> the first and best service provider on a new decentralized platform, they
> would profit (I call this business plan the "Satoshi model"). Note how in
> the article I explain that the users actually pay to download content - a
> possibility that was not available when reddit was founded.
At some point to run a business you have to participate in the economy. The
way you do that is be getting things you can use to trade for other things.
Usually we use money as a way to simplify this.
How do you extract value from the bitcoin ecosystem, until there are enough
people willing to exchange good for bitcoin, like food, clothing, and shelter?
> Think of the hosters as being more like bitcoin miners or bitcoin full
> nodes. Anyone can do it, technically, but almost no one bothers to. The
> people that do make a business out of it.
I think that's just proving my point. There would only be a few people
participating as full nodes because it's complicated, putting the entire
network at risk of a bad actor.
> Don't host content you don't agree with.
That's great but how do I find the content I don't agree with?
> There could even be a flagging system for stuff like this so that you never
> download it in the first place where possible.
Who would flag it? Can I trust them?
~~~
yafujifide
> At some point to run a business you have to participate in the economy. The
> way you do that is be getting things you can use to trade for other things.
> Usually we use money as a way to simplify this.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with bitcoin, but you can buy real stuff
with it. It is quite well integrated into the normal economy at this point,
considering how young it is. But of course it is not as popular as credit
cards yet.
> How do you extract value from the bitcoin ecosystem, until there are enough
> people willing to exchange good for bitcoin, like food, clothing, and
> shelter?
You can buy food, shelter, and clothing with bitcoin. Spend some time around
/r/bitcoin and you will see these opportunities. How many places could you use
a credit card when they were only 6 years old?
> I think that's just proving my point. There would only be a few people
> participating as full nodes because it's complicated, putting the entire
> network at risk of a bad actor.
A p2p network where anyone can run a node seems strictly better than a central
organization to me with respect to "bad actors". When reddit, Inc. makes a
decision the users agree with right now, they can't overturn admin decisions.
It would be far easier to do so with a decentralized reddit.
> That's great but how do I find the content I don't agree with?
I'm not really sure - most of the time you probably wouldn't know, so there
would be times when you unintentionally hosted something you disagreed with.
One way to solve that is to simply not host content at all, and only download.
> Who would flag it? Can I trust them?
This is the general problem of reputation, trust, authentication, and naming
all in one. I think this project should aim to solve these problems
sufficiently well to make things work effectively, and not solve them 100%.
For instance, flagging could work by having a buddies list, and trusting their
flags, and maybe their buddies' flags. That would be partially effective and
better than nothing, but not perfect either. We would iterate and improve the
flagging system with time.
~~~
jedberg
> I'm not sure how familiar you are with bitcoin, but you can buy real stuff
> with it. It is quite well integrated into the normal economy at this point,
> considering how young it is.
I'm quite familiar with it, but you really can't survive off bitcoin alone.
There just aren't enough vendors taking it, but more importantly, this is
because it is hard for vendors to price items since it so rapidly fluctuates.
Bitcoin is also tax disadvantaged because it's classified by the IRS as an
asset not as currency, so you get taxed every time you transact bit coin and
it has "changed value" relative to the dollar. Can you image trying to do
business with dollars if you had to pay tax every time it's value changed
compared to the Euro?
> You can buy food, shelter, and clothing with bitcoin. Spend some time around
> /r/bitcoin and you will see these opportunities. How many places could you
> use a credit card when they were only 6 years old?
Food and clothes yes (although very limited choices). Shelter? I'm not
familiar with anyone who takes bitcoin in exchange for a place to sleep.
You compare it to credit cards, but that isn't really an apt comparison
because credit cards just represented dollars in another form.
> A p2p network where anyone can run a node seems strictly better than a
> central organization to me with respect to "bad actors". When reddit, Inc.
> makes a decision the users agree with right now, they can't overturn admin
> decisions. It would be far easier to do so with a decentralized reddit.
But then you get chaos and a fractured ecosystem. I would say that's worse.
> I'm not really sure - most of the time you probably wouldn't know, so there
> would be times when you unintentionally hosted something you disagreed with.
It's not the stuff I disagree with that's the problem, it's the stuff that's
illegal -- ie. my government doesn't agree with.
> This is the general problem of reputation, trust, authentication, and naming
> all in one. I think this project should aim to solve these problems
> sufficiently well to make things work effectively,
I'm not even sure what to say here. I know this is HN, but this XKCD explains
it perfectly: [http://xkcd.com/1425/](http://xkcd.com/1425/) (It's the one
about making the computer recognize a bird)
~~~
FatalLogic
> I'm not familiar with anyone who takes bitcoin in exchange for a place to
> sleep.
From 3 minutes on Google:
[http://www.expedia.com/](http://www.expedia.com/)
[http://www.cheapair.com/hotels/](http://www.cheapair.com/hotels/)
[https://btctrip.com/](https://btctrip.com/)
[http://www.travelforcoins.com/](http://www.travelforcoins.com/)
[https://www.clickjett.com/](https://www.clickjett.com/)
[http://blog.9flats.com/9flats-accepts-payments-with-
bitcoins](http://blog.9flats.com/9flats-accepts-payments-with-bitcoins)
I'm not commenting on anything else you've said, but I really do have to
question your claim that you're "quite familiar" with the bitcoin market
~~~
jedberg
As far as I know every one of those prices in USD and then uses an exchange to
immediately convert bitcoin to USD. I don't count that as taking bitcoin.
~~~
FatalLogic
I think you're correct, but this is a disappointingly blatant straw man
argument, because you were attempting to refute the claim "You can buy food,
shelter, and clothing with bitcoin."
If we were arguing about the overall health of the bitcoin economy, then your
point about conversion to USD would be relevant, but we're only discussing the
utility of bitcoin for the consumer here. From the customer's point of view,
it is irrelevant, what matters is that the company will accept their bitcoin.
------
FeepingCreature
I've done some thinking on this problem, but my own implementation (PeerNews)
is sort of stuck in place because I lost interest.
That said, if "P2P Reddit" sounds interesting to you, I'd love your feedback
on this rough spec document.
[https://github.com/FeepingCreature/PeerNews/blob/master/spec...](https://github.com/FeepingCreature/PeerNews/blob/master/spec.md)
The design takes advantage of the P2P nature of the network to customize
content to the person reading. Using friends and de-friends (hates? unloves?),
you would form your own trust weighting for people's upvotes, thus forming a
network of cliques where everybody can read the same content, but sorted
differently according to their interests.
------
yafujifide
Author here. AMA. Happy to work out the details of how this would work if
anyone would like to see. It takes a little more than just "bitcoin" \- you
don't want most transactions to be on the blockchain, for instance. Instead,
we would do what Streamium did, which is to use payment channels. That will
allow for tiny payments.
Also, how the hosting and sharing of content works requires a lot of effort.
We can use Web RTC to do the p2p communication over the web. Most people don't
yet know this exists - but p2p communication over the web is indeed possible.
The only catch is that you need a rendezvous server. That server would be run
by anybody, so the network would be two tiered - the simple-to-use web clients
that share content but don't provide the rendezvous service. Then the "full
nodes" where the users would also run a rendezvous service, allowing people to
find each other.
To most users it would look and feel similar to reddit. Anyone would be able
to run a "business" by just running the "full node" app full-time and
delivering the content to users.
Of course there's a lot more to it than this. I've solved many of the
problems, but not all, and there is no prototype yet. But I believe the
fundamental technology now exists to create a decentralized reddit, where the
users get paid for hosting the system and providing the content.
~~~
aaron-lebo
What's the need for a true p2p network? Why not just do a federated network of
servers like Usenet? That's more efficient, cheaper, and it had been done
before.
In your model how are unique identities assigned? Do they tie directly to
addresses on the blockchain?
Could you write a more concrete proposal? I know that's asking a lot, but you
said ask anything. I've been thinking about this for some time and a
decentralized reddit sounds really great but the devil is in the details.
~~~
yafujifide
The need for a true, decentralized p2p network is to solve the problem once
and for all so that we can shed all of the moral hazards around having a
company at the center. If a company starts the project, and abandons their
ideals and starts censoring content, users can just download the same content
from other nodes. The ideals are salvaged. On the other hand, if 99% of users
agree that some content shouldn't be permitted, it would be really hard to
find that content.
"Unique identities", or naming, is a hard problem by itself. One way to solve
it for our purposes that I think would be sufficient is to just let each user
own a keypair to authenticate messages, and the names are NOT unique.
As for a concrete proposal, it takes a lot of time to write something like
that, and I just haven't done it yet because I was unsure of the community
interest. However, it seems there is a good deal of community interest based
on this article. Perhaps I could write a whitepaper, or maybe just a longer,
technical document, where I try to solve all the problems. Note I don't
actually claim to have solved them all yet - but maybe I would be able to
solve them all in the course of writing the paper. Having community feedback
really helps identify the problems that need to be solved (thanks!).
~~~
goykasi
How/where would content be stored? As transactions on the blockchain? Seems
like that could be bloated. Maybe an identifier could be added somehow to a
transaction that points to where the content is stored?
Also, how much would you expect each message to cost? Assuming 1 message = 1
transactions, how does that translate to actual coin amounts + mining fees?
~~~
yafujifide
> How/where would content be stored?
Modern web browsers have a real database called IndexedDB. The users store the
content. Most users, of course, would not store most content. Users that
wanted to could run the app full-time on their local machine, where the
database would be leveldb instead of IndexedDB. They would store much more
data. Not all data would necessarily be saved forever.
> Also, how much would you expect each message to cost?
Payment channels reduce the cost of transactions to next to zero. An "upvote"
does not actually go on the blockchain - only when channels are opened or
closed to transactions go on the blockchain, incurring a transaction fee.
~~~
dida1337
Could ipfs.io be used for content storing? Together with filecoin could it be
better fit then your proposed solution?
------
flashman
How would this system approach, say, child pornography? If it is truly
decentralised, then there is no way to keep such content off the network. But
there _must_ be a way for users/nodes to avoid hosting or encountering such
content, otherwise the risk of participating in its distribution, even with
plausible deniability, makes 'Reddit on the blockchain' a legal/moral/ethical
non-starter.
~~~
yafujifide
If you have a reason to be suspicious of some content, don't downloaded it. If
you discover some content is illegal and you have already downloaded it,
delete it and don't send it to anyone else. This is probably best handled with
a flagging system. Such a system would not be perfect, but could be improved
with time.
~~~
Nursie
In many countries, UK included, you have already broken the law and could go
to prison over that.
~~~
rlpb
Rubbish. See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea)
There are exceptions
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_liability_%28criminal%2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_liability_%28criminal%29))
but they do not apply here.
~~~
Nursie
It's not rubbish. At the time the laws were last tightened there were serious
discussion to the effect that simply being sent illegal images via email would
be enough to get a conviction.
I'm not saying it's a good law.
Even if mens rea applies to this area of law, it includes categories of
recklessness and negligence, which could quite easily be argued along the
lines of "you were browsing an unregulated P2P network that is known for
containing contraband images".
~~~
rlpb
> "there were serious discussion to the effect..."
Ah, unsubstantiated claims of Internet speculation over something? That must
make it true!
> I'm not saying it's a good law.
What law? Where?
> ...it includes categories of recklessness and negligence, which could quite
> easily be argued along the lines of "you were browsing an unregulated P2P
> network that is known for containing contraband images".
"You were browsing the Internet, which is unregulated and is known for
containing contraband images".
In reality, you filter when you browse the Internet, and that defines your
intent. The same would apply here. Access the "HN" sub-P2P-reddit for
unflagged posts then nobody can claim that you had intent. If the "HN" becomes
rife with unflagged contraband and you stop using it when this starts to
happen as a consequence, then nobody can claim that you had intent.
If the whole network becomes unusable because it's rife with off-topic
unflagged contraband, then what you really have is a different argument. You'd
be claiming that the network would be unsable because of off-topic unflagged
contraband. You wouldn't have any argument about the risk of criminal
liability from unintended contraband download, because no law-abiding user
would ever get that far.
In short: if functional network then no legitimate risk.
------
Animats
There already are federated social networks. Wikipedia has a long list.[1] You
never heard of any of them. Buddycloud, Diaspora and Friendica got far enough
to have a number of servers in two digits. Buddycloud seems to have pivoted
into a system for in-house use. Diaspora seems to be dying. Frendica is
running, with a very modest number of users, and trying to replace itself with
a new system called Red.
It's quite possible to do this, but so far, nobody has been able to get
anything like enough users to make it useful.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_software_and_pro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_software_and_protocols_for_distributed_social_networking)
~~~
yafujifide
None of the federated social networks integrated p2p payments because that
wasn't possible until bitcoin. The entire existing internet economy was built
around the assumption that p2p payments were impossible. That assumption no
longer holds.
~~~
Animats
No, the early Internet economy tried micropayments. First Virtual, Cybercoin,
Millicent, Digicash, Internet Dollar, Beenz...
All failed.
Anyway, payment isn't the problem with distributed social networks. Asshole
amplification is the problem. If one jerk can easily annoy hundreds of users,
there's a problem. Trying to build a federated social network which can
survive spam nodes is going to be tough. Especially if users are anonymous and
can create additional identities easily.
------
davidgerard
Ryan's work at Reddit was reimplementing bitcoind in JavaScript on node.js:
[https://github.com/ryanxcharles/fullnode/graphs/commit-
activ...](https://github.com/ryanxcharles/fullnode/graphs/commit-activity)
Here's where he sets out what he was trying to do:
[https://np.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2uadvd/the_real_rea...](https://np.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2uadvd/the_real_reason_ryan_charles_was_fired_from/co6r4q9)
The takeaway is: if you start with "... but with Bitcoin!", then iteratively
putting different words before "but" is unlikely ever to result in something
that is actually useful, not just interesting.
------
gruez
>when a user upvotes content, that sends a small amount of bitcoin to the
author of that content
Doesn't this lead to a problem where money = votes? What would be other
mechanisms to combat vote fraud?
>In order to download content, the user pays a very, very small amount of
bitcoin to the peers on the network. This incentivizes people to keep the app
open so as to keep servicing the other users
I don't think this is necessary. The bitcoin network shows that alturism alone
is enough to sustain over 5000 nodes.
~~~
yafujifide
"Upvoting" on such a system would be a little less like voting and a little
more like tipping - think Changetip. There are some real problems here. What
if a user pays theirself, thus voting their own content up? One way to solve
this is for funds to be locked in some sense before they can be used. A user
would have to lock up a significant amount of funds for a while before being
able to vote, so it would be really annoying and expensive to commit fraud.
There are also bitcoin transaction fees for putting bitcoin into and out of
the system, so there is always that disencentive to fund a bunch of separate
accounts for the purpose of committing fraud.
~~~
goykasi
What about all of the thieves that have already locked up a significant amount
of bitcoin? Wouldnt they be able to use that to easily overshadow a user?
Maybe that would give rise to DaaS (downvoting as a service). Miners wouldnt
care since they are getting their block rewards + mining fees -- which
presumably the thief would gladly play.
~~~
yafujifide
> What about all of the thieves that have already locked up a significant
> amount of bitcoin?
That is a risk, but it is hard to do and wouldn't work most of the time.
> Maybe that would give rise to DaaS (downvoting as a service)
There is no downvoting in this system, only upvoting. (How would you take
bitcoin from someone?)
~~~
geofft
I'm sure this is a question you all thought about, but.... If there are no
downvotes, does community moderation work? Does this even resemble the Reddit
we know of?
A lot of good posts and a _lot_ of good comments are at a single-digit number
of points (quite often 1), because clicking the upvote button is effort. I can
only imagine how many posts will stay at one bitpoint if it takes actual money
/ work / computation to upvote. And those will be indistinguishable from
genuine spam, trolling, off-topic rants, etc. (Given that the current Reddit
uproar is about poor tooling for moderators, I don't think that shifting even
more moderation burden onto the mods is fixing anything.)
There might be an exception in the voting patterns on the very large / default
subs, but decentralizing the defaults alone is a very different goal. Most of
the value of Reddit, especially if you care about anti-censorship, is in the
long tail of subreddits.
~~~
yafujifide
> If there are no downvotes, does community moderation work? Does this even
> resemble the Reddit we know of?
This system would not be the same as the reddit of today. Whether moderation
would still work - see all my other comments in this thread about flagging.
Basically, flagging would serve as downvoting and would be partially
effective. Would love to find a better way, but flagging may be good enough.
~~~
goykasi
Honestly, the more and more I think about this, I just dont think its worth
doing with bitcoin. There are too many poisoned coins tied to bad actors. If
youve ever worked on a sizable community of forums (and Im pretty sure the
"Bitcoin Engineer" for reddit doesnt count), you would know that trolls will
troll. Simply because they can, and they will just keep coming back -- bitcoin
makes that too easy. All they would need to do is create a new address,
account and shift coins around (or tumble them to obfuscate the source).
Lets just think about how many coins have been "stolen". Those are all
available to crap all over your p2p blockchain forum. The normal users could
never compete. So now, not only do you have to maintain enough hashing power
(as suggested above), now you need to maintain a sizable wallet of btc that
can outspend a thief's reserve of coins. Just so your users can post on a
decentralized forum network? Sounds like a losing battle. Good luck.
~~~
rlpb
> Lets just think about how many coins have been "stolen". Those are all
> available to crap all over your p2p blockchain forum.
In a Bitcoin economy those are also available to spend on useful things, just
like money. Put it this way: would rich trolls spend significant cash to troll
you? I don't think so - they'd buy valuable things with their money for
themselves instead.
~~~
geofft
"Troll" is an ambiguous wprd here. The question is whether anyone would spend
significant amounts of money to control what gets upvoted and what doesn't.
Given Reddit's recent $50M round, I'm hesitant to say the answer is no.
------
clemensley
Love the idea. We are working on something similar, but without the
decentralization at this point. In our system users can invest bitcoin in a
post by upvoting it. If that post gets many upvotes subsequently the investor
will make a profit, otherwise a loss. [https://github.com/rolandnsharp/node-
bitcoin-reddit](https://github.com/rolandnsharp/node-bitcoin-reddit)
We are looking for collaborators for this project. Please feel free to get in
touch if you are interested (@clemensley).
~~~
kang
Such systems are prone to political effects. For example, a pop song would get
much more upvotes than a genuine discussion. Over time intellectuals leave
because of the noise.
~~~
clemensley
That is true. In a sense that is the truly democratic effect: more people care
about pop music than intellectual discussions (obviously our system would be a
twisted form of democracy where money==votes; then again that's too different
from real world democracy).
I obviously have no idea how this will pan out, but it's just far too exiting
to not just try.
Edit: Our idea is really to "give bitcoin to the people who provide value".
Nothing is set in stone yet, but our current thinking is that there are two
ways to provide value in a Reddit style system: submit new content or upvote
valuable content. We want to find a fair way to pay rewards in both cases.
~~~
c_prompt
> That is true.
I don't agree. You're going to have different communities, just as reddit does
now. Intellectuals are (likely) not going to be posting in /r/I-love-taylor-
swift; they would post to their own communities as they do now. If you're
concerned about what makes it to the front page, you use a different algorithm
than reddit uses. Or, better yet, you allow mods (or even users) to customize
the algorithm their subs use.
~~~
clemensley
I hope you are right. One would really have to think about how to give users
more control over the content they see. Allowing mods to tweak the sorting
algorithm is a great idea to do this by the way.
Ultimately I think it is wrong that people put so much effort into social
media and do not get rewarded for it in a meaningful way (and no, I don't
consider a "like" or an "upvote" a sufficient reward). If we could find a way
to reward people monetarily for producing and finding valuable content, that
might lead to a huge increase in quality.
I have this theory for how companies could be built: look for where value in
transferred on the internet (for example if someone watches a video on
YouTube, value is transferred from the video producer to the viewer); then
send bitcoin in the other direction. This model seems much more efficient to
me compared to today's model where the value from the content consumer to the
content produces is transferred through a sequence of intermediaries (social
media sites, advertisers, advertising networks) that all take a cut.
Obviously one needs to think about the incentives for all actors, I do not
think that donation based networks will work because there is really not much
incentive to donate.
~~~
c_prompt
> Allowing mods to tweak the sorting algorithm is a great idea to do this by
> the way.
Already built. The front page algorithm section at valME.io allows you to
select reddit's as the default [1] or choose your own customizations (include
NSFW, max hours to evaluate post, num of posts on front page, num of karma by
karma type and weightings, OP's karma balance and weighting, OP num of
comments, post views, OP age, num of OP flags, etc.)
[1]
[https://gist.github.com/touhonoob/2923094](https://gist.github.com/touhonoob/2923094)
------
tannerbrockwell
This is already in development and has been through a genesis block colored
coin issuance based on Bitcoin:
[http://www.synereo.com/](http://www.synereo.com/)
They will reward content creators and participants with the colored coins:
AMPs
Advertising will also be supported with a market in the AMPs. Thus bringing
equity to holders of AMPs.
------
ilovecomputers
As I commented on the article, I think this whole monetary system might deter
adoption of the application. Either way, check out Freenet if you want to see
prior art in creating a decentralized web:
[https://freenetproject.org/](https://freenetproject.org/)
In that p2p project, all you contributed was storage and bandwidth.
~~~
yafujifide
I think the monetary system not only wouldn't "deter" adoption of the
application, but would strongly incentivize its adoption. People will love
being able to be paid for their work, rather than letting other people who
they don't know get paid for it.
~~~
ilovecomputers
You're correct, getting paid for posts is a strong incentive. In the end, we
won't know unless we try.
Personally, when I think of a decentralized reddit, there's nothing monetary
about it. Simple points equate with popularity and that's incentive enough,
but it's hard to build up a large audience like reddit did. Honestly, when I
started reading your article, I was expecting to read a proposal for something
like Namecoin, but for a decentralized reddit. Then the monetization part took
me by surprise because that would totally change the social dynamic of the
site. I would feel it would be less about the content and the popularity and
more about trying to make money.
------
utunga
There are undoubtedly a lot of problems to figure out. But you absolutely have
my support to run the experiment to try and figure out how to, finally,
actually build the front page of the internet in a truly decentralized way.
You (*or rather, relevant people) will have my bitcoins in support on day one,
if this ever launches.
------
dev-da0
At first glance, I thought the title read:
"Fix Reddit with _Bacon_ "
but no, decentralized reddit sounds like a better idea... maybe until figuring
how how to distribute moderation and other privileges.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Today you, tomorrow me [from 1982] - evancaine
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12043294
======
evancaine
Given the festive spirit and the popularity of the original submission titled
"Today you, tomorrow me", I thought HN may enjoy this story.
Merry christmas HN
~~~
meadhikari
Thanks a lot for the submission. Really wisdom worth a christmas gift. Merry
christmas HN
------
ajays
Thanks for sharing that. It brought tears to my eyes.
Every time I read such a story, my faith in humanity is restored a little bit.
I wish such stories were given more publicity; instead, we read about the
latest mugging, stabbing or junkie actor every day.
These stories, combined with Neil Fraser's actions from a couple of days ago,
have made the season for me. Thank you, HN!
And remember, people: it doesn't take much to do these things; just the desire
to help others. Just do it!
~~~
balplaeb
If you think this is a great story, there's one on reddit where someone
changed a car tire for someone else! also, cats.
~~~
rbxbx
And just when your faith in humanity is restored a little bit, there's always
someone just around the corner to drag you back down.
I fall into this trap myself sometimes, but it's becoming more and more
important to take in active stance in fighting your cynicism, even if it means
losing some face to the trolls of the world.
~~~
ajays
I hear ya... but as I've matured in life, I now feel sorry for such cynics:
probably life has been so tough on them that they have lost their ability to
see the good that is around us.
------
gokhan
Another nice story:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ahg8x/what_is_the...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ahg8x/what_is_the_nicest_thing_youve_ever_done_that_no/c0hkuyq)
------
prs
For reference: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2003515>
------
thefreshteapot
<http://www.bernardhare.com/articles.htm>
Reading some of his articles is how the last hour of my christmas evening has
been.
~~~
arethuza
Thanks for posting that link, I've spent a while reading those articles -
quite a way to finish a Christmas day.
I've ordered a copy of his book "Urban Grimshaw and the Shed Crew" from
Amazon.
------
mshron
Thanks. I actually teared up a bit towards the end. A good reminder of some
perspective when you're knee deep in a project.
------
trouble
This submission has the lowest comment to vote ratio I think I've ever seen on
HN.
~~~
CountHackulus
Technically a story with 1 vote and 0 comments would have the highest ratio.
But point taken, not much commenting on this. Likely because this story was
posted on HN a few weeks ago, though I can' seem to find the link.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Inside Pics of the Zappos Office - peter123
http://blogs.openforum.com/2008/12/02/the-sole-of-a-new-machine/
======
thomasmallen
Forgive me...17th pic: [http://blogs.openforum.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/12/zappos...](http://blogs.openforum.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/12/zappos18.jpg)
Granted, it's low-res, but "Damn."
~~~
brandnewlow
Thought the same thing. We need to get out a lot more.
------
gruseom
Great inside view of a hyper-successful company. You know what impresses me
more than all the shiny/fun stuff? The abundance of natural light.
------
henning
[http://blogs.openforum.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/12/zappos...](http://blogs.openforum.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/12/zappos6.jpg)
"It is likely men, women and children will wear shoes for the foreseeable
future."
~~~
mdolon
Interesting.. I wonder if there is a viable alternative or major improvement
to shoes in general. We haven't had too much innovation in that area, or at
least I can't think of many.
~~~
ciscoriordan
<http://www.vibramfivefingers.com> \- The only footwear innovation I've seen
recently.
------
mdolon
Wow, was not expecting their office to be so lively and fun. Also very cool
that the CEO of a company with $1 billion worth of sales works in a cubicle
like his employees. Looks like a great place to work!
~~~
kirse
It looks lively, but it also looks like they stuffed every single fun and
lively object they could find inside their doors.
Maybe it's just the pictures but their office seems really visually crowded:
[http://blogs.openforum.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/12/zappos...](http://blogs.openforum.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/12/zappos13.jpg)
[http://blogs.openforum.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/12/zappos...](http://blogs.openforum.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/12/zappos29.jpg)
------
Jasber
I find it cool they give away free books to their employees (4th picture).
Just another example of how Zappos does things their own way.
Another cool site featuring office pictures from Apple, Adobe, Craigslist,
etc...: <http://www.officesnapshots.com/>
------
ctkrohn
The disorder of their office is matched by the disorder of their website. A
billion links, banner ads for unrelated things right in the middle of the
website, two search boxes near each other... it's terrible.
~~~
aditya
and yet they're a billion dollar business. :) so much for usability and
graphic design...
------
tom_rath
Are employees encouraged to display "flair" or is that honestly spontaneous?
------
petercooper
When I saw the pictures from inside Pixar, I wasn't too surprised, but.. this
is awesome for a company like Zappos. We know they're progressive, but behind
closed doors progressive companies are often anything but.
The Zappos offices seem only a foot step away from a surf shack - what a
stimulating environment!
------
johns
What. A. Mess.
~~~
tdavis
I honestly started feeling anxious just looking at all that clutter. I
couldn't work there a week without a complete mental breakdown. At least the
website reflects the office space.
~~~
fallentimes
Me too; it was like apartment hunting all over again.
We should post pics of TS world headquarters. ;p
------
pmorici
Their website [ <http://www.zappos.com/> ] looks like their office space...
...cluttered.
~~~
petercooper
I expect their bank balance is also somewhat more cluttered than yours,
however.
------
ideamonk
looks like a supermarket to me !
------
kingkongrevenge
What is it with these offices that look like some sort of nursery school?
Nobody has adult tastes?
~~~
petercooper
Insulting someone's sense of style or taste is not insightful or good
commentary - just an ad hominem fallacy.
~~~
sofal
An insult it may be, but it is definitely not an ad hominem fallacy. Please be
a little less liberal with that overused term.
~~~
petercooper
Since it was not in response to an initial argument, you are formally correct.
However, a more common, less rarefied definition of _ad hominem_ is
_"appealing to personal considerations rather than to logic or reason."_ In
this sense, any insult based on personal taste with no logical basis is an ad
hominem attack, which by definition is a fallacious rhetorical device. In
either case, I am not open to prescription.
~~~
petercooper
If someone who voted this down could explain how my post was in anyway "spam",
"offensive" or otherwise incorrect, please do. You are opposing HN moderation
standards by voting down to below zero something that does not match any of
those criteria.
------
jonursenbach
Fire hazard, much?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not Going To Recover - known
http://www.businessinsider.com/20-reasons-why-the-us-economy-is-dying-and-is-simply-not-going-to-recover-2010-2#the-second-wave-of-foreclosures-1
======
potatolicious
> _"For decades, our leaders in Washington pushed us towards "a global
> economy" and told us it would be so good for us. But there is a flip side.
> Now workers in the U.S. must compete with workers all over the world, and
> our greedy corporations are free to pursue the cheapest labor available
> anywhere on the globe."_
Bias much? For one thing, outsourcing would've happened whether we liked it or
not. For another, having worked in manufacturing for a bit, corporations by
and large aren't laughing their way to the bank by outsourcing American
manufacturing jobs overseas - the cost of their goods drop proportionally with
labour savings, in the mid-to-long haul anyhow.
I like how we're blaming this on everyone but ourselves - the outsourcing of
manufacturing to cheap nations has allowed us to develop a rampant, disgusting
consumer culture that has an almost fetishist obsession with cheap, shoddy
goods. _WE_ did that to ourselves. Believe me, if there was any significant
demand in this country for expensive, well-made products we can bring a great
number of manufacturing jobs back... but I suspect the Wal-Mart mentality is
here to stay, and there's no one to blame for this but ourselves.
~~~
necrecious
This is a common myth. US is still the largest manufacturer in the world.
[http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/CompanyFocus/...](http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/CompanyFocus/the-
myth-of-us-industrys-demise.aspx)
~~~
anigbrowl
By volume, yes, but perhaps that's not the best metric. See
[http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?sto...](http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15641021)
for a more meaningful comparison, although I agree that rumors of the
manufacturing sector's demise have been greatly exaggerated.
~~~
enjo
I'm having trouble finding the chart, but we're also the largest in terms of
percentage of GDP. That's a measurement I strongly prefer.
~~~
mpf62
According to CIA World Factbook, you're not the largest in terms of percentage
of GDP. At least Germany, Japan, Italy and even Switzerland rank better in
that metric.
All of these single-metric comparisons are flawed. E.g. the world largest
manufacturer? In comparison to what? Germany, a country with a labor force
that is over 3 times smaller than the labor force in the US?
<https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/>
------
anigbrowl
Trite self-contradictory chicken-little-ism. Corporations are greedy!
Globalization is bad! OMG socializm! Will you LOOK at that debt (notice how it
flattens in the 1990s and then goes stratospheric starting in 200)?! But it's
all the Democrats' fault (even though we had a GOP White house, House, and
Senate from 2000-2006)!
Normally I'd do a more substantive rebuttal, but after looking at the front
page of businessinsider.com, it seems pretty plain that it's the investment
equivalent of a supermarket tabloid. Although the article touches on many real
economic problems it does so in a very shallow fashion, tossing worst-case
scenarios together almost at random.
~~~
fnid2
Really? One of the forbes links says this:
based on credit default swap spreads there is a 3.1%
chance of a U.S. default in the next five years,
according to CMA, a London credit information specialist
[http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/20/united-states-
debt-10-busin...](http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/20/united-states-
debt-10-business-wall-street-united-states-debt.html?feed=rss_popstories)
That's pretty bad. Also, I didn't notice any contradictions. Maybe your
hyperbolic remarks are true. Maybe Corporations are greedy -- they do have a
fiduciary responsibility to increase shareholder wealth. Maybe Globalism is
bad -- think global act local right? Globalization is the opposite of that!
Also, I think the article said it was pretty much the _leaders_ fault, what
with a pic of GWB on one of the pages, or did you read that one?
_it seems pretty plain that it's the investment equivalent of a supermarket
tabloid_
Is that ad hominem? Which statements the article includes aren't true?
~~~
anigbrowl
There's a reason I qualified and contextualized my opinion. I did not allege
falsehood but rather complained of shallow and incoherent presentation.
------
dsplittgerber
I detest this new format of business "articles" which basically just tries to
bait you into loading as many pages as possible (for ad revenue) whilst
engaging in the cheapest link bait possible - 20 reasons why the U.S. economy
is dying? Seriously? Why not 10, 50? It's tabloid-worthy, basically.
Every good graph I have already seen elsewhere and with much better
explanation. They basically lump together every statistic they can get their
hands on and spin it into a story, without any stringent analysis.
Please, read good reporting by The Economist, or articles linked on
realclearmarkets.com or any kind of financial blog. The real experts on
finance and economics are not to be found among any major off- or online
publication anymore.
------
joe_the_user
_"The United States of America is very quickly becoming a socialist welfare
state."_
The mindless stretching of the term socialism is getting a bit grating, you
think?
~~~
fnid2
I think semantic arguments are getting old. You took one sentence off one
slide out of 21 and have devalued the conversation to a complaint about the
use of a word.
Do you have something substantive to say or some facts to dispute what the
article said?
~~~
joe_the_user
You can scan my profile to see the substance of my posts in general.
Whatever you may think of it, my "small" distinction post here has gotten a
lot more karma than the long analyses I usually post.
The slide show altogether had little substance; a few interesting statistics,
some standard rhetoric and a come-on for a product.
Still, the craven misuse of the term "socialist" is doing more than a little
damage to the body politic. If Obama _was_ a socialist trying to change the
nature of American society, that _would_ worth debating. But he isn't, so the
repetition of such a claim works according to the "big lie principle"
(ironically articulated by Joseph Stalin) - if you take a simple falsehood,
even one the most informed people know is false, and repeat it enough times,
you get can serious traction. This method of operating is worth noting and so
_this_ "semantic" distinction _is_ important to make.
------
necrecious
Hmm, I think I detect a little anti-Obama bias.
~~~
daniel02216
It's definitely biased, some of those charts are extremely misleading,
especially the later ones. I like the one which shows when Democrats take
control of Congress.
~~~
fnid2
How are they misleading? The chart on 19 was from the Federal Reserve. Are the
number wrong?
I don't really think there is much difference between republicans and
democrats, so I don't really care which party is to blame, they are all the
ruling class and make decisions to benefit those by whom they are surrounded
-- I don't blame them for it. All human beings make decisions the same way.
But still I don't see how they are misleading. Is there something factually
wrong with them?
------
csomar
Conclusion
"When a nation practices evil, there is no way that it is going to be blessed
in the long run."
~~~
WorkerBee
Yep, that's the point where the alarmist and biased article descends into
superstitious doom-mongering. It's a pity, the topic deserves a better
treatment than this. How about submitting a better link to replace it?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Curiosity: Monitoring Execution of Space Craft Flight Software - JabavuAdams
http://compass.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/ws-slides/havelund.pdf
======
agnokapathetic
Here's the paper: <http://www.havelund.com/Publications/logscope10.pdf>
And a number of interesting articles citing it. <http://goo.gl/LGZnT>
A Few applications:
\- Formally verifying programs not designed for formal verification. See for
<http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~howard/Papers/ruler-tutorial.pdf> example to
instrument Java programs for runtime verification using AspectJ
\- Using automata for log-analysis, immediately useful to any internet company
with large amounts of logs, imagine an automata DSL to analyze data flows from
Flume/Scribe into Hadoop
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Girlboss – trailer for a Netflix original series - CriticalSection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-U2G280kmI
======
sauronlord
Wow. Now you too can vicariously live a life of entrepreneurship from the
comfort of your couch.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Android diehard spends 60 days in WebOS land - thomas
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/60-days-in-webos-land-an-android-users-perspective-20110722/
======
pedalpete
This seems to be so consistent with people who have tried WebOS, aside from
the hardware (and possibly subsequent lack of consumer adoption as a result)
all the reviews seem to think it is a highly capable and competitive OS.
I wonder what held back Palm from making competitive hardware when they were
so clearly on the right track with the OS?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why does Microsoft say Zoho is the Fake Office? - ashishk
http://fakeoffice.org/
======
javery
The reason I have never tried Zoho is because I can't believe anyone could
create that many awesome apps, which leads me to believe they are all mediocre
and just checking another box on the "how many apps can we build list".
I don't know if this is true, but its the reason I still haven't spent the
time to try them.
~~~
siong1987
It is a 1000 people company. I believe that a 1000 people company can
definitely create that many products.
~~~
javery
Really? Microsoft has 90k people and has only managed to create a handful of
good products (and that depends on your definition of good).
~~~
dasil003
When Microsoft released the killer version of Word in 1990 they only had 4000
employees (according to wolframalpha).
------
ryandvm
Because it is?
Let's be honest - everyone is out there chasing Office for features and
functionality. That they've pulled it off with Javascript and a web browser is
insanely impressive, but nonetheless, they are all imitating the old-timers in
a 20 year old product space.
~~~
eru
MS Office is a copy-cat product, too.
~~~
briansmith
15 years ago. It has been the industry leader for a long time.
~~~
blueben
s/leader //
Fixed that for you.
------
iterationx
Reminds me of a story from Tony Robbins. This turnaround expert was hired to
fix Six Flags. Now the Eureka moment came when the employees started to think
of their business as being in league with Disneyland, instead of being in
league with the local Midway fairs. So for Microsoft to give lip service to
Zoho is really a terrible move on their part, since strategically they want
their product to be on the same level as no one, but they just revealed that
they don't feel that way about Office.
------
weaksauce
One thing that no company should do when selling a product, is show me an ad
for some movie before a video that explains the product. I was interested in
the CRM product for work but the ad before the sales pitch is poor form for a
company trying to sell me something.
------
dot
looks like a good marketing idea initially, but people trust microsoft and may
take its word over some internet company with a funny name...
~~~
joshfinnie
After seeing the link, I wanted to run here and say how awesome of a marketing
idea this was. But then I read your comment and it got me thinking...
Within this little tech circle, I think it is great. Take something big, bad
MS said; twist it, make it 2.0 and bam! Instant marketing...
However, what happens when someone else sees this website. It is going to
entice them to try Zoho? I don't think so; if anything it will make them want
to run far away and probably to MS.
I think they should have sat on this idea for a little longer and maybe cooler
heads would have prevailed. I am very interested to see how this works for
them!
------
ananthrk
This webpage is much better than the one launched earlier. Good luck :)
------
BRadmin
Let's see if this marketing works...
------
ErrantX
Because they are good at marketing
------
joeycfan
Arrogance. They think they own the business business.
------
anoopengineer
Zoho is an awesome company and I have written many blog posts among them. But
this sort of marketing is pathetic and doesn't suit any reputable company.
It's simply childish. Stop it zoho. Nobody likes a cry baby.
~~~
jonny_noog
I don't think they're being cry babies at all. They're just picking up a
fumbled ball and running with it. Good luck to them I say.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Creating new fonts from classic Detroit signs - rmason
======
ahazred8ta
FONTS: Preserving Detroit's visual cultures -
[http://www.modeldmedia.com/devnews/GratiotAndRiopelle.aspx](http://www.modeldmedia.com/devnews/GratiotAndRiopelle.aspx)
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bluucat/gratiot-and-
rio...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bluucat/gratiot-and-riopelle-
type-foundry)
------
dang
I think we have a bug right now where some invalid URLs get replaced by an
empty string, instead of letting you know there's an error. Want to try to
repost this?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Best tweets of DEVOPS_BORAT :) - progga
http://favstar.fm/users/DEVOPS_BORAT
======
Forrest7778
Absolutely hilarious :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Lounge – Modern cross-platform, self-hosted web IRC client - LinuxBender
https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge
======
KeyboardFire
One feature I really miss in a lot of chat clients (that this doesn't appear
to have) is the ability to reply to specific messages, like in Stack Exchange
chat or Telegram. It makes it a lot easier to follow several simultaneous
conversations, or groups with many members.
~~~
crooked-v
I don't think that's really feasible with IRC unless you invent your own
extension to the standard and then convince every other IRC client to adopt
it.
~~~
ObsoleteNerd
Couldn't it be done in the UI by referencing the line/message ID, kinda like
how forums "quote" the message you clicked Reply on, or 4ch references a link
back to the one you're quoting?
Let a user click the timestamp to the left of the messages (or a "#" or other
symbol), which inserts something like this into the reply box:
> Replying to username:
Then your message you send ends up looking like:
> Reply to username: I agree!
Clicking on "Reply to username" or just the username could scroll back the
chat and highlight the message you replied to.
~~~
wild_preference
One problem with IRC is that everyone is using a different client. It's like
how you can set it up so you receive messages when you're offline... but
nobody else does that, so it's not a real solution.
Of course, the context here is a client that does indeed implement extra
features, and you're right that a text format per message would be an
interesting way to implement this: the client could simply hide those messages
from the normal view and slot them into the thread system. People using other
clients would just see some extraneous line noise like "Replying to
<username>|<timestamp>: hello world".
~~~
ObsoleteNerd
Yeah exactly, it's still "useful" to people without the client just by showing
them it's a reply to someone else, even without the embedded link and extra
functionality the client adds. I think it's a good compromise.
------
kodablah
Any consideration to packaging this as a portable archive that can be
extracted and executed easily (e.g. w/ like pkg [0])? While adoption may not
be a goal, asking users of software to obtain it from a JS package manager is
a bit much. Don't underestimate the value of a download button/link.
0 - [https://github.com/zeit/pkg](https://github.com/zeit/pkg)
~~~
MaxLeiter
It’s meant to be run on a server. A docker container and deb exist, and it’s
on the AUR. If any users are interested in maintaining it on a different
package manager they’re encouraged to hop on to #thelounge on freenode and
talk to the maintainers.
------
NickBusey
The Lounge is included with my project HomelabOS
([https://gitlab.com/NickBusey/HomelabOS](https://gitlab.com/NickBusey/HomelabOS)).
I've been using it for a while now and it's been working great. Nice, simple,
and quick to load.
~~~
albertgoeswoof
What are some common use cases for homelabOS?
~~~
NickBusey
Hmmm, use cases? I guess really just the one, people who want to use cloud
type services, prefer to self host, and need an easy way to deploy those
services.
------
jgresty
I'd be interested to know if anyone actually seriously uses something like
this. I can't imagine there is much crossover in the irc audience and the
people who would want to use a web based client. Even less so when you need to
self host it.
~~~
wooby
I've been using it daily for about a year. I run it behind Apache (for SSL
with LetsEncrypt) on a 1 year reserved T2.Nano VM in AWS ($3.125/month) that I
also occasionally use for other things.
I'm involved in a lot of open source but had used IRC only intermittently
until I got The Lounge running.
I've really enjoyed it. I'm able to log in and see the same unreads and direct
messages across my work PC, personal PC, and phone and iPad. The software has
been reliable and relatively painless to update. The UI functions nicely on
touch devices.
Before The Lounge I operated ZNC in EC2, but configuring device-specific
clients to use it was a chore, and I didn't find myself using IRC very much.
Now, I use IRC all the time.
Obviously if you're not comfortable maintaining a server then this isn't the
option for you, but as a "power user" I've found the web UI perfectly
tolerable. Instead of maintaining IRC clients on multiple devices and pointing
them at ZNC, I maintain a single IRC client -- The Lounge.
~~~
wild_preference
irccloud.com ($50/year) is a good option for people who don't want to run
their own server. Only costs $13/year more than your solution.
Though paying money to receive messages while offline (or fiddling with ZNC)
is one of the reasons IRC getting its lunch eaten by everything.
------
diminoten
How mature is this project? For some reason (possibly just scars from years
past), I'm pretty wary of IRC clients that aren't mature, due to concerns
around security.
The first PR is from Feb 2016, so that makes it a little under 3 years old. Is
that old enough for an IRC client?
I really like how it looks! Feels much more modern than HexChat (what I
currently use).
~~~
MaxLeiter
The Lounge is a fork (well, really a continuation) of shout, which was started
4-5 years ago
([https://github.com/erming/shout](https://github.com/erming/shout))
Additionally, the backend irc framework used was changed to one used by
another popular web client, kiwiirc.
Are there any specific security concerns you have?
~~~
diminoten
Nope! I am possibly overly paranoid about my IRC client, if only because of my
time many years ago in some slightly shady (but honestly entirely benign)
areas of the Internet, where if your client wasn't properly configured you'd
(sometimes) find out about it in negative ways.
------
albertgoeswoof
Is there a hosted version of this (or similar) that persists IRC connections,
with a good iOS/Android app?
I’m thinking something that can compete with Slack for usability that runs
over standard IRC networks
~~~
jonty
You're looking for [https://www.irccloud.com](https://www.irccloud.com)
------
Aeolun
That was really pleasant to set up with the docker image. I just wish it would
tell me it stores it’s data in /home/lounge/data so I can create a persistent
volume for it.
------
avgDev
I was thinking about implementing slack at our workplace, this looks like it
might be a nice open source alternative.
Anyone running this at a medium-sized company?
~~~
lima
Not a good fit for a corporate environment, unless you're already using IRC
and need a web UI.
It's basically a personal IRC client and lacks most of the features you would
expect from Slack (media upload, user management, editing/deleting messages,
public channels...).
Take a look at Rocket Chat and Zulip instead.
~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Editing/deleting messages is a misfeature, and naturally IRC supports public
channels, given that it invented them.
~~~
lima
I mean the UI part, of course - Slack has public channels that everyone can
easily discover and join.
Of course, IRC can do all of that (much better than Slack, from a technical
point of view). But IRC + The Lounge is not a drop-in replacement for Slack.
~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
You just mean recommending channels, then? Put them in your motd and a
clickable list will show up when they log in.
~~~
lima
Sure - I know more than one company who uses IRC internally, and it works just
fine. However, Slack or Rocket Chat have much better usability for non-
technical users.
------
cork
I think i’d still rather use irssi inside a tmux session, but this is cool
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Twitter meets Delicious: an experiment - akkartik
http://hackerstream.com:4000
======
gruseom
What's the Delicious part?
~~~
akkartik
Bookmark stories using the stars. Then add tags to them. Browse the tags.
It's not very well put-together yet..
------
sumit5ue
I think there is defi a need for this...seems to be getting there
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Charles P Thacker (MSR) wins 2009 ACM Turing Award - yarapavan
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2010/mar10/03-09chuckthacker.mspx
======
yarapavan
ACM Citation:
[http://awards.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1336106&srt=all...](http://awards.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1336106&srt=all&aw=140&ao=AMTURING&yr=2009)
For the pioneering design and realization of the first modern personal
computer -- the Alto at Xerox PARC -- and seminal inventions and contributions
to local area networks (including the Ethernet), multiprocessor workstations,
snooping cache coherence protocols, and tablet personal computers.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Meteor 0.4.0: Introducing Spark - NSMeta
http://www.meteor.com/blog/2012/08/31/introducing-spark-a-new-live-page-update-engine
======
rbn
You guys should focus on authentication. Because this thing is practically
useless without it. I'm aware of the authentication branch but this update
broke it.
~~~
heretohelp
I'd say that the lack of apparent concern regarding something as core and
critical as auth is enough for me to write the whole team off permanently.
I'll never use anything made by people so careless yet so self-aggrandizing
about their own work.
------
edtechdev
There's no link to examples or a direct link to the relevant documentation.
You have to figure out the difference between 'constant' and 'preserve'.
And one of their principles states: "One Language. Write both the client and
the server parts of your interface in JavaScript."
Yet you still have to learn a separate template language, deal with the DOM,
browser inconsistencies, etc.
To be fair, if you did do everything in javascript including the user
interface, it ends up looking like java (see dojo, google closure, dart,
qooxdoo). Javascript isn't well suited for a user interface or template
language, but there are dozens of alternatives, some of which are more
friendly to declarative UIs: [https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-
script/wiki/List-of-lang...](https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-
script/wiki/List-of-languages-that-compile-to-JS)
~~~
erichocean
_To be fair, if you did do everything in javascript including the user
interface, it ends up looking like java_
Or iOS, see Blossom: <https://github.com/fohr/blossom>
Frankly, not having to write HTML/CSS and still getting Core Animation-style
hardware-accelerated transitions and a normal Core Graphics-style `render()`
function is really, really nice.
------
Rickasaurus
Why would you name this the same thing as a popular iterative map reduce
implementation?
~~~
tumultco
It is probably named the same as many other popular products; "spark" is a
common english word. With 7 billion people on this planet it is impossible to
avoid naming collisions if you're going to use something from the dictionary.
------
nmb
I agree that the name should be changed. If someone said they built their
product "using Spark", it would be fairly ambiguous as to which one they
meant, especially if their product has a data mining component.
[<http://www.spark-project.org/>]
Meteor Spark looks pretty nice though; look forward to trying it out.
~~~
erichocean
That's what I thought they were talking about, too.
------
shykes
Can Spark be used as a standalone library, without the rest of Meteor? That
would be pretty cool and I suspect it would be very successful.
~~~
wylie
From the linked article: "Spark weighs in at 8k gzipped and minified,
including all of its dependencies, and it's easily separable from the rest of
Meteor."
~~~
bialecki
I just looked at the Spark wiki page[1], and Sizzle is a dependency (although
they say it can be removed if you're willing to ignore IE 7). So it is
separable, but might not be that small depending on your audience.
[1] <https://github.com/meteor/meteor/wiki/Spark>
------
tiglionabbit
Yay, more data binding libraries. This one needs some better examples before
I'll be able to understand at a glance how it works. I currently do my data
binding with AngularJS.
Btw, this feature sort of already exists in jQuery.
<http://api.jquery.com/link/>
------
sebastian
How possible would it be to use something like Spark or Derby.js's Racer in a
django site?
I like the realtime concept/behavior but I want to keep developing in django.
~~~
shykes
For the real-time data synchronization part, try dropping dotCloud JS into
your Django app: <http://js.dotcloud.com>
It doesn't do live templating, though.
~~~
sebastian
But, how much would I need to write to update the data in realtime as it
changes in the backend?
~~~
shykes
Something like this:
var people = dotcloud.sync.synchronize('people');
people.observe(function(type, change) {
// Update template here
});
There's a live demo here: <http://jsfiddle.net/q2q8b/31/>
------
ricksta
It will be cool if Meteor could be packaged in a gem and be embedded in parts
of a Rails app where client side interaction is heavy.
~~~
kevincennis
Isn't Meteor written in Node?
Maybe this is an ignorant question -- but how would you integrate it into a
Rails app?
~~~
jjaques
You're right, it runs on Node. However as the poster above pointed out, there
would be little practical use in combining this with another framework. Meteor
is really it's own platform. The whole point is the unification of the client
and server codebase.
I'm not sure about Ember, as I believe it tends to be more opinionated about
how much of the page it controls, but Knockout and Backbone are generally
pretty easy to use for just a portion of the page.
Steve Sanderson (creator of Knockout) has a really good overview of the most
popular client side options (both libraries and frameworks).
[http://blog.stevensanderson.com/2012/08/01/rich-
javascript-a...](http://blog.stevensanderson.com/2012/08/01/rich-javascript-
applications-the-seven-frameworks-throne-of-js-2012/)
------
Yoric
Looks good. I would be interested to see a side-by-side comparison with
<http://opalang.org>, though.
------
hugh4life
Does Meteor have an rss feed for their blog?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Why are more of you doing this to your visitors? - chimen
https://imgur.com/gallery/Dxms7aQ
======
downerending
I believe this is part of a DDOS-mitigation method. It's not that anyone wants
to do it. Rather, it's a survival mechanism.
~~~
Nextgrid
Surprisingly it's often the same crap that originates the DDoS (or encourages
it) that has this protection enabled. Cesspools like Hackforums, etc.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Servo, the parallel browser engine - rayascott
https://servo.org/
======
mrez
why does it exist? Does anyone know the vision of the project?
~~~
AndrewDucker
"To achieve better parallelism, security, modularity, and performance."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why the iPad doesn't need to "create content" - thinkoutloud77
http://www.danielbrim.com/ipad-content/
======
telemachos
>> _It’s not like we actually need to create content. We live in a purely
consumeristic world. Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds, and all of the other
websites create a world where we simply observe, collect, and re-share links
that suit our needs. Most content creation is done at work, if ever._
Poe's law?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Education is Our Generation's Big Problem. Let's Fix it. - hanibash
http://blog.bloc.io/education-is-our-problem
======
Kaedon
"Do I even need to mention which segments of our population rely on student
loans the most, and thus are getting screwed the most by the student loan
crisis? Hint: It's not the happy white suburban family of 4."
Actually, according to the Wall Street Journal
([http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044424690457757...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444246904577575382576303876.html)),
the upper-middle class has seen the sharpest jump in student debt since 2007.
Households with less income have an easier time finding student aid and those
in the upper class can more readily afford the rising costs. This puts the
upper-middle class in a kind of purgatory for financial aid.
~~~
slurgfest
If a private college wants to give financial aid to a student who is poor,
that is its business and it gets to define what 'poor' means for its purposes.
Kids from households making $200,000/yr may not be Maybach rich, but they
don't need Pell Grants. and I certainly wouldn't describe their state as
"purgatory" just because they aren't getting handouts.
The basis for giving this kind of handout (which I understand along with the
general opposition to any handouts) is to improve class mobility and give poor
kids a chance (after all, they did not choose to be born to the 'wrong'
family). What reason is there for people with plenty of money to get that sort
of handout? This I don't understand.
~~~
LockeWatts
_If a private college wants to give_ financial aid _to a student who is poor_
_just because they aren't getting_ handouts.
Why is it when the kid is poor, its financial aid, if the kid is middle class,
its a handout? The language seems twisted to articulate your point, rather
than the point speaking on its own.
Also, let's take my situation. My mother made $102,000 last year. We're well
off, by any metric. Making 100% over the median income makes you upper middle
class.
My in-state total costs for my public university are $10,099 a semester. I
didn't choose the crazy private school, I didn't go out of state, I'm at
literally the cheapest school I can be at.
It still cost 27% of her net income per year. That's a reasonable amount of
money? I don't think it is.
Now, you can say you're supposed to save beforehand, except back then we were
poor as dirt and couldn't afford to. Does that get factored in into any kind
of federal aid? Nope. Last years tax return, only.
I have enough merit based scholarships that she can afford to send me there,
but I think it's ridiculous to ignore that there is a larger problem in
academic costs.
EDIT: The argument could also be made that students should be working through
school to offset the costs. I personally find that rather backward, (Why is
college the only education not funded by taxes?) but it's the most practical
solution currently available.
~~~
mgkimsal
$102k must have had a hell of a lot of taxes taken out such that $11k is 27%
of the net income.
~~~
hansef
There are two semesters in an academic year. ;)
------
patdennis
There are serious problems with the for-profit university model (like the
University Of Phoenix) as outlined in this article.
I think it's worth pointing out that these businesses are aware that they may
have a problem, and have stepped up their political giving massively to
protect their interests. Mostly, to Republican candidates, and especially to
Mitt Romney. [1]
[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/us/politics/mitt-romney-
of...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/us/politics/mitt-romney-offers-
praise-for-a-donors-business.html?_r=2&ref=politics)
~~~
yummyfajitas
Similarly, the non-profit education sector donates heavily to Democrats.
<http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=W04>
Also, purely coincidentally, non-profits are exempt from the "gainful
employment" rule and all the other new rules being levied against competitors
to the non-profit education sector.
Weird. It's almost as if the politicians don't care much when _their_ cronies
rip students off, only when other guys do it.
~~~
patdennis
The chart you linked to doesn't refer to giving from educational
_institutions_ themselves. The chart is tracking contributions from
_individual employees_ [1] of those institutions. Seems to me that simply
represents the fact that professors tend to be Democrats.
On the other hand, with for profit colleges, _institutions themselves [2]_ are
contributing _directly_ to superpacs and other political groups. It's a
totally different metric.
[1] from your link: _"Since school districts, colleges and universities are
generally prohibited from forming political action committees, political
contributions from the education industry generally come from the individuals
associated with the field."_
[2] _The Apollo Group, which owns the University of Phoenix, contributed
$75,000 last month to Restore Our Future, a super PAC run by former Romney
aides. The pro-Romney super PAC is one of the biggest players in the GOP's
long-running nomination fight, pumping more than $38 million into commercials,
direct mail and automated phone calls that promote Romney and attack his GOP
rivals._
[http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-03-26/romne...](http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-03-26/romney-
for-profit-colleges/53865654/1)
~~~
yummyfajitas
One chart measures which party gains if more money flows to the non-profit
sector. The other chart measures which party gains if more money flows to the
for-profit sector.
You can nitpick the details of exactly what entities the money flows through,
but the politicians aren't.
~~~
patdennis
It is a valid difference, and politicians _are_ aware of it.
Organic giving from individuals who work in the educational sector doesn't
come hand in hand with _organized, well financed political pressure_ in the
same way that a lobbying effort/targeted giving coming directly from a
specific industry does.
~~~
yummyfajitas
Yes, clearly the non-profit sector is far less influential than the for-profit
one, in spite of donating vastly more money. Education as a whole donated
$6.3M to Obama, the for-profit sector donated $145k to John Kline and $107k to
Romney [1].
Clearly the for-profit sector is vastly more influential.
This influence is proven by the fact that the politicians are making special
rules for the non-profit sector and explicitly exempting the for-profits from
them.
Oh wait, my mistake - I live in the real world, where $6.3M > $145k, and
politicians target for-profits for special rules and throw more money at non-
profits.
[1] Unfortunately OpenSecrets doesn't explicitly break the non-profit sector
out of education as a whole.
~~~
LockeWatts
_Yes, clearly the non-profit sector is far less influential than the for-
profit one, in spite of donating vastly more money. Education as a whole
donated $6.3M to Obama, the for-profit sector donated $145k to John Kline and
$107k to Romney [1]._
This argument doesn't make any sense. He just spelled this out for you, but
I'll try it again.
_Individual donations from non-profit education employees_ are not lobbying
on the part of an industry. They're citizens playing an active role in
politics.
_Corporations in the for-profit education business_ are lobbying in an
attempt to further increase their profit margins despite providing a product
that is comparatively worthless.
_Oh wait, my mistake - I live in the real world, where $6.3M > $145k, and
politicians target for-profits for special rules and throw more money at non-
profits._
Just as they should. For profit schools are student farms, churning them out
and providing predatory loans to their uneducated students.
Nobody gives a degree from a for-profit school any kind of respect, it carries
no more prestige than a high school degree. That makes their product
_worthless_. They're attempting to legislate around their failings, not
improve their product to a competitive level with the non-profit education
system.
Seeing as the non-profit schools are _supposed_ to be public institutions
created to better the country, it's appropriate for them to receive federal
funding.
~~~
yummyfajitas
_Just as they should. For profit schools are student farms, churning them out
and providing predatory loans to their uneducated students._
I'm confused. The "gainful employment" rule seems to target low quality
schools. If, as you assert, non-profits are of higher quality, why exempt them
from the "gainful employment" rule? After all, the rule won't affect them (if
you are right).
The answer is, of course, that if you are wrong and some non-profits are also
low quality, the employees of those schools will have less money to donate to
Democrats.
But I'm sure no politician anywhere cares about that.
~~~
LockeWatts
First, let me point out rather amusingly that you did not respond to any of my
points on the nature of campaign contributions. I'd ask again for you to do
so.
As for your questions.
_I'm confused. The "gainful employment" rule seems to target low quality
schools._
Incorrect. Your false assertion here completely derails the remainder of your
post, making it irrelevant. If you would like a correct explanation of the
gainful employment rule, let me know.
------
JumpCrisscross
Allowing lenders (or providing greater incentive for them) to modulate rates
on loans based on (a) the institution attended, (b) the major chosen, and (c)
individual performance metrics, e.g. GPA, would be a solid step towards
resolving education debt insolvency.
This could be achieved by switching government subsidies from loan guarantees
to payment-share plans by which the government pays a portion of each payment
but ceases to do so in case of default. These loans should be absolvable in
bankruptcy - an immature decision made in one's adolescence shouldn't be a
lifelong burden. Thus, the credit risk is retained by the lender while
financial impact lessened on the student.
Unpopular as measures radically increasing costs on liberal arts majors may
be, the present situation is a clear example of artificially locked markets
producing inefficient outcomes.
~~~
jmtame
I was just about to suggest the same thing. The degree seems like a very
important piece of information to a creditor making a decision. If I know that
60% of students of a particular degree will default within 4 years, why would
I continue to loan that money out? If it's impossible for them to get out of
it, that'd be good enough a reason.
It seems that most of my engineering friends have a very existentialist
perspective on it: the person is entirely responsible for the actions they
take. If they got themselves into debt, then they should figure out how to get
themselves out of debt.
That's valid. The student wasn't forced to go study art history, but they were
lied to by a lot of people, including their parents and society, which are two
difficult groups to ignore. I think it's good that we're airing out some of
college's dirty laundry--it needs to be known that if you go study art
history, there may be a greater than 50% chance that you will be jobless or
working as a waiter or waitress. I had this debate with someone last weekend
where I made the same argument, and she got very defensive. It's hard to get
specific and criticize certain degrees without being offensive to somebody
because people feel they need to defend their choices. I later found out she
studied art history, she was a waitress, and she had just quit her job. To her
credit, she probably didn't realize her job options were grim when she chose
to do that. If this issue is spoken about publicly, it should at the very
least make the decision easier for people. Every graduating senior in high
school should hear both sides of the story and fully understand they can't
arbitrarily pick any degree and expect the same results.
~~~
rmk2
Maybe _everyone_ should become an engineer, so everyone can be happily living
in a technocracy were we make everything remotely tangible into money.
Maybe we should tell people to stop doing psychology, art history, history,
political sciences, theology, literature etc. I mean, it's on Wikipedia,
right? You can just go there and read about it, you know, as a hobby, so, why
bother studying it?
Maybe we can all become engineers and convert everything into profit. What do
you mean I probably shouldn't track someone's every movement? Why? It's the
logical solution, it's possible, it's doable, it gives the greatest monetary
return. And it's the best developmental solution! It's perfect!
~~~
marknutter
That's a false dichotomy. Nobody is suggesting that _nobody_ should choose a
liberal arts degree. What's being suggested is that _less_ people should be
doing it because there's more supply for those professions than there is
demand. There's very high demand for technology degrees and trade skills
(welders are in desperate demand, for instance). These truths aren't being
communicated to college freshmen as well as they should be, and that's causing
a major crisis for a lot of liberal arts college grads who enter a job market
that simply doesn't need them.
~~~
rmk2
Why is it a false dichotomy? Do you honestly believe that people will all of a
sudden flog to STEM subjects just because somebody tells them they will
forever be unemployed otherwise?
We might just have this arguement because this is, after all, HN, but it still
astounds me how hard it seems to grasp for many here that not everyone is
actually even remotely interested in programming or "building a product".
I am absolutely convinced that ultimately a society as a whole can only
benefit from a workforce (how I hate that word) that is educated _beyond_ the
requirements of their day jobs. The more you are interested in outside of your
actual occupation, the more these interests will also play into your work and
thus influence its outcome.
We have a constant stream of articles here that tell us how people became
programmers without studying CS etc. Why however do people always assume
everyone else is incapable of learning something else after studying something
in the humanities? I know only very few people who expect to work directly
with their field of study. In fact, most of the people who do are the ones who
will at least try to go on and go into academia. Most other people I have ever
met were very aware of the fact that there might be quite a disjunction
between their area of study and their future job.
------
trafficlight
It's not a financial problem (well it is), it's a cultural problem. American
culture just doesn't value education and learning in general.
Isaac Asimov articulated this very well:
_Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our
political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means
that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'._
~~~
j_baker
I don't buy it. We have a culture that rewards everyone going to college, even
if they'd be better off not going to college. And your explanation for this is
that we don't value education? I'd argue the exact opposite. We value
education _too much_.
~~~
Jtsummers
That's inaccurate. We have corporate cultures which value the possession of a
certificate of achievement, not a culture which values education.
Depending on the survey you have up to 50% of the US denying evolution. A
process that is clearly evident without any leaps of faith. That's not
indicative of a culture that values education. There are many other aspects of
math, science and technology that large swaths don't understand or
misunderstand that would not occur if education were truly valued.
~~~
NoPiece
People who are religious can still value education, even though certain
religious beliefs are in conflict.
~~~
Jtsummers
I won't disagree with that as there are many aspects to education beyond the
technical (literature, art, philosophy, etc). I used evolution as an example
because the statistics were easy to find. I also find it strange that the
Roman Catholic church can express an acceptance of it, but so many people in
the US still deny it.
It's not the only scientific or technical concept that's grossly misunderstood
in this country (or the world in general).
How about the false connection between autism and MMR?
I've removed other examples that tended to fall back on showing religious
groups as particularly in conflict with science.
Here's a still controversial but areligious one: WTC collapse. A 'model' using
chicken wire and gasoline was used to persuade a non-negligible percent of the
population that planes filled with fuel crashing into the upper half of 110
story buildings would be unable to cause the collapse of said buildings. A
fundamental failure in education has occurred when you get engineers accepting
things like this.
------
rflrob
> Why administration had to grow 4x the pace of enrollment is beyond me.
While I won't claim that every single administrative dollar has been well
spent, between 1993 and 2007, this would cover things like on campus tech
support and IT staff and equipment (email, online registration, transcripts,
etc), more broadly available and diverse student support (counseling, LGBT
support organizations, ombudsmen, etc), and presumably tutoring services that
help the growing fraction of the population in college thrive, rather than
simply prep-school graduates. Again, I'm not going to claim that 4x increase
relative to enrollment is the right amount, but compared to universities 20
years ago, they are providing more services.
------
onitica
One thing that really bothers me is how much universities are allowed to raise
their tuition on existing students. I started college paying about $6k a year
in tuition my freshmen year. My senior year cost me $11k. The difference in
tuition raises overall probably increased my total loan amount by ~$10k by the
time I graduated. This is huge and there is no way students can take this into
account when applying for college. I don't know why there are no laws
protecting students by requiring fixed tuition rates for students?
Universities are notoriously bad for raising rates by thousands a year, which
students must take into debt or leave.
*Edit - Ok, the tuition when I first went to college was $20k a year. I had a $14k scholarship, so it was a manageable $6k a year. Now the tuition, 5 years later, is over $27k. That is a 35% increase at about 7% a year. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me, especially for a state school which should be affordable.
~~~
newbie12
The federal government's Medicaid mandate is destroying state education
budgets-- Medicaid is literally crowding out state public university education
spending.
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-
klein/post/medicaid...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-
klein/post/medicaid-squeezing-higher-education-
funding/2011/10/31/gIQAKIWOZM_blog.html)
~~~
onitica
I'm talking about out-of-state tuition though, which from my understanding was
not subsidized by the state government at all. The funny thing is, the
university I went to was still cheaper and better than my in-state
alternatives.
~~~
danielweber
It's all the same pie, from the point-of-view of state government. They need
to make their budget balance, and the school is a target-rich environment for
them.
------
japhyr
I was excited to read this article, because I want to see more attempts to
improve education. But then I saw that this is a for-profit education company.
I know there is a place for private educational endeavors in our society. But
if you really want to fix education for everyone, you've got to focus on
public education. Yes, it's a big ugly political seemingly unchangeable mess.
But it's the only system that reaches everyone.
Every generation has a revolution waiting to happen. Improving public
education might be the next significant social revolution in the US, but it
won't be led by for-profit education companies.
~~~
jerf
How much failure would it take from the not-for-profit public education system
before you'd consider the possibility that it is the very incentive system
created by their non-profit status that has a huge hand in the failure?
We've created a system in which the reward for being an excellent teacher
is... what, exactly? More paperwork? More friction from the ever-larger
administration for not doing the same as everybody else? More frustration with
not being allowed to be the good teacher because they have to teach ever
harder to the test?
Until you fix the incentive system you're not going to get better teaching,
and yeah, that's probably going to involve someone making some money, because
it's beyond me how to fix the incentive system in the presence of an open-
ended promise to keep the money hose opened and pointed at them no matter how
much they fail. I suppose we could always try giving the same people _even
more_ money if they just promise to try really, really hard to do something
else a couple of times until they give up.
And I am also pretty sure that true 21st century education isn't going to just
a tweaked 20th century education. It's going to be something totally
different, and the non-profit system simply won't get us there. Why would
they? They don't get defunded for using decades-old totally outdated education
systems. (In contrast to the decades-old non-outdated parts, which do exist,
but are not 100% of the curriculum by any means.) We know that, because that's
already the current situation. They've got no reason to move.
~~~
japhyr
_How much failure would it take from the not-for-profit public education
system before you'd consider the possibility that it is the very incentive
system created by their non-profit status that has a huge hand in the
failure?_
That is part of the failure, and I am deeply affected by it right now. I am a
pretty good teacher, and I watch terrible teachers get paid more than me
because they've been at it longer. I can't pay off my family's student loans,
and I can't afford anything more than a small condo.
But I still don't think privatizing education is the answer. There is always
the possibility of taking education back from the politicians, and setting up
a system that does incentivize good teaching. It's not as simple as paying
teachers more if their students pass tests.
One fix that would go a long way is restructuring our approach to tuition in
service sectors. If you take away my student loans, I would be a happy, hard
working teacher the rest of my life. I will get some portion of my loans
forgiven for teaching in a high-need area, but that won't go a long way. The
same goes for other service sectors, where a reasonable job will leave you
paying off student loans until you are past retirement age.
There are bureaucratic fixes. You can give more professional freedoms to
highly-effective teachers. Measuring effective teaching is difficult, but not
impossible.
As soon as you give up on public education and only see privatization as the
answer, you give up on addressing the education gap between different
socioeconomic groups.
~~~
jerf
"It's not as simple as paying teachers more if their students pass tests."
That's not the interesting thing that privatization allows. What it allows is
the doing of something fundamentally different.
I don't see privatization as "the current school system, just private". Yes,
that is what it is now, mostly, unless you poke around what are currently very
fringe bits. What I see is a world in which (in a nutshell) self-serve
homeschooling becomes easier and easier and more effective until it eats the
current system from the inside. Give it about 20 years. Public schooling will
survive, but as part of a large ecosystem, instead of the whole.
"As soon as you give up on public education and only see privatization as the
answer, you give up on addressing the education gap between different
socioeconomic groups."
No we don't. Vouchers may not be 100% "free market", but it's not going to
keep me up at night.
------
nicholassmith
I'm not sure that education is the big problem, but it's definitely up there.
I think probably the financial climate leading to unemployment/underemployment
is a bigger one, but significantly more difficult to fix.
~~~
jfarmer
Imagine a world where you can retrain yourself on the order of months, not
years, and take on little or no debt to do it. How would that impact
unemployment or underemployment?
When Obama stands in front of a bankrupt auto factory in Detroit and says,
"We'll retool these factories and retrain these workers to produce wind
turbines, solar panels, and electric cars!", how do we do it?
People are desperate to answer that question and services like bloc.io,
Udacity, Coursera, Khan Academy, University Now, etc. are just our best first
answers.
Education is more than a big problem: it's the root problem.
Caveat lector: I help run <http://devbootcamp.com> and the bloc.io guys work
out of our offices 2-3 days per week.
~~~
jellicle
>Imagine a world where you can retrain yourself on the order of months, not
years, and take on little or no debt to do it. How would that impact
unemployment or underemployment?
It would have very little effect on un- or underemployment, since un- and
underemployment are driven by demand, not supply.
There is zero evidence that unemployment in the United States today is driven
by a mismatch between skills-employers-want and skills-workers-have, for
instance.
Paul Krugman discusses this in a few of his columns.
~~~
yummyfajitas
_It would have very little effect on un- or underemployment, since un- and
underemployment are driven by demand, not supply._
Funny - demand is doing just fine. It's only employment that is suffering. See
stats here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2240468>
The Keynesians haven't been proven wrong on their claims that increased demand
-> increased production. It's the part where increased production -> increased
employment that they have been shown conclusively to be incorrect.
~~~
jellicle
I feared that mentioning Krugman would bring out the Krugman-haters with their
nonsense. Sadly, I was right to fear.
You know that the Fed statistics that you cite show that, for example, durable
goods production is down 6% since 2007? Even though population has increased
in that time. That is to say, the graphs support what I said and what Paul
Krugman says, not the nonsense that you think you've learned from Fox News.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/opinion/27krugman.html>
[http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/a-structural-
bla...](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/a-structural-blast-from-
the-past/)
~~~
yummyfajitas
You are completely ignoring the point - if demand increases but producers
don't need to hire people to produce more, employment does not increase. I.e.,
demand may be correlated with production, but production need not be
correlated with employment.
If you looked at the fed stats I cited, they show precisely a lack of
correlation between production and employment.
Nothing you have cited disputes this fundamental point. Krugman doesn't even
try, he just declares victory and insults those who disagree.
~~~
jellicle
>if demand increases but producers don't need to hire people to produce more,
employment does not increase.
If fishes rode bicycles... but they don't.
Productivity growth doesn't change that much year over year:
<http://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm>
And recessions are generally times of low change, since it doesn't make sense
to invest in labor-saving technology when labor is cheap.
> production need not be correlated with employment.
In a speculative robot-filled future, that could be true. On Earth in 2012, if
you want something done, you hire a human to do it.
~~~
yummyfajitas
_If fishes rode bicycles... but they don't._
Nonsense. Should I post the graphs again? The graphs clearly demonstrate
increased production without a corresponding increase in employment. This is
the "jobless recovery" that many columnists lament. Some graphs again:
<http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/PAYEMS>
<http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/INDPRO>
<http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GDPC1>
<http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MANEMP>
<http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/IPMAN>
_And recessions are generally times of low change, since it doesn't make
sense to invest in labor-saving technology when labor is cheap._
Labor is more expensive than ever before. Another graph for you to ignore:
<http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ECIWAG>
According to Keynesians (e.g. Krugman), recessions are caused by labor not
becoming cheap in response to exogenous shocks (due to sticky nominal wages).
Do you disagree with this theory?
------
armored_mammal
I agree education (and even more particularly, the method and quality of
teaching) is a problem, but it's not the same problem as student debt.
As far as I can tell, much of the (debt) problem is caused by bad decision
making by clueless parents and teenagers who think they need to send their kid
to an Ivy League or think that their child somehow needs to spend 40k a year
to go to an in-state school.
Let's be honest. The cost of education is going up, yes. But getting into debt
is also bad and a poor choice. Yet nobody is responsible enough to consider it
when making college choices, just to whine about it after the fact.
Students do not need to own a television or get cable or even have a video
game console. Students probably don't even need a car, definitely don't need
smartphones, and at least where I went to school, could probably do just fine
without owning a computer, too. Likewise, instead of getting into debt they
could go to cheaper community colleges or a whole slew of things.
Instead many college students, regardless of economic background, seem to have
smartphones, Macs, and 42" TVs.
When I see someone complaining about college debt, I see somebody who went to
an overly expensive school, without a plan, and did whatever they felt like
without ever stopping to consider first if they could make a living when they
were done. I see a child.
As someone who looked at the big picture when making college decisions and now
has no college debt two years out of school, I have no sympathy.
I turned down the University of Chicago (among others) so that I wouldn't be
in debt and to hear all the whining about it from entitled feeling kids who
didn't make smart decisions makes me angry.
Now I'll agree that you may need to take on some debt to complete college. But
if you're taking on more than the cost of a new car, you're doing it wrong.
Don't get me wrong, either. I concur that colleges waste lots of money.
~~~
jfarmer
I attended the University of Chicago, paid for it myself, and took on 100% of
the debt.
I'm still paying it off, but it was worth it! My life is without question 100x
better for it.
Your point is fair, though: with few exceptions student's expectations of how
transformative their college education to be absolutely eclipses the reality.
~~~
lrs
I think the OP's characterization of the decisionmaking process that leads to
crippling educational debt is somewhat unfair. It's definitely driven by the
parents and children who he condemns as "clueless." But I think it's important
to consider that many of these "clueless" have been told their entire lives
that "education is a great investment" and "graduates of prestigious
universities all become successful and rich," and have never really been
confronted with any reason to question these pronouncements, which have
appeared consistent with their own observations and experiences. Colleges and
universities don't hesitate to trot out these tropes in their recruitment
literature, though I suppose it's a mark of the "clueless" that they hold
educational institutions to a different standard of credibility than used car
salesmen or carnival barkers.
I see a parallel to the recent mortgage crisis. Sure, fundamentally, the
crisis was just huge numbers of people defaulting en-masse on their mortgages.
They all made "clueless" decisions by taking on more mortgage debt than they
could handle. Maybe they deserve what they get, and maybe the appropriate
response is to be angry at these entitled whiners who made worse decisions
than the OP. But these decisions were facilitated by lenders and securities
brokers who were acting in less than good faith.
I'm inclined to view both the homeowners in the mortgage crisis and the
students and families struggling with education debt right now more as victims
of poor information availability and outmoded decision heuristics that fell
behind the times, and less as entitled whiners.
I guess I should note that I also went to the University of Chicago (hi Jesse)
and it's fairly clear by now that it was a terrible choice for me. So maybe
I'm just grasping for rationalizations while desperately fleeing from the
crushing psychological weight of the responsibility for that choice and the
long and uninterrupted sequence of related bad choices that have more or less
ruined my life.
~~~
armored_mammal
Can't really tell if the last line is sarcasm for sure (I think it is?).
I can't stand when people are taught to listen instead of think, and that
predilection of mine is why I can't see the sub-prime mortgage crisis as being
at all similar to college debt.
Someone who is going to college is supposed to be bright, intelligent, and
motivated. A budding critical thinker who can deal with new and complex ideas.
Hence I don't think someone who makes decisions based on what they're told is
a good candidate for college. Likewise I don't think someone who is focused on
the past success of others is exactly an ideal college candidate, either. Both
of these things are ostensibly why there are large essay sections as part of
the college application process.
In any case, I think it's kind of disingenuous and silly to have the same
expectations of someone without a high school degree and three kids working 60
hours a week getting pitched on a bad loan and a top end of the spectrum
student getting pitched on colleges. You can't have the same expectations.
That said, I think you hit the nail on the head when comparing modern college
recruitment practices to used car salesmen. In fact, visiting MIT (academic
activity related) remains one of the most disillusioning experiences of my
life. Sure, science goes on there, but I felt like I was inside of an
infomercial.
If anything perhaps both are a sign that K-12 needs to have more coverage of
financial- and media- literacy.
But I guess I've regarded the success of graduates of Ivy Leagues and other
prestigious schools as having more to do with being part of the good old boys
club and networking with the wealthy than actually having anything to do with
having good teachers.
~~~
lrs
No sarcasm; just a lot of regret and self-loathing.
It seems like the root of our disagreement is our differeing expectations for
the cognitive and decisionmaking abilities of teenagers. As other posters have
mentioned, there are lots of social factors at play in the college decision,
and I think those factors can be far more powerful than what's necessary to
lead a straight-A high school student astray.
If we pared away all of the people who were susceptible to making bad
decisions based on what they're told or who are focused on the past successes
of others, only the tiniest sliver of the population would remain as viable
candidates for college. Maybe this is the point you're making - maybe you
think we should shut down almost every university and tell everyone outside
the enlightened sliver to go figure out something else to do. (Might actually
not be that bad of an idea.) Or maybe you have a different view of people's
cognitive abilities at age 17.
The approach that you personally took toward your college decision is, I
think, pretty exceptional, and puts you toward the top of the top 1% of
rational 17-year-old decisionmakers. I hesitate to condemn people as clueless
and undeserving of our sympathy because they fall short of that lofty
standard.
~~~
armored_mammal
I'm not really sure what point I'm making.
I agree there are large structural flaws with college (well, pretty much the
whole educational system). Good teachers and good researchers aren't the same
thing for sure. Likewise, many amenities at college today are not really
necessary, but also likely don't have a anywhere near an order of magnitude
impact on costs. At some schools healthy food is often replaced by junk food
provided through restaurant contractors, which is not so great, but maybe is a
little cheaper. I agree that something needs to change with how college works,
and that the costs are getting a bit silly when they're almost at the point
that you could get together with a class of friends and hire expert personal
tutors instead.
Likewise, I definitely think that many people who feel they need to go to
college are people who shouldn't go to college, or who at least aren't ready
for it. Witness the huge numbers of remedial courses at many public
institutions, as well as decreasing standards in many courses. I sometimes
take classes at the local community college for fun and I'll have classmates
who can barely read and write using student loans to fail their courses. Sadly
enough, I've seen some of the same at 4 year schools. It's just depressing and
I often wonder how they even got through High School. (And I'm not talking
about non-English speakers or anything, either. Upper or upper-middle class
Caucasians who have maybe 5th or 6th grade level language skills.)
Of course some people just eat McDonald's and play WoW instead of going to
class while living off loans. I had a room mate one year in the dorms who did
that.
I'm sure you're right that social pressure is a lot of it. Dad goes to
college, assumes the kids will too, then doesn't much pay attention while they
do rather mediocre in school, aren't ready for college, but absolutely feel
like they've got to. So on and so forth.
I can't accept the notion that social pressure is really a valid excuse,
though, even if it's behind the reality for some of the problems.
But I'm the kind of cruel bastard who hates it when people worry about what
everyone else thinks and who if ever has kids will move several times on
purpose and keep them from watching TV and hopefully raise them so that they
can trust themselves instead of their peers with lots of comments like 'well,
if Freddy jumped off a cliff would you?.'
I've also got to think another part of it is the notion that the credential is
meaningful, but doesn't represent any skill or knowledge. So many people these
days think of the paper first, the socialization second, and learning third.
I'm sure there's something, too, with the excessive helicopter parenting
keeping even smart 17/18-year-olds from really thinking for themselves.
I guess I'm just not super sympathetic about things that irritate me, and my
experiences have rarely exposed me to the sympathetic side.
One thing I just thought about is ROTC. Better than debt, I guess? The people
I knew in it were definitely on the straight and narrow and all set to finish
with decent grades and no debt.
------
zanny
I just graduated with my CS degree this May, and I only took on a total of 20k
debt and lived on campus, and that 20k was just the stafford loans that 3 of
my scholarships mandated I take in order to qualify. Note, now that I
graduated, I already paid off over half that on just reserve funds from summer
jobs that I have had dating back to High School.
While I was there, only about 1 in 5 students actually had a full financial
aid package. _Most_ of them didn't fill out FAFSAs, or didn't even use
subsidized stafford loans - they had direct bank loans from their parents for
upwards of $60k a year.
In my opinion, the people of the 22ed century will look back and think we were
hilariously dumb. We have instantanous communication of ideas and knowledge
via the internet, and our internet speeds are only getting better. If you want
to _learn_ something, it is easier than ever to find a community of fellow
learners for a subject, find tons of free learning materials on that subject,
and buckle down without the financial obligations and classroom environment
(which doesn't work for everyone, and you inherently have less engagement
there because one teacher can not effectively engage with even just 10 people
all the time).
Like the article said, the degree is the problem. But I don't think thats the
_real_ problem - moreso the problem than that is the inability for
_individuals_ to have ideas and persue them in business ventures, because
upstart small business will demand much less degree knowledge from employees
(even if they are very skilled) since they draw from a local pool.
You get the degree because you will be applying to massive companies with huge
HR that don't want to try to interpret you as a _person_ but want to get a
quick diagnostic of if you are capable or not from a one word answer to a 3
word question: Got a degree? If hiring was more based on individual
accomplishment and demonstratable knowledge rather than paper, we would all be
better off for it by getting off the degree treadmill.
~~~
dpeck
As others have said before, education is incredibly cheap now, but credentials
are becoming more and more expensive.
------
marknutter
I think the biggest problem with higher education today is the fact that
colleges aren't the one issuing the student loans. If a student enters the
workforce and can't find a job to pay back their loan, the colleges aren't the
ones on the hook; the students are, and eventually, the taxpayers. I
understand that government-backed loans are a way to try to make higher
education available to more people but all this easy money has resulted in a
huge cash grab by for profit institutions who frankly could care less whether
or not their graduates actually pay the loans back. Couple that with the
almost religious belief that a college education is the only way to achieve
the American dream and you have a recipe for the exact disaster we're flying
head first into today.
~~~
jpdoctor
The traditional name for this: The agency problem.
[http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/agencyproblem.asp#axzz23...](http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/agencyproblem.asp#axzz23B7SZN50)
------
Crake
I don't think there's a private solution to this problem. If we look to
functional educational systems (example: germany), we see that other countries
are often much better at matching people up with careers that match their
talents (or lack thereof). Instead, we have colleges that will take whoever
can pay over whoever might be the brightest academically. The people who can
pay aren't necessarily the sharpest crayon in the box, and the people who
can't might be the next cure for [insert x here].
State universities at the very least should be tuition free so as to not
completely fuck over students from dysfunctional families who won't
help/families that can't afford it. Of course, it would also be wiser to raise
entrance standards and somehow figure out how to stop the ridiculous GPA
inflation that goes on in the liberal arts fields. STEM still pays relatively
well, but that's because our standards haven't dropped; unfortunately, many
requirements for maintaining a scholarship fail to take choice of major into
account when setting a minimum GPA.
Anyone can get a liberal arts degree if they have enough (or can borrow
enough) money, which is why it means shit nowadays as a measure of IQ.
~~~
HarryHirsch
I _am_ at a state university, and there's a couple of issues that people here
aren't really aware of.
University funding comes from three sources: tuition, state funds and research
grants (federal or industrial). The last two have been steadily declining, so
that leaves tuition as an ever more important source of funds. The university
is building new dormitories to get new paying bodies. It doesn't matter just
how damn incapable the students are, what counts is that they pay. You can't
encourage anyone to drop their chosen degree, if you do you might have to
apologize to the chair and the parents.
Again, funds are scarce, and the administration tries to hive off teaching of
introductory courses to adjuncts. It takes anyone a year or two to learn the
ropes, then people leave because working conditions here are poor, the classes
are too large and the workload too heavy. No one is concerned about the
revolving door for introductory courses. Besides, you have to have an
excellent command of the subject matter to be able to teach a beginners'
class, you just cannot put a bottom-of-the-barrel type in front of an
introductory course and expect the students to do well.
Again, it's the undergraduates that pay, and they money goes primarily into
teaching facilities. Meanwhile the research space is neglected. There is no
money to replace the fifty year old rotting tiles in my office, everything
goes to provide a nice environment to the dear undergrad kids.
Someone might notice that mathematics and computing are peculiar in that there
is not much capital equipment or education needed to be productive. One can be
a decent programmer with a bachelor's degree and grow into software
engineering. But consider the physical sciences, biology, chemistry physics.
To produce any results one needs capital equipment and a PhD. No one goes
anywhere far in biology even with a Masters.
Startup mania. I'd love to join a startup in my field. Try that with a sick
wife. Can't afford it.
------
cantankerous
I feel like this is just swapping degrees for certifications. In this case the
certification is just saying you completed training with so and so (so and so
being bloc.io). Either way, everybody's just chasing paper and maybe learning
something in the process.
EDIT: What I meant by certification was more abstract. On a resume, saying you
completed tutelage with an individual or a group (and have achievements to go
along with them) is pretty similar to completing certification that implies
knowledge attained prior to completing the certification...the disfunctional
nature of certifications, degrees, and mentor-based systems notwithstanding.
People market themselves with this stuff, no matter what precisely it is, or
where they got it from.
~~~
choxi
we don't offer certification, we believe in the "your work is your resume"
philosophy.
~~~
cantankerous
I like that policy! I'm just curious how it ultimately boils down to a
difference in the mindset of people looking to market themselves with skills.
I personally find this model to be really cool and wish you all the best in
expanding into your other areas of teaching!
------
DevMonkey
Here are a couple of random thoughts:
Maybe we need to start outsourcing our education to China and India. We can
send our kids to India for their undergraduate degrees and then they can come
back here to get their post-graduate degrees.
Move towards knowledge certification instead of a degree that states you
completed your degree. Bar Exam, MCSE, Board Certifications, etc. If you have
the drive and capacity to learn without attending college then you should be
rewarded only having to take a certification exam.
Once enough schools go belly up people can just start listing those
institutions on their resumes. Since the school is close there won't be an
easy way to verify. (Just kidding of course)
------
revscat
The adverse effects of a warming atmosphere is a more existential problem, and
I would argue that it is for this reason that it is a more fundamental one.
Education is irreelevant if food supplies are increasingly scarce.
~~~
rimantas
I would argue, that educations and science are the most likely sources of the
solution to food problem.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug>
------
blackhole
While I strongly support educational reform, I should point out that it is not
just higher education, it's also high school, middle school, elementary
school, kindergarten, and daycare. Every single aspect of the entire
educational system down to the time spent on kids when they're too young to
speak properly is broken. Consequently, fixing this is not as simple as having
an online university, but I agree that the solution is very likely to be some
sort of private, for-profit company, simply because that's the only feasible
catalyst.
------
waiwai933
I'm somewhat curious to know how big of a problem (and what forms it takes)
this is around the world—if people could share what this looks like from where
they are, I'd be tremendously interested.
------
grecy
> Once you default on a student loan, you'll be hounded for life: student loan
> debt is the absolute worst kind of debt you can have, _as it is not
> absolvable by bankruptcy_.
I've always wondered two things about this.
1\. How is that even legal? I thought the whole point of bankruptcy was to
raise a big flag that says "I can no longer pay my debts", and they go away.
Why is student loan debt different?
2\. Why do American students tolerate it? Look what happened in Quebec when
they tried to raise tuition even a little.
~~~
GFKjunior
1) Congress passed a law after a lot of lobbying. The reasoning was that when
a student graduates they have substantial debt and no assets, so every student
would just declare bankruptcy the day after graduating and wouldn't have to
pay back the providers.
~~~
grecy
So the lenders wanted protection.
They are now 100% guaranteed to make money by lending it to uninformed
children.
Crazy.
------
pnathan
Yes, education is our generation's (18-30) problem.
Schools are lousy and degrade basic skills, as well as degrading deep cultural
literacy and history. Idiots are held as heros. College costs are skyrocketing
and dysfunctional buildings are being built by the colleges. The list of
problems could go on... reams of paper have been spent documenting them.
Yes, there's a problem. I argue the essence of the problem is the deification
of money.
------
twoodfin
There's another fix: Hire these graduates into the public sector or a random
non-profit, let them make income-based payments, and then forgive their loans
after 10 years, regardless of how much they've paid back. The taxpayers pick
up the rest.
Thanks, Congress!
[http://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/forgiveness-
cancellatio...](http://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/forgiveness-
cancellation/charts/public-service)
~~~
natrius
I think encouraging people to make better education investments is a better
idea than making other people pay for their poor choices.
~~~
twoodfin
I agree. To a first order approximation, "Thanks, Congress!" always has an
implied sarcasm tag.
------
stretchwithme
As with most things government is involved with, the education industry has
evolved for the care and feeding of the providers and not the consumers.
In a normal market, the customers have the power. In a market where the
consumers don't really pay or think they don't, they have no leverage.
And students are just passing through, are quite busy, so they aren't exactly
lobbying Congress. But rest assured everyone else involved is.
------
ap22213
Maybe the problem is that there's less and less need for most types of
workers.
We have a global population steadily lurching toward 8 billion. And, the
richest of us seem to need less and less. And, that's coupled with
aggressively commoditized global services industry that is providing more and
more value for less and less cost.
Seems like major equilibrium shift waiting to happen.
------
scoofy
Obviously, matters relating to shortfalls in our education system are
important, but the real problem is campaign finance. With election candidates
raising the vast majority of their funds from special interests, there is
little incentive to fix problems that are profitable for said special
interests.
------
roguecoder
Re-introduce cheap, accessible, well-funded public universities that people
can study out, without subsidizing for-profit or even private universities.
Public options allow the market to work while overcoming the underprovided
nature of education.
------
mw63214
Agile Education. Is that a thing? If not, why? If yes, how?
Edit: serious question.
------
spitx
The approaches to education in the past five decades or so have produced
mediocre results in producing a more civic individual. I wonder if the
fundamentals of logic are imparted in any elementary school curriculum.
Our electorate is already pitifully informed. However what's really woeful is
that a large portion of the vote bank cannot dissect a simple election
campaign claim or promise.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Federal agents make domestic flight passengers show ID to disembark plane - WillyOnWheels
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/02/23/federal-agents-ask-domestic-flight-passengers-to-show-ids-in-search-for-undocumented-immigrant/
======
cbanek
This is incredibly disturbing. This reminds me of all the random border patrol
checkpoints set up in Arizona and California that were hundreds of miles from
the border, stopping all the highway traffic. Of course this is where all
those famous Checkpoint USA videos come in
([https://www.youtube.com/user/CheckpointUSA](https://www.youtube.com/user/CheckpointUSA)).
I can only imagine what would happen if they just started stopping everyone on
the freeway asking for ID...
And so it begins.
~~~
nostromo
The federal government has additional powers near a border to do certain
things, like set up checkpoints.
But, here's the ridiculous part, they define "near a border" as anywhere in
the US that is 100 miles from a border or the ocean.
So, virtually all of California is in the "constitution free zone" \-- as are
a full 2/3rds of the US population.
[https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-
zone](https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone)
~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
And ports of entry are defined as borders, so all the international airports
count too: [http://imgur.com/a/DqDeQ](http://imgur.com/a/DqDeQ)
It's my quick & dirty edit of their image.
~~~
5555624
Huntsville provides more coverage between Birmingham and Nashville.
------
danjoc
For those of you unaware, it's illegal to be caught without your green card.
That much is not new.
[http://immigrationroad.com/blog/do-i-have-to-carry-my-
green-...](http://immigrationroad.com/blog/do-i-have-to-carry-my-green-card-
around/)
~~~
derefr
But it's not illegal for a _US citizen_ to be carrying no form of
identification, which makes "you have no papers" kind of a flimsy argument:
how do you know the person is not, in fact, a citizen? Especially on a
_domestic_ flight, where there was nothing forcing any of the US citizens on
the flight to bring travel documents like a passport with them.
~~~
masonic
But it's not illegal for a US citizen to be carrying no form of identification
_On a commercial flight?_ Of course it is. This is different from accosting a
pedestrian on a street without probable cause.
[EDIT: Note what the regulation actually says:
"If your identity is confirmed, you will be allowed to _enter the screening
checkpoint_." (That does NOT, in itself, include _boarding a plane_.)
Continuing: "You may be subject to additional screening. You will _not be
allowed to fly if your identity cannot be confirmed_ , you chose to not
provide proper identification or you decline to cooperate with the identity
verification process."
So, had there been passengers for which a knowing exception had been made, the
investigators would have known that going in. So, it's wrong to say that "it's
illegal" to be on a commercial flight in that case, but for the purpose of
this specific search, any such granted variances would have had to be _on
record, and known_ to the investigators.
~~~
GavinMcG
That's just not true. I've gotten on planes without ID before, after losing my
driver's license. I got patted down extra thoroughly, but there's no issue of
legality.
~~~
outericky
This. It is very possible to fly without ID. Have done it several times due to
lost wallet/id. Takes longer. And there is more verification. But def
possible.
~~~
morgante
Indeed. And that's not an anachronism, I just did it 2 years ago when I forgot
my license. Just had to show them a credit card.
~~~
AckSyn
I did it last week when I accidentally shipped my wallet containing my drivers
license and passport home before flying home. It's nothing more serious than
waiting a little more before getting through the line.
------
cperciva
This has happened to me twice on Canadian flights; the second time I asked one
of the police officers what was going on, and they said they were looking for
someone whom the flight manifest said was on board the plane. I suppose they
could have come onto the plane to pull someone off, but that would have
delayed everybody far more than checking ID on the way off.
I wouldn't want this to be a routine fishing expedition, but if there's
someone specific they're looking for and they have a reason to think the
person in question is on the plane, I really don't see any problem.
~~~
morgante
Allowing violations of our rights "just in this case" is how they get stripped
down to nothing. The government does not have the right to demand your ID at
any time they please.
~~~
cperciva
I'm not saying "at any time they please". I'm saying "when they have probable
cause to believe the person they're looking for is on the plane".
~~~
morgante
I don't think that's sufficient probable cause. They don't suspect that
_everyone_ on the plane is an illegal immigrant
More importantly, they should plenty of less-invasive procedures. The airline
should have a passenger manifest of everyone who actually flew, for one thing.
------
sova
Oh good, I can't wait to see what awesome innovations rapid militarisation of
our country will bring!
------
marricks
Since it's easy to be unclear of your legal rights and protections, can you
ask officer if you're legally obligated to comply with their request, and if
they're recorded lying can the agency be held accountable?
That might be another way to try and have a legal push back, as most people,
probably myself too, might not feel up to trying to stand their ground on
their rights impromptu with no time to become aware of whatever specific
rights will challenged ahead of time.
~~~
hyperpape
My non-lawyerly understanding is that in theory, officers of the law have
substantial protection as long as they can claim they were not willfully
violating your rights. On top of that, in practice they have even more
protections
([http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4221000](http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4221000))
------
LyalinDotCom
Would love to know the legal details behind this scenario and what rights
people actually have to be stopped by various types of law enforcement, in
such a simple case as just leaving a flight you were just legally on.
~~~
morgante
Constitutionally, they don't have a leg to stand on. The police cannot demand
your ID without probable cause.
I wonder what would have happened if someone refused.
~~~
leereeves
This really isn't unusual.
I was once stopped and asked for my ID (and other questions) because someone
had committed a robbery in the area.
People are routinely stopped at checkpoints when crossing state lines, when
police are searching for someone, and at "dragnets" for DUI and immigration.
And yet, suddenly, the left-wing media cares?
Could that have anything to do with their candidate (Hillary) having lost the
election?
They're going to exploit anything they can to make Trump look bad, just as the
right-wing did when Obama was in office.
~~~
morgante
I agree it's not unusual and I doubt this has anything to do with Trump.
That doesn't change the fact that it's unconstitutional to require ID.
"Dragnets" are not a good thing. There's a _reason_ people often use them as a
synonym for invasive and authoritarian tactics.
~~~
leereeves
I'm just commenting on the media's sudden interest, which I think has
everything to do with their opposition to Trump.
I (and many people on both sides) have been opposed to dragnets (including DUI
and immigration dragnets) for a long time.
DAE remember when right wingers were mocked for those videos in which they
simply responded "Am I being detained?"
------
LyndsySimon
Is there any evidence anyone refused? If not, then they can frame it as
consensual and no one will have standing to challenge it.
~~~
maxerickson
Hurray!
------
hrodriguez
Click bait title with a touch of _fear-mongering_ from another MSM outlet.
"as they searched for an undocumented immigrant who had received a deportation
order to leave the United States."
"The search was conducted at the request of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement"
Seems completely reasonable.
~~~
geofft
Why? What makes it reasonable to search all passengers on a plane to find an
undocumented immigrant, that wouldn't also make it reasonable to search all
passengers on a bus, or all congregants at a church, or all pedestrians at a
crosswalk, or similar?
What happens if I don't have my citizenship papers with me? Is ICE going to
take my word that I'm not the person they're looking for and I'm actually a
citizen?
Why should I, a _natural-born US citizen_ , be obligated to carry my
citizenship papers around with me in any of those situations just in case ICE
decides to show up? I have certain rights as a US citizen, and one of those is
that I expect to be able to travel domestically without carrying my papers and
without ICE detaining me.
~~~
zaatar
That you're a _natural-born_ citizen is completely irrelevant; naturalized
citizens are no less entitled to the exact same rights less serving as POTUS.
See the supreme court ruling from Luria v. United States, 231 U.S. 9 (1913).
Link:
[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/231/9/case.html](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/231/9/case.html)
------
walrus01
pick up that can
------
Mikeb85
"Undocumented immigrant"? You mean illegal alien.
Also, providing ID is pretty normal. Especially on flights. Even domestic
ones. Or so I thought. Then again I live in communist Canada.
------
alistproducer2
This administration seems intent on creating problems within what have been
relatively stable systems.
~~~
Jimmie_Rustle
What is the problem being created? They were looking for a fugitive
~~~
x1798DE
Why would they check everyone's ID instead of just the people who looked like
the person they were looking for? At least people who are obviously the wrong
age and sex...
------
ehasbrouck
Analysis from the Identity Project (PapersPlease.org):
"...In the case of Delta Flight 1583, we don’t know what would have happened
if a passenger declined to answer questions, declined to show ID, or tried to
walk past the CBP officers and leave the plane. Some of the passengers might
perfectly legally have passed through TSA checkpoints and boarded the flight
without having or showing any ID, as people do every day.
It’s unclear whether a court would find that, in the circumstances depicted in
this photo, a reasonable person would have felt free to leave without
answering questions or showing ID documents.
The Supreme Court has also ruled that law enforcement officers questioning and
searching passengers on a common carrier are not required to tell you whether
you have to comply with their “requests”, or to tell you whether you are free
to leave.
The only way to find out whether you are required to answer questions is to
stand mute. The only way to find out if you are required to produce or hand
over documents is to keep them out of sight and not to hand over or open your
bags or put your hands in your pockets. The only way to find out if you are
free to leave is to walk away. The only way to find out whether government
agents will allow you to exercise your rights is to exercise your rights. Only
then are you likely to be found to have standing to challenge any infringement
of your rights.
So far as we can tell, all the passengers on Delta Flight 1583 produced and
handed over documents that the CBP officers found acceptable, and were then
allowed to leave. So we will probably never know whether the courts would have
upheld the legality of the CBP officers’ actions."
More (including links to statute and regulations purporting to authorize CBP
boarding of domestic flights):
[https://papersplease.org/wp/2017/02/24/border-search-and-
id-...](https://papersplease.org/wp/2017/02/24/border-search-and-id-demand-
from-passengers-on-a-domestic-flight/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The AIM FishBot Phenomenon - arjunlall
http://nixiepixel.com/blog/index.php/aim-fish-bot-help
======
CalmQuiet
Yes, it's probably useful to know that script kiddies know how screen scrape
and that they are moving into "Do you have Prince Albert in the can?" 2.0
And they do us a real service in bringing home that what is fishy in our web
experience may be phishy (or at least fishbotty). Do you want to wager whether
somewhere in the bowels of a former Soviet state entrepre-criminals are
exploring how to monetize such a process (and not intending to offer an opt-
out option)?
It may take a little while to see if this pranksterism can turn sout, since we
seem to be in the very early stages: there's not yet a wikipedia article on
fishbot, and a sole Wired article (
<http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/11/fishbot-roundup.html> ) is concerned
about robots, not webbots.
------
sant0sk1
I've been hit by the [papa,phobic]coho a couple times in recent months. Its
pretty lame.
------
diN0bot
reaction: this is awesome. sure, if you get connected to someone unpleasant
that sux (the "14-yr-old" problem). otherwise, you get a neat little mystery
and random but pleasant connection to a stranger. sounds fun.
------
0xdefec8
Guess it's time to add a regex block feature to gaim. (block .*Coho)?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How I type 156 words per minute [video] - open-source-ux
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ArVtCQqQRE
======
karmakaze
An interesting topic, but all I got out of this was to practice on
10FastFingers.com and 'make noise' by striking the keys as you type, which I
already knew. Also no mention of alternate layouts.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The University of Illinois’ Startup Ecosystem - badboyboyce
https://hack.vc/the-university-of-illinois-startup-ecosystem-b1cb79cdc80d
======
qCOVET
I started a not to be named University entrepreneurship program. I drew
similar pictures and it looked beautiful, as if the ecosystem was bursting
with activity. But the reality was different. It lacked excitement, it lacked
visibility, it lacked engagement and above all it lacked entrepreneurial
culture (which I see as gluon or higgs boson of a robust entrepreneurial
ecosystem).
So at the heart of this beautiful map, I created a cultural hub .. a space
that was founded and run by students, who elevated the excitement and
visibility of entrepreneurship. To top it up, I elected a student women
entrepreneur to lead it. It had interesting implications:
1\. Entrepreneurial ecosystems tend to be male dominated. By creating a
community of student entrepreneurs, lead by a female student, it created a
'safe zone' for other women entrepreneurs to come forward and engage.
2\. Much of what we did at the space, was to encourage trying new things, new
ideas and celebrating every tiny milestone of a student. I started a FB page,
where every student activity was documented and celebrated.
3\. In less than 2 years, I helped start over 60 new ventures. Some died or
would have died or will die and a few get accepted into top incubators..and
others are at limbo... but the process helped students to learn important
lessons in entrepreneurship. It is best to do it while still a student.
4\. The space helped connect all the dots in the picture (drawn in the
article). It brought the organizations closer to the students and helped
create visible linkages. It helped movement of entrepreneurs and
entrepreneurial ideas easily across those linkages and removed redundancies in
the ecosystem.
5\. I gained a lot of visibility in the media and it didn't go well with the
fossils of University who claimed entrepreneurship as their own and turned my
exciting job into a political game and a living hell. Non of it leaked to my
students, but being an entrepreneur myself, I already had many other projects
that I was working on ... so I left the University and aside from championing
my students from the sidelines now, I find utmost excitement in pursuing my
own tiny startup. I am broke, but I am happy and every day take pride in the
work I did, to create the nucleus of a successful entrepreneurial ecosystem in
one of the top Universities, that would act as a cascading feeder to the
community for many generations to come.
------
bman90
Currently working at UIUC at a relatively new startup and yes there is a good
community building here. There is lots of agricultural innovation going on
here and having giants like John deere, adm, ABinBev as well as tech companies
like said yahoo hadoop analytics group. Cool to see some UIUC research park
love here on hacker news. Can't wait to get up and go back to work at the
research park where I will be hacking on python all day!
------
brianstorms
Author says UI has "a rich history" with regard to startups. I am curious when
the clock started ticking for "history" in this author's view -- last 10
years? 15?
Startups were a very different story at UI in the late 60s, 70s, and early
80s. From what I've gathered, it seems doing a startup could be a very iffy
proposition, vis a vis the university. Sometimes it could even get you in a
heap o' trouble.
~~~
joezydeco
I'm a UIUC alum. The author is doing what UIUC typically does, which is try to
take credit for the successes of their alumni when those alumni did it without
the UIUC ecosystem. I like to call it the Andreessen Complex:
[https://hack.vc/tech-companies-started-by-university-of-
illi...](https://hack.vc/tech-companies-started-by-university-of-illinois-
alumni-6753327a0829)
UIUC has historically done little to negative work in making their graduates
successful beyond the diploma. I don't see much changing here except a lot of
handwaving, throwing cash around, and grand announcements like UILabs which
will make a lot of noise and smoke but eventually do very little toward the
dream of being more like Stanford or MIT or Fraunhofer.
_" The list is still a work in progress but shows just how many great
entrepreneurs were at one point roaming around in central Illinois"_
Sums it up right there. They roamed until they roamed all the way to the west
coast. And that's the eternal agony of the University of Illinois.
~~~
afridi
Author of the original post here. To start of I'd just like to clarify that
I'm a student at the University and have no ties to any of the administration.
The goal of the post was not to try and take credit for the successes of
alumni, I rather wrote it to highlight how some of our alumni have gone on to
do great things. I decided to write it after an experience I had this summer
while I was interning at a VC firm in NYC. While there, I met the managing
partner for one of NYC's biggest VC firms (I'll leave it unnamed) who
basically said: 'oh, you go to UIUC.... they've produced one famous tech
entrepreneur (Marc Andreessen), maybe you can be the second'. That's a
sentiment I saw echoed throughout my time there and through previous
experiences (especially on the East Coast).
In terms of the helping alumni with their ventures after graduation, I'd argue
that the school has actually done a lot to help founders through the resources
and early-stage funding available (a lot of these have sprung up recently).
It's hard to compare it to Stanford/MIT/Harvard which are based in thriving
tech cities where alumni and VCs can hop by on campus whenever.
Update: I'd also love to know (from everyone that sees this) what programs
other universities have done to help alumni after graduation. Just because
UIUC hasn't already done this doesn't mean we (students and alumni) can't
start it. Just take a look at the awesome stuff that alumni from Harvard do
for their community
([http://harvard.splashthat.com/](http://harvard.splashthat.com/)). It's
entirely alumni managed + organized.
~~~
joezydeco
_' oh, you go to UIUC.... they've produced one famous tech entrepreneur (Marc
Andreessen), maybe you can be the second_
Let's get history straight first. UIUC didn't turn pmarca into an
entrepreneur. Jim Clark did that.
~~~
jjtheblunt
Andreesesen is overly celebrated because of his extreme luck, and is certainly
not the first. Look up John Bardeen and Nick Holonyak for examples.
~~~
afridi
The school actually does highlight John Bardeen and Nick Holonyak a ton! John
Bardeen was the first person mentioned on my tour of the college of
engineering and Nick Holonyak gave the keynote at my ECE orientation.
My posts were meant to highlight entrepreneurship which is why I didn't
mention them (they'd be in a class of amazing innovators who studied/worked at
UIUC). There's also a ton of awesome alumni that have gone on to be C level
execs at big companies, but again they were omitted because these posts were
specifically targeted at entrepreneurial alumni.
------
matmann2001
UIUC grad here. Pretty sure I was the author's TA at one point too :)
All of these programs and events are a huge step in the right direction. I
personally did my best to even help some of these programs grow, particularly
iFoundry and the group that eventually became Hack Illinois. But the biggest
challenge I found was bridging the chasm between this hacker/entrepreneur
culture and the existing academic/research culture.
As a premier research university, the UIUC engineering curriculum is heavily
focused on the theoretical. In my years there, I really had to go out of my
way to obtain some hands-on learning experiences. Those are so important for
breeding a hacker/entrepreneur culture. It's how you learn to work with real-
world constraints, how to network and collaborate, and how to fail well. A
textbook and a Powerpoint lecture just can't teach that.
So the question I pose, to the author and to the readers, is this: How do we
change the way students are taught?
~~~
eldavido
Be careful what you wish for.
Asking universities to teach "hands-on learning" isn't productive; you'll get
plenty of that, that's more recent and marketable, from practical work
experience. I'd rather the universities go even further in the theoretical
direction.
What I got from engineering school wasn't just another 2-3 years of work
experience, it was much deeper things like numeracy, learning to write well,
lifelong relationships, appreciation for rigor, and a hell of a work ethic. It
was a fantastic value for the time and money I put in and it was absolutely
worth it.
(UIUC alumnus living/working in SF)
~~~
afridi
I think a balance is needed. A lot of my friends in CS graduating after 4
years of college (at a number of schools including at UIUC) feel less
confident going into the industry than people I know that have gone through
developer bootcamps.
Theory is definitely important, but the number of hands-on/practical courses
needs to be increased as well.
~~~
eldavido
Don't worry about it. People who get paid to assess the actual -- not
perceived -- quality of tech talent for a living (hiring managers, bigco
recruiters) aren't fooled by this. The mere amount of stamina it takes to
complete an Illinois engineering degree is enough of a signal.
Your experience might be different if you're dealing with money guys with no
operating experience who trust the Harvard/Stanford pedigree uber alles,
second/third-tier startup founders who dropped out because they're "the next
steve jobs" and would rather drop acid than finish their degrees,
"journalists" writing schlok "content" for valleywag/techcrunch etc. without
an iota of fact-checking, and other hilarious SV stereotypes that this area
seems to attract in droves. Try not to let it get you down too much. There's
more to life that the front page of Techcrunch.
------
nickysielicki
Madison and the University of Wisconsin are developing their startup scene
more since I've started here.
The nice part about Madison is that it _isn 't_ just the university, like some
are commenting about UIUC. The Ionic framework is based out of Madison, made
by two Wisconsin grads. Gener8tor is an accelerator in this city and they're
growing. They really do provide good opportunities to founders, and they have
funding from State Farm insurance that seems to be steady, so I have hope that
things can really go somewhere. Though I have to say that having been around
their office and at a few events they really don't feel tech-oriented.
And then the university has their own stuff. To anyone at UW-Madison reading
this: avoid them! WARF is a hungry parasite and if you do anything interesting
they will do their best to take their perceived share.
------
procu
So many points to answer...
1\. I am willing to grant that Champaign/Urbana is not the ideal place to live
for everyone; however, it affords me the best of everything I want from a
community, without a lot of what I perceive as the drawbacks of places like
Chicago or SV or other large metro areas. I would not live anywhere else, and
I know that others feel the same way that I do; and it is fine if others
disagree.
2\. (This ought to start a firestorm of comments...) I have worked for three
different companies based in SV or SF and have lots of friends still in that
area. It has been my personal experience that people there are motivated by
money concerns much more than they are in CU. In conversations with my friends
there, they say things like, "Come work at XYZ and they'll up your salary by
X"; or, "If you come to this startup you'll get tons of stock options"; etc.
This is totally my opinion, but I believe that people in SV are so worried
about money because they really can't afford to live there unless they make a
_lot_ of it. And again, my opinion is that this influences people to move jobs
frequently in order to get a bump in pay, a big sign-on bonus, or the hope for
a big stock payout. The SV culture encourages frequent moves. I certainly
cannot deny that people in CU talk about money, but when my friends here try
to pull me away to another job, they often talk about the cool tech they are
working on or how much they love the culture of their company, and not about
the money. It is because people in Tech in CU can afford to live very well on
modest salaries. (My spouse doesn't work and we still live really well.)
Again, just my opinion, but I believe that this is the real reason why people
stay longer in their jobs in CU. It isn't because they don't have options. (I
feel that I have many options, and my options seem to be increasing all the
time.) It is because they are not forced to move just to afford to live.
3\. Rome wasn't built in a day, and anyone who has been in the community for a
while can see that there have been great improvements in our startup culture
over the last decade or two. And, just as Rome fell, SV will not be the center
of the Tech Universe forever.
4\. Related to comments 2 and 3, see the article:
[http://www.cnbc.com/id/102697372](http://www.cnbc.com/id/102697372)
5\. The University has done an amazing amount of good for the community, if
only by being one of the major economic engines in CU, and I appreciate that.
It isn't their "responsibility" to build a startup community in CU. However,
they have done a lot to advance it. The U of I Research Park is a great
example of that.
6\. A few people in this thread seem to be blaming UIUC for what they perceive
as startup culture issues. It takes a lot of hard work from many players
(individuals and organizations) to build a great startup community, so if
there are failings, stop blaming others and do something about it.
------
jostmey
Urbana-Champaign is in the middle of no-where. The University is _Urbana-
Champaign_ \- there is very little city around the campus. It would be one of
the worst places to start a company. Not to mention that Illinois is one of
the last states where I would want to start a company.
~~~
skynetv2
I beg to differ. U-C is an excellent place. I dont think you have ever been
there to say that.
Its very affordable. You want to spend millions on rent or hire your staff?
college town - perfect for those college grads to entertain themselves after
work
Hire students from UIUC, Parkland, ISU, and few other campuses around.
Not great restaurants but pretty good variety of cuisines
Chicago is less than 2 hours away by car
no sitting in traffic for hours every day
only drawback is you cant jump companies every 6 months
air connectivity is limited but Bloomington next door has decent options
excellent place to have a family and raise children
Yahoo is increasing its presence in Champaign, so is Intel, Caterpillar, and a
few more. I know they are not startups but there is a reason why they are
growing there.
~~~
hcrisp
Yahoo moved their Hadoop analytics group from CA to IL at least partially due
to huge turnover. Since moving they have not lost "quite" as many people. UIUC
is also where the transistor was invented, and it the home of NCSA and HDF
Group. In my opinion, it has definitely contributed to computer science and
scientific computing everywhere.
~~~
shostack
What do you think accounted for the huge turnover and why moving from CA to IL
reduced that? Less competitive job options in IL that made the opportunities
look more attractive?
~~~
hcrisp
Perhaps the stability of the Midwest and a culture unlike Silicon Valley where
folks move jobs every two to three years. There does seem to be more loyalty
in IL, and the calmer pace may encourage more long-term planning?
~~~
shostack
Honestly, I spent most of my life in Chicago and only recently moved out to
the Bay. I can't say in a major metro like that there is any more inherent
loyalty. In many industries the only way to get ahead is to change jobs every
couple years to make sure you stay at market rate for compensation.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Why isn't HN using target=“_blank” for links? - datasmurf
It just annoys me a lot, that i always have to use <Right click -> "Open in New Tab"> for a link. Why isn't "target="_blank" used? I'm just curious.
======
michielr
It's about giving the user the option. If you use target blank it's impossible
to stay in the same tab. Which can be a hassle on mobile or it could get
blocked as an ad as well. How hard is CTRL + click or MMB?
~~~
datasmurf
If the link opens a target on a other website it should be opened in a new
tab. If it's a link on the same site it shouldn't.
~~~
tired_man
I believe there are a number of addons that will do that for you.
~~~
datasmurf
'nuff said
------
willstepp
In certain cases I use target blank myself, but there is some thought in UX
design that its often better to let the user decide how to open a link for
themselves.
------
alphajson
Asked myself this question more than once...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Our new Rails app: pplrep - grizzy
http://pplrep.com/?=h
======
mcantelon
>Each time you rep someone, you are rewarded with 2 rep points of your own.
If I randomly rep enough people I will become A GOD.
~~~
pplrep
Hi, I am the author of the app. Thanks for your comment.
There's a limit on how often you can rep a single person (once every 24
hours), and if you are to spam different people with rep, your rep is likely
to be deleted by the person's profile, which will take your score back down
two points. Since a person's profile is public, they likely don't want their
profile filled with spam rep or to like their reps are fake. We are hoping
members will play their role in moderating in their own profiles.
~~~
mcantelon
It'll likely end up working the same way it does on LinkedIn and Twitter. On
LinkedIn I get strangers wanting to connect all the time so they can increase
the surface perception of the the size of their network. And on Twitter it's
similar: people who follow an implausibly large number of people in the hopes
those people will follow back end up following me temporarily, hoping I'll
follow back.
Is the amount of rep a person gives out visible on their profile? That would
be useful in gauging how genuine their motiviation is.
~~~
pplrep
The amount of times they've given out rep is indeed visible on their profile.
~~~
mcantelon
Perfect. Would be easy, then, to make a greasemonkey plugin to do some simple
math and work out a "sincerity ranking", etc.
------
snitko
Reputation is a very important problem worth solving. However, I'm not sure
your app tackles the most important part of this problem, which is connections
between participants.
For example, let's say I started a business and I need first customers, which
I cannot get without the reputation. One cheat is to simply create 100
accounts on your website, each referring to each other and giving points to
each other. Even if you manually check each account, which I think you
wouldn't be able to do at a certain point, I can game the system and gain fake
reputation.
An alternative would be a system based on connections. For instance, if my
friend or a friend of my friend gave your account some points, then I can be
more sure of the validity of your reputation. The more connections you have to
me and the shorter the route, the more reputable you appear to me. On the
other hand, if all your points come from your own fake accounts which have no
connections to any of my friends, your reputation appears 0 to me, even though
you have 100 points.
~~~
pplrep
Thanks for your comment. I am the author of the app. We are always checking
for abuse, and if someone abuses the system, it will be dealt with.
------
jmduke
I'm reminded of a game I used to play in middle school called MapleStory. It
was a pretty generic, grindy MMORPG but one of its more mechanics was a
'reputation' stat that each character had, with no ostensible uses besides to
tell who was well-liked and who wasn't. You could 'fame' someone and 'defame'
someone once per day, similar to this system.
As one might expect, the system never was as honest as you'd hope: you'd have
massive "fame trading" rings, because what's the point of giving away your
fame for the day if you don't get anything in return? And, more maliciously,
there would be guilds and clans who'd designate targets to 'defame on sight':
forty people defaming you over the course of a week would usually put you into
the negative hundreds, sort of ruining that stat permanently (unless, of
course, you 'bought fame'.)
~~~
GuiA
Some forum software (for example, the free SMF[1]) include a similar feature,
where members can vote each other up/down.
Now while on paper it's not very different from the reddit/HN/etc. karma
system, in reality it is- on many such forums, the community is very
compact[2], and there is a greater sense of member hierarchy (I believe that
having picture avatars contributes to that, as they are very quickly
remembered). The resulting social construct is often very interesting, with
members staging coups against one another, trying to gain power (= being a
moderator), and so on.
I've spent many hours as a teenager in such communities in the early 2000s,
and it was very entertaining and interesting in terms of human dynamics-
pretty much cyberpolitics where the goal is to rule on a forum rather than a
territory.
I'm certain that there are tons of social experiments that can be done in the
context of cyber-communities, and that what we have today (social news sites,
social network) barely scratches the surface.
[1]: [http://www.simplemachines.org](http://www.simplemachines.org)
[2]: that is, for any 2 random active members, the probability that they have
posted in a same thread is much closer to 1 than on reddit/HN/etc.; this is
definitely helped by the fact that threads tend to be linear in such forums
------
pooya72
I know this is well intentioned, but it might have the opposite effect. There
has been a lot of study done on rewards and motivation. It turns out that
giving external rewards can undermine motivation. For example, giving stars to
children for their drawings will undermine their natural motivation to draw.
The same can be said about monetary rewards. Moreover, people who do deeds for
an external reward are usually less satisfied compared to those who do deeds
for their own sake.
A lot of this research is done under Self-Determination Theory.
~~~
pplrep
I'm not sure about psychological studies as I am not familiar with them nor do
I have a degree in psychology, so I am not going to try and be an arm-chair
psychologist.
I can say that based on my own anecdotal experience I feel pretty good when I
receive a rep, and I also feel good when I give people rep. Others who have
used pplrep have reported similar experiences. And I think that's a good
thing. Certainly better than dealing with the drama that occurs on other
social networks.
~~~
pooya72
Sorry, just saw your reply. Well, the studies show that people well feel good
about rewards when they are unexpected. But once it becomes part of a standard
routine it turns out to lower intrinsic motivation.
------
gee_totes
Either I have a really good internet connection right now (which is unlikely),
or this app seems really fast! Good job! (Also the colors look great).
Are you doing anything special on the backend?
~~~
pplrep
Not really. We still haven't implemented any caching. Probably will in the
next week or so. And we're gonna need to figure out a way to scale the
leaderboard soon. Probably gonna use redis for that.
Thanks for the kind words.
------
aespinoza
Maybe I miss something, but why would I want to get reps? I mean what is the
objective of it. Is it to incentivize people to help others? Or just an ego
boost. I can help people without giving reps.
In my opinion this would be a feature of a larger product. It would be cool to
implement it in Hacker News. Where you can get Karma for helping others here.
But it would still be an add-on. The focus of karma in hacker news is to
incentivize people on submitting better articles. What does it mean for me to
have more reps ?
~~~
pplrep
I recommend signing up and getting your friends to sign up and use it. It's
indeed a very good feeling when one of your friends reps you for something you
may have done. It does feel good. And I'm not drinking my own kool-aid. I've
been repped a few times, and it does feel pretty good.
------
jnorthrop
Props for the clever privacy policy and simple language used, (I wish more
sites would take that approach) but it doesn't say anything about sharing
information collected with third parties. Given the nature of the site, it
would be nice to understand whether the site intends on monetizing collected
personal information.
BTW, that isn't necessarily a bad thing but it is an important aspect of the
sites privacy policy.
~~~
pplrep
We don't plan to, no. Your info doesn't matter to us outside of us figuring
out how people use the site in order to better improve it. At any point, you
can just delete your account, and it'll be permanently deleted. There are no
soft deletes here. You delete your account, and all content you create is
deleted everywhere.
------
sebg
On the front page - if you make an element that looks clickable, people are
probably going to click on it.
<div class="hpar"></div> should probably be clickable. I probably clicked on
it 5 or 6 times before i had to scroll down.
------
unknownian
Anyone else think the UI looks very Heroku-esque? I'm not one to sue over
superficial differences and "purple" is not a trademark, but I thought pplrep
was a Heroku product at first.
~~~
pplrep
The color we are using is actually "blue iris." It's a mix of blue and purple,
and we think it looks great. It was pantone's color of the year 2008. Heroku
looks great, too, so we'll take that as a compliment ;).
------
snitko
Finally, there's a question of openness. If you store your DB of connections
and points on your own server, I'd trust it less than if it was stored
publicly, like the Bitcoin blockchain.
------
LordHumungous
>Each time you rep someone, you are rewarded with 2 rep points of your own.
Uhh I'm no expert but it seems like rep points don't really mean much if you
can award them to yourself.
~~~
pplrep
It's a way to encourage people to use the app. It was not originally like
that. I added that two days ago. But you guys are right. Feature removed.
------
aroman
Edward Snowden currently on top of the leaderboard. Hmm.
[http://pplrep.com/leaderboard](http://pplrep.com/leaderboard)
------
readme
Is the search supposed to do something? I tried three people I knew and then
tried 'John Smith' \-- returned 0 results every time.
~~~
pplrep
It's working the way it's suppose, to ;). Your friends haven't signed up, most
likely, and 'John Smith' isn't a member of the site.
------
omgsean
George Zimmerman is in seventh place. This app doesn't really make any sense.
~~~
pplrep
Hi. The site just launched. So far it seems our members seem to like
Zimmerman. It's out of our hands as to who people want to rep, as that should
be up to the community.
~~~
mrcwinn
In other words, people don't have to be real on your site? Did George
Zimmerman actually sign up?
It may help the reputation of the site itself to have a real user base. I know
it's slow going in the beginning when you get out there - but I simply don't
understand this.
~~~
pplrep
I cannot verify if Zimmerman is real. If famous people sign up and would like
their accounts verified, they can contact us. It's a similar dilemma Twitter
has.
------
jpdoctor
It looks like facebook likes without the rest of facebook, or did I miss
something?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
U.S. Families Slice Debt to Lowest In 6 Years - acangiano
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704823004576192602754071800.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us
======
OstiaAntica
This headline is too positive by implying that Americans are choosing to save.
Rather, they are hitting the wall. The gains here are overwhelmingly from
defaulting on mortgages. Also the credit card companies have withdrawn $1
trillion in credit lines, so people can't pay cards with other cards any
longer.
~~~
yummyfajitas
Americans are choosing to pay off their debt. They have paid off $90B so far.
You are correct that $118B of the $208B drop is caused by lenders writing off
bad debt. Of course, the elephant in the room is that total debt went up by
$1.6 trillion - corporate debt increased 5.4%, govt debt increased 20%.
By the way, did anyone notice how crazy the financials of some of the people
being interviewed are? The saleswoman had debt payments of $6500/month.
Assuming she previously spent 50% of her take home pay on debt service, she
was taking home about $13k/month. Yet somehow, she accumulated $500k in debt,
and blew through her entire retirement savings in about 1.5 years.
I have no idea how it is even possible to be that irresponsible.
------
richcollins
I'm so happy to hear that Mr. Shah and his wife were able to purchase a 350k
house after pushing their debts off on taxpayers and dollar holders.
~~~
_delirium
I don't see anything particularly wrong with people choosing to exit a
mortgage in a way that's legal under their mortgage contract. If it's a no-
recourse mortgage, then a debtor is perfectly within their rights to walk away
from the property and consider the debt settled by the return of the property
to the lender. That might cause the lender losses, but the lender is supposed
to be pricing the possibility of such losses into the contract in the first
place.
~~~
yummyfajitas
It is wrong because it is a violation of the agreement the borrower and lender
both signed.
A mortgage is a promissory note, it conveys obligations on the borrower and
the lender. There are penalties for violation, but that doesn't mean the
borrower has the right to violate the contract. That just means they have the
ability to do so.
(Also in many states, they do not even have the ability to. The lender can sue
them for the difference between the foreclosure sale price and the remaining
mortgage obligations.)
On the flip side, suppose house prices went up. Suppose also the bank could
foreclose on the home, even if the borrower was fully paid up, perhaps paying
a $10000 fine for wrongful foreclosure. Would there be something wrong with
this?
~~~
_delirium
But if your mortgage contract says that you're free of any further legal
obligation if you return the property (whether because you actually wrote that
into the contract, or because your jurisdiction adds such terms to all
contracts), then exiting the contract in that manner is just exercising the
termination clause. You are of course correct that if there aren't any such
terms, then you can't exit in that manner.
If mortgages included a clause (either negotiated or because state law
required it on all mortgages) saying that the lender may foreclose after
paying $100k and giving notice, then sure, the lender would be within their
rights to exercise that option as well.
I suppose you can argue for a category of "contractual obligations" separate
from legally enforceable obligations, but that doesn't make much sense to me.
I take a fairly instrumental view of contracts that they're definitionally
equivalent to "legally enforceable agreement".
~~~
yummyfajitas
That's my point - mortgages don't include a clause allowing the buyer to exit
the contract.
A call option has specific language in the contract: "Option holder has the
right (but not the obligation) to purchase $SECURITY at $STRIKE_PRICE on or
before $DATE. To exercise this option, holder must..."
A mortgage has very different language: "Borrower is obligated to make
payments of at least $XXX on or before the 1'st day of each month..."
If you want to take your instrumental view of contracts, then there is
similarly nothing wrong with anything you can legally get away with. It's
basically a "might makes right" viewpoint. So if "nothing wrong with X" means
"you can get away with X", you are correct.
I mistakenly interpreted the phrase "nothing wrong with" as having moral
content.
~~~
_delirium
Contracts incorporate all relevant contract law in the jurisdiction, though,
since you can't enter a contract contrary to a jurisdiction's law.
Say you sign an employment agreement in California that purports to include a
"non-employment" condition, which CA doesn't permit. I suppose you could say
that it was "agreed to but not enforceable", but it makes more sense imo to
say that non-compete agreements simply aren't possible in California (because
an unenforceable contract is not a contract in any meaningful sense).
Or, if you deal with mortgages in a state whose mortgage law says that all
mortgages can be exited with no further legal obligation by returning the
property to the lender, then all mortgages in that jurisdiction have such a
termination clause written into them, whether the contract purports to include
it or not. For clarity, it probably should be restated in the document as
well, but even if the document omits it, it's legally there.
The phrase "nothing wrong with" did have moral content. The morally required
activity when dealing with contracts is exactly equivalent to the legally
required activity. That's the whole _point_ of contracts, to impose legal
obligations on the parties. I could see an argument if someone was misled, and
didn't realize what legal obligations were being imposed. But I don't think
that was the case here; lenders in no-recourse states presumably were aware
that they were agreeing to a mortgage where the borrower had that option.
~~~
yummyfajitas
The activity legally required by a mortgage is to pay the debt. The existence
of a penalty doesn't change this - it simply makes the calculation of whether
or not it is profitable to violate the agreement a lot simpler.
By your logic it is morally right to deliberately violate the terms of any
contract as long as you accept whatever penalties the courts dish out.
Instrumentally speaking, all contracts have an embedded option to break them
and accept the legal judgement against you.
Personally I don't buy into this moral schema. But that's just a question of
values, I suppose.
------
potatolicious
> _"shouldered a smaller debt burden in 2010 than at any point in the previous
> six years, putting them in position to start spending more"_
This probably isn't the writer's intent, but it just sounds like "hey guys! We
got our debt down a bit! LETS GO SHOPPING"
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: WebGL Games - nergal
http://webgl.nu
======
bhouston
Some of these appear to trigger downloads of *.unity3D packages. Is that for
the non-WebGL Unity3D Player? Confused.
------
GFischer
I saw some of these last time around, and the source was available too:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10039456](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10039456)
------
bobajeff
The GTA clone looked interesting. Tried it on my phone. It ran but the sound
didn't work (and of course I couldn't play since it required a keyboard).
I find the problem with WebGL seems to be that in many cases it won't run on
the desktop and while in my experience it works consistently on a phones and
tablets the sites/web apps aren't usually designed for them.
~~~
Drakim
Hopefully as WebGL gets more and more uses there will be more effort in
supporting it properly driver wise. I suspect the reason support is so
inconsistent right now is because there hasn't been enough demand to bring
focus on it.
------
ino
Sweet, submitted my game, Pizza Snake.
You may want to change the locale of the like/share FB buttons to english and
update the copyright date at the bottom.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Non US Engineering Internships? - tyingq
I have a son that's a sophomore at a US state college in Chemical Engineering. He is motivated and has good (3.9) grades.<p>The school has a requirement for either a study abroad, or intern abroad period. Unfortunately, they have little to offer to meet the requirement. One "approved" company, and zero info in housing, visas, costs, etc. Grr.<p>His "academic advisor" is totally useless on the matter. Bonus points for suggestions that would minimize my costs. Biased, but he's a crazy smart kid that would add more value than he drains. I'd happily match him up with any of you on organic chem, calculus, etc. He truly has talent.<p>My son would love to be an intern in the UK, Germany, Dubai, France, etc, but Google is failing me on what companies might offer this. Keep in mind that "chemical engineer" is a pretty broad scope. He could intern in pharma, nuclear, silicon level chip issues, oil and gas, battery tech, food additives, etc.<p>Any insider knowledge or advice?
======
keelhaule
Inbox me his CV in ali dot. elouafiq at. teal dot. ma our company do have
internships industry scale project, mainly related to phosphorous-tech and
agri-tech
------
matt_the_bass
Does he speak any foreign languages? 20 years ago I had an internship in
Germany. But I was also a German major. I got the internship via connections
from my professors. The company helped with the visa.
Note most other countries don’t pay interns. So expect to cover your own
expenses.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AAPL hits $1T market cap according to Apple’s own Stocks app, but it is wrong - aaronbrethorst
https://9to5mac.com/2018/08/02/apple-becomes-first-company-to-hit-1-trillion-market-cap-according-to-apples-own-stocks-app/
======
colejohnson66
The title has since been changed and an update posted at the top of the
article:
> Update: 11:49 AAPL has now passed the $1T mark and is the world’s first
> trillion dollar company.
------
IloveHN84
It doesn't take count of discounted/light taxation (especially in Europe) that
many small businesses don't have
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
EFF Outlines Plan to Fix the Broken Patent System - DiabloD3
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-outlines-plan-fix-broken-patent-system
======
rayiner
Most of these are really excellent, such as the suggestion to require example
code for claims implemented in software, to allow the regional courts of
appeal to decide patent cases, and to defer most discovery until after claim
construction.
On the other hand, some of the suggestions simply beg the question. What is a
"software patent" or a "patent troll?" Software is eating the world--
mechanisms that would have in the 1990s been implemented in ASICs are
implemented in microcontrollers. What people think of "software" they think of
typical application code that mostly moves bits from point A to point B or
react to user input. Software where each individual line of code is
straightforward and requires little thought. An R&D project might spend
millions of dollars to write a bunch of code that will be thrown away--and can
still be considered successful if it yields useful algorithms. These are
qualitatively different kinds of software, but it's devilishly difficult to
draw the line.
Of course the easy solution is to eliminate software patents. I'm not
convinced that's a good thing long-term. I look at the tech industry, and see
one where product companies rather than hard R&D companies make all the money.
The folks at SRI who invented Siri get a small license fee, while Apple makes
billions by wrapping it with a candy shell. It's an industry where there is
tremendous pressure to vertically integrate, because you can only justify R&D
on basic technologies if you also control the product that gets sold to end-
users.
~~~
Alex3917
> What is a "software patent" or a "patent troll?"
Patent trolls are Non Practicing Entities who file lawsuits against companies
who are actually practicing an invention. The problem though is that when the
United States was created, it chose to drop the requirement to practice for a
very specific reason: it discriminates against the poor and middle class, who
might be smart enough to invent some world changing technology but have no way
to raise millions of dollars to produce their invention. Such a requirement
was seen as anti-democratic by the founding fathers, and historically NPEs
have actually made huge contributions to human knowledge... E.g. the person
who invented the computer didn't have the money to actually go out and build
one.
There certainly have come to be a lot of abuses with the current system that
need to fixed. But it's worth keeping in mind that while Mark Cuban himself
might not be a bad guy, the reason the founding fathers chose to let people
file patents without having to build out the invention was precisely to
protect us from people like him, who could come in and just steal someone
else's efforts wholesale because they happen to have more money. And in the
past couple years, a lot of law professors who were originally against NPEs
have now reversed their opinions and acknowledged that the situation is more
complex than they had originally believed.
~~~
zipfle
Citation needed. Specifically, the patent office required that inventors
submit working models of their inventions until 1880 [1]. That doesn't sound
to me like the founding fathers' decision.
Edit: And they still require working models of anything claiming to implement
perpetual motion.[2]
[1]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/18/business/18PATE.html?pagew...](http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/18/business/18PATE.html?pagewanted=all)
[2]
[http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s706.html](http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s706.html)
~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _And they still require working models_ //
Sorry, can you perhaps quote the bit that says that. In that link I see they
reject perpetual motion machines under 35 USC 101 but I don't see the part
saying that such an objection can be combated with presentation of a model, or
indeed that the objection is made in a form of "submit a working model to
continue this application".
The USPTO likely has no facilities to examine or even store such models.
------
zanny
The solution to the patent system is to abolish it. The whole thing. Seek
compensation for the act of coming up with innovative ideas instead of trying
to apply artificial state granted monopolies to them after the fact. It would
be so much healthier to have money pumped into the R&D of common utility goods
for the sake of the innovation than to continue to perpetuate patent warfare
while trying to attach a flawed profit motive to intellectualism.
~~~
rogerbinns
The usual retort to that is "so you don't want to cure cancer then". The
pharmaceutical industry very strongly depends on patents, and would easily be
able to convince government through money and "cancer" not to abolish it.
The practical thing then is to come up with a solution for pharma, and then
abolish the patent system.
~~~
wbillingsley
The patent system is very badly designed for pharma. The cost in pharma is in
the clinical trials, but the patent is awarded for creating the drug -- long
before the trials.
Rather than being a reward for brining an innovation to market, the monopoly
(patent) is awarded long before the bulk of the work has been done. No reward
is offered in the patent system for doing the hard and expensive part --
proving efficacy and safety. But the patent means that even if you choose not
to spend the money to bring it to market, nobody else is allowed to.
Something like 95% of pharmaceuticals fail to be effective and safe. In other
words, 95% of pharmaceutical patents are for inventions that ultimately don't
work.
"A patent for something that does not work" ought not be allowed -- the
pharmaceutical patent should only be awarded after efficacy and safety has
been proved (incentivising the hard part).
~~~
suvelx
What's to stop the FDA enforcing 'patents' and market exclusivity in their
approval process? I.e. Instead of approving Chemical-X, approve only DrugCorp
brand Chemical-X?
Possibly with some stipulation that the first company to submit and pass
approval gets a N-year exclusivity.
------
cletus
I'm disappointed by the EFF's stance here: it simply isn't strong enough.
I'm in the camp that believes there shouldn't be software patents _period_.
Simple as that.
As for ending the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal Circuit Court of
Appeals on patent case appeals, I assume this is because that court has
frequently been overly friendly to patent plaintiff claims. Some might argue
it's gone so far as regulatory capture. What's more, the court has repeatedly
been overturned by the SCOTUS.
That's a fair argument but what they're forgetting was that the USCoAftFC was
introduced to solve a problem. We have the problem now that there is
inconsistent treatment of patent cases in Federal district courts, leading
plaintiffs to file cases in "friendly" jurisdictions, most notably East Texas.
Prior to 1982, you had the same problem at the appeals level and you had a
rush to file appeals in friendly jurisdictions. This court was certainly
_intended_ to provide consistent treatment of patent cases and--ideally--allow
for experts in patent law to handle such cases.
But the fact that this court has really had trouble finding a patent they
didn't like is a sideshow: the real problem here is software patents.
You can't patent a mathematical formula and as anyone with any kind of
Computer Science education could tell you, an algorithm is essentially
indistinguishable from a mathematical function. The fact that the US courts
have ignored this or simply been unable to comprehend it is at the root of the
problem.
~~~
xroche
This is what is supposed to be true in Europe: software "as such" can not be
patented. The issue we have is that corrupted patent organizations such as the
EPO twisted the "as such" so much that they managed to reverse the original
meaning (ie. you can not patent a software "as such", but patenting its use
inside of a computer is legit - I love lawyers)
------
omgitstom
Man - this guy might have the best title I've seen in a while:
Daniel Nazer Staff Attorney and the Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid
Patents Electronic Frontier Foundation [email protected]
~~~
tzs
Is that usage correct? Shouldn't he be described as the holder of the Mark
Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents, rather than being described as the
Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents?
Also, every time I read about the Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents
I have a mysterious urge to watch "Zoolander".
~~~
schoen
The usage "is the ____ Chair" as opposed to "holds the ____ Chair" isn't that
uncommon in the academic world (treating the Chair as a unique title, rather
than only a position). A few random examples from Google:
[https://www.design.upenn.edu/city-regional-
planning/graduate...](https://www.design.upenn.edu/city-regional-
planning/graduate/people/eugenie-l-birch) Professor Birch is the Lawrence C.
Nussdorf Chair of Urban Research and Education.
[http://www.thelancet.com/lanres/advisory-
board](http://www.thelancet.com/lanres/advisory-board) Professor Klugman is
the William H Foege Chair of Global Health at Emory University, Atlanta, GA,
USA.
[http://www.bahaipeacechair.umd.edu/events/apr29-2015](http://www.bahaipeacechair.umd.edu/events/apr29-2015)
Professor AMITAV ACHARYA is the UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and
Governance and is Professor of International Relations at the School of
International Service, American University, Washington, D.C.
[https://www.law.louisville.edu/faculty/interdisciplinary-
cir...](https://www.law.louisville.edu/faculty/interdisciplinary-circle)
Professor Tony Arnold is the Boehl Chair in Property and Land Use.
[https://www.american.edu/provost/human-rights/Faculty-
SIS.cf...](https://www.american.edu/provost/human-rights/Faculty-SIS.cfm)
Professor Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies who studies
American society through the experiences of the Muslim community.
------
k-mcgrady
How do other countries patent systems compare with the US'? Can inspiration
for changes be drawn from them or are they just as bad/worse? I ask because I
only ever hear of trolling in the US system.
~~~
transfire
I know of one important distinction between the US and India with regards to
medicine patents. In India you can only patent the means of making a medicine,
not the medicine itself. So if you can come up with a substantially different
way of making the same thing you have equal rights to it.
~~~
rayiner
This is a good law for India, because they have the capability to manufacture
medicine, while lacking the capability to invent them. It's one of the many
ways the world freeloads on U.S. medical R&D spending.
~~~
rofl1234
> lacking the capability to invent
citation needed
~~~
rayiner
New drug development in India is in its infancy:
[http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/09/piramal-exits-
drug...](http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/09/piramal-exits-drug-
discovery-india)
("This admission reflects the view that Indian drug companies are finding it
difficult to develop successful new molecules. Discovering new drugs requires
huge investment, and has not been favourably looked upon by risk-averse Indian
investors. Several Indian molecules have failed in the clinic, including
Piramal’s head and neck cancer candidate P276 in 2012. Even the antimalarial
Synriam (arterolane and piperaquine), which Ranbaxy hailed as India’s first
domestically developed drug, was originally discovered elsewhere.")
------
transfire
This doesn't really go far enough. It's doesn't address the more basic
problems of a for-profit patent office (the USPO has been required to be self-
sustaining since Bush), nor does it address unfair practices of high upfront
and ongoing renewal costs and worse, the inherently unfair practice of being
able to buy expedited service. It is also counter productive to shorten the
time span of patents b/c it means all the money required to develop it has to
be recouped very quickly. Better to have longer periods, but with clearer and
stricter requirements for what is actually patentable.
------
yazaddaruvala
Honestly, I think the best way to get rid of this nonsense, keeping everyone
happy, is to allow patents but to enforce a "profit cap".
Basically, if an entity has invested $X into RND for patent Y, then patent Y
should be valid until some $(Z*X) has been earned by the entity. Where Z is
some constant; or stepped like tax brackets.
Example: A company develops some new software: it cost $500,000 of Engineering
effort. They are awarded a patent. The patent should be valid until that
company has earned $5 million (Z=10; ie 1000% ROI).
Example: A company develops some new drug: it cost $5,000,000,000 for RND.
They are awarded a patent. The patent should be valid until that company has
earned $50 Billion (Z=10; ie 1000% ROI).
I agree it may be hard to prove "amount spent on patent" or "profit earned
from patent". However, at least to me, it seems as hard as the IRS auditing a
company's taxes, or as hard as auditing a public companies quarterly financial
disclosures.
~~~
eCa
I think any such scheme should be based on revenue rather than profit, or else
Hollywood accounting[1] might be encouraged.
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting)
------
frederickf
This might be naive on my part but it seems like we could help the situation
quite a bit, at least for software patents, by just reducing the amount of
time for which new software patents are valid. It's simple, easy to understand
and implement, more consistent with the speed at which the software market
evolves, would reduce the perceived value of bogus patents making trolling
less likely, free up technology sooner for everybody to benefit and still
offer some protection to innovators.
Right now they're good for between 14 to 20 years (1) which seems too long to
me. I'm not sure what the right number is, maybe between 5 - 10? Even that
seems long, but then again I don't have anything innovations to patent so I'm
probably biased.
(1) [http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/312/how-long-
are-...](http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/312/how-long-are-patents-
valid)
~~~
transfire
It's not a good idea. Ideally rights should be for as long as the life of the
inventor. Instead of a cut-off time, I've heard people espouse a system of
valuation and, in some cases, taxation, so that over time a patent becomes
increasingly affordable for others to buy out and put into the public domain.
~~~
gombotzd
i have to disagree to your statement, which misses foundation.
First copyright is always a life long idea, but the focus of patents have
always been to incentivice long term research efforts that have budget
constraint by having a mid-term monopoly
problem today: a lot of trivial design-patents and even patents that are used
in the wars between big corps. as one of my advisor board state - screw that
patent, we cannot defend it anyway Behind a lot of those patents there is no
research in the sense but it rather came out of "usual" engineering.
i think that the proof of non-trivial has to be a part of the application and
is better suited than discussion about life-time - because patents could still
have a strong point in basic-research
Problem is what to do with the already existing bogus patents - any
suggestions?
~~~
btilly
_First copyright is always a life long idea..._
Not true in the USA until Disney started twisting the law. This idea has a
longer history in Europe.
See [http://www.arl.org/focus-areas/copyright-
ip/2486-copyright-t...](http://www.arl.org/focus-areas/copyright-
ip/2486-copyright-timeline#.VOvVLUjmv0g) for a more detailed history.
------
higherpurpose
I hope that after the Alice vs CLS Supreme Court ruling EFF & Co reintroduce
the abolishing of "business method" patents, which Microsoft and IBM fought so
hard to take out of the previous bill.
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/wp/2013/11/20...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/wp/2013/11/20/software-patent-reform-just-died-in-the-house-thanks-to-
ibm-and-microsoft/)
------
Singletoned
I've often thought that a simple change would be to require you to prove that
it is in the public interest for your patent to be enforced. Patents only
exist for public benefit anyway.
I don't think that a patent troll, for example, could prove that the world
would be a better place by them enforcing their patents. If they could, then
we'd be better off letting them do it (by definition).
------
pbhjpbhj
> _If the patent is invalid or there’s no infringement, patent trolls should
> have to pay the winning party’s legal fees._ //
Wow, I can't believe award of costs isn't standard in such cases already.
Incredible.
------
aercolino
The PDF document lacks the last endnotes. 189 is the last one on page 28, but
the endnotes list stops in the middle of 167.
------
Animats
Let's look at the EFF's proposals:
_1\. The patent term should be shorter for software patents. It should last
no more than five years from the application date._
Software doesn't move that fast. The Internet is now over 30 years old. It's
been 61 years since the first FORTRAN compiler. At various times in the past,
aircraft technology and radio technology advanced at least as fast as computer
technology. Computing is not special; it's just a currently active area.
_2\. If the patent is invalid or there’s no infringement, patent trolls
should have to pay the winning party’s legal fees._
This provides a way for big companies to intimidate patent holders. A small
patent holder can be threatened with huge legal bills. The odds of winning a
patent infringement lawsuit are about 40-50%, and even if you have a strong
patent, it's common to lose.
_3\. Patent applicants should be required to provide an example of running
software code for each claim in the patent._
The USPTO has the right to demand a working model if they are not convinced
the patented concept would work. At one time, they did. (Patent models are
cute collectables now.) Current USPTO policy is to demand a working model only
for things such as antigravity machines or perpetual motion machines.
Unworkable patents do not seem to be a problem in the software area.
_4\. Infringers should avoid liability if they independently arrive at the
patented invention._
Absolutely not. Infringers will routinely lie about that, claiming independent
invention, and it's really tough to prove intent. There's a provision in
current law which allows for a defense of independent invention for, I think,
one year after patent issue. That's sufficient.
_5\. Patents and licenses should be public upon filing. Patent owners should
be required to keep their public ownership records up-to-date._
Patent applications are already published at the 18 month mark.
_6\. The law should do more to limit damages so that a patent owner can’t
collect millions if the patent represented only a tiny fraction of a
defendant’s product._
A patent is the right to say "no, you can't do that". Infringers aren't
entitled to practice the patent at all and then just pay damages if they lose.
_7\. Congress should commission a study and hold hearings to examine whether
software patents actually benefit our economy at all._
The purpose of the patent system isn't to "benefit the economy". It's to
"promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", according to the
Constitution.
As for "patent trolls", according to the EFF's own database[1], there are only
a few real "patent trolls", with one firm in Texas being the big generator of
threatening letters. The top firm has 15 letters in the EFF's database.
(They've sent more.) There are a very small number of patents being "trolled".
The EFF was arguing for this in the previous session of Congress. Once it came
out how weak their case was, the legislation was dropped.
[1]
[https://trollingeffects.org/lawfirms](https://trollingeffects.org/lawfirms)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Dijkstra’s in Disguise - fagnerbrack
https://blog.evjang.com/2018/08/dijkstras.html
======
shloub
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17745779](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17745779)
(2 months ago)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cool Google Maps tricks that you might not now about (for Android) - robnights
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-google-maps-android-tricks-thatll-change-navigate/
======
reportgunner
One really cool trick is how search doesn't work on google maps app when I
disable my location services.
Luckily you can just use the browser to work around it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Best places to live in Silicon Valley for families? - goodgoblin
Hi Folks,
Thinking about making the switch and wanted to get some informed opinions to guide me and my wife through our frantic craigslist/realtor.com/dice.com Silicon Valley search.<p>We have a couple of young kids and I was thinking of making a career move and SV was high on my personal list, but I'm not sure my family will have as enjoyable of a time out there as I will.<p>I was wondering if folks with kids lived out there and had opinions on the subject but also any SV relocation advice in general would be helpful.<p>Thx.
======
eande
I only have 10 years SV on my back, but here are some points I have observed.
SF as mentioned is not a place you want to have your children to go public
school. I was told that schooling is not necessarily assigned to your local
area and you can end up sending your child to school by bus, which I think is
not such a good idea. My home is in Redwood Shores and Peninsula overall is a
good place to be (except East Palo Alto) with children, many good schools.
Most cities on the west side along the foot of the Mountains are prime
locations like Los Altos, Saratoga, Los Gatos, Woodside, but for sure not
cheap. There are a couple of cities very desirable for families, because of
the good schooling like Cupertino, Fremont Mission, Foster City. You will find
many good places to raise your children, but for SV has a steep price tag.
Personally despite living at a nice with highly rated schools I still ended up
enrolling my daughters into private school, which tells a lot about California
and the broken education system. Good Luck
------
russell
Try skyline (Rte 35) above Woodside (take Rte 84, Woodside Rd to get there).
It's very family friendly., more like a small town than traditional suburbia.
Going home seems like going to a national park. Schools are Portola Valley and
Woodside, among the best in CA. Hundreds of miles of trails a step from your
back door. I raised my kids there.
------
evgen
Most of SV (except for San Francisco itself) is family friendly. This is
suburbia with a large tech population. The big issue you are going to face,
depending on the ages of your children, is school selection and you can expect
to pay a premium ranging from "a lot" to "you must be joking" for housing in
areas with really good schools.
------
iamelgringo
Silicon Valley is really pretty family friendly. A trip to Ikea any night of
the week, and you'll notice tons of parents and families towing younger
children along.
We don't have kids, but my wife didn't really think that she'd enjoy life
here. She likes it probably more than I do at this point in time.
------
miked
Check out Milpitas if you need to save a little money. Great East Asian
restaurants and not too far away from the main part of SV.
------
thepanister
Check out this blog: <http://www.svmoms.com>
I think it could contain helpful info for you, specially for your wife and
kids.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Create a Robot Image from any text string - e1ven
http://RoboHash.org
======
e1ven
Morning, I created this as an extended-weekend project, after realizing that
I'd need these hashes as a part of larger project I'm working on.
Basically, Text goes in, Picture of a Robot comes out.
Where I'm using this is sort of like an identicon, to help quickly identify a
poster's 4096-bit public keys, and see if you're talking to the same man.
Is it perfect? No, but it's a quick visual guide to any text, in the form of
faces, which are easy for people to remember.
~~~
donpark
Robohash looks great. As the 'inventor' of Identicon, I've been meaning to
revisit the subject with animal (identimal) or robot (identibot) themes in
mind so it's nice to see your rendition of the later. Well done, sir.
~~~
e1ven
Identicons are a great idea, I really love them.. They're a good solution to a
gut-check "Something is wrong here.."
Sort of like a SSH-fingerprint.
The problem I've had with them is that they're generate not all that
memorable. Was that triangles pointing left, then up, or up then left?
This is my attempt at addressing that problem for my own new project, but I'd
love to see what you build! If you want to use these images, feel free.
They're CC-BY, so they're open to the world now ;)
~~~
donpark
Re 'not all that memorable', that's because identicons were originally
designed for 'distinguishing' and 'matching' data, not 'memorizing'.
Abstract geometric identicons like my original implementation as well as
variations used at Wordpress and StackOverflow are, while nearly impossible to
remember, distinguishable in a pile which comes in handy when distinguishing
the 'voice' of individuals in a long thread of comments.
To use identicons as permanent identity, one has to 'identify' with their
identicon. We can identify faces of our friends because we shared memories
with them, stories if you will.
So robotic identicons like yours can be made more memorable if users had some
ways to create a story they can associate with it like 'blue viking with left
arm missing', etc.
~~~
6ren
Using stories is a great idea, but I'm not sure how doable it is to generate
images that suggest a story (certainly, harder than cute variations on
robots); in addition, those stories have to be memorable i.e. make sense, as
stories. I think that's approaching a hard problem, maybe even hard AI.
But I like the idea. Perhaps the image problem could be met by combining it
with a bio (giving a story); and the "make sense" problem could be addressed
by a story grammar (following the hero's myth as a template, with recursive
and optional parts), written using templates consisting of canned pseudo-
english sentences with gaps filled by a set of names, objects, places that
play the various roles in the "hero grammar": the key, the sword, the grail,
the shadow, the mentor, the ordinary world, the special word, various
thresholds - perhaps some word generation for place names. If the story _made
sense_ , as a journey, it might be memorable, even stirring in an awkward way,
despite all the grammar/template/presets...
Of course, maybe I'm wrong: "<color> <warriortype> with <injury>" is already
fairly rich. Even, extending it to incongruous occupations (surgeon, nurse,
motorcyclist, developer). Perhaps, like theatresports, just starting points of
a place, occupation and problem is enough to suggest a story to the user?
~~~
donpark
Right. If employees of Apple gets certificates with O = "Apple" and OU =
"Engineering" which maps to a red apple badge on their robot's body and a gear
mark on the arm, people could potentially learn to 'parse' that at a glance.
Everywhere we look in RL, there are stories being told all the time.
------
MattBearman
I love this, simply because <http://robohash.org/mattbearman> kinda looks like
me :D
My one criticism is that it took me while to figure out (and I'm web dev) It
wasn't clear until quite far down the page that you need to just put the text
string after the URL.
I'd recommend having a text box into which pasted text can be robohashed
prominent on the homepage, as well as clearer instructions.
Edit: just noticed there is a text box, was that there before? It could
definitely be more noticeable :)
~~~
e1ven
I have added a box in the Last 5 minutes based on user-feedback. It's kinda a
hack, but.. It's there ;)
~~~
MattBearman
Ah cool, its good to see you respond quickly to feedback
------
praptak
It's similar to the StackOverflow April Fools' Unicorn Avatars:
[http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/37328/my-godits-
full...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/37328/my-godits-full-of-
unicorns)
Which you can try out at: <http://unicornify.appspot.com/use-it>
~~~
e1ven
Woah, That's really cool! I hadn't seen that, but yes, it's designed to be
along the same idea, except more year-round friendly ;)
------
tptacek
You write _really_ good web site copy.
~~~
e1ven
Thank you, that's very kind of you to say. The whole project is very silly, so
it doesn't make much sense to take it very seriously ;)
~~~
MartinCron
I'm impressed that you got an endorsement from Cave Johnson. It must be nice
having friends like that.
~~~
jrockway
To be fair, it was just a pre-recorded message.
------
erikwiffin
It would be awesome if <http://robohash.org/google.jpg> generated a jpg, and
<http://robohash.org/google.png> generated a png.
It would be even more awesome if <http://robohash.org/favicon.ico> generated a
.ico file.
~~~
e1ven
Google.jpg does generate a jpg, but it's not the same as google.png;
The reason for that is that I'm hashing whatever you send in, including the
extension.. Otherwise, if you passed file.txt and file.mp3 they'd come to the
same hash.
~~~
erikwiffin
I realize what you're doing. This was more of a "really cool feature request"
than a bug report.
favicon.ico does respond with a 404 though.
------
evilswan
OMG - π-bot has a cylindrical head! <http://robohash.org/3.14159>
~~~
vijaydev
Looks better than Tau-bot :)
<http://static1.robohash.com/6.28318>
~~~
meric
They do have the same smile.
------
jawns
So THIS is what the Googlebot looks like!
<http://robohash.org/google>
~~~
Klinky
Bing just looks like a goofy hipster.
<http://robohash.org/bing>
------
FrankBlack
I think this is broken. I entered, "Bite my shiny, metal ass!" and all I got
was some weird, Barney-like purple robot. I'd suggest special sub-routines for
certain phrases including, but not limited to: "Ex-Ter-Mi-NATE!", "Danger,
Will Robinson!", "Crush, Kill, Destroy!", "Beedeebeedeebeedeebeedee!", "We've
got movie sign!", "Blah, blah, blah", "I'll be back", etc.
;)
~~~
e1ven
For 2.0, I'll add ?popculture=yes ;)
~~~
j79
Hah, that'd be awesome! One of the first strings I tried was "bender".
Considering how fast the image loaded, I'm guessing it was already cached from
other users doing the same :)
------
spyder
I quickly made a bookmarklet to robotize HN usernames:
javascript:(document.body.innerHTML=document.body.innerHTML.replace(/<a href="user\?id=([^"]+)">([^<]+)<\/a>/g,'<a href="user?id=$1"><img src="http://robohash.org/$2?size=24x24">$2</a>'))()
------
ayanb
The Html source has a random robot as part of the author signature. This is
neat!
------
wicknicks
Wow! Very nice morning treat :-)
R2D2 and C3P0 look like this:
<http://robohash.org/c3p0.png> <http://robohash.org/r2d2.png>
C3P0's got horns!!
~~~
e1ven
I'm surprised no one's posted anything from set2 or set3, or included any
backgrounds ;)
------
vog
I find it pretty clever to generate Robot faces rather than whole robots or
other pictures. Human brains are optimized for face recognition, which is why
we can tell even minor differences in faces far easier than minor differences
in other pictures.
Therefore, generating human faces would serve this purpose even better, but
those are at risk of falling into the uncanny valley.
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley>)
Using clearly non-human faces (such as Robot faces) avoids that problem.
------
aquark
This is brilliant.
We have a stress testing tool that uses little images of various robots in its
UI to represent different test patterns ... now I can automate them!
------
capnrefsmmat
What sort of "Super-Awesome new forum" is this for?
------
gus_massa
It has a problem with the current and parent directory links. (I don't know if
it's possible to fix.)
<http://robohash.org/>. (doesn't work)
<http://robohash.org/.>. (doesn't work)
<http://robohash.org/..>. (does work!)
------
Luc
Very very nice. This has convinced me to use this technique for non-player
characters in a game I am working on. I see you licensed the artwork from
three artists. Did you have it especially drawn for you, or was it already
released under some CC license?
~~~
e1ven
I had it drawn for the project at 99designs.
~~~
gokhan
What was your design brief for this? The results are so cool, so should the
brief.
------
tomatohs
An easy way to flip the images left and right would be great. I love the first
set of robots, but I wouldn't use them in my website as they'd be placed on
the far left of the browser window, looking away from the page.
~~~
JoshRu
you could always use css: <http://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/flip-an-image/>
------
carbocation
If/when you debut the [robohash] watermark in the image, it would be great if
you would also debut a paid plan without the watermark. Plus, paid plans give
people confidence that your service will continue to exist.
~~~
e1ven
I think it would be pretty silly to add a paid plan to a weekend project. ;)
I'll only do that, with the watermark, if it goes over what my bottom-rung
Linode+CDN can deliver.
~~~
melvinmt
It's not silly for people who are actually using this. I'd rather pay for the
service than living with the uncertainty of getting a banner because you can't
pay your CDN bills. That's really the only thing that prohibits me from using
this service in anything useful anyway. It looks very nice so that clearly
would be a waste.
~~~
aaronblohowiak
Download the source from github !
------
nawariata
Dr. Chandra, RobotCrunch
Subtle jab at Arrington? =)
~~~
e1ven
The Testimonials, and the hover-text on the robots change on every reload. Try
it! Hammer the site more ;)
------
jjclarkson
The similarity between <http://robohash.org/yes>
and <http://robohash.org/no>
is striking.
~~~
w43l
there's something wrong with the algorithm, the yes guy looks like he's saying
no
------
rhdoenges
I love some of the alt-text on the robots. Very polished.
~~~
e1ven
That was my favorite part. There are a few fun bits scattered around the
webpage.
~~~
rhdoenges
also the robots in the source code!
------
jonovos
Strange. No matter WHAT STRING I ENTER, it ALWAYS creates the SAME robot. Is
this site just a psychological experiment designed to collect user names??
~~~
e1ven
Were you in Firefox, by chance? There was a difference in the FF evaluates the
JS, versus Webkit, when retrieving document.form, so I switched it to
getelementbyid.
------
cappaert
Anyone else notice the Microsoft bot has a 7 (as in Windows 7) on its head?
<http://robohash.org/microsoft>
------
melipone
I like it but shouldn't it do similarity instead of producing a unique bot?
For example, "similar" strings should produce similar bots.
~~~
e1ven
I'm generating the bots by reading the bits from a SHA1 hash, so they won't be
very similar on an english-text level.
------
cwe
Sad to see Bender in this state: <http://static1.robohash.com/bender>
------
wbhart
If I put a % anywhere in the string (except at the end where I think it is
ignored) it doesn't give me my robot, but a broken link!
~~~
e1ven
It's doing a URL decode to store them. I think that a % is not valid in a
URL..
From <http://www.w3.org/Addressing/URL/4_URI_Recommentations.html->
The percent sign ("%", ASCII 25 hex) is used as the escape character in the
encoding scheme and is never allowed for anything else.
I'll try to see why it's not converting it after work.
~~~
alttag
Same problem with a string of just spaces. It seems the string being hashed
isn't URL-encoded first.
------
andrewcooke
this is cute. if anyone is looking for a more abstract approach i threw some
code together a year ago that generates colourful "mosaics" -
<http://www.acooke.org/hash-icons.html> (i really need to improve the page and
release the code...)
~~~
e1ven
I love the mosiacs; They remind me of a prettier version of identicons.
My concern was just that people won't remember a random pattern of dots very
well.
~~~
andrewcooke
yeah, i agree. on the other hand, they go smaller - i was looking for
something that would label users on a feed of short comments.
------
LXicon
if you go to <http://static1.robohash.com/> you get the same page as
<http://robohash.org/> but the IP used is not my IP.
nice project though. :)
~~~
e1ven
Static1.robohash.com goes through the CDN.. If you load a PNG through there,
it's cached. I wouldn't do the whole site through there, though, or you'll get
the CDN's IP!
~~~
LXicon
i figured it was something like that but i felt i should mention it just in
case.
your concept did a good job in alerting me that the IP that was supposed to me
mine was not :)
------
tibbon
Any open/permissive license on the output and/or code?
~~~
e1ven
CC BY 3.0 on the Images, BSD on the code.
~~~
billpg
Who should I attribute as the creator of the robot images? You, the website,
or the author of the hashed plain-text?
~~~
e1ven
Just attribute it to RoboHash.org, that should be fine.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Best constructive criticism - 3Dpuzzlepiece
What has been the best constructive criticism you've received - professional or personal - and how did you handle it?
======
poof131
One of the most memorable was early in primary flight training for the Navy.
It was my last flight before the Christmas Holidays and it went poorly, not F
but C- quality. I really liked the instructor, a cool guy helicopter pilot.
Walking back from the plane, he said it didn’t go well. I agreed and said my
mind just wasn’t in it, thinking about the holidays. He stopped, turned to me
and said, “I don’t want to hear that f _#%ing s%$t. Don’t make f_ #%ing
excuses.” He said a few more mean things that I can’t recall.
I didn’t like the instructor after that, but the lesson stuck. I never made
excuses again. Over the years I noticed that a lot of the people I respected
the most would do the opposite, take responsibility for everything, even if it
wasn’t really their fault. It was a recurring theme in Naval Aviation. I saw a
similar ethos when I worked with Special Forces.
At my current job, a late stage startup, I see directors blame other teams,
blame subordinates, blame everyone but themselves. In Naval Aviation it’s
called the ‘excuse matrix’. I’m sure that early in a startups life this
behavior must be minimal since too much would doom the business, however,
there’s nothing like life or death to truly hone the principle of not making
excuses.
------
LarryMade2
Post in a forum criticising of loading/handling (filtered) POSTed form data
into individual strings, the criticism was "The better way is to use an array.
What good reason do you have to to load strings individually?"
Not only did this provide a logical alternative but it was open to letting me
defend my method... Thinking on it arrays were the way to go solves other
issues like retrieval and storage.
My reasons were more or less, "cause that's how I learned it." The question
might have been a bit more condescending but the open opportunity to defend
myself made me think harder on what I was doing vs the alternative.
Made me re-factor a ton of code for the better, was a lot of work - but I
could see it was the right way to do it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: CAP spots oddities in your log data - tuomosipola
http://capdatatechnologies.com/
======
vardump
Cloud only? Log data is often rather sensitive, there's no way I could see
this being useful for anything but personal projects, like website logs.
~~~
tuomosipola
We do have an offer for an on-site solution. The cloud version is adaptable to
such situations, a local installation of the API.
You are correct about the sensitivity of website log data, but they are not
the only logs that can be inspected. Also, people seem to be willing to send
their logs to other log storage and anlytics companies.
~~~
vardump
Oh, I meant website logs I might be willing to send like that. But they tend
to be a tiny fraction of all the logs out there.
------
tuomosipola
CAP offers analytics API on cloud for security, devops and sysadmins. We help
you to identify noteworthy items in huge data sets: uncover indications of
security threats, service failures and other odd events, increasing the
business value of your data.
CAP is a non-signature based detection of anomalies. Rules, fingerprints and
blacklists are based on historical information whereas CAP can detect
previously unknown threats.
It would be nice to receive feedback on the usability of the API and
documentation. Thanks Hacker News!
~~~
computer
Your site says your technology is patent-pending. What's that patent about?
~~~
kjs3
It's about juicing their image with investors.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Offer HN: A few domains I have that I won't need at cost - BSousa
I have a few domains that will expire soonish that I don't plan to renew and instead of going to some domain parking company, I thought maybe someone could be interested in any of them:<p>objectivepixel.com
objective-pixel.com
paperplaneapps.com
paperplanegames.com
paperplanesoftware.com
appticious.com<p>Price is whatever it costs me to move them to you. They are all registered at name.com
======
bkyan
I would be interested in appticious.com. Please email me at mindcast.software
at gmail if you're still interested in parting with it. Thanks! -- Benjamin
------
mitchelldm7
Hello!
Do you still have ObjectivePixel.com? I'd love to make use of it!
Cheers, Derek
~~~
BSousa
Yep, just mail me at brunomtsousa at gmail and we can setup the transfer.
------
riskish
I also have mobilek.it if anyone is interested
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Websites Should Work Without JavaScript. Yep? Nope? - fagnerbrack
https://changelog.com/jsparty/87
======
sigio
I don't think the word 'accessability' was uttered in the entire discussion.
Also, simple plain-html webpages will always render faster, be better
searchable, work on any platform and work in limited environments.
Edit: Ok... at 28-minutes in they first mention accessability
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Accessing the Accelerometer and Gyroscope in JavaScript - seminatore
http://blogs.adobe.com/cantrell/archives/2012/03/accessing-the-accelerometer-and-gyroscope-in-javascript.html
======
untog
Does anyone know if it is possible to get meaningful movement measurements
from the combination of these two? i.e. get an initial fix via GPS, then
measure movement from that point?
I'm imagining that it isn't (because no-one has done it yet) but would love to
be surprised.
------
tocomment
Can you guys paste the javascripts I need to do this? I couldn't find it in
the video. Will this work in the iPhone?
------
tocomment
Does this work on iPad or iPhone?
------
growt
doesn't work for me on android 2.3.x on an LG P990.
~~~
VMG
_Now that you can access motion sensors in both Google Chrome and mobile
browsers, I decided to demo a couple of sample application which hook into the
accelerometer and gyroscope: [video]
Note that the compass application only works on devices with gyroscopes (no
laptops that I know if), and requires iOS 5 or newer._
Sounds like chrome + iOS5 are required
edit: I take that back, it works (albeit ridiculously slow) on my galaxy s
with ICS stock browser
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
HowTo: Vista: Use NETSH to Run IIS7 & Apache on port 80 - jdavid
Vista: Use NETSH to Run IIS7 & Apache<p>Setting up IIS7 & Apache to use virtual hosting on port 80<p>Introduction<p>Like many of you I was skeptical about Vista for a number of reasons, it had a cloudy feature set, rumors of palladium code, and well, people told me it was slow. And don’t forget that since it requires new drivers, most of the drivers are just coming out of beta and were quite buggy for some time.<p>However, I am here to tell you that there are some really KICK ASS features in Vista that you have never heard about, and the new NETSH or Network Shell command line tool is one of them. Linux users have had tools like the new NETSH for a while now, but now Windows has it two.<p>To make use of this little trick we are going to use NETSH HTTP (Network Shell) an upgraded command line utility that comes only with newer versions of Windows like Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista. This particular command allows you to manage what ports you listen to for HTTP traffic.<p>By default most webservers listen to your computer’s loopback address 127.0.0.1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loopback) or LOCALHOST for traffic. The problem is that they also bind to port 80 on LOCALHOST, which blocks other applications or services on your computer from binding to that same port, which is exactly what we are trying to get around. Some default settings for server apps like apache and iis7 bind to all network interfaces (IP addresses) on port 80 making it worse. To get around this I use a little known fact of network architecture, which is that the loopback address of 127.0.0.1is not the only loopback address that is reserved for your computer. In fact the entire 127.x.x.x address space is reserved just for your internal machine.<p>I have to admit that I was inspired by this article on the web to overload the network interface with two IP addresses, but where they use the 192.x.x.x IP address space reserved for local internal networks (10.x.x.x is also reserved for the same purpose), so I decided to use the network reserved for your computer’s internal loopback, which results in fewer network effects on your local network where other computers in your office might need to communicate with you. So in my setup, you will have one external IP to send requests to, and multiple web servers responding to them.<p>The second part of this hack, requires you to use HTTP 1.1 protocols or virtual hosting. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP#HTTP_1.1_Upgrade_header) HTTP added a very widely used but forgotten feature that specifies the HOST’s domain name in the http request. Many servers like IIS and Apache then use the domain name to determine which site to server. This allowed one machine to host many sites, and subdomains of a network. So in our network we want http://apache.foo.com and http://iis7.foo.com to host from the same server, so not only can we branch via a single server now, but we can branch between multiple servers by overloading the loopback.<p>{internet} => {ext IP 192.0.0.x} => {loopback 127.0.0.1} => {127.0.0.2:80 = apache, 127.0.0.3:80 => iis7}<p>Walkthrough (Vista)<p>Using NETSH HTTP to listen to 127.0.0.2 & 127.0.0.3<p>For additional reference on NETSH HTTP
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc725882(WS.10).aspx<p>1. Open a command prompt<p>2. Type: netsh {enter}<p>3. Type: http {enter}<p>4. Check existing listeners<p>type: show iplisten {enter}<p>a. It should be blank<p>5. Add new listener to 127.0.0.2<p>type: add iplisten ipaddress=127.0.0.2<p>a. You should get ipaddress successfully added<p>6. Check existing listeners<p>type: show iplisten {enter}<p>a. It should show 127.0.0.2 in the list<p>7. Add new listener to 127.0.0.3<p>type: add iplisten ipaddress=127.0.0.3<p>a. You should get ipaddress successfully added<p>8. Type: exit<p>9. Type: netstat –an<p>a. Check for 127.0.0.2:80 & 127.0.0.3:80 in the list, this will show your bindings<p>b. If you see 0.0.0.0:80 you might need to reset iis with iisreset, and or configure iis to bind to a specific interface.<p>Configure hosts (file)<p>1. Navigate to “C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc”<p>2. Open “hosts” in your favorite text editor<p>a. (mine is jEdit, yours might be notepad.exe, or textpad.exe)<p>3. Add these two lines to the list<p>a. 127.0.0.3 iis7.foo.com<p>b. 127.0.0.2 apache.foo.com<p>4. Add any other DNS mappings<p>5. Save the file<p>6. Open a command line<p>7. Type: ipconfig /flushdns<p>8. Type: ping iis7.foo.com<p>a. Should show 127.0.0.3<p>b. may fail to ping if your server is not started or configured<p>9. Type: ping apache.foo.com<p>a. Should show 127.0.0.2<p>b. may fail to ping if your server is not started or configured<p>Stop IIS7<p>1. You will need to stop iis7 before starting apache because of some pre-startup checks.<p>Configure IIS7<p>1. Select your site<p>2. On the right hand side click the link “edit bindings”<p>3. In the dialog, where you see IP Address, and * (all interfaces), you will need to change that to 127.0.0.3<p>4. Make sure you have no bindings for iis7 set to * (all interfaces), and port 80.<p>5. Turn IIS7 on and see if it hits your site.<p>6. Turn IIS7 off and leave it off, so we can configure apache.<p>Configure Apache Listeners<p>1. Open httpd.conf in your favorite text editor<p>a. (mine is jEdit, yours might be notepad.exe, or textpad.exe)<p>2. Search for any Listen statements in the file.<p>a. You might see Listen *:80, or Listen 127.0.0.1:80<p>b. Change this to read Listen 127.0.0.2:80<p>c. Comment out any other Listen statements with a #<p>3. Save the file<p>4. Start Apache<p>a. I use wamp, so this is easy<p>5. Open a command line<p>6. Ping apache.foo.com<p>a. Should work now<p>7. Open a web browser and browse apache.foo.com<p>a. Should work now<p>Configure Dynamic Virtual Hosting Directories in Apache<p>(will add later, not necessary for now)<p>Start IIS7 up<p>1. Start IIS7 up.<p>2. Test iis7.foo.com<p>a. Ping iis7.foo.com<p>b. Open browser to iis7.foo.com<p>c. Both should work.
======
thwarted
I don't use Windows, so I'm confused about what is listening on 192.x.x.x:80
and 127.0.0.1:80. If there is some kind of layer 7 reverse proxy (in IIS,
apache, or some other software) listening on the public addresses, why does it
matter which port, or even which localhost 127/8 address, is being listened on
by the backend servers? Just have IIS listen on 8080 and apache on 8081, and
then
{internet} => {ext IP 192.0.0.x = reverse proxy} =>
{127.0.0.1:8081 = apache, 127.0.0.1:8080 => iis7}
If you really want to browse those locally, from the server, using the names
iis7.foo.com and apache.foo.com, then I can see using addresses in 127/8 and
adding the entries to the HOSTS file, but this doesn't seem to be that
valuable of a feature.
~~~
jdavid
the problem arose in that i had to use port 80, and that the host file would
not let you redirect a hostname to a hostaddress:port
------
termie
There's a kernel mode HTTP listener in Windows, which has its own cache and
logging .. IIS (more specifically w3wp.exe worker processes) get requests and
respond through named pipes.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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