text
stringlengths 44
776k
| meta
dict |
|---|---|
10 Unbelievable Online CSS Tools To Make Your Designing Life Easier - basdog22
http://jeez.eu/2009/09/21/10-unbelievable-online-css-tools-to-make-your-designing-life-easier/
======
newsdog
Wow - there's no excuse for bad css anymore...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Wants to Make Science Fiction a Reality—That’s Limiting Their Imagination - nealabq
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/04/google-wants-to-make-science-fiction-a-reality-and-that-s-limiting-their-imagination/360699/
======
noobiemcfoob
I fail to see the problem with trying to address large scale problems
immediately instead of allowing the invisible hand of incrementalism to create
the next Internet.
The idea of wanting a driverless car, or a computer I can easily access by
looking up and to the right, aren't new ideas. If anything, these concepts
have gone through a type of incrementalism in the pruning and refining of
their concepts. Google is just looking around and saying "Hey, maybe we
actually have the technology to that thing now."
That approach may not be profitable in the long run. Maybe they will shut down
eventually, but pointing fingers at it and complaining that it's too myopic is
kind of silly.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Super Bowl 50 telecast will hit all the angles, even 360 degrees - ashwinl
http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Super-Bowl-50-telecast-will-hit-all-the-angles-6810870.php?t=4cd49fade1
======
ashwinl
"After raising $9 million in private financing rounds, Replay – led by co-
founder and CEO Oren Haimovitch-Yogev – went on to sign multi-year agreements
with American teams, such as the New York Yankees, the Dallas Cowboys, and the
Cleveland Cavaliers. They have also installed cameras in the Maracanã Stadium
in Rio de Janeiro after signing a deal with TV Globo, and soon, their cameras
will be in Asia" [1]
Replay Technologies, from Israel, has 100 employees [2], raised $9 million
excluding debt financing [3] and established contracts with teams in multiple
leagues. Impressive. Specs of system architecture and good samples. [4]
[1] [http://nocamels.com/2016/01/replay-technologies-
freed-3d-spo...](http://nocamels.com/2016/01/replay-technologies-
freed-3d-sport/)
[2] [http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Super-
Bowl-50-te...](http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Super-
Bowl-50-telecast-will-hit-all-the-angles-6810870.php?t=4cd49fade1)
[3] [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/replay-
technologies](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/replay-technologies)
[4] [http://iq.intel.com/360-degree-replay-technology-brings-
fans...](http://iq.intel.com/360-degree-replay-technology-brings-fans-into-
the-future-of-sports/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sigma.js, a JavaScript library dedicated to graph drawing - Yomguithereal
http://sigmajs.org/
======
frewsxcv
I started a project a couple months ago to create a 3D graph library similar
to Sigma.js using ThreeJS (WebGL). You can check it out here
[https://github.com/frewsxcv/graphosaurus](https://github.com/frewsxcv/graphosaurus)
And a really crappy demo (give it a few seconds to load):
[http://vps.rwell.org/index-eve.html](http://vps.rwell.org/index-eve.html)
~~~
elwell
That's pretty cool; judging by the 'crappy demo' it has potential but would
need some important features to be useful, such as: labels, improvements
regarding the visual appearance & clarity, and node selection to isolate
connections.
~~~
frewsxcv
Yeah, the two things I'm working on next are labels and click/hover events.
Let me know if you have any other ideas
------
haberman
I'd still love to see a graphviz equivalent for JS that does layout for
digraphs. This looks cool if you need undirected graphs, but doesn't seem to
have any digraph support.
~~~
simonsarris
The library that I make, GoJS ([http://www.gojs.net/](http://www.gojs.net/))
has a tree layout and layered digraph layout, both with many options.
Here's an overview of the options for the layered digraph layout:
[http://www.gojs.net/latest/samples/ldLayout.html](http://www.gojs.net/latest/samples/ldLayout.html)
The tree layout supports some fairly complicated tree structures, including
ones that alternate or have different configurations for leaves:
[http://www.gojs.net/latest/samples/tLayout.html](http://www.gojs.net/latest/samples/tLayout.html)
Disclosure: I'm a developer of this library and it is not free.
~~~
davidjgraph
Also commercial with digraph layout functionality:
[http://www.lassalle.com/](http://www.lassalle.com/)
[http://www.jgraph.com/](http://www.jgraph.com/)
[http://www.tensegrity-software.com/category/javascript-
html5...](http://www.tensegrity-software.com/category/javascript-
html5-canvas/)
[http://www.yworks.com/en/products_yfileshtml_about.html](http://www.yworks.com/en/products_yfileshtml_about.html)
------
beat
What are the strengths of this library, relative to D3? How does Sigma work
differently?
~~~
cwbrandsma
On the technical side: D3 is built on svg, looks like this is built on canvas.
There are a few implications to both of those as far as compatibility and
performance, but shouldn't make a difference in most cases.
In general, D3 looks to be a more general purpose graphing tool (also maps,
multiple charting types, and graphs), while this is more single purpose.
~~~
auvrw
upvote, because this is the correct answer to the question "how does this work
differently from d3," as opposed to the question, "what are the
advantages/disadvantages of using this over d3."
a quick f12-for-firebug reveals that sigma indeed uses the canvas element. i
haven't actually used the library, but it appears (
[https://github.com/jacomyal/sigma.js/blob/master/package.jso...](https://github.com/jacomyal/sigma.js/blob/master/package.json)
) to in fact be built _directly_ on canvas, which is impressive in some sense
but probably does duplicate a lot of work that could be avoided by using a
generic-canvas-drawing-but-not-specifically-graph-drawing library.
d3 stands for "data-driven-documents" and is actually not specific to graphs.
at the core, it's about (as the expanded name suggests) connecting html
documents to javascript data structures. of course, lots of libraries --
angular, etc. -- may be described in such general terms, so more specifically,
d3 is useful when you have both a lot of data (or a lot of structure to your
data) and a lot of html elements to layout according to that data.
it just so happens that <svg> is now actually a tag in html ( : / ? i mean
that, the advances in the browsers themselves, was news to me, when i looked
at d3 for the first time), so yeah, d3 is most commonly used when the elements
you want to lay out are a bunch of svg tags.
anyway, i really like d3 (and probably would like three.js, for that matter,
if i took the time to toy around with it) b/c i think it does one fairly
general thing, does it well, _and_ has practical applications.
------
tmad4000
Hello all, I'm a student at MIT working on a project building a general-case
platform to create and explore graphs called WikiNets
[http://wikinets.co.uk/](http://wikinets.co.uk/) with the goal of enabling
half-formed ideas separated across different people's heads to come together
(e.g. making a custom platform for
[http://hackathonprojects.tk/](http://hackathonprojects.tk/)). Anyone want to
work on this with us? I would love to find others who think on this same
wavelength and I lament that (ironically) there's not yet a way online for
people to find others with synergistic ideas! Feel free to poke me at
[email protected] Incidentally, we're currently using D3, but welcome suggestions
as well!
------
jvalencia
On FF nightly in linux (lubuntu - no flash), none of the graphs work.
------
huskyr
I've used both Sigma.js and Arbor.js
([http://arborjs.org/](http://arborjs.org/)) extensively. I liked Arbor a bit
better for smaller graphs, because of its flexible API and separated drawing
and math components. Unfortunately Arbor seems abandoned by the author last
updates were two years ago), so i guess Sigma might be a better choice right
now.
------
nkozyra
We tested this with some Super Bowl social data we collected as part of a
project.
First: looks really good, very easy to integrate.
Next: Am I missing it, or is there no way to visually represent the edge
strength? Everything appears to be a 1px connection no matter how strong the
edge.
~~~
jacomyal
That is weird, indeed. The thickness of the edges should be related to their
"size" value.
After that, check how sigma rescales the nodes and edges in the related wiki
page:
[https://github.com/jacomyal/sigma.js/wiki/Settings#wiki-
resc...](https://github.com/jacomyal/sigma.js/wiki/Settings#wiki-rescale-
settings)
------
Hyperized
Want to get started with PHP and GEXF to create dynamic input files for
sigma.js?
[http://stackoverflow.com/a/14719375](http://stackoverflow.com/a/14719375) If
there is enough interest, I will create a GEXF lib for PHP.
------
kmfrk
Looks great, but I think it would benefit a lot from more examples. :)
~~~
jacomyal
You can check the examples in the repository:
[https://github.com/jacomyal/sigma.js/wiki#wiki-getting-
start...](https://github.com/jacomyal/sigma.js/wiki#wiki-getting-started)
~~~
dcre
I know it's pretty simple to run the examples yourself, but it would be nice
if they were hosted on sigmajs.org. Great work, though. Pretty sure I'm going
to try this today or tomorrow.
~~~
jacomyal
I keep this in mind. We need to find an easy way to export examples formatted
with the good template etc... before putting anything public, to ensure it's
not too hard to update the production server when we release sigma.js.
------
bicknergseng
I'm kinda surprised there haven't been more WebGL based graphing libraries
popping up. I'd love to have one to replace the graphing I do in D3.
------
anaphor
Most JS graph libraries I've found have either been really hard to use or
buggy. Hope this is much better, seems to sound like it.
------
ests
Looks very nice!
------
pilopio
only god nodes.
------
nikokolu
nice work !
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lidar Company Velodyne Debuts $100 Auto Safety Sensor - finphil
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2020/01/07/lidar-pioneer-velodyne-debuts-100-auto-safety-sensor-as-self-driving-cars-pace-to-market-slows/#1483897e6cbc
======
Someone1234
So Lidar is getting cheaper, but the advantage of Lidar (Vs. optical) may be
diminishing.
Lidar worked really well because it was computationally impractical to process
visual images in near real-time onboard. Lidar simplifies the informational
inflow, which reduces computational cost. But the computational cost and
practicality of processing optical data onboard has changed radically, it is
now practical and affordable (both due to substantially improved software and
new/cheaper hardware).
Keep in mind humans use "optical sensors with parallax" (i.e. our eyeballs).
Cars are already optimised around that assumption (e.g. headlines to improve
visibility in the visible light spectrum). Lidar still has advantages, but
also a bunch of drawbacks (like dispersion and sunlight disruption), optical
sensors do too (e.g. glare) but they're a lot more intuitive for humans
because we share them.
I guess what I am saying is: Are you betting on better sensor tech (Lidar) or
better computational tech (Optical)? I think Lidar will hit a ceiling after
the "easy wins" have been consumed (and we're approaching that point), whereas
optical has no real ceiling (even over and above human's innate abilities).
With optical you can understand the world as humans visibly see it, Lidar sees
the world fundamentally differently, seeing both less (bad) and more (good).
Obviously it is a somewhat false choice, but if people are investing dollars
into development of both techs it is a choice that matters.
~~~
KaiserPro
If we want to be safer, then we need to blend sensors.
We do this as humans. We use our ears for sound and inertial detection.
Lidar, Radar, colour and near infrared optical all have a place in autonomous
driving.
I dont think we are really anywhere near optical working reliably as a single
source. I am immediately suspicious of anyone who suggests otherwise, because
they either believe to much in the state of AI, or haven't thought enough
about life critical systems to be let near anything autonomous. Worse still,
they may be out to make a quick buck.
The thing that lidar has is speed and accuracy. 100hz update rates, and
1/100th second latency is not unthinkable. With optical systems you're lucky
to get 25hz with sub 100ms latency. Thats just for depth estimation using
semantics, you still need to feed it into your driving model.
Lidar works way better at night, it works a tonne better with unknown objects.
However, like optical its shit in rain/snow. Hence why decent resolution radar
will be needed as well.
~~~
ganeshkrishnan
>If we want to be safer, then we need to blend sensors.
isnt that what a kalman filter does? I thought most autonomous cars have
sensor fusion to blend all sensors
~~~
teraflop
A Kalman filter solves the specific problem of estimating a finite-dimensional
state vector from uncertain measurements, where the measurement errors and
their correlations follow (or can be approximated as) a multivariate Gaussian.
That works quite well for, say, combining GPS (which has short-term noise)
with inertial/odometry measurements (which suffer from long-term drift) to
determine your vehicle's position, orientation, and velocity in 3D space
(expressible as a 9-dimensional state vector). But it's not directly
applicable to problems like combining map data with LIDAR and vision to
generate a representation of your surroundings.
~~~
ganeshkrishnan
That's informative, thanks. I was under the impression that autonomous cars
already combine all their sensor readings
------
stevehawk
I'm not a big hardware nerd, how do this and that $16,000 one from earlier
this week compare? They're both roof top, spinning sensors it seems but at
very different price points. Is this one not as far distance as the other?
~~~
mdorazio
LIDAR units have different effective ranges and, most importantly, number of
points they capture. These cheap units generally have a small number of
points. Looks like the Velabit has a range of about 100 meters, but FOV is 60
degrees horizontal by 10 degrees vertical, so you would need to mount several
of these around a vehicle to get the equivalent coverage of a 360 degree unit.
The press releases don't say how many points are in its point cloud, but I'm
guessing it's probably 1/10th of a larger unit's.
~~~
robocat
To add to above comment: comparison of some different models for Ouster (a
competitor):
[https://ouster.com/blog/128-channel-lidar-sensors-long-
range...](https://ouster.com/blog/128-channel-lidar-sensors-long-range-and-
ultra-wide-view/)
Discussion about above:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21970796](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21970796)
------
herogreen
Better link: [https://velodynelidar.com/press-release/velodyne-lidar-
intro...](https://velodynelidar.com/press-release/velodyne-lidar-introduces-
velabit/) states "60-degree horizontal FoV x 10-degree vertical FoV" I wonder
whats the resoltion though. Judging by the name "velabit" it could be low.
~~~
m463
It wouldn't have to be too much to overcome the resolution of current front-
facing radar and ultrasonic sensors, which are 1x1 resolution ;)
------
sanguy
Very cool to see this price point. If Velodyne really can manufacture and sell
it in volume and be profitable it's an amazing evolution for Velodyne.
If it's a loss leader to buy attention and stay relevant versus their fast
moving competitors it will become obvious eventually.
------
ThrustVectoring
It'd be pretty cool to use this as part of an assistance tool for people with
visual impairments. Convert the positional data to something you can learn to
parse with your ears, and people could get a better sense of obstacles around
them. I'm really not sure what the right conversion strategy or user interface
is, but it seems like the sort of thing that'd be relatively straightforward.
~~~
ipsum2
Microsoft has something similar: [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ai/seeing-
ai](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ai/seeing-ai)
------
rtkwe
It's really nice to see LIDAR getting cheap I've wanted to play around with
them for ages but the buy-in for anything other than cheap 2d units has always
been way too high for me to justify. I do wish there were at least a few specs
in this though.
~~~
Animats
Yes, there's nothing about the resolution. You can get single-beam scanners
for about that price now. If it's only a few beams, it's not a big deal. You
can get a small number of beams automotive LIDAR from Continental right now.
If you took a single-beam LIDAR and reflected it off a reflective prism where
each face is at a slightly different angle, you'd have a somewhat slow multi-
beam scanner with only one emitter and detector. I looked into doing that for
the DARPA Grand Challenge, We were thinking of a mod to a rotating scanner
used in laser printers to scan the page. There are optical companies that can
cut and polish custom prisms. We were too small a team to build our own
scanner, though.
~~~
cr0sh
Another way to do it is to mount a 2D LIDAR to scan in the vertical plane, and
then pan that around. A 180 degree pan will net you a dome/spherical volume
(although in a slow manner).
You could do this easily with cheap parallax sensors (like you find on Neato
vacuum cleaners, and which are now sold as separate units - RPLidar and such).
This has also been done using SICK coffeepot-style 2D LIDAR units (such rigs
tend to be large and heavy, tho).
Something I've often considered is the idea of a "stochastic" scanner - that
is, don't worry about strict angles, just let the sensor scan at random
angles, and note the angle and reading. Over time you'd build up a complete
scan. Just an idea I've rolled around in my head; the idea was to eliminate
the need for syncing and timing of the scan hardware (2D or 3D), at the price
of not necessarily getting a complete perfect scan all the time. It was
something of a thought experiment I had while thinking up ways to DIY a LIDAR
sensor in a very cheap manner, beyond what has already been done.
~~~
chrisdirkis
CSIRO did something like this with their Zebedee system[0], basically a Hokuyo
2D spinning lidar on a spring on a handheld stick. I love this from a design
perspective, because it's very usage focused. You already have a human walking
around site scanning, and a spring like this gives you the pitch and roll for
"free", compared to panning it using an (expensive/heavy/clunky)
electromechanical mechanism.
[0]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUEAz_naHHg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUEAz_naHHg)
~~~
rtkwe
I knew I'd seen one that did exactly like that but could not find a video of
it!
------
ape4
Its solid-state. Old Lidar needed an expensive revolving sensor
------
jklinger410
Would be really cool to retro-fit these on an older vehicle. Replace the
center console with a tablet, some OS handles the lidar.
------
lootsauce
how does one buy this?
~~~
ThrustVectoring
From Velodyne, presumably, and their website says it will be available
mid-2020
------
ycombonator
My 2021 prediction: And the Chinese already got the specs and should start
selling $5 units in a year.
~~~
finphil
You beat me to it, but I was going for $50 ;)
~~~
brixon
It will be $5 in China and $50 in the US.
~~~
dvh
$79 for IoT enabled version ;)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The End of College Tuition Pricing as We Know It? - DarkContinent
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/09/01/are-we-nearing-the-end-of-college-tuition-pricing-as-we-know-it/
======
eranation
Georgia Tech's $7,000 Master of Science in Computer Science [0] (with
partnership with Udacity)
or the University of Illinois $20,000 iMBA [1] (at Coursera) is getting us
closer to "The End of College Tuition Pricing as We Know it".
A 50% discount from a $200,000 undergraduate degree at Harvard is not.
[0] - [http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/](http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/)
[1] -
[https://www.coursera.org/course/imba](https://www.coursera.org/course/imba)
~~~
rhino369
Thanks for linking to that GTech MSCS degree. That is perfect for my brother
who is disabled and is learning CS on his own via MOOCS.
The UIUC iMBA smells like a scam. MBA's are mostly about the networking.
------
roymurdock
Here is the main point of the article:
_Students at private colleges received an average 42 percent discount on
their tuition in 2014-2015. As recently as 2010, it was 36 percent.
There is another number that is perhaps even more important for students and
parents to consider. The same survey, from the national association of college
financial officers, found that the average discount for first-year students is
48 percent. That gap of six percentage points between the overall rate and the
discount for freshmen usually means that colleges are giving bigger grants to
first-year students than everyone else.
In other words, it’s a classic bait and switch. Colleges attract students with
a bigger discount and a boatload of financial aid the first year, and then
once the students like the campus and want to stay to actually finish their
degree, they give the students less aid for their remaining years._
The author never fully distinguishes between scholarships and financial aid.
He lumps them together in a "discount" category. The two forms of cost-saving
are very different and should have been addressed separately in the article.
It makes sense that merit scholarships pay our more on aggregate to freshmen
rather than seniors, as some percentage will lose their scholarships due to
poor grades (happened to a friend), social infractions, or some other merit
scholarship-ending action. Most scholarships in my experience are real (half
tuition, full tuition) rather than nominal ($25k per year).
I can't speak to financial aid, but I assume it's like any other contract
where you can see the terms and conditions and amount that the college is
willing to subsidize your education expenses every year, subject to certain
academic and social standing requirements. Again, some percentage of students
probably lose financial aid for not meeting these requirements from one year
to the next. Maybe it's easier to game financial aid as tuition rises and
students are offered a fixed nominal amount?
Is it fair to characterize financial aid as a bait and switch?
~~~
maratd
> the college is willing to subsidize your education expenses every year
The college isn't subsidizing anything.
It's called price discrimination. That's what the article is partially about.
If you look at the demand curve, you see that different people are willing to
pay different prices for the same service. Some people have more money, some
less. Some want it more, some less.
Ideally, what a service provider wants to do is charge everyone the maximum
price they're willing to pay. This maximizes their revenue at the expense of
everyone else.
They blow up their tuition to ridiculous levels and then discount all the way
down the demand curve to maximize intake. They discount using scholarships,
financial aid, and other programs. And then they sell you the bullshit that
they're helping you.
We don't tolerate this abuse from any other industry.
~~~
roymurdock
> They blow up their tuition to ridiculous levels and then discount all the
> way down the demand curve to maximize intake
Ridiculous for some, not ridiculous for others. Some parents don't even bat an
eyelash while writing the $200k check for their kid. If schools couldn't get
away with charging the $200k sticker price, they wouldn't.
First degree price discrimination would be an auction system. We would see
spots at Harvard, Stanford, and MIT going for tens of millions of dollars.
Merit would mean money. Thankfully, we aren't at that point yet.
I agree that the system is broken and extortionate, and that a lot of students
are getting much less out of a degree/attending school than what they are
paying for it.
But it's what we as a society are choosing to reinforce. Public education is
still seen (in most cases) as inferior to private education by parents and
employers. We are not enforcing a progressive tax system to reduce inequality
and generate revenues to pay for more investment in education and
infrastructure. Instead we are spending on war, social security, and
healthcare. We are transferring wealth away from the young and the middle
class to the old and the wealthy. As a democratic country, these decisions are
on all of us.
~~~
nilkn
> First degree price discrimination would be an auction system. We would see
> spots at Harvard, Stanford, and MIT going for tens of millions of dollars.
> Merit would mean money.
The problem with this is that if it were too rampant it would diminish the
value of the product being bought. Harvard/Stanford/MIT are valuable
institutions to attend partly because seats there can't just be outright
bought.
If Harvard abolished its admissions system and replaced it with a $10,000,000
price tag per seat, the school would lose the majority of its prestige rather
quickly, the quality of the student base would deteriorate even more rapidly,
and it wouldn't be too long before even wealthy parents wouldn't be willing to
pay that price tag.
The current strategy is probably reasonably close to the optimal long-term
profit-maximizing strategy with the property that the school's prestige and
reputation are maintained (or even enhanced) each year.
~~~
roymurdock
Right, it will never get to the point of an open auction. Then it altogether
stops being functional (learning skills & networking) and starts being solely
art (aesthetics and marketing). Currently, it's a mixture of the two, with
aesthetics pulling ahead rather quickly - is what you learned or who you met
in Philosophy 101 $100k more important to you today than it would have been to
you 10 years ago?
There is some behind-closed-doors deal making going on, but that has always
happened and will always happen.
------
Loughla
The practice of guaranteeing the same price for four years is neither new nor
groundbreaking. It's called tuition lock, and state institutions (at least in
my state) have done that for decades.
And to answer the headline's question. No. No this is not the end of tuition
pricing as we know it. It's just a different sales pitch and marketing
strategy.
~~~
Vraxx
It's not just the same tuition for all 4 years though. For instance if you pay
10,000 for tuition with 48% "discount" through merit-scholarships or what have
you. Then next year that discount is only 40%, but your tuition stays the same
at 10,000. You're still paying 800 more in tuition, but your tuition didn't go
up.
~~~
JonFish85
Which, to me, falls into the "It's just a different sales pitch and marketing
strategy." category. It's a marketing stunt to make it sound good & reasonable
at first glance, but the devil is in the details.
~~~
caseysoftware
Apartment complexes do a variation of this all the time.
In your first year, they give you "one month free" and then amortize it over
the life of the lease. In the second year, you don't get on the one month
_and_ there's an increase, so it becomes a huge increase all at once.
For example (made up numbers):
Year 1: $1k/month on a 12 month lease, 1 month free amortized -> $917/month
Year 2: Year 1 + 5% -> $1050/month
Removing the discount and increasing the base is a double whammy. And - like
in the article - the switching costs (economic and emotional) are so high that
many people will go along with it.
~~~
logfromblammo
Once, while living in a big city, I was paying about $625/mo for my apartment.
When the lease neared expiration, they offered me a new lease at around
$800/mo. I tossed that in the garbage, and moved before my last month was up,
to a much worse place that was only $500/mo. (You can buy a lot of mousetraps
and roach baits with an extra $125/mo.)
The last week of the month, I got a call from the old landlords. They said
they hadn't received a signed copy of their lease renewal. I asked why they
thought I would accept such a huge increase in rent. They said they had just
renovated the place before I moved in. I laughed at them, told them I'd give
the keys back on the last day of my current lease, so please be prepared to
return my security deposit, and hung up.
I'd like to imagine that the apartment went vacant for a few months after
that, and they cried into their pillows every night because of it, but that
wasn't very likely. The apartment market had a pretty rapid turnover back
then, so it was probably only empty a few weeks.
In my view, that huge price hike was a clear GTFO/FOAD signal. But the
university undergraduate education market is much less competitive than the
apartment rental markets, and the cost to going to a competitor much higher,
so it's no surprise that they can get away with higher and more frequent price
hikes.
------
dumbmatter
_Tuition pricing should be based on demonstrated need and real merit, not just
the desire of a college to steal a few smart students from a competitor down
the street._
What does "real merit" mean? I can't think of any definition that doesn't
include trying to bring in more smart students...
~~~
redblacktree
I think they mean the merit of the institution.
~~~
a3voices
I don't think so, because it's right after "real need" which is referring to
students. If it is as you suggest then it's a badly formed sentence.
------
derekp7
Just out of curiosity, does anyone have a link to an example breakdown of the
costs per student in a typical university?
A full course load is about 12 hours total spent in class per week, for 16
weeks. Let's bump this number up to 20 hours, to account for overhead
(homework grading, office hours, course design, etc). And given a class size
of 25 students, that means 1 instructor can handle 50 full time students. If
that instructor gets paid 100K a year, that works out to be 2K of instructor
time per student. So what other overhead is involved that brings the cost of
college up to 20 - 50K per year? You have the building, administration,
potentially lab equipment, and teaching supplies (chalk/markers/copy
paper/etc). But I still can't see that bumping the price up that much. Is the
per-student share of the building cost really that high? Or are there 10
administrative staff for every one instructor?
~~~
chongli
The goal of most colleges is to grow without bound, consuming entire cities in
the process. Administrative staff make up a big part of costs and instructors
are paid far less on average than 100k. The real costs are in the construction
of huge, fancy new buildings and luxury facilities designed to entice parents
and students alike.
~~~
hijinks
new construction is the main reason I don't donate any money to my college.
When I went there 15 years ago the tuition was around 18k and when I left 4
years later it was 23k and they were just starting to put up new buildings
right and left.
Now its 55k
------
a-dub
Rolling back the Bush-era provisions that make private student loans non-
dischargable in bankruptcy would do wonders in putting downward pressure on
tuition. Federal loans are capped at around $50k which seems to me like a
perfectly reasonable number for educational debt, especially considering the
wealth of options available for adjusting terms when there's trouble making
payments. (as opposed to private loans, which just sail right on into default)
~~~
dragonwriter
> Rolling back the Bush-era provisions that make private student loans non-
> dischargable in bankruptcy would do wonders in putting downward pressure on
> tuition.
Would it? I was under the impression that private student loan lending
collapsed shortly after the 2009 crash and hadn't really recovered, though its
risen slightly since the crash. If private student loans were the main driver
of tuition, it should have collapsed after the 2009 crash as well.
~~~
a-dub
Interesting. You're right. It halved in 2009 and dropped even further to about
40% of its previous high, although it appears to be growing again... [1]
I still think that it would be wise to structure the marketplace such that
there is even less private lending. I think this ultimately gives the Federal
government more policy levers that can be used to push back on tuition.
I do agree with the original piece that the peek-a-boo games that college's
play with their financial aid packages are silly. The pricing should be clear
and simple, discounts for low-income students should be stated up front.
Today's "Let's make a deal" games are just dumb...
[1] [http://trends.collegeboard.org/student-aid/figures-
tables/to...](http://trends.collegeboard.org/student-aid/figures-tables/total-
federa-nonfederal-loans-time)
------
imglorp
Can someone with a micro-econ background explain what is going wrong with the
free market model and how to fix it?
It used to be that goods and services would compete on price and quality. If
someone could offer the same quality for less, buyers would go there. It was
self regulating to some point: predation was limited by the system.
Now, however, there are dozens of markets where this is no longer true. There
are geographically region-locked prices: pharmaceuticals, textbooks, dvd's,
etc. There are opaque and arbitrary prices like healthcare, software (hello
oracle), and per the article, airlines and tuition.
Some of this is due to artificial protections like patents and copyrights. But
not all of it. What's up?
~~~
pjc50
(1) Akerloff's paper "Market for Lemons": ability to assess quality depends on
information. Adequate information may not be available to all parties equally
and may be costly to acquire.
It may not be realistic for private individuals to assess the quality of their
healthcare or tuition, even after the event. See also VW: it's easy to lie
about details which affect the quality.
(2) Increasing perfection of price discrimination: market participants
charging different prices to different customers. Airlines can do this because
of the ID requirements and non-resaleable tickets. Private healthcare can do
this too.
(3) Switching costs: Oracle win at lockin. Big problem in the software world,
but also for tuition (incomplete courses not portable).
(4) Regulatory capture & paid lobbying: applies to pharmaceuticals, textbooks,
DVDs, healthcare.
~~~
rm999
The information issue with healthcare and education is even more perverse than
in "Market for Lemons" \- it's not that the quality of the product is unknown
(although it often arguably is), it's that the price is unknown. As the
article says, incoming freshman have no idea how much their 2nd through 4th
years will cost, just an upper ceiling. They are usually misled to believe
their final tuition will be lower than it actually is, skewing their value
judgement. Likewise with healthcare, I often get surprise bills from my
insurance company for just doing what my doctor instructs me to do. There's a
lot of incentive for doctors to do unnecessary procedures without explaining
the costs.
------
ikeboy
_But every good strategy eventually runs its course, and there is increasing
evidence that the days of tuition discounting are coming to an end._
Yet the only evidence offered is that tuition discounting has gotten greater
recently.
It's ... kind of _interesting_ how the article manages to spin "X is going
higher" as evidence for "X is going to go way down".
------
Qwertious
No.
Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends
in a question mark can be answered by the word no." It is named after Ian
Betteridge, a British technology journalist,[1][2] although the principle is
much older.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The javascript grid you allways wanted (MIT-licensed): SlickGrid - clyfe
http://mleibman.github.com/SlickGrid/examples/example5-collapsing.html
======
clyfe
GitHub main page: <https://github.com/mleibman/SlickGrid>
Examples: <https://github.com/mleibman/SlickGrid/wiki/Examples>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Frinkiac: Simpsons quote search engine - asicboy
https://frinkiac.com
======
reaperhulk
One of the authors here. I blogged a bit the other day about how we built
this: [https://langui.sh/2016/02/02/frinkiac-the-simpsons-
screensho...](https://langui.sh/2016/02/02/frinkiac-the-simpsons-screenshot-
search-engine/)
~~~
mumrah
Was this done using the DVDs? I'm curious about any potential licensing issues
with the screen caps and subtitles. Did you have to get permission/sign
something - or does this fall under fair use?
~~~
cplease
No way this is licensed (no copyright notice, even; not even a mention of
Fox), and no way it is fair use. It has frame-by-frame, full resolution images
and full transcripts of every episode up for browsing. This is textbook mass
copyright infringement. Short of offering unlicensed video downloads for a
fee, it could hardly be more clear-cut.
Yeah, it's cool, I get it, but you can't just steal and redistribute content
en masse for your cool project. Well, he did, but I expect he'll be hearing
from Fox's lawyers soon.
~~~
jrochkind1
It is arguably fair use in the U.S. I don't think there is enough case law to
be sure. It's hard to predict how it would go in litigation. I think you're
right that the defendants wouldn't have a particularly strong case, but they
wouldn't have the weakest.
The courts have generally judged significant "transformation" of the source
material to be powerful in determining fair use. I think that would be in
their benefit. Also it could be argued that this has very little effect on the
market for the original copyrighted material, which would be in their favor.
Of course, the copyright holder would see and argue it differently if they
choose to sue. And the "the amount and substantiality of the portion taken"
would not look good for the defendants -- but even though some common belief
focuses on this factor almost exclusively -- thinking as long as you copy only
10 pages or whatever you're good, and if you don't you're definitely not --
that's not how it works, it's just one factor, and one that the courts in the
past couple decades have somewhat de-emphasized.
But I don't think we can say "no way it is fair use", or "it could hardly be
more clear cut." It could go either way. Fair use in the U.S. for novel
things, not already well established as fair use or not, almost always looks
like this.
------
dopeboy
This is impressive. It found everything I tried. If the author is reading,
showing GIFs or a small video clip instead of a static image would be
preferable.
My favorite Simpsons quote:
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=up+and+atom&e=S07E02&t=673...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=up+and+atom&e=S07E02&t=673422&m=+UP+AND+ATOM).
Coach: Up and atom!
Rainier Wolfcastle: Up and at them.
Coach: Up and atom!
Rainier: Up and at them!
Coach: [annoyed] Up and atom!
Rainier: [louder] Up and at them!
Coach: Better.
~~~
acomjean
Simpsons gifs as a service... al la:
[https://twitter.com/StarWarsDotGif](https://twitter.com/StarWarsDotGif)
Its open source and maybe could be repurposed?
[https://github.com/LindseyB/starwars-dot-
gif](https://github.com/LindseyB/starwars-dot-gif)
------
asd
I love this. It found everything I threw at it. I hope the Fox lawyers don't
take it down.
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=search&q=THERE%27S+A+STUFFED+PEPPER+...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=search&q=THERE%27S+A+STUFFED+PEPPER+IN+THE+TRASH+FROM+LAST+NIGHT.&e=S06E14&t=214897&m=+THERE%27S+A+STUFFED+PEPPER%0A+IN+THE+TRASH+FROM+LAST%0A+NIGHT.+JUST+RINSE+IT%0A+GOOD.+Kid%3A+Come+home%2C%0A+Lassie%21)
~~~
md224
I searched for "moon pie" and didn't find what I was looking for. :(
~~~
Gorbzel
Yeah, I _was_ saying Boo-urns, and it couldn't find it.
Also, yeah, this is coming down as soon as the lawyers get ahold of it.
~~~
rconti
They may or may not (be allowed to) have a sense of humor about it. Our 24
Hours of LeMons car's publicity was sent to Matt Groening by a friend, and he
passed it around the office. Apparently he asked their publicity folks if they
could invite us up to show off the car about the same time that legal asked
about sending us a cease and desist.
In the case of the car, it's probably fair use and the only issue was likely
that we have non-Fox-approved sponsorship on it, but they probably decided
their advertisers wouldn't complain about it because it's not exactly big
bucks changing hands here.
So yeah, we got to meet Matt Groening and David X Cohen and Al Jean and a lot
of the writers. It was definitely a cool experience.
[http://www.thehomercar.com](http://www.thehomercar.com)
------
6stringmerc
Just in time for the Grammys!
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=grammy&e=S10E14&t=1008006&...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=grammy&e=S10E14&t=1008006&m=+OH%2C+THAT%27S+VERY+SWEET.%0A+HAVE+A+GRAMMY.+UH..).
Once the AV Club finds this I think a black hole will open and consume us all.
The website is quite cool though!
------
Analemma_
If I could use this to get subtitled gifs of the scene in question, not just
screenshots, it would go from amazing to godlike. On the roadmap for v2,
hopefully?
~~~
tptacek
CLICK THE IMAGES
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=lousy+smarch+weather&e=S07...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=lousy+smarch+weather&e=S07E06&t=598313&m=+Oh%2C+lousy+Smarch+weather).
~~~
shawabawa3
For me I don't get gifs, just a list of stills from the same scene
~~~
LinkDJ
I think he's making a joke about clicking the "next image" fast enough that it
appears to be animated.
------
navbaker
I tell people every day that you don't win friends with salad. Glad I finally
have the images to go with it!
~~~
redwards510
I know that feel[1][2] bro.
[1]
[http://www.redbubble.com/people/babushack/works/12826784-you...](http://www.redbubble.com/people/babushack/works/12826784-you-
dont-win-friends-with-salad?grid_pos=2&p=t-shirt)
[2]
[http://www.redbubble.com/people/newdamage/works/9371721-i-wo...](http://www.redbubble.com/people/newdamage/works/9371721-i-won-
friends-with-salad?grid_pos=3&p=t-shirt)
------
ColinCochrane
Great work! Tried out some of my favourites and it worked like a charm.
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=search&q=that%27s+a+paddlin](https://frinkiac.com/?p=search&q=that%27s+a+paddlin)
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=search&q=thrillho](https://frinkiac.com/?p=search&q=thrillho)
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=search&q=now+where%27s+me+toothpick](https://frinkiac.com/?p=search&q=now+where%27s+me+toothpick)
~~~
acomjean
All my favorites are there:
"we tried nothing and we're all out of ideas"
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=we+tried+nothing+&e=S08E08...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=we+tried+nothing+&e=S08E08&t=1014362&m=+YEAH.+YOU%27VE+GOT+TO+HELP%0A+US%2C+DOC.+WE%27VE+TRIED%0A+NOTHING%2C+AND+WE%27RE+ALL%0A+OUT+OF+IDEAS.+%0A)
'see you suckers'
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=suckers&e=S14E18&t=688354&...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=suckers&e=S14E18&t=688354&m=+So+long%2C+suckers.+%28%0A+laughing%29)
'the buddy system... foolproof'
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=buddy+system&e=S14E03&t=94...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=buddy+system&e=S14E03&t=944235&m=+is+anyone+missing+their%0A+buddy%3F+ALL%3A+No.+Ah%2C+the%0A+buddy+system.+Foolproof).
'I'll never be the darling...'
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=stoke+their+beards&e=S06E0...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=stoke+their+beards&e=S06E02&t=899915&m=+OH%2C+I%27LL+NEVER+BE+THE%0A+DARLING+OF+THE+SO-
CALLED%0A+CITY+FATHERS+WHO+CLUCK%0A+THEIR+TONGUES%2C+STROKE%0A+THEIR+BEARDS+AND+TALK%0A+ABOUT%2C+%22WHAT%27S+TO+BE+DONE%0A+WITH+THIS+HOMER+SIMPSON%3F%22)
'mountain of sugar'
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=mountain+of+sugar&e=S06E02...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=mountain+of+sugar&e=S06E02&t=1068701&m=+A+MOUNTAIN+OF+SUGAR+IS%0A+TOO+MUCH+FOR+ONE+MAN.%0A+IT%27S+CLEAR+NOW+WHY+GOD%0A+PORTIONS+IT+OUT+IN+THOSE%0A+TINY+PACKETS)
'childrens dance recital'
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=parents+expect+a+children%...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=parents+expect+a+children%27s+dance&e=S11E20&t=1082360&m=+I%27M+SORRY%2C+LISA.+PEOPLE%0A+GO+TO+A+CHILDREN%27S+DANCE%0A+RECITAL+EXPECTING+A%0A+CERTAIN+LEVEL+OF%0A+PROFESSIONALISM).
'wookie'
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=wooki&e=S06E02&t=1301984&m...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=wooki&e=S06E02&t=1301984&m=+%28+Ralph+chanting%29%3A+I+BEAT%0A+THE+SMART+KIDS.+I+BEAT%0A+THE+SMART+KIDS.+I+BENT+MY%0A+WOOKIE.+HEY%2C+RALPH%2C+WANT%0A+TO+COME+WITH+ME+AND%0A+ALLISON)
'idiots island'
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=any+sign+of+inteligence&e=...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=any+sign+of+inteligence&e=S15E19&t=41250&m=++a+rose+of+continuation%3B+%0A+and+he+hurled+a+rock+of%0A+rejection+at+anyone+%0A+displaying+intelligence%2C%0A+character%2C+or+ethnicity).
'George Harrison'
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=george+har&e=S05E01&t=9790...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=george+har&e=S05E01&t=979010&m=+HELLO%2C+HOMER.+I%27M+GEORGE%0A+HARRISON.+OH%2C+MY+GOD%21+OH%2C%0A+MY+GOD%21+WHERE+DID+YOU+GET%0A+THAT+BROWNIE%3F)
'Beer'
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=killing+you+with+beer&e=S0...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=killing+you+with+beer&e=S04E19&t=1079327&m=+YOU+DON%27T+LIKE+ME%2C+AND+I%0A+DON%27T+LIKE+YOU+BUT+LET%27S%0A+JUST+DO+THIS+AND+I+CAN%0A+GET+BACK+TO+KILLING+YOU%0A+WITH+BEER).
'alcohol'
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=+the+cause+of&e=S08E18&t=1...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=+the+cause+of&e=S08E18&t=1306704&m=+TO+ALCOHOL--+THE+CAUSE+OF%0A+AND+SOLUTION+TO)
~~~
derman232
'help yourself to some more stock'
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=help+yourself+to+more+stoc...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=help+yourself+to+more+stock&e=S13E18&t=741324&m=help+yourself+to+some+more+stock)
~~~
acomjean
"bubbles can burst?"
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=golden+age+&e=S13E18&t=107...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=golden+age+&e=S13E18&t=1074365&m=+Bubbles+can+burst%3F!+Yeah%2C%0A+but+it%27s+a+golden+age+for%0A+the+repo+business.+One%0A+that+shall+never+end).
------
j45
This is great and long over due.
For those of use who grew up having conversations in simpsons dialog, this
will help provide those in my wife who don't have such habits develop them :)
------
thepies
small point - the encaptionator should put a 1/2px black stroke around the
white text so it is visible against any background colour
edit - after reading the FAQ I see you are working on this
I withdraw my question
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=withdraw&e=S08E14&t=688870...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=withdraw&e=S08E14&t=688870&m=+I+WITHDRAW+MY+QUESTION).
------
OhHeyItsE
This is the reason the internet exists.
------
nefitty
You call this a tax return!?
[https://frinkiac.com/meme/S07E17/702635.jpg?lines=+You+call+...](https://frinkiac.com/meme/S07E17/702635.jpg?lines=+You+call+this+a+tax%0A+return%3F+You+call+this+a%0A+super+computer%3F)
------
ringofgyges
Some great screencaps compiled in this article:
[https://www.inverse.com/article/11007-frinkiac-is-the-
visual...](https://www.inverse.com/article/11007-frinkiac-is-the-visual-
simpsons-search-engine-the-world-has-been-waiting-for)
------
Kluny
I can't believe how fast it is.
------
martythemaniak
Who can write a Simpsons quote search engine?
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=search&q=the+garbage+man+can](https://frinkiac.com/?p=search&q=the+garbage+man+can)
------
dalke
Any chance of OCR? I searched for "Pharm Team", which was the name of the
company at
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=major+league+baseball&e=S1...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=major+league+baseball&e=S11E02&t=326760&m=+UNTESTED%2C+POTENTIALLY%0A+DANGEROUS--+CANDY+BAR%3F%0A+NO!+IT%27S+A+NEW+DRUG%0A+CALLED+FOCUSYN.+A+DRUG%3F)
though the name was never said.
------
vlunkr
This is great! My only complaint is that it comes up with lots of near
duplicates. The images look they are different frames, but the quotes they
reference are the same
~~~
joe_coin
I think that's a feature. You get to choose which frame you prefer.
------
volaski
This is amazing. I hope there's an api for this
~~~
kentbrew
Break out your Chrome inspector and follow along in our exciting home version:
[https://frinkiac.com/api/search?q=hoyvin](https://frinkiac.com/api/search?q=hoyvin)
Results look like this:
[{"Id":1745953,"Episode":"S13E08","Timestamp":797213,"Filename":""}]
Concatenate the episode and timestamp to get the image:
[https://frinkiac.com/img/S13E08/797213/medium.jpg](https://frinkiac.com/img/S13E08/797213/medium.jpg)
Caption here:
[https://frinkiac.com/api/caption?e=S13E08&t=797213](https://frinkiac.com/api/caption?e=S13E08&t=797213)
Look for the Subtitles array:
"Subtitles":[{"Id":138914,"Episode":"S13E08","StartTimestamp":794266,"EndTimestamp":796533,"Content":"
( gavel pounding ) So,
Professor,"},{"Id":138915,"Episode":"S13E08","StartTimestamp":796533,"EndTimestamp":799834,"Content":"tell
us about Operation Hoyvin-Mayvin."}]
------
nkrisc
You'd have to be stupider than a monkey to not like this. Are you stupider
than a monkey?
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=how+big+of+a+monkey&e=S12E...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=caption&q=how+big+of+a+monkey&e=S12E02&t=433099&m=+ARE+YOU+STUPIDER+THAN+A%0A+MONKEY%3F%0A%0AHOW+BIG+OF+A+MONKEY%3F+)
------
seppo0010
I made this Chrome extension to generate animated GIFs from frinkiac
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/frinkiac-
gif/dlaba...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/frinkiac-
gif/dlabaelekmgjofhdmnpmdigegdgndgdc)
------
ChrisArchitect
on the legal/lawyer talk tip - there have been a few notable other simpsons
screencap repositories (like Lardlad) that have remained online for years.
Wondering if there's some leeway or can't chase after a single frame (rather
than video with picture and sound, which they are notoriously strict on
youtube about etc)
------
bootload
This is a great tool. Any copyright issues? I tried it, "but it disappeared
into _' fat air'_."
------
daok
Every time you type a character in the search box, it adds a browser history.
That is not great...
~~~
tptacek
WORTH IT.
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=meme&q=gamblor&e=S05E10&t=1151749&m=...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=meme&q=gamblor&e=S05E10&t=1151749&m=I+CALL+HIM%0A+GAMBLOR%21+%0AAND+IT%27S+TIME+TO%0A+SNATCH+YOUR+MOTHER+FROM%0A+HIS+NEON+CLAWS%21)
~~~
jameshart
Hmm...
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=meme&q=gamblor&e=S05E10&t=1151749&m=...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=meme&q=gamblor&e=S05E10&t=1151749&m=I+allow%0Aarbitrary%20text%0Ato%20be%20inserted%0Ain%20the%20picture%21)
------
jchendy
No Milpool! :(
More seriously:
1) Awesome!!!
2) It would be great if the search results page listed the quotes in addition
to showing the images.
~~~
tptacek
It totally does have milpool:
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=meme&q=i+think+i+left+my+glasses+in+...](https://frinkiac.com/?p=meme&q=i+think+i+left+my+glasses+in+your+pool&e=S06E01&t=445595&m=I+think+i+left+my+glasses%0Ain+your+pool.+)
It's just that nobody ever says "Milpool" in the dialogue.
~~~
jchendy
Excellent!
------
ChrisArchitect
curious about how it works/was developed
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11036894](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11036894)
------
anindyabd
First thing I searched for: "Kids, you tried your best, but failed miserably.
The lesson is, never try." Got the exact episode. This is great :)
------
doodpants
I was hoping to find the quote in which Grandpa Simson mentions Estes
Kefauver, but searching for "Kefauver" yields no results. :-(
~~~
squeaky-clean
It looks like there's no episodes indexed past season 15, and this quote is
from season 20.
[https://frinkiac.com/?p=episode&e=S20E14](https://frinkiac.com/?p=episode&e=S20E14)
Should be the episode.
------
fungos
Authors: Can you describe the backend infrastructure?
I'm just a bit curious here about the costs of running a toy service like
this.
------
mjklin
"And that is why The Lord of the Rings can never be filmed!"
Stumped ya Frinky. It didn't have to go down like this.
------
djrogers
This is an amazing feat of human ingenuity.
------
silveira
Awesome. I could find an episode about "tiger-repellent rock" just by
searching for "tiger".
------
morsch
Much cooler than expected. So I assume this is fairly trivial to adapt to any
other set of subtitled videos?
------
huangc10
"Hi Supernintedo Chalmers" LOL...this is freaking awesome. GIFs would be an
improvement :)
------
noobie
Though you may be rat-like in appearance, you are truly king among men for
sharing this!
------
ChrisArchitect
also, why didn't this get picked up in the duplicate post algo HN? For the
blog writeup @reaperhulk you should have put 'Show HN' in your original post
to get more traction or something
------
tehbeard
I'm getting a nothing found error? Is this a mobile bug?
~~~
GurnB
Getting the same results from my laptop at the moment also. Everything is
returning 'Nothing Found' Error. It was working earlier today. (Can you tell
it is Friday?)
------
sdh
needs a random button
------
sotojuan
How is this so fast?
------
pbhowmic
Brilliant. just what I need to needle the wifey
------
rglover
YES.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do you “pre-code”? - webappsecperson
I've started writing more pseudocode before tackling problems and it's helped a lot in sussing out the general control flow / structure of what I intend to write, basically helping with the programming equivalent of writer's block.<p>It got me to wondering - what else do people do before ever putting hands to keyboard?<p>Obviously there's documentation, meetings with stakeholders, project prep as this whole thing, but I was thinking more for narrower concerns - you're adding a small feature on a mature product or writing a one-off script - what do you try and do beforehand?
======
mceachen
I first try to explain the problem, and then potential solutions, to either a
beta user or someone non-technical. I'm lucky to have a very patient wife
regularly fill this role.
If the solution is trivial and can be completed in an hour, I'll just code it
from there.
If I think it'll take a day or more, I'll write down both the problem, and
potential solutions, along with pros and cons for each approach, with the
focus on trying to justify my actions to Future Me.
If I think multiple people are going to want to know how it ticks, I'll write
a design doc and share it with some beta users.
I've found it to be frustratingly common that when I skip this process I will
code the first solution that comes to me. This frequently is neither the
simplest to implement nor the most efficient approach.
------
gshdg
I find it useful to write out a workflow of things the code will need to do
from a high level.
Ex: “Validate form input” or “filter API response based on submitted criteria”
Those become doc blocks for functions and classes.
Then I break those down into more granular directives still more abstract than
pseudo code.
Ex: “determine whether name input is alphabetical” or “iterate response. check
contents of all 3 phone fields against submitted value”
Writing both code and tests against that then becomes nearly trivial.
------
CarVac
I do database schemas, GUI layouts, and control flow plans on paper before
putting code down.
For example, in adding lens correction profile support to my photo editor, I
used paper to track which camera brands have what exif fields that I need to
get lens names.
Then I worked out the logic of how/whether to enable corrections on images
that had been edited in the past.
As a result of this planning I do, new features usually work almost entirely
as expected, first time.
~~~
thecupisblue
Similar - having it on paper gives me higher agility in thinking and writing
than any computer tools. Maybe discuss it out loud with someone. As I write it
down, the code and the flow starts popping in my head and by the time I get
down to actual writing it's already thought through.
------
sloaken
Mine is similar to CarVac, but I also rough out some Use Cases, and I rarely
do GUI as I hate doing GUIs. When thinking about the design if there is a part
I think is tricky I might pseudo code it. If it keeps me from sleeping I will
actually write it out.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: BiggestPriceDrop.com - dasong
http://biggestpricedrop.com
Created this app because nothing like it existed. I've always wanted to be able to sort products from my favorite online stores by how much each product had dropped in price. I think we're still the only site that does this. Please let me know if this is not true! What are some ways to get exposure? Google has already indexed over 600k of my pages and most of our traffic is organic search. Thanks, any suggestions or feedback would be appreciated.
======
dasong
Some specific questions: Is the site easy to understand and use? If not, what
is unclear? Is paid search or PPC ads my next step? Is it usually worth the
cost to get discovered faster? Right now, my operating costs are fairly low.
Running this on an M3.XLarge EC2 instance. Should I branch out of clothing to
tech products? What other niche do you think would benefit from this kind of
sorting (real estate?)
~~~
nej
Pretty cool site. I can see myself using this in the future.
Some opinions: \- Grid view - As a shopper, I feel like this is a must. I want
to see as many products as possible with as little interaction with the page
as possible. Right now on my Macbook Pro laptop I'm only able to view one
product at a time, which gets rather annoying even before finishing the first
page.
Some other notes:
To me the most important thing when viewing a product is:
\- Picture of the product
\- % / $ off (in this scenario)
\- Price of product
\- Short description of the product (name, brand, etc.)
The following seem excessive:
\- Worst price and best price (It's an overwhelming amount of information to
see when I'm not even sure if I like this product).
\- Category tree (I don't see a need for this)
But overall I like this idea. Great job.
~~~
dasong
Thanks for the tips! I think I'll hide the worst/best price under button that
will show that with a graph (Chart.js seems really cool). The category tree is
being shown on the product page is not complete yet. I envisioned being able
to "uncheck" the category right there if the user kept seeing products from a
category that he/she was not interested in.
~~~
dasong
I created this app because nothing like it existed. I've always wanted to be
able to sort products from my favorite online stores by how much each product
had dropped in price. I think we're still the only site that does this. Please
let me know if this is not true! What are some ways to get exposure? Google
has already indexed over 600k of my pages and most of our traffic is organic
search. Thanks, any suggestions or feedback would be appreciated.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Why are status webpages broken? - yani
The first place that I go when there is an outage is the status page of the service. Unfortunately, status pages are outdated and cannot be trusted to represent the status of the service.
Why? Why do companies choose to use Twitter over their own status page or at least not both?
GitHub Status page is 16 days behind https://status.github.com/messages
Slack Status page is saying 100% uptime for the last 30 days while they are having an outage https://status.slack.com/
======
newman8r
The recent slack downtime is shown here
[https://status.slack.com/calendar](https://status.slack.com/calendar) \-
maybe it updated right after you posted this.
I agree though, in my experience it seems like status pages don't always
accurately indicate downtime. Third party status pages might be more reliable.
~~~
karmakaze
Are there third-party status pages in existence? I've made a simple
aggregator[0] but it only echoes what's on the published status pages and adds
Twitter links.
[0] [https://statuspages.me](https://statuspages.me)
~~~
newman8r
There's [http://downdetector.com](http://downdetector.com), but it's just
based on user generated reports so I'm not sure if I'd count it as a status
page. I'm surprised I couldn't quickly find something more objective for the
status of major web applications though.
Your aggregator looks really useful, bookmarking it.
~~~
karmakaze
Thanks. I also remember downforeveryoneorjustme.com (aka isup.me) and
isitdownrightnow.com which is more for just web sites' main pages, but at
least they're continuous third-party checks.
------
LinuxBender
Unless a company puts into writing in customer contracts, language that makes
the status page a requirement and that it must be accurate to {n} degree, then
it will just be another tool to reduce support cases.
I would suggest having your primary account maintainer and procurement
department check the language in your contract. If it does not exist, then
have them amend the contract with language that requires the status page to be
accurate and that allows you to monitor them from multiple locations. Perhaps
consider adding language that allows you to share your monitoring results with
them, your internal and external customers.
I am not a lawyer and I do not play one on TV. This is not legal or medical
advise. Do not stare at happy fun ball.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Webmatr – It's Like IFTTT or Zapier but for Programmers - gsvclass
https://webmatr.com
======
fiatjaf
Great thing, if it works I'll try it someday.
I've been so pissed off by IFTTT and Zapier's huge forms complexity and
slowness so many times when I just wished to call a single API command.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Design Patterns In Ruby, Explained II - kitallis
http://code.scrapcrap.org/dpr2
======
tumult
If I encountered code like this on the job, I'd feel obligated to let someone
higher up know about it. I know this isn't a very constructive comment, but I
don't really have much else to say :)
------
tptacek
If you're pulling "patterns" directly out of GoF and trying to use them in
Ruby code, you're probably doing it wrong. Put your hands in the air, step
away from the UML diagram, and read: <http://norvig.com/design-patterns/>
~~~
kitallis
Why didn't I ever see that before? It's pretty cool.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why software projects go wrong - lrvick
http://lrvick.net/blog/why_software_projects_go_wrong/
======
marianoguerra
here is a link to the post
something seems to go wrong with the github pages he uses
[https://github.com/lrvick/lrvick/blob/master/posts/201201102...](https://github.com/lrvick/lrvick/blob/master/posts/20120110213942-Why_software_projects_go_wrong.md)
------
lrvick
Hmm. Strange. For some reason DNS is misbehaving from some locations. I'll
need to look into this...
------
stefs
so, is this a joke i'm not getting?
~~~
ryandvm
Well - I'm sure _some_ projects fail because of stuff like this...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Comcast failed to install Internet for 10 months then demanded $60,000 in fees - CrankyBear
http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/03/comcast-failed-to-install-internet-for-10-months-then-demanded-60000-in-fees/?platform=hootsuite
======
roflchoppa
Yeah we are in the Bay Area the "tech hub" but we still have all the issues
that people from LA // Maine // Boston complain about.. Shit internet speeds
at shit pricing. Why someone does not introduce competitive fiber is beyond
me, esp considering all the engineers in the area. East Bay has the option for
using Tekify, whom is supposed to be very reliable....
------
unsignedint
They didn't charge us $60000, but experience has been similar in Bellevue, WA.
We eventually resorted to the wireless ethernet service. (It was a more of an
issue that they couldn't pull wires from ANY service providers in the area --
and it happened to be just 5 minutes away from Downtown Bellevue...)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Quantum Mechanics - thewarrior
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics
======
OafTobark
This is interesting. Its the first time I've seen the simple.wikipedia vs the
en.wikipedia. Upon checking, they are two different written entries for this
subject. I am curious if simple.wikipedia is merely a simplified version (did
not read either entries).
~~~
DanBC
The simple wikipedia is supposed to use simple English. The English wikipedia
uses normal English.
It takes more skill to write good simple English. Unfortunately, the Simple
English Wikipedia is sometimes recommended by WP editors for problematic
editors - they send these problematic editors to Simple English WP. Often
there are problems with English writing or comprehension or wiki policies. So
the quality of Simple Wikipedia are very variable.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ruby Manor 4 tickets now available (one-day, zero-bullshit London Ruby conf) - lazyatom
http://rubymanor.org/4/
======
buddhamagnet
Ruby Manor - love the ethic. Determined to make it this year!
~~~
lazyatom
Hope you get your ticket soon - they are selling pretty quickly...
------
benlovell
Because birds.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
You Can Call the Super Bowl the “Super Bowl” - coloneltcb
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/you-can-call-super-bowl-super-bowl
======
gshdg
As long as you’re willing to waste your time and resources defending a
lawsuit. Even if the lawsuit is winnable it’s unlikely to be worth the
trouble.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Israeli scientists develop tissue implants that won't be rejected - evo_9
https://www.israel21c.org/israeli-scientists-develop-implanted-organs-made-from-patients-own-cells/
======
andy-fillebrown
This is interesting stuff but I don't think the article describes anything
groundbreaking. The cells used by the scientists in the article are called
adipose-derived stem cells and their applications are already well known in
the regenerative medicine industry. See
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3668445](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3668445)
The biologists I develop software with have been talking about adipose-derived
stem cells for over a year, so I was hoping the article was going to announce
a technological leap in organ manufacturing. It did not.
~~~
azernik
The joys of press releases vs. actual scientific papers.
~~~
pjschlic
The innovation is personalized hydrogels built to avoid rejection, not the
induced pluripotent stem cells which were re-differentiated into things. The
key was the structural materials which hold those cells.
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201803895](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201803895)
~~~
andy-fillebrown
That makes sense but is hydrogel rejection really a thing? I thought hydrogels
were already safe from rejection because they don’t contain anything the
immune system sees as a threat. Same goes for collagen, no?
------
claytonius
It seems to me that the main advancement here is that the native extracellular
matrix is being re-seeded with differentiated stem cells, as opposed to
ordinary tissue engineering which uses a manufactured ECM or tissue
transplants, which do not involve making stem cells.
There’s still a long way to go before organs can be engineered, even with this
tech. We will need much finer control over the delivery of differentiating
signal factors for pluripotent stem cells as well as ECM structure.
~~~
riazrizvi
I thought we already had processes for taking pig organs to use as ECMs (by
chemically flushing them of cells) and then reseeding then with a patient’s
stem cells? If so then this discovery is about not requiring stem cells,
instead they have found a new reliable process to repurpose stomach cells,
which are obviously easier to harvest.
~~~
claytonius
You're right that we could already re-seed decellularized pig ECMs with human
stem cells, but we have also already been able to derive stem cells from the
stomach. I think the main claim that they're making is that by deriving both
the ECM and the Stem cells from the patient, the resulting tissue engineering
scaffold is less immunogenic than other methods.
While this is somewhat interesting, they get into trouble by going on to claim
that they've been able to generate "functional cardiac, cortical, spinal cord,
and adipogenic tissue implants". From what I can see in the paper they saw
increased expression of a few markers associated with those cell types and
some minor electrical activity, etc.
The idea that differentiating stem cells into vaguely tissue-like phenotypes
is equivalent to being able to manufacture organs brings back memories of the
shenanigans that went down at UCL a few years ago [1].
1\. [https://forbetterscience.com/2016/12/21/birchalls-trachea-
tr...](https://forbetterscience.com/2016/12/21/birchalls-trachea-transplant-
trial-at-ucl-suspended-by-health-authorities/)
~~~
trhway
>decellularized pig ECMs
why not 3d print the ECMs? Isn't it just basically collagen with some
fibrin/laminin thrown into? Do the decellularized ECMs not have any immunogens
left? Definitely isn't an issue with the printed ones.
~~~
claytonius
Unfortunately even with just collagen we can see an immunogenic response that
is annoyingly exacerbated by UV cross-linking of the individual collagen
proteins. That's why many of the best manufactured ECMs are cross-linked using
a mixture of UV exposure and EDC-NHS. Without photolithography i'm not sure
you'd be able to get a resolution high enough to mimic native ECM structures.
------
surgeryres
No one likes to talk about the potential side effects of stem cell therapy.
They express tissue factor, which increases after culture required for these
treatments. Tissue factor is highly thrombogenic and can cause blood clots.
[https://stemcellsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/1...](https://stemcellsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/sctm.18-0015)
------
anfilt
Sounds like great news for damaged organs, but the article seems imply full
organs.
Like the first line is: "cutting the risk of an immune response to implanted
organs."
------
HocusLocus
I feel threatened by this and consider my ability to reject tissue implants as
a last line of defense.
------
biot
How does the immune system distinguish between native tissue and foreign
tissue?
~~~
vibrio
Many ways you could a semester of immunology on this. High a level there are
molecules called MHC (Major Histocompatability Complex), or HLA (Human
Leukocyte Antigen). They are very important to the immune system in a number
of ways. Any individual has a few sets of these, and there are many different
genetic types of these molecules so the differences between any two people can
be many. The immune system is even sensitive to their absence, since their
down regulation is a strategy for some pathogens such as virus. Anyway, as the
name MHC suggests, this is one way that the immune system detects foreign
tissue.
~~~
weberc2
Apologies for an unsubstantial comment, but biology blows my mind.
Do we know when these features in our immune system evolved? I assume
something this foundational is shared with fish or maybe earlier?
~~~
reubenswartz
Vertebrates have an adaptive immune system. It’s astounding from a biological
and information theory perspective. Genes basically mutate themselves so they
can form an enormous variety of proteins instead of the typical one to one
mapping of gene to protein. Then there is a protein selection process that
weeds out those antigens that bind to the host of that don’t bind to anything,
leaving those that can bind to foreign proteins. (There’s another process to
replicate antigens when they attack something.)
At least, that’s my primitive understanding. Come on HN, please someone fill
in the real story, because I’d love to understand it better. :)
~~~
vibrio
I think you described it pretty well. my version of the same: During their
development Lymphocytes have 'gene cassettes' that get shuffled randomly so
that the specificity of the receptor (antibody for cells, T cell receptor for
T cells) is random for each individual lymphocyte cell during development. The
ones that bind "Self" stuff are killed off during their development and the
rest of them other just hang out waiting for something that binds their
receptor. (There is a step here where T cells must bind to MHC within an
affinity window to survive) If they find it the reproduce rapidly making many
more cells with that specify. once amazing thing is that during that cell
replication at the sites of antibody specificity the DNA copying gets sloppy,
allowing new mutations to 'fine tune' the specificity of the antibody to the
antigen (called somatic hypermutation). The cells that bind the tightest to
the foreign antigen, reproduce the most robustly providing an 'evolution' of
increasing affinity to the antigen. This stuff is only the tip of the iceberg
- immunology it is amazing.
------
youeseh
Broadly speaking, does this mean that all we have to do now is figure out how
to rejuvenate the brain and spinal chord because everything else is
replaceable?
------
effnorwood
They didn't
------
car
The title is totally misleading.
\- The 'implants' are not organs.
\- The cells being implanted are from the recipient, so they naturally won't
be rejected.
If the headline were true at all, we'd be reading about this in one of the big
journals.
Edit: changed transplant to implant
~~~
24gttghh
>\- The cells being implanted are from the recipient, so they naturally won't
be rejected.
Well, they appear to have engineered a patient's own cells into stem cells
which were then re-implanted into a patient(s).
>“We were able to create a personalized hydrogel from the materials of the
biopsy, to differentiate fatty tissue cells into different cell types and to
engineer cardiac, spinal cord, cortical and other tissue implants to treat
different diseases,” said lead researcher Prof. Tal Dvir
>The researchers extracted a small biopsy of fatty tissue from patients, then
separated its cellular and a-cellular materials. While the cells were
reprogrammed to become induced pluripotent stem cells — able to make cells
from all three basic body layers, so they can potentially produce any cell or
tissue the body needs to repair itself — the extracellular material was
processed to become a personalized hydrogel.
------
lou1306
The title is about "organs", but the article apparently refers to tissue
transplants? No small feat, don't get me wrong, but isn't it a little
misleading?
~~~
yohann305
you're right, there is a difference between organs. Tissue make up organs just
like amino acids would make proteins.
Here is a clear explanation:
The difference between cells, tissues and organs. A group of cells working
together is defined as a tissue and several tissues working together comprise
an organ*
source: [https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/fundamentals/the-human-
bod...](https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/fundamentals/the-human-body/tissues-
and-organs)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Facebook Users Who Hate Change Making Facebook Developers Hate Facebook Users - pakafka
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/9/facebook-users-who-hate-change-making-facebook-developers-hate-facebook-users
======
josefresco
Some revolt... as the commenter said they should just stop using the damn site
and leave the third party developers alone.
That fact that they _need_ classic Facebook so much they're willing to become
a 'developer' to exploit a profile work-around means they're more addicted to
Facebook than the average user.
It's a win-win for FB.
~~~
nostrademons
Not necessarily - pissed-off yet addicted users are often the driving force
behind adoption of competitors, should one arise. For example, Y!Mail adopted
its redesign about a year after GMail came out, and a lot of my friends that
had been loyal Y!Mail users (and GMail holdouts) switched because Yahoo was
taking away their UI anyway. Most of the modern Harry Potter fandom sites
(FictionAlley, SugarQuill, GryffindorTower) were created because
Fanfiction.net abolished their forums. The final nail in classic Netscape's
coffin may've been that they changed their UI for Netscape 6, so that IE5.5
was more like classic Netscape than the new Netscape was.
~~~
unalone
The difference is: name a web site that could POSSIBLY work as a replacement
to Facebook.
New Facebook is still fast. It's incredibly effective. It's just new, and as
such takes some getting used to. Once the change is done, people will adapt.
And the reason they will? Because no other web site has TRIED making a
platform as powerful as Facebook's. Not even Bebo or Virb come close.
------
zzzmarcus
I used to run a fairly large social networking site (before it was called a
social network) with forums, photo galleries etc. and had a similar
experience. We changed the design fairly drastically and there was mass
revolt.
Two competing sites were started that were similar to our previous design. For
weeks it was all anyone talked about. People left, they said they'd never come
back and they joined the other sites.
After a month or two people started coming back. They started to see the
merits of the new design and features. After 3 or 4 months it was if nothing
had ever happened. The competing sites fizzled out and most of our users
returned.
Lesson learned was that people hate change but if it is change for the better
they'll generally recover from it.
------
hussong
Seems like they didn't channel the foreseeable hate properly.
~~~
electromagnetic
It reminds me of Microsoft's change from Hotmail to Hotmail Live, which took
10 times longer to load and glitched constantly and I now have like 400 unread
emails because I stopped using it. I now have a domain name in my own name so
I literally tell people my email is (first name)@(full name).com and it works
so much simpler.
However, the ironic thing is my email is hosted on the same server as my
brothers, yet I haven't seen or emailed him in like 6 months.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Building your bot's brain with Node.js and spaCy - syllogism
https://explosion.ai/blog/chatbot-node-js-spacy
======
orthoganol
Having dabbled in an ontology + first-order logic approach to a general
intelligence agent, which seems perhaps in the same ballpark as this approach,
I think one of the hardest aspects is automatically getting an actually
useful, extensive KB. It essentially represents an agent gaining "real world
experience", maybe the most important thing for a general intelligence bot.
The documentation doesn't appear to describe obtaining the concepts for the
graph, so I'm wondering, from where or through what methods do you get the
concepts for your CGKB graph?
~~~
kengzwl
It's still a very early project, trying to figure that out myself too! A very
first working implementation can take the intersection between the functions
the bot can perform (since otherwise it'd be meaningless to list it as an
executable function) and the nodes in the kb. So those marked nodes would be
the "trigger" that once called, will traverse the graph to collect the
relevant functional arguments (or ask the human for missing info otherwise).
Easier said than done of course, still quite a lot of details to flush out.
------
amirouche
Direct link to documentation:
[http://kengz.me/aiva/#aiva](http://kengz.me/aiva/#aiva)
~~~
kengzwl
Anyone interested in the theoretical outline can find its first draft here: \-
HTMI [http://kengz.me/aiva/#human-turing-machine-
interface](http://kengz.me/aiva/#human-turing-machine-interface) \- CGKB
[http://kengz.me/aiva/#contextual-graph-knowledge-
base](http://kengz.me/aiva/#contextual-graph-knowledge-base)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Spacepath: a demonstration of A* pathfinding applied to Newtonian physics - matthew-piziak
https://github.com/matthew-piziak/spacepath
======
matthew-piziak
Direct link to 31 random prerendered demos:
[http://imgur.com/a/K8XfM](http://imgur.com/a/K8XfM)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Good to Great author Jim Collins answers questions - jamongkad
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/02/19/8400260/index.htm
======
danielha
"They followed the "first who" approach to entrepreneurship: First figure out
your partners, then figure out what ideas to pursue. The most important thing
isn't the market you target, the product you develop or the financing, but the
founding team."
This morsel of advice sounds familiar, doesn't it? Lone entrepreneurs of
yc.news: Less justifying reasons to stay a one-person team, more getting a
good buddy to embark on the startup journey with you.
~~~
python_kiss
It's interesting to hear this advice from multiple channels. I was just on
phone with iJigg cofounder (zaidf on news.yc) and he emphasized this point as
well.
I finished reading first three chapters of "Founders At Work", and this advice
seems to be consistent with all three interviewees. I am sure there are
exceptions to the rule; but generally speaking, it pays to have a good team.
------
python_kiss
"Good to Great" and "Built to Last" are both amazing books. But I do not
recommend it to startup founders unless you're planning for an IPO. Both books
were written to entice established corporations (GE, Sony, P&G;, etc) not
startups. CEO's of big companies will certainly find Jim Collins of much help,
but us startup founders won't. Though, it is a definite read if you've some
spare time on your hand :)
------
jamongkad
I could'nt agree more ;) having a team, especially a good team is very
important for a start up. The reason I think it's common on multiple channels
cuz it's the most important thing imho. I agree that there are some chapters
in "Good to Great" that are not exactly applicable to startups. But maybe I
can extract a few that that I believe is essential to start up life. Such as
the "first who" approach, and the equally important "Stockdale Paradox".
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
India’s Call-Center Talents Put to a Criminal Use: Swindling Americans - flippyhead
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/03/world/asia/india-call-centers-fraud-americans.html?ref=technology
======
tdumitrescu
For many of us it can be hard to imagine what kind of gullible dweebs go for
this. The other week I was quite surprised to learn from family that my father
had given money to one of these scams (the "you have computer virus"
variation). This is the man who brought our first personal computer home in
the early 80s, got me set up with BASIC, still keeps his Fortran code around,
i.e. not technically illiterate by any means. But you know what? He's in his
80s, and though he doesn't show any signs of dementia/senility/Alzheimer's, he
just doesn't have the energy and interest to keep up with all this stuff
anymore, and at his age he's used to getting a lot of _legitimate_ calls from
strangers working at doctors' offices, benefits agencies etc. The same man who
taught me to be overly paranoid about anything a stranger asks of you now
doesn't have the willpower to see through these scams - why yes, his 7-year-
old malware-riddled Windows PC sure does seem like it could have a virus, and
this seems like oh just a business trying to profit by cleaning your computer
for you, and if they can manage it where all these anti-virus companies have
failed him then great! We're really in an era where extracting money from old
people has never been easier.
~~~
amalag
My dad is technically illiterate but all he needs is a web browser so I got
him a Chromebook. It is more than enough for most people and if Google can
keep it malware free it is a big accomplishment.
------
docdeek
"If they reached a person who was sufficiently terrified or gullible — this
was known in the business as a “sale” — they would instruct that person to buy
thousands of dollars’ worth of iTunes cards to avoid prosecution, they said…”
Fascinating story but how is it that people believe their government accepts
payments in iTunes gift cards?
The money transfers also referenced in the article sound a little more
legitimate (though still not sounding kosher) but is there some reason to
believe that a US government agency would ever ask for payment in anything
other than dollars?
~~~
notahacker
That was my first thought. That said, it sounds like they may be targeting
first generation immigrants, and their successes come when they get through to
someone who's not very familiar with US norms, and perhaps rather more
familiar with the concept that problems sometimes go away after making
illegitimate payments in unconventional ways to officials.
My second thought was to wonder how purchases and redemptions of thousands of
dollars worth of iTunes gift cards managed not to be flagged up by Apple,
bearing in my there's certainly enough money flowing through their systems for
law enforcement to be very interested in monitoring their compliance with
KYC/AML regulations?
~~~
jdavis703
They're probably just reselling the cards. No need for anyone to buy digital
assets from Apple.
~~~
pranjalv123
eventually someone needs to buy digital assets from apple for the cards to be
worth anything
~~~
jstanley
Not if a large enough group of people is willing to accept iTunes gift cards
as payment.
As long as they are a token that is sufficiently expensive to get hold of, I
don't see why an economy can't work even if nobody ever spends them with
Apple. It'd be like an economy based on gold coins in which nobody ever melts
the coins down for their value as raw gold.
~~~
notahacker
My understanding is that the real bottleneck is that if you want to buy iTunes
gift cards in large denominations you have to go to Apple or a reputable
retailer and specifically ask the vendor to put up to $500 on the card and
charge it to you. If you're doing that several times in a row to it probably
ought to raise a flag with Apple, the vendor or possibly your bank.
Relative to cash or gold, the token also has the not insignificant problem
that it's time limited and can be secretly spent or voided, which should
result in the card being substantially discounted (and checked for validity
with Apple) each time it changes hands. It's also officially "not for
resale"...
------
jessriedel
Off-topic: I've noticed in the past few years that many call center workers
have a new, distinct sort of accent and cadence. I don't think this is just a
change in the language demographics of the workers because (1) I can still
usually distinguish Indian speakers, although I could be wrong, and (2) it's
really a different shared cadence rather than just different sounds.
Has there been any systematic change in how the language training for call
center workers is done?
------
xtacy
It's unfortunate that such a scheme exists, which pollutes the youth of the
nation. I too received several calls from an "unknown" number trying to extort
money by having me install some anti-virus software to fix a non-existent
computer issue.
------
gottebp
I'd really love to have a uBlock Origin/AdBlock type of program to maintain my
phone's calling number blacklist.
eg: If more than X Android users block a number it should block automatically
for everyone.
Guessing the blacklist must not be accessible via the Android/iOS APIs or this
would already exist.
~~~
tyingq
This kind of scam, though, works just fine if they change their phone number
every day, hour, or minute...and with VOIP, there's little added cost or
complexity to do so.
There really needs to be something for phone numbers similar to rfc2827 for ip
spoofing. Or, better still, a reliable way to map a phone number to a legal
entity.
------
CapitalistCartr
Normally I tell these guys I'm with the National Terrorist Tracking Center and
we've determined they are a terrorist, etc. The last time I decided to change
it up a bit and went with, "What are you wearing?" etc. On speakerphone. With
my wife listening. Well, wife now. We were in the parking lot of her hair
salon having her hair done for our wedding. We have a similar sense of humor.
You'd think by now I'd be on _their_ do-not-call list.
~~~
nogridbag
I've listened to enough of these calls on youtube to realize most of these
scammers think they're untouchable (and surely have been for several years) so
unfortunately I doubt telling them you're from a terrorist tracking center
will have any impact :)
While not an Indian scam, I was getting tons of calls for the vacation package
scam for months from random phone numbers. If you're not familiar with it,
they basically say "You've one of the following: A brand new SUV, and HD TV,
or a vacation package! Just come to our office to find out what you won". I'm
sure it's blatantly obvious to HN readers that you haven't won any prize and
instead they'll try to sell you on the vacation package, but this one bothered
me because it fooled my parents. I did eventually get them to stop calling me,
but the contents of those calls aren't exactly HN worthy :/
------
FussyZeus
Anyone who gets a lot of this crap in your phone, I recommend TrueCaller. Been
a lifesaver, gets probably 19/20 of the scam and spam calls (at least for me,
YMMV).
I got one of these WAY back in the day from some doofus saying he was from the
FBI and he was outside my house. Yeah...no cars out there for 2 miles in any
direction, told him he was a bloody idiot and hung up. He actually called back
and tried to get me going again! Gotta give him points for determination.
------
modi15
The call center might be indian, but the guy making most of the money is
always an American. The people making these calls are reading of a script and
entering data into a database. This script and the numbers are provided by an
American client - and some of that is legal outbound marketing also. Looking
at the script, it is non trivial for any agent to know whether it is legal or
not.
------
ggame
More high paying American jobs going overseas :(
In a serious note; I'm from a country where reputation is king and a handshake
seals a deal so I was not used to the shadyness I experienced living in the
US. Homeless people with made up stories, used car salesmen hiding serious
flaw in their cars, hidden charges and fees on services, optional insurance
that isn't optional, worthless employee stock options, bank accounts secretly
opened with forced overdrafts, online universities, kickstarter, financial
services, HMOs, Haitian charities, lobbyists, housing bubble, tech bubble etc.
etc. The point is that the US has plenty of home grown 'scams' and the only
thing happening here is that otherwise marginal scams are profitable enough
for Indias. It's like worrying about losing $100 to muggers on a street while
your pension is being eaten up by fees.
I'm not saying don't worry about the small stuff, what I am saying is that, to
me, I see the US as the mecha of frauds.
~~~
jungletek
>I see the US as the mecha of frauds
Oh god, I'm imagining a fraud-based Gundam now, thanks.
FYI, you want 'Mecca' in this context. A 'mecha' is typically a reference to
giant robots, etc.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecha)
------
callinyouin
Although not a scam like this, my parents were tricked into buying an
"antivirus" product from a phone call from India. The whole thing was a little
bizarre as it wasn't an outright scam. I never got to see the program in
working order but I believe it was an actual attempt at creating a real AV
product, although probably bundled with spy/malware. By the time they asked me
for help their laptop running Windows Vista was riddled startup errors, most
referring to non-existing registry entries. My only guess is that the
"company" or whatever it was hit some sort of kill switch, leaving their
software in a broken state. It took me a while to clean everything up. In the
end I think my parents spent a few hundred dollars on the product and nothing
suspicious ever happened with their bank account.
------
ashark
Relatedly, anyone know how/why the Do Not Call Registry has become totally
useless? I get probably 10+ spam calls a week now, often for business loans
and such (I don't own a business). It's made phone calls the worst way (most
likely to be ignored for a long time, or missed entirely) to get in touch with
me.
Just confirmed, my number's on it and has been since '04\. I get about as many
junk calls as I did pre-registry now, though it worked really well for the
first ~8 years.
~~~
holdenc
Cheap, unregulated IP telephony and disposable phone numbers have made it easy
to spam phones, unfortunately.
~~~
tyingq
Plus the ability to spoof caller ID with almost no chance of being caught.
------
Senji
You should be able to forbid incoming calls from certain countries on your
line. Or international calls at all.
This would be very useful for grandparents. Why isn't this a thing yet?
~~~
dangerboysteve
because VOIP will get around that.
~~~
Clubber
Yes, but it will increase the cost to the scammers and filter out the ones
that can't figure it out.
Possibly have a reroute rather than a block so it's harder to detect. Reroute
the calls to a voice mailbox that essentially saves to /dev/null.
~~~
Senji
Can you reroute to a pay service? So every time they call you they get dinged?
------
Nano2rad
It is surprising US gov does not take this seriously and has not worked with
Indian govt to stop these fraudulent organizations. The main players in the
scam from Ahmedabad has not been caught as per the report. Also I am happy and
slightly worried that the 2 boys who informed trade commission has come out in
the open. It is better to be anonymous when you report such things especially
if you are in India.
------
jdfellow
In this podcast the host records a call with one of these IRS scams.
[http://tomwoods.com/ep-729-the-real-story-of-the-epipen-
fias...](http://tomwoods.com/ep-729-the-real-story-of-the-epipen-fiasco-plus-
tom-takes-on-scammers-over-the-phone/)
Starts at 11:58. It's quite entertaining.
------
thinkMOAR
You can safely replace Americans with 'citizens of any non 3rd world country'.
~~~
hobarrera
Nope, it's mostly people in the US that fear their governments like that.
I don't see anyone from Finland, Iceland, or Holand falling for this sort of
thing (language barriers aside), because they don't run around scared of the
government.
~~~
gnufied
It seems scammers are targeting first generation immigrants to US more than
anyone else. Now - as a immigrant myself I can imagine how traumatic it can be
to get call from IRS when you don't know your way around tax system.
Obviously - people on HN are an exception but often times - life of an
immigrant hangs by a thread - "there is an EAD renewal coming up in Feb if it
doesn't get approved (for some reason), you lose your job, lose your home, may
even have to go back to your home country".
------
finid
Indian version of the Nigerian 419.
~~~
md2be
What's the India's governments postion on this?
~~~
vthallam
I don't think a govt would have any position on this. The law enforcement
agencies are actively working on tracking and finding out these people which
is how this came into limelight.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Try exercise to improve memory, thinking - happy-go-lucky
https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/new-guideline-try-exercise-to-improve-memory-thinking/
======
nicolashahn
A study that says that exercise cures this or that seems to come out every
week, but the fact remains remains that convincing people to do it is the hard
part.
To quote Ann from Parks and Rec: "Jogging is the worst, Chris. I mean, I know
it keeps you healthy, but God, at what cost?"
The only thing I can say is start with as only much as you're comfortable with
and no more, and pat yourself on the back for doing it. Building the habit is
so much more important than making progress in the beginning.
~~~
agumonkey
I don't get what system in our brain causes so much resistance to new
obviously rewarding habits.
Sometimes it's so hard, to get started. It's indeed a huge step to begin a
schedule. That said I also found that there's a step where I'm motivated just
to see if I can reach a goal. Say 5km jogging. And when I reached it, I may
try a new goal, but very often I suddenly lose most desire and pleasure.
Before that, every mile felt like a victory nearby. Now it's meh. I guess it's
necessary to account for such "plateau" and wave around a goal for a while,
then have a stretch up period, then loop.
~~~
eitland
> I don't get what system in our brain causes so much resistance to new
> obviously rewarding habits.
I won't go into details about what I think - but two books that have helped me
understand and deal with the symptoms (and possibly helped me help others)
are:
Do the Work - Steven Pressfield
The Now Habit - Neil Fiore
~~~
agumonkey
Thanks, just what I was looking for.
ps: something someone (I forgot who) said too is : finish finish finish.
multitasking is only worth to an extent; past some point it becomes an
addiction in itself.
------
clumsysmurf
I love to exercise. I could do it all day long. I have often walked 3-4 hours
a day when the air quality is good ...
and thats the problem. Many people, myself included, live in areas where the
AQI leaves me wondering if I'm actually harming myself by being outside and
exercising.
Right now the Airnow AQI for Denver, PM 2.5 is yellow (Unusually sensitive
people should consider reducing prolonged or heavy exertion). I think that
includes people that exercise, so I won't walk. But these mathematical models
leave me wondering about their accuracy, how many sensors were used, are they
accurate at this exact moment, etc.
I wish there was better information at our disposal where we could make better
decisions on when a dosage of exercise is worth it given a certain AQI (PM2.5,
PM2.10, Ozone, etc).
~~~
Swizec
Maybe I’m misreading something in the tone, but when _unusually_ sensitive
people should _consider_ maybe changing their planned a activities a little
bit what does that mean for the average healthy person?
It kind of sounds like a non-warning.
I mean what’s prolonged exertion anyway? A marathon? 10 hours of physical
labor like construction? A light jog in the park?
And what is “reduce”? Stop completely? Switch from marathon to half marathon?
Work a 5 hour construction shift instead of 10?
Somehow I don’t think physical laborers are reducing their workload for this.
------
hmahncke
This is a Mayo Clinic commentary on a publication in Neurology:
[http://n.neurology.org/content/early/2017/12/27/WNL.00000000...](http://n.neurology.org/content/early/2017/12/27/WNL.0000000000004826)
in which a group of physicians "systematically reviewed MCI prevalence,
prognosis, and treatment." The recommendations specifically apply to Mild
Cognitive Impairment, which is a pre-Alzheimer's like condition where
cognitive function has declined significantly from age-norms or recent
history, but not enough to interfere with activities of daily living (and so
does not meet the diagnostic criteria for Alzheimer's/dementia).
What's interesting about the review is that for the first time, two
interventions are suggested: physical exercise (as mentioned in the headline),
and cognitive training. Pharmaceuticals for Alzheimer's are commonly
prescribed for MCI; but this review specifically notes that no high quality
evidence exists for their efficacy in MCI.
------
NamPNQ
The Amazon CloudFront distribution is configured to block access from your
country.
~~~
rainbowmverse
See if this works:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20171229024557/https://newsnetwo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20171229024557/https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/new-
guideline-try-exercise-to-improve-memory-thinking/)
I doubt the internet archive does goofy country-level blocking, but you never
know.
------
sus_007
Here's an alternative source:
[https://sciencesources.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-12/m...](https://sciencesources.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-12/mc-
ng122617.php)
------
aviv
What's new about this guideline?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why our startup is selling services - netmau5
http://blog.davejafari.com/why-were-selling-services
======
rmATinnovafy
I wish you would have expanded a bit more. Consulting does indeed bring in
some chashflow when its most needed (I do it, too (email on profile)). But
what are your reasons for consulting, aside from money?
Also, consulting brings a host of other problems. Managing time is a tough
one. Unless one is a circus juggler, switching between projects is almost
impossible. Plus people tend to push back their MVP to keep a client happy.
Anyhow, just write a bit more.
~~~
netmau5
It sounds like your curious on how to manage both a client and an internal
project. I'll be happy to share our experiences doing so later. The simple
explanation is to have a good understanding of your development velocity,
treat each project the same in resource allocation, and set expectations for
both your team and your client.
In our case, we have more time-flexibility in our current client project as it
was done on a fixed-price bid. We're also at different stages of each project:
one is firmly in implementation and the other is in leaving initial research
and starting into business model iterations via customer development.
~~~
rmATinnovafy
I've been doing consulting for a while. Not only on software, but on other
industries.
I'm curious about your whole experience. It seems that you are a bunch of
smart people cooking up an awesome startup. That's why I want to read more.
You mention doing a fixed-price bid project. Could you expand on that?
~~~
netmau5
I don't really adhere to the fixed vs variable pricing schemes too strongly,
they are just trade-offs. In fixed-price, we're taking much of the
implementation risk onto ourselves. In exchange, we ask for a stringent
requirements phase and a little flexibility on delivery dates from our client.
Our sprints are basically at 2/3rds utilization and we've reserved the right
to take a couple off-weeks between sprints over the course of a 4 month
project. This gives us some strategic leverage in picking up attractive small
projects so we don't have to completely close up. It also gives us the
opportunity to do full sprints on our own product if our MVP tests, developed
during the 2/3rd sprints, look good.
That being said, flexibility does not mean half-assed. We're doing our best
work whether it be for our clients or our customers.
------
Nate75Sanders
I like this article, but an important word that's missing from it is "demand".
Consulting allows you to keep an eye on what the market wants.
On the flip side, building a product allows you, potentially, to deliver
something that people don't even realize, yet, that they want.
Putting the two together: If you can abstract concepts from their material
demands while delivering their material demands, you get paid to produce
something that they want now and to learn what they might want that they don't
even realize.
~~~
SatvikBeri
Exactly. The approach that my current employer used (that worked really well)
was to start with consulting, find out what customers valued the most, and
turn that into a product. This way they were profitable from day 1 and had
absolute proof that the product would be successful before writing a line of
code-pretty damn smart if you ask me.
------
AdrianRossouw
i think it's great in theory, and it can work.
It just takes a lot more self control. It's too easy for the consulting side
to take over, and it requires an iron will to prioritize that doesn't pay over
work that does.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Climate change represents a near- to mid-term threat to human civilisation - crispinb
http://www.climatecodered.org/2019/05/can-we-think-in-new-ways-about.html
======
maxheadroom
> _A doomsday future is not inevitable! But without immediate drastic action
> our prospects are poor._
So, what you're saying is: Unless we (immediately and drastically) change our
behaviour, it's a doomsday scenario[0,1,2]...
Doesn't that make it inevitable because it seems that nobody has or is
changing their behaviour drastically enough - any time in the recent past or
the nearest enough future - to prevent it (based on projections)?
I mean, it's not as if this realisation struck us just yesterday, yeah? We've
had some time to prepare and/or give enough of a shit about this to try to
affect it, right?
Also, you're expecting (almost) the entirety of an egocentric species - one
that was entirely ok with the mass extinctions that it has caused so far - to
suddenly, overnight give a rat's ass about the future state of the entire
world and everything within it...?
They're so far up their own asses about 'x' trivial thing (compared to the
literal death of the species/planet) that they're seeing teeth and _loving_
it.
I - for one - welcome the end times.
Fucking shake that etch-a-sketch, biology, let's try this shit again.
[0] - [https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/food-insecurity-
index/](https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/food-insecurity-index/)
[1] - [https://www.theguardian.com/global-
development/2013/apr/13/c...](https://www.theguardian.com/global-
development/2013/apr/13/climate-change-millions-starvation-scientists)
[2] - [https://www.scidev.net/global/climate-change/news/put-
agricu...](https://www.scidev.net/global/climate-change/news/put-agriculture-
at-heart-of-climate-talks-says-rep.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Gandi.net under heavy DDoS - webmonkeyuk
https://status.gandi.net/timeline/events/97
======
cpncrunch
After my server was hit with a DDoS attack a few months ago for no apparent
reason, I decided to move to OVH as they are the only dedicated server
provider that offers free DDoS protection as standard.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Design of the Ford Probe IV, 1983 - zephyrfalcon
http://www.gminsidenews.com/forums/f19/1983-ford-probe-iv-concept-75145/
======
Zhenya
Thanks for posting this. I'm a geek and a car enthusiast, hope there are more
on HN like us.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Larry Wildman – Send free, anonymous postcards to horrible bosses - larrywildman
https://www.larrywildman.com/#send
======
chrissnell
This is so passive-aggressive and juvenile. If you don't like the way your
company is being run, there are three acceptable options:
\- Summon the courage to say something about it and brave the consequences.
\- Leave the company honorably and work somewhere else (or start your own
company).
\- Keep your mouth shut and blow off steam at the gym, bar, or therapist like
everyone else.
If you can't go to your boss or boss's boss with a legitimate problem, you
took the wrong job offer.
If I was an angel investor, I would not work with anyone who participated in
this site.
~~~
chillingeffect
You're right, your system works for you, but could you explain why you expect
it to work for other people with different situations and experiences from
your own?
I don't believe it's applicable very widely at all. For example, when it comes
to "braving the consequences," the consequences affect those beyond ourselves,
such as our dependents. I could be extremely courageous and then brave, but it
doesn't feed children, in-laws or pay the mortgage if the consequences involve
getting fired or demoted.
~~~
mwfunk
If you (the general "you", not you specifically, and hopefully not you at all
:) are working someplace where this sort of anonymous nastygram to a manager
is the most pragmatic way to make your voice heard, the fact that you work in
that sort of environment is a much bigger problem in your life than whatever
problem the anonymous nastygram might help with. Your time would be better
spent finding a new place to work rather than sending anonymous nastygrams.
The best possible outcome from an anonymous nastygram still leaves you working
someplace where the only way to make your voice heard is via anonymous
nastygrams, and that's unacceptable as a long-term solution for anyone,
anywhere. As a short-term solution to a specific problem, it's still not
likely to help- it'll just foment paranoia and ill-will. In fact, the passive-
aggressive approach is probably only going to have a constructive outcome with
managers who care enough about their employees that it would be better to just
talk to them anyway. The terrible managers this is designed for will just
double down on their terribleness if they were to receive something like this.
I don't think anyone's suggesting that someone in this situation should quit
their job and then start looking for something new. No one should ever do that
if they can reasonably avoid it. But that person should definitely be putting
all their energy into finding a new job rather than trying to patch up their
current, unfixable employment situation to be more bearable.
------
returnbuyer
This is brilliant guerrilla marketing, Larry.
I understand that the people who are being sent these, are ripe prospects for
your consulting services!
Good job thinking outside the box.
~~~
bduerst
Yeah, this is how you get people to build a lead list for you.
------
wmil
Looks like there's no verification of the sender. So you can send these to
whomever you want.
------
TazeTSchnitzel
> Larry Wildman Is The New Union.
> Gone are days where workers could organize and negotiate company-wide
> change. Today, new companies must be formed with these changes in mind from
> the beginning.
This is almost self-parody.
------
miles_matthias
Don't really think this is useful. Sent one to Trump though! :)
------
6stringmerc
Uh, if anybody needs an example how using an online service to convey emotions
toward a co-worker can backfire, this case should be one for y'all to keep an
eye on:
"Dallas HR director files suit to find out who sent her penis-shaped candy"
[http://www.fox4news.com/news/226319020-story](http://www.fox4news.com/news/226319020-story)
Gender issues aside, I could see how it could be hazardous for any kind of
motivation. YMMV.
------
exabrial
lets say you're looking for lucrative industries to 'disrupt'... why not just
ask employees of poorly managed companies? Brilliant!
------
benzofuran
Are there any metrics on how many Larry Wildmans (Wildmen?) are engaged with
the site already, and how many new corporations have been formed? And any
challenges yet to anti-poaching clauses?
~~~
exabrial
It seems most of the "anti-poaching" cases that have come up on HN end in
favor of the employees (in California at least). Curious if there's national
precedent.
~~~
benzofuran
California being the example, and in the tech sector. Less progressive states
take a bit more draconian view, but typically seem to involve bosses taking
team members and not team members clumping together.
------
arielm
I think this is a neat idea, however I'm pretty sure the boss who'd know what
to do with it probably isn't the boss who will get (m)any of these.
As a founder who's always open to feedback I want to know if someone thinks
I'm/we're doing something wrong. But... I also understand how hard it is to
tell your boss you think he/she is wrong, especially if there's no additional
feedback. Still, if you think something can be better you should always speak
up.
------
facepalm
Might be fun to send to the competition, to undermine morale.
------
cryptozeus
This is same as anonymously post aggressive comments on the internet to proove
your point....
------
WhitneyLand
I've seen this happen to an exec on GlassDoor where it was just attacks with
nothing constructive.
The unfortunate part was the exec actually wanted to improve things and would
have loved to have had real constructive criticism.
------
codegeek
Fun project. But thats about it. I can only imagine trying this and then next
morning, the boss pulling in everybody in a meeting just to ask "whodunit".
~~~
ytjohn
His other business will be marketed using direct mail. A day or two after the
anonymous post card is sent, another post card is sent, offering the boss a
chance to pay for the identity of the previous card's sender.
------
Walkman
I find this terrible. Why not face the boss and talk about the problems you
have? Also if you are unhappy there you should just leave.
------
jessaustin
Has there ever been a popular link on HN that so thoroughly deserved the label
"NSFW"?
------
dragonbonheur
Marketing Genius! Great way to get leads and consulting opportunities.
------
pvaldes
Sounds like Ashley Madison 2.0 to me...
------
nkg
I think it's funny.
------
Jemaclus
This is hilarious.
------
proaralyst
There are a few spelling mistakes here:
> gage their interest (should be gauge)
> You're happiness (should be your)
> someone elses wheel (missing ' in else's)
> until their comfortable (should be they're)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Anyone using Lucene (or Nutch or Solr)? How's it working? - brett
http://www.feld.com/blog/archives/002262.html
======
jkush
We are using lucene at <http://www.todotoh.com>
We're using it to index questions and answers and have plans to extend it to
recommend questions and answers to a user based on their interaction with
other q's and a's.
What are you using it for?
------
nostrademons
We're using it at my day job, for search and indexing of financial news. I'm
not directly involved with that part of the product, but I haven't heard any
complaints from the programmers that are, and it seems to give us fairly nifty
capabilities.
------
brett
<http://lucene.apache.org>
<http://lucene.apache.org/nutch/>
<http://lucene.apache.org/solr/>
------
budu3
I think they're using it successfully at Krugle.com
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Best Buy and Solar City - joshuahedlund
http://www.bestbuysolarcity.com/
======
BrandonMarc
They just need to outfit a house near MacGregor, TX, park a Tesla in front of
it, and take a picture with SpaceX doing a rocket flight test in the
background.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
17 Year Old Developer Goes Up Against 19/yo with $1.1 Million - chrisleydon
http://psocha.co.uk/im-a-17-year-old-developer-and-im-up-against-a-19-year-old-his-company-and-a-1-1m-investment
======
citricsquid
This is dumb.
> While I’m very excited for Gumroad, as someone who was just about to launch
> their startup, from a business point of view this is pretty bad. Had we gone
> with launched as a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) back in November as planned,
> things would have been much better, but we didn’t. Now I see why everyone in
> the startup world seems to be saying MVP in every second sentence; possibly
> because it’s damn well important getting your product out there.
This is just not true. Sahil (of Gumroad) is a very skilled person who has
proven himself and has a lot of connections, his company (Gumroad) has been
around since before November (in fact it's 11 months old now...) and this is
such a cop out. He is not going to beat you because he has investment, he's
going to beat you if his product is better than yours. You're also competing
against kout (<http://www.kout.me/>) and I'm sure there are others I don't
know about. The fact that Sahil launched Gumroad in a weekend and you've taken
over 6 months should show you that he is not just some dumb kid who got lucky,
he's someone good at what he does.
If anything this is a fucking wonderful thing for you, your idea has been
validated and investors think there is money in the product.
If you're going to quit, quit, but don't blame the success of Gumroad for it,
that's just a cop out. Oh and stop mentioning your age, it's irrelevant. Such
a terrible link-bait title...
~~~
angersock
I was going to feel bad for the person, but then I tried to use their site and
wasn't even able to get to an "About" page without needing to give up my email
address. I literally have no idea what the author makes other than a simple
sentence at the end of their post.
To the author: Keep up the good work, kid. Starting a business is rough, and
sometimes you strike out right out of the gate--happened to my first company.
Get up, dust off, and keep going--and don't waste your time or ours by
bringing up your age, because it doesn't matter.
~~~
c16
Thanks for your comment, I brought up age as that was a big part of why I
decided to persevere; we're both of similar age, have similar skill sets and
he's been hugely successful. Is that not a big enough motivator to get right
back up and keep working at it?
Sorry about the landing page too, you should be seeing the site but we're
holding back the launch just a few more short days.
~~~
angersock
You're welcome, and no worries. :)
Hey, why not launch now? You've already waited this long, and you've got HN's
attention. You aren't going to do any harm you can't fix with good customer
support in the next few weeks.
~~~
cecplascott
Awesome suggestion, why wait? Keep your eyes pealed, we might have something
out shortly.
------
mattquinn
Instead of worrying about trivial things like this, how about you focus on
actually making your site/product available? The number of ppl these days who
equate "launching" with _only_ putting up a sign-up form (or launchrock page)
is ridiculous.
~~~
cecplascott
We don't count our splash page as launching. We're talking about our physical
product.
------
pg_bot
What is your license agreement with regard to copyright? The only reason I am
hesitant to use gumroad is the following agreement in their terms and
conditions:
"When you give us content ("User Content"), you grant us a non-exclusive,
worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sub-licensable (through
multiple tiers) right to exercise any and all copyright, trademark, publicity,
and database rights (but no other rights) you have in the User Content, in any
media known now or in the future."
~~~
pbhjpbhj
It's an interesting clause - often such terms are simply to allow the content
to be used on the site and nothing more nefarious. Under this clause it seems
they shot themselves in the foot. If you transfer your rights it appears to
revoke their license … I doubt that's what they intended.
------
joedev
Keep on looking at it the "right way". Look, you'll rarely find a space where
there are no competitors. As you eluded to, competitors serve as validation of
your product.
~~~
cecplascott
That's a great way of looking at it! Thanks for the comment.
------
idl
If I see one more 'teenage startup' post like this on HN (or elsewhere) I
think I'll be sick.
It was cute at first, but now I only cringe whenever I see a title like this.
Tech blogs do it, news sites do it, and as we can see even the teenagers
themselves do it. It's pure link bait.
As said in another comment here, it's irrelevant. Almost every single young
entrepreneur's website I see puts their age to the very forefront. "Look at
me! I'm only this age! Here's my startup!" (which, a lot of the time, turns
out to be nothing but a LaunchRock page).
An associate of mine is the about the same age as these teenagers, but is the
complete opposite. He runs numerous 'web startups' and, more importantly,
actually generates revenue (high seven figures annually). Investors would fall
over themselves to invest. Tech blogs would salivate at his story. But he
stays away from that.
The thing is, there are countless young founders like this. Generating huge
profits, making big VC deals behind the scenes, working away under the radar.
Don't be fooled by the way tech blogs and news outlets try to make it seem so
unique.
Disregard your age. Ship a real product. Get users. Generate revenue.
~~~
brackin
I know many young founders doing all of this and not creating huge hype around
themselves. I do agree with your points but you can't put all young founders
in the same boat.
Playing devils advocate, if it gets you users, press, etc why not? I'm not
using it in this circumstance but if you want to get TechCrunched, have a
great product your age will help, why not use it?
The press always needs a story, every blogpost has a story, it may not be age
it may be funding or the fact you worked for Google or though of it on a
mountain, regardless every tech blogpost has a story not just 'this product
has launched'. Blame journalism, not the people conforming to it.
~~~
idl
I fully agree with you, do whatever it takes to help your startup. And yes
that's just how journalism works.
I'm mostly referring to the young founders' perspectives. Many of them get a
false sense of accomplishment and specialness by building a half decent
prototype just because of their age, and don't understand how beneficial it is
to have killer execution. They often see getting TechCrunched as an end goal,
instead of gaining true traction and building a real business.
~~~
brackin
I see what you mean and agree. Don't let your eye off the prize. Once you get
a lot of press you get distracted. If Mark Zuckerberg had a lot of press at 16
would he have got this far?
Then again this is the same for anything. People on reality tv, competitions,
etc
------
colin8chSE
I'm not sure why you're viewing GumRoad's funding as a negative.
I look at this as even more validation for my payments startup
<http://merchee.com>, which has similar basic functionality to GumRoad, but
focuses on subscription billing, offers affiliate marketing and checkout pages
that match your website.
A bunch of really smart people, who see a lot of different products, teams,
deals- They are betting that there is a market that will deliver ROI for
innovation in the payments space, and they're putting their money behind
Sahil, who has done a great job earning their backing. Please consider, he
hasn't come out of no where, this isn't a sudden "overnight success". Even
more validating is that lot of seasoned investors are doubling down on
innovations in the payments space- look at stripe's 1st and 2nd round of
funding for example (now with a valuation of $100 Million!).
Your competitor's ability to gain market adoption, traction and to raise funds
should motivate you to raise the bar and build a great product, now that you
"know" that it's a market that can reward your efforts.
------
darwindeeds
I'm glad you came out and spoke about it rather than ranting about it.
Remember Sahil is a famous guy around the startup circle, so dont expect a
million dollar funding just because yours looks like gumroad. Have a business
model that will make you revenue and build your user base. Listen to your
customers and make it the way they want. Put some thought into refunds
policies and Rating system that gumroad doesnt have yet.
I felt that gumroad funding was more for Sahil's credentials and than for
gumroad itself, so please take that into account.
~~~
c16
Hey, thanks for your comment!
Indeed he is, however both myself and my partner are from the UK. To some
extent I believe this is a great opportunity since the London tech scene is
progressively getting bigger and it gives us a chance to grow with it. Having
someone such as Sahil of similar age and ability to look up to is something
invaluable and quite honestly very encouraging.
------
brador
How do these services deal with scammers? and on the other side, chargebacks?
Can anyone just throw up a link to an imaginary "product" and watch the $$$
roll in while delivering nothing?
~~~
c16
Indeed you can, however in our case we're hosting the files. Prior to purchase
(via PayPal, so you can still file a dispute) you are given information such
as file type, size etc... Clearly if think you're buying a PSD and the site
shows the file to be in .pdf format and 0.01mb in size, you know something is
wrong.
~~~
brador
Ah I see, so it's a digital only service? that makes more sense.
~~~
c16
That's correct :)
------
corkill
If you want to hustle do it now, get aggressive, get your product out there,
make a better product, cut a better deal with influences/power users etc.
Keep working on this or other ideas and don't blame your lack of success on
external factors it is self defeating. First to market historically has almost
always lost, all about how execute it's a long long race to the top and when
you get there, better not slow down. Google wasn't first, facebook wasn't
first, apple is never first.
------
joshmanders
Don't worry about it. Competition is good for both of you, and who knows,
maybe yours turns out to be the one people like to use the most.
Good luck.
------
meow
While I do understand that there might be some complexity involved when
dealing with payment gateways etc, 6 months sounds too long.. were you
learning development on the way ? I'm honestly curious...
~~~
c16
There were multiple complexities along the way, mainly that education is still
an important part of my life. When I wasn't studying I was coding, and quite
often I'd go till two in the morning just to get back up at six and start the
day again.
Additionally both myself and my partner have learnt a lot along the way, for
instance we now have one designer we can rely on to get the job well done and
on time. Our previous one disappeared for a month on holiday without warning
and I admit, we waited too long before deciding to move on and find a new
designer. Little niggles such as this slowly but surely kept pushing back our
deadline.
We've had users persistently asking us when are we going to launch so you're
not the first, nor the last. Thanks for your interest however :)
------
OGxSWAG
Why do you feel the need to mention your age several times?
~~~
c16
The age difference is a huge motivator, with a small age gap, to me it
signifies that anything is possible for both myself and my partner. Just look
at Brian Wong from Kiip as another prime example.
I hope this answerers your question.
~~~
radicalbyte
It's great to see someone of your age taking the initiative to start their own
business. It's commendable.
However, if I were you I wouldn't make a big deal about your age & lack of
funding.
As a potential buyer, I'm not comfortable with giving my credit card details
to a 17yo kid. Especially as the problem space is such that it's really easy
to get started but pretty hard to get right..
~~~
c16
Thanks for your kind words. In regards to age and trust- we use PayPal to
manage all transactions so we never touch the money you make (payments are
made directly from buyer to seller), and amazon's S3 to host your files with
expiring download links.
If you have any other questions regarding how we manage payments/downloads
we'd be happy to answer them: hello [at] propelly.com
------
ck2
Is there any doubt we are in a bubble?
~~~
brackin
Why? Because there are young founders or something else? There always has been
and these (and many other) people have been building products before there was
any mention of the second bubble.
------
redrory
Site is down; Any cached version?
------
PonyGumbo
The site seems to be down.
------
jQueryIsAwesome
The title sounds like tabloid journalism.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Beej's Guide to Unix IPC (2010) - adamnemecek
http://beej.us/guide/bgipc/output/html/multipage/index.html
======
pizza
Also check out his guide to C programming [0] and his guide to network
programming [1]
[0] [http://beej.us/guide/bgc/](http://beej.us/guide/bgc/) [1]
[http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/](http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/)
------
rubiquity
I owe my career to Beej. I was getting burnt out of web development and his
guides (along with Jesse Storimer's books) made programming fun for me again.
I highly recommend learning how Unix systems work. It's a lot of fun and opens
up a whole new world of programming!
~~~
shabbyrobe
I'm feeling the same way about web, I'd like to transition to something
similar. I quite enjoy programming in C, so hopefully that helps. What are you
doing at your job now? How did you go about making the switch from web to
systems? Has it paid off with an increase in enjoyment?
~~~
rubiquity
Truth be told, a significant portion of my day job is still web application
stuff. The web, whether that's HTML/CSS/JS applications or APIs, is
inescapable at this point for a huge portion of programmers. Only the lucky
few get to hack on databases, hypervisors and file systems for a living!
But, armed with the knowledge of sockets, processes, etc. and how this
correlates to performance/scaling, I've been able to carve out roles where I
get to spend a decent amount of time working on problems that I get excited
about.
But even before I was able to work the knowledge into my day job, nothing
beats the dopamine rush of learning things that fascinate you! The rabbit
holes that learning the basics of Unix have opened feel like they could occupy
my hobbyist hours for the rest of my life.
~~~
vivekian2
Its amazing how we think the grass is greener. I have been doing systems
programming for the past 7 years and have been thinking about moving over to
JS based web development for the past few months.
~~~
kanungoparth
Actually both of you are right. You need a break from what you have been doing
from a long time. Perhaps exchanging your jobs with one another might help. :)
------
paraiuspau
Ahh.... summer 98, discovering sockets, too poor to afford Stevens, 14.4 kbps
modem, netscape 4.x rendering Beej's .edu site (forgotten now), me staring my
future in the face.
Thank you for your efforts, Brian!
------
ridiculous_fish
Something I've struggled to implement on Linux is cross-process multicast
notifications, where any process can post and multiple subscribed processes
receive it. FIFOs and SysV IPC are unicast, and I think DBus is too.
On OS X there's notify(3) which is very nice. Any good options on Linux, other
than writing my own socket server?
~~~
pdkl95
The solution for this kind of problem will depend heavily on what type of
messages you're trying to send. When messaging becomes that complex, there are
often other things that impact the overall design in important ways that need
need to be considered.
For example, if I was implementing something that is usually associated with
user events (rare-ish, basically zero bandwidth, complex signal with stateful
messaging semantics), I would probably just write a simple server to manage it
all. This has an advantage of centralizing any messaging complexity and lets
you manage any multi-message state easily. Rebroadcasting messages to allow
peer-to-peer messaging would be a trivial addition. This would probably UNIX
sockets if the connections are persistent (which can changed into AF_INET{,6}
sockets easily, if you wanted to add network support).
For something that requires very low latency (e.g. audio/MIDI), in the past I
have had to use shared memory, which has zero overhead once it is setup (no
syscalls or context switches). Here, the need for low latency dictated the
design. Of course, this means managing locks. Not fun, but a cost that is
sometimes worth paying.
There really isn't a one-size-fits all solution.
edit:
Or, as troglobit said, TIPC. I keep forgetting that we now have it has an
option. :(
~~~
ridiculous_fish
Thanks for the reply. My use case is very simple: a stateless "something
happened" notification, which can be delivered asynchronously. Coalescing or
even occasional drops are fine.
I did originally use a Unix domain socket server, but that added a lot of
complexity: one has to arrange for it to be launched, guard against the
possibility that it gets stuck, version it, deal with permissions, etc.
My new solution on Linux is a total hack: there's a FIFO, and to post a
notification, you write to it. Clients see that the FIFO became readable, and
that change represents the notification. The sender then drains the data it
wrote, so that the FIFO becomes unreadable again. This is a total abuse of
FIFOs, but it's proven to be much simpler than trying to manage a separate
server.
I've never heard of TIPC. From a little searching it looks like it's very
capable but geared towards clusters, and is overkill for my use case. What do
you think?
~~~
bdash
We had a similar problem to solve for iOS and OS X and settled on the using
FIFOs in that manner as well. A colleague wrote up a blog post about the
various alternatives that were evaluated before settling on that approach:
[https://realm.io/news/thomas-goyne-fast-inter-process-
commun...](https://realm.io/news/thomas-goyne-fast-inter-process-
communication/)
~~~
ridiculous_fish
Ha ha ha, that's great! If we are sent to programmer purgatory, at least we'll
have each other.
------
jrapdx3
I'll add to the chorus of praise for Beej's work. I've often consulted this
particular guide and the companion piece for networks as well. Helped me write
web and other servers, a great way to learn about important technologies,
providing knowledge that stays useful even if the production server runs on
Node.js.
Besides, I'm biased. "BJ" happens to be my wife's unofficial name. She's a
remarkably smart person, so I was predisposed to think "BeeJ" would know what
he's talking about and it turns out he did.
------
ladybro
Beej helped me pass my Operating Systems final last semester. Really quality
and entertaining guides he puts together.
------
stuaxo
Thanks for reminding me, I really need to put this into practice, so much
great stuff in here.
------
alekratz
Beej is great. I've printed this book out and have it sitting in a binder on
my bookshelf.
------
ausjke
what about an update to posix IPC instead of sysV? I thought Posix IPC is
"better" these days?
------
am185
beej! how can i forget the his network programming guide!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
India's DataProtection Recommendation Report: A Free and Fair Digital Economy [pdf] - yarapavan
http://meity.gov.in/writereaddata/files/Data_Protection_Committee_Report.pdf
======
yarapavan
Some background:
In 2017, the Supreme Court recognised a fundamental right to privacy in
Puttaswamy vs Union of India, and the Centre constituted the Srikrishna
Committee to help frame the country’s data protection law.
A summary of recommendations starts at page 168. It agrees that India's
current data protection framework is inadequate, and that the data protection
law should apply to entities regardless of where they are physically located,
so long as they process the data of Indian residents/citizens.
The committee also agrees that individuals should have core rights including
notice and consent — the right to be notified of data collection and the right
to consent to data collection. Other rights that it recognises for data
subjects include the right to be forgotten and the right to data portability
(both, in limited forms). It also has identified certain additional user
rights, including the right of users to access and rectify personal data, the
right to object to and restrict processing (including for direct marketing),
and the right against decisions being made only by automated processing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What If the Government Just Prints Money? (2009) - oneshot-a4yukdk
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2009/11/what-if-government-just-prints-money.html
======
ohiovr
I trust common sense and history. The existance of this article is more
important than its arguments. See here for another version of this thinking.
[https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/the-federal-
government-s...](https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/the-federal-government-
should-default-on-its-debt)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lenovo Announces a $130 Windows PC in a Stick - indoindo
http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/24/lenovo-announces-a-130-windows-pc-in-a-stick/
======
ZenoArrow
Is this just a rebranded Intel Compute Stick?
[http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/compute-
stick/intel-c...](http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/compute-stick/intel-
compute-stick.html)
~~~
GFischer
It has the same processor and specs.
Also, that was one of the lowest-content and worst-thought-out TechCrunch
writeups I've seen ("If you’ve ever wanted to plug a Windows machine into your
TV for a little hot and heavy Excel slinging, you’re in luck"... really? I've
done so with Laptops for the last decade).
And they even acknowledge "These single-stick computers are nothing new "
(heck, we've got some Intel Compute Sticks at my work). I guess it's not fun
having to write up these things.
~~~
mariusmg
Really? You don't appreciate the effort of coming up with the phrase "hot and
heavy slinging" in a article about TV dongles ? :)
~~~
artmageddon
Especially when it's used in conjunction with "Excel"...
------
kev6168
Just the other day I was thinking it would be nice if a cell phone can fire up
multiple normal OSs (i.e., desktop Linux/Windows/OSX), so at
hotel/library/friend's home/etc., one can pull it out of pocket, connect to a
display and hack away.
I wonder when we can have that level of power and convenience in our regular
phones.
~~~
pjc50
That's not so much a computing power limitation but a limitation imposed by
the manufacturers on what you can run. The Nokia N900 had Linux running on it
in 2010.
If you're one of the lucky few with an Ubuntu phone, you can do this as well.
~~~
rbanffy
> The Nokia N900 had Linux running on it in 2010
True, but it depends on what you want to do with it. I can run Linux on an
Intel Edison board (did some Python and C++ programming on one last weekend),
but I wouldn't dare to try to write code on anything heavier than vim.
------
jdietrich
If you're wondering about the target market for these devices, the main answer
is digital signage. Those LCD signs in train stations and shopping malls
constitute a huge market for small, low-powered and fanless computers. There
are at least a dozen SaaS startups in this space, targeting a wide variety of
hardware and OSes.
~~~
ZenoArrow
I doubt that this particular Lenovo mini PC is targetting that niche. You
wouldn't need 32GB of storage for something as basic as digital signage, and
there are Android-based alternatives for 3x cheaper...
[http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/mini-pcs/mk808-android-
mini...](http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/mini-pcs/mk808-android-mini-pc)
~~~
eli
I _wish_ the MK808 was a plug and play digital sign, but it's actually kind of
a pain to set up and use. I've got one sitting in a drawer.
If someone came out with a stick computer that simply connects to wifi and
displays a webpage in a relatively modern browser at 1080 (or at least 720)
_and makes it easy_ , I would buy several of them at a nice premium over
whatever the hardware normally costs.
I actually think an Android hacker or RaspberryPI hobbyist could make some
money selling something like that.
~~~
ZenoArrow
"I wish the MK808 was a plug and play digital sign, but it's actually kind of
a pain to set up and use. I've got one sitting in a drawer."
What did you find painful about using it? Looks like it supports custom ROMs,
did you try using something like CyanogenMod (or the Finless ROM mentioned in
the linked article)?
~~~
eli
I tried one firmware (maybe it was finless?) downloaded from a sketchy looking
site that cause the wifi to no longer connect. There did not some to be many
firmware choices that supported 1080 output. Even getting an app to run
automatically on bootup felt like a chore.
Regardless, I would gladly pay twice as much for the device if it came already
set up. I am very pro-hobbyist, but in this case I want a fully formed
product.
~~~
ZenoArrow
"Regardless, I would gladly pay twice as much for the device if it came
already set up. I am very pro-hobbyist, but in this case I want a fully formed
product."
So something as simple as a Raspberry Pi B+ ($25), an OmniVESA (approx $7), a
USB WiFi dongle (approx $9), a 4GB MicroSDHC card (approx $6), a micro USB
charger (approx $4) and a short HDMI cable (approx $7). Total cost $58. Could
add a cheap case if you wanted. Perhaps there are ways to do all this cheaper
with an Android mini PC, but a RasPi setup would be very flexible, and
wouldn't require too much setup. It's also easy to boot straight into a web
browser (can find some distro recommendations here
[https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=8502...](https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=85020)).
[http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/RASPBERRY-
PI-83-16317-...](http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/RASPBERRY-
PI-83-16317-/83-16317)
[http://shop.pimoroni.com/products/omnivesa](http://shop.pimoroni.com/products/omnivesa)
[http://www.amazon.com/Raspberry-Pi-WIFI-Adapter-
Dongle/dp/B0...](http://www.amazon.com/Raspberry-Pi-WIFI-Adapter-
Dongle/dp/B009FA2UYK)
[http://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-MicroSDHC-Memory-Adapter-
Packa...](http://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-MicroSDHC-Memory-Adapter-
Packaging/dp/B000SMVQK8)
[http://www.amazon.com/BlackBerry-Folding-Blade-Micro-USB-
Cha...](http://www.amazon.com/BlackBerry-Folding-Blade-Micro-USB-
Charger/dp/B001LRPN0S/)
[http://www.amazon.com/Your-Cable-Store-Foot-
Plated/dp/B00474...](http://www.amazon.com/Your-Cable-Store-Foot-
Plated/dp/B00474YRE0/)
Even though you're ideally looking for an off the shelf solution, hope these
suggestions are of some use.
~~~
eli
Great, now put it together for me and I'll buy three at $99 each :)
------
jbb555
How fast are the CPUs in these compared to say a modern i3, i5, i7 CPU? I know
they will be a lot slower just interested in how much slower?
~~~
fotcorn
Here are some benchmarks againt a Mobile i3 and i5:
[http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=compulab-...](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=compulab-
fitlet-i&num=4)
The CPU on this one is the same as on the Intel Compute Stick, a Z3735F.
~~~
tjbiddle
For a $17 processor - That thing really isn't all that bad!
------
mirimir
I wonder if any hosting providers are offering such micro PCs, or planning to.
They would be a great alternative to VPS, arguably with better security. I've
seen some Raspberry Pi hosting, but its USB NIC is too slow.
I'll update this if I find anything.
~~~
ZenoArrow
The Odroid C1 would be a better match for this than a Raspberry Pi 2. They
both cost $35, but the Odroid C1 has Gigabit Ethernet plus a faster CPU (based
on these tests at least... [http://www.androidauthority.com/raspberry-pi-2-vs-
odroid-c1-...](http://www.androidauthority.com/raspberry-pi-2-vs-odroid-c1-vs-
hummingboard-vs-mips-creator-ci20-599418/) ).
~~~
mirimir
Thanks!
Now only if someone were providing hosting for them ...
Maybe Raspberry Hosting[0] would be interested ;)
[0] [https://raspberry-hosting.com/en](https://raspberry-hosting.com/en)
------
unklefolk
I don't understand why they have added a tiny speaker to this gadget. It
wouldn't imagine it is very loud and in most cases would be stuck around the
back of your TV. Could someone enlighten me to when a speaker would be useful?
~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Diagnosing faults
------
teekert
Too bad it makes me have to move my flat tv 10 cm of the wall. An HDMI
connector at an angle would have been nice (or I could buy an extension HDMI
cable of course.).
~~~
ianlevesque
Yeah for that reason the Apple TV or Fire TV form factor is better.
~~~
dublinben
The HDMI stick form factor works for the majority of TVs which have their
ports facing to the side.
------
GordonS
How is this thing powered?
~~~
GordonS
if this _is_ a rebranded Intel device (looks like it), Intel says:
"5V, 2A wall-mount AC-DC power adapter"
So I need to have cables trailing around. They don't show that in the pretty
pictures do they? :/
------
bitL
Can you install Linux on it, i.e. is the boot loader unlocked? If so, it can
be a great air-gapped stick for generating and storing keys and certificates
on the go.
------
gbl08ma
I own a Windows tablet (Voyo A1 Mini) with exactly the same CPU and amount of
memory and storage, which I have been using as 7" keyboard-less laptop
replacement, so I thought it would be interesting to share my opinion.
The CPU is fast enough for moderate web browsing, using Office, playing videos
and music, etc. In other words, the casual tasks of an "average user". Of
course, it wasn't made to compile software or run complex simulations, and it
has some thermal throttling (my tablet has no fans and this stick doesn't
appear to have any, either), so if you use the four cores to the maximum for
some time, the speed will start decreasing from 1.56 GHz (I have made the max
go as low as 0.96 GHz due to throttling). This is the kind of thing that
doesn't show in all benchmarks, so beware. (To be fair, spec sheets also don't
say that when cores are not fully used, turboboost kicks in and a single core
can be working at 1.8 GHz for quite some time).
The integrated Intel graphics are (as usual) good for media playing, web
browsing and dealing with Windows UI animations, but forget any kind of gaming
that demands more than a smartphone game.
The biggest problem, for me at least, is the lack of RAM: 2 GB of RAM are
filled quite fast with 6-8 Chrome tabs and some background software open. It
also doesn't take much to fill the whole 4 GB of commit space, and of course,
bringing pages in and out of the pagefile is quite slow (the storage is flash,
but not quite a SSD). It is easy to make Windows show a "system running low on
memory" message just by opening 20 Chrome tabs, some with heavy sites. If all
you want to do is run Microsoft Office, I found it to actually be much lighter
on memory use than I previously thought (I never saw OneNote, Excel or Word go
beyond 90 MB).
Storage gets quite full very easily, mine is always with ~1 GB free (Windows
and Office installed on C:, most other things installed on the SD card), and
this is using things like NTFS compression. If this stick is like my tablet,
it will have 6 GB of storage "wasted" on a recovery partition. Also, the trick
Microsoft recommends OEMs use for fitting Windows on systems with as few as 16
GB of storage, which consists on using WIM images for storing the system
files, works only while the install is fresh: as more and more system updates
are installed, the altered files seem to be stored out of the image, which
means there's effectively more space used with Windows files than with a
normal install. I have "reserved" the Windows 10 update and I'm eager to see
how it will deal with background-downloading the (possibly gigabytes) of files
into a system with only 1 GB free.
I once thought of installing Visual Studio just to see how slow it would run,
but gave up once I understood most components must be installed to C: (it
appears that installing VS effectively equates to "extending Windows" with
developer tools).
I am still quite happy with the purchase (it was about $150) since it allows
for doing things Android tablets don't do, like running the full MS Office or
using proper desktop versions of browsers and other software. I imagine this
stick opens the same kind of possibilities.
~~~
rilut
Thanks. Can it play a 720p H.265 video?
------
johnchristopher
How would the Baytrail Z3735F CPU that it is equipped with compare with a 6
year-old ATOM n280 ?
------
neotokyo
Can these Baytrail processors handle HEVC / h.265 at HD well?
------
WorldWideWayne
Every single TV in my house as a Windows device plugged into it. We've tried
Roku, Chromecast and others - but you can't beat Windows if flexibility is
what you want.
Having just a Chromecast sucks because you need a whole other smart device to
actually do things. The Roku is a little better, but honestly it's too slow to
navigate.
With Windows, I can do whatever the heck I want. We can play classic game
emulators with Xbox controllers, watch ripped exercise DVDs with VLC media
player (my wife does this), we run Netflix for Windows or Kodi to watch
movies/TV and then of course we can do anything that a Chromecast does by
simply opening Chrome (with adblock). It's awesome.
~~~
twiceaday
If you are in the Apple ecosystem you really can't beat Apple TV. Bring up the
content on your phone then Airplay to the TV and use the phone as an awesome
media remote. Random internet videos? Bring up on the phone = on the TV.
Netflix, YouTube, Twitch? Awesome phone apps = on the TV. Your own video
files? I use Air Video Server HD on PC with companion iPhone app; every video
file I own = on the TV. Its just perfect.
~~~
WorldWideWayne
Sure, it's perfect if you're content to live in the confines of Apple's prison
yard. I just can't stand Apple the company or their dumbed-down products
though. They are the the king of "streamlined but extremely limited", so
there's no way that a person like me who values ultimate flexibility is going
to belong to the Apple ecosystem.
Can you look at funny memepics on the web while Pandora is playing in the
background on Apple TV? Shop for a new game on Steam while playing a YouTube
video? Connect an Xbox 360 controller to play games? We do all of these
things. I haven't used an Apple TV, but somehow I doubt that it excels at
multi-tasking or interoperating with the non-Apple universe.
~~~
twiceaday
You are comparing a $69 Apple TV to a desktop that will cost at least 4x that.
And the usage models you are describing do not correspond to how most people
watch TV. People sit on the couch with the TV on, potentially fiddling with
their phone. This works with Apple TV perfectly. If you want flexibility then
what you want is a much more expensive computer, and then you've got ten-foot-
ui problems even in the most basic usage scenarios. I too have my (gaming) pc
hooked up to my TV (via a long HDMI cable) but I only use it to play games
because the user experience is horrendous when doing anything else.
> dumbed-down products
> streamlined but extremely limited
What the hell are you even talking about here? It's certainly not TV sticks
because all of them offer similar functionality. It's certainly not Apple
laptops or desktops and their unix backed OSX. What then? Phones? What
activities do you do on your phone that cannot be done on an iPhone? In what
tangible way is an iPhone dumbed-down and extremely limited compared to, what,
Android? And most importantly, in what way does using an iPhone irreversibly
force you into the Apple ecosystem?
~~~
WorldWideWayne
Someone (it was you) told me that Apple TV is "perfect" and I disagreed and I
said all of the reasons why. You did continue the comparison though by talking
about how bad you think the UX is, but it would be nice to have some actual
examples instead of empty claims.
All of Apple's products are dumbed down compared to competing products.
Windows has _soooo_ much more flexibility than OS X and I'll be glad to give
you a couple of good examples to shore up my argument.
For starters - the really big obvious one is that OS X only runs on a very
small sub-set of the hardware that Windows runs on. I don't care if their
business plan dictates it, it's dumb and I won't use OS X because of it.
Windows runs faster on the same hardware anyway.
Here's a big one for which there are lots of examples - Apple simply does not
let you customize OS X nearly as much as you can customize Windows. Apple's
dumb-it-down attitude reaches all the way to the smallest of features - for
instance, __go try and change the color of your mouse cursor in OS X __. One
day I tried to change it to white because I like that better and I found out
that OS X has the cursor bitmap burned into a fucking ROM or something... that
's just a tad ridiculous, don't you think?
I think it's hilarious that some people are so in love with Apple that they
don't even see the most basic examples. If the mouse cursor example hasn't
convinced you please let me know and I'll come back with a larger list of just
how many ways OS X is limited (and therefore dumbed-down) compared to Windows
and Linux desktops.
(EDIT: And the same arguments go for the iPhone versus others. Apple doesn't
let you customize it nearly as much as Android and of course they don't let
you run it on the hardware you want, so yeah the iPhone is dumbed-down. Enjoy
your prison yard!)
~~~
twiceaday
You claim Apples products are dumbed down but the first example you give is
that OSX only runs on certain hardware. That's not what "dumbed down" means.
This goes more towards your point of their products being limited (extremely-
limited is still a stretch). But if you think about it their product is
Macbook + OSX. This pair is not limited, its as feature rich as any Windows
laptop (even more so I'd argue because of the unix backed OS). The Windows
ecosystem indeed has a larger selection of products but your claims were
significantly more far reaching than this simple fact.
> Here's a big one for which there are lots of examples - Apple simply does
> not let you customize OS X nearly as much as you can customize Windows.
> Apple's dumb-it-down attitude reaches all the way to the smallest of
> features - for instance, go try and change the color of your mouse cursor in
> OS X.
You escalate the notion of a mouse cursor theme being difficult to change into
the entire operating system being difficult to customize. An operating system
does a lot of stuff, I don't see how any of this follows.
> I think it's hilarious that some people are so in love with Apple that they
> don't even see the most basic examples.
I'm not sure what you think this tiny thing is indicative of, but I guarantee
to you that most people have never even thought about this because it is
irrelevant to their lives.
> And the same arguments go for the iPhone versus others. Apple doesn't let
> you customize it nearly as much as Android and of course they don't let you
> run it on the hardware you want, so yeah the iPhone is dumbed-down. Enjoy
> your prison yard!
To summarize your arguments: Apple provides fewer hardware options and a lot
less theming options. Seems to me like your words are a bit too harsh
considering you are describing a full desktop operating system and a full
mobile operating system, both of which have significantly more knobs to tweak
than just themes. They also run software you know. Limiting access to fiddle
with themes is hardly a prison yard. Also, not everybody has the time to
fiddle with themes. Also, just because something is customizable doesn't mean
you can make it look good (customizability comes at a cost to coherency).
Also, plenty of people use Apple strictly because of how their products look
and feel. I think your theming metric is quite weak in general, but especially
when used to back up the claims that every single thing Apple makes is "dumbed
down" and "extremely limited."
~~~
WorldWideWayne
Limited options is exactly what "dumbed down" means and Apple is known for
offering dumbed down limited devices and computers. The examples I gave are
just that - examples. I can give you a whole laundry list of ways that OS X is
limited compared to Windows and yes, the fact that you can only run OS X on
one single brand of hardware is a major limitation.
Being able to change the color of the cursor is not a "theming" option, it's a
usability option because I can see the white cursor and find it on the screen
much better than the black one. It's just one example though.
I'll go through every piece of software that comes with OS X and show you a
better default application that comes with Windows if you want. Let's start
with the basics - Finder - which is _super_ limited compared to other file
browsers.
\- Just added the ability to cut and paste in Lion/2011!
\- No hooks to extend it the way you can Windows Explorer. (So, you simply
cannot have a whole class of software, like TortoiseGit.)
\- No address bar to quickly see and/or enter a path. You can get close with
the status bar thingy, but it's still limited in ways that matter - namely,
having an obvious place to enter a path...
\- Cannot remove it from the Dock because reasons. (I don't care about the
reasons, you simply cannot do it.)
~~~
twiceaday
Yep, lets ignore the fact that the OSX and Windows are highly similar in
functionality, over-leverage some small differences all in favor of Windows as
if OSX is an exact subset, and continue to drill that all Apple products are
"extremely limited" and "dumbed down." Come on, man.
> Limited options is exactly what "dumbed down" means and Apple is known for
> offering dumbed down limited devices and computers.
> .. the fact that you can only run OS X on one single brand of hardware is a
> major limitation.
What are you trying to pull here? You know that's not what "exactly" means.
You painted a very vivid picture with your earlier words and you know god damn
well that it wasn't: "Apple has a limited hardware selection." No, you claimed
that all of their products are "extremely limited" and "dumbed down."
Meanwhile half of your argument relies on the fact that just the selection
process simplified. That's like calling Mazda products dumbed down because
they only sell a handful of cars. Its an absurd metric, its absurd for it to
be a large part of why you bad-mouth the entirety of their products, and it is
absurd to imply that bad-mouthing the entirety of their products in a vacuum
exactly implies that the selection process is limited. And by the way limiting
the hardware selection only to the high-end and providing a tighter
integration the software is a major reason why Apple is the company it is
today. That means regardless of how strongly you feel about this you have to
concede that you are being subjective. So what you've got here is a subjective
opinion about just the selection process being leveraged into calling all
products dumbed-down. Its just ridiculous.
> Being able to change the color of the cursor is not a "theming" option, it's
> a usability option because I can see the white cursor and find it on the
> screen much better than the black one. It's just one example though.
A large part of my objective was how you were heavily implying that this one
example strongly supports your grandiose claims.
I am not familiar with accessibility options on Macs historically but on my
work Mac there is an option to increase cursor size, and it can be made quite
big. Also, it's black precisely for visibility. The OSX themes have always
been bright and the vast majority of web pages and apps are bright so a black
cursor offers contrast. Doesn't Windows offer a black cursor as a means to
increase visibility?
> \- Just added the ability to cut and paste in Lion/2011!
Note how you're not complaining about the underlying functionality but only
about the UX differences. This is a complaint that OSX is not Windows and its
four years old.
> \- No hooks to extend it the way you can Windows Explorer. (So, you simply
> cannot have a whole class of software, like TortoiseGit.)
I'm not familiar with this so I can't comment about specifics. Though this
does seem like a very niche use case, the lack of which does not warrant
calling the entire operating system "extremely simplified" and "dumbed down."
Why not just use git? Oh, right, dos. That's why I develop on macs.
> \- No address bar to quickly see and/or enter a path. You can get close with
> the status bar thingy, but it's still limited in ways that matter - namely,
> having an obvious place to enter a path...
From the menu: Go > Go to Folder ... or Command + Shift + G. Functionality is
there, it could be easier to access, its a trade-off. Though the vast majority
of the time that I go to specific code paths I'm in bash.
> \- Cannot remove it from the Dock because reasons. (I don't care about the
> reasons, you simply cannot do it.)
Hiding Finder is the equivalent of hiding the start menu on Windows. I have no
idea how to do either, I'm not sure why anybody would want to, and I don't see
a logical relation between this and calling the operating system "dumbed
down".
------
thrillgore
It looks like a product not particularly solving any solution. The Chromecast
solves a problem. This does not.
~~~
mindslight
Yeah, Google's problem of how to spread their proprietary locked down
experience to televisions.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An Englishman who saved Japan’s cherry blossoms - lcaff
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/03/the-englishman-who-saved-japans-cherry-blossoms/
======
zeristor
Strange how this was mentioned in a Monty Don documentary about Japanese
gardens that must have been on the BBC in early February.
Lovely gardens by the way.
------
eyeareque
Paywall
~~~
DonaldFisk
I have no problem reading it and I do not subscribe to The Spectator.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New findings about proton size could shake up physics as we know it - zain
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/07/08/the-incredible-shrinking-proton-that-could-rattle-the-physics-world/
======
jcdreads
These paywalls around scientific journal articles were infuriating when I was
a physics grad student, and they're even worse now that I don't have a
university account through which to view them.
In that spirit, here is the authors' rather fabulous website:
<https://muhy.web.psi.ch/wiki/index.php>
------
hugh3
A better writeup, a little more technical than the Discover Magazine version
but far more comprehensible than the actual paper:
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7303/full/466195a...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7303/full/466195a.html)
~~~
moultano
"To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see
right)."
~~~
andreyf
pssst <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/404957/flowers.pdf>
(but let's keep it between us)
------
dmoney
What would be the consequences if this is accurate? What assumptions are based
on the size of a proton? What kind of technology was previously thought
impossible because protons were just too darn big? Because (as a non-
physicist) I can't think of anything.
~~~
btilly
The heart of physics right now are two theories that disagree with each other.
One is Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which is about gravity. The
other is called the Standard Model, which is about quantum mechanics. (The
whole Higgs boson issue? That's about measuring the last unknown parameter in
the Standard Model, which is the mass of the Higgs boson.)
The hope of physicists is to be able to find a theory that combines the two.
Because they fundamentally disagree, we know that one or both, probably both,
are both somewhat wrong, but we don't have any idea how and where the theories
begin to fall apart. Therefore if we can find experiments which show problems,
then we can get insight on what the problems are with the theory, and
hopefully that will lead us to a better theory.
To draw a parallel, in the late 1800s it looked like physics was nearly done.
The big problems were solved. The remaining discrepancies were small. And of
what practical use was it to know more about the movement of light, why black
body radiation didn't look like what theory said it should, and whether there
was really such a thing as atoms? Yet the answers to those few small puzzles
lead to world changing discoveries from nuclear power to transistors.
Nobody can tell you what is left to discover. Nobody can guess the power of
unknown scientific theories. But through history, science has proved its worth
repeatedly in outside proportions. Isn't the hope that this could happen again
worth at least some resources?
~~~
ThomPete
Yeah we don't even know if it makes sense to combine the two.
Human need for completeness is driving that, but we might find ourselves with
two models that don't need to be combined.
~~~
btilly
We are trying to model one reality. Surely there must be a model that models
that reality better than either of our current models?
------
teilo
The greatest thing a physicist (or any scientist) can say is, "Hmm, that's
funny...". It's when we find out that we were wrong that a panoply of new
discoveries open up before us. Exciting times.
------
sajid
This is hard to believe. I'll wait until the experiment has been repeated
using muonic helium. Most likely, the researchers made a mistake in how they
applied QED in their calculation.
------
JoeAltmaier
So, either a) the proton is a different, size, b) the muon is a different
weight, c) the 'electron shell' relationship to the proton size is not what
they think, d)...
------
cldwalker
For the physics geeks: <http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/43128>
------
ShardPhoenix
The article doesn't show any text for me (just the headline and white blank).
------
plaidhat
Some of the comments are really interesting.
------
melling
Why can't humans be a little more self aware? We know almost nothing. We're
still in the stone age and we need to work really hard, invest a lot more
money in education and research. It's not how far we've come, it's how far we
have to go.
~~~
melling
Hmmm. I got voted down without any comments. No one can remember the big
debate 25 years ago when the US had to choose between the Hubble and the Super
Collider in Texas, which would have been bigger than the LHC? Hubble won, but
many argued that it was a waste of money, which turned out to be far from the
truth. The discoveries about to be made at CERN could have happened 2 decades
ago.
~~~
JacobAldridge
_The discoveries about to be made at CERN could have happened 2 decades ago._
Not that I downvoted your original comment, but what has your follow up got to
do with self-awareness or being in the stone age?
~~~
melling
I guess I was trying to convey the fact that there are a lot of big
discoveries waiting to be found. People seem to not put enough emphasis in
research and education in the US. The Hubble vs Super Collider debate many
years ago. Nasa is always underfunded, IMO. Seems like there is so much more
we could do.
~~~
mootothemax
_Seems like there is so much more we could do_
Now all you need to do is mention curing world hunger, poverty and war and
you'll have your Miss America speech down to pat.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Non-obvious pros/cons of contracting vs. full time work? - mcrittenden
I've been contracting full time for a company for the past four months or so. I get paid pretty well, but of course have to pay self-employment taxes and have to handle my own insurance, etc.<p>It looks like there's a good chance the company will offer to hire me full time. This will presumably mean less taxes and some decent benefits, which will be nice, but will probably come with a pay decrease to even it out. Thats's all fine.<p>My main question is this: what should I consider besides all the obvious stuff (taxes, pay, benefits)? For example, this is a fortune 500 company, and I'm a little worried about being sucked into the politics of working for a company that large, whereas I've been able to stay out of any of that as a contractor. Is this a valid concern? What else should I consider before making this decision? What are the non-obvious pros/cons of full time work for a large company vs. contracting for it?
======
edabobojr
How many hours a week are the employees expected to put in versus the number
of hours you were billing? I've been places where the employees were abused
and the contractors were expected to work not a minute more than 8 hours per
day.
~~~
mcrittenden
Excellent point. I bill 40 hours/week exactly. I have no idea if employees are
expected to work more than that. I'll have to try and find out if I get the
offer.
------
stray
For some reason, we seem to get more respect as contractors than we do as
statutory employees.
~~~
th0ma5
I think this is incredibly true on technical expertise, but as for advocating
organizational change instead of a technical solution, being an employee has
seemed to offer more respect for me. Granted there are business process
consultants that do that exact thing, but I do feel there is some kind of line
there with technical experts employed vs. consulting.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: A London Underground Tube Status Board Written in React - jsingleton
https://reactube.com/
======
jsingleton
This is the output of part 1 in a tutorial series, which is here:
[https://unop.uk/building-a-web-app-in-react-and-asp-net-
core...](https://unop.uk/building-a-web-app-in-react-and-asp-net-core-part-1/)
------
fiatjaf
There are so many basic React tutorials out there. Is all this really needed?
I always thought the official tutorial was enough for any normal JS developer
to get going with React.
------
fiatjaf
The colors hurt me, but it is a tutorial thing, so that's ok.
~~~
jsingleton
Unfortunately, those are the official colours: [https://tfl.gov.uk/tube-dlr-
overground/status/](https://tfl.gov.uk/tube-dlr-overground/status/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Brain Query Language – wtf is this? - aaaqqqq
https://www.brainql.com
======
arkitaip
I have no idea but I found removing the text and running the site in full
screen mode results in one beautiful screensaver:
[http://imgur.com/a/yGr1Q](http://imgur.com/a/yGr1Q)
------
aaaqqqq
This, along with
[https://msdn.microsoft.com/magazine/mt788621](https://msdn.microsoft.com/magazine/mt788621)
makes me wonder if we should be afraid
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A mini jquery - ck11212
https://github.com/SunShineKG/mini-jquery
======
startupflix
What's the difference?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Managers: Don't translate your stress - johndavidback
https://medium.com/p/managers-dont-translate-the-stress-842b6afeb6f4
======
throwaway2016a
As a manager this has been my biggest challenge.
I never telegraph my stress to my team members but used to often do it around
my peers (managers on other teams).
Probably because I thought they could empathize so they'd be a sympathetic
ear. A few complaints to the CEO about me later and now I've learned to do
what the author describe. Even if the person is not someone who reports to
you; just go get a coffee, take a walk, etc.
I am lucky in one regard though, Our CEO flat out told me if I need to stress
out around someone do it around him. Which seems healthy and more productive
then bottling it up.
------
watwut
Another important thing is to accept that anger is normal human
reaction/emotion and not to feel guilty over being angry. Some responses to
anger are bad (when your emotions blow up and you start to insult people just
to get back to them or vent), but anger itself is not something shameful or
bad.
------
SomeHacker44
OMG. Hunger. #1 cause of me being ill-tempered. Never be hungry at the office.
(Get fat instead?)
~~~
kody
Ditto. When I started eating better (i.e. less) hunger immediately started
affecting my mood.
Now I handle this with \- Cashews in my desk \- Frequent water and coffee
breaks \- Minimum 15 minute walk outside during lunch
It's worked out pretty well for me so far.
------
twobyfour
This is such a great point. Anyone have tips on tactics for catching yourself
externalizing your stress?
~~~
zzalpha
Maybe ask others for your signals.
For me, I tend to talk faster, raise my voice a bit, frown more, and generally
behave more combatively.
So basic things like slowing down, relaxing my expressions and smiling more
(even and especially when you're on the phone!!!) go a long way to not only
changing how I present myself, but also changing how I _feel_.
------
purplezooey
"one of the greatest individual contributors of all time".... oh really! cool.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Python Package for Predicting Gender from First Names - parthmaul
https://github.com/parthmaul/onomancer
======
nic-waller
Storing the lookup map on disk as a JSON-encoded dictionary seems less than
optimal for package size and module load time. Two plaintext files (M.txt and
F.txt) would be simple and more efficient on disk. The text is also highly
compressible -- that could further reduce package size. These things might
matter if the package is used in a Serverless environment.
Also, do you think there could be value in identifying classically androgynous
names?
~~~
parthmaul
Thanks for sharing your feedback! Great idea on using .txt instead - I'll make
a change for that. (My first time sharing a package I've prepared on github,
so I'm a noob with that kind of stuff)
There are names in the current json file classified as "N" which stands for
non-binary, but the frequency is quite low. "N" is based on if the frequency
of "M" == "F" or if the frequencies are within a certain magnitude of each
other. (magnitude calculation is based on proportions testing) With that being
said, maybe it'd be worth adding functionality for a user to upload their own
gender_lookup file?
~~~
nic-waller
Ah, I didn't see the N records originally. That makes sense!
Because I'm enthusiastic about data structures, and now that I've finished my
work day, I thought I'd come back with a few numbers to support my earlier
comment. The package size can be reduced by 90% by saving the names as
compressed plaintext.
5192 KB gender.json
1484 KB gender.txt (71% savings)
488 KB gender.txt.gz (90% savings)
On my reasonably modern laptop, it takes over 700 ms to unmarshal 5MB worth of
JSON. But it takes less than 100 ms (85% time savings) to read the whole file
and compare strings.
$ time jq -r . >/dev/null gender.json
real 0m0.764s
$ time grep -E '^(NIC|PAUL)' gender.txt
real 0m0.091s
When working with large datasets of items that are mostly the same size,
sometimes it's useful to use fixed-width records to enable random indexing
into the file. Of course, this is a small data set so it's not really
worthwhile to pursue such optimizations. So just for fun, here's an analysis
of how long the names are. 99% of names in this set are 13 characters or less.
Representing short names as fixed-width records and long names as an appendix
would use about 2.5 MB (50% savings compared to JSON).
2 222
3 1785
4 8913
5 27862
6 45986
7 44311
8 28291
9 14355
10 7167
11 4072
12 2611
13 1512
PS. Here's how I prepared the text file:
<gender.json jq -r '. | keys[]' > gender.txt
~~~
parthmaul
I stumbled along and made the changes you recommended! Seems to be working
fine. Thanks again for the tip!
------
jk801
This is a great idea.
~~~
parthmaul
Thank you! Using this at work for help with customer segmentation
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Spamhaus under DDOS from AnonOps - mrud
http://seclists.org/nanog/2010/Dec/1077
======
iwwr
_None of the people who contacted us realised that the "Wikileaks press
release" published on wikileaks.info was not written by Wikileaks and not
issued by Wikileaks - but by the person running the wikileaks.info site only -
the very site we are warning about. The site data, disks, connections and
visitor traffic, are all under the control of the Heihachi cybercrime gang.
There are more than 40 criminal-run sites operating on the same IP address as
wikileaks.info, including carder-elite.biz, h4ck3rz.biz, elite-crew.net, and
bank phishes paypal-securitycenter.com and postbank-kontodirekt.com._
The drama never ends.
The way wikileaks mirrors work is that volunteers provide server space and
access credentials, while wikileaks staff upload the content. The problem
arises if that content is not digitally signed, or at least authenticated with
a set of hashes (the webmasters may inject malware, or otherwise modify the
content).
Still, until we see an official note on wikileaks.ch (or personal message from
Assange) that wikileaks.info is a fraudulent impersonation, we should consider
the content on the .info site in an official fashion.
------
rwwmike
Interesting, I just looked into this the other day.
[http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wikileaksorg_is_back_up...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wikileaksorg_is_back_up_but_is_it_wikileaks.php)
Just reached out to the owner of mirror.wikileaks.info
I think there's a lot of assumption going on here in terms of who is in charge
of what and who's responsible...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CoffeeScript-Object-Notation Parser - tantalor
https://github.com/balupton/cson.npm
======
shaunxcode
Fair play - but as far as "missing comma" syndrome goes CS still has its
problems. e.g. consider an array of objects:
[
a: 1
b: 2
,
a: 3
b: 4
]
If you forget that "," which MUST be dedented a level - you are hosed.
This becomes uglier w/ nested objects
[
age: 30
aliases: [
first: "peter"
last: "jensen"
,
first: "walter"
last: "gregor"
]
,
age: 20
aliases: [
first: "tony"
last: "foulard"
,
first: "sam"
last: "jakob"
]
]
I think I almost prefer:
[
{
a: 1
b: 2
}{
a: 3
b: 4
}
]
[
{
age: 30
aliases: [{
first: "peter"
last: "jensen"
}{
first: "walter"
last: "gregor"
}]
}{
age: 20
aliases: [{
first: "tony"
last: "foulard"
}{
first: "sam"
last: "jakob"
}]
}
]
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The key to increase user acquisition this pandemic - dravishakatoch
https://blog.locale.ai/how-to-improve-user-acquisition-conversion-using-location-analytics/
======
slynn12
I have mixed feelings about posts like this...just feels like trying to
capitalize on a terrible situation, although I get it could be spun as trying
to make the most of a terrible situation.
~~~
dravishakatoch
It's ideally to help start-ups struggling with user acquisition during this
pandemic, with location analytics. Location analytics is the key here,
especially for start-ups running this pandemic such as in the logistics, last-
mile delivery, mobility sector. I hope that clears the air for you!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Definining the Value of Community (Review of LeanCoffee Meetup in Toronto) - maxcameron
http://bigbangtechnology.com/post/defining_the_value_of_community
======
maxcameron
Hi Everyone,
I'm the author of this article, and I'd like to get your feedback on this
article because I worked really hard on it. I also think everyone can get
something out of this article even if you don't belong to this specific
meetup. Definitely geared towards startups who belong to meetup groups.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I am not a "JavaScript Developer". - AndyKelley
http://andrewkelley.me/post/not-a-js-developer.html
======
c0deporn
If you're only referring to what recruiters send to you, then you're
frustration is for not. While I can understand your issues with labels, this
is a keyword driven era where you have to summarize your entire skill set into
a few short keywords so people can categorize you.
While recruiters tend to generalize requirements, they aren't looking for
generalists. They're looking for candidates that match specific keywords.
I get letters from them for Drupal contracts, when the C# to Drupal ratio is
500:1 on my resume.
Unfortunately, the tech world has made us "our f-ing khakis".
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Nationwide 5G to cover all 24 square miles of San Marino - urahara
http://www.rcrwireless.com/20170717/5g/nationwide-5g-san-marino-tag17
======
tgragnato
Telecom Italia is well-known to manage noteworthy pilot projects. But the
company often fails in making these excellences the norm.
For the mobile network:
\- the coverage of 4G is ... scarce
> In Italy, almost all of the population can benefit from mobile Internet
> connectivity services over the 2G network, namely Global System for Mobile
> Communications (GSM), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and EDGE (Enhanced
> Data rates For GSM Evolution). Next to the full coverage is HSPA (High Speed
> Packet Access) technology, while the implementation of HSPA + (HSPA
> Evolution) and 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) solutions is still to be
> completed. [[https://www.sostariffe.it/news/copertura-rete-mobile-in-
> ital...](https://www.sostariffe.it/news/copertura-rete-mobile-in-
> italia-140743/)]
\- the practice of trying to force users into accepting bundles that include
online streaming of music and/or movies, subscriptions to the fixed network,
newspapers, movie tickets, various amenities is hated by many.
[[https://www.tim.it](https://www.tim.it)]
\- not having a internet-dedicated monthly fee is a lack, especially given the
exaggerated costs in exchange for a low data threshold
For the fixed network:
\- having a guaranteed minimum bandwidth is a utopia and the real upload
bandwidth is around 20% of the declared
\- the depeering has been dictated by anti-competitive strategies rather than
technical reasons [[http://blog.bofh.it/id_432](http://blog.bofh.it/id_432)]
~~~
aruggirello
> For the fixed network: - having a guaranteed minimum bandwidth is a utopia
> and the real upload bandwidth is around 20% of the declared
Source? That's a rather bold claim. Are you talking about guaranteed
bandwidth, or rather connection speed? What's usually really bad here is the
"last mile".
In my (little) experience the upload bandwidth (connecting at 15M/768k) has
always been respected (Source: running an e-commerce business for 12 years).
Of course YMMV.
~~~
tgragnato
"YMMV" Indeed! As far as I know the business traffic is prioritised. That
doesn't mean it's the average for home connections (the majority of
users/customers).
> The transmission speed is up to 7 Mbps in download and up to 384 Kbps in
> upload. Pursuant to Article 7, paragraph 4 of AGCom 244/08 / CSP Resolution,
> the value of the minimum download speed for download of the service is 6.4
> Mbps. This value derives from measurements made in the second half of 2012
> on lines (1) which are between 1000 and 1500 meters from the central
> station. It should be noted that this value refers to the exclusive use of
> the ADSL connection for Internet access without the simultaneous use of VoIP
> or IPTV services. In any case, the value of the minimum transmission speed
> in download that represents the target value on which Telecom Italia
> contractually contracts is set at 2.1 Mbps. For the lines located in the
> areas included in the Anti-digital divide project (see www.telecomitalia.it
> in the Info Consumers section - Anti-digital project divides the list of
> municipalities with a rated transmission speed of 640 Kbps download and 256
> Kbps in upload ) Contract engagement is set at 300 Kbps in download and 100
> kbps in upload. For details, see the contractual terms.
> [[https://www.tim.it/offerte/fisso/internet-voce-e-
> timvision/a...](https://www.tim.it/offerte/fisso/internet-voce-e-
> timvision/adsl/internet-senza-limiti)]
"Are you talking about guaranteed bandwidth, or rather connection speed?" The
upload bandwidth I normally have is the guaranteed minimum. Whether it's
because of the last mile or the network congestion, I do not know.
Now, we are in the cloud era, suppose you try to upload an hd picture, or a
long document somewhere (side note: this is an average use case, not something
you should expect from a power user). For a file size of 10MiB [83886.08 Kb]
(again, nothing exaggerated) at a transfer rate of 100kbps the transfer will
take 838s: just slightly under a quarter of an hour !!! IMHO this is totally
unreasonable.
My position is that the company is what remains of a former state monopoly,
which still holds a dominant position in the telecommunications market.
Unfortunately for the users, this is why there has been no incentive to
improve the network over time (for everyone, doing some localised research
project is insufficient), and today the situation is not the best.
Telecom Italia is not a company like the others: it's allowed to do many
things that others cannot do, including harassing people at every hour of the
day for selling their new snake oil with a crazy new discount (taking the
money spent on the salaries of the people workin in the call centers and
investing them in improving the network is the first thing to do).
The 20% is what I'm experiencing in one of my connections, but you do not have
to take my word for it, a quick web search is going to show you relevant
results:
[http://forum.telefonino.net/showthread.php?t=402839](http://forum.telefonino.net/showthread.php?t=402839)
[https://www.tomshw.it/forum/threads/telecom-upload-
basso.247...](https://www.tomshw.it/forum/threads/telecom-upload-
basso.247557/) [http://www.evilripper.net/adsl-telecom-italia-1-megabyte-
in-...](http://www.evilripper.net/adsl-telecom-italia-1-megabyte-in-upload/)
[https://www.tomshw.it/forum/threads/banda-in-
upload.69639/](https://www.tomshw.it/forum/threads/banda-in-upload.69639/)
[http://forum.telefonino.net/archive/index.php?t-402839.html](http://forum.telefonino.net/archive/index.php?t-402839.html)
... and many others ...
------
DiabloD3
This is neat and all, but no LTE standard has been tapped for 5G. LTE Advanced
Pro (the third generation of the LTE spec) is the closest to having a spec
that can work for 5G, but has not yet been chosen for that.
In addition, it is implied that 5G will require usage of 28, 37, and 39 GHz,
which LTE Advanced Pro does not currently have profiles for.
What San Marino is doing is building a current gen 4G network (ie, 4.9G or
whatever they're calling it), allowing as many feature of LTE Advanced as
possible (including complex MIMO), so in a few years most cell phones will
have caught up to make effective use of it.
Also, as a side note, LTE Advanced Pro was introduced in 3GPP release 13
(early 2016), and anything that meets the requirements for 5G will not be
until release 15 (most likely next year).
------
zitterbewegung
This looks like a really cool testbed for 5G. No tall buildings for you to put
in 5G repeaters / femtocells. No bureaucracy for you to jump hoops. Small
enough that deployment wouldn't be that big of a problem. Large enough to
actually do real world tests with phones. Is Nokia (Alcatel-Lucent) doing the
deployment because I wouldn't be surprised if they did.
~~~
dublinben
I agree that this is a good test for 5G, but it's even more important that 5G
work well in dense urban areas where there are tall buildings, and hundreds
(if not thousands) of users connecting to each cell.
~~~
zitterbewegung
Your missing the point . They would do urban settings as a next step.
------
frik
Summary: _Nationwide 5G coverage in the microstate of San Marino, a 24-square-
mile microstate totally surrounded by Italy._
------
blue1
That's great. Even 3G/4G in San Marino has been rather flimsy so far.
------
mariuolo
It's not completely new, I live near San Marino and I remember that around
2010 they had set up a full WiMAX coverage.
ISTR it suffered from somewhat high latency though.
------
aelmeleegy
All 24 of them? How did they pull it off?
------
TokenDiversity
This is true 5G. Not the fake ATT 5G. I saw neowin.net taking a stance against
fakes by labelling ATT 5G as "fake 5G" clearly in their title. I hope we all
do the same until ATT & co stop misleading their customers leading to eventual
confusion for everyone.
------
Theodores
Meanwhile in the Tesla/SpaceX corner we have space based broadband just around
the corner:
[https://hackernoon.com/will-spacex-become-the-worlds-
biggest...](https://hackernoon.com/will-spacex-become-the-worlds-biggest-
telecoms-provider-probably-f1cdb22d00cc)
With nearby Tesla cars and SolarCity roofs giving your phone 5g with 25ms
latency. It could happen. Soon you will be able to buy a VPS in space to halve
that.
One day this space based network is going to come online and it will supercede
many terrestrial upgrades, making things like the TelCo 5G roll out not needed
after all.
~~~
Dylan16807
> Soon you will be able to buy a VPS in space to halve that.
Maybe if you migrate it every 5 minutes. Otherwise it's spending half its life
on the other side of the planet.
~~~
ajdlinux
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit)
~~~
mjg59
Geostationary orbit is more than 25msec away.
~~~
kees99
First hop on my ADSL connection is 43msec away (RTT).
~~~
Dylan16807
Yeah, that sort of thing is annoying, but it could be improved down to 4 if
they actually cared much.
The point here is that going to geostationary is at least a quarter second
round-trip, and blows the 25ms estimate out of the water. You can put servers
in orbit if you really want to, but you can't have a satellite that's both
fast to access and also in range for more than a few minutes at a time.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Port Scan Attack Detector - pavs
http://www.linuxhaxor.net/2008/02/07/the-port-scan-attack-detector/
PSAD is a collection of four lightweight system daemons written in Perl and in C that is designed to work with Linux firewalling code (iptables in the 2.4.x kernels, and ipchains in the 2.2.x kernels) to detect port scans. It features a set of highly configurable danger thresholds (with sensible defaults provided), verbose alert messages that include the source, destination, scanned port range, begin and end times, tcp flags and corresponding nmap options (Linux 2.4.x kernels only), reverse DNS info, email alerting, and automatic blocking of offending ip addresses via dynamic configuration of ipchains/iptables firewall rulesets. In addition, for the 2.4.x kernels psad incorporates many of the tcp signatures included in Snort to detect highly suspect scans.
======
jmorin007
Since when has port scanning been considered an attack?
~~~
dazzawazza
While it could be considered bad form to do a port scan it's far from an
attack.
~~~
pavs
The name of the script is PSAD (Port Scan Attack Detector).
Is a portscan of a machine malicious/illegal/unfriendly?
[http://faqs.org/faqs/computer-security/most-common-
qs/sectio...](http://faqs.org/faqs/computer-security/most-common-
qs/section-21.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
LeanLaunchLab is Bringing Lean Startup to the Enterprise - techcofounder
http://pandodaily.com/2012/03/22/leanlaunchlab-is-bringing-lean-startup-tools-to-enterprise/
======
skmurphy
It's funny how none of these articles mention <http://www.leancanvas.com/>
which was already released and in use when LLL was announced on stage at
Startup Lessons Learned last year. See for example
<http://www.slideshare.net/ashmaurya/running-lean-canvas>
Even earlier was Rob Fitzpatrick's implementation at www.thestartuptoolkit.com
(since discontinued but see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1774856> for
some comments)
Enterprise product management is a very different problem from startup product
management, but the underlying paradigm from Osterwald's "Business Model
Generation" was developed for enterprise use so it may be a better fit.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: I tried Deezer's subscription. Now they won't delete my credit card info - tomd3v
I have been using Deezer for a few years now. And recently I decided to try their subscription. I noticed that they store my credit card details and there is no way for me to remove it.<p>I contacted them to delete it, and apparently, they don't do that:<p>https://imgur.com/a/iIAGBwn<p>In addition, their support is almost non-existent.<p>I live in EU. Is there anything I can do besides requesting to delete my account?<p>This just seems extremely fishy and unprofessional.
======
mtmail
You can lookup and write to their data protection officer. Often that goes to
customer support and then gets company-internal redirected, sometimes it goes
to the legal department directly. If it's a GDPR complaint then they have 4
weeks to reply. When I last used it after two weeks I sent a follow-up, it was
a copy&paste from the local data protection agency (in my country it's per
state and I had to lookup which one is responsible for their business). The
wording was something like "Based on <paragraph> please delete [...]
information or give me a justifiable reason why you can't comply". My account
got deleted almost immediately. Knowing the regulation helped.
That said I'm sure Deezer in their terms of service allow for termination of
any account. If you request partial deletion of information and they can't
provide that they will terminate your account. And for financial/tax law
(which overwrites GDPR) they might still have some of your info stored in a
different system for 10 years.
It comes down to how patient you are, how many letters you're willing to send.
------
5bolts
update your account and try plugging in a test card number.
4111-1111-1111-1111 for example. It passes all the surface level tests but
won't actually fund anything
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
“Citizen Four” a Film by Laura Poitras - atmosx
https://citizenfourfilm.com/
======
whitten
It is unclear exactly what this page or film is about.
It shows a clever pseudo terminal input, but I'm sad to say that I didn't
really get much from it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Remove a Windows Computer Virus - scg
http://valentinstanciu.com/2011/04/remove-a-windows-computer-virus/
======
bediger
Thank you for noting that it's a _Windows_ computer virus, not one of those
menacing _malware_ viruses the media tells everyone, even Mac and Linux users,
are going to destroy their lives.
Note that even though Macs and Linux boxes can certainly get viruses
([http://virus.bartolich.at/virus-writing-
HOWTO/_html/index.ht...](http://virus.bartolich.at/virus-writing-
HOWTO/_html/index.html)), statistically speaking, they absolutely will not.
There's something else going on with Windows (cultural, baroque system
interface, something) that allows a flood of malware.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What PostHog did to get into YC - james_impliu
https://posthog.com/blog/before-the-yc-application/
======
james_impliu
Hey, I'm James one of the founders of PostHog, a YC W20 company.
We noticed that lots of people blog about the application process, but few
blog whilst they're actually going through the program.
We recently launched our company on HN as a current batch YC company. We
decided to start blogging about our time here to give people a sense of what
it's like.
If there's interest, we'll keep writing posts like this!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Hello World, by Oracle - ceejayoz
http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/getStarted/application/examples/HelloWorldApp.java
======
th0ma5
Is the upvoting from a cynicism that the legal disclaimers are 10x the code?
:D It is a compelling situation, on the other hand, I have been generally
impressed that Oracle has their house in order, for sure. Thanks for posting
this, though!
~~~
asomiv
Unfortunately the license is necessary. Without a license the code is covered
by copyright by default, making any redistribution or usage of the code a
copyright violation. Although a one-liner "do whatever the fuck you want"
"license" is sufficient for redistribution or usage, it gives other people the
opportunity to sue Oracle if the code somehow causes any kind of damage.
Granted, it's just a Hello World, but in the US anybody can sue anyone for
anything so I'm sure some jerk can come up with a stupid reason to sue someone
over a Hello World. All this has made lawyers extremely careful.
~~~
ben1040
I'm surprised it's missing the standard stipulation that the code is not to be
used in nuclear facilities or life support systems, and that it not be
exported to Iran, Cuba, Syria, or North Korea.
~~~
nettdata
That's part of the overall license you sign/agree to when you pay for the
licenses or download it from their site.
------
Tichy
I find it most interesting that Hello World is now an "App".
~~~
veyron
As I learned it [many years ago, in the blitz to learn java for AP CS AB],
people use the App suffix to denote classes that had a main function (and
could be used as an applet or application).
------
Garbage
Is this why people call "Java is too verbose"?
~~~
ldh
No, this doesn't have anything to do with the language it's written in.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Better Remember Spring and Resistance Equivalent Constant Formulas - caaaadr
https://abidsikder.com/blog/y-xp.html
======
caaaadr
I've been trying to improve my writing, so feedback on the clarity and style
of my writing would be awesome, thank you!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Hello JIT World: The Joy of Simple JITs (2012) - jeffreyrogers
http://blog.reverberate.org/2012/12/hello-jit-world-joy-of-simple-jits.html
======
haberman
Author here -- I'm happy to see the continued interest in this article. I had
a lot of fun writing it. DynASM is some great work and doesn't have a lot of
documentation, so I was hoping to bridge this gap with an introductory
tutoral. And Brainfuck provided just the right problem for writing a short and
sweet program that does something interesting.
------
Scaevolus
I made a very fast BF JIT based on this post:
[https://github.com/rmmh/beefit](https://github.com/rmmh/beefit)
I implemented a fair number of optimizations, but there aren't many large
benchmarks to really crunch down on. An experimental register allocation pass
was awkward (DynASM doesn't really support run-time register selection) and
didn't improve performance much.
------
Udo
Thanks for linking to this!
I've been building a toy language by mutating the excellent Lua 5.2 runtime,
it's one of my silly side projects aimed at taking me out of my coding comfort
zone.
Looking into the LuaJIT code to figure out how they did it has been on my list
for a few days now, and this introduction to DynASM provides an nice starting
point (LuaJIT itself is based on Lua 5.1 and unlikely to be updated).
------
rurban
I would have appreciated if you would also had described the downsides of
using DynASM compared to other jitters.
E.g. In lightning you don't care too much about the target architecture, as
you jit to an abstract RISC machine. So the jit library is portable (not in
DynASM), does handle the calling conventions for you (not in DynASM), and does
register optimizations automatically (max 6 with lightning), again not in
DynASM).
The real trick you seem to like is the syntax abstraction, using | as prefix.
But normal C can do the same with __asm(string) and it's easier to use C
macros for portable ASM, and LISP jit libraries have long done the same, with
the advantage in LISP that the JIT macros in lisp are part of the normal
language. No need to deal with restricted C macros.
~~~
haberman
> I would have appreciated if you would also had described the downsides of
> using DynASM compared to other jitters.
The article wasn't meant to be a comparative evaluation of DynASM vs other
dynamic code generation engines. If I was comparing it against engines like
LLVM and Lightning that have their own IR and optimizers I would have also
mentioned DynASM's advantages compared to them, such as:
\- DynASM is _much_ smaller: DynASM's runtime is something like 2k of object
code. Lightning is more like 150k and LLVM is many times bigger than that.
\- DynASM is faster: I haven't benchmarked against lightning but LLVM is known
not to be very fast at JITting, and just the fact that Lightning is performing
its own optimizations means that DynASM is probably faster (note that I'm
talking specifically about the speed of doing the code generation itself).
\- DynASM gives greater control: you have full control over what instructions
are emitted. If you want to play a little fast and loose with calling
conventions for speed, you can (I do this in my JIT). If you want to use
SSE/AVX/etc. or other very specialized instructions like x86's parsing
instructions, you can.
Basically, if you already have your own IR and optimizer and you just want a
code generator, and want control over what specific processor instructions you
are emitting, then DynASM is a great choice. If you don't have your own
optimized IR, or you don't want to write a separate code generator per
platform, and you don't mind the size/speed overhead of other engines, then
other projects might be a better choice.
> The real trick you seem to like is the syntax abstraction, using | as
> prefix. But normal C can do the same with __asm(string)
If you think __asm(string) is the same as DynASM, then you missed the point of
the article.
__asm(string) is great if you just want to write some static ASM that is fully
known at compile time. But how are you going to use __asm(string) to do this?
void emit_mov(int immediate) {
// This won't work, you can't substitute a variable
// into an __asm() expression.
__asm("mov eax, immediate");
}
Sure you could pass the immediate to the ASM via a register, but that's not
what we're trying to do, we're trying to build code at runtime. __asm() won't
help us with that.
> and it's easier to use C macros for portable ASM
Not sure what you mean by this. If you're talking about a BPF-like approach
like I discussed in my article, that's not portable and not very readable IMO.
~~~
Scaevolus
DynASM isn't quite a _full_ code generator, since you can't easily select
registers dynamically.
~~~
haberman
x86 supports this, though none of the other architectures do:
[http://www.freelists.org/post/luajit/runtime-variable-
regist...](http://www.freelists.org/post/luajit/runtime-variable-register-in-
dynasm,2)
------
jedismith
Very well-written bite-sized intro. I've always wondered how well JITs would
do if they had access to a scratchpad RAM (kind of like many GPUs). It's a
very different problem than with a register allocator but I feel it'd be more
useful for a JIT since it probably knows more about the program structure than
whatever LRU variant the cache algorithm is using.
------
thedigitalengel
Related: [https://github.com/sanjoy/bfjit](https://github.com/sanjoy/bfjit) (a
brainfuck interpreter with a tracing JIT for hot loops).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
T-Mobile G1 coming to Walmart at a slashed price? - qhoxie
http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2008/10/27/t-mobile-g1-coming-to-walmart-at-a-slashed-price/
======
jacobscott
Saving $30 is cool, but remember the majority cost of this phone (and other
smartphones) is in the contract.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sysdig vs. DTrace vs. Strace (2014) - pmoriarty
https://sysdig.com/blog/sysdig-vs-dtrace-vs-strace-a-technical-discussion/
======
crb
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7568175](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7568175)
------
nailer
How does it compare to SystemTap and other Linux based kernel probe/tap
mechanisms?
~~~
otoburb
I had the same question and came across Brendan Gregg's[1] excellent
summary[2] (written last July) comparing various kernel tracers. Sysdig is one
of the tracers covered, although Brendan did state in the post that he had the
least amount of experience with that particular tracing framework.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Gregg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Gregg)
[2] [http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2015-07-08/choosing-a-
linux...](http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2015-07-08/choosing-a-linux-
tracer.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Can Google help me root my Android device or do I have to through the mfg? - OrgNet
The brand is LG but either way, I could not find an exploit for the unpopular phone that I own "100%"
======
dredmorbius
That's a damned good question.
I'll say that I've had an (apparently non-rootable) Android device, purchased
under the explicit understanding that it _would_ be rootable.
My interest and enthusiasm for the Android "ecosystem" has ... cooled
markedly.
I'm looking forward to what Purism, Pine, and/or ReMarkable come up with in
future.
------
dredmorbius
As a practical response:
1\. You're generally on your own.
2\. If you cannot find a root procedure on mainstream sites (e.g., LineageOS
or similar), almost certainly none is available.
3\. Return the device for a refund and check the compatibility lists _first_
next time. Or buy an advertised-open-boot device.
------
gaspoweredcat
generally this is a no (the exception kind of being pixel/nexus devices)
running non official roms and mods requires an unlocked bootloader which is
something only the manufacturer can provide, some devices like for example
huaweis mate 20 pro have no option for unlock/root at all (unless you already
got your bootloader unlock code before huawei closed the service)
that doesnt mean yours is impossible though, let me know the model and i may
be able to help
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Teaching a Semester of D3.js - bootload
http://blogger.ghostweather.com/2016/01/teaching-semester-of-d3js.html
======
SeanDav
I followed the link to some slides created by the Author at:
[http://ghostweather.slides.com/lynncherny/deck#/](http://ghostweather.slides.com/lynncherny/deck#/)
This is not a direct criticism of the Author, but what is it with the penchant
these days to use absolutely minimalistic, flat interfaces with zero help on
how to use the interface?
I blame Google for starting this and all the other sheep who blindly follow
them without actually asking what an interface is really meant to do. They
have this insane desire to trend towards an interface which ultimately will
consist of a slightly beige-grey background with not a single other thing on
it. Google et al, seem to be on a never ending quest for an interface that is
both so simple, it is practically brain dead and yet requires advanced degrees
in "find the hidden button that does something" and "try separate the
interface from the data being presented".
Microsoft have picked up the torch and are running with it with unbridled
enthusiasm. Their new Office interface is a master class on how to make it as
difficult as possible to determine where my data ends and the interface
starts. All done in a tasteful shade of death-bed grey.
~~~
hellofunk
Hilarious, but you are right. And actually, while we're throwing blame around,
Apple gets some credit for this problem as well. The "invention" of "flat
design" that was whole-hog adopted in iOS 7 has left plenty of room for the
problems you describe. It becomes less clear what is visual content to
consume, what is a control to interact with, and what is actually both. I
think all companies decided a while back that a computer interface can be like
a magazine page. Except you don't press buttons on a magazine page, so it's
not a good strategy a lot of time (in rare cases you see it handled well).
------
sandGorgon
i keep wondering - whether the combination of ES6/Typescript + immutable.js +
lodash + d3 + asm.js makes for the true next generation of R like analytics
tools.
The way that Periscope.io works is probably indicative of the direction of a
JS based analytics/prototyping framework.
I suppose the first step needs to be a Jupyter notebook in ES6.
~~~
gedy
As much as I admire D3, it using the DOM as its data model has made it
difficult to work with (for me at least). I've actually had a much better
experience using SVG and RactiveJS. It's animation/tweening of property
changes is very handy for designing visualizations.
[http://examples.ractivejs.org](http://examples.ractivejs.org)
~~~
cpfohl
I was coming in to mention Ractive actually. Designed by the team at the
Guardian for easy data vis by non programmers. I've found that teammates who
look at it pick it up in about 30 minutes. All your have to do in a course is
teach the HTML and CSS and Ractive pretty much makes the interaction easy
------
jonesb6
"this course was meant to be on interactive data visualization"
So the best way to do this was to teach journalism students how to program,
how to program for the web, how to program with javascript, how to program
with third party libraries, and finally how to program with the third-party
library d3.js?
I feel like this is just an extension of the thought process "everyone should
learn to program because learning to program makes your life better".
I sincerely appreciate the write-up and will definitely be coming back to this
blog next week to see the students work.
~~~
Ronsenshi
I agree with general sentiment that teaching journalists programming is not a
realistic option - not only is it time consuming, but might also simply not
workout for people who chose to be journalists. It is a humanitarian area of
knowledge, after all, not technical. Of course, some might have affinity with
programming, but generally speaking (from my experience at least) young
journalists won't appreciate the idea of extra class where they have to learn
programming.
However I believe infographics and data visualization specifically are
important when trying to convey densely-packed information so it has to be
taught journalists in some form. They should know that given some data they
can pick certain type of visualization that would work well within the
article.
I think some general course on data visualization without jumping into
programming would work fine - explain what data visualization is, how it is
done, what kinds of data could be used with it, what kinds of representations
of data are available and so on. Plus share some resources where people can
view various visualization samples.
~~~
tomcam
I like it because it gives the journalists a vocabulary and a firm sense of
what can be done, even if it ends up being assigned to someone else for
implementation.
------
stared
"Because the general practice of learning D3 in the wild is to take examples
and modify them to fit your own data, I wanted to support that in my class."
I like this one a lot. When I am teaching data science, I often use data which
some errors I do know.
I think that we need more of learning on real examples, not polished ones.
------
spot
> For some reason, using a server really stumps new web programmers.
With Beaker you can program your client and server all on one page in one
document. It makes working with D3 really easy. Here are some examples:
D3 JS and Python:
[https://pub.beakernotebook.com/#/publications/560c9f9b-14e6-...](https://pub.beakernotebook.com/#/publications/560c9f9b-14e6-4d95-8e78-cc0a60bf4e5a?fullscreen=true)
node client and server:
[https://pub.beakernotebook.com/#/publications/560b4be1-2d91-...](https://pub.beakernotebook.com/#/publications/560b4be1-2d91-497b-b84b-ec91cc2d5e17?fullscreen=true)
------
jefflinwood
I thought it was great that you brought up debugging as a specific pain point,
especially in the context of beginning programmers. I teach a semester-long
class on programming iOS apps to journalism majors, and debugging is a really
complicated topic once you get outside the command line.
I usually take the opportunity to explain what's going on when students think
their iOS app has crashed after inadvertently setting a breakpoint (it's very
easy in XCode to put one in) to show them that they can now see the state of
the running app.
------
s3nnyy
That article reminds me of
[http://blog.tagesanzeiger.ch/datenblog/;](http://blog.tagesanzeiger.ch/datenblog/;)
these Swiss guys are trying to copy the "datablog"
[http://www.theguardian.com/data](http://www.theguardian.com/data). I think
the tagesanzeiger.ch guys make even better work sometimes and they make heavy
use of D3. (btw. if you look for a job in Zurich, I am a tech-recruiter)
------
pacomerh
This is excellent Lynn, I'm already following your repo and I love the order
in which you board the topics.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Iguazu – Docker + Mesos at Coursera - rsumbaly
https://tech.coursera.org/blog/2014/11/17/long-running-jobs-at-coursera/
======
bryanlarsen
Where's the code?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Fiix Got into YC via Justin Kan's Snapchat - khallil
https://medium.com/@kmx411/how-to-make-20-000-on-snapchat-and-get-into-y-combinator-2513a7ee371d#.7e85v2xuz
======
minimaxir
This story doesn't disprove the "this competition is silly and childish"
comments that were made when Justin's Snapchat pitch competition was first
announced
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11678286](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11678286)).
In fact, the unnecessary quirkiness of this article _reinforces_ those
comments, and the unprofessional demand of "we need you in Mountain View,
California _tomorrow morning_ " makes me think _less_ of Y Combinator.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sublime's Monokai Theme with Beautiful Colored JSON - benmarten
https://github.com/colibriapps/monokaiJsonPlus
======
benmarten
Direct Install via Package Control!
1) ⌘ + ⇧ + P - Install Package 2) Type: `Monokai JSON+`
[https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Monokai%20JSON+](https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Monokai%20JSON+)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Jigsolved: Computer Vision to Solve Jigsaw Puzzles - benryon
http://blog.cornelltech.io/jigsolved-computer-vision-to-solve-jigsaw-puzzles/
======
kjeetgill
That has always been one of those pet projects I keep meaning to take another
crack at. Once a year or so I spend a weekend toying around with opencv in
python and see what I can do.
Unlike the parent post I've always wanted to solve it geometrically, not
visually. Think solving a puzzle from the backs of the pieces.
~~~
supermdguy
I actually did this once, with a 100 piece puzzle. It took about an hour.
There were several pairs of pieces that looked like they fit, and even felt
almost right, but weren't correct. It might be possible with computer vision,
as long as you set the right tolerance of how tightly the pieces should fit
together.
------
Someone
This is a field of active research, with wildly varying approaches.
For example,
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225796422_Solving_j...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225796422_Solving_jigsaw_puzzles_by_computer)
uses puzzle shapes only, and
[http://webee.technion.ac.il/~ayellet/Ps/15-PT.pdf](http://webee.technion.ac.il/~ayellet/Ps/15-PT.pdf)
works with square pieces.
(both randomly picked from a google search; I don’t know what the state of the
art is, and am still looking for the smartphone app that does this)
------
tobinfricke
Can it solve this?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternity_II_puzzle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternity_II_puzzle)
~~~
talltimtom
If you have a picture of the solution it can tell you how to put the pieces
yes.
------
petters
Does not really solve puzzles. Just locates a single piece with sift.
~~~
kjeetgill
I agree it's hardly a complete solution but it's like 70% of it, right?
Especially if the goal was just to build a human aide.
That said, it's going to fail hard if your puzzle is a magic eye puzzle.
~~~
lozenge
Do most people keep the solution visible while solving a jigsaw?
------
anfractuosity
[http://archive.darpa.mil/shredderchallenge/](http://archive.darpa.mil/shredderchallenge/)
was pretty cool, in a related note.
------
LyndsySimon
Does this remind anyone else of Snow Crash? :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Anatomy of a worthless business proposition - jslogan
http://b2brainmaker.com/b2b-lead-generation/anatomy-of-a-worthless-business-proposition/
======
jslogan
You can have the greatest, most feature rich offering in the world, but if
your target market doesn't value the problem you solve or the opportunity you
enable, you're never going to have revenue success. At best, you'll be
opportunistic. And your product or service is effectively worthless.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Wallabag, a self-hostable application for saving web pages - tcit
https://www.wallabag.org/
======
tcit
Hi there,
As written in the title, wallabag is a self-hosted read-it-later web
application (like Pocket or Instapaper, but open-source) that saves content
from webpages. You can organize content and sync it on different devices. We
were kindly invited
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10904805](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10904805))
by HN to do a Show HN, and hope you'll be interested in our project.
For the last few months, we've been working on a whole new version of our
application (v2), and it sound very promising. We've just launched a new alpha
version for you to test on your server :
[https://www.wallabag.org/blog/2016/01/22/wallabag-
alpha2-v2](https://www.wallabag.org/blog/2016/01/22/wallabag-alpha2-v2). You
can also have a preview at [http://v2.wallabag.org/](http://v2.wallabag.org/)
If you're not willing to play adventurous, you can still give a try to old
version 1.9.1 or choose our hosting service at
[https://framabag.org/](https://framabag.org/)
~~~
mathijs
Hi, and thank you for Wallabag! I've been happily using the self-hosted
version for quite a while now. At some point I forked[1] the Android app but
development stalled when I needed an API to be able to improve the app
further. So this v2 is great news!
Just an FYI: in the blog post you mention that the login for the preview of v2
is wallabag/wallabag, however I get 'bad credentials' when trying that.
This new Material Design version looks awesome! Eagerly looking forward to v2
becoming stable so I can upgrade.
[1]: [https://github.com/monkeyinmysoup/wallabag-
android](https://github.com/monkeyinmysoup/wallabag-android)
~~~
nicosomb
wow nice your fork! Did you see that we released a new android version few
months ago?
~~~
mathijs
Thanks! I didn't know that, but I'll check it out. Thanks!
------
hippich
Btw, sovereign[1] project has wallabag included in the package.
1)
[https://github.com/sovereign/sovereign](https://github.com/sovereign/sovereign)
------
ocdtrekkie
This looks really cool, I'd love to see this on Sandstorm at some point. (I
use TTRSS as a feed reader there, and tend to just star stuff to come back to,
though this would be a better place for storing the stuff I want to read
later.)
~~~
nicosomb
Hello ocdtrekkie, We don't have time to develop a sandstorm application. If
you want to help us with this app, you're welcome ;-) I open a new issue to
not forget your idea. Already here in fact
[https://github.com/wallabag/wallabag/issues/1160](https://github.com/wallabag/wallabag/issues/1160)
~~~
ocdtrekkie
Heh, awesome to see people have already been talking about it!
------
zokier
Have you considered adding an option for saving/archiving the pages without
cleaning them? Maybe utilize WARC somehow.
------
Houshalter
Not the same thing, but kind of relevant and interesting, gwern article on the
dangers of link rot and archiving URLs:
[http://www.gwern.net/Archiving%20URLs](http://www.gwern.net/Archiving%20URLs)
------
abrowne
Just tried the V2 demo, and it looks great, with both themes. I used V1 a year
or so ago, and this is definitely a step up.
However, since Firefox added reader view, I find I don't use services like
this any longer. I was a very longtime Instapaper user and then also used
Readability.com, but now I just bookmark pages I like (and/or save them to
Android Firefox's reading list).
~~~
nicosomb
I understand. It depends on your organization. Firefox reader view (who works
very well) is not a read it later. It's a cleaner tool ;-)
------
emeraldd
So, how does work with DMCA issues? (Or am I missing something?)
~~~
Zikes
In regards to self-hosting, there shouldn't be any copyright infringement as
long as you are not re-serving the contents. Even then, there are exceptions,
e.g. archive.org and Google Cache.
The biggest likely legal concern is possible accidental server DDOS, but as
long as it respects robots.txt and it paces itself, that shouldn't happen.
------
owly
Nice work! I'd like to see someone create an automatically reformat & send to
Kindle app.
~~~
daturkel
Check out tinderizer:
[http://tinderizer.com](http://tinderizer.com)
------
msh
I like it, but the install have quite a lot of dependencies which was kind of
annoying.
------
volaski
OK I think I'll go download that framabag.org thing instead, that sounds cool
------
mynewtb
Warc support would rule
------
g4k
Are there any plans to support video offline sync?
~~~
tcit
Ideas, but no real solutions.
------
lazyant
stable version demo [http://demo.wallabag.org/](http://demo.wallabag.org/) is
404
~~~
nicosomb
Yes, sorry for that. Don't hesitate to create an account on Framabag.org (it's
free!) to test stable version.
------
flormmm
nice!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Building affordable housing, where has the entry-level house gone? - oftenwrong
https://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2016/08/building-affordable-housing-where-has.html
======
sharemywin
This explains why nothing is getting built at $100sf without land it's cheaper
to buy existing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Silicon Valley’s Diversity Problem Is Not a Myth - kevindeasis
https://medium.com/inclusion-insights/silicon-valley-s-diversity-problem-is-not-a-myth-29c549bc696b#.gasun9l3w
======
comrh
The article is certainly nothing if not well cited.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What are BI / Data visualization tools that work on top of Hadoop - uditbatra
Can you guys recommend any BI / Data visualization tools that work well directly over Hadoop/Hive?
======
mindcrime
If you use a "SQL on Hadoop" engine like Impala, you can use any standard
ODBC/JDBC based tool, like Tableau, BIRT, Pentaho, etc. We have used Tableau
with Impala quite a bit and that combo seems to work reasonably well. The SQL
on Spark engine would probably work just as well, but I haven't tried that
yet.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Why is no one talking about kernel assisted IPC bus? - unmdplyr
I've been looking at kd-bus and its later evolution bus1. Seems like both projects are stalled. Why are kernel developers not supportive of a proper messaging system through kernel itself? Or rather what is stopping them from accepting patches to it?<p>bus1 -> https://bus1.org/<p>Can someone help me understand?
======
tlb
Help me understand why Bus1 is a good idea? I'm not an expert, but it seems to
me like D-bus accomplishes similar goals without any new mechanisms in the
kernel.
~~~
unmdplyr
Having bus functionality enabled in kernel is beneficial for several reasons.
It strips out lots of unnecessary bells and whistles and just hold some
skeleton for send/receive/advertise. Most POSIX IPCs don't have an
advertisement mechanism that enables discovery without some external
persuasion.
D-Bus does this but has often been criticised for being overtly complex.
OpenWRT came with a simpler solution, but then quickly defined a data protocol
which suffers severely in I/O - it needs JSON for everything.
BUS1 doesn't specify a protocol for actual data itself so I can send/recv C
struct which my process groups know about it.
Also, leaving bus logic in kernel would mean I can write a minimalistic
library wrapping the syscalls for my specialised use, yet keep the
applications readily portable should plans change.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Angry Birds movie is set to hit theaters summer 2016 - amima
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/12/11/angry-birds-movie-tags-despicable-me-iron-man-producers-out-in/
======
s_husso
Good for Rovio! It was only matter of time when this would happen. Considering
that there isn't a day, at least here in Finland, that one doesn't bump into
some form of Angry Birds merchandise. Yesterday evening I went to get couple
of beers from the local store and noticed Angry birds soda, candy, reflectors
and plush toys near the counter. Talk about perfect place to sell your
merchandise if you happen to be queuing with your kids :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
British universities slip down 'because they are forced to focus on diversity' - dudul
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/667405/British-universities-ranking
======
nibs
I am from Ontario, Canada. All our government agencies have a mandate to
ensure there is representation from all gender and race backgrounds. It is a
noble goal, but it causes distortion in the hiring patterns on a large enough
scale.
Ie. let's look at the local police force and see how well represented each
gender, race, etc. is. Because it was pretty homogenous before, the focus
naturally becomes "let's make this more equal".
Big companies and HR people caught on too. So you get a huge portion of the
employment in the region with a dominant "hire to even the numbers out"
narrative. As opposed to, you know, hire the best, or hire people who are like
us.
The strange distortion comes like this. Say the police started out 100% white
and male. And then you implement this program and say, wow, we need to get
better representation. Now you start hiring people who either are not white or
are not male, because they will even the numbers out.
What happens is a weird effect where white men became far less attractive to
employ, because they did not contribute to the "equilization" percentages,
they detract from it.
You can do with this anecdote what you wish. I think the world is sorely
lacking in diversity of thought. Where I am from, we have incredible diversity
of culture, race and gender. But everyone must think the same and fall in line
with the same narrative, and everyone must accept that this is the only path
forward or else. Diversity of thought and culture is what progresses society,
diversity of skin colour, nation of origin or gender will not in itself do
that.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
NASA’s Plutonium Problem Could End Deep-Space Exploration - hereonbusiness
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/09/plutonium-238-problem/all/
======
molecule
> NASA’s Plutonium Problem Could End Deep-Space Exploration
> By 2005, according a Department of Energy report (.pdf), the U.S. government
> owned 87 pounds, of which roughly two-thirds was designated for national
> security projects, likely to power deep-sea espionage hardware...
how about the U.S. government does less deep-sea espionage-- in the name of
deep-space science?
~~~
pintglass
Heck, there's Google
([https://www.google.com/maps/views/streetview/oceans?gl=us&hl...](https://www.google.com/maps/views/streetview/oceans?gl=us&hl=en-
us)), Virgin Oceanic
([http://www.virginoceanic.com/](http://www.virginoceanic.com/)), etc.
exploring down there. Nothing wrong with a little deep sea action- even the
military contribute.
It's much cheaper to explore the ocean than it is to explore space, and many
benefits like: OTEC
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion)
[http://cleantechnica.com/2013/05/05/lockheed-martin-to-
build...](http://cleantechnica.com/2013/05/05/lockheed-martin-to-build-worlds-
first-ocean-thermal-power-plant-off-china-coast/)), mining (
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_sea_mining](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_sea_mining)),
etc.
Others agree:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/01/31/why-dont-we-
spe...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/01/31/why-dont-we-spend-more-
on-exploring-the-oceans-rather-than-on-space-exploration/)
[http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/09/opinion/etzioni-space-
oceans/i...](http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/09/opinion/etzioni-space-
oceans/index.html)
But, I personally think we should be exploring space and our oceans. We need
to make it a top priority of all countries to fund energy and propulsion
research to help make exploration cheaper. That means allocating adequate
budget and raising taxes for something that the mass media and our government
doesn't seem to give much of a shit about, because they don't understand the
part of the world we currently are utilizing is running out of resources
quickly and that we are constantly a stone's throw from mass extinction.
~~~
masklinn
You don't need Pu238 for deep sea _exploration_.
~~~
pintglass
I wouldn't rule that out. Why wouldn't it make a great undersea battery?
Also, if we found Apollo 13 we could recover some Pu238:
[http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/11/28/1637231/will-
nasa...](http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/11/28/1637231/will-nasa-ever-
recover-apollo-13s-plutonium-from-the-ocean)
[http://unexplainedthings.tumblr.com/post/13563685365/will-
na...](http://unexplainedthings.tumblr.com/post/13563685365/will-nasa-ever-
recover-apollo-13s-plutonium-from-the)
~~~
masklinn
It would, but you don't _need_ it because you don't _need_ years or decades of
power at high depths.
------
thangalin
Directly related ("U.S. Starts Making Plutonium"):
[http://news.discovery.com/space/nasa-plutonium-production-
sp...](http://news.discovery.com/space/nasa-plutonium-production-space-
fuel-130314.htm)
~~~
ChuckMcM
I was going to supply that link as well. We have been working on a restart for
a while. Basically the Wired article is just silly.
~~~
greglindahl
It's easy to read between the lines: The NASA guys think it's likely there
will be problems, and that Congress will fail to act quickly when more money
is needed.
------
robryan
$10 million vs $20 million a year? It probably cost congress more to argue
about this than the cut has saved.
------
slacka
Thorium reactors produce PU-238 as a “free” byproduct. One more reason we
should be pursuing LFTR reactor research.
~~~
InclinedPlane
Erm, sort of. It doesn't actually help that much.
As a short, but helpful, side discussion consider the breeding of Pu-239 in a
reactor for use in nuclear weapons. Pu-239 works great in a nuclear bomb but
other isotopes of Plutonium cause problems, specifically the high spontaneous
fission rate of Pu-240 can create so many background neutrons that having a
significant amount of it in a bomb can vastly increase the "pre-detonation"
(fizzle) risk, which causes the bomb to have very low yield (on the same scale
as the chemical explosives in the bomb). As Plutonium remains in a reactor
subject to neutron flux it will naturally breed other isotopes, which is why
there is a difference between weapons grade and reactor grade Plutonium.
Reactor grade Plutonium can contain any variation of isotopes, essentially all
of them are suitable for use in a reactor, but weapons grade Plutonium can
only have a very small amount of Pu-240. And for this reason the way that
weapons grade Plutonium is made is by removing fuel rods from a reactor on
very short time scales and reprocessing it to remove the Plutonium then
forming it back into new fuel rods and so forth. This is a very costly and
complex endeavor which is why you can't just use ordinary power reactors for
generating weapons grade Plutonium.
Interestingly, Pu-238 also exists in reactor grade Plutonium in substantial
amounts (1% or more of the Plutonium, so nearly an entire tonne per year
worldwide). However, because it's mixed up with all of the other Plutonium it
would require extremely costly isotopic separation.
So, how is this relevant to Thorium reactors? Well, let's go back and look at
what actually happens when Pu-238 is produced in a Thorium reactor. You start
with Th-232, and under neutron flux you'll breed U-233, which is the reactor's
main fission fuel. If U-233 is hit by a neutron and absorbs it instead of
fissioning then you can end up with U-234, U-235, U-236, Np-237 (through a
decay), and Pu-238 (through another decay). However, it's not as though things
don't stop there. Pu-238 will breed into Pu-239, Pu-240, and so on, just as in
a conventional Uranium power reactor.
So here you have the same problem as producing weapons grade Plutonium, you
have a process that you need to stop before it goes too far, and in order to
do that you need to pull the Plutonium out of the reactor at regular, short
intervals. Otherwise you'll just get a buildup of ordinary reactor grade
Plutonium. However, the problem is worse here because instead of being the
product of just one neutron reaction (natural U-238 becoming Pu-239) the
breeding of RTG grade Plutonium is the product of a long chain of reactions
(taking 6 steps between the isotopes in the reactor fuel at the start and the
production of Pu-238). This means the amount of production and the time scales
of production are very much not helpful from the perspective of pure Pu-238
production, especially if you want to also operate a power reactor cost-
effectively at the same time.
(Edit: also, there's an additional problem, because Thorium reactor fuel
contains U-232, which has a short half-life and has decay products that are
prodigious gamma ray sources, making reprocessing and handling even more
difficult than ordinary reactor fuel. You can handle Plutonium in a glove box,
but with used Thorium fuel containing U-232 you'd need to handle it via
robotic manipulators in a heavily shielded area distant from humans, except
that gamma radiation kills electronics like nobody's business, which is a bit
of a catch-22. This is one of the key technical hurdles of Thorium reactor
designs in general.)
In short, the fact that Thorium reactors produce Pu-238 isn't helpful, because
existing reactors do too, but in either case it's hard to get at.
~~~
tanzam75
Contamination with plutonium-240 was a big problem during the Manhattan
Project. They'd done the preliminary calculations based on cyclotron-produced
plutonium-239, which was pure enough that a gun design with a long tube was
feasible. ("Thin Man")
The plutonium-239 that came out of the Hanford reactor had a much higher
contamination rate. This required a much faster assembly of the critical mass
in order to avoid a fizzle. The gun design would have to be so long that it
couldn't fit on a plane. Whereas implosion could provide the required rapid
assembly in a limited space. Thus, "Thin Man" was out, and "Fat Man" was in.
Implosion was no longer a secondary option -- it was the only option.
------
runarb
According to Wikipedia [0] it isn't all sorrows. There are other fuels
available in large quantities at a low price, like Strontium-90 used in many
Russian radioisotope thermoelectric generators. Other fuels like Americium-241
are also showing big promise, and are available commercially in large
quantities. Americium-241 also has a much longer half-life, and can
hypothetically power a device for centuries.
0:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator#Fuels)
------
hereonbusiness
It's actually really interesting what a relatively tiny amount of Pu-238 is
needed to power deep space missions for decades, 36lb (16.3kg) of Pu-238
amounts to a sphere with a radius of 5.82cm according to wolfram alpha.
------
jevinskie
> Every so often an atom of neptunium-237 absorbs a neutron emitted by the
> core’s decaying uranium, later shedding an electron to become plutonium-238.
Doesn't it shed a proton to become plutonium 238 and, as a consequence, loses
an electron?
~~~
pjscott
Proper description of what's going on:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_decay](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_decay)
~~~
jevinskie
Thank you very much, I was under the impression that the electron was lost
from the orbital cloud, not the nucleus!
Edit: Looking back at my math it was an off-by-one error in the wrong
direction. :)
------
jlgreco
France has the resources to make Pu-238, though I am not sure if they
currently have the facilities/equipment. If the situation really is
politically impossible in the US and Russia keeps on flaking out, we could
always try buying more from the French again and let them deal with the
politics.
If we are shitcanning missions because we don't have Pu-238, then why doesn't
NASA just take the money they _would_ have spent on those programs and spend
it on more Pu-238 instead? Surely that should buy us enough Pu-238 for at
least remaining uncancelled missions.
~~~
maaku
> If we are shitcanning missions because we don't have Pu-238, then why
> doesn't NASA just take the money they would have spent on those programs and
> spend it on more Pu-238 instead? Surely that should buy us enough Pu-238 for
> at least remaining uncancelled missions.
Requires an act of congress. Need I say more?
~~~
dalke
To elaborate on maaku's answer, as the article points out, "the Atomic Energy
Act forbids NASA to manufacture plutonium-238."
~~~
jlgreco
The idea is for NASA to _buy_ Pu-238, not make it. I am not sure how much
Congress micromanages their budget though, it may very well be the case that
money meant for probes cannot be redirected to buy Pu-238.
~~~
dalke
Buy it from ... whom? As the article points out, Russia "reneged on a deal to
sell 22 pounds to the U.S." and might not have any left for sale.
There are no other producers of 238Pu. (And for that matter, Russia stopped
producing it years ago.)
Edit: Here's a link for you.
[http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/636900main_Howe_Presentation.pdf](http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/636900main_Howe_Presentation.pdf)
.
> In the past, the United States had an adequate supply of 238Pu, which was
> produced in facilities that existed to support the U.S. nuclear weapons
> program. The problem is that no 238Pu has been produced in the United States
> since the Department of Energy (DOE) shut down those facilities in the late
> 1980s. Since then, the U.S. space program has had to rely on the inventory
> of 238Pu that existed at that time, supplemented by the purchase of 238Pu
> from Russia. However, Russian facilities to produce 238Pu were also shut
> down many years ago, and the DOE will soon take delivery of its last
> shipment of 238Pu from Russia. The committee does not believe that there is
> any additional 238Pu (or any operational 238Pu production facilities)
> available anywhere in the world.
Full details are in "Radioisotope Power Systems: An Imperative for Maintaining
U.S. Leadership in Space Exploration", National Research Council committee
report. ISBN: 0-309-13858-2, 74 pages, (2009)
~~~
tanzam75
> _Buy it from ... whom? As the article points out, Russia "reneged on a deal
> to sell 22 pounds to the U.S." and might not have any left for sale._
Now, that's interesting.
The Chinese are planning to land an RTG-powered spacecraft on the moon in
December 2013. That's just 3 months away. Evidently they managed to get hold
of some Pu-238 to power their spacecraft with.
Either they manufactured the isotope themselves, or they outbid us for the 22
pounds that Russia was planning to sell.
~~~
dalke
Interesting indeed!
There's talk about it at
[http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=a4sdshu...](http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=a4sdshu2jb19cmbhm4qj3uggq7&topic=26848.0;all)
. The best they found is this quote:
> "The nuclear power system will make China the third country apart from the
> United States and Russia to be able to apply nuclear technology to space
> exploration," Ouyang said.
Various newspaper article use that quote to say it was domestic production.
Parsed carefully, that doesn't say that they created the RTG, only that they
applied it.
------
strictfp
> Political ignorance and shortsighted squabbling, along with false promises
> from Russia, and penny-wise management of NASA’s ever-thinning budget still
> stand in the way of a robust plutonium-238 production system.
Biased much?
------
zyb09
Probably a non-issue, because more Plutonium-238 can be easily created using
existing infrastructure. As demand of this stuff goes up and supplies dwindle,
someone is gonna make more of it sooner or later.
~~~
maaku
There are legal constraints on Pu-238. Market forces do not apply,
unfortunately...
~~~
spiritplumber
Maybe they can use a box full of old pinball parts.
~~~
tanzam75
> _Maybe they can use a box full of old pinball parts._
That would be Pu-239, not Pu-238. Remember, the Libyans wanted him to build a
bomb -- not a spaceship.
------
guelo
Actually DOE has started a production program using $10mil appropriated
through NASA,
[http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1303/20pu238/#.UjuOO6x3O4B](http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1303/20pu238/#.UjuOO6x3O4B)
The original plan was to fund $10mil through NASA and $10mil through DOE for a
total of $20mil per year, but DOE lost their half of the funding due to
Solyndra-related politics.
~~~
dalke
You sound like you didn't read the linked-to article, which details all of
that except for the Solyndra politics.
~~~
sliverstorm
There's no ambiguity here. He didn't.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Selling a car for bitcoins. For real. - riboflavin
http://www.reddit.com/r/BitMarket/comments/iugzp/wts_2006_chevy_equinox_suv_1195_btc_obo/
======
Curt_Liu
I think bitcoin will be baned sooner or later
~~~
jackpirate
It's already the bane of hacker news.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Anyone been to startupweekend? - Killah911
Planning on attending startupweekend in NYC tomorrow. Any words of advice from your experience would be much appreciated.
======
hannesfostie
I've been to two, here's a quick rundown...
Startup Weekend Brussels, #1: january 2011 About 90 attendants, 45-50 pitches.
Some were good, some were bad, some were clones (groupon anyone?). I joined a
great team led by the (then) Brussels director of Founder Institute and had an
amazing time. We ended up second (should have been first, but I won't go into
details) and that was that. He made a company out of it and recently raised
$2m, moving all operations to Sillicon Valley (he is from SV originally, but
lived in Brussels for a couple years). You might've read about it on TC.
Company is Scanadu, @scanadude on Twitter.
Startup Weekend Brussels #2: october 2011 Fully booked, I'd say about 90 still
showed up. If I have to guess, only 25-30 pitches, most were terrible. Ideas
chosen were quite bad, a couple opportunistic people won the pitches which is
okay I suppose. The one idea which I liked (I kid you not: one) was one I had
actually worked on before, before the "founder" disappeared and we just faded.
Pretty good project, but from the pitch I could tell the focus was wrong. They
also had too much interest (well over 10% of all votes!!) and a team that was
too big, so I went home and didn't come back.
All in all, worth trying. Go see what's going on, it could be a lifechanging
experience. If nothing else, you lost some money (or to look at it from the
bright side: bought expensive food and drinks, as well as an office for a
weekend)
~~~
Killah911
Thanks for the info, I'm in startupNYC and it's been an Awesome experience so
far!
------
mpesce
Yes, I've been at two startup weekends (Sydney and Melbourne). They're
amazing. Come prepared to pitch your idea (if you have one) and prepared to
work on your idea (if it gets up) or with a team on someone else's idea.
The winners generally have something more than a good pitch at the end of the
weekend. A demo of some sort says a lot more, to the judges, than a lot of
fancy slides.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ashley Madison looks like it was always a big sad scam - BadassFractal
http://boingboing.net/2015/08/26/ashley-madison-looks-like-it-w.html
======
wodenokoto
I thought it was weird that there were more (young, beautiful) women in my
area on AM than Tinder.
At first I thought it was just a prostitution ring spamming AM, but maybe AM
just generated fake profiles around male profiles?
------
ratfacemcgee
gizmodo researched? nice try
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
MatterPort Demo of Taliesin West - dedalus
https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=iWvNCvUJxvg
======
erikig
For anyone else that's curious Taliesin West is the winter home and
architectural school of renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
I just love how his buildings lay comfortably and organically on the landscape
and Matterport's 3D rendering does a great job of showing this.
~~~
kkylin
Off-topic: I'm not an architecture buff and still found the (not-too-cheap)
tour of Taliesin West well worth the time and money. Worth considering if
you're ever in Scottsdale AZ.
~~~
mr_spothawk
Also worth visiting in Scottsdale (not far away, and historically related) is
Cosanti, which is free.
Paolo Soleri is a really interesting character
~~~
kkylin
Yes, Cosanti's definitely interesting. As is Arcosanti itself, if you can
spare the time to drive out there (on the way from Phoenix to points north).
[https://arcosanti.org/](https://arcosanti.org/)
[https://arcosanti.org/visit/cosanti/](https://arcosanti.org/visit/cosanti/)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcosanti](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcosanti)
------
danpalmer
This is kinda cool, and better than nothing, especially for their target
markets like real estate, but I cannot for a second believe that this is the
best UX for browsing the 3D space. It's slow, it's clunky, the transitions
look poor, and I struggle to get a "feel" for the 3D space in any useful way.
It seems to be a straight clone of the Google Street View interface, and that
was one with many more restrictions on the data at a scale far larger. There
must be improvements possible here!
~~~
cbanek
It's interesting about the 3D space part. I totally agree. Having visited
Taliesin West in person, there's one unique part you would notice right away
if you were there but can't with the 3D model: the height of the ceilings. The
ceilings there were very low, and it was kind of strange being in there as a
fairly tall person (~6ft). Kind of like being in a hobbit hole.
------
mirimir
This sucker ate 3GB RAM in Firefox, and hung at 75%.
What's it supposed to do?
Edit: Oh, [https://matterport.com/](https://matterport.com/). Not the thing to
load in a wimpy VM, using a high-latency uplink.
------
Animats
It's like Quicktime VR.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I'm sharing a little knowledge back to the community, your thoughts? - xtrycatchx
I'm a Java/JEE practitioner and in my own little ways I'm writing a blog (though it's limited to what i knew) to share my little knowledge back to the community. DO you think this is a good approach? Well honestly one of the purpose (aside from sharing back to the community my small knowledge) is to have feedback from other Java-related or any programming practitioners. This way, I'll be able to learn from the community too. What do you guys think?
======
bendmorris
If you want to blog, blog. If people like it, they'll read it; if not, they
won't.
Not sure where you're going with "do you think this is a good approach?"
unless you're trying to advertise.
Also, you seem to have posted the exact same thing yesterday:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1981394>
...and you've been posting links to your blog for weeks now. One mention of
your blog is quite enough, thank you. If you add some interesting content that
people find useful, your readership will improve.
~~~
TheSmoke
if people know it, they'll read it. otherwise, you are wasting your time if
your primary goal to share the knowledge with other people and not keeping
notes to yourself.
------
carbocation
I think you should share a link. And yeah, of course it's limited to what you
know! That's not a problem.
~~~
xtrycatchx
Thanks. Here is my blog <http://www.adobocode.com>
------
db42
sure, go ahead with the blog.
------
FirstHopSystems
Do it!
~~~
xtrycatchx
will surely do.. thanks
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tweet Visualization in World-Map Heatmap Form - uptown
http://aworldoftweets.frogdesign.com/
======
trotsky
Wow, that is awesome. What is up with Rio being a third (or more) of the
overall network volume?
EDIT: I guess since it's the percentage of geolocated tweets the most likely
answer is that the most popular Portuguese client geolocates by default.
~~~
dpritchett
There's a been a press release for a study on erectile dysfunction in
Brazilian men and now it's a trending topic.
[http://zerohora.clicrbs.com.br/zerohora/jsp/default.jsp?uf=1...](http://zerohora.clicrbs.com.br/zerohora/jsp/default.jsp?uf=1&local=1§ion=Segundo%20Caderno&newsID=a3165741.xml)
Based on the portuguese trending topics, it looks like Ronaldinho isn't going
to be playing soccer in Teofilo Ottoni.
Edit: It's extraordinarily difficult to find the signal of the original story
amongst the noise of Portuguese tweets saying "lol, erectile dysfunction is a
trending topic!"
Perhaps someone with a better handle on tweet mining can get to the bottom of
this.
------
olalonde
> A world of tweets is compatible with every browser supporting HTML5 and the
> <canvas> tag, and _degrades gracefully to Flash on older browsers._
Who would have thought...
~~~
alexophile
When it does, it gives this message: "YOUR BROWSER DOES NOT SUPPORT HTML5.
GRACEFULLY DEGRADING TO FLASH. PLS DON'T TELL STEVE."
In other news, I really wish my employer would let me upgrade my browser...
------
CytokineStorm
It would be great to see a heatmap of all the tweets that they've collected
since November 1st. The real-time thing is pretty cool, but I think it would
be interesting to see the most active locations from the last few months on a
higher resolution heatmap.
Or even better, let the user select between fixed time periods (all time, one
month, one week, etc.).
------
jsmcgd
I like these geographical data visualizations but I'm always slightly
disappointed when the data turns out to be 90% what you would expect. I always
think it might be more interesting to show some slightly more nuanced data if
possible, like instead of showing volume of stuff, show the rate of growth of
stuff or where stuff has appeared for the first time.
------
wladimir
Very cool. I don't use twitter myself but I really like the visualization
idea.
The GUI doesn't seem to work here, though, I cannot change any of the radio
buttons such as "Satellite" instead of "Map". It simply doesn't respond to
mouse clicks (Firefox 3.6.13 Linux).
~~~
dknight
Same configuration here; but buttons work fine for me.
~~~
wladimir
Hm on my laptop (same configuration) it works fine. Must be some configuration
problem or misbehaving plugin at my side.
------
dangrover
I would like to see a visualization like this, but corrected for population
density. What cities tweet disproportionately?
------
dknight
Even when I open only this site in my browser, within a while it uses >90% cpu
time and soon rises to 100%.
------
100k
Very cool. Total "wish I'd thought of that" idea with excellent design.
------
uiui
What's the point of staring at the browser for 2 minutes to get the info you
are looking for? If you are retired, that is another story ...
------
trotsky
filter_term == "earthquake" || "tsunami" || "tornado"
------
mdiamond
This is awesome. You know what would make this super-awesome? Being able to
filter by keyword. Though they're probably already filtering down the tweets
or else the map would be a complete mess.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Zoom Fatigue and the New Ways to Party - fortran77
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/zoom-fatigue-and-the-new-ways-to-party
======
sidpatil
[https://outline.com/Yg3FzT](https://outline.com/Yg3FzT)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: A REPL for Java - jacktasia
https://github.com/jacktasia/java-repl?take2
======
jacktasia
I am interested to get feedback on this. Obviously it's not a "real" REPL as
I've outlined here: [https://github.com/jacktasia/java-repl?take2#how-is-this-
dif...](https://github.com/jacktasia/java-repl?take2#how-is-this-different-
from-real-repls)
~~~
flipcoder
This definitely needed to exist, so thanks for building it. I remember wanting
this type of thing a few years ago but iirc my only choice was the Jython
terminal. :(
------
zachlatta
This looks really interesting. Definitely going to play around with it later
tonight. One quick thing, the name java-repl just isn't sticking with me.
Maybe something like jrepl would be better?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Netflix was the top stock of the decade - prostoalex
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/23/netflix-was-the-top-stock-of-the-decade-delivering-over-4000percent-return.html
======
dasil003
I bought Netflix at the time of the Qwikster debacle because it was obvious
the market was overreacting to what amounted to a one-time mistake. At the
time, Netflix was a leader in both vision and their technology was a major
competitive advantage.
Almost a decade later I'm bearish. Their technology advantage is being
commoditized away, and production + marketing has not been their forte. It's
possible they'll turn it around, but even so they've got a massive battle on
their hands against the likes of Disney and other big content producers who
have almost a century of experience in this exact arena. It's not that I don't
think they'll be successful, but the current price is over-inflated because
Tech—they've got a long way to go to justify the valuation.
~~~
natrik
It's hilarious how much production has not been their forte. Aside from a few
hits like Stranger Things, most of their originals, which they need to pan out
for future success (instead of paying 100 million for Friends) are absolute
rubbish.
~~~
xvector
Witcher has to have been one of the worst-written TV shows I’ve seen. A shame
because the source material isn’t bad at all.
~~~
bdz
There haven't been any good video game-to-motion picture ever. What people
love in games is really hard to put on screen (Witcher has the original source
material books but they were never as famous or good as the games).
Honestly it's really hard to do it, to appeal to both the gamers and the wider
audience who never touched the game (inc the critics)
I'm playing games since the late 80s and seen so many movies and TV shows
failing.
This list is perfect
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_video_g...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_video_games)
~~~
stevenwoo
The Castlevania anime is really well done and can stand alone without the game
but if you have played some of the games it really feels like a playthrough
with a good story, though the first two seasons are based on one particular
version.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania_(TV_series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania_\(TV_series\))
~~~
dllthomas
I found it quite surprisingly good! Also surprisingly gory and crude - which
isn't good or bad but seems notable.
------
duxup
I remember for years I kept seeing predictions of Netflix's demise about how
someone established coming along and doing it better or every content
providers just not selling and/or creating their own service...and so on.
Netflix is still around and at least for me it is one of a couple services I
regularly use / keep and I'm actually kinda annoyed when another service comes
along. I just watch what the handful of services I use have...I don't want to
chase content around.
~~~
stormbrew
I used to feel this way but more and more Netflix is the service i question if
it’s worth the price to me. This holiday season kinda emphasized why: normally
i wind up binging a lot of Christmas movies this time of year but their
selection this year (in Canada at least) was downright bad. Like 1 or 2 things
i recognized and a dozen or so crappy shovelware shows.
I’m basically only in it for their original stuff now, which with everyone
trying to eat their pie was really the only way they were ever going to keep
people, but i could just sub for a couple months every year to binge those.
Keeping the year round sub for that is kinda meh as a value proposition.
~~~
judge2020
> Like 1 or 2 things i recognized and a dozen or so crappy shovelware shows.
[https://i.redd.it/rd05w5nlj0541.jpg](https://i.redd.it/rd05w5nlj0541.jpg)
------
usaphp
> A $1 million bet on Netflix’s stock placed on Jan. 1, 2010, would be worth
> close to $43 million today.
Same goes for AMD, in 2016 it was just $1.8, now it’s $47. Incredible growth
in just 4 years
~~~
axaxs
That one hurt. AMD had hired Keller, and rumblings of a new generation were
afoot. I'd just bought a house and had no spare cash, so told my trusted
coworker to go all in on AMD. He had no spare cash either. Now we once a year
have the 'so...AMD...yup...yup' conversation.
~~~
omnimus
And now they don't have Keller so... sell quickly?
~~~
eganist
Eh they still have Papermaster.
Disclosure: I went long AMD in 2009 and doubled my bet when Mark joined.
------
gok
And second-to-top stock of the last two decades. [1]
Top stock of the 90s was (I believe) Dell.
[1] [https://howmuch.net/articles/best-performing-
stocks](https://howmuch.net/articles/best-performing-stocks)
------
lawrenceyan
With Youtube and Disney+ encroaching on their territory, Netflix is in a
pretty precarious position in my opinion.
~~~
anonu
Not sure how you measure precarious. Do you think people will just drop
Netflix and run to another streaming provider?
Or do people end up paying for a handful of these things?
I can say from my own experience I've got at least 4 streaming subscriptions I
can think of...
------
mixmastamyk
Bummer. I knew this would happen to some extent early in the decade, but
thought they’d lose it all when the media companies took back control of their
media. Also, was cleaned out over a margin call on Apple in ~2009.
One of these days I’ll make the right call at the right time.
~~~
luckydata
One of these days you'll stop trying to time the market and you'll make money.
~~~
everdev
Hard to beat ETFs over the long run without insider information.
~~~
all2
Buy'n'hold is a hard strategy to beat in terms of results and time commitment.
Two of the best people at this run fool.com.
------
jpmoral
I should know better but I got into an Internet debate about when the
millenium changed (1999 -> 2000 vs 2000 -> 2001 (obviously)). It all started
when I made a joke about the decade not ending yet.
------
r32a_
Bitcoin beat every single stock.
~~~
pergadad
And 2000 other speculative investment/currency projects failed
------
tus88
Netflix started streaming in 2010. Apples fall down.
------
anonu
Many people view the decade ending next year, 2020...
So there's still time for TSLA to beat NFLX.
------
shmerl
Netflix also gradually moved to the dark side, disassociating from Internet
companies alliances, and joining the MPAA and similar cartels of copyright
maximalists.
------
taspeotis
Some Netflix trivia: my residential internet connection can't stream Netflix
as of yesterday. I get M7111-5059 which is "[y]ou seem to be using an
unblocker or proxy" despite using neither VPN nor HTTP proxy.
I don't have malware on my PC, everything else is an iDevice, the trickiest
thing I do is use Google Public DNS [0].
Alas their help page [1] says to contact my ISP. Who have helpfully confirmed
they aren't doing a VPN on my behalf! Contacting Netflix results in them
asking me if I am using "automatic" network settings and to ... contact my
ISP. "We’re confident that your ISP can get you back to streaming."
My best theory is they've blocked a range of IPs belonging to my ISP because
something in that range is helping users evade Netflix's geoblocking.
If anybody knows more about how Netflix's great firewall works I am all
ears...
EDIT: Yes I have tried changing my IP by disconnecting the modem but it seems
it's a static assignment. Next port of call is to ask the ISP. Or better yet,
Netflix might unblock me!
[0] Cloudflare DNS makes no difference, and my ISP's DNS makes no difference.
[1]
[https://help.netflix.com/en/node/53047](https://help.netflix.com/en/node/53047)
~~~
madaxe_again
Irony of ironies, your best solution might be to use a vpn. My ISP does
dramatic traffic shaping at peak hours, and is blocked by prime video as they
think it’s a vpn, and I use a popular commercially available vpn provider to
sidestep it, and most of their servers seem to work fine with Netflix etc.
Additionally, as my ISP is a cell provider, it also means I get automatically
served mobile optimised content when streaming, which the VPN also sidesteps -
it’s the difference between 800kbps and 50mbps. It’s literally the difference
between YouTube at 144p or 4K.
It’s costing me $3 a month - my connection would be pretty much unusable
without it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Find Early Customers in Forums - skmurphy
http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2010/12/02/find-early-customers-in-forums/
======
skmurphy
"Communities already exist..think about how one may help a community to do
what they want to do." Mark Zuckerberg
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Calculate how long your website/API can be down - jmstfv
https://tryhexadecimal.com/sla-uptime-calculator
======
chrismorgan
Ah, SLAs. It seems to me from having read quite a few standard sorts of ones
for web systems or APIs that they’re a profitable racket, typically a total
scam.
Simplifying and extrapolating, it seems to me that they normally boil down to
this: “if our product that you pay us $1,000 per month for, upon which you
depend so that you would incur losses of $1,000 per _hour_ if it was down,
goes down¹ for more than 43 minutes in any given month (half an hour of
downtime is all hunky dory, right? 99.9% looks good, right?), we’ll give you
back 10% of your monthly fee for every hour it’s down, up to your monthly fee
(so now from minute 43 for the next ten hours you’ll only lose $900 per
hour!)”.
From the ones I’ve seen, I can’t understand why anyone would _pay_ for them,
because they seem to be utterly toothless.
I mean seriously, I’d prefer to offer that kind of SLA to all users on any
product at no cost: it shows I’m _serious_ about the product and _care_ , and
practically costs little (the absolute disaster case is a month’s revenue) and
can be perceived as a goodwill gesture if it ever needs to be invoked.
The idea of charging people extra just to say “yeah, I’ll actually _provide_
the service you already paid for” rubs me the wrong way. But I bet some
business types would baulk at not having this SLA line they can upsell on.
Am I being unreasonable?
¹ For some excessively strict definition of “down”, so that we might only
count half of the _actual_ downtime.
~~~
oarsinsync
> Am I being unreasonable?
No. Also, yes.
> The idea of charging people extra just to say “yeah, I’ll actually provide
> the service you already paid for” rubs me the wrong way.
So this is ultimately the crux of the issue I think. What are you paying for
with the up front fee? I don't think I'd be willing to sell anyone a 100%
uptime 24/7/365 product for only $1000/month. I'd probably want 2 orders of
magnitude more for that guarantee, because my costs would scale significantly
in order to deliver that. I'd also need to build in proof to defend it when my
product becomes unreachable from your network, because of an issue with your
network / your ISP / an intermediate ISP / a hijacking attack / (one of) my
ISP(s).
The reality is the network (and this is true of almost any IP network) is
unreliable, so anything that involves a network should never really be sold
with 100% uptime guarantees. If you throw the internet in the middle, you
definitely cannot provide that guarantee.
Which then brings us to what was actually sold. Setting expectations up front
leads to happier trading partners. If you tell me you can deliver 100% uptime
for 30 days straight, and it goes down at any point at all in that duration,
I'm going to be legitimately upset. If you tell me there's only 99% uptime,
and there's a 6 hour outage, the scale of that being a problem for my business
is entirely my own problem.
I took on a product and the risks were made clear to me up front. If I chose
to not take out insurance, the costs to my business are entirely my own.
Sometimes that's just the cost of doing business, you can't afford to pay for
the insurance. That's one of the risks. It sucks when that happens.
Toothless SLA clauses like the one you've described do nothing to mitigate the
risk, so should not qualify. Unfortunately, people gloss over the details, but
as far as B2B commerce goes, _caveat emptor_.
As an example of a slightly less toothless SLA that I've seen negotiated, and
I'm paraphrasing the spirit here: "We will pay you $x to complete this job in
6 months. For each calendar day you are late, you will reimburse us $(x/30),
up to a maximum liability of $2x." and then the project was internally
scheduled to take up to 9 months. The risk of the contractor was factored in,
the expectation that they'd screw up was factored in, and the contractor was
heavily incentivised to not screw up (they did anyway)
~~~
jrockway
> I don't think I'd be willing to sell anyone a 100% uptime 24/7/365 product
> for only $1000/month.
I worked at a company that sold a 24/7/365 product with a 100% uptime SLA for
$1000/month.
I don't think it really did what anyone wanted. On one side of the coin,
people valued the service at more than they paid for it. One customer wrote in
to complain that they lost millions of dollars because of a scheduled outage.
For a million dollars, you could have had a backup circuit, or at least called
us to reschedule the planned maintenance (which we tended to be flexible
about, and weren't covered under the SLA anyway). I am not sure what their
true motivations were, but I think they assumed that the fine print said "we
can guarantee you that there will be no natural disasters, etc." when in
reality it said "if our shit turns off, we won't charge you". While the
legalese made it clear what the SLA was, the customer's expectation from the
simplified wording ("100% uptime") was not what the document said. That is
risky in terms of customer satisfaction.
Other customers we would refund, but their automated ACH bill payment would
send the full amount next month, so we had to track them down to tell them
that they overpaid. This resulted in a lot of work for them for some trivial
amount of money. We did honor our agreement, but the accounts payable person
at the other company ended up having to do a lot of meaningless work that
didn't really benefit them -- they don't care if their company pays $900 or
$1000 per month for some service. I think we should have just sent them
cookies or something as opposed to making them redo all their expense reports
for $100 or whatever. At least they would personally be able to enjoy a
cookie.
Personally, I would never sell someone an SLA without having first measured my
uptime extensively, and then I wouldn't sell them something that I've never
observed in the past. If we had 5 minutes of downtime last year, I would be
hesitant to guarantee 99.999% uptime. I'm not a good business person, though.
------
bobbiechen
There's a great recent paper [1] (and Adrian Colyer's summary in The Morning
Paper [2]) from the Google G Suite team about how uptime or error rate alone
do not capture the full user experience:
_Indeed, none of the existing metrics can distinguish be- tween 10 seconds of
poor availability at the top of every hour or 6 hours of poor availability
during peak usage time once a quarter. The first, while annoying, is a
relatively minor nui- sance because while it causes user-visible failures,
users (or their clients) can retry to get a successful response. In con- trast
the second is a major outage that prevents users from getting work done for
nearly a full day every quarter. In the following section, we describe a new
availability measure, user-uptime that is meaningful and proportional.
Afterwards, we’ll introduce windowed user-uptime, which augments it to be
actionable._
[1]
[https://www.usenix.org/system/files/nsdi20spring_hauer_prepu...](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/nsdi20spring_hauer_prepub.pdf)
[2] [https://blog.acolyer.org/2020/02/26/meaningful-
availability/](https://blog.acolyer.org/2020/02/26/meaningful-availability/)
------
jedberg
This is a problem we wrestled with a lot at Netflix. What counts as down? It
was rare for the platform to be completely unavailable. Most downtime was
partial, where just some people had issues. How do you calculate that?
We ended up settling on predicting how much traffic there should be at any
given second, and then going from there. For example, if there should have
been 3000 stream starts in that second, and we got 2000 starts, that would
count as 1/3 of a second of downtime.
Our goal was 4 nines, which allowed for a total of one minute of downtime a
week. We managed to achieve that on many weeks of the year. One week in the
three years I kept close track we managed 100%. It was near Christmas, when no
one was working and deploying code. Shooting ourselves in the foot was the
number one cause of downtime.
~~~
mcharezinski
Shooting ourselves in the foot was the number one cause of downtime.
What do you mean?
~~~
jedberg
The biggest cause of downtime was deployment. Either deploying code with a bug
that wasn't caught in testing, or changing a real-time configuration parameter
that wasn't properly scoped.
As opposed to a scaling issue that showed up later, or a node failure or all
the other things that could cause downtime.
------
jamieweb
As a side note, I was very impressed/delighted by the message on the site when
JavaScript is disabled:
> _Sorry pal, but this won 't work without a JavaScript. You are probably
> doing that for privacy reasons, and I do respect that. I tried to handle the
> noscript case gracefully, but there is only so much I could do. You can
> download this website, inspect the source code, and run it locally. Or, if
> you think this website is trustworthy enough, you can whitelist it in your
> browser or a script blocker. I don't have any third-party trackers on this
> website (only a CDN), so you will be safe here._
------
domrdy
Very happy Hexadecimal customer. Keep up the good work :)
~~~
jmstfv
Thanks a lot for your support, Dom. Appreciate it!
------
Simulacra
Our API is a little different because of security, but our metric for
evaluation is less than two minutes of down time per year.
~~~
Smaug123
I suspect you're being downvoted because this is so light on details, and
reads more like some sort of bragging than anything else. Would you be able to
share in what sort of way security makes your APIs different, for example, and
how that pertains to SLAs?
------
loige
I love the minimalistic style.
How long did it take you to build the first version? How many people? Which
tech are you using for it?
~~~
jmstfv
> How long did it take you to build the first version?
The calculator or Hexadecimal?
It took a couple of hours to build a calculator, and a couple more to polish
it.
Hexadecimal took a very, very long time to build (several months).
Engineering-wise, it is the hardest thing I've ever done. It was way over my
head when I started.
> How many people?
Just me.
> Which tech are you using for it?
The calculator is a part of the static site built with HTML, CSS, and
_sprinkles_ of ES6. I generate it with nanoc.
The web app is built in vanilla Rails stack: Ruby, Rails, Postgres, Redis,
Sidekiq, Caddy. I don't use front-end frameworks (yes, I'm a dinosaur). For
more context: [https://tryhexadecimal.com/running-
costs](https://tryhexadecimal.com/running-costs)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Chrome Comic Book - rafaelc
http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html
======
moron4hire
This was released when Chrome first came out.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google to Launch Digital Books by Early Summer - phsr
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703866704575224232417931818.html
======
ashishbharthi
And also Android based tablet with dual screen technology capable of reading
books with e-inc screen and doing everything else with OLED touch screen.
~~~
cma
Source? Also, OLED seems much more amenable to being interleaved with eink
than lcd ever could be (the pixel element is self illuminating), is anyone
working on doing so?
~~~
procrastitron
I assumed that comment was a reference to the Nook.
~~~
cma
I thought the nook used an LCD screen.
------
potatolicious
Somewhat off-topic, but I for one hope that all this buzz around e-books and
such makes reading more popular than it is right now.
------
dannyr
This is quite interesting. Google said they are developing a tablet and then
now, they will sell digital books.
Google I/O conference is about 2 weeks away so maybe they'll announce
something there.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Envelopes - Python email for humans - RobSpectre
http://tomekwojcik.github.io/envelopes/
======
ghc
If this works as well as Python's requests library, then you are my hero. I
_hate_ dealing with email in Python, because the standard library interfaces
to email are horrible.
I have a have a project that could use this _now_ , so I will give it a shot.
I will report back with my findings.
~~~
fsckin
Anyone who calls their project "Library_Name for Humans" has big shoes to
fill. Looking at the examples, it appears to be exactly that.
~~~
Chris2048
perhaps there should be an official group for 'for humans' projects?
------
ianstormtaylor
From an API standpoint:
(1) I feel like sending emails isn't a task that's going to be repeated
endlessly across a codebase, so is it really necessary to save three
characters by truncating "from_address" to "from_addr"? You lose clarity for
very little gain.
(2) If truncating the above was so important, why is it "text_body" instead of
just plain "body"? In this case, you'd lose almost no clarity.
I prefer APIs to not have unnecessarily abbreviated words—especially when,
realistically, I'm going to type them once per file.
(Sorry, pet peeve.)
~~~
ihuman
It is called text_body because there is also an html_body.
[http://tomekwojcik.github.io/envelopes/api/envelope.html](http://tomekwojcik.github.io/envelopes/api/envelope.html)
~~~
ianstormtaylor
Ah good call. Maybe it's just my very maleable Javascript side talking, but if
I were making this API in Javascript I'd probably have a "body" and do a super
simple check if the first character is a "<", which will solve the 99.999%
case for HTML vs. text emails.
~~~
ihuman
But then your emails can't have HTML and a plaintext backup.
~~~
ianstormtaylor
Ah I should have clarified that "body" would be a shorthand of sorts. I'd
still have an "html" and "text" alternative to satisfy the case where you want
to set both, and in that case "text" and "html" are very meaningful. But the
"body" makes the simple case, and the examples extremely clean too.
------
habitue
I feel I should mention Mailer
[https://pypi.python.org/pypi/mailer](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/mailer)
I think everyone who has ever used the python standard library email modules
has had the thought "Well, if I just made a small wrapper around this... it
wouldn't be so bad"
And just about everyone who thought that did it.
------
codegeek
Looks pretty good. Being a Flask user, happy to see the flask example as well.
Would definitely try and use it in side projects of mine. You open to any
forks and/or pull requests ?
~~~
dignan
As a Flask user, you might want to check out Flask-Mail
[http://pythonhosted.org/flask-mail/](http://pythonhosted.org/flask-mail/)
~~~
codegeek
Thx. I know of flask-mail already. Just wanted to see how different would the
"envelopes" be .
------
tghw
If they can add IMAP, POP, possibly Exchange, and good email parsing (it's
truly a pain in the ass to do yourself) this will be a killer library.
~~~
anonymoushn
I'd also be interested in an email parsing library for Python. Last time I
used Twisted to read email the parser was completely worthless and could not
be fixed other than by rewriting it from scratch.
------
topherjaynes
Nice wrapper, though it took me a while to get it to work. Tried with Google
SMTP, but ended up throwing Sendgrid on a heroku app and hit that api.
Wondering if a debug mode would be helpful for the initial set up. See what
requests are being sent/received to see what the possible errors are.
~~~
tomekwojcik
Debug mode is a nice catch. Thanks.
As far as GMail SMTP goes, I've been using Envelopes over GMail SMTP for about
a week with great success. The first example in the docs shows just that.
Also, I have customized SMTP subclasses for GMail, SendGrid and local
Mailcatcher in the pipeline. Using one of them, you'll only have to provide
your creds to send e-mails.
------
omaranto
What is the advantage of having an Envelope class? Why not just have a send
function?
~~~
YokoZar
Maybe so you can more deliberately build different parts of the email in
different parts of the code without having to create your own set of variables
for that.
~~~
TemporalAnomaly
I find it a little weird that you would create the email in one part of the
code and then send it somewhere else though. The only advantage I can think
off is something like falling back to another connection if the primary one
fails. But it's strange to support reuse of messages while at the same time
not being able to reuse a connection.
Why not have a set of classes for flexibility and simple helper functions for
the most common cases? Requests is so great to use because the API matches the
expectations of its users (how do I make a GET request? oh, use the get
function...) and I think for email a single send function does what people
want most of the time.
send( 'smtp.googlemail.com', login='[email protected]', password='password',
from_address=u'[email protected]', from_name=u'From Example',
to_address=u'[email protected]', to_name=u'To Example', subject=u'Envelopes
demo', text=u"I'm a helicopter!" )
connection = Connection( 'smtp.googlemail.com', login='[email protected]',
password='password' )
message = Envelope( from_address=u'[email protected]', from_name=u'From
Example', to_address=u'[email protected]', to_name=u'To Example',
subject=u'Envelopes demo', text=u"I'm a helicopter!" )
message.add_attachment('/Users/bilbo/Pictures/helicopter.jpg')
connection.send(message)
~~~
tomekwojcik
envelopes.conn.SMTP is a wrapper for smtplib.SMTP that supports Envelope
objects and is reusable. Envelope.send() is just a shorthand you can use if
you don't care about reusing connections.
For requests it's simpler to support top-level functions, since in general
HTTP request is self-contained. Envelope (or email.mime.MIMEMessage) object
isn't enough to send an e-mail - you need to know the SMTP host, port, creds
and set up the connection. While it's certainly possible to write
envelopes.send() function that'd internally create an Envelope object and send
it (all based on the args the function gets) I don't think it's that crucial.
------
ajaxaddicted
Envelopes looks very good for sending emails and for reading emails there is
another cool library - Imbox
[https://github.com/martinrusev/imbox](https://github.com/martinrusev/imbox)
------
bobbyi_settv
We use boto to send email via Amazon's Simple Email Service and it is fairly
simple. SES allows you to send up to 2000 emails per day for free.
~~~
jp_sc
Would you be willing to collaborate a SES mailer wrapper for this similar
project?
[https://github.com/lucuma/MailShake](https://github.com/lucuma/MailShake)
------
gpsarakis
Seems really nice with a first glance. Are you considering any Django support
in the future?
~~~
mattoc
Django's Email API is already pretty solid, see the EmailMessage[0] class.
Attachments and multiple MIME types are handled for sending text & html
versions of the email body.
However, given that Django is just Python there's nothing precluding you from
using the library as a drop-in replacement.
[0]
[https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/email/#emailmes...](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/email/#emailmessage-
objects)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Should we hire this intern? You decide. - mdouglas88
http://www.mypunchbowl.com/blog/2009/02/09/the-intern-candidate-responds/
======
suhail
Claiming to work hard is different than actually working hard but giving
someone a chance never hurts. Just make sure they are what they say they are.
------
TrevorJ
I feel like I'm reading a tabloid.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
App for the poet, please. - krabat
http://krabat.menneske.dk/kkblog/2010/10/15/app-for-the-poet-please/
======
krabat
No poets or poetry interested here?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Physicists attempt to prove the Riemann hypothesis - DimiD
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20170404-quantum-physicists-attack-the-riemann-hypothesis/
======
JadeNB
This article was also discussed here near its publication, at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14040885](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14040885)
.
------
dnate
I found the HN title misleading. The articles title says they attack the
question. Which to me has a different meaning than attacking a hypothesis,
which would imply trying to disprove it.
~~~
wanda
Yes, I would expect to see the word "tackle" or —perish the thought—a simple
phrase like "try to prove"
------
basicplus2
Looks remarkeably like a 3 Dimensional wave function inside a sphere the size
of the universe
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
'I'm sad that I didn't have sex until I was 37' - Tomte
http://www.bbc.com/news/stories-43956366
======
lonelyengineer
I can relate to this,
I'm a 30 year old virgin, graduated with tech-related masters degree, and
still a virgin.
I don't resent women, I love women and some of my best friends are women, but
I can't see myself ever having a physical experience due to my physical
shortcomings.
I'm well under-averagely endowed, a member of an undesirable race, and quite
frankly think the age for acting as a goof for me has passed. I don't know
how/when to ask women out, and I'm afraid if it'll be interpreted as sexual
harassment. I'm no good looking chap for it to be considered flirting, might
as well endure loneliness than social suicide.
I cry myself to sleep some nights, but at least I get to live a life where I
can feed myself and distract myself by helping others through
work/volunteering.
Cherish your loved ones, and don't take them for granted. The pain of never
having those experiences is something I'll never wish for others.
~~~
berberous
Go to therapy. You may well be below average in looks, and have to settle for
a partner with below average looks, but everyone has shortcomings and I'm not
convinced you couldn't find a life partner that would make you happy if you
tried. It sounds like whatever your physical deficits may be, you are also
insecure, fearful of rejection, and not working on improving your social
skills. Don't quit before you've even tried.
~~~
noobermin
And dear god, no one has to see dating anyone who isn't Kim Kardasian
"settling". I've had sex with women who aren't what society considers "above
average" but it was still fantastic. And my girlfriend isn't a model but she
and I share a connection that could not be replicated with anyone else.
A lot of the issue is society tries to input ideas about what is "sexy" into
our heads and a large part of realizing sexual liberation (both for yourself
and with your partner) is dismantling those ideas and throwing them in the
trash.
~~~
abandonliberty
Ugh. We have whole communities of these people (e.g. incels). I have female
friends who will be single forever with impossibly long detailed lists of
requirements that will never be met.
It's really quite sad.
On the other hand if you can buy into something that isn't considered highly
desirable by society but is very prevalent, well, you can have a really,
really good time.
~~~
lonelyengineer
I have no such detailed lists. I'm human and flawed, some of it stems from not
accepting myself and a lack of self-love.
~~~
tasuki
> not accepting myself and a lack of self-love
And you're aware of it! That's a very good first step towards fixing that!
~~~
lonelyengineer
Thank you, it wasnt long before I started thinking if I was undesirable
because of my physical features AND my attitude.
It's a slow process and I hope I too can one day have a normal life, with
someone by my side.
~~~
tasuki
The physical features aren't nearly as important as you might think. Eg
there's plenty of ugly actors who are nevertheless very attractive.
Your attitude is pretty good - you're open and eager to improve. Just continue
working on yourself!
------
gregw2
I waited till I was married at 36 to have sex. No regrets. I consider it a
sign of strength amidst my social and other weaknesses. YMMV.
~~~
trav4225
Same here. 44 and counting...
------
Bucephalus355
This is getting more and more common. A couple of reasons for this:
\- the world is dividing into “social haves” and “social have-nots”. It’s not
a surprise that as wealth and inequality have taken off dramatically, we’d see
social and sexual repercussions.
\- ppl really underestimate the role community has played in American history
in “hooking up” people and playing matchmaking. I know going to bars looks
awesome in the movies and is indeed a cool thing for meeting men/women, but
it’s inherently not scalable for a society and really only possible for the
subset who can conquer social anxiety
\- due to financial constraints, people are living in “extended adolescence”
longer and longer. Also is a consequence of ppl getting more and more
education. Hard to date as actively when you live with your parents
~~~
Bucephalus355
Really want to emphasize that the loneliness of “loveless men” is one of the
very underestimated sad things of the late 20th and early 21st century.
Despite hollywood tropes, men, who have smaller social networks than women,
typically benefit more from relationships and suffer more after their
dissolution.
Timothy McVeigh, of the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine killers, as well
as many of the September 11th hijackers, were all virgins. Many authors and
postmodern theorists have made this connection.
This is not an isolated issue. It links together with the lack of economic
growth of the last 40 years, the rise of autocracy throughout the world, and
the failure of capitalism and secularism to dictate any kind of end goal,
purpose, or mission statement other than a kind of bland “do what you want, be
you”.
Angela Nagle very effectively even links this to the growth of populism and
even the alt-right in her book, Kill All Normies.
[https://www.amazon.com/Kill-All-Normies-Culture-Alt-
Right/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Kill-All-Normies-Culture-Alt-
Right/dp/1785355430/ref=nodl_)
~~~
dbg31415
> Timothy McVeigh, of the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine killers, as
> well as many of the September 11th hijackers, were all virgins. Many authors
> and postmodern theorists have made this connection.
Do countries with legalized prostitution have more, or less, domestic
terrorism?
~~~
wollw
Sir Issac Newton was a virgin too, just to add some balance to things.
~~~
sridca
Yea; one's position in the sex/desire spectrum doesn't necessarily change
their general value/happiness in life. I think one key is in finding something
(a hobby) that you identify strongly. I think they call it sublimation.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimation_(psychology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimation_\(psychology\))
------
noobermin
It's upsetting this is getting flagged and people are flagging comments left
and right. Sure, some people are saying objectionable things, but shutting
down discussion of real issues that affect people is how people become
alienated and distraught and suffer alone.
------
megaman22
The less fucks you give, the easier it is to get laid, in my experience. Act
interested, don't do anything actively offputting, and act when the
opportunity arises. It gets wildly easier as you get older, for some reason.
------
DoreenMichele
_I felt women had the right to go about everyday life and enjoy a night out
without having anyone approach them.
You hear those cliches of teenage fumbling - well, I wasn't a teenager, so I
found I knew what to do. I also found it was exciting and pleasurable. Some
people say the first time isn't good, but it was good.
I was lucky when she fell for me, she gave me complete and unconditional love
and that's rare. And I'm lucky to have had it._
Based on the ending remarks, I am inferring this is intended as sympathetic
and supportive for people who self identify as _incels._ But I will point out
that there is very, very likely a cause and effect relationship between some
very positive outcomes he describes and his description of fundamental respect
for women driving his reluctance to try to pick anyone up, at least in part.
I think he is romanticizing the things he did not have that he imagines others
do have. The reality is that most people don't feel like every relationship
they had was a positive and life enhancing experience.
Some things he avoided:
Fathering a child in his teens and becoming permanently trapped in poverty
because of it.
Acquiring an STD, which can include AIDS.
Having a violent encounter with another man over female infidelity or other
traumatizing relationship drama.
During my divorce, my perspective on _experience_ changed. One man I knew
during that time was kind of a pick up artist. He had a lot of sexual
experience, but he told me he had never been in love before.
I had gotten married at age 19 to another 19 year old. I had no previous
experience with younger men. It was very hard for me to accept that anyone
younger would be interested. The concept seemed incredibly alien.
I had _experience_ , but this was completely new territory for me. The pick up
artist I knew also had experience, but being in love was completely new
territory for him.
I talked with men who were older than me. They, too, were still having new
experiences. The fact that they were experienced did not mean they weren't
also stumbling their way forward with new experiences.
I am sorry this man has these negative feelings, but I cannot simply accept
his very negative framing and conclusions unquestioningly. I don't think he
has ever really tried to find what was positive about the path he took. The
negativity is simply a foregone conclusion in his mind.
I'm not convinced this is really the best message for trying to somehow reach
out to people who identify as incels and somehow be encouraging, especially
given the subtext here that the assumption is that if you don't resolve this
or get help with it or something, you, too, might do something terrible like
what happened in Toronto. The author does not indicate he did anything
terrible like that due to his own lack of experience and negative feelings
about it. Whether he did or not, obviously, it isn't true that simply being
celibate and unhappy about it will turn you into a terrorist.
Perhaps we could come up with something to say about this that is more
constructive than unquestioningly accepting that unwanted celibacy is the real
and true cause of a terrorist act and, thus, others who are similarly celibate
are similarly terrorists in the making.
~~~
noobermin
So I get what you're saying and I actually really like your points that
highlight the negative experiences one can have if they are sexually active.
Moreover, he is romanticizing relationships. However, I don't think he
necessarily is trying to illicit pity, he might be plainly explaining his
feelings at the time. It's similar to how people talk about their alcoholism
or depression, they might not be explaining their vice/issues in order to make
people feel sorry for them or to wade in self-pity, they are just being frank.
I tried to read it charitably, perhaps to a fault, I don't know.
~~~
DoreenMichele
I didn't say anything about him wallowing in self pity or trying to elicit
pity. It looks to me like you are "rebutting" stuff I did not say.
~~~
noobermin
Reread your comment. I think I interpreted "sympathetic and supportive of
[...]incels" as characterizing his intent for the response of readers of his
account, since he is someone who might be an incel. That's probably wrong. I
apologize.
------
himom
Doing the hard work of personal development, including getting dating
coaching, is where it’s at, for people whom are serious to make necessary
changes to be their best self.
I have:
\- the world’s worst anxiety (constant hyper vigilance, tension, shakes and
near panic attack 24/7) rn induced by antidep medication and I can’t drink
\- pseudoParkinsonian essential tremor so my hands are shaking like an 80yo...
I can’t write and can barely type
\- myoclonus - random, brief, involuntary movements of major muscle groups
\- mild Asperger’s so I’m the life of the party (lol)
\- ADD-I so everyone thinks I’m weird but roll with it bc there’s no other
choice
\- stutter in the most awkward way possible (silent block - gasping for air
instead of starting to speak)
\- broke af
Even with all that and more BS, I still number close, full close and get
pulled by females. If I can hookup same night with hot girl(s), anyone can. No
excuses allowed. It’s a matter of commitment to seek feedback and invest the
effort to improve one’s outlook and habits... lack the knowledge or the
practice, and someone won’t know what types of red flags to look for or how to
keep someone else interested.
~~~
guskel
Did you use dating coaching? Any particular program or coach that led to a
breakthrough? What venues are you finding these successes and at what age did
you make the transition?
------
catacombs
Oh, boo hoo.
The author hated himself, and that stumped him when searching for a partner.
Learn to love yourself, and the women (or men) will come. People are attracted
to confident people. No one wants to date someone with so much self-loathing
in their life.
Life is more than just sex.
~~~
JKCalhoun
I don't disagree with what you say, just disappointed in your callousness. The
writer is being honest and vulnerable.
------
csomar
Here is something that worked miracles for me: Move to an easier place (ie:
Thailand/Philippines for men; Probably Paris/San Jose for Women).
The dating market is easier there. You'll get a boost in confidence, as well
as experience in handling the other gender.
~~~
empath75
Please don’t go to the developing world to try and pick up women, that’s
really gross and exploitative behavior.
~~~
adbge
Indeed, he should stick to his own race! /s
Seriously, the rhetoric around dating foreign women is absurd. Gross and
exploitative? A consensual relationship? /Really?/
Compare, for instance, the socially mandated opinions we're supposed to hold
around adopting a child from a foreign country versus "mail-ordering" a bride.
Most of the moral arguments for the former apply just as much toward the
latter, yet the latter is "gross and exploitative"\--why?
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the first is associated with
movie stars while the second is mostly low-status men?
~~~
meowface
The issue isn't with dating foreign women, but moving to a low GDP/standard of
living country because you want to more easily find a partner. The reasoning
is "women are more likely to date me, have sex with me, or marry me because my
race is a status symbol / because I have money". This is not the foundation to
a healthy relationship.
~~~
mercer
I'm not saying I disagree, but still: why not?
More than one person I know is in a relationship with someone from a 'poorer'
country and both parties seem to be pretty happy with the outcome. And wasn't
just men who were from the richer countries either.
~~~
meowface
I'm sure there are many people who meet organically with people from
developing countries and start a genuine romantic relationship, but that
doesn't appear to be what the parent poster was talking about.
~~~
mercer
It's also not exactly what I was referring to.
1\. What's wrong with a relationship that isn't "organic". What does that even
mean exactly? 2\. Same goes for "genuine".
I can see how there's degrees of 'health' to various approach, as well as
ethical concerns, but I strongly disagree that the approach should by default
or ideally be (primarily) 'organic' and 'romantic'.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How to Respond to Patent Threat? - kybernetikos
A company I work with has recently been sent threats by Interface IP Holdings, who claim that their website (which is available in the US) infringes on a patent https://patents.google.com/patent/US7500201B2/en<p>The patent is broadly worded, but seems to cover restricting the values in a drop down based on the other filled in values. Or perhaps searching multiple fields from the same search box. I find the text ambiguous and difficult to understand, but I can't get anything out of it that doesn't seem obvious and standard.<p>It seems like they've brought a lot of complaints relating to this patent to the court in Delaware.<p>Is it really the case that you can't use standard UI components on the web without paying license fees to US companies?
======
jermaustin1
You do not respond, an IP lawyer responds.
That said, I don't see any litigation won on that patent. And I haven't seen
them take any new cases to court in the last 2 years, so chances are it is a
troll trying get a license payment.
~~~
sergiotapia
That is the most ridiculous looking patent I've ever seen. What developer
hasn't created what the patent is describing.
~~~
kybernetikos
That's basically my view too, but still, finding a published example from
before 2002 isn't easy on Google. At least not with my google skills.
There's not many sites left still working from those days. :-(
------
return0
What happens if you ignore a patent troll?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Robonaut creepily unpacked onboard International Space Station - hoag
http://www.autoblog.com/2011/03/22/video-robonaut-creepily-unpacked-onboard-international-space-st
======
rbanffy
Cady's hair is... impressive.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mathematicians discover a perfect way to multiply (2019) - mmphosis
https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematicians-discover-the-perfect-way-to-multiply-20190411/
======
dreamcompiler
BTW you may have noticed that the paper multiplication method we all learned
in third grade is digit-by-digit _convolution_ , which is an O[n^2] operation.
But what does convolution in the time domain become when we switch to the
frequency domain? It becomes digit-by-digit multiplication, which is O[n]. So
now you see why the FFT is essential here. The extra factors of logn and
log(logn) are about taking the FFT itself in both the forward and reverse
directions.
So fast multiplication is about looking at numbers as _signals_ and doing
signal processing on them.
~~~
photonemitter
There’s a theorem known as the Convolution Theorem:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convolution_theorem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convolution_theorem)
Much used in simplifying kernel operations and convolutions (and some other
nifty tricks.)
Another useful idea is also that in the domain of the fourier transformation
we have exponentials (Fourier series are some series of $ c_n e^inx$), and
when multiplying exponentials we get $ e^ix * e^iy = e^i(x + y) $
Moreover this is usually coupled with the case where we integrate on some
periodic signal (so it’s integrated from 0 to 2pi, and unless the product of
e^i(x+y) = e^0 = 1, then the integral becomes 0 as well. )
------
albertzeyer
> Regardless of what computers look like in the future, Harvey and van der
> Hoeven’s algorithm will still be the most efficient way to multiply.
This is only true if you just look at the big O notation. However, if you also
look at the constant involved to get C * n * log(n) + C2 as an upper bound for
the number of operations for the calculation, there can be faster algorithms
with lower constants C and C2. And these algorithms also will be of practical
interest.
Also, as I understand it, it was not actually proven (yet) that O(n log(n)) is
the fastest possible class.
Also, you could also study the average runtime, instead of the worst case
upper bound. There are cases where the multiplication can be much more
efficient than O(n log(n)). An algorithm could be clever and detect many such
cases and then maybe end up in a strictly better average runtime class. Or I'm
not sure if it is proven that this cannot be the case.
Similarly, sorting algorithms are still optimized more and more, although the
worst case complexity is always O(n log(n)) (ignore integer sorting for now).
But average and best case runtime complexity is relevant. And memory usage
complexity as well. And other properties. And of course also these constants
which matter in practice.
A big C2 basically corresponds to the galactic algorithms, mentioned in
another thread here.
~~~
eru
Another thing to consider: sometimes you don't need to multiply precisely. If
you can live with small errors, further speedups are possible.
------
mellosouls
While this approach may have practical uses, the "sufficiently large numbers"
bound got me reading about Galactic Algorithms...
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_algorithm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_algorithm)
~~~
adfsgkinio
I found this line amusing:
>This means it will not reach its stated efficiency until the numbers have at
least 2^1729^12 bits (at least 10^10^38 digits), which is vastly larger than
the number of atoms in the known universe.
"Vastly larger" is one of the biggest understatements I've ever heard. It's
roughly 10^10^38 times larger.
I can't think of a better way to write that line. I just found it funny.
~~~
wetmore
Neat seeing 1729 show up there.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_(number)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_\(number\))
~~~
perl4ever
Wikipedia also says that 1729 was the year of the largest/brightest comet ever
seen.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_of_1729](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_of_1729)
------
rendall
"For millennia it was widely assumed that there was no faster way to multiply.
Then in 1960, the 23-year-old Russian mathematician Anatoly Karatsuba... found
it."
I have a bizarre mental tic wherein I will often read a story like this and
then fantasize about going back in time to just before the discovery, and
present it myself, in essence stealing it. I'll get quite far along in my
daydream before the absurdity collapses the narrative.
Are there others of my kind, here?
~~~
Agentlien
That's really funny. I love the weird fantasies we cook up.
I have a variation of this, where I travel back in time to before some long
dead person did what made them famous and tell them all about their
discoveries and all the wonders that came from it.
It's usually accompanied with a hint that they won't remember our
conversation, so it won't affect history, but they'll enjoy marveling at it
for a short while.
~~~
Xelbair
I usually have a fantasy where i travel back in time to middle ages/ancient
times and try to:
* convince people i am not a devil worshipper/magician/time traveler
* explain how some concept works.
Imagine trying to explain electricity to Pope from 1000 AD, or mathematical
functions, and integration/derivative to Greek philosophers etc.
------
mikorym
Title, paper version:
> Integer multiplication in time O(n log n)
[https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02070778/document](https://hal.archives-
ouvertes.fr/hal-02070778/document)
~~~
andyljones
For anyone else just looking for an outline of the new algorithm: last two
paragraphs of p4, first two paragraphs of p5.
Coming from a position of a few abstract algebra classes in college many years
ago, all the words and notation are familiar but I am a long way from being
able to follow it.
------
nurettin
Previously on HN
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19474280](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19474280)
~~~
dang
Also
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19672835](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19672835)
and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19644374](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19644374)
------
mumbisChungo
I think I'm misunderstanding something about the article. In what way is this
method perfect, as is mentioned multiple times? Is it not just an incremental
improvement over standard practice?
~~~
hinkley
In computational complexity, we have some proofs that a certain cost is the
absolute bare minimum that an optimal solution must expend. We have the same
for some mechanical systems too.
If you get the order down to the proven limit, especially for the first time,
people sometimes use the word 'perfect', even if there are potentially other
solutions with lower constant overhead, or lower practical overhead (see also
Timsort, which uses insertion sort for leaf operations).
> Second, in that same paper Schönhage and Strassen conjectured that there
> should be an even faster algorithm than the one they found — a method that
> needs only n × log n single-digit operations — and that such an algorithm
> would be the fastest possible.
Is this saying that there is a proof in there paper that nlogn is the
cheapest? If so it certainly beats around the bush.
~~~
remcob
A conjecture is a proposition that is suspected to be true. So there would be
no proof in the paper, but likely some arguments why the authors expect it to
be true.
~~~
hinkley
If a scientist were writing the article about the paper, yes. But everyone has
been quick to point out is definitely not the case.
------
JakeStone
Gotta admit, I started chuckling at “We use [the fast Fourier transform] in a
much more violent way..." I've known some math geeks in my day, and this
sounded like them.
------
amelius
> Two decades ago, computers performed addition much faster than
> multiplication. The speed gap between multiplication and addition has
> narrowed considerably over the past 20 years to the point where
> multiplication can be even faster than addition in some chip architectures.
> With some hardware, “you could actually do addition faster by telling the
> computer to do a multiplication problem, which is just insane,” Harvey said.
Is this true for popular architectures such as Intel and ARM?
~~~
corsix
An Intel Haswell chip, when doing floating point vector operations, can
dispatch one addition per cycle, or two fused-multiply-add. The latency is
worse for the FMA (5 cycles versus 3 cycles), but if you've got enough
parallel accumulations to hide that latency, then using FMAs for addition will
be faster than addition.
This is a consequence of Intel optimising for FLOPs (or - equivalently - for
matrix multiplication), as an FMA counts as two FLOPs, versus addition
counting as just one.
~~~
gowld
Is that just because multiplication is so commonly needed that there is double
hardware allocated for FMA?
Like, if I had a special purpose adding machine and a special purpose multiply
machine, and I bought a second multiply machine, then I could multiply large
numbers faster than adding, but that's not insane, that's resource allocation.
~~~
jcranmer
A floating point add works roughly like this:
0\. Extract mantissa and exponents from the inputs [basically free in a HW
implementation].
1\. Combine the two exponents and shift the mantissas so that they same the
share scale.
2\. Add the two mantissas together.
3\. Normalize the result back into a floating-point number.
Now look at the process for a floating-point multiply operation:
0\. Extract mantissa and exponents from the inputs [basically free in a HW
implementation].
1\. Add the two exponents together.
2\. Multiply the two mantissas together.
3\. Normalize the result back into a floating-point number.
Steps 0 and 3 are identical in both cases. I'm not really knowledgeable about
hardware multiplier implementations, but doing an additional "add" operation
can be pretty close to free in some implementations. In any case, adding in an
extra adder to the process is going to be quite cheap, even if not free.
What this means is that there is not much extra hardware to turn a FMUL ALU op
into an FMA ALU op... and if you make just a single FMA ALU op, you can use
that hardware to implement FADD, FMUL, and FMA with nothing more than
microcode.
In other words, instead of thinking of FMA as something worth pouring more
resources into, think of it as FADD as not worth enough to be made its own
independent unit.
~~~
dreamcompiler
FP units are not used in integer bignum operations. I'm still curious if
"multiplies can be faster" applies to modern _integer_ ALUs.
------
tdons
Respect :). I Implemented Karatsuba a while ago and wondered if an even faster
method would be available. It is!
I admire the perseverance, grit, and intelligence needed to crack hard nuts
like this.
~~~
jacobolus
This new method will be marginally faster if you ever need to multiply two
numbers on a scale where writing down the bits fills every plank-length cube
in the known universe.
Otherwise the “practical” benefit is limited to saving a few symbols when
writing abstract math papers.
~~~
croutonix
> “The best we can hope for is we’re three times faster,” van der Hoeven said.
And they talk about billions of digits elsewhere in the article. I doubt that
only applies for the ~8.46e184 digits you seem to be talking about.
~~~
jacobolus
From last time this came up, the number of _bits_ in the numbers involved is
2^(9^12). Storing a count of the number of bits takes about 930 billion
digits. Actually storing the bits or digits of the numbers per se takes a
whole lot more, to say the least.
[https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02070778/document](https://hal.archives-
ouvertes.fr/hal-02070778/document)
------
rdtsc
The traditional method in the article looks a bit different from how I learned
it, which was this way [https://www.wikihow.com/Do-Double-Digit-
Multiplication](https://www.wikihow.com/Do-Double-Digit-Multiplication),
The overall description of it looks right, but in the picture the order of
operations would be more like B, C, D, A not A, B, C, D
~~~
Sharlin
Yeah, that's a bit nonstandard order but multiplication, of course, is
associative and commutative, so it doesn't really matter.
------
peter_d_sherman
>"Over the past decade, mathematicians have found successively faster
multiplication algorithms, each of which has inched closer to n × log n,
without quite reaching it.
Then last month, Harvey and van der Hoeven got there.
Their method is a refinement of the major work that came before them. It
splits up digits, uses an improved version of the fast Fourier transform, and
takes advantage of other advances made over the past forty years. “We use [the
fast Fourier transform] in a much more violent way, use it several times
instead of a single time, and replace even more multiplications with additions
and subtractions,” van der Hoeven said.
Harvey and van der Hoeven’s algorithm _proves that multiplication can be done
in n × log n steps_.
However, it doesn’t prove that there’s no faster way to do it."
------
glouwbug
Looks like Joris is now at SFU according to his homepage:
[http://www.texmacs.org/joris/main/joris.html](http://www.texmacs.org/joris/main/joris.html).
Would be cool to run into him someday
~~~
bordercases
Yeah now that SFU got the hosting for Canada's West Coast supercomputation,
they've been attracting top-shelf talent.
~~~
glouwbug
Yeah, a buddy of mine works at D-Wave. They held the world record for the
longest quantum state (or maybe still do, I think it was like 15 mins or
something) and I'd joke that they couldn't get past 15 mins because they'd
lift the lid to check if the "quantum state was still okay".
But seriously, D-Wave is doing some pretty amazing stuff. The Lower Mainland,
in general, is an awesome place to be career wise. Just a shame about the
housing situation
------
thelazydogsback
This is amazing to me: > "Their conjecture was based on a hunch that an
operation as fundamental as multiplication must have a limit more elegant than
n × log n × log(log n)"
Only in maths (and sometimes in its "implementation"/ expression in nature in
conjunction with physical systems) can such a subjective viewpoint be so
powerful.
Also blows me away, at least at first, that multiplying using an _FFT_ would
be the fastest method so far. (I guess I have an older mindset based on how
slow FFTs used to be.) I wonder in actual implementations at how many digits
the perf curves meet at break-even compared to other methods.
~~~
gowld
When you say FFT is slow, did you know any way to multiply large numbers that
was fast? Or you assumed it was without evidence?
~~~
thelazydogsback
Huh?
------
jiveturkey
Does this apply to division? division being multiplication by the inverse. I
wonder because
> And while the new algorithm is important theoretically, in practice it won’t
> change much, since it’s only marginally better than the algorithms already
> being used. “The best we can hope for is we’re three times faster,” van der
> Hoeven said. “It won’t be spectacular.”
wow, what an understatement! 3x is huge.
so if it speeds up factorization, even by 1.5x, then that's significant for
RSA isn't it?
------
gerdesj
There's a constraint that I as a civilian am missing. Could someone please put
me out of my misery:
n.m (in integers) can be computed by starting with zero and adding m to it, n
times. That's n operations. Errrrr _cough_ , assuming that the computer can
deal with an arbitrarily large n and m.
~~~
rat9988
You do n times m operation. that's nm.
~~~
gerdesj
10.10 = 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 ...
That's 10 operations.
10,000,333,999 . 33,123,456
That's 33123456 operations.
~~~
reikonomusha
How much does each operation cost? Adding together two 5 digit numbers and two
5,000 digit numbers should be counted differently, don’t you agree? So perhaps
we should count the number of single-digit operations required.
In that case, adding two five digit numbers will require 5 (or so) additions,
and two 5,000 digit numbers will require 5,000 (or so) additions.
What about a 5,000 digit * 5,000 digit multiplication?
Just the very first “big” addition in your scheme will require 5,000 single-
digit additions. But that result might now be 5,001 digits long (think of how
99+99 results in a 3 digit sum). Do it again, and if you have carries, it
might be 5,002 digits long.
So you’ll have 5,000 + 5,001 + ... = 5000N + (1 + 2 + ... + N) operations. How
many times does this repeat, that is, what is N? Well, however big your
multiplier is! Your multiplier is around N = 10^5000. So you’ll need a total
number of additions approximately equal to
5000 * 10^5000 + 1 + 2 + ... + 10^5000
And what is 1 + 2 + ... + N? It’s N(N+1)/2\. So we have
5000 * 10^5000 + 10^5000*(10^5000 + 1) / 2
which we might as well estimate to be
(10^5000)^2.
That’s a _lot_ of operations. And that’s an _under_ estimate! Even grade
school multiplication is a lot simpler (if you count single-digit
multiplication to have a cost of 1): it only requires 5000^2 elementary
operations.
The goal of these funny multiplication algorithms is to beat (number of
digits)^2 single-digit operations. What the article shows is that of you have
enough digits, you can do only
(number of digits) * (number of digits in the number of digits)
operations to do the multiplication, perhaps off by some fixed, constant
factor.
------
zitterbewegung
If the title had "almost the perfect way" it would be the perfect way to write
this title.
But, leaving that out increases your earnings by a constant factor.
~~~
MauranKilom
It's not yet known if it's only "almost". If it is indeed optimal, then
"almost" would be wrong (from a big-oh perspective).
------
abetusk
Call 's' the number of bits of the maximum of the two numbers, 'n' and 'm',
that you're trying to multiply (that is s = max(lg(n), lg(m))).
Standard "long multiplication" works in O(s^2) time [1].
To speed things up, consider the univariate polynomial whose coefficients are
the base representation of each number (for example 10 = p(2) = 0 + 1 _2^1 +
0_ 2^2 + 1 _2^2). Multiplying two polynomials algebraically (h(x) = p(x)_ g(x)
= sum (i,j = k) p_i _g_i_ x^k) then evaluating at some point (e.g. '2') is the
same as multiplying the points of each polynomial at 's' different points and
then using the resulting points to interpolate back to the multiplied
polynomial and then evaluating at the same "base" point (e.g. '2').
That is, take 's' points, w_k, evaluate p(x) and g(x) at each of the w_k
points, multiply each of the evaluated points together (that is, p(w_k) *
g(w_k)) then interpolate back to get the multiplied polynomial, h(x). Evaluate
h(x) at the original base (e.g. '2') to get the resulting number.
Take each of the w_k's that have some symmetry, say the roots of unity, and
you can exploit various tricks that are either the Fourier transform or
similar to go back and forth between the algebraic representation and the
'point representation' in O(s lg(s)) time.
The bit complexity of the evaluated points along with a host of other factors
meant that the algorithms discovered were O(s lg(s) lg(lg(s))) or nearby. I
would recommend "Fundamental Algorithms of Algorithmic Algebra" for a good
introduction [2]. The article mentions the various methods but they go by
Karatsuba [3], Shonhage and Strassen [4] among others.
I haven't read the paper but it looks like they're exploiting some 'symmetry'
of multivariate rings that are each "simple" and of the form (x^r -1), where r
divides some exact power of 2 and does some Fourier transform like tricks in
each of those rings.
Pretty cool that they've reduced it down so much.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplication_algorithm#Grid_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplication_algorithm#Grid_method)
[2] [https://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Problems-Algorithmic-
Alge...](https://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Problems-Algorithmic-Algebra-
Chee/dp/0195125169)
[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplication_algorithm#Karat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplication_algorithm#Karatsuba_multiplication)
[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%B6nhage%E2%80%93Strasse...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%B6nhage%E2%80%93Strassen_algorithm)
------
mgrennan
I can't believe this is a thing. I showed this to my grade school teacher and
she told me I was doing it WRONG. I just new it worked so I kept using it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek - tysone
http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/
======
grecy
I'm an avoid back country snowboarder (split boarder) in the Canadian Rockies,
and now further north into Coastal Alaska and I've spent many seasons as ski
patrol, and taken numerous Avalanche training courses.
After my first 4 day course, the message was very clear:
"You are now the least knowledgeable people that should be in the back
country".
I kept thinking "I know just enough to know I know nothing".
Reading this article it was very hard not to angry. Severe lack of training
and practice caused deaths.
* 16 people is a huge no-no.
* The fact that someone in the group (a Liftie!) didn't even have a beacon should be a HUGE warning sign.
* Hitting the slope at 11:45 seems wrong to me - the day had warmed by then allowing the snow to consolidate.
* No clear route identification or plan
* The didn't dig a snow pit to assess avalanche conditions on the slope they were about to hit - my personal number 1
* Multiple people dropped in at once - the biggest no-no of all!
* They saw evidence of big slides on the way down, but kept going anyway!
* Waiting for those above by just standing around waiting in the potential slide path.
* Calling 911 immediately shows a lack of experience and understanding. Those buried have ~13 minutes before their chances of survival drop to essentially zero - help is not coming to save them. YOU MUST SAVE THEM.
* Calling 911 to report a body is a freaking waste of time and could cost others' buried their lives. KEEP SEARCHING AND DIGGING!
I hate to say it: They were asking for it, and a lot of them knew better.
Please, please, please, never go into the back country without training. Even
a weekend course will be great. Don't let your friends or those more
experienced than you convince you it's not needed - anyone that says that is
not worth going with, because you are risking your life with people that don't
know what they're talking about.
EDIT: If you want the first-person avalanche experience, watch this video. I
go snowboarding here all the time. Turn the sound way up to really feel it.
This person was saved by well trained back country ski partners.
<http://vimeo.com/6581009>
~~~
gamble
Wasn't their another account of the avalanche, written by one of the
survivors? IIRC, he made it sound like one of those instances where -
individually - they all had misgivings about the conditions, but because no
one was comfortable voicing their concerns, they all perceived the group as a
whole to be in favor and didn't feel comfortable being the odd man out to
question the group.
~~~
bencpeters
IIRC Outside Magazine did an article about it in the past few months too,
although I have not read it.
~~~
ISL
[http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/snow-
sports/T...](http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/snow-
sports/Tunnel-Vision-November-2012.html)
~~~
gamble
Thanks! That was the article I was thinking of.
------
jrwoodruff
The NYT just kinda blew my mind. A newspaper article just blew my mind. This
is, by far, the best multimedia storytelling I think I've ever seen. Kudos to
the team involved in putting this together, you've shown me the future of
media and the internet.
~~~
freyfogle
Is anyone from the NYT here and can you give any insight into how long this
project took to complete? Is this a beautiful one off, or is the goal that
this format eventually becomes the new norm?
~~~
c1sc0
It says right at the bottom, copied for your convenience:
Graphics and design by Hannah Fairfield, Xaquín G.V., Jon Huang, Wayne
Kamidoi, Sam Manchester, Alan McLean, Jacky Myint, Graham Roberts, Joe Ward,
Jeremy White and Josh Williams. Photography by Ruth Fremson. Video by
Catherine Spangler.
Additional video by Eric Miller and Shane Wilder.
Kristen Millares Young contributed research. The reporting for this article on
the Feb. 19 avalanche at Tunnel Creek was done over _six months_. It involved
interviews with every survivor, the families of the deceased, first responders
at Tunnel Creek, officials at Stevens Pass and snow-science experts. It also
included the examination of reports by the police, the medical examiner and
the Stevens Pass Ski Patrol, as well as 40 calls to 911 made in the aftermath
of the avalanche. The Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research
provided a computer-generated simulation of the avalanche, based on data
accumulated from the Stevens Pass accident report and witness accounts.
Additional sources are: LIDAR data from King County GIS Center; Iowa
Environmental Mesonet, Iowa State University; Mark Moore, U.S. Forest Service;
National Avalanche Center.
~~~
axusgrad
How much all this quality reporting and presentation cost? I have a feeling
that in-depth journalism doesn't pay for itself.
------
arscan
I think this works because the little videos in the breaks actually do a great
job of complementing the content of the article (and happen to be pretty).
There was a link yesterday on HN that used a similar technique, but the breaks
were static images that didn't really add anything to the content of the
article [1]. Sure, they're pretty and novel, but I thought the breaks did more
harm then good for somebody actually reading the interview. They were more
distracting than anything.
I have a feeling that we'll see a lot more of this technique in the future. I
personally hope that it doesn't just get slapped on for its visual appeal, but
rather as a medium to present value-added content (like this NY Times article
did).
[1] <http://womenandtech.com/interview/heather-payne/>
~~~
tsunamifury
I dont think this works at all. Its heavy, difficult to read, and full of
distractions. The fade in animations are unnecessary and the parallax
scrolling adds nothing to the story. The multimedia functions more as
footnotes or interruptions that route you outside of the narrative.
Its mobile-unfriendly and breaks the UI of NYT.com.
~~~
jobu
Wow. I couldn't disagree more. The integration of the extra content to the
context of the story really added another level for me.
------
scott_s
The best long-form presentation of an article or essay I have ever seen on the
internet.
~~~
subsystem
It's great, but I can't help to get flashbacks to the mid '90s multimedia era.
If someone would have shown me this as the future cutting edge back then, I
probably would have been disappointed.
~~~
codewright
Taste matters.
90s multimedia rarely had it.
~~~
subsystem
I think most of the encyclopedia CDs, like Microsoft Encarta, were quite
tasteful. At least for their time. A blast from the past:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ4ptApL-k4>
------
technotony
I've a lot of experience in back-country, including places like Iran where I
skied several peaks. The one time I got into trouble (we had to be rescued by
helicopter) was a scarily similar situation to this. I was with a large group
(12) of some of the most experienced back-country people I've ever met. I was
far and away the least experienced. This group included two Everest
summitteers and the head of a mountain rescue service. Because everyone was so
experienced they all assumed everyone else was taking the right decisions so
they could switch off and relax. Group dynamics are everything in this
situation - as they are in any sufficiently complex environment. Luckerly,
after a cold night in a snow hole, we were rescued but my learnings were:
1) You need to always have a leader
2) The whole group needs to be aware of the plan at all times, you cannot over
communicate
3) Listen to the nagging voice of intuition - if something feels wrong check
that feeling out
4) Experts are not always on the top of their name, especially when tired or
cold
Stay safe this winter people!
~~~
yitchelle
Great advice! These set of advice can even translated into this crazy startup
work that we all live in!
------
ISL
The presentation is impressive. May future articles be so well-presented.
The people killed in Tunnel Creek and around our region on the same day were
good friends, parents, and people.
This slide, in particular, has attracted so much attention because those
involved are professionals and because the event resonated so strongly within
the ski media community.
Missing from a lot of this accident's coverage is how very much life the slide
victims had lived. We can honor them by living as well as they did.
Jim Jack, head judge for the Freeride World Tour, skiing with kids on the
hometown hill: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sQ2gU0OJ30>
Those of you at startups may find resonance here:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuDR5_qbwPQ>
~~~
chair6
I was riding at Stevens the day before this went down. It was deep,
backcountry avalanche risk was high. Crappy footage here:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no34MOpMBxU>
Ditto that sentiment. Live passionately, look out for others.
------
chair6
Snowboarding (resort and backcountry) is my preferred diversion from computers
and 'real' life, and I was riding at Stevens the day before Tunnel Creek slid.
This is a very meaningful presentation of a tragic event, and very real
example of the risks involved in getting out in the snow.
For those of you more interested in the avalanche / snow-science side of
things than that this doesn't render properly on your mobile device, check out
<http://nwac.us>. Specifically, here is their initial analysis of the Tunnel
Creek incident:
[http://www.nwac.us/media/uploads/documents/accidents/2011_20...](http://www.nwac.us/media/uploads/documents/accidents/2011_2012/Preliminary_Tunnel_Creek_Avalanche_Accident_2-19-2012.pdf)
------
yock
If you read enough survival memoirs you start to see elements of these stories
common between them. One of those elements is concern over how one will be
seen by their peers for expressing caution.
I don't like to speak authoritatively about most subjects, but I feel very
strongly about this one thing. Vanity has no place in the back country. Gosh,
in a group of 16 people, not all of whom are acquainted, if at least one
doesn't think you're a sissy then it's plainly impossible that everyone is
well informed of the risks being taken.
------
scottcha
As an owner of an Avalanche Safety app mobile shop I'd say its amazing to get
some of this innovation in to articles like this.
Getting users to think about the judgement and impact of the choices they make
when they are seeking this rush is a very challenging. Breaking the mold to
make a possibly more impactful presentation is exactly what Avalanche
education needs.
~~~
mscarborough
I completely agree. As a person that gets 50+ days skiing per year, and loves
powder, you have to PAY ATTENTION. Those powder runs look great until you
understand how wrong it can go.
And people, don't jump into tree runs to avoid anything. It's plenty fast in
there and if you are too slow, you're dead.
It's OK to ask for a ride down from the lifties.
------
sillysaurus
In case it's helpful, here's a screenshot of what this article looks like on
an iPhone (Chrome): <http://i.imgur.com/B1ZkO.png>
It won't let me zoom out or zoom in. The only way to read the article is by
dragging back and forth repeatedly.
Technical/debugging note: everything was fine before the top header image
fully loaded. I could zoom out and zoom in before that image showed up, so
therefore that header image is somehow removing the ability to zoom for iPhone
users (and is also causing the 200% zoom-in).
~~~
alecperkins
Odd. It looks perfectly fine to me, in both mobile Safari and mobile Chrome.
The text is completely visible, with a little padding on either side, and
videos all slide nicely into the text column.
------
MichaelApproved
Trying to read this story was really frustrating on an iPhone. I had to keep
swiping left and right because the zoom was locked to about double the width
of my screen.
It's a shame because, from the sound of the other comments, it sounds like a
really nice layout on the desktop. It's a shame they destroyed the mobile
experience.
~~~
nikkisnow
On linux, whether it's Chrome or Firefox, none of the videos play. Really
great experience but would love to see the videos. When I get home, I'll have
to pop open my Mac to get the full experience.
~~~
typpo
I had this issue but noticed it's because the Ghostery chrome extension blocks
Brightcove, where the videos are hosted. Maybe you have a similar problem?
~~~
scw
I also had this issue, in my case the culprit was the Kill-Flash extension.
Adding nytimes.com and brightcove.com to the whitelist made everything work.
------
flurpitude
All I saw was a white screen. Turned out to be Ghostery blocking some content.
Ghostery, you have a twisted sense of humour.
~~~
yaddayadda
Thank you. I tried to figure out which one, but in the end just enabled
everything.
------
infinityetc
I first read the entire story on the mobile app, not even knowing that it was
part of a larger presentation. The writing itself is very compelling, but the
format on the full site adds so much.
Tracking the people through the thumbnail images and seeing the different
parts of the mountain matched up to the images the story had produced in my
head.
It's a testament to the content and the medium that they chose.
------
jameszol
What a stunning tribute to the story.
Every part of this was precisely, beautifully and expertly planned to have a
profound emotional pull to see the story through to the end. It worked. While
I was reading, I felt the emotion from the words + the animations + video +
audio.
I love the format, design and style. Simply brilliant.
------
mrb
Sigh, Flash crashed on me (Chrome 23, Windows 7 64-bit)... I bet doing this in
HTML5 would be more reliable.
Edit: the Flash content is the ad in the middle of the page, right after the
following paragraph:
_"To head straight down to the bottom is to enter what experts call a terrain
trap: a funnel of trouble and clumsy skiing, clogged with trees and rocks and
confined by high walls. Few go that way intentionally."_
How saddening. They worked hard to make it HTML5 compliant, but the user
experience for some is ruined by this ad crashing everything...
~~~
untog
All the videos are HTML5 <video> tags for me. The mountain-top diagram isn't
Flash, either.
~~~
masklinn
> All the videos are HTML5 <video> tags for me.
Not the case here, the "big" ones are <video> tags but the smaller videos
embedded from linked from the text is flash (and that's apparently sufficient
to make everything crawl to a halt, Chrome barely shows up in top but the
flash process maxes out a core)
------
awinterman
Can we take a moment to note what a terrible piece of journalism this is? It's
written like a short story. I read half way though and still don't know who
lived, who died, or when it happened.
~~~
garretruh
It's called a feature. If you want your news quick and easy, read Google News
headlines.
------
picklefish
What if the future of grade school textbooks was this. Learning would be
fascinating. What a great design.
~~~
davidw
> Learning would be fascinating.
I thought it was already, for many subjects.
~~~
lmm
It is, but somehow schools still manage to make it not so.
------
Swizec
Can I just say I really really love this new design? It's wonderful.
------
Zaheer
Impressed by this feature! I think this is a glimpse at how newspapers can
become a lot more relevant/adapt to an online medium. Right now most news
sites don't nearly take advantage of presenting a story online.
------
grogenaut
Not to speak ill of the dead but I don't know WTF these people were thinking.
I was skiing at Crystal (~80 miles away) the same day. IIRC we had about
14-16" of freshies that day. It was GORGEOUS in bounds, why go out? I had
checked the avalanche data for a side project that day and it was as bad as
you can get. And they were skiing in a known serious avalanche hazard zone.
Just showing off to out of town bigwigs IMHO. Someone died at Alpental (in the
backcountry area), one pass over, that day as well when a slide pushed him off
of a cliff.
------
allenwlee
Interesting to note that all the snowboarders refused to join the crowd and
opted to go their own way. Erin the liftie, who actually took off skiers right
on her own; tall Tim, who took off alone hard left; and pankey and Carlson who
followed tall Tim and ultimately discovered the bodies. Snowboarders are
stereotypically not crowd followers, and that characteristic might have saved
them here.
------
JoeAltmaier
Pretty snow pictures not impressing me. Annoyed at the interruption of the
storey flow. Never watch irrelevant videos anyway - hate podcasts with a
passion - information density around zero.
So not for everybody. From the comments here, you'd think its gods gift to
journalism.
Also it hijacked my Back button on my browser, had to kill the page, lost my
browse context so I resent it for that too.
~~~
viraptor
> Also it hijacked my Back button on my browser, had to kill the page, lost my
> browse context so I resent it for that too.
Right-/long-click your back button (depending on your browser) to get the
local history. Then choose one page before NYT.
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Cool!
But I wonder why reasonable people would ever write a page to hijack 'Back'.
Annoys me every time.
------
kerno
What am I missing here?
It looks visually great, but aren't we basically looking at text with embedded
videos? On Twitter the buzz about this made me this was a brand new way of
presenting articles - you know what it reminds me of most? A book.
~~~
pyre
This comes across as comparing poor journalism to good journalism and
complaining that you it's all 'just words,' so what's the 'big deal?'
~~~
kerno
Let me try again - the buzz on twitter I referred to was focussed on how this
design represented a bold new way of presenting journalism to an audience.
My point is; to characterise presenting an article in this interface as
revolutionary strikes me as incorrect - it instead harks back to a format that
we're all familiar with and which works very well. Which, as I wrote, is the
book.
The quality of the journalism doesn't come into it; I'm sure it's very good.
------
EdwardBeckett
The initial impression is breathtaking - captivating and provocative. Love it.
------
jrogers65
Page loaded, saw the article text briefly. Then the JS loaded and all that
remained was the header. Fancy web effects are all well and good but not so
much when they prevent you from viewing the content.
------
andybak
First thought: That's really beautiful
Second thought: My fan's gone mad. Glad I'm on AC...
------
stevewilhelm
I am surprised this article presents itself best in a browser on my
desktop/laptop, then in a browser on my iPad, and has the least interesting
presentation in the native NYT iPad App.
------
Corrado
This kind of "article" is probably why the NYT paywall is actually working. A
"newspaper" filled with these types of stories would actually be worth paying
for.
------
bjhoops1
Wow. This should come with a warning that you are likely to spend the next
hour and a half engrossed and saddened by this story.
------
chewxy
whilst beautiful, I couldn't stay focused on the story long enough to read it
all. So I tried my back button. Oops, I went to the top of the page. Back
button again.. nope, still on the page.
New York Times, stop hijacking my back button
------
intended
Really great job on the format. Well written.
All of which goes to naught when flash BSODs W7 on page 6.
The heck?
------
bmuon
The NYTimes guys are doing some really really good HTML work!
------
epa
Very nice web design on this page.. great.
------
irollboozers
Is this the future of newspapers?
------
moronic_shit
dude.
------
gregcohn
this is amazing.
~~~
gregcohn
can anyone explain to me why this comment would be downvoted?
~~~
chrismorgan
I imagine it would be because the comment is not perceived to add any value at
all and is merely consuming space.
------
sixQuarks
Beautiful!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Drop-In Solution for Replacing Human Labor? Kawada’s Nextage Robot - JDulin
http://singularityhub.com/2011/12/09/a-drop-in-solution-for-replacing-human-labor-kawadas-nextage-robot/
======
FD3SA
This seems to be a transition stage for fine motor skill robots with advanced
object recognition capabilities. A few more iterations will surely make the
human counterparts obsolete, as demonstrated by the rapid automation of
manufacturing giants such as FOXCONN.
~~~
JDulin
The most exciting part is that once a few large companies like FOXCONN make a
commitment to robotic manufacturing, we may be able to see the exponential
decreases in robot costs we have been waiting for as they want cheaper sensors
and actuators in larger quantities. Robotics have been (and are) incredibly
expensive, but but we are reaching a point where the price will begin to
plummet.
~~~
dangrossman
This doesn't excite me, it scares me. A rapid transition to robotic
manufacturing could mean a very rough time for an entire generation of human
workers.
~~~
marcf
Very cheap robotics will decimate China's low skilled labor force.
~~~
kiba
And who will supposedly buy all these good those factories make? The 1%ers?
Those factories only exists if they have a market for the goods they produce.
~~~
gwern
> And who will supposedly buy all these good those factories make? The 1%ers?
Yeah, pretty much. Human wants are unlimited. (To quote Boethius, "If free-
handed Plenty should dispense riches from her cornucopia as plentiful as the
sands cast up by the storm-wracked sea, or as the stars that shine in heaven -
men still would not stop their miserable complaints.")
Have you read Chase's 'Plutonomy' papers from a few years ago? Fearsome
reading.
~~~
confluence
You mean Citigroup's Plutonomy investor Memo:
[http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=2512...](http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=25129.0)
It's not that fearsome.
Over time it becomes easier to give more value to more people thanks to
progress in technology and greater amounts of money/economic wealth sloshing
around.
The people who do something of value, or capture it, derive a huge surplus
from the leverage provided by what's out there right now ( billions of people,
trillions of dollars )
You can see the difference between Nikola Tesla - an absolute genius - who
created the basis for all modern technology/progress and Google.
Even with all the value he created, he couldn't really derive that much
personal benefit, as the utility of his inventions were low before network
effects set in and there were fewer people with less disposable income to
spend money on his inventions. He also got screwed but that's another story.
Compared to Google ( very smart guys yes, geniuses perhaps ) which started
less than 14 years ago and has become one of the largest and most profitable
companies in the world.
Lady Gaga ( 4 years ) vs. Madonna ( 40 years ) for huge success.
Avatar ( 3 billion ) vs. Jaws ( .5 billion )
You catch my drift. Feedback loops are getting larger and faster - it's like
nothing stands still anymore.
But society is getting better.
------
arkitaip
At ~$100,000 USD this will simply not replace dirt cheap labor in developing
countries for decades to come.
~~~
ken
Maybe not, but it could replace low-wage jobs in developed countries.
Imagine a 24-hour fast-food restaurant that employs several people at minimum
wage. A robot could work all 3 shifts around the clock nonstop, not require
much space, and be "trained" in new types of food preparation with an
instantaneous software upgrade.
My economics professor once said he'd heard that if minimum wage got up to
$20/hour, it would be cheaper for McD's to use robots. This is changing the
other side of the equation.
~~~
repsilat
Minimum wage in Australia is $15.51/hour + 9% superannuation contribution.
This comes out to $16.91/hour or USD17.23/hour. If these things can work 24/7
with the same productivity of a worker on minimum wage they'll pay themselves
off in eight months (plus/minus other costs associated with employees and
these machines).
------
Tharkun
is this something we should worry about? If we, as a civilisation (forget
countries for a second) hypothetically replace all labourers by robots, then
what? Is it any different from using cheap overseas labour? Will we be able to
find something else to do for these people? Should we turn to communism in the
long term, if the only 'working' people are software&robotics engineers? We
obviously can't all be tech workers, can we? And would that even be useful?
~~~
_Y_
There will always be unknown things and things to achieve! There is still
nuclear fusion, computer brain interface, genetic engineering, inhabiting
other planets. Figuring out how universe works, if there are other realities,
etc.
My personal thoughts are that communism is merely the next step after
capitalism (after discovering fusion and fabricating nanotechnology), however
I don't think/hope it will play out as it had before in Russia.
~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Why do you think that?
------
bitsweet
_Automation poses a real threat to the factory worker_
Correction: Automation poses a real threat to everyone
~~~
rhino42
Correction: automation possess a threat to those who do not work principally
with their mind. Knowledge workers won't be in danger of marginalization in
the near future
~~~
_Y_
Correction: automation can replace doctors and researchers (which principally
work with their mind).
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090402-robot...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090402-robot-
scientists.html) <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/131697.stm>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.