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Need Moderators for the “C/C++ coding Best practices repository” - cppdesign
http://www.codergears.com/Blog/?p=1856
======
nkurz
I think there are tremendous differences between C and C++ best practices. Are
you really trying to create a single repository that covers both of them?
_If you are a C++ expert and you are interested to moderate this repository
please contact us at [email protected]._
And you certainly don't want a C++ expert trying to moderate best practices in
C. If you want to cover both C and C++, they need to be treated separately.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Unix Windowing Terminal System Blit, 1982, Bell Labs - dryicerx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waTL1abCm9I
======
daeken
I've spent the last two days implementing VGA and basic graphics support in my
OS, and it's great to watch this and see something I know I can implement in a
short period of time with what I've already built. Good for morale if nothing
else.
------
mahmud
_Unix compilers are slow, so to entertain myself while I am waiting, I can
play Asteroids!_
Good lord. The whole video had an underlying tone of _fun_.
I have read this repeatedly and heard it in person from several older
engineers: "unix is a toy", "unix is for playing video games and writing term
papers", "unix is for usenet", etc.
During that time, if I was a buttoned down government or corporate programmer
with IBM and Honeywell training, jockeying Cobol, assembly and Fortran, I too
would eschew this newfangled game-playing computer.
[Edit: I was gonna say Dan Ingalls invented bitblit operation that made 2d
graphics possible, then I saw he had a hand in the production of the video as
well ;-) ]
------
dryicerx
_When I want to compile a program, I don't have to exit the program, I just go
to another layer and type make_
Although my current setup for editing and compiling is still eerily identical
to that.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Please check my quantum physics browser game for accuracy - sideshowb
https://linkingideasblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/25/learning-quantum-mechanics-the-easy-way/
======
evanb
[1/4] Source: I am a nuclear physicist.
Full disclosure: I didn't play. I'm not launching a Java applet. So I'm just
reading your description for physics content.
> (The independence of quantum systems from absolute phase is called gauge
> symmetry)
Gauge symmetry isn't the independence of the global phase---it's the
independence of a spacetime-dependent phase. This is a much _much_ bigger
symmetry than the independence of global absolute phase.
> Until that question is answered, then we can’t rule out the possibility that
> consciousness does have something to do with it.
Are you sure you only read Feynman? This is an extreme fringe position. I
don't know any physicists who actually holds this position, unless they're
trying to get on TV.
> Interestingly, the Schrodinger equation states that a particle can’t exist
> at all in a place with more potential than the particle has energy. It will
> simply “jump” down any available holes to satisfy the equation. The same
> jumping behaviour is what gives rise to tunelling, when a particle jumps as
> if by magic from one hole to another.
That's exactly the opposite of what the Schrodinger equation says! A particle
_can_ exist in a place where the potential energy is more than the total
energy. That cannot happen classically, but is allowed quantum-mechanically.
However, the wavefunction dies off exponentially fast. But it's never 0 unless
the potential is infinite. That's what allows tunneling---the exponentially
small tail is real.
There is no "jumping" in quantum mechanics. The Schrodinger equation implies
the continuity equation [continuity].
~~~
Steuard
Not that a quality post like this needs it, but for what it's worth, as a
physics professor I'd happily endorse just about everything you've said in
this detailed response to the text accompanying the game (all four parts). (My
own comments focused mostly on the game itself, to the extent that I get
what's going on under the hood.)
~~~
dxbydt
Aside: Hey you are the guy who wrote those awesome tutorials on lagrange
multipliers!!! I actually used your materials multiple times at official
presentations, devtimes and other occasions where the management and
developers wanted to know how bidding optimization worked under the hood.
Thank you so much for writing so well.
~~~
Steuard
I'm glad to hear that you've appreciated that tutorial! It's especially neat
to hear about it being useful to people who aren't just cramming for a class.
------
alexbock
You may get more feedback if you upload the Java source to GitHub and make it
easy to compile and run locally. I wasn't able to run the applet with the
default settings in Safari, Chrome, nor Firefox and asking people to make
their browsers less secure to test this is probably going to turn a lot of
people off.
~~~
virgil_disgr4ce
Agreed, this is SUPER disappointing. I started reading your blog post on the
train this morning and was SO excited, because I've also been self-studying
QM/QED lately, and your description so closely mirrored my experiences. So
imagine my excitement when I saw that you'd made a game as a way of developing
an intuition—a really fantastic idea, and one I had been thinking of myself!
And yet I have effectively no way of even seeing it! Not even the code?!?!
:((((
~~~
brianwawok
So its annoying enough for you to type a 300 word complaint, but not annoying
enough to change your browser configuration? Only on hacker news I guess...
~~~
Vendan
Well, on my end, it would involve installing another browser and changing it's
config. Not doing that, thanks.
~~~
virgil_disgr4ce
Exactly.
------
valarauca1
Web Java is functionally dead outside of enterprises environments. Running
untrusted Java in browser is a huge security risk.
If you'd upload your code to github that'd make reviewing it easier.
~~~
earlz
Yea, I'm not taking that risk.. much less the inconvenience of installing a
different browser and getting Java enabled
------
kecks
Sorry, but I'm not running your Java applet.
Perhaps you could port your game to something like Processing.js? It allows
for very Java-like syntax, compiles to html5/js and is good with graphics.
~~~
RobSis
Unless you have a problem with running unknown compiled code, why not?
It's as easy as running '$ appletviewer URL'
~~~
whamlastxmas
Because having Java enabled for a browser is tremendously more risky than
running a single application of unknown code.
~~~
LukeShu
As RobSis noted, you don't have to enable it in your browser, you can use
appletviewer to run individual applets without the browser:
$ appletviewer http://tropic.org.uk/~crispin/quantum/
And also, moderns browsers allow you to have the plugin installed, but
disabled unless you activate it on a specific page.
~~~
kecks
Modern browsers... except Google Chrome, which has at least 40% market share.
Google Chrome does not support applets in any way since the deprecation of
NPAPI.
------
leni536
I'm reading through your description and this catched my eye: "In general, the
smaller the wave, the faster it spreads out: this is the uncertainty
principle." This is not true, spreading out is due to dispersion. Why you
don't see particle like wave packets on water surface? Also dispersion. In
fact you can create particle like waves on a guitar string, which is pretty
much dispersionless. Also you can describe massless particles in QM which are
also dispersionless.
The uncertanity principle is about the uncertanity of non-commuting
observables at any given time (eg. position and momentum), it's not about the
time dependence of the wave function.
~~~
Steuard
It's fairly common for people to relate this quantum phenomenon to the
uncertainty principle, though. Someone asks: "Why can't I just say 'the
particle is at rest in this small area' and expect it to stay there forever?"
And one take on the answer is "Because you're imposing a very small
uncertainty on the initial position, the initial momentum must have a very
high uncertainty. That means there's a substantial probability that the
particle will move away from its initial position over time, which corresponds
to the wave function spreading out."
You can certainly talk about it in terms of Fourier components or that sort of
thing, too. There's a degree to which the uncertainty principle as applied to
the position/momentum degrees of freedom is nothing _but_ a statement about
Fourier transforms. But I don't think it's a bad conceptual shorthand,
especially for students who aren't yet experts in thinking about Fourier
stuff.
~~~
tamana
As a non Fourier expert, thinking about the general concept of the Fourier
transform (spatial vs frequency coordinates),and how position and momentum are
Fourier transforms of each other, was highly illuminating
------
coldpie
Crashes when run in IcedTea 1.6 in Firefox on Linux.
IcedTea-Web Plugin version: 1.6.2 6/1/16 7:49 AM Exception was:
net.sourceforge.jnlp.LaunchException: Fatal: Initialization Error: Could not
initialize applet. For more information click "more information button". at
net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.createApplet(Launcher.java:764) at
net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.getApplet(Launcher.java:686) at
net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher$TgThread.run(Launcher.java:933) Caused by:
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: quantum.GameWindow at
net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader.loadClass(JNLPClassLoader.java:1562)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.createApplet(Launcher.java:753) ... 2 more
This is the list of exceptions that occurred launching your applet. Please
note, those exceptions can originate from multiple applets. For a helpful bug
report, be sure to run only one applet. 1) at 6/1/16 7:49 AM
net.sourceforge.jnlp.LaunchException: Fatal: Initialization Error: Could not
initialize applet. For more information click "more information button". at
net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.createApplet(Launcher.java:764) at
net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.getApplet(Launcher.java:686) at
net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher$TgThread.run(Launcher.java:933) Caused by:
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: quantum.GameWindow at
net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader.loadClass(JNLPClassLoader.java:1562)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.createApplet(Launcher.java:753) ... 2 more
~~~
LukeShu
Same exception with IcedTea 1.6 in Iceweasel on GNU/Linux.
Second edit: It's because I had OpenJDK 7 as the default JRE. It works fine
when I switch it to OpenJDK 8.
Tip: stick 4 spaces before the stack trace to not munge newlines.
Edit: If I run it with appletviewer, I get a more helpful exception:
$ appletviewer http://tropic.org.uk/~crispin/quantum/
java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: quantum/GameWindow : Unsupported major.minor version 52.0
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
[snip]
~~~
mschulze
This error means that you need at least JRE8 (Java 8) to run the applet. Or OP
must compile the applet in a compatible bytecode format for older versions of
Java (-target of javac).
~~~
LukeShu
Yup, I figured that out. Note that what we saw in the browser didn't indicate
that; I had to use appletviewer to get a helpful error message.
------
stared
For the game - I would be delighted to test it, but most likely this weekend
or so. (Plus, Java sadly isn't the most user-friendly interface for browser-
based things.)
For getting feedback from quantum information researchers, I recommend posting
to
[https://www.facebook.com/groups/qinfo.scientists.unite/](https://www.facebook.com/groups/qinfo.scientists.unite/).
I see that you have similar taste/inspirations to mine (I am also a big fan of
Test Tube Games (Velocity Raptor & Agent Higgs)). See also:
[https://hackpad.com/J0X4MSberlM?r=0](https://hackpad.com/J0X4MSberlM?r=0) for
more picks (and feel invited to add more).
For quantum games - in a week or so I plan to release my own -
[https://github.com/stared/quantum-game](https://github.com/stared/quantum-
game)
~~~
sideshowb
Thanks. I'll check out the FB group you mention. Your game, or what we can
currently see of it, reminds me of the (classical) "Reflections" laser game of
a few years back which is a good thing! And I suspect the hackpad list will
take me more than a weekend to play through :)
~~~
stared
I've heard about Reflections but it was mostly inspired by Chromatron
([http://silverspaceship.com/chromatron/](http://silverspaceship.com/chromatron/)),
and a bit by The Incredible Machine.
With this list - don't try to play it all at once. Some of these are potent
drugs - not only addictive, but mind-altering (e.g. Hyperrogue, when you walk
on a hyperbolic plane).
------
benbenolson
Yeah, I don't think that many people are going to be able to run this. Java
applets are deprecated at this point, unfortunately. I'd love to be able to
compile and run it locally, though.
~~~
jeffwass
SideShowB - since you implemented these as Java applets and as per your link
want to learn more about QM, and specifically about improving learning and
visualisation of QM, check out the below link.
It's a bunch of QM applets I created about 12 years ago to aid in visualising
different aspects of quantum mechanics. I was a grad student at the time, and
made these as part of a fellowship. Several of these were used in
corresponding homework assignments and lectures for both grad and undergrad QM
classes.
[http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~javalab/](http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~javalab/)
I decided to apply for this fellowship after an enlightening experience seeing
the time evolution of Coherent States of a quantum simple harmonic oscillator.
------
Coding_Cat
To me (coffee-deprived Physics Bsc.) nothing jumps out as particularly
erroneous, pretty fun. Save for some weird behaviour when you try to move the
particles to fast as is noted in the game. I could also get some parts of the
wave function outside of the bounds of the level (but within the applet) I'm
not sure if this is supposed to happen? How do you model/simulate the fields?
I was actually thinking of making my own little Quantum game to see if it
could be made fun. I was thinking of making a QGolf system, where you tweak an
initial stationary wavefunction which is then collapsed after a certain time.
Although these kinds of mechanics probably work better.
>Until I made this game I was pretty confused about the uncertainty principle.
The way it’s usually taught, without resorting to maths, is to say something
like this:
>Until I made Quantum Marble Maze (QMM) I had never heard a satisfying
explanation for why frequency and momentum are the same thing. This is called
Planck’s relation. Sure, you can demonstrate classically that higher frequency
waves carry more energy, but does that really mean a particle changes
frequency if you change its momentum – in other words if you push it?
If you know how to do Fourier Transforms, note that the momentum-wavefunction
is the Fourier Transform of the postion-wavefunction. And in order to make a
well defined peak using sines & cosines, you need a lot of high frequency
(high momentum) waves. IIRC this is shown in Griffiths Introduction to Quantum
Mechanics, quite a good introduction to QM.
~~~
sideshowb
Thanks. On your latter point, I do get Fourier transforms, though for that
logic to apply you first need to accept frequency-as-momentum :)
------
LionessLover
I think you should try
[http://physics.stackexchange.com/](http://physics.stackexchange.com/)
~~~
sideshowb
I did. Well, I didn't ask the main QA site as questions about specific sites
would be off-topic. I did ask chat (the H Bar) but didn't get much of a
response. An hour on HN and my server log says several people have loaded the
game and one made it to level 5, so we're doing better here already.
~~~
sideshowb
...3 hours in, 174 people have loaded the game and 5 made it to the final
(16th) level. Still no completions though ;)
On the other hand, most of the comments have been about the Java rather than
the physics. I suppose I should have expected that.
~~~
tgb
I read your blog and thought it was coherent (ha) and correct as far as I can
tell with one course qm and one on quantum computing plus one other textbook
as my background. Honestly one of the better descriptions of QM I've read
though it's hard for me to judge how someone without any background would take
to it.
------
gpsx
I wish I could play the game. I have the same java applet problem. Hopefully
I'll be able to play later.
A few words on quantum mechanics - it is very tricky. Someone doesn't
understand quantum mechanics by taking a class in it or in getting an
undergraduate physics degree. I am sure even many (or all) physics professors
have limitations in their knowledge. It's not that the rules are complicated,
it is the implications when it is applied in the real world. You do seem to
have gained a good level of understanding though.
I have a comment on the nature of a wave function, as described in the section
"It's wavelike, but not watery". It states that wavefuntions can act like
particles. This may be wording that I just do not understand, but I would want
to clarify it.
Take the wave function for an electron - this is not a wave of "electon". It
is a wave of probability (sort of) for an electron. The electron itself is
always a particle. The motion of the electron is described by the wave. In
this way the electron has wave properties.
To take an example, let's shoot an electron gun at a target. Suppose the
resulting wavefunction of the electron has a uniform amplitude over the target
when it "hits". What is the damage to the plate? Is it uniform damage? No. The
damage is always at a single point of impact. We see the result of the
electron hitting the target, not the wave function hitting the target.
Now, if we shoot lots of electrons, the damage will be pretty uniform, since
they will be distributed all over the plate. But it will still consist of a
bunch of point impacts.
I just wanted to be clear about differentiating the wave function from the
object whose state (position, momentum, whatever) is described by the wave
function.
------
crottypeter
The following (while not wrong) is hard to read. You lament that people think
"a particle does have definite position and momentum" but don't go on to state
that they do _not_ have definite x and p. Why not state this unambiguously?
> This can lead to a bit of confusion, because a lot of people take that to
> mean that a particle does have definite position and momentum (I mean, all
> things do, right?!) but you’re sadly not able to find out what it is. Maybe
> because trying to measure one changes the other – logically that makes
> sense, right?
> But this is QM, so until you start turning it into computer games, it won’t
> make sense
------
dluan
This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen.
------
mcguire
It's a Java applet?
~~~
sideshowb
Alas yes! In hindsight not the best choice of tech so a Javascript rewrite
might be on the cards.
~~~
Filligree
Kotlin has a JS compilation mode, and IDEA has a java-to-kotlin converter.
Maybe that's a good place to start? Kotlin is a good language anyway.
~~~
lmm
Scala has both those things and is a better and more mature language.
~~~
mushishi
It is a different language to be sure but why would you say it is better?
Isn't there such a many ways to look at the strengths/weaknesses of a language
that simply valuing one language over another does not make much sense? (In
this context, I assume that both are good enough to be possible for this
project).
~~~
lmm
More consistent design - a lot of things that are special cases in Kotlin are
just the logical combination of two orthogonal features in Scala (or Ceylon).
That and the huge power of higher-kinded types - there are some language
features where it's arguable whether they're worth their weight, but higher-
kinded types are one where it's really clear-cut (IMO) - once you're used to
them, using a language without them is like using a language without generics.
For the sake of argument I'll accept that it's maybe difficult to compare two
languages in general, but in terms of Kotlin/Scala they are extremely similar
languages targeting extremely similar use cases.
~~~
softawre
We reviewed both and went with Kotlin. Scala is not the obvious choice here in
my opinion.
Kotlin is a simpler language which is a huge benefit.
[https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/comparison-to-
scala.ht...](https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/comparison-to-scala.html)
~~~
lmm
It's not a simpler language. It's a less powerful one but as a result it has a
lot of ad-hoc special case features to cover subsets of functionality that
Scala provides with a few powerful features applied consistently.
(If you want an actually simpler language, look at Ceylon)
------
kqr
On a completely different spin: any tips for becoming good at the game? I
can't even pass level two, and I've already exhausted my (very limited) mental
QM book.
~~~
sideshowb
Most levels are easier to solve if you don't hang about: the longer you wait,
the more uncertainty bites and the position becomes indefinite.
Remember there's no friction so if you accelerate over half the screen you
need to decelerate over the other half if you're going to stop before the
other side.
Level 2 can be solved by accelerating/decelerating to follow three straight
lines (east-south-west) to the goal. Alternatively if you're feeling cocky you
can accelerate east then throw in some south as you approach the corner:
you'll bounce off the walls and break the wavefunction a bit but about 50% of
the time the goal will trigger.
If you haven't discovered already you can also skip levels from the menu ;)
~~~
kqr
Thanks, that helped a lot! I also felt really clever when I realised that if
there's a "Collapse 5%" trigger zone I barely have to do anything other than
nudge the wave in the right direction when some parts of it are near the
collapse trigger. =)
------
capnrefsmmat
This reminds me of the old Quantum Minigolf game, though that was desktop C++:
[http://quantumminigolf.sourceforge.net/](http://quantumminigolf.sourceforge.net/)
Instead of arrow keys, you use a putter to tap the quantum golf ball.
~~~
sideshowb
I'm starting to think if I had made this a downloadable C++ executable I'd
have fewer complaints about security :D
------
Steuard
A few thoughts, speaking as a physics professor who asks his relativity
students to play both "Velocity Raptor" and "A Slower Speed of Light":
* Like many others here, I was a bit dismayed to see this implemented as a Java applet. Increasing security concerns have meant that I've been able to use fewer and fewer of those in my classes: it's just not reasonable to ask students to jump through those hoops anymore.
* When I look at the menu, it only goes up through level 7.
* I have made very little progress on level 8 (the one with the diffraction grating in the middle that's trying to get you to reach 2% transmission at about an 80 degree angle on each side). I have a general idea of what you want me to do, but I get so little visible transmission most of the time that it feels all but impossible to fine-tune my momentum or other aspects of my strategy. (Is there any way to increase the slit widths or number of slits or something to make that easier?)
* What _exactly_ do the arrow keys _do_? Are you imposing a linear potential gradient across the whole screen for a short time? It's hard to judge "accuracy" when I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at. (That also means I'm not entirely sure how to teach it.)
* Along similar lines, do you have a sense of what exactly is leading to the visible interference effects during motion? (The ones that you point out can be guides as to which direction the wave is moving?) Maybe I ought to have a direct intuition for this! Is it purely an effect of reflections off of the walls, or would I see the same thing if I started with a Gaussian wave packet in a linear potential without any boundaries at all? (And if it's reflection related, why is it mostly showing the direction of primary motion rather than the direction of the reflections?) Some explanation for this might be nice in a teaching tool.
* Do you think you could allow the user to toggle the phase-rainbow mode on and off? (That's the mode that I _would_ expect to always give an indication of the dominant momentum of the wave function.)
* The "collapse" mechanic is very helpful for game play, but might deserve some sort of explanation. In particular, I worry that it could train students to believe a critical misconception: that if the probability of a particular state becomes high enough, that state immediately becomes "true". Maybe that wouldn't turn out to be a serious concern, but I'm not certain that beginners are well-equipped to recognize which weird aspects of game play are supposed to reflect real physics and which are mere game enhancements. (The way collapse works here feels a lot like Copenhagen, but not quite, since it doesn't obey the Born probability rule.)
* It would allow for significantly richer strategy and game play if the player had a wider menu of potential functions to choose from. (For instance, what if the arrow keys continued to be linear potential functions and a mouse click provided a harmonic oscillator?)
* In your explanatory text, I'm not comfortable with your discussion of decoherence. I'm far from an expert on that subject, so I'm hesitant to try to offer specific corrections. But it feels off to me. (In particular, a single quantum particle bouncing off of strict potential energy walls should _not_ be a manifestation of decoherence, because the particle's state isn't becoming _entangled_ with the state of those walls in any way. I don't see any manifestation of decoherence in the game.)
In case you're interested, my current favorite intro level textbook on quantum
mechanics is Tom Moore's "Six Ideas that Shaped Physics: Unit Q". It doesn't
go as far as I'd like for a really thorough course (which is especially true
in the recent 3rd edition, though the material that's still there is presented
much more clearly), but as part of an introductory sequence it does a great
job. Much like Townsend's fantastic Jr/Sr level text, Moore first introduces
the "rules" of quantum mechanics in the context of two-state spin systems (in
a slightly simplified version of Dirac's bra-ket notation), and only moves to
wave functions once the fundamental concepts are established. (It doesn't
manage to do a whole lot with time dependent position/momentum systems like
the ones you're simulating, though.)
~~~
sideshowb
Another mega comment: don't know why this isn't more upvoted. Thanks for the
bug report.
Level 8 is odd. You thought more diffraction would occur with slower speed
right? In the simulation it doesn't; bounce off the left wall and hit the
grating fast to complete. I have to admit this bothers me. I can only assume
this is because sidebands which would otherwise hit the grating itself move
inwards to hit the 2% targets or something. Not good at all from a learning
point of view.
Yes, the arrow keys impose a linear potential gradient while they are being
held. It fades in gradually as well so no sharp transients (unless you
differentiate). Not sure if that detail was required but it's there now.
The interference effects during motion are not wall reflections as far as I
can tell. Some levels such as the traps don't have walls but (imperfect)
absorbers and they exhibit it just as much. You're right, it's easy to see why
this occurs in the rainbow mode but not so much in the amplitude mode. Genuine
physics or artifact of simulation - presumably somebody can do some calculus
and work that one out!
Decoherence, I acknowledge should involve multiple quantum particles. What we
do see here though is an evolution from a single particle with coherent phase,
which interferes with itself, into one with incoherent phase, that doesn't.
Conceptually that seems similar to decoherence.
I think all your pedagogical points are good ones btw.
Like I said to evanb, if you would like to be acknowledged for your review I'm
more than happy to. Best wishes.
~~~
Steuard
I'm very puzzled about level 8, based on what you've said. Certainly to be a
good _pedagogical_ tool, I'd want to see a system that very visibly showed a
wider and wider diffraction pattern for longer wavelengths (as you've said).
[The one advantage of a bounce that I was able to think of while playing was
that it might wind up giving a cleaner "plane wave" input, but I'm not even
sure that that's an advantage. Now that you mention it, though, perhaps there
is some ideal speed for which bouncing off the back _and_ side walls would
result in propagation at an angle, so that a meaningful fraction of the
probability density would hit the targets in as a _central_ interference
maximum.]
If I were you, I'd leave out the discussion of decoherence entirely. It's a
subtle topic (evanb did it justice, I think), and I'm reasonably convinced
that it doesn't really apply to the game. (Even if I might be wrong about
that, is that tidbit of background info important enough to your discussion to
be worth the effort and/or the risk?)
Thanks for a fun take on quantum stuff, regardless! (I don't know what's in
the higher levels, but might be fun to see some more examples of things like
tunneling through different barriers. And I wonder if there's any way of
setting up resonance in a cavity in an interesting way...)
Regarding credit: I don't feel like I've contributed _that_ much at this
point, but if you wind up with a moderate list of thank you's at some point,
you're welcome to include "Steuard Jensen" on the list.
[As for my comment not being more upvoted: I think I got some sort of black
mark on my record here a few months ago after I tried to insist that recent
reports about reactionless propulsion systems are very unlikely to pan out.
Ever since then, I've gotten the sense that my comments are showing up with an
initial scoring penalty.]
~~~
sideshowb
Re resonance in a cavity, I have some prototypes but they didn't make it into
gameplay. Actually the end screen is an example. Several levels do exhibit
resonance in a potential well: 7, 9, 11 and 12.
[Really? Wow, that's harsh. I haven't the foggiest how HN scores work, it's
all rather secretive isn't it.]
------
amelius
There are some physics people here, but... wouldn't it be a much better idea
to ask a physics forum?
------
em3rgent0rdr
Really enjoyed this game...I was very skeptical before I actually ran the
applet.
------
pvinis
Wow. I was about to write that I'm writing a simulation engine to try and
understand quantum physics better. Then I saw the image on your post, and I
now see that you are far ahead of me! :D
------
dingo_bat
Pretty cool game. Although I have been unable to map it to any of the limited
knowledge/understanding I possess about quantum mechanics.
------
javathrowaway
You asked for feedback, and here it goes: I couldn't run your applet on my
machine.
It's not my intent to attack the choice of Java, but I can't avoid noticing
that Java applets as a web technology are getting seriously obsolete these
days. It's a challenge to get these applets running.
JavaScript works way better on the web (I hate to say it, but beware the silly
name: JS as a programming language has nothing to do with Java).
The traceback follows.
Exception was:
net.sourceforge.jnlp.LaunchException: Fatal: Initialization Error: Could not initialize applet. For more information click "more information button".
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.createApplet(Launcher.java:739)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.getApplet(Launcher.java:668)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher$TgThread.run(Launcher.java:901)
Caused by: net.sourceforge.jnlp.LaunchException: The applet is signed but its manifest specifies Sandbox permissions. This is not yet supported. Try running the applet again, but choose the Sandbox run option.
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.ManifestAttributesChecker.checkPermissionsAttribute(ManifestAttributesChecker.java:217)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.ManifestAttributesChecker.checkAll(ManifestAttributesChecker.java:82)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader. (JNLPClassLoader.java:288)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader.createInstance(JNLPClassLoader.java:351)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader.getInstance(JNLPClassLoader.java:418)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader.getInstance(JNLPClassLoader.java:394)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.createApplet(Launcher.java:704)
... 2 more
Caused by: net.sourceforge.jnlp.LaunchException: Fatal: Initialization Error: Run in Sandbox call performed too late. The classloader was notified to run the applet sandboxed, but security settings were already initialized.
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader$SecurityDelegateImpl.setRunInSandbox(JNLPClassLoader.java:2386)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.ManifestAttributesChecker.checkPermissionsAttribute(ManifestAttributesChecker.java:214)
... 8 more
This is the list of exceptions that occurred launching your applet. Please note, those exceptions can originate from multiple applets. For a helpful bug report, be sure to run only one applet.
1) at 6/1/16 7:09 PM
net.sourceforge.jnlp.LaunchException: Fatal: Initialization Error: Run in Sandbox call performed too late. The classloader was notified to run the applet sandboxed, but security settings were already initialized.
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader$SecurityDelegateImpl.setRunInSandbox(JNLPClassLoader.java:2386)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.ManifestAttributesChecker.checkPermissionsAttribute(ManifestAttributesChecker.java:214)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.ManifestAttributesChecker.checkAll(ManifestAttributesChecker.java:82)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader. (JNLPClassLoader.java:288)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader.createInstance(JNLPClassLoader.java:351)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader.getInstance(JNLPClassLoader.java:418)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader.getInstance(JNLPClassLoader.java:394)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.createApplet(Launcher.java:704)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.getApplet(Launcher.java:668)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher$TgThread.run(Launcher.java:901)
2) at 6/1/16 7:09 PM
net.sourceforge.jnlp.LaunchException: The applet is signed but its manifest specifies Sandbox permissions. This is not yet supported. Try running the applet again, but choose the Sandbox run option.
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.ManifestAttributesChecker.checkPermissionsAttribute(ManifestAttributesChecker.java:217)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.ManifestAttributesChecker.checkAll(ManifestAttributesChecker.java:82)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader. (JNLPClassLoader.java:288)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader.createInstance(JNLPClassLoader.java:351)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader.getInstance(JNLPClassLoader.java:418)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader.getInstance(JNLPClassLoader.java:394)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.createApplet(Launcher.java:704)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.getApplet(Launcher.java:668)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher$TgThread.run(Launcher.java:901)
Caused by: net.sourceforge.jnlp.LaunchException: Fatal: Initialization Error: Run in Sandbox call performed too late. The classloader was notified to run the applet sandboxed, but security settings were already initialized.
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader$SecurityDelegateImpl.setRunInSandbox(JNLPClassLoader.java:2386)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.ManifestAttributesChecker.checkPermissionsAttribute(ManifestAttributesChecker.java:214)
... 8 more
3) at 6/1/16 7:09 PM
net.sourceforge.jnlp.LaunchException: Fatal: Initialization Error: Could not initialize applet. For more information click "more information button".
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.createApplet(Launcher.java:739)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.getApplet(Launcher.java:668)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher$TgThread.run(Launcher.java:901)
Caused by: net.sourceforge.jnlp.LaunchException: The applet is signed but its manifest specifies Sandbox permissions. This is not yet supported. Try running the applet again, but choose the Sandbox run option.
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.ManifestAttributesChecker.checkPermissionsAttribute(ManifestAttributesChecker.java:217)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.ManifestAttributesChecker.checkAll(ManifestAttributesChecker.java:82)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader. (JNLPClassLoader.java:288)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader.createInstance(JNLPClassLoader.java:351)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader.getInstance(JNLPClassLoader.java:418)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader.getInstance(JNLPClassLoader.java:394)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.createApplet(Launcher.java:704)
... 2 more
Caused by: net.sourceforge.jnlp.LaunchException: Fatal: Initialization Error: Run in Sandbox call performed too late. The classloader was notified to run the applet sandboxed, but security settings were already initialized.
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.JNLPClassLoader$SecurityDelegateImpl.setRunInSandbox(JNLPClassLoader.java:2386)
at net.sourceforge.jnlp.runtime.ManifestAttributesChecker.checkPermissionsAttribute(ManifestAttributesChecker.java:214)
... 8 more
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Browsertime, bringing popcorntime to your browser with webtorrent - KeizerDev
https://github.com/KeizerDev/Browsertime
======
chirau
I have installed this, but it doesn't work, I can't play anything(there is no
play option, its just a movie page with a description). I can't search for
anything, there are no series. How is this popcorntime in a browser?
------
DuckyC
Someone finally did it. I had this idea when WebTorrent first came out. This
is great!
~~~
KeizerDev
Hi, you still can contribute. It is not really working at the moment but we
are somewhere!
~~~
brudgers
What is the status?
~~~
KeizerDev
Check out the README
------
tym0
yts/yifi is over so what do mean by "Get movies from yify/yts api endpoint."?
Is it yts.ag?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ignore the conspiracy theories: scientists know Covid-19 wasn't created in a lab - Farbodkhz
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/09/conspiracies-covid-19-lab-false-pandemic
======
GillBates666
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q5SRrsr-
Iug](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q5SRrsr-Iug)
How does mainstream media keep their credibility? A considerable portion of
the population is just ok with being lied too I guess. Shrug.
At the very least we should be investigating all possibilities in regards to
the origin of the virus. China has a terrible track record with viruses. They
leaked SARS1 twice. The first largely publicized cluster is right next to the
coronavirus lab there. Now we have a ton of genetic evidence that can't be
hidden.
To what length will the media go to hide this and redirect the conversation?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
React Native ART and D3 - hswolff
http://hswolff.com/blog/react-native-art-and-d3/
======
harel
I would really like to see a real world useful application done in react
native. Nothing too arty, but more functional, business like even. Something
that goes beyond an app for an event or an art project.
~~~
lewisl9029
The Discord iOS app is built with React Native:
[https://discord.engineering/using-react-native-one-year-
late...](https://discord.engineering/using-react-native-one-year-
later-91fd5e949933#.vt4jip632)
And it's quite good by most accounts.
They also have a showcase of other projects built with React Native on their
official site:
[https://facebook.github.io/react-
native/showcase.html](https://facebook.github.io/react-native/showcase.html)
------
macavity23
This is excellent. Thanks for posting.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Top darknet drug marketplace, Dream Market, is shutting down - biofunsf
https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-dark-web-marketplace-will-shut-down-next-month/
======
arthurcolle
Another one bites the dust.
Does anyone have any theories on the methodologies being used in these
Operation Onymous/Bayonet/Shrouded Horizon to figure out who tor users are? I
heard one theory related to 'traffic confirmation' attacks which DDOS a
particular hidden service, and then basically flood the Tor network with 'LEO
relays' which are then used to figure out the point of origin.
[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151201/07281232952/tor-d...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151201/07281232952/tor-
devs-say-theyve-learned-lessons-carnegie-mellon-attack-worries-remain-that-
theyre-outgunned-outmanned.shtml)
With the amount of busts happening these days, it is definitely a scary time
for those brave enough to host hidden services that engage in illegal
activity.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Everybody Dance Now: transfering motion between humans in different videos - hendzen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCBTZh41Ris
======
itsthisjustin
This is mind blowing
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Secure estate planning - TallGuyShort
I've been going through the process of setting up a will and related documents. The people to whom I am entrusting my children (and thus also my property) in the event of my death are not exactly cybersecurity experts, so I need to maintain a simple way for them to access my accounts without me. I'm thinking about the privacy implications of this. So far the best thing I've come up with is to lock my password manager master password with some basic instructions in a safe that they know how to find and open. I'm okay with trusting them, since I'm trusting them with my children, but I'm still slightly concerned about the privacy risks and their ability to figure out how to access everything through my password manager without my help present.<p>Does anyone here have better ideas?
======
devillius
Most password managers like LastPass let you designate someone else who can
retrieve your account.
Master Passwords /Keys / Encrypted USBs in sealed envelopes stored together
with your will all seem like probable options.
I personally have a Master password and a USB with my private encryption keys
stored securely and Google Inactive Account manager to send instructions if I
don't access my account for a month.
Good luck and I would be curious to hear what you end up doing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
BaconBizConf 2013: Bootstrapping Sketchnotes - joelhooks
http://joelhooks.com/blog/2013/06/06/my-sketchnotes-and-thoughts-from-baconbizconf-2013/
======
marcusneto
Absolutely amazing. Love these. Even showed them to my oldest son as he likes
to draw.
------
urlwolf
Idea: a subreddit or subHN (if that existed) for bootstrappers?
------
mustard76
These notes are frickin awesome! Thanks.
------
leonardsouza
Nice!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Windows 8 for tablet hands on - mingyeow
http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/13/windows-8-for-tablets-hands-on-preview/
======
sriramk
As someone who worked for MSFT for so long, this bit really makes me happy -
mostly since no one would have given this much odds of happening.
"With the introduction of OS X Lion, Apple gave us a glimpse at what a post-PC
operating system might look like, and now Microsoft's gone and pushed that
idea to the limit. If Cupertino's latest was a tease, than Windows 8 is full
frontal. And we have to admit, we like what we see. "
~~~
sunchild
It's hard to relate to the excitement when the demo was chock-full of
usability failure. How many times did the presenters struggle to register
their gestures?
Someone will no doubt say "it's a developer release – we'll fix all that". My
response to that is "Apple would never let that see the outside of a top-
secret lab".
Also, am I the only person who thinks this is the polar opposite of "post-PC"?
Desktop, start menu, right-click, etc. Maybe "touch PC" is more apt?
~~~
jeffjose
The presenter struggles because on the one hand he has a camera and the other
he uses to swipe/touch.
I'm not suggesting the beta/dev preview version is without bugs, I believe
you're reading too much into this.
~~~
coyotej
I'd argue that's "presentation" failure. This is something that can be
practiced so as to keep the focus on the product and not on the sloppiness due
to lack of preparedness.
~~~
toddheasley
I'd argue that you can hand an iPad to your grandmother with severe arthritis
or your toddler for the first time and they wouldn't have nearly as much
trouble as the presenter in the video.
~~~
recoiledsnake
Why would you give your grandmother a prototype tablet that will never see a
production release?
~~~
tomkarlo
Why would you demo a prototype?
~~~
josephcooney
Gee, I don't know...maybe to give the millions of people who are interested in
it an idea of what it might be like.
------
saturdaysaint
It looks very streamlined and powerful - quite arguably more functional than
today's iPad - but it's problematic that I don't see anything that makes
anyones' life appreciably better. A Flipboard clone, mobile Internet, Twitter,
Photos - nothing revolutionary. Really, really good, but nothing to give an
iPad or Xoom owner buyer's remorse unless these are ridiculously cheap (I
don't see how they'll have any price advantage over Apple or Googlerolla).
Tablets will own this holiday season, which MS is missing out on, and remember
that Windows 8 tablets will ship in the shadow of the iPad 3. Which, in turn,
means that Android and iPad will remain the lead platform for large form
touchscreen apps for the medium term future.
So: nice, but this doesn't stop their disruption.
~~~
dangrossman
When the build conference keynote's over, watch the recording. I think the
killer feature will be having every device you pick up be tailored to you.
When you hand it to your wife, it's tailored to her... just by signing in with
a Windows Live ID instead of a local user/password. Your contacts, e-mail,
calendar, photos, files, apps, desktop, bookmarks, individual app settings --
it will all be there on whatever device you pick up, whether it's a tablet, a
phone, a desktop PC, your work PC. Windows 8 uses Microsoft's cloud to bust
through firewalls on every end to connect every device you touch.
~~~
joeguilmette
Kind of like iCloud?
~~~
encoderer
Exactly, except this time, it'll be on the devices that have 85% market share.
~~~
joeguilmette
[http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/08/20/forrester.sees...](http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/08/20/forrester.sees.14pc.of.us.wanting.ipads)
Estimated 14% of the US wants to buy an iPad
[http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/09/13/survey-shows-
unpreced...](http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/09/13/survey-shows-
unprecedented-demand-for-apples-iphone-5/) see exhibit 4 - 85% of the tablet
buyers intend to buy an iPad.
[http://mashable.com/2011/09/12/apple-set-to-break-record-
for...](http://mashable.com/2011/09/12/apple-set-to-break-record-for-mac-
sales-this-fall-report/)
the status quo may not stay the status quo for long... especially with people
slowly admitting that, at least for moms and grandmas, tablets may be much
more in line with their needs.
Paul Graham was even just on stage talking about how Microsoft likely doesn't
see how bad its going to get for them...
~~~
barista
PG stays in his wonderland where Microsoft is no longer relevant. He said that
a few years ago already. Microsoft still made billions of dollars selling
windows in those years.
Same is the case with the surveys above. Everybody wanted to buy an iphone
until android came along...
~~~
wanorris
The interesting thing is that consumer surveys _still_ show more people want
to buy iPhones. But they walk out of stores with considerably more Android
phones than iPhones.
------
RyanMcGreal
> the desktop that you've grown used to in Windows 7 is still present, albeit
> as an app
Interesting parallel with the introduction of Windows. Windows 3.1 still ran
entirely on top of DOS; but DOS was demoted in Windows 95 and replaced
entirely in Windows NT, from which point it has run as a VM on top of the OS.
~~~
Rusky
Add to that the fact that Hyper-V is part of Windows 8 - interesting
possibilities.
------
nextparadigms
According to TIMN it's running an Intel Core i5. Wow. Seriously? I realize
this is just a developer preview device, but if Windows 8 needs that kind of
power, then what about ARM tablets that are supposed to compete with iPad? How
will it run on them? And how much battery life will it have on those Intel-
powered tablets? These questions are all unanswered and Engadget didn't even
touch on any of them.
_"All of the above sections should give you a solid look at what Windows 8 is
shaping up to be, but what about the hardware? While we got a look at the OS
running on a few laptops and all-in-ones during the press preview meeting,
we’ve spent most of the time testing the OS on the prototype tablet. Powered
by a 1.6GHz Core i5-2467M processor and a 64GB solid state drive, the system
is absolutely no slouch on performance — everything from scrolling in the
browser to the Start screen is extremely speedy and the system boots
incredibly quickly. However, fan noise is very noticeable, as is the heat
coming out of the top vent, and a fast boot doesn’t excuse the slow wake-up
times compared to ARM-based cellphones and tablets."_
[http://thisismynext.com/2011/09/13/windows-8-tablet-
photos-v...](http://thisismynext.com/2011/09/13/windows-8-tablet-photos-video-
preview/)
~~~
varunsrin
These are developer devices - meant for compiling code. Therefore, they are
high powered, chock full of every hardware feature that Win 8 will support, so
that devs can play around with them, compile code and use them as their
primary machine. This is a desktop replacement machine for development, not an
iPad replacement.
~~~
megablast
What? You are suggesting that people develop on the tablet? That is not how it
works for iOs, BB, Palm or Android,
~~~
tallanvor
Windows 8 isn't iOS, BB, Palm, or Android. What they're trying to show is that
Windows 8 can be the OS on your desktop, your laptop, and your tablet.
Microsoft has made it clear that they still consider tablets to be PCs, even
if the primary input methods are different.
------
nextparadigms
This explains why Engadget never said anything about the hardware it was
running on. They were _prohibited_ to say anything about it. I wonder why?
_"Keep this in mind as you read: both the operating system and hardware are
developer preview builds. In fact, the [REDACTED]_ hardware (we're prohibited
from even revealing its manufacturer or specs) isn't even going to run Windows
8."*
[http://gizmodo.com/5839665/windows-8-slate-hands-on-its-
fant...](http://gizmodo.com/5839665/windows-8-slate-hands-on-its-fantastic-
but-dont-sell-your-ipad)
~~~
recoiledsnake
I don't know why you're making a big deal of this in multiple posts but the
specs were shown in a slide in BUILD, so it's not like a big secret or
conspiracy to hide the specs.
------
hasanove
Am I the only one who virtually never uses windows desktop? I am either in
particular app, or just click "start", type a few letters and run what I need.
My desktop is just a background when nothing is running. Windows 8 new desktop
might make it useful again.
~~~
Random_Person
I don't use a desktop on any OS for anything other than temp storage for
files. I use Chrome/Geany/terminal 90% of the time and I have quick launch
shortcuts for those in both Windows and Linux.
On my Android phone, however, I use the "desktop" exclusively to find what I
need. Maybe transitioning desktop UI's to something similar is a great move.
~~~
RexRollman
Exactly. When using Windows I have Firefox set to download to the desktop,
from which I file things into their target folders or the trash. Otherwise, my
desktop is icon free.
------
csomar
I have mixed feelings for developing for Windows 8. I got my hands a little on
Visual Studio, and it's hands-down the most powerful, stable and complete IDE
I ever used.
If Microsoft could have something similar for coding with JavaScript,and HTML;
along with tools for storage, database, revision control, testing, jquery...
integrated inside that IDE. Well, I just can't miss programming with it.
~~~
stoptothink
I was at a .NET user group meeting last week. Scott Hanselman showed off the
current development build; guess what, it has the same support for HTML, JS,
Jquery, and CSS editing that it has for MS languages.
~~~
csomar
Mind-blowing :) Anything online showing this?
~~~
lvillani
I _guess_ you can try it yourself (if you have a VM or a partition to spare).
Steven Sinofsky says they're going to make Windows 8 Developer Preview ISOs
(with and without development tools) available to everyone:
[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/13/welcome-to-
win...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/13/welcome-to-
windows-8-the-developer-preview.aspx)
------
eykanal
So, it's not "Windows Tablet 8", or "Windows Mobile 8", just "Windows 8"? Does
this mean this is also going to be the desktop OS?
~~~
nextparadigms
Why isn't Engadget mentioning the chip it's running. That's very strange.
Because if it does run Intel's chip as rumored, then this is the version to
run on the desktop, but not the one to run on ARM, so it probably has lower
battery life.
~~~
derwildemomo
[http://thisismynext.com/2011/09/13/windows-8-tablet-
photos-v...](http://thisismynext.com/2011/09/13/windows-8-tablet-photos-video-
preview/) gruber linked to that one. chip is mentioned, it's a 1.6GHz Core
i5-2467M.
~~~
recoiledsnake
I see that Gruber's already piling on the snark about it having a fan etc.
What he misses is that there's choice, if you want a fanless ARM tablet,
Windows 8 will run on it, there were a lot of demos of it doing so. But if you
want a more powerful tablet with a Core i5 processor and don't mind the heat
and noise that much, then there that option too. Whereas if you want a more
powerful iPad, you're SOL.
~~~
joeguilmette
I mean, am I only one that sees a 'powerful' tablet as a drawback?
Size, weight and battery life are three of the most important features of my
iPad. Further, the non-fragmentation of the App Store is nice, a 1G iPad can
run pretty much everything a 2G iPad can.
Why would I want to buy in to an ecosystem where developers are worrying about
developing to the lowest common denominator? Would they consider optimizing
their App for the 10% of their market that bought the Core i5 tablet vs for
the ARM (in a total market size with 5 % of the tablet market)?
What benefit would you really see from a tablet with so much processing power?
A I going to sacrifice all of that battery life so I can render video faster?
Ok, but what if they just let the tablet run all the apps that work on the
desktop. Great. Now my overpowered tablet that has two hours of battery life
and has a fan in it is running apps that aren't even optimized for a tablet
form factor?
This does not bode well.
~~~
mikeash
I agree, the "powerful tablet" seems like a genre without a market. iPad style
tables are attractive because they are extremely small, light, and have
excellent battery life. Why would I buy a larger, heavier tablet with poor
battery life when I can buy a similar laptop instead?
The iPad is popular largely because it's something _completely different_ from
what's already there. A big tablet with an i5 and three hours of battery life
is pretty much the same as what already exists in the PC space.
~~~
seanx
The thing is that you will have a choice. I'll be able to get a 17" hex core,
dual HD power machine while my wife/kids can have a arm powered tablet. Both
machines will be able to run the same metro apps.
Personally, I like power tablets. I got an android instead of an iPad (I gave
away my iPad) because of the added functionality (usb in, hdni out). If I
could have a windows tablet instead, I'd be a very happy camper.
~~~
mikeash
I don't mean power tablets in terms of functionality, but rather in terms of
raw computing power. Your Android tablet has nice features but it's still an
efficient ARM processor which would be completely destroyed in any benchmark
by a decent laptop. The question is, would you buy a power-hungry hex core
tablet if one were available, rather than an ARM tablet or a powerful laptop?
More pertinently, would enough people buy one to make it a viable market?
------
kms002
What's really interesting to me is that Windows 8 seems almost entirely
focused on the _consumer_ market. What about those of us using our desktop PCs
every day to do real work?
I mean, do we really have to boot into that fancy-pants Metro UI every time we
want to actually get something done?
I'm totally fine with swiping this way and that when using a tablet PC (I love
my iPad), but when I sit down at a desktop PC, I want a mouse/keyboard driven
experience - period.
------
Pewpewarrows
Very excited to play with this hands-on tonight/tomorrow. My only concerns are
as follows:
\- Multiple monitors. How does this play nicely with them, and how I
traditionally lay-out several open applications across them? Can one monitor
be Metro UI and the other be the classical desktop? Or, can I have a full-
screen app on one monitor that doesn't brick the other screen? (Looking at
you, OSX Lion)
\- App windows that might not necessarily fit into the tile or fullscreen
approach. The prime example of this is my chat/social desktop or space. I
typically have a contacts list, tabbed chat window, IRC, and twitter feed all
on the same monitor arranged around one another. I know they demoed a way to
do split-screen apps while still in the Metro UI, but it seemed to be too
simple for real use.
\- How jarring is the switch between Metro and the retro desktop? If I'm going
along fine at 90% productivity living completely in the Metro UI on my
monitors, and then all of a sudden need to open a small window from a legacy
app, is that going to completely monopolize my workspace? If half of my apps
work in Metro, and the other half don't while programming, am I going to have
to keep switching between the UIs every 30 seconds as I'm working? That would
be a pretty big deal-breaker.
~~~
pcj
For multiple monitors - yes, you can have 1 monitor dedicated for Metro and
the other for classic Desktop and I believe you can flip between them as well.
And believe the keynote demo also addressed your 2nd question on that.
~~~
joenathan
Yeah, if you are familiar with Display Fusion, all that functionality is now
build into windows.
------
r00fus
Ok, Metro looks nice. I just hope they do similar to Apple and provide
something between "mouse" and "touch"... like all the trackpad gestures Apple
uses to make their desktop OS more touch-oriented while avoiding the dreaded
gorilla arm
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Touchscreen#G...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Touchscreen#Gorilla_arm)
------
RexRollman
I think Windows 8 will be interesting. The one thing I don't like about
Windows, since Vista, is the splintering of the client version (basic, home,
professional, ultimate). I think MS should just make one client version for a
flat $150.00.
~~~
ben_straub
Microsoft isn't Apple. Their biggest customers aren't end users; they're large
corporations with thousands of users, and PC manufacturers. Tempting end users
is just marketing to them.
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html)
~~~
RexRollman
You're probably right, but having so many versions of Windows is asinine, in
my opinion.
~~~
barista
I actually prefer taht. It gives me a choice to pay for whatever I need to use
as opposed to Apple where no matter whether I need it or not, I have to pay.
~~~
RexRollman
Yeah, but the differences are artificial in nature. Everything is installed,
regardless of which version you use, so that anytime upgrade will work.
------
thirdsun
The touch-enabled part of this preview and the fact that Microsoft stays close
to their excellent Metro UI looks very promising. I also see the point of
keeping the traditional windows elements like the desktop or explorer. However
I really don't get why the explorer has to stay that traditional. I'm sure
there would have been a way to make it usable with mouse AND touch input -
maybe by replacing all those ribbon elements by only the most commonly used
actions as icon only, preferably in Metro style.
Right now this feels like an unnecessary break from the promising and fresh
approach that is Metro on a desktop (or tablet).
------
danssig
This is largely an entrepreneurial site, so tell me: if you tried a concept
and it failed, then you repackaged and tried again with another failure (redo
this step multiple times as necessary), then saw someone else alter your
concept and have enormous success would you:
a) Learn from them and make a product that competes in that space or
b) Try your same multiple-times-failed strategy again?
If you're MS it seems option b is the right answer. PC in tablet form, take...
what, 5?
~~~
MatthewPhillips
In what why is this the same strategy? Windows 8 has a completely new API.
Win32, which has been around since the early 90s is gone. The new API doesn't
even have the concept of overlapping windows. WinRT talks directly to the
kernel. In that respect, Windows 8 is as much of a "new thing" as the iPad or
Android or any other tablet OS.
The only thing they've chosen to do differently is in marketing. The other
tablet OSes are marketed as completely new things and Microsoft is marketing
it as an iteration on an old thing.
~~~
danssig
Is it going to be the same thing they sell on the desktop? That's the goal,
right? So it's PC in tablet form. Just like every time they've tried it
before.
~~~
MatthewPhillips
It's a tablet in desktop form. Everything but the kernel was rewritten with
the tablet as the default use case.
------
Sindrome
A somebody who does .Net development as a day job. This is very exciting!
------
J3L2404
Will I have to do a clean install of the OS?
~~~
RexRollman
In my opinion, one should never do a in place upgrade of a OS across major
versions. Back up your files first and then do a proper install.
~~~
rbanffy
Debian (and Ubuntu) users have been doing it for many, many years without
severe problems.
------
ChuckMcM
This looks pretty nice, its good to see M$ being able to step so far out of
their comfort zone vis-a-vis competition between the 'core' windows franchise
and the 'other' products. My belief was that the thing that really killed the
'Tablet' version of windows was that they didn't have an 'all in' mode where
there was no legacy PC stuff there.
~~~
cooldeal
'M$' ? Really? Didn't expect to see that on HN. Thought people were more
mature here.
~~~
ChuckMcM
I agree, that the HN community would downvote folks who complement Microsoft
seems very immature indeed.
~~~
rbanffy
Criticizing Microsoft also gives a lot of downvotes with it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Noutube: the most recently uploaded video on YouTube, before filters applied - diabetesjones
http://noutube.net
======
diabetesjones
Pretty cool thing I made. Can be boring, if its lots of Russian kids vlogging,
but it's the only way I've found to see something 0.1ms old and YouTube
themselves haven't even auto-deleted it yet. Twisted a couple APIs around...
You're guaranteed to be the first person to see that video. Murder count: 3.
"Porn" count: too many. Definitely changes depending on the hour you watch, as
well.
Refresh for the now-newest video. Enjoy...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pandora Launches New Desktop App for Mac - bookofjoe
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/05/20/pandora-desktop-app-for-mac/
======
chmielewski
Best Mac client is TUI. brew install pianobar
Uses your Pandora account, has all your saved channels, unlimited skips, no
commercials.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity - whocanfly
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/691462
======
anonu
I think we saw this on HN a few months back. Can't find the prior discussion.
EDIT - Did a bit more searching:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14639967](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14639967)
~~~
Phemist
This article grabbed my attention the last time it was posted. The original
research is severely flawed - see my post
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14645120](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14645120)
I was a bit late to the party last time, but hopefully some of the
speculations that happened last time can be nipped in the bud this time
around.
------
closed
Interesting article! I worked with complex span tasks in grad school, and just
had people silence their phones :(.
I wonder how many reaches participants made toward their phones when they were
in their desk or pocket (even if they were off) ..
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Any speech segmentation API's out there? - shk88
I've been working on an idea for an MVP that leverages speech recognition, for which there are a few viable API's. However, I'm interested in not only speech to text, but also determining the timing of each spoken word relative to the input audio. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any good resources on how to accomplish this.<p>Any ideas on where to start?
======
clyfe
<http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/wiki/speakerdiarization>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Computer monitor causes scare at Newark airport - J3L2404
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/20/AR2010122001381.html
======
kgermino
I understand that we need to be careful take precautions and all that but
come-on we closed down an entire terminal because somebody shipped a computer
monitor? If a dog smells explosives, fine, shut down the airport, but just
because a monitor releases some radiation (which it's supposed to do) doesn't
mean we need to shut down an entire terminal while we wait for an all clear.
~~~
tgflynn
This is the first time I've ever heard of a computer monitor emitting
radiation when it's turned off (I'm assuming a monitor inside luggage would
have no power source). CRT's emit some X-rays due to high-voltage vacuum tubes
but only when they are on, and who uses CRT's anymore ?
I'd be curious if anyone can explain why an unpowered monitor or a flat-screen
monitor would emit ionizing radiation. A Google search for "computer monitor
radiation" turned up no technically useful information on the first couple of
screens.
~~~
dhughes
The article never stated it was a flatscreen or CRT monitor but if radiation
was detected I'd say it must have been a CRT monitor.
It may be the lead in the glass, lead is already slightly radioactive and
being bombarded by x-ray probably doesn't improve that situation any.
~~~
tgflynn
I am quite confident that bombardment with X-rays of several keV has no effect
on the natural background radiation of lead or any other material. Such
effects require nuclear interactions with activation energies in the MeV range
or greater.
------
Qz
I tried packing one of my monitors inside checked luggage back when I was
flying to/from college a lot. It didn't fit, and in retrospect I guess that
was a good thing -- although this was 4-6 years ago when security personnel
were slightly less insane.
------
ceejayoz
This sounds like a nice way to run a denial of service attack on the nation's
airports.
~~~
KeithMajhor
That's kind of ironic. I never considered over-zealous security as a
vulnerability.
~~~
ceejayoz
Just wait until someone bombs a crowded airport security checkpoint some
holiday weekend.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Online commenting cliché: "You realize that X = Y, right?" - dhruvtv
Of late, I find this clichéd phrase "You realize that X = Y (or some non-obvious statement which might not even be correct), right?" appear in online comments a lot. I find it very toxic.<p>Example on HN:<p>https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22you+realize%22+%22%2C+right%3F%22&start=0<p>https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22you+do+realize%22+%22%2C+right%3F%22&start=0<p>"No, you presumptuous commenter, I don't realize that. If I did, I wouldn't have said it in the first place. You realize <i>that</i>, right? Why don't you just say X = Y and leave it at that?"<p>I know it's supposed to be clever, but the novelty has worn off and now it's just very annoying.
======
anigbrowl
It's not great, but if one just says 'X = Y' and leaves it at that, then that
often leads to complaints that one is being dismissive and glib. Some people
really dislike being told they're wrong, even when citations and supplementary
material is supplied for the argument. 'You realize..' can be snarky, but
often it's an attempt to soften the blow.
------
innocentpixel
You realize that repeating something clever wears off the novelty and
ultimately becomes just very annoying?
------
AznHisoka
You realize that's because people can't help but be egostistical, right?
------
digipaper
You DO realise this is used IRL too?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Worst Mistake People Make in Political Arguments - danielrm26
http://danielmiessler.com/blog/the-worst-mistake-people-make-in-political-arguments
======
CWuestefeld
Good advice across the board, not just for political discussion.
This is just explaining the logical fallacy of "fundamental atribution error"
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error> ). More
popularly, this has been paraphrased as "never attribute to malice what can be
explained by stupidity".
Personally, I find this logical fallacy infuriating because it just doesn't
matter. Whether someone is being evil or is just wrong is irrelevant. The only
thing that matters is the end result. If someone is being charitable because
he thinks it'll make him rich in the long run, that's still good. If someone
is accidentally causing harm, we want him to stop regardless of his
intentions. And that's all that matters at the bottom line.
~~~
danielrm26
I agree that the outcome is more important, but I think the difference between
Sean Hannity and Ted Bundy should be acknowleged. They may both produce evil,
but the one who thinks he is doing good should be handled differently.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: CodeAvengers, the future of K12 CompSci education is here - nkeung
http://www.codeavengers.com/web
======
yjsoon
Conceptually: I like the idea of giving some personality to the "type here and
see something happen" code-learning toolkit, at least for the HTML/CSS course.
Not sure how well this specific concept will go down with the entire range of
K-12--I see this working well for grades 4-8 boys. (I teach programming to
grades 8-11.)
Some specific issues:
\- I'm a little worried about how the site throws a lot of (presumably
unlicensed, at the moment) brands at the user. The Avengers logo, Samsung-
branded phone in the HTML/CSS course, the DC Flash icon...
\- Some essential lesson navigation elements ("results" in the JS course,
"next" in both courses) are quite far down the page, which isn't great for
users with small screens. A browser maximised for a 900px-height screen seems
to work ok, but any smaller and the learner will have trouble finding the
"next lesson" button, which can't be much fun.
\- HTML/CSS course: Getting the learner to hit "check" immediately sometimes
hides the result that would have shown up in the "browser". This could be
confusing.
All the best!
~~~
nkeung
Thanks for the great feedback!
As far as screen size goes, it adjusts in lesson 2 or 3 to a different layout
that is better for small screens. But I should probably just do that right
from the beginning if the screen is less than 800px high.
As for CHECK, maybe I should force them to VIEW their page 1st... Also, I am
thinking about showing the USERS page by default. They will have to click the
EXAMPLE page to see what the page should look like. I will have to test this
approach out on a few users first.
That course is targeted at 12-18 year olds. The programming course is aimed at
15yo+. But we have had people use the course in yrs 6-12. I plan on creating
stuff for younger kids in the future.
As far as boys vs girls, the lessons do have a bit to try and entice girls as
you go a long. And we have a bunch of stuff my younger sister is helping me
out with that will hopefully make it more enjoyable for females.
Regarding copyright, I am in communication with Marvel lawyers, they didn't
like our original logo, but seem OK with the current logo... at the moment.
But havn't got the 100% green light on the new logo yet.
Also, in negotiations for sponsorship from Samsung. If that falls through,
will be looking at other phone companies.
As far as the Flash goes, I have a friend drawing original images and he was
promising them last week, but has been held up, so hopefully we will have
those up by next week.
------
nkeung
I have created interactive online courses that aim to teach web development to
High School students in the most fun and effective way possible. My site also
offers great support for teachers by providing live feedback of student
progress.
Many people say... looks like a CodeCademy copy. Here is what makes my site
different: * Designed from the ground up for someone who has never done any
programming. Teachers have commented that the level of difficulty in my
courses is perfect for beginners. * Examples that are more interesting for
School students * Teachers support - I have had dozens of high schools try my
courses in the UK and they love the lessons, and the live feedback!
Last of all... It was created by ONE person in NZ as a side project. No
funding, no backing, just 1 guy, staying up all night writing code... then
testing the lessons on his siblings and wife.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Self-driving cars will push us to rethink how we build cities, say planners - edward
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/self-driving-cars-will-push-us-to-rethink-how-we-build-cities-say-planners/article27090747/
======
hackuser
If cars are driverless, I'm not sure why people in cities will want to own
cars and not just use driverless public transit. Cities could ban private cars
and have plenty of road capacity to ensure there is as much availability as
people want (especially with the help of intelligent routing). The vehicles
could be bus-sized, car sized, and in-between. You just step outside and flag
down the nearest one, or summon it via the Internet, and go.
There are many possible flaws, of course. Could everyone afford it? Supply
likely would adjust to demand, and availability would dwindle to barely what
is needed. New urban areas would build roads to accommodate the new capacity
needs, eliminating the benefits of excess capacity. etc.
~~~
TearsInTheRain
I dont really see a good reason to ban private cars. People are going to want
to own cars so they have the freedom to go wherever they want. It shouldnt be
hard to have a large fleet of public driverless cars that operate alongside
personal ones
------
marssaxman
That's great. I'm sure these planners' grandkids will find the adjustment
straightforward and possibly even obvious, since they will have grown up with
the technology. Today's planners will be retiring by the time self-driving
cars are actually beginning to roam the streets in numbers large enough to
matter.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is Your Brain Necessary? - ghgr
https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=6116
======
bloak
It sounds like a hoax. If brains could be smaller, then heads could be
smaller, and there ought to be some evolutionary pressure for that, in humans,
at least: giving birth is not easy.
I don't know about other animals. There is particularly strong evolutionary
pressure for birds that fly to have efficient brains (cognition / mass).
Perhaps whales don't care so much if their brains are inefficiently large.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Devastating was the Black Death? - akakievich
http://www.medievalhistories.com/devastating-black-death/
======
goblin89
Actual paper is titled “Next-generation ice core technology reveals true
minimum natural levels of lead (Pb) in the atmosphere: Insights from the Black
Death”.
The gist is that we’ve been operating under wrong assumptions about what
normal background levels of lead in the atmosphere are like. What we used to
consider normal turns out to be affected by pre-industrial human activities
way more than we thought. Natural lead levels, as the paper shows, are much
lower. Assuming we’ve found the true baseline levels, we see that we and our
ancestors were/are being exposed to higher, relative to baseline, lead levels
than we thought.
The main kicker of this research to me is that it puts into question some
_previous_ research pertaining to human health and lead (which, as we do
already know, don’t go well together at all—the friendly paper[0] provides a
summary), as well as current public health measures.
[0]
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GH000064/full](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GH000064/full)
~~~
heymijo
Clair Patterson, during a 60 year quest to prove that lead in our modern
environment was harmful, went to tremendous lengths to find evidence of pre-
industrial levels of lead. This is the guy who invented the clean room and
associated techniques.
Were he alive today I imagine he would be glad to see this research ongoing.
Fascinating (and long) read about his journey here.
[http://mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-
scienti...](http://mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-scientist-
who-determined-age-earth-and-then-saved-it)
------
sillysaurus3
Malaria is also intriguing. According to Michael Stevens, as many as half of
all humans who have ever lived (~50 billion) have died to Malaria. I've always
wondered whether this was true.
[https://youtu.be/1T4XMNN4bNM?t=235](https://youtu.be/1T4XMNN4bNM?t=235)
~~~
vacri
I remember reading an article by an African bloke in healthcare (can't recall
the actual role) who was saying that the West's obsession with malaria is
patronising. He said that malaria is like the flu - you get it, you're sick
for a little while, then you get over it. Yes, some people die, but they tend
to be the old and weak, just like the flu - yet the west doesn't go bananas
over the flu like it does with malaria.
Looking at the wikipedia articles for both, it seems he has a point. 300M
cases of malaria in 2015, with 750k deaths. 3-5M cases of influenza annually,
with 350k deaths.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza)
Given those numbers, I'm not sure I'd believe that half of all humans died
from malaria.
~~~
ajross
Influenza has a cheap and very effective family of vaccines. Malaria doesn't.
People in "the west" "go bananas" over Malaria because it's not reasonably
preventable.
~~~
maxerickson
Malaria was eradicated in the US and Europe. It used to be endemic.
Eradication is a pretty solid way to prevent it.
[https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/elimination_us.htm...](https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/elimination_us.html)
~~~
ajross
Except it hasn't worked everywhere. The point was that this was a practical
issue and not a cultural one. Someone in "the west" who is paranoid about
getting the flu just gets a flu shot. The same paranoia for Malaria has no
treatment, so the same person with the same fears ends up "going bananas"
about travel to Central America or whatnot.
------
tomohawk
It was devastating enough to end the Mongol empire. This empire included
pretty much all of Asia. With the demise of the empire, the silk road trade
pretty much closed down, cutting China off from the Middle East and Europe.
~~~
throwaway7645
I didn't know it went that far east. So it pretty much completely changed the
course of events instead of just delaying progress for a few
decades...interesting.
~~~
Spooky23
Keep in mind that the mongols didn't really have the institutions to survive
anyway and that the empire was breaking apart anyway.
The plague was a stressor that sped some things along.
~~~
boomboomsubban
The plague didn't hit until after the Mongol empire fracture. I don't know
what institutions you think the Mongols were missing, but an empire that size
is just waiting to fragment.
------
Mz
_For many years historians depended on written sources to assess the calamity
of such events as the Black Death. This yielded widely disparate conclusions
claiming that the death-toll lay between 30 to 50%...
Now, a new study of annual to multiannual levels of lead in the Alpine
glacier, Colle Gnifetti, in the Swiss-Italian Alps provides further validation
of the calamitous character of the plague and the accompanying events in the
14th century. These new hard-core data demonstrates the impact which the Black
Death had on society and economy._
It's nice to have something that is potentially objective.
~~~
Retric
It's still rather indirect. If the population drops significantly then many
types of mining simply becomes redundant because there is so much material no
longer needed by the dead.
~~~
mirimir
Well, lead deposition dropped about two orders of magnitude in ~1350. That's
far more than a proportional decrease, unless the death rate was over 90%.
Societal collapse seems more likely.
~~~
ajross
Not collapse: recycling. In a steady state population, you need to be mining
enough new metal to replace items lost to use or rust. If the population
drops, people just start using dead uncle Harald's knives when theirs break.
In such a situation, you'd actually expect expensive new production to drop
all the way to zero until the recycling buffer was used up. The effect would
be superlinear with the death rate, not proportional.
~~~
mirimir
Maybe so. But maybe the recycling argument doesn't apply so much for lead as
for iron.
~~~
ajross
The contention in the linked article was that atmospheric lead was the result
of metal smelting. They're measuring the mining industry as a whole, not lead
production.
~~~
mirimir
Whatever they say, they're measuring production of lead and other metals that
occur with it. Silver, copper and zinc would be the main ones, I think. Not
iron, however.
------
blahedo
I'm also a little curious about what happened about a century later—the line
drops by about 90% for another decade or so in the mid-1400s. It's the only
other significant drop in the chart (other than a single outlier datum in the
late 1800s that might be an error of some sort).
~~~
evgen
There was a devastating cold period in the 1430s (cause still unknown to the
best of my knowledge) that caused widespread global famine and in the 1450s
the south Pacific volcano Kuwae had what seems to be two stratospheric
eruptions within the decade. It was, in general, a shitty time to be alive no
matter where you were on the planet.
------
dsfyu404ed
tl;dr pretty fucking bad.
This article use the presence of particles associated with mining found in ice
cores of European glaciers to conclude that mining basically collapsed and
that it was in fact "pretty fucking bad".
------
chx
The Black Death killed almost everyone settled (ie not a bedouin) in
Palestine. This is important because no one can claim their ancestors lived on
the land for a really long time. The region which supported million (perhaps
even millions) two thousand years ago had less than 150K people around 1400.
It won't even double by 1800 and for a good reason: given how arid the region
is/was, not tending it constantly made almost all of Palestine into a barren
wasteland except a few places like the Valley of Jezreel. It was just a (very)
dusty backwater of the Damascus Eyalet of practically zero political
importance. That has, of course, changed in more recent history.
~~~
rjzzleep
Source? How much is "almost everyone". Why bring the Israel discussion into
this topic to begin with?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Solar pond - ColinWright
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_pond
======
killahpriest
If you're curious as to how the thermal energy is extracted:
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038092X10...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038092X10002161)
> Heat has generally been successfully extracted from the lower convective
> zone (LCZ) of solar ponds by two main methods. In the first, hot brine from
> the LCZ is circulated through an external heat exchanger, as tested and
> demonstrated in El Paso and elsewhere. In the second method, a heat transfer
> fluid circulates in a closed cycle through an in-pond heat exchanger, as
> used in the Pyramid Hill solar pond, in Victoria, Australia.
~~~
david2777
They use the hot brine to vaporize a motive fluid such as liquid pentane in
the heat exchanger, when the liquid is converted to gas it creates a high
pressure environment and is piped into a turbine which spins the generator.
Then they condense the motive fluid back to a liquid so they can vaporize it
again. It's the same way binary geothermal power works, with the Organic
Rankine Cycle.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_Rankine_cycle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_Rankine_cycle)
------
IvyMike
A do-at-home demo:
[http://matse1.matse.illinois.edu/energy/b.html](http://matse1.matse.illinois.edu/energy/b.html)
Note: I haven't tried these particular instructions myself, although I did do
a similar demo around 20 years ago.
They used this, and maybe still do, at UIUC to heat the Vietnamese potbelly
pig barns south of campus.
------
atlanticus
>This means that the temperature at the bottom of the pond will rise to over
90 °C while the temperature at the top of the pond is usually around 30 °C.
Can that really be right, it seems like a very high gradient.
~~~
ISL
Depends upon the depth (and geometry) of the pond. Without convection, some of
our intuition for thermal conductivity in liquids and gases is lost.
I'm not sold on the numbers, but I'm also not yet convinced of the idea's
physical impossibility.
------
wehadfun
Is this cheaper or better then solar panels?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Network Solutions is now a Web.com Company - jedireza
http://about.networksolutions.com/
======
jedireza
So Dan Grossman was nice enough to correct me on this.
[http://www.networksolutions.com/blog/2011/10/network-
solutio...](http://www.networksolutions.com/blog/2011/10/network-solutions-
acquisition-by-web-com-completed/)
The source of my information was an email I got this morning from Network
Solutions saying they are now a Web.com company. Must just be a excuse to
market to customers.
~~~
t0
Or the deal took 2 years to go through. Not sure what this means for us..
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Does Technology Spell Doom for Close Relationships? - LinuxBender
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/does-technology-spell-doom-for-close-relationships/
======
aphextim
>Solomooning, according to recent news articles, is a new phenomenon in which
just-marrieds take a post-wedding trip separately from each other.
Never heard of this until today. Guess I'm old fashioned but what would be the
purpose of this?
Yay we just got married, now I need a two week break from you! _shrugs_
------
throwaway082729
We'll see timed lockboxes for holding laptops and mobile phones from Friday
nights to Sunday afternoons so that couples are forced to spend time with each
other.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
MikeOS - simple OS you can use for learning about how OSes work - nickb
http://mikeos.berlios.de/
======
davidw
Other good ones:
eCos - it's an embedded system used in the real world, so it's not _super_
simple, but since its aims are less universal, there is less code and
therefore it's easier to follow what's going on.
Minix - this has really clear, readable code. I once needed a floppy driver
for eCos and ended up porting the minix code, because the Linux and *BSD
drivers were so hairy.
------
pmorici
This seems a little too primitive. If you want to learn about things like
preemptive multi-threading, virtual memory etc... you might be better served
looking at something like Minix or XINU. Not to mention that C code is going
to be easier to wrap your head around than all assembler.
<http://www.cs.purdue.edu/research/xinu.html>
<http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/dec/xsoft.html>
<http://www.minix3.org/>
------
mrtron
This reminds me of CS 350...we used Nachos, here is a good walk through.
<http://www.cs.duke.edu/%7Enarten/110/nachos/main/main.html>
I got a good laugh from the marking scheme, I had forgot all about this:
Normal = (0.02*A0 0.10*A1 + 0.10*A2 + 0.13*A3) + 0.20*M + 0.45*F
Exam = (0.20*M + 0.45*F ) / 0.65
Assigns = (0.02*A0 + 0.10*A1 + 0.10*A2 + 0.13*A3 )/ 0.35
if ( Exam < 50% ) {
Course Grade = min (Normal, Exam)
} else {
Course Grade = Normal
}
Then on the first day of class they tell you if you fail the assignments, you
fail the course.
I really enjoyed taking that course, it was very interesting material.
------
carlos
I agree this is great for learning purposes, Assembler code looks like well
documented, hopefully it will keep small as it is now, I think simplicity is
the most important feature of this OS.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How long do you think we have until 64 bit is no longer enough? - nazri1
Computing started out from the brains of men. Then we use writing tools to write it it out, and then we invented machines to help us compute. From abacus to analog machines to digital ones. This evolved from single bit to four, eight, sixteen, thirty two and nowadays sixty four. What an amazing journey it has been. I remember when 32 bit was all the rage. Nowadays 32 bit machines are no longer viable for dealing data larger than 4Gib.<p>So today we're at 64. 2^64 is not small for most of what our computing needs are. How long do you think it's going to stay viable for the masses? I hoping to spark interesting discussions, anecdotes, stories and what not from the HN crowd, perhaps throughout the weekend :)
======
grizzles
In a way they are already obsolete. If you asked the top quantum physicists 5
years ago when they thought we'd have viable quantum computers, some of the
top people in the field predicted that it would be in about 50 years. Well
it's happening now. There will definitely be quantum computers for sale by the
early 2020s, and I'm not talking D-Wave here.
------
CalChris
RISC-V has some 128b word length support or at least has reserved space for
it. Still, I doubt there will ever be a large enough demand/market for that to
justify the development. Even applications like crypto would probably use
ASICs+FPGAs rather than burden a general purpose CPU with all those extra
wires.
Never. Is never soon enough?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Indian Ocean garbage patch - sushirain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_garbage_patch
======
sushirain
An explanation about environmental impact
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch#Pho...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch#Photodegradation_of_plastics)):
> Unlike organic debris, which biodegrades, the photodegraded plastic
> disintegrates into ever smaller pieces while remaining a polymer. This
> process continues down to the molecular level.[26] As the plastic flotsam
> photodegrades into smaller and smaller pieces, it concentrates in the upper
> water column. As it disintegrates, the plastic ultimately becomes small
> enough to be ingested by aquatic organisms that reside near the ocean's
> surface. In this way, plastic may become concentrated in neuston, thereby
> entering the food chain.
------
Jetrel
Having read Larry Niven's Ringworld, I'm brought to think of an eerie
possibility this might create; that is - what if this currently non-
biodegradable material _becomes_ biodegradable? What if the colossal supply of
this material (which as a hydrocarbon, had bound-potential-energy in it), over
what's going to be a colossally long period of time, gives enough interaction
surface that somewhere out there, a bacteria evolves that _breaks down
plastic_?
I hardly expect this would be the collapse of civilization or anything (as
depicted in the book), but it really could have some nasty consequences.
Plastic is relied on almost for precisely that reason - the fact that it
_doesn 't_ decay/rust/collapse over time. That's why we use it for stuff like
medical implants, safety gloves, food storage, sanitary containers ... you
name it. It could lose its un-decayable and its sanitary property in one go.
Kinda like the problem with overuse of antibiotics.
~~~
Blahah
There are already many bacteria (and fungi) that can break down plastics.
[http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-
science...](http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-
science/bacteria-landfill1.htm)
------
namenotrequired
For those who care, please support The Ocean Cleanup:
[http://www.boyanslat.com/plastic/](http://www.boyanslat.com/plastic/)
An impressive undertaking (founded by a 19 year old, no less) that's creating
technology to solve this in ~5 years.
~~~
spodek
For those who care, please reduce your plastic use!
Please try to pollute less all around.
~~~
InclinedPlane
That does basically nothing. _My_ plastic either goes in recycling or the
trash. Even if it goes into the trash it will end up in a landfill, not the
ocean. The same is true for most folks in the 1st world. The problem is mostly
with the actions of people who do not read HN, countries that continue to have
poor or non-existent sanitation. Countries that still dump trash in the ocean.
~~~
wdvh
The obvious solution to this and other problems is to get these other people
into the first world. Free immigration isn't just an ethical issue, it's also
a practical solution to a lot of the problems that we as a society face.
~~~
xerula
Simplistic. There's not enough land/resources on the planet to sustain
everyone living a first world lifestyle at our current rates of energy
consumption and waste production.
~~~
InclinedPlane
Oh? Do you mind showing your work for that claim?
------
washedup
The most amazing thing about these garbage patches are the large amounts of
bacteria that are feeding off the plastics.
[http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682478/welcome-to-the-
plastisphe...](http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682478/welcome-to-the-plastisphere-
the-new-world-of-microbes-living-on-ocean-plastic)
Life, uh, finds a way.
~~~
Filligree
That article doesn't say they're feeding off it, just colonizing it. I wonder
how long it'll be before you're correct, though.
~~~
washedup
Ah good point. For now the plastic must provide something analogous to
breeding grounds or points of community. Little plastic planetoids floating
through the watery abyss. Either way, there does exist plastic-eating (or
breaking down) bacteria:
[http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110328/full/news.2011.191.ht...](http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110328/full/news.2011.191.html)
~~~
raverbashing
I guess the UV exposure makes it easier (for bacteria, since UV helps breaking
the plastic down)
------
grej
Here's a trailer on a current project to create a film about the impact of the
problem on Midway Atoll, in the Pacific Garbage Patch:
[http://aaronwolf.blogspot.com/2014/02/documentary-trailer-
mi...](http://aaronwolf.blogspot.com/2014/02/documentary-trailer-midway-
message-from_12.html)
It's heartbreaking.
------
mzahir
The 5 Gyres Foundation [http://5gyres.org](http://5gyres.org) advocates both
cleaning up plastic from the ocean and cutting down the use of it
------
RutZap
Imagine a small gadget (that would fit under the kitchen counter) that would
take your plastic waste and recycle it into a polymer of some sort that can be
used as material for 3d printers. Then you can recycle your plastic waste and
turn it back into other things. This sort of stuff will make plastic truly
valuable (which I think it is) and people will stop littering.
Now I don't know much about plastics so I can't say if that's possible or
not.. it would be nice if it was :D
~~~
Gravityloss
If the human can do the sorting since plastic is already marked with number
codes then this could be possible.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_recycling](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_recycling)
Easiest is to just collect it and burn it in a central facility though.
Simplified, you can burn everything except PVC (number three).
------
rsync
How does the sediment rain in the ocean affect this ?
I would think that if the plastic pollution stopped one day, within a few
years most of the plastic would be sequestered at the bottom of the ocean.
Even though plastic floats, eventually it gets inside animal bodies which
eventually die and rain to the bottom ... yes ?
Genuinely curious...
------
zebulom
In future generations there will be people who devote their lives to clean up
the mess that we made. And it will be good lives too.
------
guard-of-terra
Perhaps we should employ harvester vessels that collect that garbage, make
something useful out of it?
~~~
citricsquid
There's a Vice _documentary_ [1] in which reporters visit the "garbage
island". The "garbage island" is not how you imagine it, it's literally an
ocean of tiny broken down particles of plastic[2] invisible to the naked eye
(when looking at the sea) that are in _everything_ , including the fish. There
is no way to remove the plastic through harvesting, the only option would be
to filter the sea water which has its own set of problems.
[1] [http://www.vice.com/en_uk/toxic/toxic-garbage-
island-1-of-3](http://www.vice.com/en_uk/toxic/toxic-garbage-island-1-of-3)
[2] [http://i.imgur.com/zLqSGsX.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/zLqSGsX.jpg)
~~~
bertil
I am curious what your take would be on that effort, mentioned in a different
thread:
The Ocean Cleanup:
[http://www.boyanslat.com/plastic/](http://www.boyanslat.com/plastic/)
------
vvvv
We may be witnessing the genesis of plastic-based lifeforms :P
~~~
alandarev
And the end of everything else.
~~~
washedup
Life is life. Some of it is good for humans, some of it is bad:
[http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682478/welcome-to-the-
plastisphe...](http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682478/welcome-to-the-plastisphere-
the-new-world-of-microbes-living-on-ocean-plastic)
~~~
RankingMember
So you're saying we should continue to do whatever we want, dump toxic waste
into the ocean, strangle dolphins with our plastic debris because "life, uh,
finds a way"?
~~~
jimcsharp
What did George Carlin say? Paraphrasing: "Maybe the Earth made humans because
it didn't know how to make plastic. Now it's done with us."
------
periferral
If only we could collect all this and give it to this guy
[http://www.popsci.com/article/science/garbage-
man](http://www.popsci.com/article/science/garbage-man)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Things I learned clearing disk space - shbhrsaha
http://www.shubhro.com/2016/01/01/learned-clearing-disk-space/
======
kelsolaar
If you are on OS X, Disk Inventory X
([http://www.derlien.com/](http://www.derlien.com/)) is quite useful for this
as it uses visual treemaps ([http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/treemap-
history/index.shtml](http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/treemap-history/index.shtml))
allowing you to quickly see which files are bloating your system.
There is WinDirStat ([https://windirstat.info/](https://windirstat.info/)) on
Windows and quite a few similar tools on Linux such as Baobab, KDirStat,
etc... ([http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-analyze-your-disk-
usage-...](http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-analyze-your-disk-usage-
pattern-in-linux/))
~~~
hbogert
Grandperspective seems to be working very fine on OSX. I like the NCurses ncdu
very much as a more general solution since it works in my mac but also on my
servers.
------
2bluesc
I use the ncdu cli tool for reviewing what folders consume the most space.
[https://dev.yorhel.nl/ncdu](https://dev.yorhel.nl/ncdu)
~~~
mchahn
Whoa. I just downloaded ncdu and it scanned my system drive in 3 or 4 seconds.
How is that possible?
~~~
marios
Do you have a SSD drive ? It's also faster to scan and find many big files,
rather than a lot of small files even if it totals the same size.
It's also incredibly fast if you are attempting to scan a folder you don't
have access to ...
~~~
mchahn
I do have an SSD but other methods to find big dirs/files are much slower.
Like
find / -xdev -type f -size +${2:-100}M -exec echo {} && du -h {} & \; ; }
------
DougN7
I like PA Storage Monitor on Windows - lets you find large files, files of a
type, disk hogs, and (what I like most) lets you compare folder sizes over
time.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An Alarming Discovery in an Astronaut’s Bloodstream - nnx
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/11/astronaut-blood-clot/602380/
======
rochellet
I wonder how this new information will impact future plans in sending people
to Mars since it's so far away.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Computing Pioneer Stephen Wolfram Creates Data-Analysis Tool for Business - occamschainsaw
https://www.wsj.com/articles/computing-pioneer-stephen-wolfram-creates-data-analysis-tool-for-business-11549533601
======
occamschainsaw
[https://outline.com/rfMDxt](https://outline.com/rfMDxt)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Link without improving “their” search engine position - oAlbe
http://www.donotlink.com/dnl/faq
======
LoSboccacc
Breaking news. Eheh.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Browser Company - zzmp
https://thebrowser.company
======
core-questions
Nothing about anything they're doing that's actually going to be different.
Here's the thing: the best browser is one I don't have to think about, at all.
It should fade away and just let me use websites without ten million little
buttons and addons and bits and bobs of annoying functionality. I don't want
half the crap that's in my already-minimalist browser; I want it to be fast
and secure and get out of the way.
~~~
ntw1103
I am assuming it will just be another chrome skin, since they are looking for
a chromium engineer.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Zen room for Vim: Focsuing only on the essential - amix
http://amix.dk/blog/post/19744#Zen-room-for-Vim-Focsuing-only-on-the-essential
======
richo
I'm so confused, why does this need a specific thing?
I'll just fullscreen {g,mac}vim and only have one pane if I'm set on doing
this.
~~~
amix
The idea is to remove all the distractions (tabs, status bar, split screens
etc.) and just focus on one thing. It also centers the content (which is non-
trivial to do in vanilla vim) and includes special colors and settings to make
Vim look like iA Writer when you are editing Markdown or reStructuredText.
Of course, it's not for everyone, but I like it when I am writing text or just
editing one code file.
~~~
richo
If you've fullscreened the vim container (eg, gvim macvim) then
set lines=80
Will center it. Not super complex in vanilla vim :)
------
aagraw02
I cant seem to get it working. I keep getting "You must be signed in to make
or propose changes" and other errors. I have the .vim in plugin folder.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Dropbox down? ...And now up! - paran
http://dropbox.com/
======
muppetman
According to their Twitter, they're doing a DB Upgrade:
<DropboxOps> We're currently upgrading our database server. We'll require
about 30-45 minutes of maintenance until everything's back up.
~~~
splish
Confirmed on the forums and status site.
<http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=35092>
<http://status.dropbox.com/>
I'm a relatively new user (past few months) but do they usually send out any
notice on downtime?
------
mdonahoe
I'm debating whether it would be a good idea to have the dropbox client be
aware of planned downtime and inform the user accordingly.
~~~
thematt
Inform the user why? What are they going to do differently as a result? I use
Dropbox precisely so I don't have to concern myself with server downtime,
database upgrades, etc. and I'm guessing most other users are the same way.
Just sync it when the service is back up, I'm okay with not knowing.
~~~
sharat87
This morning, my dad made a few changes to his files in dropbox at home, as
usual, turned off the system and went to office. After a couple of hours, he
calls me and asks me why his files weren't synced as they were everyday. Our
initial thought was that he turned the home computer off before dropbox could
sync, but as you might have guessed, it is because dropbox was down.
Not sure about everyone, but my dad could've definitely used some warning that
dropbox would be down.
------
paran
Works now. That was quick.
------
shareme
the power of Kevin Rose?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Linux Uprobe: User-Level Dynamic Tracing - adamnemecek
http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2015-06-28/linux-ftrace-uprobe.html
======
lawl
Can someone explain to me how this works and what the advantages are over a
regular user space debugger in a bit more detail?
So I read the article but I don't understand the advantages are? So I googled
and found this on uprobes[0] which mentions
> _Uprobes thus implements a mechanism by which a kernel function can be
> invoked whenever a process executes a specific instruction location._
This I don't understand, I was under the assumption that there are two ways to
break at a specific location, software breakpoints, which replace the
instruction with 0xCC and hardware breakpoints, which I've seen in Olly but
have no actual idea how they work.
I just don't understand what role the kernel is playing here exactly.
Obviously my knowledge in that area is also fairly limited.
[0] [https://lwn.net/Articles/499190/](https://lwn.net/Articles/499190/)
~~~
brendangregg
Depends what user space debugger you mean...
Some specific advantages of uprobes:
\- Kernel tracing with user-level context. uprobes works with the other kernel
tracing frameworks, so front-ends like ftrace, perf_events, and SystemTap, can
trace both user and kernel, and combine the results (especially programmatic
tracers like SystemTap). Eg, let's say we wanted disk I/O latency by database
query, or scheduler run-queue latency by application request.
\- Full user-level visibility. You may have a language runtime tracer that
shows what the language is doing (and do so better than uprobes can), but not
system libraries. Eg, Java burning time in a compression library, or even its
own libjvm for GC, which may not be seen (in the same manner) as method
tracing.
\- It's there by default. At my company people can run anything. So if there's
a performance issue on an application I've never seen before, I have one way
to dig in, even if there are no other options.
\- Some debuggers are not made for real-time production use, as they halt the
target. With uprobes, we can pose a question of the running software (latency
of X, arguments of Y), and answer it quickly, with relatively less overhead.
\- It can trace system wide. (I'm not sure many other debuggers can.) Eg, you
could trace libnsl calls, across all processes.
Some advantages of other user space debuggers:
\- User to user tracing is more efficient than calling the kernel. LTTng has a
user space implementation which beats the performance of user->kernel tracers
by some factor. Some runtimes, like Java, have plenty of user-level tracing
add-ons that are also much more efficient. (It's possible, like with LTTng,
that uprobes could be implemented to do user->user tracing, and combine
results afterwards. I don't know the status of this.)
\- Custom user-level tracers (eg, with Java) can be better developed to handle
the target language and context. Tracing Java methods with uprobes is
extremely difficult (I have an idea of how to do it), but trivial with Java
tracers designed to do that. (I should add: tracing Java native calls, like
the workings of GC in libjvm, is well suited for uprobes.)
~~~
rjzzleep
funny i was about to comment on this and then i realized the guru has come to
comment on his post :P
i think the parent might find this article informative
[http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2014-05-11/strace-wow-
much-...](http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2014-05-11/strace-wow-much-
syscall.html)
brendan, what happened to ktap, have you stopped using it? i know it almost
made it into mainline, but apparently as long it's using a different
architecture than perf it's a no go. but it also seemed to be a little
performant because of that
~~~
brendangregg
ktap was really promising, but when eBPF began kernel integration, ktap
development was postponed until it could be rewritten to use eBPF. eBPF itself
is still being integrated, part by part. I hope there's enough eBPF to restart
work on ktap (or something like it) this year. ktap might have just missed out
by unlucky timing. But hopefully we'll end up with a better tracer (ktap+eBPF)
after the delay. I still want to see ktap finished.
I've spent so many hours with Linux tracing (and talking to its developers), I
think my next post will be "Choosing a Linux tracer (Jul 2015)", where I
briefly summarize the current state of tracers, and make recommendations. I
think it might work as a blog post, with a clear timestamp, since it's a topic
that changes from month to month.
~~~
halayli
I just wish they integrated dtrace into linux back in the day. It would have
received a lot of support and improvement.
Now every platform has its own complicated set of tools. Even dtrace on osx is
not the same as dtrace on freebsd :(
~~~
brendangregg
Linux integration would have been tricky, since Sun chose a license that they
knew was incompatible with the GPL from the get go
([http://www.slideshare.net/brendangregg/from-dtrace-to-
linux/...](http://www.slideshare.net/brendangregg/from-dtrace-to-linux/39)).
But yes, would have been nice! :)
Having such fragmentation in the Linux tracing space makes my job tricker, but
for a lot of end-users it won't ultimately matter, given front-end analysis
tools. In my current job, the team I'm on is building such a front-end
analysis tool, and for a lot of end-users, they won't care much what the
underlying tracer is, provided it meets their requirements.
~~~
halayli
agreed. Abstracting the tracers to provide similar information is a challenge.
I had a plan once to create a SaaS around dtrace like tools but it's just too
fragmented and couldn't find a common ground. Not to mention that most users
don't have the proper debugging symbols around, nor the required kernels. So I
bailed. :)
------
vezzy-fnord
Previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9798099](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9798099)
~~~
adamnemecek
huh, i'm surprised the repost checker didn't catch this
------
userbinator
I read it as up-robe at first and thought "that's a clever name - it's like
peeking up a robe" \- and only realised that it was meant to be "u-probe" when
it mentioned kprobe.
------
atsaloli
Brendan, are you working out of the Los Gatos office?
~~~
brendangregg
Yes
~~~
atsaloli
Nice. Big fan of your work; I got interested in performance analysis at
EarthLink, a Solaris shop at the time.
The culture at Netflix is appealing; if I wasn't building my own company, I'd
apply.
Thanks for everything you do and keep up the great work!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Capture & Share your presentations on-the-go - zuzuzu
http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/12/9slides-ipad-app/
======
zuzuzu
Great easy to use tool for pitching to investors..
------
ldarcyftw
Just tried..very cool, works like a charm
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Software - rguzman
http://blog.idonethis.com/post/31399044182/makers-schedule-managers-software
======
sandeepshetty
I just read about this the other day in The Slow Web [1] by Jack Cheng:
"iDoneThis is a part of the slow web movement. After you email us, your
calendar is not updated instantaneously. But rest up, and you’ll find an
updated calendar when you wake."
I like that it can be used as the opposite of a todo list. Instead of a list
telling you what to do, you tell it what you've done.
1\. <http://blog.jackcheng.com/post/25160553986/the-slow-web>
------
greenyoda
Something that the FAQ doesn't answer, but probably should: If for some reason
my company decides we no longer want to use this service, is there any way to
export all of my company's data in a usable format?
~~~
smalter
Good point that we should mention this in the FAQ. You can export in plaintext
and PDF easily.
(And I know you can export your personal entries as CSV but I'm not actually
100% certain about companies -- but you definitely should be able to and it's
something we'd help you with.)
It's absolutely our belief that the data is yours.
Thanks to gsmaverick to answering as well.
~~~
espinchi
I'd suggest adding this piece of (important) info in the FAQ in
<https://idonethis.com/accounts/register/>, as an additional sentence to the
answer for _Do I have to sign a long term contact?_
Congrats on your product. Looks great!
------
desult
I love the idea of a morning email that reminds you of the things that were
accomplished the day before. I've read a few articles recently about the
importance of the first activity of the day. This positive reinforcement
strikes me as empowering; do that and then follow up with accomplishing a
discrete task and you'll feel productive for the rest of the day.
~~~
smalter
Definitely. Many of our members tell us that they read their morning email on
their phones in bed, and it gives them a little boost to go out into the world
and accomplish great things.
~~~
ZoFreX
My habits with iDoneThis are a little inverted compared to this. The last
thing I do each day is reply to my "what did you do today?" email (seriously
the last thing - I get into bed, reply to that email, and then sleep). I find
the thought of wanting to have something worth putting in that email drives me
to do more throughout the day, it's a great motivational tool.
The other big advantage I have is that at the end of the week if I'm feeling
like I haven't really achieved anything, I can look back through my calendar
and get a nice overview of what I did - it's a good pick-me-up for the
perceived-lack-of-productivity blues.
~~~
smalter
That's awesome to hear.
I suspect you're using the "personal" iDoneThis. With the business iDoneThis,
we have the same evening email, and in the morning, we summarize yours and
your team's achievements in an email digest. It hopefully has the effect that
you describe of looking through your calendar, except that it shows up in your
inbox on a daily basis.
------
MortenK
You should make it possible to sign up without credit card. It's a big barrier
to cross, as the potential customer not only has to leave his comfortable
chair or sofa to find his cc details, but also has to remember to unsubscribe
if the service is uninteresting. I personally pass on trying out any service
that has this requirement (unless it looks extremely interesting right off the
bat, which is quite seldom).
~~~
hopeless
Look at it the other way: requiring a credit card up-front gets you less
unqualified tyre-kickers so the people who do sign up are probably far more
motivated by the pain you're solving, and so are much more likely to become a
paying customer. Ideally, after reading your sales site your potential
customers should be begging you to take their credit card details ^
It's a choice between a higher throughput into the funnel, or a higher
conversion rate. Neither is necessarily wrong.
^ My one problem with the upfront credit card system is the <$1 test
transaction which is usually applied and then instantly refunded. This makes
the anti-fraud systems at my bank go into meltdown and puts a block on my
credit card until they can confirm the transaction with me.
~~~
MortenK
In the realm of web-apps though, unqualified tyre-kickers i.e. people who just
try the demo, have an almost non-existing cost (a bit of traffic and a few
system transactions).
So I can't see why you would sacrifice more potential customers (higher funnel
throughput) for an artificially higher conversion rate.
I mean the conversion rate is just a metric. A conversion rate of 5% of 1000
is better than 10% of 400. The goal must surely be, at least as long as the
cost of serving a tyre-kicker is almost nothing, to get as many to try as
possible.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ghosting: Julian Assange (2014) - wglb
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting
======
DyslexicAtheist
> He said that Tim Geithner, the US secretary of the Treasury, had been asked
> to look into ways to hinder companies that would profit from subversive
> organisations.
Media freedom is being eroded small steps at the time by those in power. Big
changes never happen overnight in order to keep the uninformed public under
the illusion that things are all good. A lot will have to get worse before the
public wakes up. It'll be too late then.
------
silentOpen
This piece is a disturbing study of some of Assange's mental pathologies. As a
sympathetic party and partially informed observer, I greatly enjoyed reading
O'Hagan's writing about Assange's outlook and concerns. I laughed; I cringed;
I would read it again.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A dark web tycoon pleads guilty. But how was he caught? - benjaminikuta
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615163/a-dark-web-tycoon-pleads-guilty-but-how-was-he-caught/
======
saber6
I would just like to point out that this article downplayed the central issue
that brought an end to Freedom Hosting: massive, willful hosting of child
pornography and a known and stated practice of refusing to take down anything.
This guy was not just a "dark web tycoon", he was a child porn hosting empire
owner. Much higher severity in terms of moral heinousness than say selling
drugs on The Silk Road.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Any thoughts on our site Tweetflix.com - lp456
So after about 4 months of hacking away our little web app is ready for some much needed HN dissection.<p>Any and all thoughts welcome and encouraged.
http://www.tweetflix.com
======
mgrouchy
Clickable <http://www.tweetflix.com> .
IMO I think this is neat, but that being said, I don't know if I would
actually use your service. I think maybe I am distrustful of the review
algorithm. I looked at the reviews for "Orphan" and it had "reviews" like
"gah. boredom. havent tweeted in a while. no school more yay. watching orphan
double yay :d"
and "excited to see orphan tonight! :d" and "@questlove some teens brought not
one but two babies to see orphan. i got mgmt to escort out. enough is enough."
none of which are actually reviews, so how do you use data from that to tell
me whether I would like it?
Maybe you are not using those to calculate your result, but if you are not,
why show it in the "reviews" section.
I'm not trying to be overly critical, I like the idea, I think the site itself
looks great, but I think the implementation might need some work if its going
to be useful.
~~~
lp456
Excellent Points!
And actually this is where we are having a little bit of difficulty.In that we
are actually excluding many tweets, like the ones above. Out of 9.1 million
total tweets on Tweetflix.com we are actually only counting 30% towards the
approval rating and the rest are more of the "pulse on the movie".
Does it make more sense to split them out into "chatter" and "reviews"?
Thanks for the once over, very helpful! Also as far as the design goes, have
to thank @kurtwojda for the time put in!
------
bgnm2000
Very cool site!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Django much? Here's a Vagrant VM for you. - pyderman
https://github.com/hipwerk/django-vagrant-env
======
mrfusion
I'd love to see something like this for setting up Django on an existing
production server. (Especially one that works on Digital ocean or AWS)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Japan plans to invite TSMC to build joint chip plant: Yomiuri - pseudolus
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-tsmc/japan-plans-to-invite-tsmc-to-build-joint-chip-plant-yomiuri-idUSKCN24K03B
======
jake_morrison
I feel like we are going to see an announcement out of left field like TSMC
buying a fab from Intel, funded by Apple.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Are three servers better than one? - oblib
After running into some issues trying to setup a server on DigitalOcean with everything I needed to run my web apps I decided to set one up as a web file server, another as an email server, and a third one as a CouchDB server.<p>On the down side I now have 3 servers to manage, and I suppose 3 times the probability that one might go down. And users have to configure their web browser to "Allow 3rd Party Cookies" to run my apps.<p>But, it seems to me this approach may have some advantages too. It minimizes the chances for creating conflicts with dependencies when updating/upgrading. It delegates and spreads the loads for those chores. If one server goes down it doesn't take everything else down with it. And, each of these servers can be scaled to the size needed to handle the load it carries.<p>So far I've not convinced myself it's worth the effort to build a single box that does all of that. I suspect it can be done, but I'm also not sure it's a good idea to go that route. So far what I've got seems to be working pretty good and that old adage, "If it ain't broke don't fix it", comes to mind.<p>But there's a lot I don't know so if I'm missing some things (and I expect I am) I'd be grateful to have them pointed out to me.
======
warrenm
Yes.
No.
Maybe.
Really need more context to your question: certainly separation of duties can
be a good protocol to follow ... but having everything in one place can be
adequate, too.
Tiering your web and database into different servers, clusters, groups, etc
can be smart - especially since you can focus on the resources which best
optimize the given tier, and not have to worry about contention (and on
services like DO, utilizing private networking so only your web server(s) talk
to your db server(s) cuts down on your attack vectors.
Having services on different systems also allows for one (or more) to be down
without impacting others (unless it's the db tier, and both mail & web rely on
it ... then db being down affects everything).
~~~
oblib
"on services like DO, utilizing private networking so only your web server(s)
talk to your db server(s) cuts down on your attack vectors."
Thank you for mentioning this. I was not aware DO provides tools for this so
I'll be looking into that. Right now I'm using CouchDB CORS configuration to
restrict access to the DB to only the app file server.
~~~
warrenm
Spend some time on their docs and API references: there's a _lot_ in there
that could benefit you :)
~~~
oblib
There's still surprising little on installing and configuring CouchDB 2.0.
there, but there is a lot of great info there and I've poured through a lot of
it.
I'll probably post my install instructions in the comments of their CouchDB
1.6 guide so others can help improve them soon.
I've not yet had a chance to play with the DO API yet but I do want to, and
will sometime soon.
------
twobyfour
Why would users need to enable third party cookies in this scenario?
~~~
oblib
Right now the DB and App file servers use different IPs and domain names and
both are set up with SSL and when I turn that off 3rd party cookies in my
browser the authentication used on the DB server breaks.
~~~
twobyfour
Your users are hitting your DB server directly?
~~~
oblib
Yes. I use PouchDB.js on the client to store data and sync it with the CouchDB
server. The CouchDB server also provides the authentication routines for the
app.
~~~
twobyfour
Ok. I'm not very familiar with CouchDB, but with most databases I'vee used,
that would be a major antipattern and security risk.
~~~
oblib
The CouchDB has CORS configured to only accept requests from the app server
and it authenticates user requests so it's pretty solid.
------
kazishariar
Advanced Marketing +1
~~~
oblib
I didn't mention the app name or the domain names, only the service provider I
use, and I pay them, so what do you think I'm marketing here?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google vs. China, a game theoretic model - agconway
http://www.drewconway.com/zia/?p=1994
======
thyrsus
My browser (Firefox 3.5 on Fedora 12) doesn't appear to be interpreting the
mathematical symbols correctly; e.g., \Gamma doesn't appear as a gamma symbol,
but instead as a grey box containing the characters (without quotes) "\Gamma",
and when the pointer floats over the box, I get a popup caption repeating
"\Gamma". Any quick fixes?
~~~
agconway
I use a LaTeX plugin for WordPress, but I thought it just rendered them as
images. I will see if there is an upgrade, thanks for the heads up.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Yet Another Car Hacking Tool - net
http://asintsov.blogspot.com/2016/03/yet-another-car-hacking-tool.html
======
omonoid
Very cool. I have done a lot of work with peak and vector tools and have been
working on an open python framework for collecting and analyzing can traffic.
I am also interested in maybe creating an app to help drivers learn about
their driving similar to how fitness apps help people optimize their workouts.
I think can is definitely underutilized given how connected our world is
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Doing Y Combinator in your 30s - bkudria
http://zencoder.com/encoder-blog/2010/09/21/doing-y-combinator-in-your-30s/
======
iworkforthem
dun think entrepreneurship starts in yr 20s and stops by the time we hit 30.
it's a passion, something we love to do. anyone out over 30s, GO FOR IT! You
only live once!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Central European TechCrunch meet-up, April 11, Prague - mcxx
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=150261370719
======
mcxx
Anyone from HN comming?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tehran’s Promise: The revolution’s midlife crisis and the nuclear deal - Thevet
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/27/tehrans-promise
======
steve19
> The hostile rhetoric hasn’t changed. At Friday prayers, as
> on previous visits, I heard thousands chanting “Death to
> America.” This year, twenty times.
> ....
> “ ‘Death to America’? This is politics and not related to
> people’s thinking,”
Or in other words Iran is a country where large portions of the population
hold very different conflicting beliefs, like many other countries including
the USA.
What I find interesting is that Kerry's willingness to gamble that the future
generation/future ruling class will be pro-American (or become pro-America
because of this deal).
~~~
IkmoIkmo
> What I find interesting is that Kerry's willingness to gamble that the
> future generation/future ruling class will be pro-American (or become pro-
> America because of this deal).
It definitely is interesting, but not entirely surprising. If you look at what
Iran has endured at the hands of the US, yet look at westernisation within
Iran, the significant pockets of western-leaning young people, and an Iran
which is militarily structured to fight defensive wars, it looks like Iran's
anti-US rhetoric is just that, rhetoric, a political coping mechanism to unify
the country through hard times, but not intrinsically the soul of a culture
that's thousands of years old, that anti-US rhetoric could, then, start to
dissipate when said hard times and foreign pressure would end. And this
diplomatic deal is the first step on exactly that path.
I mean, look at it from Iran's perspective, let's reverse it. It's a bit silly
but bear with me.
Imagine the UK had some business conflict over oil in the US. Iran then helped
overthrow Harry Truman, and installed a pro-iranian dictator who spread
Iranian culture in the US, to improve this business relationship. That alone
would be insane and ample fuel for anti-Iranian rhetoric for decades to come.
The dictator's rule (a pretty shitty one) went on for decades until he was
overthrown and a new leader emerged in the US, directly followed by Iran
funding Canada and arming it, which attacks the US and starts a bloody war of
almost 8 years, all during our lifetime. When Canada appears to lose Iran
backs it even more, and when Canada uses chemical weapons killing an
equivalence of more than half a million Americans, both military and
civilians, Iran tells Canada exactly where US soldiers are located, and was
later found indeed having shipped chemical and biological weapons to Canada.
And when a civilian US airplane flies above US territory and gets shot down by
an Iranian cruiser, killing 290 innocent people, Iran never apologises and
there are zero consequences, as if it never happened, to give you a sense of
the relations.
When the war eventually ends, Iran invades various countries neighbouring the
US, like Canada and Mexico, that just years earlier had been allies. Not just
that but under false pretences, deemed an illegal invasion by the United
Nations and abhorred by virtually the entire world population. (makes the US
wonder, if Iran attacks a former ally, resulting in the death of hundreds of
thousands, tortures and a ruined, failed state, based on forged-evidence...
there's perhaps only 1 thing that can deter Iran from attacking you. The
ultimate deterrence, a Nuclear weapon, only ever used by Iran by the way,
twice). Not just that but Iran keeps backing other countries like, China (read
Saudi Arabia), who is a bit further away and who is a huge rival in the
region. This is followed by Iranian politicians and media left and right
calling to bomb the US, invade the country, hell even with a presidential
nominee in Iran joking 'bomb, bomb, bomb, bom the US', referencing the Iranian
Beach Boys classic Barbara US (this analogy is getting stretched pretttty thin
by now, I know).
Followed by Iran leading the world into sanctioning the US (furthering
existing sanctions that had been on the US for decades) which causes deep
issues, and when someone from Iran finally wants a diplomatic solution, hawks
in Iran invite the president of China over to give a speech about the US's
danger to the world, a speech laden with lies contradicting China and Iran's
own intelligence on the US.
But throughout all this, the US becomes more Iranian every day, anti-Iran
hardliners in the US aren't representative of the larger country, the US
doesn't invade or attack other countries and seeks diplomatic solutions, it
structures its military to fight defensive, not offensive wars, and throughout
it all Americans on the whole stay pretty sane and normal people.
It'd be no surprise then that someone in Kerry's position, Iran's state
secretary, would think that easing up on all of the above could lead to a more
pro-Iranian US. Now flip the whole story and it may make a lot of sense. Or
you may have lost me in this silly comparison :) Of course it's a lot less
black and white than this, but the notion that Iran's relationship with
westernisation isn't zero (or close to zero) given their experiences with the
west, sparks a lot of hope. And beyond that it's important to consider that
while diplomacy isn't perfect, I can scarcely imagine the alternative, and
haven't heard any sensible proposals either.
~~~
1971genocide
Thank you for that !
The sad part is US has been a force against democratic govt for the last 50
years.
India, Bangladesh ( my own people ), Iran, Nicaragua, Vietnam.
Meanwhile arming pakistan while it was military dictatorship, Saudi, etc.
The US is like any other country - its out for its own interest and securing
resources for itself.
I cringe whenever americans take a high ground.
Its just a lot of propaganda, It took me a while to do my own research since
no one directly provides the information. But its all there !
I find the fact that people in hacker news who consider themselves to be the
more educated crowd do not keep tabs on it. What chance does the rest of the
country have ?
The hardline Iranians were part of a generation that was deeply humiliated by
the US. They are not the most educated bunch but they did what they had to do
and everyone should respect them for it.
I think things would have been much worse by now if it wasn't for the rapid
rise of china which went under the radar of american policy makers.
China hopefully provides the balance that is needed to prevent either America
or China itself for doing terrible things to other countries.
------
Jun8
The reactions to the Islamist Revolution and the resulting disillusionment are
complex. Two interesting/random points of entry could be: (1) Foucoult's
widely derided (in France, not many translated to English) writings, with
strong Orientalist tendencies, strongly supporting the Revolution, based on
his many visits to Iran and interviews with key players (e.g. see
[http://newpol.org/content/revisiting-foucault-and-iranian-
re...](http://newpol.org/content/revisiting-foucault-and-iranian-revolution)
or
[http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3534884...](http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3534884.html)
for a book on the subject) and (2) _Persepolis_
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_(comics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_\(comics\))).
~~~
guard-of-terra
From the outside it seems that the revolution is the ultimate end of
habitability of Iran, end-of-world, barbarians-take-over-Rome quality.
Let's stop progress, abolish human rights and heed to words written thousand
years ago and interpreted by corrupt barbarians.
Foucoult can write whatever nonsense sitting in warm Paris with all the
freedoms and comfort readily available.
I'm more scared by "Iran - then and now" series of pictures.
~~~
mistursinistur
"Iran - then and now" series are often misleading. They cherry-pick extreme
examples from non-representative slices of the population.
We've all seen photos of the stylish, 1970s Iranian 1%, but not of pervasive
poverty and disenfranchisement that their brand of progress perpetuated on the
other 99%. The Shah's elite may have looked American but this doesn't mean
that they presided over progress or gave much thought to human rights.
~~~
x5n1
The Muslim world has never known how to do democracy right because of a number
of reasons including tribalism, nepotism, elitism. They have never understood
what it means to be a liberal democracy. Add to that the colonials wanting to
continue this tradition because corruption is easier to exploit and we have
the precarious situation in the Middle East which has now deteriorated to an
unfixable point.
------
Animats
One can hope, but remember the Arab Spring and its collapse.
Iran is a theocracy, and theocracies can't lighten up too much or they lose
first their reason for being, then their power.
------
cletus
What makes me sad is just what complete disarray the GOP is in. I'm sure at
some point the GOP actually stood for something. Now? It just seems to have
been completely co-opted by religious conservatives. Presidential candidates
are cut from that cloth or, worse, they're just puppets for particular private
interests (eg Scott Walker is nothing more than an empty vessel for the Koch
brothers).
Compounding this is the huge political power that Israel has in US politics.
Whatever your opinion about Israel, I think it's fair to say that Israel has
been disastrous for US foreign policy in the Middle East for every country's
relationship to the US other than Israel.
Earlier this week I was reading that the Obama administration may hasten the
release of Israeli spy Jonathon Pollard in an effort to appease Israel. Israel
has found unlikely allies in the Jewish lobby (who tend to lean left) and
religious conservatives.
Iran is a problem the US made by repeatedly and disastrously screwing with the
region. The support of the Shah fomenting the Iranian Revolution, using Saddam
Hussein as a proxy to fight Iran (killing hundreds of thousands on both sides)
and invading Iraq a decade ago.
The invasion in particular was the last straw. The lesson the "axis of evil"
could take away from this was that having nuclear weapons (like North Korea)
was the only guarantee of survival. So of course Iran wants the bomb. Whose
fault is that?
Yet the GOP in particular seems ready to sacrifice everything for a policy
that isn't working just to appease Israel. Well, Israel is just going to have
to learn to live in that region because someone there getting nuclear weapons
is a question of if not when.
We've come a long way since Eisenhower could (and did) tell Israel to get out
of Sinai. The fact that Obama is even trying to stand up to Israel is amazing
to me. I honestly hope he succeeds because I think engagement with Iran is the
only sustainable course forward.
~~~
tsotha
I'm not sure why you think the GOP is in disarray. The Republicans don't trust
Iran not to build a bomb. To think the Iranians _won 't_ is naive to a
childish degree. We went down this road with the North Koreans. Are memories
that short?
And what happened with Democrats and anti-Semitism? When did it become okay to
see Evil Jews behind every problem?
~~~
amirmansour
Comparing Iran to North Korea is quite a stretch, and frankly doing so reveals
that you are severely misinformed about the Iranian people, culture,
government, and history. It's OK, majority of people are, and I would be more
than happy to clear up any questions you might have regarding the matter.
~~~
tsotha
It's not a stretch at all when it comes to nuclear weapons. The Iranians are
doing _exactly_ what the North Koreans did. The "people, culture, government,
and history" are relevant only to the extent to which they played into the
government's decision to acquire nuclear weapons.
~~~
Gibbon1
For me a big difference between North Korea and Iran is the balance of soft vs
hard power in those countries. In Iran the ordinary people tend to push back
in a lot of ways and the government gives ground if grudgingly and slowly. And
there is a lot of politics going on between factions with real power.
Given that I'm willing to be very patient. Seriously, the generals of the Red
Army ran the soviet union for 35 years after Stalin died and then they passed
on. So too will the Iranian revolutionaries.
------
1971genocide
Iran's problem is a completely US manufactured crisis.
I do not understand how people are so myopic to history.
FACT:
# Iran had a democratic secular government in 1950.
# However this govt was not friendly to a British oil company ( BP ).
# The British requested american help to protect the interest of British
multinationals.
# The grandson of Theodore Roosevelt personally helped overthrow this
democratically legitimate government.
# The hated shan was put in power whom the iranian people really did not like.
The shan went back to trading oil for weapons with the Americans/UK.
# From the perceptive of an iranian it must suck to know that your government
was overthrown by some foreign entity just for the sake of a oil company. The
iranian/persian who are among the oldest of civilizations ( 5,000 years ).
# Of-course this leads to a revolution and a anti-american ayatollah is put in
power.
# Americans are nothing but vindictive when it comes to geo-politics and arm
Saddam to his teeth giving him chemical weapons.
# Saddam Invades Iraq just while the Iranian are recovering from a revolution
to now have to face against a terrible dictator who wants to invade their
country.
# Iran had to indure a 8 year war in the 1980s, a war that took a huge toll.
The battles fought looked like something out of WW2.
# Next america invades the country to their left and their right and puts a
huge amount of ground troops in the south and allies with all of Iran's
neighbour. Most of whom hate the Iranians just because they are not the SAME
wahhabi muslims as them.
# Iran ofcourse wants a nuclear weapon to stabilize the huge power imbalance
they face. They never interfered or invaded a neighbour for 1000s of years and
now suddenly they are treated like the scum of the earth.
# The biggest loser in all of this has been the Iranian and poor sunnis
civilians who are having to deal with the blunt of ISIS and the likes.
~~~
adventured
> They never interfered or invaded a neighbour for 1000s of years
No, instead Iran has used proxies like Hezbollah to do their interfering. They
use a cowardly approach because they know their actions are despicable, it
provides deniability. They want something to occur, but they don't want to
take responsibility for it, which tells you all you need to know about the
actions in question.
And before you say: well but America has done x y z - that's already
understood. We're talking about Iran. Iran doesn't get excused from its
misdeeds because America has done something bad too.
~~~
1971genocide
Hezbollah was not a aggressive militia group. It was an resistance to illegal
Isreali Occupation In Lebanon.
If you consider this to be a cowardly act, then its no more different than the
cowardly act of the French resistance against the Nazis.
If the Iranian are cowards then so are the Americans, Pakistanis, Russians,
Israeli, Chinese and British.
This is why the Iranian are more than well justified to own a nuclear weapon -
since everyone tries to covertly try to overthrow their government, and they
do not have a useful deterrent against superpower nations.
~~~
smallhands
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyWFa5xbHKg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyWFa5xbHKg)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tesla 5-1 Stock Split - ikarandeep
https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000156459020039353/tsla-8k_20200811.htm
======
sfblah
Does anybody else share my sort of shell-shock WRT Tesla? I'm one of those who
thinks its stock (and probably all the big tech names) are in a bubble. But
whenever I say that I get shouted down, downvoted, told I'm an idiot, etc. I'm
hoping this comment is vanilla enough to be safe... just curious if others
have had the same experience.
To be clear: I'm not interested in debating the value of Tesla. I'm curious if
others have the same emotional reaction at this point. That's it. If you think
Tesla is worth $1T, good. Fine by me. I don't want to debate it or be told I'm
a piece of garbage.
~~~
o-__-o
If they can successfully enable fully automated self driving cars, then I
think the value is entirely justified. See FaceBook.
Disclaimer: I bought Tesla calls today and now assume I’m rich so your opinion
may differ
~~~
nine_k
I bet on self-driving trucks instead. They can go like 95% of the way via
highways driverless, only accepting a driver to drive it through a city to a
loading ramp, and maybe to a pump midway a very long trip. Drivers will not
disappear soon but will provide local service.
Having a driverless _car_ which can navigate through a city would be great,
but it is a much more complicated problem to solve.
~~~
mac01021
Is there a good asset to buy to bet on those?
~~~
nine_k
I wish I knew! There are a few, and different experts suggest different
winners.
------
nradov
The whole notion of individual shares with prices is legacy baggage from
decades ago when trading was done with paper stock certificates. What really
matters is the percentage of the company you own, regardless of how that
percentage is sliced into units. Some retail brokerages already offer
fractional share tracing so for those investors a stock split is mostly
irrelevant.
------
dripton
Meh. Total non-event. Once upon a time I hated splits because they made
record-keeping more complicated, but the online brokers do a good job of
tracking basis across splits now. Once upon a time there was a real reason to
do splits to enable easier purchases, but the online brokers allow fractional
shares now. So, just not excited either way about splits anymore.
~~~
riffraff
Matt Levine made me notice that there's still an effect of stock splits on
making options more accessible i.e. there are brokers for fractional shares,
but not options on fractional shares/fractional options.
I am pretty sure this is irrelevant, but it's interesting.
------
gzu
Speaking of splits, I love how Apple’s stock split justification is: “We want
Apple stock to be more accessible to a broader base of investors.”
[https://investor.apple.com/faq/default.aspx](https://investor.apple.com/faq/default.aspx)
Yet it’s one of the top stocks held on Robinhood (#3 at 700,000 users)
[https://www.robintrack.net/symbol/AAPL](https://www.robintrack.net/symbol/AAPL)
~~~
ogre_codes
Apple is in the DOW and the DOW is a stupidly weighted index where share price
affects what percentage of the index that company holds. Right now a 1%
increase in Apple pushes the DOW up 10 times more than a 1% increase in Cocoa
Cola.
Companies in the DOW _tend_ to have share prices below $500/ share and most
are under $200 and the DOW won't add companies with high stock values as a
result (Apple was added only after their last split).
It's likely being in the DOW bolsters and stabilizes stock prices as a lot of
indexes are based on a the DOW. It also brings a company a certain prestige.
Whether any of this affects the Apple board's decision to split the stock or
not is entirely speculation... it just seems a far more likely reason than the
idea that they are splitting to make it accessible to people with $500 they
want to invest.
~~~
njarboe
Very few people invest in the basket of companies that make up the Dow Jones.
Its use as an index of how the stock market is behaving is really a historical
artifact at this point. One ETF in the top one hundred [1] ETFs is based on
the Dow Jones Industrial Average and that one is ranked 43rd. Joining the S&P
500 is a big deal, on the other hand, as the three biggest ETFs are S&P 500
funds.
[1][https://etfdb.com/compare/market-cap/](https://etfdb.com/compare/market-
cap/)
~~~
ogre_codes
Fair enough. Even so, I think inclusion/ exclusion in the DOW is far more
likely to affect Apple's choice to split or not than making the stock more
accessible to investors.
~~~
betterunix2
I doubt it, and I think there is a misunderstanding about the investors Apple
referred to in their public statement on the split. As a company's share price
rises the stock becomes less liquid, because trades happen in smaller
quantities; Berkshire Hathaway's class A shares are probably the most extreme
example. Low liquidity is a problem for mutual funds, which have to sell
assets whenever an investors sells their shares in the fund (which may be a
relatively small sale e.g. a retirement account distribution), because low
liquidity makes asset sales more difficult. In general institutional investors
will have liquidity rules that constrain the assets their funds can hold to
avoid that kind of problem.
Given how much investment capital is held by institutional investors,
companies have a good reason to split their shares if the share price is too
high. Berkshire Hathaway created a new share class to support the needs of
institutional investors, and I would read "accessible to investors" as
"conforming to the liquidity requirements of institutional investors."
------
nine_k
A more informative link [1], also on sec.gov, explaining the nature of the
operation, says:
_PALO ALTO, Calif., August 11, 2020 – Tesla, Inc. (“Tesla”) announced today
that the Board of Directors has approved and declared a five-for-one split of
Tesla’s common stock in the form of a stock dividend to make stock ownership
more accessible to employees and investors. Each stockholder of record on
August 21, 2020 will receive a dividend of four additional shares of common
stock for each then-held share, to be distributed after close of trading on
August 28, 2020. Trading will begin on a stock split-adjusted basis on August
31, 2020._
[1]:
[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000156459020...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000156459020039353/tsla-
ex991_6.htm)
------
Xcelerate
I don’t really understand stock splits. Is the only point to allow people to
buy shares who could previously not buy because one share was too expensive?
If so, why not just introduce fractional shares into the stock market with
some fixed point number of decimal places? Or just keep track of ownership
fraction (e.g. 0.0043% of the company)?
~~~
rich_sasha
There are weird incentives for this.
In US the tick size for any stock is always $0.01. So a stock with a price of
say $1 has a minimum bid ask spread of 1%, which is a lot.
On the contrary, if one share is too expensive, it limits liquidity in a
stock. This is usually bad, though Berkshire Hathaway voting shares are
deliberately kept expensive to stave off speculators.
This then get meta-player. A split suggests the company expects a price
increase, and vice versa (reverse splits area thing too).
~~~
esrauch
It seems very strange; can a share not be worth less than 1 cent, or can it
for ask but not bid?
~~~
cynix
It can be "worth" less than 1 cent. That simply means if you put in an offer
at 1 cent, nobody will buy it, because they think it's worth less.
~~~
esrauch
I meant if the bid-ask spread must be minimum 1 cent, then is it true that bid
can't be lower than 1 cent as long as ask is semipositive?
------
hmate9
TSLA stock is up over 7% after hours now. ~$15 billion of "value" created out
of thin air. Sounds ridiculous.
~~~
webXL
About $6 trillion was "created out of thin air" in the S&P 500 since mid
March. But don't confuse value with output or wealth. The market is forward
looking and valuations are pretty unstable long term.
~~~
aeternum
Everything is relative, we're printing a lot of money right now, possibly for
the right reasons. In general though those valuation probably do make sense in
a world where money is plentiful.
------
caiobegotti
For reference, here's a short amusing thread about the original Tesla IPO
(even replied by Musk himself):
[https://twitter.com/Mark_Goldberg_/status/129281818458888601...](https://twitter.com/Mark_Goldberg_/status/1292818184588886016)
------
firekvz
Hope you guys had some tesla calls :p
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Where would you be most excited to work? - throwaway_oct13
(throwaway to reduce bias, to avoid possible current-employer-panic, and to blow my own horn without tying myself to being a douchebag...)<p>I'm looking for a change. My family and I are willing to move.<p>I've got a Math/CS degree from a well-known university, and I've been programming professionally for between 10-15 years depending on your definition. I'm confident in my current skill set, and in my continuing ability to acquire required skills.<p>I've made a list of places that I'll soon be applying to, but I'm wondering if I'm thinking too small.<p>So, my blue-sky question: What's your best case? <i>If you could have a job offer tomorrow, anywhere, where would you go?</i>
======
nl
I saw Space-X was hiring in the last "Who's Hiring" thread here. Working on
_fricking spaceships_ would be cool.
~~~
Dav3xor
So is Scaled, and who wouldn't want to work with Burt Rutan?
------
scottkrager
Why not look at creating your own job?
You sound talented, and with that much job experience you should have some
savings.
~~~
throwaway_oct13
As in startup? Thanks for the suggestion.
I did sort of try that a few years back, but it appeared that I would need to
spend a majority of time doing marketing, which doesn't really appeal to me.
------
vyrotek
Microsoft Research in Redmond
~~~
seltzered
My problem with Microsoft Research is that it seems like you would work in a
vacuum. I like making things people can easily decide whether they're good
too, not deal with marketing dept. red tape to deliver. When I think Microsoft
Research I think amazing things poorly marketed and embraced by microsoft.
Example: Making a collage in MS Gallery Live is a "microsoft research" add-on
you have to go to a separate website to buy.
There's a video from the former head of Apple's Advanced Technology Group that
discusses the problem.
~~~
mwerty
I worked there. It was awesome. Smartest group of people I've ever worked
with. The job is more about working on cool things than shipping products.
~~~
vyrotek
_The job is more about working on cool things than shipping products._
Sounds awesome :)
------
mrlyc
Honeywell Aerospace, doing avionics. I got hooked on safety-critical work when
I did some air traffic control software for Lockheed Martin. You might need
five to ten years more experience but it's worth a try.
------
seltzered
Honestly, for the areas I'm heavily interested in, Notion Ink, or some type of
Cradle-2-Cradle focused design/manufacturing company.
------
wallflower
Pixar
~~~
jonhendry
Pixar for me also. Or Apple.
~~~
jonhendry
Or maybe as Christina Aguilera's manager, now that she's divorcing her current
manager. :)
------
revorad
Aiming too low? Try SIAI - <http://singinst.org/>
------
streblo
Industrial Light and Magic
------
Locke1689
Apple.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Facelette: Chat Roulette for FaceTime - mojombo
http://facelette.com/
======
holman
For what it's worth, I whipped this up in about an hour. It just keeps track
of who's actively looking for a FaceTime hookup and grabs one.
Coincidentally, this entire app is dumb as hell. I love it so much.
~~~
mkramlich
I predict a $50 million buyout offer by the end of the week. :)
------
dotBen
Needs it's own email validation system otherwise you just type in crap and
harvest the email addresses.
I would use FB Connect to validate the user, show a profile pic, and create a
less anarchic community compared to (chatroulette)
~~~
kneath
I can definitely see why you'd need a profile picture when you're about to
randomly video chat with someone's face.
Sometimes simplicity is a virtue. It's supposed to be anarchic.
~~~
patio11
Making visible a picture of the user, and by extension their real identity,
primes them for social interaction other than showing their penis to the other
party. It is a "power of nudges" sort of thing. Sure, you could trivially get
around it, but taking one's clothes off is fairly easy _and yet we don't_.
There are definite community and marketing advantages to clothing being worn
in the overwhelming majority of all interactions on your site. If that is not
the case, that defines your site.
------
gsharma
Facelette - Easiest way to harvest emails for people who own "i" products!
<http://facelette.com/queue>
------
DannoHung
Would there be any way to have it verify that it can establish a Facetime
connection? That'd serve the purpose of validation perfectly without needing
to have people confirm their address or anything.
------
sssparkkk
I'd love to try it, but unfortunately I don't own a Mac, nor an iPhone.
Besides, I wonder how long it'll take before the perverts take over Facelette,
it hasn't happened yet I presume?
For people without 'Apple products and stuff', try
<http://www.blurrypeople.com> instead.
------
sephlietz
You should really make users verify their email addresses.
~~~
holman
I really like the low barrier of entry (ie, no verification). It could be cool
to see a more "legitimate" take on all this, but for this quick proof of
concept I love how brain-dead simple it turned out. I mean, you're randomly
video chatting with strangers, how stringent do you need to make it? :)
~~~
sephlietz
The point is that you aren't forced to give anything up in return for another
person's email address.
I can input "[email protected]" and get as many email addresses as I want.
I could also put in someone else's email address and they would potentially
start getting random FaceTime calls.
------
adammichaelc
Looks like the users are mostly fake or don't respond.
------
danielsiders
Would be cool to pair it with a service that generated an ID with apple for
throwaway usernames. Has apple blocked all the mailinator domains?
~~~
holman
I've talked to a couple from @mailinator domains today, so that must still be
legit.
------
danfitch
Or just use mine. <http://www.squarechat.com> Shameless plug
~~~
danfitch
or just <http://squarechat.com/hackernews> to get into a room with others.
------
sachinag
Do I have to have FaceTime running to get an invite?
~~~
holman
Nope; Apple must have something running in the background listening for
incoming connections. FaceTime.app will open with the Accept/Reject box when
someone calls.
~~~
sachinag
That's pretty baller.
~~~
steveklabnik
It really is. I was playing video games a few hours ago, and had my laptop
open to read stuff between matches. I got a FaceTime call, and was able to
reach over, click accept, and say "Hey Kelly, I'm playing some Halo right now,
what's up?"
It was actually a way more pleasant experience than trying to do the same
thing on a phone.
------
geuis
Can't get it to work whatsoever.
------
zbruhnke
nice ... could be a fun concept on a bored night!
------
jaspero
This will probably create too much traffic on 'facetime server' or whatever
apple has. Degradation on quality of video is what I expect if Facelette picks
up popularity.
~~~
holman
As the Facelette proprietor, I agree that Apple's FaceTime server capacity is
the probable fail point, and guarantee that my freebie Heroku instance and
shabby code is virtually infallible.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The First Church of Grady Booch: "It is a superclass of the people" - randombit
http://bluesock.org/booch/
======
GFischer
There's a mention of another, funnier website, but it seems to be down... ah,
here it is, the same website but on another host and with some differences:
[http://web.archive.org/web/19990204043929/http://www.cs.bc.e...](http://web.archive.org/web/19990204043929/http://www.cs.bc.edu/~silvamd/Booch/Booch.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: A course on concepts to make better decisions or at least sound smart - petermcintyre
https://conceptually.org/
======
petermcintyre
Links: \- Previous article: [http://mcntyr.com/52-concepts-cognitive-
toolkit/](http://mcntyr.com/52-concepts-cognitive-toolkit/)
\- A long list of concepts we haven't yet, but plan on writing about:
[https://conceptually.org/long-list-of-
concepts](https://conceptually.org/long-list-of-concepts)
\- The books that have most substantively improved our cognitive toolkit:
[https://conceptually.org/bookshelf/](https://conceptually.org/bookshelf/)
\- Things on the internet containing cool concepts:
[https://conceptually.org/internet-things/](https://conceptually.org/internet-
things/)
------
petermcintyre
If you liked the last article, I'm particularly interested in what you think
of this. I put much more effort into this, but the first article got about 2
orders of magnitude more hits.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Meter and app to tell if a gas station has pumped less than you paid for - emilyfm
http://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/device-smartphone-app-detect-short-liters/
======
emilyfm
TLDR; Gas (petrol) stations pumping less than you paid for is a problem in
some parts of Mexico (they're mostly full service). These guys are trying to
market a device to measure the amount actually pumped into your vehicle.
------
imadfy
This site downloaded a 1.2KB PDF to my phone! I suspect they have maladverts.
It doesn't happen the second time.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What are the Best ethereum DApp ideas that haven't been launched yet? - noloblo
Ethereum's decentralized and anonymous nature are great for some types of Dapps, such as prediction/betting and stablecoins. However, there are already many players on both these fields (e.g. Augur, Gnosis; Makercoin, Digix).<p>What do you guys see as great use cases for Ethereum DApps (i.e. an app that would be better on Ethereum that on a normal website) that have not been launched yet?
======
Jabanga
There are so many projects now that I don't know if anyone is already working
on or has a token sale being planned for these, but the best ones I could
think of are:
* using Town Crier or some other oracle that utilizes trusted hardware to provide authenticated online bank transfer statements, for a Dapp that enables trustless fiat <-> ether exchange. This would be very ambitious and very costly in resources and time - possibly over a half a decade to really get it right.
* online markets, though several are being worked on
* a Dapp for trading GPU time for game-time tokens, and using the GPU resources to generate procedural worlds, fauna and plant life, like a much richer and decentralized version of No Man's Sky. With the GPU resources, the fauna and plant-life could be generated through evolutionary processes, to make them much more compelling and realistic.
* a privacy-focused payments Dapp, especially one that utilizes the new functionality that will become available with the release of Metropolis, which will make both ring-signatures and zk-SNARKs possible.
* a payment channel Dapp for use in a Lightning Network implementation
------
wesie
Hi Noloblo,
Please drop me an email on [email protected]. I have a few ideas.
Regards
Rume
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fully-Fledged Guide on Ways to Protect Your Data Online - UtopiaFans
https://utopia.fans/privacy/fully-fledged-guide-on-ways-to-protect-your-data-online/
======
UtopiaFans
Learn how to protect your data!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Vivek Wadhwa Says U.S. Chases Away Immigrant Entrepreneurs - saadmalik01
http://www.siliconbeat.com/2012/10/02/in-new-book-and-research-paper-vivek-wadhwa-says-u-s-chases-away-immigrant-entrepreneurs/
======
tokenadult
That's about all Vivek Wadhwa ever says. He never comes forward with any
strong evidence on that issue, but only with anecdotes. I don't worry about
it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The future of deep learning - nicolrx
https://blog.keras.io/the-future-of-deep-learning.html
======
computerex
> In DeepMind's AlphaGo, for example, most of the "intelligence" on display is
> designed and hard-coded by expert programmers (e.g. Monte-Carlo tree
> search);
Not true. This paraphrases the original paper:
[https://www.tastehit.com/blog/google-deepmind-alphago-how-
it...](https://www.tastehit.com/blog/google-deepmind-alphago-how-it-works/)
> They tested their best-performing policy network against Pachi, the
> strongest open-source Go program, and which relies on 100,000 simulations of
> MCTS at each turn. AlphaGo's policy network won 85% of the games against
> Pachi! I find this result truly remarkable. A fast feed-forward architecture
> (a convolutional network) was able to outperform a system that relies
> extensively on search.
Also, this article reeked of AGI ideas. Deep learning isn't trying to solve
AGI. Reasoning and abstraction and high level AGI concepts that I don't think
apply to deep learning. I don't know the path to AGI but I don't think it'll
be deep learning. I think it would have to be fundamentally different.
~~~
taneq
> Deep learning isn't trying to solve AGI.
Well, I dunno about "deep learning", but AGI is DeepMind's explicitly stated
goal.
~~~
computerex
And your source for this is? Could not find any such claim on their site.
~~~
taneq
> We really believe that if you solved intelligence in a very general way,
> like we're trying to do at DeepMind, then step 2 ['use intelligence to solve
> everything else'] would naturally follow on.
They go on to talk about general purpose learning machines.
Source:
[https://youtu.be/ZyUFy29z3Cw?t=4m42s](https://youtu.be/ZyUFy29z3Cw?t=4m42s)
~~~
computerex
Dr. Hassabis is awesome, but that video and the language is misleading to a
layman. He is distinguishing between expert driven systems that rely on
heuristics/feature engineering and between systems that learn from raw input
and derive their own optimal set of features (unsupervised learning).
This is a far cry from AGI. I think Dr. Hassabis rather in a tongue and cheek
manner played with the terminology in the video. Deep learning and all the
modern AI stuff you hear about is within the realm of "narrow AI", or more
formally, applied AI. In his video, he uses "narrow AI" to define systems that
rely on expert based heuristics and feature engineering, and general purpose
AI to be what they are currently doing with reinforcement learning.
Whilst it's wonderful that their advancement in reinforcement learning has
been applied to various different problems successfully, it shouldn't be
confused with AGI.
AGI is on a totally different playing field. I don't think we are
substantially closer to AGI than we were 50 years ago, and I would be very
interested in anyone arguing the opposite.
I think at this point the only company trying to seriously tackle AGI is:
[https://numenta.com/](https://numenta.com/)
------
amelius
What about the future of _jobs_ in the field of deep learning?
EDIT: I'm thinking deep learning will become much like web development is
today. Everybody can do it, and only a few experts will work at the
technological frontier and develop tools and libraries for everybody else to
use.
Therefore, if one invests time in DL, then I suppose it better be a serious
effort (at research level), rather than at the level of invoking a library,
because soon everybody can do that.
~~~
droidist2
Everybody can do web development? Then why do so many people complain about
how complicated it is?
~~~
eli_gottlieb
Because it was somehow designed to be as complicated, difficult, and utterly
un-modular as possible. I actually have a more difficult time fully testing a
commit's worth of Rails dev than I ever did with a commit's worth of embedded
firmware.
------
randcraw
I enjoyed part 1 of Chollet's two articles today but am less fond of this one.
It suggests that deep learning will expand from its present capabilities of
recognizing patterns to one day master logical relations and employ a rich
knowledge base of general facts, growing into a situated general problem
solver that one day may equal or surpass human cognition. Maybe. But he then
proposes that deep nets will rise to these heights of self-organization and
purposefulness using one of the weakest and slowest forms of AI, namely
evolutionary strategies?
I don't think so.
The many problems bedeviling the expansion of an AI's competence at one
specific task into mastery of more general and more complex tasks are legend.
Alas neither deep nets nor genetic algorithms have shown any way to address
classic AGI roadblocks like: 1) the enormity of the possible solution space
when synthesizing candidate solutions, and 2) the enormous number of training
examples needed to learn the multitude of common sense facts common to all
problem spaces, and 3) how to translate existing specific problem solutions
into novel general ones. Wait, wait, there's more...
These roadblocks are common to all forms of AI. The prospect of replacing
heuristic strategies with zero knowledge techniques (like GA trial and error)
or curated knowledge bases with only example-based learning is unrealistic and
infeasible. Likewise, the notion that a sufficient number of deep nets can
span all the info and problem spaces that will be needed for AGI is _quite_
implausible. While quite impressive at the lowest levels of AI (pattern
matching), deep learning has yet to address intermediate and high level AI
implementation challenges like these. Until it does, there's little reason to
believe DL will be equally good at implementing executive cognitive functions.
Yes DeepMind solved Go using AlphaGo's deep nets (and monte carlo tree
search). But 10 and 20 years before that IBM Watson solved Jeopardy and IBM
Deep Blue solved chess. At the time, everyone was duly impressed. Yet today
nobody is suggesting that the AI methods at the heart of those game solutions
will one day pave the yellow brick road to AI Oz.
In another 10 years, I predict it's just as likely that AlphaGo's deep nets
will be a bust as a boom, at least when it comes to building deep AI like HAL
9000.
------
therajiv
TLDR is that models will become more abstract (current pattern recognition
will blend with formal reasoning and abstraction), modular (think transfer
learning, but taken to its extreme - every trained model's learned
representations should be applicable to other tasks), and automated (ML
experts will spend less time in the repetitive training/optimization cycle,
instead focusing more on how models apply to their specific domain).
~~~
radarsat1
I think it's true, but I hope this synergy between logic and pattern
recognition actually happens, as I feel like this has been proposed for years
but never really come to fruition. However, with recent work on differentiable
communicating agents, differentiable memory etc., perhaps it now has a chance
to get there.
~~~
eli_gottlieb
The author says not everything _should_ be differentiable. Intuitively, I
agree, but the question is how to do a sufficiently fast search through a
high-dimensional space when you don't have a gradient.
~~~
CuriouslyC
If you don't have a gradient, one tactic is to make the most of the situation.
Give your model the Bayesian treatment, and sample from the posterior using
MCMC. This is slow, but you end up with posteriors on your parameter values,
which is a huge win.
~~~
eli_gottlieb
Yeah, I've been a big fan of probabilistic programming for a while. The real
problem is that getting Monte Carlo methods to converge and produce a _large_
sample from the posterior takes orders of magnitude more time than running an
optimizer to descend a gradient. Hey, you can even make it a probabilistic
gradient: variational inference! But then you still have a hard time with
discrete, nondifferentiable structure.
------
toisanji
This is part 2 from the post yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14790251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14790251)
And the author posted a comment on hn:
"fchollet: Hardly a "made-up" conclusion -- just a teaser for the next post,
which deals with how we can achieve "extreme generalization" via abstraction
and reasoning, and how we can concretely implement those in machine learning
models."
I like the ideas presented in the post, but its not concrete or new at
all.Basically he writes "everything will get better".
I do agree with the point that we need to move away from strictly differential
learning though. All deep learning problems only work on systems that have
derivates so we can do backpropagation. I dont think the brain learns with
backpropagation at all.
* AutoML, there are dozens of these type of systems already, he mentions one already in the post called HyperOpt. So we will continue to use this systems and they will get smarter? Many of these systems are basically grid search/brute force. Do you think the brain is doing brute force at all? We have to use these now because there are no universal correct hyperparameters for tuning these models. As long as we build AI models the way we do now, we will have to do this hyperparameter tuning. Yes, these will get better, again, nothing new here.
* He talks about reusable modules. Everyone in the deep learning community has been talking about this a lot, its called transfer learning and people are using it now, and working on making it better all the time. We currently have "model zoos" which are databases of pretrained models that you can use. If you want to see a great scifi short piece on what neural network mini programs could look like written by the head of computer vision at tesla, check out this post: [http://karpathy.github.io/2015/11/14/ai/](http://karpathy.github.io/2015/11/14/ai/)
~~~
ipunchghosts
Everyone makes the assumption that computers should get to be as smart as
humans but in some ways, its the other way around. For example, the human
brain is not a turing machine, it doesnt have memory (in the sense that its
lossy). You need memory to have a turing machine so with a paper and pencil, a
human is a turing machining but a very slow run. Compare the difference to
read and write on paper than a computer has to access ram.
I think there will be some kind of meta deep learing (still using deep
learning but compose of algebras which are augmented compared to today's
standards). We have already started this by using pretrained networks for
tasks. There is no reason RNNs won't go this way (i imagine they already are
but this isnt my research area specifically) after all, RNNS are a turing
machine.
------
nzonbi
Interesting article, in a difficult topic. Speculating about the future of
deep learning. The author deserves recognition for writing about this. In my
personal opinion, within the next 10 years, there will be systems exhibiting
basic general intelligence behavior. I am currently doing early hobbist
research on it, and I see it as feasible. These system will not be very
powerful initially. They will exist and work in simpler simulated
environments. Eventually we will be able to make these systems powerful enough
to handle the real world. Although that will probably not be easy.
I somewhat disagree with the author. I don't think that deep learning systems
of the future are going to generate "programs", composed of programming
primitives. In my speculative view, the key for general intelligence is not
very far from our current knowledge. Deep learning, as currently we have, is a
good enough basic tool. There are no magic improvements to the current deep
learning algorithms, hidden around the corner. Rather what I think will enable
general intelligence, is assembling systems of deep learning networks in the
right setup. Some of the structure of these systems will be similar to
traditional programs. But the models they generate will not resemble computer
programs. They will be more like data graphs.
I expect within 10 years there will be computer agents capable of
communicating in simplified, but functional languages. Full human language
capability will come after that. And within 20 years I expect artificial
general intelligence to exist. At least in a basic form. That is my personal
view. I am currently working on this.
~~~
LrnByTeach
20 year time frame that is around 2040 for AGI Artificial General Intelligence
in the it's BASIC Form seems in line with many experts in this filed.
> I expect within 10 years there will be computer agents capable of
> communicating in simplified, but functional languages. Full human language
> capability will come after that. And within 20 years I expect artificial
> general intelligence to exist. At least in a basic form. That is my personal
> view. I am currently working on this.
~~~
Berobero
> 20 year time frame ... seems in line with many experts in this filed
When has "20 years" _not_ been in line with the predictions of experts for the
advent of AGI?
~~~
fnl
And quantum computing, as well as fusion generators... :-)
~~~
shmageggy
Yup, [https://xkcd.com/678/](https://xkcd.com/678/) and its flavor text
------
jdonaldson
Glad to see Deep Learning "coming down to earth". This is the first high
profile post I've seen that spells out exactly how DL models will become
reconfigurable, purpose-built tools, and what a workflow might look like.
We're still a long way aways from treating them like software components.
~~~
Cacti
I mean, these are topics that have been discussed countless times over the
years and in some cases decades.
It's all well and good to say we need generalizable machines, and something
other than backprop, and something closer to traditional programs, but we all
know this. The issue is that no one knows what this would even mean, never
mind how one would go about implementing it. In the few cases we do know how,
the results are horrible compared to the methods we already use.
We use the methods we do today because they work, not because we think they
are the best, or because we don't understand the limitations of our models.
~~~
jdonaldson
True, there's been discussions, but from what I've seen it's mostly flag
planting or vague pop-eng fodder that project directors dish out to tech
journalists. Having Keras make a statement on this carries far more weight,
because fchollet is not selling a product, or pushing an agenda, or creating a
walled garden of some sort.
The only thing that's a bit off about Keras is that it's mostly the efforts of
one guy. Sure, there's many other contributors, but they don't seem to be
acknowledged. I've never seen anyone else speak for the project. I'd really
like to see a neutral party emerge for deep learning practice and tooling,
before the whole industry gets sucked into a single dominant ecosystem like
AWS.
~~~
droidist2
Do you think with Google's adoption of Keras for TensorFlow it'll get more
resources dedicated to it?
------
primaryobjects
Here are the results of my research into program synthesis using genetic
algorithms.
Using Artificial Intelligence to Write Self-Modifying/Improving Programs
[http://www.primaryobjects.com/2013/01/27/using-artificial-
in...](http://www.primaryobjects.com/2013/01/27/using-artificial-intelligence-
to-write-self-modifying-improving-programs/)
There is always a research paper, if you prefer the sciency format.
BF-Programmer: A Counterintuitive Approach to Autonomously Building Simplistic
Programs Using Genetic Algorithms
[http://www.primaryobjects.com/bf-
programmer-2017.pdf](http://www.primaryobjects.com/bf-programmer-2017.pdf)
------
kirillkh
Seeing how gradient descent is such a pinnacle of deep learning, I can't help
wondering: is this how our brain learns? If not, then what prevents us from
implementing deep learning the same way?
~~~
rsiqueira
One of the most consistent theory about how our brain learns is described in
HTM (Hierarchical Temporal Memory), a more biologically inspired neural
network. See Jeff Hawkins' "On Intelligence". It is based on:
* Input of continuous unlabeled time-based patterns.
* Associative Hebbian Learning (when distinct inputs/patterns come together, they are neuron-wired together). Synapses can be modified via experience. See "Hebbian Theory".
* The brain is a prediction machine: it is always trying to predict the future based on past learned patterns. Learning happens when reality does not match the originally prediction and we rewire the world model based on new input. See "Bayesian approaches to brain function".
* Input signals are processed by many layers, each one creating more abstraction from the previous one, from sensory neurons to the highest cortex layers.
* Each region of the hierarchy forms invariant memories (what a typical region of cortex learns is sequences of invariant representations).
* There is lots of feedback (highest level neurons back to the lowest levels). In some structures (e.g. the thalamus, that is a kind of "hub of information") connections going backward (toward the input) exceed the connections going forward by almost a factor of ten.
* Brain uses Sparse Distributed Memory (SDM). See SDM by Pentti Kanerva (NASA researcher).
* Neuron models have many more variable/parameters (that can be used to transfer or process information) than usual nodes/links from artificial neural networks. E.g.: Long-term potentiation vs Long-term depression, neuronal Habituation vs Sensitization, inhibitory vs excitatory neurons, firing rates, synchronization, neuromodulation, homeostasis and more.
* The backward propagation of errors in artificial neural networks only occurs during the learning phase. But the brain is always learning and updating weights and relationships between patterns, given new inputs.
* During repetitive learning, representations of objects move down the cortical hierarchy (from short-term memory to long-term memory), forming invariant memories.
* The brain needs to replay the memory (memory rehearsal) of a learned stimulus so it can be stored in long-term memory.
* The job of any cortical region is to find out how inputs are related (pattern recognition), to memorize the sequence of correlations between them, and to use this memory to predict how the inputs will behave in the future.
* Predictive coding: the brain is constantly generating and updating hypotheses that predict sensory input at varying levels of abstraction.
~~~
eli_gottlieb
Jeff Hawkins is kind of a crank when it comes to neuroscience, and his AI
companies have tended not to publish state-of-the-art results on machine
learning problems either.
~~~
mannigfaltig
(Replying here for visibility.) In a different comment branch you mentioned
counterfactuals. I've watched a video lecture about counterfactuals in
graphical models by Pearl, but I'm not exactly seeing the significance as a
"missing piece" in AI. Would you mind explaining a bit what you exactly mean?
Do counterfactuals have something to do with learning from negative examples
and simulations? For example, if one shoots a ball and misses the goal to the
right, one does not 'mindlessly' penalize the circuits that led to the exact
motor decisions that were involved, but instead, one simulates alternative
actions and uses e.g. (in this case linear) relationships between e.g. the
angle of the foot or the wind speed and the shooting direction. The next time,
one hence tries to aim slightly to the left.
Or are you referring to a much more fundamental level and my example might
rather be a learning strategy that is more likely acquired by trial & error,
reinforcement learning, meta learning ("learning how to learn") and/or via the
shared concept space of language and culture?
Is it maybe related to e.g. prototype-based associative recall and a
counterfactual is basically an alternative way of interpreting the data? "What
error signal would I get, if I had interpreted X as Y?"
Or does it come from the Bayesian approach where you marginalize out _all_
hypotheses, including the factual one that corresponds to the state of the
world, but also all counterfactual hypotheses. So, including counterfactuals
means going beyond the maximum likelihood point estimate e.g. by communicating
confidence intervals or even entire distributions from neurons to neurons or
neuron populations to other neuron populations?
~~~
eli_gottlieb
Counterfactuals in Pearl's sense are what allow particular models to be
_causal_ : to represent cause and effect under intervention, as opposed to
mere correlation. This is an important part of how to build models that think
like people[1].
[1] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.00289](https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.00289)
~~~
mannigfaltig
Is it in particular the dot product (correlation) in MLPs that prevents them
from inferring all causal structures in the data? So, instead of template
matching of co-occurrences of features in the layer below, we (also) need to
learn whether and how one feature causes the other?
~~~
eli_gottlieb
Again, it's the lack of _counterfactuals_ : the ability to intervene on a node
and cut it off from its parents, then see what happens, and the ability to
perform inferences over discrete spaces.
~~~
mannigfaltig
Are there any concrete attempts at transferring this concept to MLPs? E.g. by
overriding the values of particular nodes/features by feedback connections?
~~~
eli_gottlieb
No, because neural nets _do not work that way_ , even when they output
actions. Making things More Neural doesn't make them better, and AFAIK, not
everything good _can_ be made More Neural.
~~~
mannigfaltig
_> Because neural nets do not work that way_
Are there works that expose this limitation of MLPs more formally?
_> not everything good can be made More Neural._
Neural networks are universal function approximators, so you probably mean not
everything good can be made with MLPs trained by _gradient descent_?
_> It's the lack of [...] the ability to perform inferences over discrete
spaces._
How would you judge the extent to which AlphaGo has learned to react to single
discrete changes in the input. It seems that it learned very well to react
very sharply to whether a single stone is placed at a strategically
significant position.
------
guicho271828
Regarding logic and DL, there is NeSy workshop in London [http://neural-
symbolic.org/](http://neural-symbolic.org/)
------
crypticlizard
Are there popular modern libraries that do program synthesis? Although I've
thought about this and read about the concept on hn, I've not heard it
mentioned seriously or frequently or strenuously as a thing to do either just
for fun or to get a job doing it. This could be a popular way to solve
programming problems without needing programmers. I think this truly would
kick off AI as a very personal experience for the masses because they would
use AI basically like they do already do now with a search engine. People
would use a virtual editor to design their software using off the shelf parts
freely available. The level of program complexity could really skyrocket as
people now have more control over what and how they run programs because they
can easily design it themselves. Everyone could design their own personal
Facebook or Twitter and probably a whole new series of websites too complex or
for other reasons not invented yet.
For instance, you want to program the personality of a toy, so you search
around using the AI search engine for parts that might work. Or you want a
relationship advice coach so you put it together using personalities you like,
taking only the parts you want from each personality. Or another example would
be just to make remixes of media you like. Because everything works without
programming anyone can participate.
~~~
randcraw
Check out Genetic Programming:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_programming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_programming)
AFAIK GP remains the primary means to automate the synthesis of software.
Though it was introduced perhaps 30 years ago, it hasn't been an active area
of research for the past 20, AFAIK.
------
lopatin
I'm also interested to see how the worlds of program synthesis (specifically
type directed, proof-checking, dependently typed stuff) can combine with deep
learning. If recent neural nets have such great results on large amounts of
unstructured data, imagine what they can do with a type lattice.
~~~
gtani
Recent baby steps in gradient checking:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14739491](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14739491)
------
ipunchghosts
Great work! Glad someone can finally explain this to the masses in an easy to
understand way. Looking forward to the future!
------
Kunix
About libraries of models, it would be useful to have open source pre-trained
models which can be augmented through github-like push requests of training
data together with label sets.
It would allow to maintain versioned versions of always improving models
everyone can update with a `npm update`, `git pull` or equivalent.
------
scientist
Self-driving cars are expected to take over the roads, however no programmer
is able to write code that does this directly, without machine learning.
However, programmers have built all kinds of software of great value, from
operating systems to databases, desktop software and so on. Much of this
software is open source and artificial systems can learn from it. Therefore,
it could well be that, in the end, it would be easier to build artificial
systems that learn to automatically develop such software than systems that
autonomously drive cars, if the right methodologies are used. The author is
right to say that neural program synthesis is the next big thing, and this
also motivated me to switch my research to this field. If you have a PhD and
are interested in working in neural program synthesis, please check out these
available positions: [http://rist.ro/job-a3](http://rist.ro/job-a3)
------
amelius
I'm wondering if we will ever figure out how nature performs the equivalent of
backpropagation, and if that will change how we work with artificial neural
networks.
------
nextstar
I'm excited for the easy to use tools that have to be coming out relatively
soon. There are a lot right now, but the few I've used weren't super intuitive
like I feel like they could be.
------
MR4D
Compression.
That one word disrupts his whole point of view. This idea that we need orders
and orders of magnitude more data seems insane. What we need is to figure out
how to be more effective with each layer of data, and be able to have
compression between the tensor layers.
The brain does a great job of throwing away information, and yet we can
reconstruct pretty detailed memories. Somehow I find it hard to believe that
all of that data is orders of magnitude above where we are today. Much more
efficient, yes. And that's through compression.
~~~
MR4D
Crap. I just realized why this got voted down - I posted my comment on the
wrong article.
I guess that's what I get after walking away for 30 minutes before posting.
Doh!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Zesture – Control Mac/Windows Apps Using Hand Gestures - radhakrsna
https://zesture.app/
======
radhakrsna
Hey!
Touch-less technology is the future (especially after the Covid-19 pandemic).
So, I made Zesture, a Mac/Windows app that uses your laptop's camera to give
you touch-free control over your media, entertainment and presentation
applications (without any extra hardware).
You can watch a demo video here -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_swm09Xmtg&feature=emb_titl...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_swm09Xmtg&feature=emb_title)
Supported Apps and Websites:
\- Music: Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Spotify (Web Player), YouTube
Music, Amazon Music (Web Player) and Deezer.
\- Video: VLC Media Player, YouTube and Netflix.
\- Presentation: Microsoft PowerPoint and Keynote.
️Supported Actions: Play/Pause, Next/Previous Track, Enter/Exit Full-screen,
Forward/Rewind, Mute/Unmute, Volume Up/Down.
Privacy: Using your webcam is totally secure. Gesture recognition is done
locally on your computer and hence we don't record, save or send any images or
videos at all. Your camera is turned off automatically after a certain period
of inactivity (configurable via the app).
We’d love to get your feedback and look forward to answering any questions!
~~~
dgellow
> Touch-less technology is the future
What makes you think that's the case? What's the reasoning to start to use
touch-less technologies, and why would they be the future? IMHO the lack of
physical feedback makes it a non-starter though that's just my personal
preference.
Edit: I forgot to add that it looks like a great product, and the landing page
is quite good! I just don't see what are the arguments in favor of touch-less
techs.
~~~
mbzi
Some use cases I have personally worked on:
To allow surgeons to interact with my software within an operating room
without the need for an assistant (to remain sterile).
Interactive retail displays outside the store. Users can interact with
augmented reality displays and visualize themselves wearing the store products
and/or to play a game to win prizes, etc.
Problems encountered:
Hardware adequate for long experiences e.g. Microsoft Life camera freezes
after a few hours. Finding a device which can run 24/7 is a problem. Then once
you found a good device you need to understand the risk of it being pulled
from the market e.g. Primesense, Kinect, Intel RealSense (pulled and replaced
by a new product and SDK, etc).
If a depth camera is used the type of bulbs to sunlight can interfere with
tracking accuracy. If RGB is solely used then I am curious to see how well it
works with various skin-tone in different lighting conditions and complicated
backgrounds.
The "heavy arm/hand" problem. Try lifting your hand for 5 minutes and not
putting it down. Users can be fatigued very quickly with a gesture based UX.
Most products are not designed for this interaction.
In terms of Zesture:
The website is clean, to the point, great starting point. However I would like
to:
\- See an Enterprise license for long term support \- Know how well it
benchmarks against other SDKs/hardware solutions which achieve the same effect
\- Patents, does this infringe on other proprietary innovations? (do you have
patent troll insurance?) \- Guidelines for the best experience, e.g. distance
from the camera if you were to use gestures to control a presentation \-
Roadmap, where are you going next?(FYI I am looking for a new way of hand
based gestures which can be deployed via WebRTC and WebAssembly for
interactive web based experiences :) )
Keep up the good work, looks promising!
~~~
dgellow
Thanks, that's a really good comment, I appreciate the details :)
------
jarym
This is very neat looking and at some point I may give this a go to control
Spotify.
One concern I have though is with this running the LED light on camera is
always going to be active (which is fine) but I then won't know if some other
(malicious) app is accessing my camera.
Another thing to keep in mind is I am sure some form of this eventually makes
it into MacOS. No way Apple acquired all those gesture patents without having
some kind of plan for them.
------
de6u99er
I had once a summer intern work on this. I wanted to use it in our chemical
and biological labs because scientists had to constantly take off their gloves
to use the computers next to e.g. HPLC's.
Funny that people can create a company around such ideas.
------
beeman
This looks pretty neat! I'm definitely going to give it a try!
Also, I really appreciate the price, with the $9,99 one time purchase it seems
like it's afforable to a lot of people, especially if they'd use it
professionally.
------
reiichiroh
I bought the old Magic Leap motion control sensor device a couple of years ago
and this is an all software replacement.
------
villgax
Some college kid could get this done in a day with TF.js/BlazePalm. It's like
the Flutter app which google bought for the domain & instead of releasing it
or doing anything with it they decided to just use the name for their attempt
at another mobile app development framework...
~~~
timwis
Mate, this is a Show HN post. This comment is pretty mean..
------
ronakjain90
Hi there -
Looks very neat, would give it a try.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Have a Mess of Ideas in Your Head? Create an Idea Bank - redDragon
http://blogs.hbr.org/morning-advantage/2012/11/have-a-mess-of-ideas-in-your-h.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
======
typicalrunt
It's a bit of blogspam, here's the link to the real article:
[http://lifehacker.com/5959742/how-can-i-turn-my-mess-of-
idea...](http://lifehacker.com/5959742/how-can-i-turn-my-mess-of-ideas-into-
something-organized-and-useful)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Return of Kim Dotcom - eplanit
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424127887324624404578253511026556362.html
======
linuxhansl
"But Mr. Dotcom believes the site is fully compliant with laws globally."
Why is this his problem? Must any website now adhere to every country's laws,
globally?
Or phrased differently, if the US objects to any content of a _foreign_
website why is the onus is not on them to block said content?
Or maybe all US websites should be subjected to Iranian, Saudi Arabian, or
Russian laws; with these nations requesting extraditions to stand trial.
------
Selfcommit
Perhaps i'd read the article.. if it wasn't behind a paywall.
~~~
veb
Not sure why it is being up voted either, if it's sitting behind registration.
~~~
posabsolute
I get the feeling that hacker news is getting targeted a lot more these days
by big publishing companies,
often an article will sit on top without any comments
~~~
corin_
I'm sure most, if not all, readers here often upvote interesting articles
without having anything interesting to say about them, it seems natural to me
that sometimes this is the case for many people on the same submission and
therefore they all upvote without commenting.
------
bytephilia
"Mega offers a free service of 50 megabytes of storage "
How generous!
~~~
jgeralnik
Yeah. That's supposed to be giga.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Men's fashion/style/grooming advice for software engineers? - Fr0styMatt88
In the areas of fashion and style I'm.... your somewhat typical (?) software engineer -- I think I might know some of the basics but don't really give it much thought.<p>I'm looking to change that and I'm keen to hear if there's any good fashion advice / guides geared towards us engineer-brain types? Ideally something starting right from the beginning / first principles.<p>What online resources have you all found useful?
======
GW150914
This may sound daft because it’s overwhelmingly focused on women’s fashion,
but the basics are universal; watch some episodes of the American version of
What Not To Wear. Concepts such as quality, matching and “going together” and
the role of color are all presented in a way that works for either sex. Plus
it’s sort of entertaining which makes the learning process memorable and less
painful.
A couple of common pitfalls to avoid are wearing baggy clothing that doesn’t
fit, going monochromatic because hey black and black match, right? I’d also
recommend, basic as it may be, cleanliness and quality being paramount.
Something a little boring or a bit outlandish is forgivable in most cases if
it’s not cheap, dirty. To start off find some basic, well fitted clothes and
don’t worry about lots of color and styles, but focus on one or two accent
pieces to add a personal touch.
Shave. If you have a beard or mustache, keep it well trimmed and be honest
with yourself if it looks healthy or sort of weedy. If the latter, lose it.
Keep your hair properly cut, stay clean, and try to find a fragrance that
works with your body, and then use it sparingly! Wear comfortable shoes, but
make sure they’re clean, and in good shape. Get some decent socks and make
sure they match your shoes. Invest in a suit, preferably tailored, and a
couple of nice silk ties, and learn how to tie them. Even if you don’t wear it
often, it’s good to have in the bag. Have at least one truly nice pair of
leather shoes, keep them in good shape.
Above all, start looking at people and thinking about how what they’re wearing
and how they’re presenting themselves makes you feel about them. I’m not
talking about being judgmental, just aware.
------
DoreenMichele
You want a good haircut and good grooming. If you know a fashionable friend,
ask if they would be willing to let you tag along when they shop or if they
would be willing to go shopping with you. Fashionable people are often
socially oriented. They may enjoy the company and you may learn a lot.
Quality: Most high quality clothing is made of natural fibers, like cotton,
silk, linen, wool or leather. Learn what those feel like and skip all the
polyester crap.
Cotton-poly blends are wrinkle resistant and hold color better than 100
percent cotton. So 80-20 blends can be practical and sometimes are decent
quality. But 100 percent polyester is usually terrible stuff.
Nylon is an exception to that general rule. Some, for example, nylon
windbreakers are good.
When I met my ex, he looked like something out of _Revenge of the Nerds_. I
got him a decent haircut and took him clothes shopping because it bothered him
and causer him social problems. I don't think he ever read fashion advice, but
by the time we divorced, he had developed an eye for what worked for him. My
eye was better than his, but he was no longer trapped in _Revenge of the
Nerds_ -land. My sons also have developed an eye for decent clothes, though
either actually cares about fashion. They were just raised by me.
Best.
------
narak
A great starting point for me was reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice (and the
associated wiki)
Some advice: focus, above all, on fit. Learn what each of the basic garments
should fit like for your body type. Even the most basic budget wardrobe
tailored to fit well will look great compared to expensive but unfitting
clothes. Then focus on fabric quality, color combinations, and experimenting
with your own styles (pinterest is great for exploring this).
Good luck!
~~~
archagon
+1, mfa is a good reference. Also, be aware that this process will take a
while. Try on lots of clothes. Eventually, you’ll find a perfect item of
clothing that will make picking out others a lot easier. Take photos and
videos of yourself, especially from the sides and back. Watch people around
you and if you think they look good, write down what they’re wearing. And
although I hate to say it: sometimes looking good means being a little less
comfortable. For example, sneakers will always be more cozy and versatile than
classic leather shoes. (I get around this by wearing Eccos, which come close
enough.)
------
abledon
Never ever use axe body spray if pair programming in same room, or any heavy
cologne for that matter
------
darrelld
First off it will take you a while to change your wardrobe. Don't rush out to
try and fix it by buying all new stuff in a weekend. This never ends well.
Think of dressing well more as a journey rather than something you can just
change immediately.
First some links of places that helped me out: reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice
[https://www.youtube.com/user/RealMenRealStyle](https://www.youtube.com/user/RealMenRealStyle)
[https://www.youtube.com/user/AlphaMconsulting](https://www.youtube.com/user/AlphaMconsulting)
[https://www.youtube.com/user/Teachingmensfashion](https://www.youtube.com/user/Teachingmensfashion)
(Note: The youtubers will keep trying to sell you stuff in their ads, some of
it is good, some of it is trash. Probably best to just ignore the advertising
while you're starting out.)
The /r/malefashionadvice subreddit has a good wiki. Check out the links for
beginners and people getting started. Also look through their WAYWT
threads(What Are You Wearing Today) to get an idea of what looks good on
others. It's easier to copy what others are getting right. For example see a
guy that looks your age and size and you like what he's wearing? Copy it.
The youtube channels have a lot of good information especially real men real
style. Check out the videos that are relevant to you.
Overall the biggest thing you can do to immediately dress better is to wear
clothes that fit. So focus on understanding what a properly fitted pair of
pants, t-shirt, polo, and dress shirt and suit should look like on you. Get
your measurements so you know what your sizes are, and make friends with a
good tailor.
After you nail the fit, everything else is really extra credit IMO.
------
awaywopassd
Also depends on look you are going for. And it is better to match your look
with your personality.
Personally, when first I started making real money, I bought a lot GQ style
clothing. But my personality was not as smooth. Maybe other people noticed,
maybe not but I felt conflicted internally. Perhaps if I wore GQ style
clothing longer, I would have gotten used to it.
The book that helped me most with my style/clothing was "The Life-Changing
Magic of Tidying Up." The basic idea was to get rid of everything that doesn't
make you feel great. This led me to try all my clothes and get rid of all my
clothes that didn't make me feel great.
Now I am not fashionable guy but feel I wear clothes that line up with my
personality better. Mostly, outdoorsy/sporty style.
------
Star86
I'm an Image Consultant/Fashion Stylist based out of San Francisco and a lot
of my clients are Software Engineers. I realized a lot of my clients had the
same questions, so I launched a site to give practical style advice to men. I
hope it can help you!
[http://www.pocketstylist.io/](http://www.pocketstylist.io/)
If you're still overwhelmed, consider hiring a stylist and we'll do the work
for you :)
------
sh87
Clean clothes that fit well. This is non-negotiable and surprisingly
overlooked.
Also, last year, I bought (discounted) brown/tan leather shoes that fit my
feet perfectly. I feel that was a good move. Was my wife's idea to get it
though :)
------
tmaly
I think the book The Game by Neil Strauss actually hit the nail on the head in
regards to this topic. He imparts how your external appearance is part of the
whole process.
------
Fr0styMatt88
Thanks everyone for the great advice, it's really helpful. I'll definitely be
checking out these resources.
------
dylanhassinger
You might like this blog -
[https://www.realmenrealstyle.com/](https://www.realmenrealstyle.com/)
~~~
sh87
Nope.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Easy Webserver for Node.js, Python, PHP, with Free SSL - kasra85
https://github.com/githubsaturn/captainduckduck/blob/master/README.md
======
joepie91_
I'm surprised that Caddy
([https://caddyserver.com/](https://caddyserver.com/)) hasn't been mentioned
yet. While I'm not entirely happy with the business direction it's been moving
in, it's arguably much easier to use than nginx, doesn't require a container,
and also automatically sets up TLS ("SSL") out of the box.
It doesn't provide a panel, but arguably once you reach a scale where you want
to run >1 instances, you're probably going to want to go beyond a default
configuration anyway, and use some configuration that's more tailored towards
your usecase.
As a point of criticism towards this project in particular: the README makes
it sound like it'll magically scale up your application, but it makes
absolutely no mention of how to handle state (eg. your database) in that
scenario. Spawning new instances (which this project does) is the _easy_ part
of scaling, the difficult part is state management and it doesn't address that
at all.
As a completely unrelated piece of advice, just because this is mentioned in
the README: _do not_ under any circumstances make use of domain registration
deals that drop the price for a common TLD like .com below $7 or so. There's a
certain fee that the registrar has to pay to the TLD registry per domain, and
if the registrar is charging you less than that, that means they're getting
the money from somewhere else - often through hidden upsells, exorbitant
renewal fees, convoluted transfer systems that try to lock you in, or other
customer-hostile schemes.
~~~
kasra85
Thanks for your detailed review.
Caddy is a server which is equivalent of nginx part in Captain. It's orange
and apple. Arguably, I can replace the nginx part with Caddy. But captain has
more to offer, like building pipeline and scaling.
Great point about customization! I'll add more hooks in the future to account
for non-standard nginx configurations.
Finally, Captain doesn't support persistent data, i.e. database. Therefore,
scaling up apps is much easier. But my plan is to support this in the future.
PS: Thanks for the heads up about the domain deals. I might have got scammed
badly then :/
~~~
joepie91_
> Caddy is a server which is equivalent of nginx part in Captain. It's orange
> and apple. Arguably, I can replace the nginx part with Caddy. But captain
> has more to offer, like building pipeline and scaling.
The problem is that these aren't generalizable problems. Scaling requirements
are going to vary depending on the project, also because of the state
management issue I mentioned. This, in turn, means that the only projects you
can scale with an out-of-the-box approach like this, are those that don't
_need_ to scale (horizontally) in the first place. You therefore get little to
no added real-world value from these 'scaling' features.
I should point out that this isn't a problem just with your project; I've
noticed a general tendency around Hacker News circles to overengineer for
'scaling' (which usually refers specifically to _horizontal_ scaling), trying
to invent magic scaling solutions that work for everybody (which don't exist),
and completely ignoring that distributed systems are _hard_ and you usually
want to scale vertically first.
This problem is compounded by the fact that most applications don't actually
_need_ to scale horizontally, since they never get big enough to require it.
This means that reviews of such 'magical scaling' tools are almost universally
positive, because everybody is reviewing them based on the claimed benefits,
not based on real-world experience with scaling requirements. This results in
a feedback loop of recommendations for completely ineffective scaling
strategies by people who never actually needed them.
> Great point about customization! I'll add more hooks in the future to
> account for non-standard nginx configurations.
While this would seem to improve the project when viewed in isolation, it's
important to realize that you're very likely to fall into the trap of non-
generalizable problems.
A lot of monolithic frameworks actually have this issue; they try to provide
generic implementations for problems that just aren't generalizable (because
they vary too much by project, such as "content management"), and in the
process they end up providing hundreds or thousands of different configuration
options and hooks... to a point of complexity where it would've been easier
and more reliable to just not use the framework at all. A typical example of
this are general-purpose CMSes, which are almost inevitably unreliable, messy
and insecure.
There's a serious risk of that happening here as well, if you start adding
support for more customized setups; at some point, you're going to reach the
stage where the complexity of your configuration options _exceeds_ that of the
tools you're using behind the scenes (nginx, Docker, etc.). I suppose that'd
be a form of the inner-platform effect, too.
I don't mean to discourage you here, but your current approach is very likely
to result in something that tries to do a lot of things and none of them
particularly well; not because you're implementing it wrong, but because this
particular set of features just isn't generalizable as such. You'd probably
get better results by providing a _collection_ of tools (and documentation!)
for different tasks, that 1) can be used independently, and 2) don't require
full control over the infrastructure configuration.
> Finally, Captain doesn't support persistent data, i.e. database. Therefore,
> scaling up apps is much easier.
I don't agree that "scaling up apps is much easier" \- state isn't something
that's optional, pretty much any real-world project (especially those that
have to scale beyond one instance!) _has_ to persist state of some sort.
There's only the choice of whether the tooling supports it, or doesn't. I'd
consider it dangerous to present something as magically scalable without
addressing this issue; it's bound to result in people having state consistency
issues.
------
photonios
I like the idea. It’s great that it makes deploying small side projects
easier. However, I am very wary of the fact that it seems to use a Node based
HTTP server. Wouldn’t it be far more performant and secure to build this kind
of tooling on a wide spread HTTP server such as Nginx or Apache?
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have anything against Node. Hell, I use it on a
daily basis. But I wouldn’t run a Node based server and expose it to the
internet. That’s a bit too high risk for me.
~~~
kasra85
It's using nginx for routing :) nodejs is just an API to populate nginx
configuration, creating new apps and other admin operations. When a request
comes in for your app, the nodejs part is completely out of the equation. You
can potentially kill the nodejs part and your cluster still work. You just
won't be able to deploy apps, and make modifications. \----- Good point
though! I never thought it will be preceived that way.
~~~
photonios
My apologies, I didn’t look closely enough to figure that out. Forgive my
ignorance :-)
Well done then!
------
joosters
Why doesn't the installation prompt you to set up a password? Firing up a
server with a default password has been a really bad choice for over a
decade...
~~~
kasra85
Ah. Forgot to add it to docs. Thanks for reminding. I'll add it :)
------
waytogo
Wondering how this container with the included Letsencrypt will update the SSL
cert after three months when deployed on multiple machines (which is a tricky
task).
~~~
kasra85
Great question! Nginx, Let's Encrypt and Captain always sit on the leader node
:)
~~~
waytogo
1\. I don't use Nginx on my Docker clusters because Docker Swarm does the load
balancing already and I use bare Node containers without any Nginx. Reduces
complexity and I can do all my low-level server config in Node as well and as
good. Caching is done through CloudFlare or similar anyways.
2\. Even with Nginx, you would have two different Docker containers (one with
Nginx and one without).
3\. And even if I had different container files: For a ideal cluster you need
min. 3 managers (and in a perfect world another external load balancer before
them or just a DNS with multiple A records to all managers (in case one
manager drops)). Then, even if they run Nginx you need to sync the Letsencrypt
stuff somehow.
Regarding the Letsencrypt (LE) and Certbot SSL renewal and why it's not
simple: LE makes a know-well request to check your credentials every three
months and because every node could and should be able to answer this request
you have to make sure that all nodes have the same knowledge (either through
secrets or through filesync or the underlying host OS of the front-facing
server takes care of this).
------
antihero
Honestly the writing style of the readme really doesn't inspire confidence,
and "easy" seems like a really bad metric to measure how good something that
should be performant, reliable and secure.
~~~
brianzelip
As someone with limited dev experience, I actually appreciated the writing
style. Especially the inclusion of meta support in the Need More Help
section[0].
[0]
[https://github.com/githubsaturn/captainduckduck/blob/master/...](https://github.com/githubsaturn/captainduckduck/blob/master/README.md#need-
more-help)
~~~
kasra85
This was actually the very sole purpose of this project. There are numerous
similar products out there. Oh god, it took me hours and maybe days to learn
them. So I made Captain for people how do not need super advance configs, to
be able to deploy apps easily.
I am so glad that someone actually found it useful :)
------
kasra85
Moved to Show HN: I opened sourced the platform that I made to serve my
personal side projects. It's basically an open source version of Heroku.
Similar to Dokku, except it comes with Free SSL certificate support, clusing
support, web interface and etc. Let me know what you think :)
~~~
vittore
So more like flynn and deis?
------
skrebbel
I didn't dive deep, but I like how this is _some_ batteries included, and is
tailored to web apps and nothing else.
It makes me think of how webpack won the builder/packer battle against gulp
and grunt by assuming you're building a _web_ app, and want typical web stuff.
Just like you _could_ use gulp to build a C++ app but nearly everybody uses it
for the web, you _could_ use Docker for hosting an IRC server but nearly
everybody uses it for the web.
~~~
joepie91_
> It makes me think of how webpack won the builder/packer battle against gulp
> and grunt by assuming you're building a web app, and want typical web stuff.
But... it didn't. Webpack and Gulp/Grunt aren't even the same _category_ of
tool; on a real-world project, you're exceedingly likely to use a build runner
like Gulp/Grunt _with_ Webpack (or Browserify).
Webpack is fundamentally a module bundler for non-CommonJS environments; it's
not a general-purpose build tool, and isn't really suitable for glueing
together any tools that don't directly relate to your browser-targeted bundle.
In some projects that's all you need, but that doesn't mean it has somehow
"won" from generic build tools - it just tries to solve a different problem.
~~~
skrebbel
Using gulp with webpack means you can't use webpack incremental builds. Why
would anyone want that?
~~~
joepie91_
Why can't you? Gulp would typically only be responsible for _starting_ the
Webpack task (in watch mode), not for re-running it on every input change.
------
superasn
After seeing the whole video I can see a lot of effort has been put into
creating this. Great work, very useful for web development.
~~~
kasra85
Thanks a lot :)
------
ignorantmonitor
I almost missed the part about it being GUI because I rarely play youtube
videos. I did not expect it being a GUI tool! Nice!
A small suggestion - maybe show a GIF with a few screens from the app instead
of a video? So that when someone opens the repo he gets a little preview of
whats inside?
~~~
kasra85
This is a great suggestion! Thanks!
------
turtlebits
Not a fan of so much GUI interaction, but very nice.
If you want to the slightly harder way (with less moving pieces), I highly
recommend docker-compose + traefik (does the LE and proxying and subdomain)
and a learning how to create a simple dockerfile either of the languages.
------
arkkh
Great job, looks cool!
How does it compare with UCP ?
[https://docs.docker.com/datacenter/ucp/2.2/guides/](https://docs.docker.com/datacenter/ucp/2.2/guides/)
~~~
kasra85
Thanks a lot :)
Captain to UCP is like a Honda Civic to a Ferrari :P Surely I would use UCP
for an Enterprise grade if i have the money for learning investment,
management and all the "enterprisy" cost that comes with it. Captain is
written by a one bored guy on weekends in 3 months. UCP is written by a solid
Enterprise.
~~~
arkkh
I see! I would also add that UCP isn't OSS (one of the only commercial
products of Docker).
------
stephenr
Edit: turns out it's just a little harder to find.
Original text: I'm not the target market at all, but it's hard to trust a
project that relies on Docker but doesn't have the Docker configuration in the
repo.
~~~
kasra85
If by Docker configuration, you mean dockerfile, it's here:
[https://github.com/githubsaturn/captainduckduck/blob/master/...](https://github.com/githubsaturn/captainduckduck/blob/master/app-
backend/dockerfile-captain.release)
------
z3ugma
This is great - you write with accessible and encouraging language. I noticed
a lot of typos in the demo app and in the README - you would be well-served
getting a proofreader to polish it up.
------
ReverseCold
I've used something similar before, gave up on it. I just use Nginx manually
now, so much more room for customization, plus I know where everything is
because I set it up.
------
vincelt
This seems great, will definitely give it a shot. One question: what about
databases ? Can it handle that part too or do I have to manually set them up ?
~~~
kasra85
No :( It doesn't support persistent data yet. My plan is to add that support
in future if people need it.
------
tmikaeld
I love the effort here, I didn't expect the Web GUI here and it really saves a
ton of time to quickly setup a test environment!
Will you also add a database?
~~~
kasra85
Database, in general persistent data, is much trickier to add as container for
production purposes. I'll add some experimental features soon to support
databases at least for testing.
------
52-6F-62
I think everybody else has tackled it well so far -- so before I dive in for a
better look:
Great job on the name!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Level the College Playing Field - adenadel
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/07/opinion/sunday/harold-levy-college.html
======
80386
Maybe we shouldn't keep the college system around in its current form at all.
In Iran, there's something called the Guardian Council. If you want to run for
an election, the Guardian Council has to approve you first. If they don't
approve you, you can't run.
We don't have that in America, and that's generally considered a good thing.
What we do have is an emphasis on credentials -- and the opportunity to get
these credentials is gatekept by admissions officers.
For example, look at the Supreme Court. Every current justice went to either
Harvard or Yale -- mostly Harvard. The last one not to attend either was
O'Connor. So, in practice, we have a guardian council here in America, which
determines, among (many) other things, who can get on the Supreme Court.
There's also the issue that not everyone understands the college game -- not
just admissions, but the importance of going to a brand-name college in the
first place. There are still a lot of parents and counselors and so on out
there who think the only thing that matters is getting the degree, no matter
where it's from. So if you don't come from a background where people know the
game, you're screwed for life, unless you can become a successful
entrepreneur.
~~~
logfromblammo
To be more precise, the name of the institution on the degree matters for only
a handful of universities. If you don't have one of those names, it doesn't
matter which name you have.
If the kid isn't getting in to one of the prestige-brand schools, the parents
and counselors are correct--many of the public universities and lesser-known
private colleges are essentially the same. But there is also a third tier,
composed mostly of community colleges, correspondence schools, and for-profit
"nationally accredited" colleges. That credential might not be enough to pass
by all gatekeepers.
Different universities occupy the top tier for different industries. For
instance, in software, MIT counts, but in politics, it doesn't.
It's not really the quality of the institution, but the strength of the brand,
and the nepotism by alumni. And it's the people you met that can pry open an
opportunity for you later. We don't live in a meritocracy. You still have to
know someone who knows someone.
------
brohoolio
Definitely an interesting piece.
While college has the potential to be a great equalizer, society needs to
focus on the school system before kids reach college.
Teachers walked out in three states because they are so underpaid. Teacher
have second or third jobs.
You want everyone to have an equal footing? Let’s adequately fund our
education from k-12. And while we are at it let’s have some universal pre-k.
If we do both, we can have a more merit based society. If we just focus on
colleges, it won’t solve root cause.
~~~
njarboe
If the traits that produce a person of high "merit" are 50% due to genetics
and another 25% to environment from conception to age 3 (as most studies
suggest), how to you plan on solving the "root cause" of the problem? In the
US at least, people a more and more mating with their peers in IQ,
conscientiousness, and culture. With the huge variation in human traits, a
meritocracy is going to see massive inequality especially over generations.
Careful what you wish for.
~~~
konceptz
Do you have a source for these statistics?
You put merit in quotes and then stated percentages plus the claim that there
is a growth in similar IQ partnering.
~~~
iguy
50% genetic + 50% "unshared environment" is the rule of thumb for any complex
trait, I assume that's what GP had in mind.
Unshared env is a polite way of saying noise; approximately 0% "shared env"
i.e. parenting, education, etc. (There are many caveats, obviously.)
You could do worse than
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Estimates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Estimates)
as a place to start.
------
akhilcacharya
I think there are good points here - but the fact remains that it is
impossible to send every "qualified" candidate to a top school. What can we do
to make _not_ going to a top school less disadvantageous?
~~~
eli_gottlieb
Make the top schools open up more seats, be they public or private.
~~~
bilbo0s
That's not a pragmatic solution though. Where will the top schools find more
"top" professors to teach and mentor all those new students? There are some
legitimate logistical realities that constrict the size of top schools. I'm
not sure they can be made any larger without compromising educational quality.
~~~
eli_gottlieb
>Where will the top schools find more "top" professors to teach and mentor all
those new students?
A shortage of smart, ambitious PhDs seeking policy positions is, fortunately,
_not_ a problem our society has. Quite the contrary.
~~~
bilbo0s
But a shortage of ACCOMPLISHED PhD's seeking policy positions, IS,
unfortunately, a problem our society has.
You're dealing with a situation where the PhD, in and of itself, is not really
much of an accomplishment.
~~~
eli_gottlieb
I think it's kinda bullshit to claim that most PhDs are bullshit.
~~~
bilbo0s
Not what I said.
What I said was that when one is in the situation of selecting a professor to
be hired at an Ivy, the PhD in and of itself, is not really an accomplishment.
It's more akin to an "entrance fee".
------
spodek
1) Say there is an absolute measure or at least good enough to base a
meritocracy on. If top schools are diverging from it, are they not then
rejecting top students? Shouldn't other colleges then be able to recruit those
rejected top students and become top schools? But the opposite is happening --
top schools are becoming more exclusive.
2) If diversity means different values, then doesn't that mean different
people will value different attributes? Doesn't that mean everyone deserves to
go to a top school, or at least everyone who thinks he or she is great by his
or her values?
Point 2 suggests that a meritocracy is impossible because there are too many
dimensions and measures, all the more so the more you value diversity.
I'm not promoting the above. It's just what came to mind reading the article.
I'm not sure what it missed because it doesn't sit right, but it suggests
whatever top schools are doing is working and that a meritocracy isn't as
tenable as you'd think.
------
drewg123
"This may seem counterintuitive, but please stop giving to your alma mater.
Donors to top universities...."
Wow, I guess this assumes that the NYT's readership all went to "top
universities".
I happen to donate heavily to my alma mater, which is a no-name state school.
I donate to their honors college, which offers academic merit scholarships.
This program is what allowed me graduate debt free. On the other hand, I don't
even answer the phone when my (private, elite) graduate school asks for money.
------
ianai
I feel like there is way too much heterogeneity in education. One bad Apple
teacher/professor will ruin significant portions of a generation. At th
college level, I’ve seen people lose scholarships because some professor had
an axe to grind - just for the sake of being mean.
Then things like the SATs and GRE compound the problem. Little human knowledge
accurately boils down to true/false, multiple choice, or robot graded
literature. I also used to hear tales of foreign students memorizing whole
books of solutions and essay examples. I competed with them while still doing
homework and taking tests - no rime for memorizing at any required scale.
------
wallace_f
Access to top-tier education _and_ credentials simply needs to be a
competitive effort open to every person on the planet, not held hostage and
available via a selection process which has socioeconomic biases.
~~~
sokoloff
What is the competitive process that you envision that has no socioeconomic
biases?
(I agree with you in an idealistic way, but I see millions of micro and dozens
of macro problems with trying to implement it.)
~~~
wallace_f
The work of people more gifted would be useful, as I doubt my first guess
attempt would be the most ideal solution. But what I imagine would be ideal
would be competition among solutions themselves, as well as more realistic
competition among education providers.
------
wallflower
Legacy admissions probably tip the scale in close calls.
I applied to my mother's alma mater which is a top 10 ranking University. I
had nowhere near the GPA needed and they wrote back with a nice form rejection
letter that says that they had given special consideration as the child of an
alumni and regret not being able to offer an invitation to next year's class.
Then I've heard stories of parents donating $2M to get their legacy (child) in
to an Ivy League with below average grades.
~~~
pluto9
> Then I've heard stories of parents donating $2M to get their legacy (child)
> in to an Ivy League with below average grades.
I had a friend who got into Notre Dame that way. His wealthy alumni
grandfather took him and the dean out to dinner one night and slid a generous
"donation" check across the table. Guy had something like a 1.8 GPA from high
school. He got in.
------
RickJWagner
Some nice ideas from a montivated individual.
I hope MOOCs can play a part, too. They seem to hold hope for large-scale
change in the outdated college system.
------
RickJWagner
Nice ideas, from a person with their heart in the right place.
I like the 'microcolleges' idea, I hope this and MOOCs can help solve this
problem.
------
mettamage
If I was an American,I'd go to uni in Sweden, Norway or Germany. International
+ free/cheap education.
~~~
Naritai
But that ignores a key underlying tenet of this discussion - that what school
you graduate from is a major factor in your employability in the upper
echelons of American society. If you want to get a top job in DC or Manhattan,
you'd better graduate from a school that's on the interviewers' very short
list of 'good' schools.
~~~
brewdad
If my HS age son decides to go to college in Europe, I fully expect he'll do
so with the goal of remaining there to work after graduation. If current
trends in the US continue, I would strongly encourage it.
~~~
Naritai
Alright, but that's an entirely different topic. Save that one for the
emigration-from-US thread.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: MBP user making new job win/pc switch - throwaway128399
I recently joined a large company in a senior tech role. I was given an HP zbook/dock/monitor. I've been a Macbook Pro user for over 12 years.<p>I have a 2000 char limit here so wont expand, but imagine docker, WSL, freezing constantly, etc. Form-factor/keyboard/no-trackpad is also a huge problem for me. I feel like a beginner: key combos, finger placement, reaching for the mouse, etc. I know I'd be tearing through learning this new codebase on my mac.<p>They know I want a MBP (pre-touchbar, luckily still sold), and they are genuinely making an effort to get one, but it sounds like it could be a while and won't be an easy battle for them. 100% MS shop. For anyone wondering how I didn't know this going in - I had a feeling it leaned heavily MS, but was caught off guard that Apple wasn't even an option. Plus there were other factors that made this interesting so it wasn't at the top of my checklist. That part hasn't changed - I want things to work out well, I like the people, the project, the company, etc.<p>A part of me actually likes what MS has been doing lately and hates what Apple has done. For example, I tried to buy the MBP w/ Touch Bar when it came out and that only lasted a week until I returned it: Hated the Touch Bar (I need a real esc), hated the keyboard (especially the arrow keys with a full-size left/right), hated the monster trackpad that my palms rest on and hit all the time. So my problem is deep... I'm basically stuck with my Late-2013 MBP, but how long can that last? So I'm <i>open</i>, just scared out my mind and want to settle on something I can eventually feel as at-home with long-term.<p>I'm looking for any relevant advice, particularly related to 1) approach with management, 2) closest/comparable feeling laptop models I should explore that might give me what I'm after (hp is easiest for them), or 3) general advice about my own personal problem of being so attached to one specific model.
======
japhyr
I've bounced between mac, windows, and linux throughout my life. Each has been
good for a time, and becoming familiar with each has helped me understand the
others better. I recently started using a mac again for the first time in
years, and I found myself completely unproductive.
I have found it humbling. I don't ever want to be stuck in one technology
stack, so when there's a good reason to, I like to dig into something new.
It's definitely a productivity hit to learn a new OS, but it's also an
opportunity to not grow stale.
I have approached learning macOS by making a list of the things I can do
efficiently on windows/mac, and making myself learn how to do that on macOS:
\- set up workspaces
\- place and switch windows
\- learn the file system, and how it's displayed in guis
\- etc.
These days, there's a lot you can do on windows to make it more like a mac/
linux machine, particularly at the command line. But I also enjoy learning
windows cli commands.
It might be worth the time to become comfortable on windows, rather than
always being the one person on macOS in your company. I imagine that will end
up causing more frustration in the long run than the initial period of getting
used to a new OS.
------
EnderMB
I've made the opposite jump to you. I recently switched stacks and moved to a
company that almost exclusively uses MBP's and OSX. To make matters worse, my
first time using a Mac in anger was my first day on the job.
A few months later, and I'm fine with Macs. I'd prefer a Linux box, but I'm
productive enough to not stand out, and I'm comfortable enough with some of
the shortcuts to not feel stupid.
My advice to you is to stick with Windows, and to use it as a learning
experience. Once you've got the standard tools set up, and feel productive in
WSL, Cmder and similar recommended tools you'll probably wonder why you were
so worried in the first place. You'll lose all the tools you knew and loved,
but you'll pick up new ones.
On the hardware front, I'm a very happy Surface Book user and if budget is no
concern I'd recommend that. In terms of form and power it's the closest in
quality I've found to a MBP.
~~~
throwaway128399
I had a feeling the Surface Book might be comfortable for me, looking at
images of the keyboard/trackpad layout. I'll see how open they are to this vs
their normal hp route. They just suggested an elitebook x360, which also looks
nice. I'd have to lose an inch or 2 of screen, but unfortunately it looks like
most everything is moving that way.
------
leejoramo
I am in a similar situation for the last four months. I have no choice in
evening asking for a Mac, and am working on a high end Dell workstation.
I have used computers for over 30 years and most of the last 20 have been
primarily with Mac desktops and Linux servers. My Windows experience has
mostly been to run single apps and some servers.
Fortunately. I have been allowed almost complete free range to install
software on my Windows system.
Windows lack of efficient keyboard Control has frustrated me the most. Some of
this is learning a new system, but some is flaws in Windows.
I have used the following to make my experience better:
1\. Listary
This is the closest replacement I have found for LaunchBar. (Or whatever your
preferred cmd-space tool: Spotlight, QuickSilver, Alfred)
[http://www.listary.com](http://www.listary.com)
2\. AutoHotKey & FastKeys
This replaces Keyboard Maestro. FastKeys is mostly a polished front end for
AHK, but I do use both independently. I use this for MANY things, but the
biggest is to remap the cursor keys to be Mac-like. (I know this is a VERY
personal preference, but I love the Mac cursor key-bindings, and hate the
separate Home, End, PgUp, PgDn keys on Windows)
[http://www.listary.com](http://www.listary.com)
[https://www.fastkeysautomation.com](https://www.fastkeysautomation.com)
3\. AquaSnap
I use Moom on the Mac, AquaSnap actually out does any utility on macOS.
[https://www.nurgo-software.com/products/aquasnap](https://www.nurgo-
software.com/products/aquasnap)
4\. Cmdr
For terminal, I have found cmdr to be the best.
[http://cmder.net](http://cmder.net)
Also, Microsofts new Linux layer is pretty good, and you can get an nice local
shell and unix tools.
GRIPES
My biggest gripe with Windows is the lack of a good way to switch windows and
apps via the keyboard. On the Mac I use cmd-space to LAUNCH __OR __SWITCH to
an app, and cmd-` to switch the windows of an app. I have found nothing to
replace the elegance of this functionality. The closest that I have come is a
combination of using Listary and Switcheroo.
[http://www.switcheroo.io](http://www.switcheroo.io)
Finally, I am a bit appalled at the Windows small utility software that is
available. I always thought that being on macOS I was limited in the
availability of software options. I now strongly feel that macOS has more
quality options in most areas. The Windows software is hard to find, hard to
determine the Trustworthiness of the developer, and I am struggling to find
great Windows power user blogs. (Why does so much Windows software have
websites that look like 2003 and still use SourceForge!?)
I have found that the best way to find software for Windows is:
[https://alternativeto.net](https://alternativeto.net)
Hope this helps
------
rajacombinator
Senior tech role ... didn’t know they were MS shop ... deal with it?
------
franzwong
How about install VirtualBox and use Linux OS?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Kubectl Life Saver - lingsamuel
https://gist.github.com/lingsamuel/302413294fd015dfc2ee2498c079b275
======
celticninja
I find that kubens is useful to avoid needing to state the namespace for each
command. Everything else seems like an alias could easily work instead and
give you more options.
------
lingsamuel
A simple script generates useful kubectl aliases, and a simple interactive
kubectl command builder using peco.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why is it so difficult to write valid “tar” commands from memory? - FreakyT
https://www.dantilden.com/2015/03/24/tar-command/
======
LukeShu
A couple of nits:
\- TFA says that `ln` is "used to create symbolic links, among other things";
I'd drop "symbolic"\--that is needlessly restricting what it does. It just
creates filesystem links; hard or soft.
\- TFA says, "tar is actually short for TApe aRchive". The "a" should belong
to "archive" ("Tape ARchive"); this is because of it's relation to the older
`ar` ("ARchive") command.[^1]
\- TFA says, "the filename is actually part of the f flag, and therefore must
directly follow it." That's actually not the case for the "dash-less" form of
tar invocation; all of the flags go in one string, and then the arguments
follow in the same order, rather than right after the associated flag. For
example, if I wanted to specify both the "f" and "C" flags, it (c|w)ould be
something like `tar cfC argument-to-f argument-to-C`. That said, modern tars
also support `tar -c -f argument-to-f -C argument-to-C`.
As TFA says, this isn't inherently wrong, it's just different than everything
else (I know of no other command that uses that flag syntax[^2]). Understand
that it predates the standard convention that everything else follows.
[^1]: Today ar is pretty much only used for creating .a files containing
library objects for static linking. It may be noteworthy that the argument
order of ar is ALSO "archive-name members..." despite archive-name NOT being
an argument to an "-f"-like flag.
[^2]: Actually, come to think of it, `ps` might take that syntax, depending on
your system.
~~~
Domenic_S
I don't like ln as an example of sanity.
$ ln
usage: ln [-Ffhinsv] source_file [target_file]
ln [-Ffhinsv] source_file ... target_dir
"Source = from", "target = to" is how I interpret that. Then if you look at
some existing link, you'll see it as:
my_link --> real_directory
In the direction of the arrow: from, to. But to create that link, the command
would really be
$ ln real_directory my_link
The link target/real path is the source and the link to create is the target.
My brain thinks it breaks the idiom of `[cmd] [from] [to]` that cp, mv, etc
use. You wouldn't say the example above is a link from real_dir to my_link,
you'd say the opposite (and that's what the cli shows when you ls a link).
~~~
LukeShu
I agree that ln is a little confusing. I've often explained it to people that
it's the same order as if you were copying the file, but it creates a link
instead.
Also, in sections 1 and 8 (shell), data typically flows from left-to-right
across the line. The filename on the left flows into the link on the right.
Data flows from the left of the pipe to the right.
Whereas in section 3 (C), data typically flows from right-to-left across the
line. Variable assignment, memcpy, ...
There are of course exceptions (dup2, bcopy), but that's the general style for
the order of arguments in *nix.
------
soneil
I think it gets easier once you internalize that your destination filename is
actually an option to -f. it's not tar czf (filename) (list of files). it's
tar cz(f filename) list of files.
Ironically, I think it'd actually be more intuitive if we used the options
fully; tar -c -f filename -z (list of files). But we end up memorizing
shorthand before we know what it means, rather than after.
------
zcdziura
99 times out of 100, I'm extracting a gzip'd tarball. Thus, I've muscle-
memorized "tar xzf file.tar.gz". What helped me do that was a little mnemonic
that my friend told me: eXtract Zee File.
~~~
rascul
GNU tar can figure out how to decompress it on its own. Just xf will do.
------
informatimago
This is riduculous. There's no difficulty writing tar commands. Just RTFM: man
tar; I've written tar commands for 30 years: on day 0 I read the manual page,
and since day 1 I've been writing tar commands without any problem.
(Same with find: first time a friend hacker dictated me a find command, next
step I read the manual and since then I've been a happy find user).
The secret of unix diffusion has been its man pages, full documentation of
your local unix system, specific and always available on-line (even when the
network is disconnected).
Nowdays, with google or stackoverflow, you have the big problem that the
documentation you get doesn't necessarily (probably never) match your specific
installation, when you search for documentation, and that you get more fishes
than fishing lessons.
------
facepalm
Why do I need flags to begin with? tar and untar would have worked fine.
~~~
cstoner
Because originally tar only dealt with tape archives. So the default behavior
was (and still is [EDIT: correction, apparently a lot of GNU tar distributions
have defaulted to using -f- which sends things to stdout. That is not how tar
originally functioned]) to send the results to /dev/st
tar was later changed to read/extract(-x) and write/create(-c) from files(-f).
And was also modified to handle gzip(-z) and bzip2(-j) compression.
Essentially, the problem comes down to having to support all of the old
scripts that depend on default tar behavior, even though people rarely write
to tape drives with it any more.
------
dalke
If the thesis were correct then 'zip', which has the arguments in the same
order as tar, would also have the same issues.
For example, to add/update an entry in a zip file, do:
zip test.zip test/test.txt
I have not heard of the zip command-line as being more or equally frustrating
than tar, so I do not believe this thesis is correct.
~~~
FreakyT
That's a good point, though I feel like that may just arise from 'zip' being
the less commonly encountered of the two utilities.
~~~
dalke
I am unable to compare the number of Windows-based developers, who often use
zip as an archive format, and Java-based developers, who often use zip to work
with jar files, to the number of people who use tar. My guess is that tar
users would be in the minority.
How did you come to the conclusion about which is most commonly encountered?
Also, other popular archivers also use the archive-first approach:
7z.exe a c:\a.7z file1.txt dir2\file2.txt
rar a -r yourfiles.rar *.txt c:\yourfolder
~~~
dagw
zip is almost certainly the most used archive format, but that doesn't mean
the the 'zip' command line tool is more used than the 'tar' command line tool.
Even though I've probably run across more .zip files than .tar files (and
certainly more archives of in the zip format) in my career, if undoubtedly
typed 't-a-r' on a command line many more times than 'z-i-p'.
~~~
dalke
Oh, I certainly use tar more than zip. My downloads directory has 67 tar files
and 15 zip files. Bear in mind though that the hypothesis is not specific to
Unix development. The examples are:
cp file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt destination/
mv file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt destination/
The equivalent in MS Windows command shell is:
copy file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt destination\
move file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt destination\
The hypothesis makes the prediction that Windows command-line users (which is
a subset of all Windows users) will have similar problems with zip/7zip/rar's
"inverted" command-line parameters.
Similarly, the hypothesis predicts that _people who use the command-line_ to
work regularly with .jar, .odf, and other zip-based file formats will also
have problem with the ordering.
I have not heard of such problems, but I am not knowledgeable about those
areas of development.
------
iagooar
For some years now I have been using a quite funny mnemonic in order to
remember how to extract a gzipped tar. It reads "eXtract Ze File" with German
accent ;)
------
dgomez1092
Maybe I agree with facepalm. But also with informatimago down at the bottom.
It's probably be in my best interest to read most unix commands straight from
man.
I tend to use tar -czf <file> to untar. If it didn't work I'd proceed to tar
-xzf <file> or tar xzf <file>. Even so sometime my machine wouldn't accept the
command until I tried something like untar (not real!) or unzip or gzip. But
those were mostly out of frustration.
------
tiagocesar
I hope I wasn't the only one mouse hovering the XKCD image that appears in the
RSS reader (Feedly here) to see its actual ALT.
~~~
DanAndersen
Hate to post "me too," but I did the exact same thing.
------
jakupovic
I think that the destination comes first as then you're free to tack on any
number additional files to add to the archive by simply appending them. If the
destination was last argument any added files would have to come before the
destination which would necessitate an insert, which is more work than a
simple append.
------
joshbaptiste
Tar is OK but for scripting and/or archiving over socket connections find(1)
with pax(1) rules..
[http://www.bash-hackers.org/wiki/doku.php/howto/pax](http://www.bash-
hackers.org/wiki/doku.php/howto/pax)
------
tavein
It's hard and it has rather old interface (not a bad one, just old).
Recently I've switched to patool
([http://wummel.github.io/patool/](http://wummel.github.io/patool/)) and quite
happy with it.
------
opless
Difficult?
I don't see how it's difficult. Are [li|u]nix admins getting more stupid?
~~~
FreakyT
I figure the relevant XKCD[1] wouldn't exist if this weren't the case.
[1] [https://xkcd.com/1168/](https://xkcd.com/1168/)
~~~
astrodust
Snarky and sarcastic. Honestly, tar is the least hard "hard" thing you'll
encounter in the UNIX world.
How about writing a valid firewalld configuration command to open port 8060
TCP and UDP to connections from 10.0.0.0/8 and have it saved and applied
immediately.
------
tw04
>Naturally, tar is never really used in this way anymore.
I think Veritas and their thousands customers would beg to differ.
------
lotsofcows
What? You stick switch parameters after the switches and general parameters on
the end just like every other sensible command.
"tar cf"? "cf"? There's your problem! If you follow the anachronistic "bundled
flags" approach no wonder you're getting it wrong. "tar -c -f <parm>"!
------
dvh
tar c * > ../foo.tar; gzip ../foo.tar
(you don't need anything else)
~~~
rascul
tar czf ../foo.tar.gz *
(GNU tar can do it all in one command)
~~~
feld
Both of you are creating a tarbomb and should be ashamed
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_%28computing%29#Tarbomb](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_%28computing%29#Tarbomb)
~~~
rascul
I agree, but that's how the original was
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
In a world where all terrorist attacks are not equal - yinghang
http://stateofmind13.com/2015/11/14/from-beirut-this-is-paris-in-a-world-that-doesnt-care-about-arab-lives/
======
GigabyteCoin
>When my people died, they did not send the world in mourning. Their death was
but an irrelevant fleck along the international news cycle, something that
happens in those parts of the world.
I think the author fails to understand the close relationship that France has
with most of the western world.
It's not that the west doesn't care about a terrorist attack that happened in
Lebanon (I certainly heard about it the night of on my national news channel),
it's just that we tend to care more about attacks in locales that we and other
people we know have frequented more often.
I don't know anybody from Lebanon or anybody who has ever been to Lebanon.
Personally, I have been to Paris. My entire family and my wife's family have
been to Paris. My wife's bosses were just in Paris last week.
The attack on Paris just hits closer to home, that's all.
------
tomschlick
Its true. The perceptions are not equal. If a multiple gang shooting happened
in Chicago it wouldn't make international news as much as it would if it
occurred in London. People are desensitized to things that become "normal".
~~~
dogma1138
It's also the context, the act in Beirut while not any less heinous was an
attack in the Dahieh which is a Hezbollah stronghold.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahieh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahieh)
The perception in this case is like the horrible almost out war drug cartel
violence in Mexico, you can have an incident where 50 people get gunned down
in a day and it would be barely get reported, 20,000 people die a year to the
current escalated violence and it barely gets reported anywhere. Not to
mention that most news is Europe/US centric to begin with, as well as very
narrative oriented, one about every 50-100 US drone strikes is actually gets
reported, usually as side news, while virtually every Israeli strike doesn't
matter if it's Gaza or Syria gets pretty much "front pages" news as far as
online news sites go.
------
omonra
I'm tired of reading this type of analysis because it's simply stupid. And I
am pretty convinced the author knows it himself.
Here is why - islamic terrorists killing a few hundred people in Beirut (or
anywhere in the Middle East, really) is normal. Not in a sense of 'what the
world should be like' but in a sense of 'this is not an unexpected
occurrence'.
Same way that Christian terrorists (even though they weren't called that)
killing 20 thousands people in Paris 443 years ago
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew%27s_Day_massac...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew%27s_Day_massacre))
was normal back then. That's what the Christian world was going through.
However in the last few hundred years Paris didn't really have religious
terrorism - that's why it coming back is a big deal.
------
hellofunk
I learned a little while back that there are 250 gun deaths every _day_ in the
U.S. That's the equivalent of 2 of the Paris attacks, every single day. A
staggering figure of close to 100K gun deaths every year, or 30x the 9/11
deaths. So while they aren't necessarily "terrorist"-related in the common
sense of the term, they certainly bring terror to many families and
neighborhoods.
~~~
DanBC
The US has about 16,000 gun deaths per year. (with a bunch more deaths by
suicide). That's about 40 per day.
In 2013 CDC say:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States)
> in 2013, firearms (excluding BB and pellet guns) were used in
> 84,258 nonfatal injuries (26.65 per 100,000 U.S. citizens) [2] and
> 11,208 deaths by homicide (3.5 per 100,000),[3]
> 21,175 by suicide with a firearm,[4]
> 505 deaths due to accidental discharge of a firearm,[4] and
> 281 deaths due to firearms-use with "undetermined intent"[5] for a total of
> 33,169 deaths related to firearms (excluding firearm deaths due to legal
> intervention).
That would be about 90 per day. US police shoot and kill about 1,000 people
per year, but weirdly they don't count so we don't have robust numbers.
~~~
hellofunk
I was referring to a report by the Brady Campaign that in 2012 there were over
90K gun deaths in that particular year. I saw this recently on the news, and
the stats stuck in my head for obvious reasons.
~~~
dogma1138
There wasn't a single year with 90K gun related deaths, especially not in
2012, they might have had numbers for total "gun related casualties" which
includes injuries, homicides, suicides and accidental discharges which might
be closer to the actual figures. These are the FBI figures
[https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-
the-u.s/2012/...](https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-
the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/offenses-known-to-law-
enforcement/expanded-
homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2008-2012.xls)
so shy under 9K crime related gun death.
With all honesty that figure should've made any sensible person give it the
sniff test even if it was released by the NRA yet alone by the Brady Campaign.
So either the total report is BS, the figures weren't for fatalities but for
all casualties or your memory isn't as good as you think it is or any
combination of all of the above.
------
tome
Not Hacker News. Flagged.
~~~
hellofunk
Official HN guidelines classify as "on topic":
>anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity
So while this article isn't literally "hacker" related, it is not considered
off-topic necessarily, and a high percentage of articles on HN are not
directly related to technology, software, etc.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Innovative Apple Watch Series 5: OLED LTPO Display, Compass, Always on Feature - inoplanium
https://reportagram.net/gadgets/1284-innovative-apple-watch-series-5-new-ultra-low-power-ltpo-display-compass-always-on-feature.html
======
inoplanium
I upgrade my Apple Watch every other iteration: so 1, 3, and now 5. Apple's
heart-rate monitoring has been generally found to be the most accurate amongst
smart watches which makes the Apple Watch a great fitness tracker. The new
always-on display will be a major plus for me. I still find software upgrades
on Apple Watch to be hit and miss, it's a quite a slow and laborious process.
Cellular roaming for normal usage needs to be addressed, it prevents me from
buying the cellular version.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Travel Packing Lists Made Easy - ivandrag
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=webivo.com.packinglist
======
charlieegan3
Seems to require a social login. I might have tried it out otherwise.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Video Games Good For Kids' Brains? - neovive
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tina-barseghian/education-technology-video-games_b_829460.html
======
neovive
This now validates all the time I spent playing Zelda.
My favorite quote is in point 2: "The current assessment system forces
teachers to teach to the test. ..... If you design learning so you can't get
out of one level until you complete the last one, there's no need for a test."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Kosher search engine powered by 4 car batteries on a passively cooled server - glcheetham
https://jewjewjew.com/
======
emosenkis
As on Orthodox Jew, while I don't have anything against this and it sounds
like a fun hobby project, I don't like that it misleads regarding what Jewish
law actually requires.
As several others have mentioned, there is absolutely no problem with keeping
a server running on the sabbath - computers aren't Jews (Jewish law only
expects Jews to keep the sabbath). If it's Jews working to generate the
electricity (most "modern" or "yeshivish" Orthodox Jews don't believe this is
a problem; I don't know what fraction of "ultra-" Orthodox Jews disagree with
that), any public cloud outside of Israel should suffice. If you're concerned
with electricity, why not worry that Jews may be working to maintain the
server's internet connection (again, this is trivially solved by not hosting
it in Israel - all it takes is a non-Jewish majority to provide a reasonable
presumption that the workers probably aren't Jewish)?
If you're worried about Jewish users accessing it on the sabbath (in my
opinion the least far-fetched concern, but not one addressed by the site), the
complete solution would be to shut it down for ~49 hours every week starting
from ~sunset on Friday in east Asia - this doesn't require using batteries or
really anything special about the site's hardware or even software.
Finally, why call it a 'kosher' search engine when almost anyone interested in
such a thing would understand that as being about filtering the search
results?
Edit: _If_ you assume that using electricity and/or internet that are
maintained by Jews on the sabbath is a problem, I guess you might be able to
make a case for avoiding indexing sites in Israel or at all during the
sabbath, since then you'd be benefitting indirectly from the work of the Jews
that maintained the infrastructure - however, I think it's safe to assume that
the vast majority of the internet is not served using infrastructure actively
supported by Jews during the sabbath so even assuming you're concerned about
this, the final answer would probably still be that indexing during the
sabbath is fine.
~~~
sukilot
Jews exist outside of Israel. Saying that an organization with majority non
Jews probably has no Jews working on it is bizarrely innumerate.
~~~
amadeuspagel
From: [http://www.thebigquestions.com/2020/04/15/goofus-gallant-
and...](http://www.thebigquestions.com/2020/04/15/goofus-gallant-and-the-law/)
>You have three pieces of meat, two kosher, one not. You lose track of which
is which. Can you eat them? Answer, according to (my memory of Sternberg’s
account of) the Talmud: Each individual piece of meat has a 2/3 chance of
being kosher. So if you choose one of them and ask “Is this kosher?”, a “yes”
answer gives you a 2/3 chance to be right and a “no” answer gives you only a
1/3 chance to be right. A 2/3 chance is better than a 1/3 chance, so you
should say yes. Repeat three times and you’re allowed to eat all of the meat.
>There is much that is troubling here, because that strategy actually gives
you a 100% chance of eating a non-kosher piece of meat, so it matters whether
you inquire about each piece separately or whether you inquire about all three
as a group. I’m not sure what principle the Talmud invokes to settle that
issue. But that’s not the point that concerns us here. The point here is that
we’re instructed to focus strictly on probabilities, without regard to any
measure of how bad it would be to be wrong in either direction.
>You’re traveling to town with a left pocket full of coins designated for
charity and a right pocket full of coins designated for your personal
expenses. (In certain circumstances, you’re required to designate these coins
in advance, and cannot substitute a coin from one pocket for a coin from the
other, even if they’re otherwise identical.) You fall off your horse, and the
coins all spill out into one great heap.
>If there were more coins in your left pocket to begin with, then each
individual coin has a greater-than-fifty-percent chance to be a charity coin,
so each individual coin must be given to charity. If there were more in your
right pocket, you can spend all the coins on yourself.
>You take in an abandoned child. Should you raise him as a Jew? It depends on
whether he was born as a Jew. Suppose you don’t have that information. Answer:
If the majority of your neighbors are Jewish, you assume he’s Jewish. If not,
not.
>(A later commentary amends this prescription by directing your attention not
to the majority of your neighbors but to a majority of those neighbors who are
of such character that they would abandon a child.)
~~~
gorgoiler
Ah yes: the Monty Challah problem.
~~~
Shermanium
well played
------
ggop
B&H Video is shut for a day every week but also disallows online checkout.
I've always found that interesting, like the website is an extension of their
beliefs.
[https://www.bhphotovideo.com/find/HelpCenter/StoreInfo.jsp](https://www.bhphotovideo.com/find/HelpCenter/StoreInfo.jsp)
> Online Checkout Hours
> Open 24/6
> Online checkout will be closed while we observe Shabbat from 8:15pm ET Fri
> until 9:45pm ET Sat. Although online ordering is unavailable, you may still
> add items to your cart or wish list.
~~~
cameron_b
I did my degree in Photography and spent money I don't care to sum up at that
store both online and in person the few times I was in the City.
I always found their stance to be one of integrity instead of self-
righteousness. They are situated in a little enclave - see HN articles about
the Eruv, etc. - and are quite genuine and not exclusive to their Jewishness,
but simply have a community and a point of view.
The no-shabbat-order-processing feels less like "we don't make the machines
make money for us" than it feels like "Look, you can shop online, but we're
not gonna load it and ship it until we get back from our families."
Like how I interpret the intentions of that commandment, it forces
Photographers to think ahead and plan for that service outage. I may or may
not encourage Rest, but again, the commandments weren't for the Egyptians.
~~~
masklinn
> The no-shabbat-order-processing feels less like "we don't make the machines
> make money for us" than it feels like "Look, you can shop online, but we're
> not gonna load it and ship it until we get back from our families."
That interpretation doesn't make much sense to me. Unless there's a human
actually validating each order individually right as you checkout, you could
just have a note saying there won't be any shipping on saturday. Or even that
orders only ship mon-fri. And nobody would find it surprising.
Other commenters' hypothesis (against doing business on shabbat) make a lot
more sense, a checkout would in fact be "doing business" even if the business
does that on its own it's still in your name and under your responsibility.
~~~
AdamN
As someone who works at a 24/7 retail company, I can say that if the orders
stop flowing, somebody gets called to fix it (even if nobody's boxing it right
then and there). B&H has it set up so that no outage will trigger a pager and
I'm betting that if the site went down on Sabbath it would stay down.
~~~
walrus01
Wouldn't one solution to that be by hiring some shabbat goy sysadmins to
operate the website infrastructure?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbos_goy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbos_goy)
------
mrweasel
I don't know why, but I find it absolutely hilarious, in a good way. It's such
a weird thing to build, but it gives you that fuzzy old-school internet vibe.
It's awesome.
------
Animats
There are some "kosher search engines", to go with "kosher phones" in Israel.
This is an ultra-Orthodox thing. Basic kosher phones are "no Internet, no
text", but that's so restrictive that there are now kosher smartphones. These
often have a very short list of allowed sites. Stack Exchange explains: [1]
[1] [https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/108332/what-
make...](https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/108332/what-makes-a-
smart-phone-kosher)
------
tenkabuto
> New search results are calculated on Tuesday of each week. Nothing new is
> created during Shabbat. You are served static cached data.
I've been interested in the idea of having a user-facing website that
generates static copies of its dynamic content on a set schedule. Do any of
you have more examples of this?
About this particular search engine, though, the search results I received
from it either were not very relevant or the service did not display
information that made them seem relevant (such as a snippet of text from the
page — it did this occasionally but not always).
~~~
oefrha
Frozen-Flask freezes a dynamic Flask app into a static site.
[https://pythonhosted.org/Frozen-Flask/](https://pythonhosted.org/Frozen-
Flask/)
~~~
tenkabuto
Thanks! It looks like django-bakery also does something similar for Django:
[https://github.com/datadesk/django-
bakery](https://github.com/datadesk/django-bakery)
------
kwhitefoot
> This computer does not physically manipulated electricity.
Sophistry.
The whole purpose of a computer is to manipulate electricity, it is what
electronic computers do.
Perhaps it really is kosher (I have no idea, I'm not Jewish and I'm not well
informed about what kosher really means) but whatever it is or is not, it is
quite certainly not true that 'This computer does not physically manipulated
electricity.'
Perhaps the author actually meant something else, if so I'm curious as to what
that might be.
Presumably the inclusion of the superfluous word physically means something to
the author. To me (B. Sc. Physics) there is no need to include the word
because all manipulation of electricity is physical, there is no other kind.
~~~
compsciphd
one can start a fire before the sabbath and benefit from its heat. One can't
stoke the fire (to make it hotter) or extinguish it. On the flips side (as an
example only) if I was sitting around a camp fire that I lit before the
sabbath with a non jew, and he wanted to extinguish it or stoke it for his own
benefit (I might benefit as well, but he's supposed to be doing it for his own
benefit) that would be permitted.
apply to a computer: one can let it keep on doing what it is doing, but he
owner wouldn't manipulate it.
------
alangibson
That's a lot of effort to do nothing.
Does anyone know if there is some significance to it being calculated on
Tuesday? Since Shabbat is from Friday to Saturday I would have picked Sunday
or Monday.
~~~
mrweasel
Assuming everyone else don't work on the Shabbat, there should be nothing new
to calculate on Sunday, compared to Thursday. You can't use the site on Friday
to Saturday yourself, because Shabbat, so indexing on Thursday perhaps also
doesn't make sense, because no one will see it before Saturday. Tuesday is
sort of in between... It's weird, why not do the calculating all other days
than Friday and Saturday?
~~~
masklinn
> why not do the calculating all other days than Friday and Saturday?
Note that assuming UTC reference point you need to bleed into sunday: Kiribati
is on UTC+14, and you need to wait until some time after sunset (stars should
be visible).
Though that makes me wonder how shabbat works in northerly latitude, how does
shabbat work within the arctic circle?
~~~
llimos
Been there, done that. The commonly accepted ruling is to take the time that
the sun is at its lowest point as simultaneous
sunset/nightfall/midnight/dawn/sunrise (each of which has its own significance
in Jewish law). So shabbat is from around midnight Friday to midnight
Saturday.
It also means one can pray the afternoon, evening, and morning prayers one
after the other.
------
verytrivial
I have never understood trying to get in to heaven on a technicality. Anyway,
none of my business! All power to them (except during Shabbat of course.)
~~~
jfengel
Kosher laws have nothing to do with getting into heaven. They're about
community. Jews are the people who keep kosher. It's not a sin to fail to keep
kosher. You're not jeopardizing the afterlife; Judaism puts far less focus on
the afterlife than we're used to swimming in a Christian world view.
That does sometimes lead to a weird performative "more kosher than thou",
which I don't believe is really healthy but every community has equivalent
behavior. The finger wagging isn't about protecting their immortal soul, but
merely making yourself to be the best at the arbitrary rules and therefore
somehow to be most beloved by the community.
~~~
llimos
That is not really true of most Orthodox Jews. Keeping the laws is about
following the word of God, and the afterlife does play a fairly big part in
our worldview. There are a handful of laws which are identified in the
literature as being about community but those tend to be ones added later by
the early rabbis (miderabannan), rather than straight from the Torah i.e. God
(mideoraisa).
That being said, what you described in your second paragraph does happen, yes.
Though not everyone who engages in it has the motives you ascribe to them.
Some are sincerely trying to do the will of God as best they can.
> It's not a sin to fail to keep kosher
Well, it is for a Jew, but not for a non-Jew. We don't say that non-Jews need
to keep our laws, other than a few very very basic ones likes not to murder.
Non-Jews can still have an afterlife without keeping kosher.
------
locofocos
Neat. This might not be satire though. To those wondering why it needs to be
passively cooled:
Jews and other folks that keep Torah do not kindle a flame on the Shabbat. For
those who are very strict about keeping God's commandments (basically orthodox
Jews), they avoid anything that would create a spark. This spark is like a
very tiny, short lived flame. Any time physical electronic contacts join
together (like when turning on a light switch), the argument is that there's a
very small spark that occurs. The same would happen with the electric contacts
in a motor, such as the motor inside CPU fans, desktop power supplies, and
platter hard drives. By running on this physical hardware, they're avoiding
breaking the Sabbath as much as possible.
source: I'm a gentile Christian that tries to keep the Torah. So I'm more
familiar with Jewish laws than the average person, but don't quote me too
much.
~~~
jmole
then every keystroke would be a spark, no?
I've often wondered if "spark" is only considered in the electromechanical
sense. Driving a tesla might be ok, since it uses brushless motors that are
electronically commutated and has no electromechanical switches or brushes to
speak of.
------
hristov
Is that a joke? Because if it isn't, I'd hate to tell you but you are wrong.
That computer most definitely manipulates electricity.
If anyone is about to take this seriously, check out how a transistor works.
It most certainly manipulates electricity. The cpu in that computer has about
a billion transistors.
~~~
killface
even a capacitor.
------
throwaway744678
I don't get it: the potential user has to use some kind of
computer/smartphone/non-kosher device to make use of this server. Not to
mention all the network infrastructure in-between!
Is there a rabbi here to enlighten us?
~~~
bszupnick
Not a rabbi, but I am Jewish.
A specific segment of Jews (namely Ultra-Orthodox) have quite a complicated
relationship with the internet. On one hand, that community has experienced
the positives of this technology, but they also VERY much discuss the fears
and downsides.
So this site can be a seen as trying to wiggle into that tough space of
getting use out of it, but in an "acceptable" way.
Here's another example I found by a quick google search:
[https://koshercell.org/](https://koshercell.org/)
But in Israel there's also a well-known ISP that filters the internet for you
(and your household): [https://www.linkedin.com/company/internet-
rimon/](https://www.linkedin.com/company/internet-rimon/)
~~~
davidmanheim
Interestingly, all ISPs and phone companies in Israel are required to offer
server-side filtered internet for all customers who request it, at no extra
cost.
------
aaaaarghZombies
A bizarre and not very appealing website BUT an interesting provocation about
what values we embed into technology.
------
gerardnll
Religion and beliefs never cease to amaze me.
------
the_mitsuhiko
Unless a shabbat goy is employed (who would have to be human) I don’t think
you can have a compliant search engine.
The machine can work at any point of the week but a jew cannot operate it on
shabbat. A non jew could, but not acting on a direct command.
The rules are quite watertight. Siri and co. are a no-go and there are no
obvious ways to adapt smart assistants that would restore functionality.
Anything that’s not preprogrammed is not possible.
~~~
082349872349872
Thinking of elevators which stop at every floor on shabbat, maybe the search
engine ought to run on a timeout, returning results for all the "most common
searches" (such as the auto-fill suggestions for each letter?) on some
interleaved schedule.
(I'm not concerned with electricity here so much as with "בורר", selection.)
~~~
LegitShady
if search engines knew what you wanted to look at before you looked at them
they wouldn't be necessary.
------
abductee_hg
hmm, and here i was thinking that the Shabbat is to disconnect and unwind...
you know get away from the constant notifications and such.
~~~
Jaruzel
Ok. A serious question here: Can some HN Jews, enlighten me (a 100%-proof
agnostic) on what they actually do on Shabbat? Are you allowed to use the
internet? If something in your house breaks, are you not allowed to fix it? Do
you just sit around gazing into space just in case something you do is classed
as 'work'?
I find the whole concept quite interesting.
~~~
kenrose
For Sabbath observing Jews, “work” is defined as a certain set of 39 (?)
activities that are defined in the bible and relating to building the
“Mishkan”. Generations of Talmudic rabbis then added new interpretations and
requirements on these rules to adapt for new technology. eg, the prohibition
against using electricity is because it relates to igniting a spark, which is
one of the 39 prohibited activities (Or “malakha”)
Internet? No
Something breaks, fix it? No
Sit around all day? No :)
For many that keep the Sabbath, the time is spent eating, praying, and
studying and there’s somewhat of a schedule. Friday night: synagogue, then big
ceremonious dinner. Saturday morning: Synagogue. Saturday afternoon: big
ceremonious lunch and study or sleep. Saturday evening: back to synagogue
again. It’s a pretty full day.
~~~
masklinn
> Something breaks, fix it? No
I assume that's only if not urgent? e.g. pipe blows up or rock hits a window
for whatever reason, you can at least effect basic repairs if not immediately
call the tradie?
~~~
freedrock87
In strict orthodox Judiasm nope.
The only time you can break the Sabbath is if it is "pikuach nefesh" (life
threatening if not done)
~~~
masklinn
So, say a pipe blew and is flooding the apartment building you're supposed to
not do anything?
~~~
compsciphd
you turn off the main water shutoff and get to fixing it after shabbat (i.e.
no different than turning on and off the faucet)
------
grishka
I saw the dreaded Cloudflare "one more step" page and closed the tab. I'm
highly doubtful Cloudflare is kosher.
~~~
GoblinSlayer
Captcha is ultra kosher, because it assumes you're not a human and must prove
otherwise.
------
yadco
There is nothing wrong with having a computer running on Shabbat if it is
scheduled before Shabbat. (If you are worried about electricity generated on
Shabbat by a Jew, use AWS ect that isn't in Israel) And some of the sites it
links don't appear to be very "kosher".
------
reallydontask
I can't find the exact quote but I think a comedian once said something along
the lines of (large pinches of salt on the quote and whether it was said by a
comedian):
You think your god is all knowing, etc.. but at the same time stupid enough to
fall for these work arounds
~~~
pron
Halakhic Judaism isn't about faith or what God knows. It's about obeying laws
( _Halakha_ [1]) made by people based on a God-given "constitution." Employing
"loopholes" is fine -- it means you care about the law and try to obey it,
which is the point. Worship is expressed not with faith but in a process of
interpreting and creating laws and then following them.
[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halakha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halakha)
~~~
Udik
It's more that for Judaism it seems God's laws are legal boundaries devoid of
any ethical meaning. The important thing is to respect their letter, not their
spirit.
~~~
pron
I wouldn't say that they're _devoid_ of ethical meaning but rather that their
ethical meaning might be unknown or can only be speculated, and whose
understanding, in any event, is not pertinent to keeping the letter of the
law, which is the central tenet. What you _do_ is what's important, not what
you believe or think or even what God thinks. Once His laws were given to
humankind, they're out of His hands. There's even a famous story [1] in the
Talmud where God argues with the Rabbis over Halakha, and the Rabbis tell God
that what they say should prevail because Torah was given to man, and God
concedes. From Wikipedia:
> [T]he work of law is a work of human activity, and... the Torah itself
> supports this legal theory. The Torah is not a document of mystery which
> must have its innate meaning revealed by a minority, but it is instead a
> document from which law must be created through the human activity of debate
> and consensus
[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oven_of_Akhnai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oven_of_Akhnai)
------
dogma1138
What happened to koogle? It used to be a thing now it’s a parked domain.
~~~
joelbluminator
Hahaah koogle what an awesome name!
------
shmerl
If new electricity is created in automated fashion, how is that a problem for
running a server? You aren't using it. Automated machinery is perfectly fine
to work on its own.
------
teajunky
If there was a God, I don't think he likes being tricked.
~~~
WJW
He's not tricked, he put the loopholes there on purpose. You can't trick an
omniscient being.
~~~
Faaak
Supposing you're right, then why did they put these loopholes by purpose if
they're going to be discovered someday ? To play games with us maybe ? But
then is that morally ok to do so ?
~~~
llimos
Before asking why the loopholes are there you should ask why the _laws_ are
there, then you can ask how the loopholes fit into that purpose.
Speaking as an Orthodox Jew - We believe the laws are there because particular
actions affect the universe in ways we might not understand but that the
creator does. It's like the instruction manual that comes with a machine. (If
it was something we could figure out for ourselves we wouldn't need to be
given the laws from on high.)
So it follows that if there is a loophole, in a law given by an omniscient God
(i.e. there is no argument that He didn't think of it), it's because following
that loophole does not cause the spiritual damage to the universe that
breaking the rest of that law does.
Obviously some of you will argue with some of those axioms, but as stated by
WJW elsewhere in this thread, this is about people who have already accepted
the axioms.
~~~
llimos
I should add that there _are_ those who study how each thing affects the world
- that is the study of Kabbala.
But you don't need to know it to accept the idea, just as you don't need to
know how a machine works in order to use it, as long as you follow the manual.
------
iskander
That's not how Shabbat works...
(it's very mysterious that someone would go to all this trouble with an
idiosyncratic outsider interpretation of Judaism)
------
NovemberWhiskey
Of relevance:
[https://www.star-k.org/appliances.php](https://www.star-k.org/appliances.php)
------
bjourne
Obviously a joke/satire site. "This server is powered by 4 car batteries that
are charged every Tuesday. This website does not use new electricity created
during Shabbat." Shouldn't it have ran out of electricity by now? How many
requests can a home server running on four car batteries serve?
~~~
krallja
Low-tech Magazine[1] runs off of a 168 W-h lead-acid battery and has pretty
good uptime. An average sized car battery has ~600 W-h. Four of them is 2400
W-h. They might have enough power to run for a week between charges.
168 W/h gives you about 12 hours between charges.
2400 W-h / 168 W-h = about 14.28x the size of LTM's
12 hours * 14.28 = 7.14 days.
1: [https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/01/how-sustainable-
is...](https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/01/how-sustainable-is-a-solar-
powered-website.html#uptime-and-battery)
------
mwambua
Nit: The copper heat pipes move a fluid around... so there technically are
moving parts.
------
mlatu
The lengths some people go to for religion... smh
~~~
nanna
Some people live their lives for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Some
live their lives for the gods capitalism. I'd say the former is a lot less
pernicious.
~~~
quenix
At least capitalism actually exists.
~~~
nanna
And Judaism, Islam and Christianity don't?
Edit: If you believe in a religion, then religion exists in the most real
sense possible, as that which guides your relation to the beginning and end of
reality itself, God.
If you don't believe, then religion exists in no more and no less of a sense
as capitalism: it is a fiction which vast amounts of people believe in and
live their lives by, and so it is real. Not in the sense of the computer in
front of you, but in the sense of a real social relationship. From a secular
standpoint religion and capitalism have no more and no less reality than other
fictions like gender and race.
~~~
archi42
This is an excellent comment, and I agree on the conclusion that either exists
as much as the other.
However ;-), I dare to say your argument is weak: Assume "I believe in the
apple on my desk". But you will find there is neither a fruit nor an Apple
branded computer on my desk. So an outside observer is bound to believe I am
going mad, hence my belief shapes my social relationship with others around
me. Now does this make the apple as real as religion, which becomes real due
to it's impact on social relationships? Or are people who let religion shape
their social relationships as mad as I am? Or is the argument flawed? (edit:
No, I can not answer these question).
Shapiro's "Thinking about mathematics" springs to my mind, IIRC in the first
chapter(s) he gives a nice overview about what philosophers thought about
numbers, the realm of numbers and whether they "exist" or not. I think some of
that could be applied here. (And, generally, I think it's a great read for
computer scientists & mathematicians interested in philosophy, as it gives a
great overview across various different schools).
~~~
nanna
Well, this is fun :)
I think the problem with your argument is that you're replacing the concept of
religion with the concept of 'apple' which in every sense signifies something
that exists as a hylomorphic object. An apple which can sit on my desk.
However language is full of concepts which don't share that kind of existence,
ones which tend to be the objects of philosophy. Love, justice, power... race,
gender, capitalism, religion, God. These exist but not as 'physical' objects,
objects whose existence can be accepted or denied according to empirical
criteria.
For example, in the market I can say I see capitalism before me, even though
it's not a physical object. It's in the exchange of goods, the extraction of
commodity and surplus value. In the same way in a synagogue or church I can
say that I see religion before me, or in the Oval Office I see power (as well
as in the streets, of course).
With respect to comparing God to an apple, I'd take a Kantian line. One refers
to belief, the other to knowledge. Got to make space for one in order to have
room for the other ;)
~~~
archi42
Absolutely :) Very convincing, but as per your user-info (should have read
that before trying to be smart), I should not expect less of someone with a
proper philosophical education and the (as I suppose) accompanying repository
of philosophical knowledge ;) The subject of your thesis seems pretty
interesting,... ah, I'm digressing ;)
Now, regarding Gods and apples: Because that's how I setup the
Gedankenexperiment (and assuming I belong to the majority of people, who are
neither blind nor suffering from severe neurological problems), if there was
some matter in form of an apple on my desk, I should perceive it. IIRC Kant
would say that I have a-priory knowledge of the absence of an apple from my
desk. (I'm afraid I can't argue against that, so let me rephrase the first
paragraph until I come up with something useful on how to convince you that
comparing religion to an non-existent apple is perfectly fine reasoning.)
[... some minutes passed ...]
No, I think you're right. The problem is that, as you say, an 'apple' is an
inherently physical object. Hence there either is one sitting on my desk and I
can see it, or I can see that there is none. I can not just bend the
definition of an apple at will, so I think I'm stuck here; accordingly, when I
say "I believe in the apple on my desk", I am basing my proclaimed belief on a
verifieable-false proposition; and much as with false assumptions, from that I
can obviously derive anything. Religion (or other constructs of the mind)
don't exist as physical objects (there is no religion-shaped matter), yet they
influence and shape (ha!) our world, often even beyond what's possible for a
physical object [1].
_edit_ So when I say that I still believe in the apple on the desk even if
there is proof of the contrary, I am just acting like an idiot - and that's
what's actually influencing/shaping my social relationships ;) _end edit_
But, one ray of light :) Comparing religion to an apple might not be possible,
but I think it's undecidable if comparing God to an apple is: What constitutes
God is a matter of belief and hence there is no coherent definition. E.g. some
might say there is no physical God, or maybe there is one but not "on our
realm of existence" (whatever that means). OTOH, some religious people might
even go as far to say that there is a physical heaven and a physical hell,
even when presented physical proof of the contrary. So, maybe, there is an
apple after all? ;)
[1] I can't resist but to note that, if we were on Pratchett's Discworld, this
would be much easier. In that case "the Gods" would probably come knocking on
my door for implying that they might not exist.
------
avipars
My personal laptop is more powerful than this
------
galuggus
schmuckschmuckgo
------
Jekyll-Jacobson
It is also not clear cut that other than the incandescent bulb use of
electricity is actually prohibited. The Hazon Ish ruled that the completion of
a circuit is considered ‘makke bapatish’ or ‘boneh’. But one can argue
reasonably that it is not so.
~~~
MrBoogyTron
It's been assur for long enough that everyone just holds `lo plugh' when it
comes to electricity. Yes an incandescent is prohibited, a hotplate is
prohibited. An eInk display is technically alright, as is an LCD watch. But
there's way to many gray areas between those. What about LED bulbs? Some get
hot enough to be a problem, some do not.
~~~
compsciphd
I've had this idea that if we could ever get e-ink displays to actually be
paper like (i.e. in thickness, and bendability and hatever other features you
attach to paper books) it be interesting for observant jews an people who just
like books to be able to sell "placeholder" e-ink books. i.e. books filled
with programmable eink pages that you can flip through like a regular book.
One would download a book and program it, and then just read it like a
traditional book, flipping pages as you go. once done, you download another
book to it and all the pages get reprogrammed.
------
fmakunbound
All regilion is superstition, but some of it is also hilarious.
------
fazza99
Betcha it doesn't return any results for 'PLO' ;)
~~~
dabbernaught420
I'm sure it's more than happy to teach you about the great game of Pot Limited
Omaha
But after you're done with that, at result number 11, you get this interesting
web-site: [https://abbaszaki.plo.ps/](https://abbaszaki.plo.ps/)
------
dangus
As someone who isn’t religious, it’s really, REALLY hard to remind myself that
not only do people still believe this stuff, but MOST people in the western
world still believe in the Judeo-Christian God and all the underlying
mythology.
I feel like the rational outcome would be that only a small minority of people
would still buy into these ideologies. But I guess economists already know
that people aren’t rational.
Obviously, I’m aware that this website represents an orthodox minority. Most
religious people don’t go to these lengths.
Religious rules and practices are just so annoyingly easy to pick apart. For
example, doesn’t the change from the Julian and Gregorian calendars throw a
wrench into what day we are actually on?
It’s hard for me to buy that God created billions of planets and galaxies with
each planet having different orbital properties and that somehow the arbitrary
days of the week that weren’t even set to their present status until after
Moses was dead for 3000 years are important to him.
This nonsense affects my daily interactions in the sense that I can’t run
around questioning obviously arbitrary traditions, it’ll just insult people
and it’s just generally mean.
So, I’ve given you more than enough of my opinion, and this isn’t exactly
constructive, but to me the sooner you exit the denial stage of grief the
sooner you and move on to accepting the reality of life.
That means specifically accepting that the only two roles of religion are:
1\. A social construct and group (with legitimate benefits of fellowship and
social interaction like a club)
2\. A coping mechanism for death, one that prevents its adherents from
reaching the painful stages of grief beyond denial.
~~~
rsynnott
> but MOST people in the western world still believe in the Judeo-Christian
> God
This is probably no longer literally true; in polling a majority of Europeans
who identify as Christian don't usually believe in a personal god, and
significant numbers who identify as Christian don't believe in the
supernatural at all.
> and all the underlying mythology.
Believing in _all_, or even most, of the mythology, as something that actually
happened, is unusual; you're basically talking Biblical literalists, who are a
small minority of Christians.
> For example, doesn’t the change from the Julian and Gregorian calendars
> throw a wrench into what day we are actually on?
For most Christians, the only one that's particularly important that it be on
the right day there is Easter, which is dealt with. The Gregorian shift, in
any case, was seen as a _correction_; from the point of view of those who
initiated it the problem would have been the time that went before.
~~~
dangus
I think you make a good point, even in Bible Thumping America I bet a lot of
people who identify as religious don’t deep down believe any of it.
At my most recent “church session to satisfy family” the preacher talked a lot
about handling doubt. I found it very revealing that, on any given Sunday, you
might find a preacher feeling the need to re-convince the congregation that
the thing they’re there for is “real.” It made me think, “But I thought this
was obvious truth to you? Haven’t you moved beyond this point?”
Interestingly, the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches don’t agree on
which day Easter falls upon!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Inspirational Books - db42
With reference to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1913174, what are some good books that inspire you when all you need is a little motivation.
======
pdelgallego
The Alchemist.
On the Road.
Stranger In a Strange Land.
From the Earth to the Moon
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Life of Pi
Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.
The Little Prince
Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? / Purple Cow
Coders at Work / Founders at Work
Fight Club
------
mjdecour
Delivering Happiness By Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com
Great book on Tony's journey to building startups and finding what truly makes
him happy
------
waru
"The Amber Chronicles" by Roger Zelazny (It's actually a series of 10 novels,
but they can be bought together in one massive book. It's the most original
and creatively exciting thing I've ever read.)
"The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
------
FleursDuMal
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
------
oscarduignan
Leaving microsoft to change the world - <http://www.leavingmicrosoftbook.com/>
Born to Run - <http://borntorun.org/>
------
staunch
High Stakes, No Prisoners : A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet
Wars
The story about making and selling Frontpage to Microsoft for ~$130 million.
Skip the last 3 chapters or so, where he rants boringly.
------
gw666
I believe this will change your life (for the better), and it's only one web
page: "Why I don’t care about success," <http://zenhabits.net/anti-success/>
------
motxilo
"Dying Well" by Ira Byock. It shows me every time that nothing in life is
important if you walk alone.
------
stephenou
Rework
Getting Real
Delivering Happiness
4-Hour Workweek
------
rmprescott
Your Money or Your Life; Dominquez, Robin
------
geekytenny
hackers and painters
------
eswat
Shogun
------
yule
Dune
------
mdg
Fahrenheit 451 opened my eyes about society today. Not sure if it is really
"inspirational", but it very well might have you view the world differently.
~~~
motxilo
I'd say that applies to inspirational movies also.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Zero-knowledge proofs, Zcash, and Ethereum - mhluongo
https://medium.com/@mhluongo/zero-knowledge-proofs-zcash-and-ethereum-f6d89fa7cba8
======
ballenf
The opening story about the sick grandma also seemed to be rather the opposite
of a zero-knowledge proof. Each question seemed rather knowledge-y for a 'zero
knowledge' exercise.
I can't think of a way to turn it into a true zero knowledge proof. You'd have
to ask questions with answers that revealed nothing about granny -- you
shouldn't be able to draw a picture of her or reveal any personal info from
piecing together the answers. Which makes its choice as the opening
explanation of zero knowledge proofs problematic.
His explanation is that the 'hidden' knowledge is meeting the grandmother and
that this meeting cannot be proven through communication. Which is, of course,
true. But that's a red herring. The q&a the parties engage in do not prove
anything about the meeting. They prove that one party knows things about the
granny, not that any particular meeting took place nor that the party has ever
met her.
In short, it's neither zero-knowledge nor a proof.
I admit that the flawed opening plus the constant attempts to personify every
concept, interspersed with giant irrelevant images mean that I couldn't finish
it.
~~~
yonilevy
The best "demonstration" of a Zero-Knowledge proof I've heard is this:
Suppose you and a friend are looking for Waldo in a "Where's Waldo?" book
page. You found Waldo first, and would like to prove that, but you don't want
to ruin the fun for your friend-- you shouldn't provide any information that
would take away from their challenge of finding Waldo themselves. How would
you do that?
<Take a minute to think about it>
You take a cardboard several times larger than the "Where's Waldo" frame, and
cut a hole the size of Waldo's head right in the middle of it. You then place
the book on one side of the cardboard so that the only thing visible from the
other side is Waldo's head. You show it to your friend. Notice you have proven
you know the solution to "Where's Waldo" without revealing any information
about the problem which they haven't known before. That to my understanding is
the core concept of ZK proofs.
~~~
rumcajz
You draw a card from a deck. It's red. You want to convince everyone that it's
red without disclosing which card you have drawn. So you take all the black
cards from the remaining deck and show them to the public.
~~~
vinchuco
I think you're assuming all cards are red or black. I think a better zero
knowledge proof analogy using cards would be a sorted deck and saying "I know
where your favorite card is" by showing them their card.
------
tzs
Suppose someone claimed to have settled the P vs. NP problem or the Riemann
hypothesis, but would only present this as a zero-knowledge proof.
Would they win the Millennial Prize for that problem?
~~~
raverbashing
Well in this case they would be asked to provide a solution to an arbitrarily
large NP problem (if they proved P=NP) or a counterexample to the Riemann
hypothesis (if they disproved it)
But for the opposite case I don't think it would be easy
------
AlexCoventry
Anyone know where the code is for the recent zk-SNARK tests on the Ethereum
testnet? I've looked at LibSnark.cpp and its tests, but I'd like to find the
code where the transactions were generated and sent to the network.
~~~
emsimot
[https://gist.github.com/chriseth/f9be9d9391efc5beb9704255a8e...](https://gist.github.com/chriseth/f9be9d9391efc5beb9704255a8e2989d)
~~~
AlexCoventry
Thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What are some innovative ideas for improving democracy? - b01t
======
JPLeRouzic
I find strange that in a time where we can be aware of everything going on at
the other side of the world, there is still a need for representative
democracy.
The interested people could easily gain knowledge on complex issues and make a
decision collectively.
Look at Wikipedia, it works very well and there is even no built-in mechanism
to resolve conflicts!
------
TomMarius
Less democracy, more freedom. Some people want to vote about things that don't
concern them in any way, and the system allows them. The bad thing about
democracy is that most people are not interested in politics, and so a small
minority of people is able to force-feed them their opinion. Even if most
people were interested in politics and voting, it still something the
remaining 49.9~% of people didn't want (doesn't really matter if 40, 30 or 20
percent - still way too much).
------
tmaly
In the US, the courts always skirt around the 10th amendment. This is even
taught in law school according to co-worker who is a lawyer.
I think altering some of the existing amendments to strengthen the 10th
amendment would go a long way towards restoring freedom and democracy.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Equifax Breach Caused by Lone Employee’s Error, Former CEO Says - DLay
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/business/equifax-congress-data-breach.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
======
sp821543
[http://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Sys...](http://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Systems%20Fail.pdf)
7) Post-accident attribution accident to a ‘root cause’ is fundamentally
wrong. Because overt failure requires multiple faults, there is no isolated
‘cause’ of an accident. There are multiple contributors to accidents. Each of
these is necessary insufficient in itself to create an accident. Only jointly
are these causes sufficient to create an accident. Indeed, it is the linking
of these causes together that creates the circumstances required for the
accident. Thus, no isolation of the ‘root cause’ of an accident is possible.
The evaluations based on such reasoning as ‘root cause’ do not reflect a
technical understanding of the nature of failure but rather the social,
cultural need to blame specific, localized forces or events for outcomes.
~~~
shub
That quote sounds good, but I don't think it's necessarily applicable to this
situation. The author seems to be talking about complex systems that are
designed and operated to be robust against failure, like the space shuttle.
Saying that Challenger blew up because of an O-ring is technically correct but
also horribly wrong, as an example. Equifax IT does not appear to be operating
at a level to prevent a single failure from causing terrible damage all on its
own.
That aside, it's hardly true that one person can bear all the blame for not
patching their systems, even if they did successfully prevent patches from
happening. For one thing, how the hell did they keep their job after doing
that? Unless it was the CEO (well, now that they have a new CEO maybe they'd
like to put all the blame on him), there was someone up the chain who could
insist that the patch get applied. I think you definitely could apply root
cause analysis techniques here, and I strongly suspect that such analysis
would uncover numerous serious deficiencies in Equifax's IT operations. Of
course, guessing that a large boring corporation has terrible IT practices is
similar to guessing that a given duck quacks and has wings, so there's that.
~~~
zemo
> Equifax IT does not appear to be operating at a level to prevent a single
> failure from causing terrible damage all on its own.
they're operating at a level where over a hundred and thirty million people
could have their ability to get a mortgage, open a bank account, or start a
business harmed. If you think that such responsibility does not mandate the
highest requirements for data safety, you should not work in this industry.
------
MBCook
Good to know.
And what about the person who’s job was to make sure that one guy did his job?
And the guy who was in charge of that person?
And the department who’s job was makin sure nothing was insecure?
And the guy managing them?
Yep. All one guys fault. Poor guy, ruining the American credit monitoring
system for the rest of us.
~~~
blubb-fish
As somebody with full IT administration access I am just too aware of how easy
it is to entirely destroy an entire company with a single inadvertent command.
And the risk of this happening increases swiftly with stress levels and work
piling up and "just get this done quickly!", "why aren't you done yet?", "we
need this tomorrow!" etc. And that work environment is the norm - not the
exception.
~~~
MBCook
I’ve been there, and I’ve seen someone come really close to ruining a company
with that one mistake.
But even in a small company there were others who could patch things. There
were people above me who kept an eye on if patches were applied (or at least
reported to be applied).
It wasn’t just ‘we told guy X to patch and never followed up’.
~~~
blubb-fish
it is also worth noting that the experience of being "responsible" for a
company being destroyed could cause suicidal risks for the respective person.
I once accidentally didn't close the door to the office with a key - the door
had a defect which caused it to not lock sometimes - this made me realize how
heavy of a burden it would have been if the company would have gotten robbed
or something - which could have been very well its end. That was a very tough
experience - luckily nothing happened.
------
rgbrenner
$3B/yr in revenue; 9500 employees
One person responsible for the security of the enterprise.
If there is truly one person for a company this large, then he was setup to
fail from the beginning. The management is negligent and incompetent for not
creating a system for this. That's his job.
I think more likely, the CEO is full of shit and they're scape goating some
poor person. But even if that's not the case, this is a terrible thing for him
to admit. If he's really that incompetent, he has no business in management.
Hopefully he never works in management again. Kiddo needs to go back to
school, he's clearly forgotten all of his training.
~~~
sillysaurus3
Well, this is what happens when people call for jail time. The moment someone
goes to jail for something like this, it will change security issues forever:
People will stop reporting breaches, and developers themselves will be at risk
of going to jail.
Also, if you try to kill Equifax, companies will stop reporting breaches.
I don't know what the ultimate outcome of all of this will be, but it's
important to keep perspective. People are out for blood, and it's both scary
to watch and unsettling to think of the precedents it might set.
~~~
toomuchtodo
> Also, if you try to kill Equifax, companies will stop reporting breaches.
The US government killed Arthur Andersen. Financial fraud is still reported.
Equifax is not too big to dissolve.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen#Enron_scandal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen#Enron_scandal)
~~~
rrdharan
Many reasonable people seem to believe that the backlash and horror inm
response to the US government killing of Arthur Andersen and the subsequent
job losses were what led to the later toothless reactions by the DoJ to
subsequent corporate scandals:
[http://www.npr.org/2017/07/11/536642560/is-the-justice-
depar...](http://www.npr.org/2017/07/11/536642560/is-the-justice-department-
shying-away-from-to-prosecuting-corporations)
[http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/slate_money/2017/07/t...](http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/slate_money/2017/07/the_chickenshit_club_sexual_harassment_in_silicon_valley_and_hobby_lobby.html)
[https://www.amazon.com/Chickenshit-Club-Justice-
Department-C...](https://www.amazon.com/Chickenshit-Club-Justice-Department-
Criminals/dp/1501121367/?tag=slatmaga-20)
~~~
toomuchtodo
I mean this entirely seriously: perhaps its time we be less reasonable people.
------
bogomipz
>"The company sent out an internal email requesting that its technical staff
fix the software, but “an individual did not ensure communication got to the
right person to manually patch the application,” Mr. Smith told the
subcommittee."
So someone forgot to forward an email? What else does ensuring email
communication got to the right person mean?
When the security or hundreds of millions of people's data relies on a process
of selective email forwarding, the "lone individual" in question is the CEO.
~~~
uptime
Relying on email alone for this is negligence.
But a ticketing system at least should have been used. How were they planning
to check compliance with that email? Obviously there was no audit to check
that the email was followed.
------
didgeoridoo
This was clearly a failure on the CSO’s part, for which the CEO should take
responsibility (after all, he hired her).
One thing I don’t get, though. How did the CSO get hired? It seems obvious
that she had no qualifications or skills whatsoever for the job. How do I get
a seven-figure gig like that? (I’m kind of serious — how do these positions
get filled by people who are so fundamentally incompetent, when many, many
individuals could do a better job?)
------
noncoml
That's even worst. In most cases there are failures in multiple levels to
reach to such a catastrophic event. If this hack is because of the error of a
single employee, it means the have no safeguards or procedures setup to
prevent such failures of happening. In other words he and his CTO have failed
miserably at their job. A company should never depend on a single employee for
anything.
Also we should expecting to be see more issues in the future.
------
UnoriginalGuy
The DESIGN of their whole infrastructure was terrible for years.
I work at a school district. If someone broke into our public web server
they'd realise the entire webapp points at an WebAPI interface that will still
only let you make requests as a logged in user. Meaning it does the same thing
as the GUI, nothing less, nothing more. To get "full access" they have two
different layers they have to break through.
But even worse for the attacker, in this case full access doesn't even get you
full access. Our credit card processing, employee SSNs, and accounting system
isn't part of our main database/WebAPI system, and has IP restrictions. In
order to log into that you need username/password and 2F provided by SMS.
A completely flat design where a single breakin gives you the keys to the
kingdom is unacceptable for any organisation that holds sensitive information.
The school district's system was only improved after an external security
audit flagged our flat design as dangerous, and they were correct.
No, a single employee was definitely not responsible. This is a systemic issue
likely starting at the top. A CEO who thinks a single employee COULD even be
responsible is ignorant.
------
FLUX-YOU
>The company sent out an internal email requesting that its technical staff
fix the software, but “an individual did not ensure communication got to the
right person to manually patch the application,” Mr. Smith told the
subcommittee.
Why.. why did you just not send this person the email instead of having
someone send the email to this person? This sounds like BS.
(as an aside, managers are now going to start constantly asking "did you get
that email, bob?" to cover their asses)
------
partycoder
That's not a valid excuse.
The job of a leader is in part to identify and mitigate risks, or hire a
competent person do it for you, while still being responsible for it.
The fact that risks of these magnitude were being mitigated by a single lone
guy is a leadership issue.
Then, the problem was not only in the risk mitigation but also in the handling
of the incident as well. That's again on the leadership.
Then, the exfiltrated information is not secondary to Equifax's business. It's
the core of their business. It's not that they were Target, for instance,
where the core of their business is retail... the proper handling of that
information was Equifax's only goddamn job.
------
toomanybeersies
No it's not.
It may be the actions of a single employee that finally caused the breach to
occur, but there was a series of failures that lead up to this point. There
should have been no way that it was possible for a single employee's error to
cause such a massive failure.
------
marcell
Lone employee, meet bus.
Talk about a failure to take responsibility. Maybe it's the CEO's error to
allow a single employee to oversee a catastrophic security breach.
------
rietta
Absolute rubbish! For a company that needs to protect sensitive data, the data
breach could be traced back to the decision to put that much data on a
publicly accessible web application without any defense in depth. I stand by
what I wrote the in the week after the breach
[https://rietta.com/blog/2017/09/18/equifax-defense-in-
depth](https://rietta.com/blog/2017/09/18/equifax-defense-in-depth).
------
jamesmishra
Equifax is going to turn into a business school case study on what not to
do... and what not to say.
You could read any PDF or Kindle eBook on leadership to realize that this
headline will play very badly.
On a more technical note, how is it possible for a single person to ignore
that they needed to upgrade Apache Struts and nobody else notices or cares?
------
andreimackenzie
The CEO may blame a lone underling, and congress may blame a lone CEO, but
congress shares in the overall blame. Regulation and stiffer penalties are
needed to balance incentives so that corporations are motivated to invest in
security. As things stand, executives seem to rationalize skimping on security
as a smart business decision.
------
AdmiralAsshat
Thanks alot, Bob. Over half the country's information got stolen and it's
entirely and solely _your fault_.
~~~
cft
actually, if you only count adults with credit history, it more like 80%+
------
m8urn
Yeah, that's pretty bad blaming one employee when a single security hole on a
single server resulted in the loss of personal information for 146 million
people.
------
DiabloD3
To summarize what is actually going on (and pretty much what has been
repeatedly said in here): a lone employee's error did cause this, and that
lone employee is the CEO himself.
------
zitterbewegung
Ok even if you accept that it fell on one person that caused the error why did
disclosure take two Months ? Why were incentives or policies not in place to
correct the mistake ?
~~~
thunderrabbit
Disclosure took two months because one employee forgot to send an email about
the incident.
/s
------
kw71
Error, Singular?
One single employee developed the requirements for these errors, implemented
these errors, tested the errors, documented the errors, and signed off to ship
the errors.
What a piece of scum.
------
whoisthemachine
If you really think your security is dependent on the practices of _one
person_ , then _that is the problem._
------
egocodedinsol
What's the best way to a) structure the credit system so this doesn't happen
and b) incentives to ensure compliance with that structure?
I suspect most people here find the CEO's explanation lacking (and most people
who read the NYT, hence the headline): it's no use venting here.
I'm more curious about how to move forward, but I'm not a security expert.
Let's assume credit bureaus are here to stay: we, as a society, have decided
to lower the price of loans by reducing risk for lenders via easily available
credit histories (with all the benefits and drawbacks).
How have some companies and agencies have managed to keep data secure, and how
can we encourage other companies and agencies to do so, via carrot and/or
stick?
------
jacknews
That lone employee would be the CEO...
~~~
olliej
right?
------
geebee
I would like this CEO to tell me this one employee's pay grade. How is this
worker high enough on the org chart to be capable of this sort of impact?
A chief surgeon doesn't blame the lab tech when a patient dies, lead council
doesn't blame the paralegal for botching a death penalty case. They would
consider it a public humiliation to blame an underling, especially a
paraprofessional.
------
mathattack
_On multiple occasions, Mr. Smith referred to an “individual” in Equifax’s
technology department who had failed to heed security warnings and did not
ensure the implementation of software fixes that would have prevented the
breach._
If an employee isn't heeding a significant warnings _(plural!)_ then it sounds
like a management problem too.
------
ChrisBland
Well I mean that one person must have been paid $40 million + a year right? If
they were the sole source of protecting a multi billion dollar enterprise
surly their worth is more than that of the CEO...oh wait they didn't get paid
that...oh..never mind.
------
ungamed
Yeah it was one guy, the CEO.
------
Jayakumark
What this Guy is going to say about not encrypting DOB , SSN , name and
address etc and storing everything in plain text. is it also a single
employees fault ?
~~~
jmcgough
Equifax clearly never cared about security or protecting people, because we
aren't their clients. But yeah, some of this is just laughably bad.
------
patrickg_zill
Culture of the the company, not this one guy, is to blame.
------
tehwebguy
If this falls on one employee's head, well, the CEO might not be stoked to
when he realizes who is _actually_ responsible.
~~~
greglindahl
Former CEO. Who had to quit.
~~~
bdcravens
"Retired". With full pension, etc.
~~~
greglindahl
Firing someone for cause is difficult. Everyone likes to complain about
uncontested golden parachutes, but the lawsuits that result in the few cases
that are contested are never pretty.
------
westmeal
This reminds me of the story about the intern that wiped the DB with a single
command except it's worse.
------
bdwalter
The individual responsible is him.
------
Hasz
Pin the tail on the scapegoat, House subcommittee edition
------
plandis
With great power comes no responsibility, apparently.
------
chronid
"human error" is not a root cause.
------
cratermoon
Sure, throw that one guy under the bus, CEO.
------
tanilama
The one person is the CEO, right? Right?
------
danols
Yeah that would be the CEO then!
------
Khaine
Hiring this guy as CEO?
------
c0smic
All of these revelations read like xkcd comics. I mean really? One guy in a
corp of 9000+? Critical email threads? This situation is a joke.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
8 Engineers Share Candid Feedback about 1:1 Meetings - brennanm
https://soapboxhq.com/blog/management-skills/engineers-share-candid-feedback-one-on-ones
======
brennanm
Author here! Happy to share more about what I learned in the interviews.
~~~
nunez
Thank you for writing this! One-on-one styles indeed vary heavily depending on
who you're talking to and how they value their time. This sheet helps condense
some of those styles down.
Thank you!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Register for hack.summit() 2016 – huge virtual conf with 64k+ attendees - maxharris
https://hacksummit.org/2016
======
prtkgpt
HN members can bypass the registration and attend for FREE using code
HACKERNEWS.
Speaker list:
-David Heinemeier Hansson (creator of Ruby on Rails) -Joel Spolsky (co-founder and CEO of StackOverflow, founder of Trello) -Thomas Kurian (EVP at Oracle. Oversees all 3000+ of Oracle software products) -Rebecca Parsons (CTO of Thoughtworks) -Kent Beck (Created Extreme Programming, created TDD, co-created Agile, authored 9 books) -Bob Martin (created the Software Craftsmanship Movement) -Tom Chi (co-created Google Glass) -Yehuda Katz (Ember.js, JQuery, Rails Core committer. Created HandleBars) -Jocelyn Goldfein (recent Engineer Director, Facebook) -Qi Lu (Executive Vice President at Microsoft. Oversees R&D for Office, SharePoint, Exchange, Yammer, Lync, Skype, Bing, Bing Apps, MSN, and more) -Ed Roman (founder of TheServerSide.com, Java book author) -Aaron Skonnard (CEO of Pluralsight) -Brian Fox (created the GNU Bash Shell, Emacs maintainer) -Chris Richardson (Java Champion, created the original Cloud Foundry) -Orion Henry (founder of Heroku) -Hampton Catlin (Created SaSS, HAML, m.wikipedia.org, and book author) -Jon Skeet (#1 answerer on StackOverflow) -Dries Buyataert (created the Drupal programming language) -Janet Weiner (Engineering at Facebook, big data expert) -Floyd Marinescu (CEO, InfoQ) -Nathan Marz (creator of Apache Storm) -Rod Vagg (Node.js Technical Chair and Core Committer) -Sarah Allen (Co-creator of After Effects, Flash video, recent Presidential Innovation Fellow)
------
saidur
Round 2! Can't wait. The last Hacksummit had 30k attendees.
------
woodbird
Love that you guys support Girls Who Code and Women Who Code.
------
rolandt25
Nice one. #thanks
------
dwanderton
Sweet.
------
brown2rl
upvote! -bobby
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Snips is a Voice Assistant platform, create your private on-device assistants - oulipo
https://snips.ai
======
oulipo
I'm a co-founder of Snips, we are building a private-by-design Voice Assistant
platform which allows companies and makers to build a smart assistant 100% on-
device.
Why do we do this? We want assistants of the future to respect user privacy,
and not stream your voice or your most important questions to servers that you
do not control.
With Snips, 100% of what we do runs on the device (the platform ships for
Raspberry Pi, more platforms are available for entreprise customers,
[email protected])
We are using state-of-the-art deep-learning Automated Speech Recognition and
Natural Language Understanding to allow makers to plug a voice assistant in
their device in 5 minutes.
We are actually benchmarked our NLP and are outperforming most of the
commercially available NLU providers: [https://medium.com/snips-
ai/benchmarking-natural-language-un...](https://medium.com/snips-
ai/benchmarking-natural-language-understanding-systems-google-facebook-
microsoft-and-snips-2b8ddcf9fb19)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
4Chan To Target RIAA Next - Indyan
http://torrentfreak.com/4chan-to-ddos-riaa-next-is-this-the-protest-of-the-future-100919/
======
goalieca
And its down... Though, I gotta wonder how useful it is to take down an almost
useless website on a weekend. The email infrastructure would be far more
damaging I would imagine.
~~~
cookiecaper
People keep saying this but is there evidence that this attack doesn't bring
down the mail server too? I'm not making assumptions, but for what amounts to
a brochure site, it wouldn't be that surprising if mail was on the DoS'd
servers.
Of course, if not, I agree this is kind of pointless.
------
Zev
As little as I like the RIAA/MPAA/etc's policies of suing everyone, I'm
finding it even harder to like what amounts to petty cybervandalism.
~~~
sp332
"Turn about is fair play," as they say. AiPlex has been DDOS'ing file-sharing
sites for months. [http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-outfit-threatens-to-
dos-...](http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-outfit-threatens-to-dos-
uncooperative-torrent-sites-100905/) RIAA and MPAA have a long history of
taking down websites they don't approve of with less-than-legal tactics.
[http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-outfit-threatens-to-
dos-...](http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-outfit-threatens-to-dos-
uncooperative-torrent-sites-100905/) Some of those sites weren't even illegal!
MediaDefender group broke into Revision3's private tracker (which had ONLY
original Rev3 content on it), injected illegal torrents into it in the hope of
suing them for illegal distribution, then (accidentally!) DOSed it.
[http://revision3.com/blog/2008/05/29/inside-the-attack-
that-...](http://revision3.com/blog/2008/05/29/inside-the-attack-that-
crippled-revision3/)
Edited for correctness.
~~~
Zev
The whole "an eye for an eye" thing doesn't exactly scale terribly well.
~~~
sp332
Sorry, but this bothers me.
<pedantry>
In the culture of the day (middle-east, thousands of years ago) many arguments
- even little ones - would _escalate_ , sometimes into generations-long blood
feuds. The "eye for an eye" law was a law of peace! Even if someone did
something incredibly painful, disfiguring, and debilitating as gouging out
your eye, you weren't allowed to extract revenge on their family or property,
or even to torture or kill the guy. The most you were entitled to was his eye.
No more blood feuds allowed.
</pedantry>
~~~
Zev
Not being able to torture, maim or murder someone is a good thing. Really. If
you're not sure about this, you'll just have to take my word on it.
But, thats pretty far off-topic. The essence of my point still stands, even if
you disagree with the wording of it. _Just because someone else did something
wrong doesn't give you a license to do the same._
~~~
bobds
An eye for an eye is not about torturing, maiming or murdering anyone. It's a
metaphor. Taking down their website for a few hours, is fairly close to
harmless.
I agree that they shouldn't be doing this. If they really want an eye for an
eye they should sue them to oblivion. That I think would be quite appropriate.
~~~
chrischen
> Taking down their website for a few hours, is fairly close to harmless.
That just makes it even more stupid. Not only does it not accomplish anything,
but it's illegal and stoops down to their level. You'd basically sacrifice
principal for nothing except a little "gotcha back" feeling.
------
jrockway
The real protest is setting up a distributed infrastructure for sharing high-
quality files for free that these organizations want $30 and your first born
child for. Of course, that war has already been won so I guess 4chan has just
decided to kick them while they're down for the fun of it.
I approve.
------
doki_pen
A group of people who find pedophilia funny vs. a group that is willing to
ruin the lives of elderly and children to make more money. Somehow I just
don't care what happens.
~~~
Goladus
Cultural taboos are always ripe for humor. Be careful judging someone for
something you might not understand as well as you think.
~~~
doki_pen
Wouldn't offending 4Chan enthusiasts result in great lulz? Perhaps the reason
I don't understand is because it doesn't make sense.
------
paul9290
What is the reasoning behind these attacks? Immaturity?
Getting content legally and quickly in 2010 is a lot different and better then
say 2003/2005.
~~~
bballbackus
The idea is that the MPAA or someone hired a company that executes DDoS
attacks against torrent websites. It is in fact a immature retaliation. At the
end of the day, even if the RIAA and MPAA are sometimes behind the times, they
are enforcing the (American) law on digital rights. People can use all the
backwards reasoning they want, but they are still receiving content for free
that the distributor wants them to pay for.
~~~
wipt
When did the MPAA or RIAA become a law enforcement agency? Also, who's
lobbying/(bribing) senators to make laws?
------
lotusleaf1987
I'm finding it hard to feel bad for the RIAA.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Internet overuse linked to depression, but questions remain - tokenadult
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/besttreatments/2010/feb/03/internet-overuse-linked-to-depression-but-questions-remain
======
tokenadult
"in partnership with the British Medical Journal," a great example of a new
story that analyzes a research study well. The article applies a lot of good
criteria for evaluating a research study
<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>
to this finding announced today.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists - ingve
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2016/05/09/how-to-read-and-understand-a-scientific-paper-a-guide-for-non-scientists/
======
neutronicus
I have a little "hack" that I find _extremely_ helpful for getting a sense of
specific research fields.
Journal articles, even review papers, are cramped for space and so tend to be
very dense. The author suggests methods for doing battle with this density,
but I suggest that, before doing that, you search for a class of document
that's allowed to be as expansive as the author desires, and whose authors
have recently struggled to learn and understand their content, and so tend to
_be_ expansive:
PhD Theses
Find out what research group published the research, find out which graduate
students have recently graduated from that group, and _read their theses_ (if
the author's command of the language of publication isn't what you'd prefer
... find another graduate student). I guarantee you it will function much
better as an introduction to what the group does than trying to parse any of
their journal publications. In particular, the "draw the experiment" step will
often be solved for you, with photographs, at least in the fields where I've
done this.
~~~
FredrikMeyer
This is _very_ good advice. I am a PhD student in mathematics, and every time
I try to learn a new area of math, I'm grateful when I stumble upon PhD theses
about that topic. They actually include their calculations.
~~~
neutronicus
Yeah, and if you _are_ actually in the field and trying to learn it (as you
are and this article's intended audience is not), a nice little bonus is that
PhD theses are usually formatted in a way that's very friendly to markin' 'em
up as you come to grips with the material.
------
startupdiscuss
This is a good guide, but I will tell you a trick that is faster, easier, and
more effective:
read 2 or 3 papers.
All that effort you would put into doing these steps? Instead, read 1 or 2
other papers that the author refers to in the beginning.
Science is a conversation. When you read the other papers, even if you don't
understand them at first, you will get a sense of the conversation.
Also, some writers are abysmal, and others are amazingly lucid. Hopefully one
of the 3 papers you read will be the lucid one that will help you understand
the other 2.
~~~
ouid
There is a huge variety in the quality of writing in scientific papers, but
most of it is bad, or at least totally opaque, so I'm not sure that 3 papers
will give you a sense of what is good, or even have a high probability of
containing a paper that you can use as an entry point, although I think your
premise is correct.
Probably the best evidence that a paper is a good entry point is whether or
not the author cared about the abstract. A lot of scientists treat it as a
chore, picking some key points from the premise, methodology, and conclusion
sections, and haphazardly pasting them together into a miniature version of
the paper. An abstract is a sketch of your argument. It's supposed to be how
the author thinks about the work they are doing, in terms of how it relates to
the work everyone else is doing. Look for an abstract which presents an
argument in plain english and isn't afraid to give a little background or
motivation. It might take dozens to find one though.
~~~
jacobolus
Personally I find abstracts close to useless, and just skip them entirely.
I’ve never found a particularly close correlation between what an abstract
said and how interesting/informative/well written the rest of the paper was.
YMMV.
------
closed
I love how simple and clear this post is.
As a kind of weird aside, if anyone ever emailed me about any of my journal
articles, I would 100% respond to them (assuming they weren't a machine). I
think most of my colleagues would do the same (except for articles featured in
a newspaper, which might garner a lot of weird emails).
~~~
kkylin
Me too, most especially if the email is from a student. I imagine the same
goes for many of us who write research papers.
------
lumisota
Keshav's "How to Read a Paper" [1] is a good guide, though perhaps less in the
"for non-scientists" camp.
[1]
[http://ccr.sigcomm.org/online/files/p83-keshavA.pdf](http://ccr.sigcomm.org/online/files/p83-keshavA.pdf)
------
choxi
> As you read, write down every single word that you don’t understand. You’re
> going to have to look them all up (yes, every one. I know it’s a total pain.
> But you won’t understand the paper if you don’t understand the vocabulary.
> Scientific words have extremely precise meanings).
That's a great tip. I've found that a lot of papers aren't necessarily
complicated, but the vocabulary is unfamiliar (but you experience the same
sense of confusion with both). It's interesting that we often conflate
complexity with unfamiliarity, my reading comprehension abilities improved
quite a bit by understanding the difference between the two.
------
glup
I don't understand the opposition to abstracts: dense means high information
content, so if you know the field you can learn a whole lot (like whether you
should read this paper or another one).
~~~
PeterisP
Abstracts often are misleading.
They're useful to decide whether you should read this paper or another one,
but they're often _not_ useful to get a summary of what exactly the paper
actually achieves. Often the abstract will imply a more interesting result by
leaving out key aspects and limitations (which are detailed in the paper and
its conclusions) that significantly change the impact of the paper, the
abstract often is more like an advertisement for the paper than an effective
summary. I mean, it _may_ be, but if I'd read just the abstract and go away
thinking, "oh, so now there's a way to do X", I'd often be wrong.
~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I recently read a paper whose abstract seemed to imply to me that its content
was much more technical and specific than it actually turned out to be, which
was disappointing. It was more useful in telling you the particular area of
research than summarising its content.
------
ChuckMcM
Oh this is awesome, well presented and clear.
A couple of notes, generally if you email the author of a paper they will send
you a copy. Scholar.google.com can be used to evaluate the other papers
referenced, highly cited ones will be 'core' to the question, less highly
cited ones will address some particular aspect of the research.
For any given paper, if it cites one or two seminal papers in the field, you
can build a citation cloud to create what is best described as the 'current
best thinking on this big question'. You do that by following up the citations
and their citations for two or three hops. (kind of like a web crawler).
With something like sci-hub and some work on PDF translation, it should be
possible to feed two or three 'seed' papers to an algorithm and have it
produce a syllabus for the topic.
------
deorder
I usually first start reading or glance over papers (and non-story books) from
the end to the beginning before I read it the other way around. This has the
following benefits for me:
\- By knowing about the conclusion first I will better understand the
motivation and why certain steps are being taken.
\- I find out sooner if the paper (or book) is something I am looking for.
I like to read papers unrelated to my field to learn new thing to apply. To be
honest, some papers still take me a long time to understand because they
usually assume you already are researching the topic (for ex. certain terms,
symbols and/or variables that are not being defined).
------
nonbel
There is a difference between reading and studying a paper. Many papers I just
check the abstract for claims of A causes/correlates B (ie it is a "headline"
claim), and look for a scatter plot of A vs B (it is missing).
Then I do ctrl-F "blind" (can't find it), ctrl-F "significance" (see p-value
with nearby text indicating it has been misinterpreted). Boom, paper done in
under a minute. There is really no reason to study such papers unless they
have some very specific information you are searching for (like division rate
of a certain cell line or something).
~~~
Denvercoder9
This only works for a very small subset of studies in a subset of scientific
fields.
~~~
nonbel
Agreed, the OP was about medical research though, where it does apply.
------
olsgaard
About identifying "The Big Question", I have a story from my days as a
graduate student, where I failed to do so.
I was asked to help on a project that needed to identify humans in an audio
stream. During my literature review, I came across the field of "Voice
Activity Detection" or VAD, which concerns itself with identifying where in an
audiosignal a human voice / speech is present (as opposed to _what_ the speech
is).
I implemented several algorithms from the literature and tested it on the
primary tests sets referenced in papers and spend a few months on this until I
finally asked myself "What would happen if I gave my algorithm an audiostream
of a dog barking?"
The barking was identified as "voice".
As it turns out, the "Big Question" in Voice Activity Detection is not to find
human voices (or any voices), but to figure out when to pass on high-fidelity
signals from phone calls. So the algorithms tend to only care about audio
segments that are background noise and segments that are not background noise.
------
sn9
>I want to help people become more scientifically literate, so I wrote this
guide for how a layperson can approach reading and understanding a scientific
research paper. It’s appropriate for someone who has no background whatsoever
in science or medicine, and based on the assumption that he or she is doing
this for the purpose of getting a basic understanding of a paper and deciding
whether or not it’s a reputable study.
Better advice intended to make _layman with zero background in science_ become
more scientifically literate would be to tell them to read some textbooks.
Later on in the article, she tells people to write down each and every thing
you don't understand in an article and look them up later. And this is
excellent advice for people with a background equivalent to an advanced
undergraduate or higher, but for people with zero background it would be
better to read some textbooks and get yourself a foundation.
Honestly, even when I was in grad school in neuroscience, I asked around for
advice on reading papers and the surprisingly universal response from other
grad students was that it took 2 years to become reliably able to read and
evaluate a research paper well. And this is 2 years in a research environment
with often weekly reading groups where PIs, postdocs, grad students, and some
undergrads got together to dissect some paper. These reading groups provided
an environment in which you had regular feedback on your own ability to read
papers by seeing all the things those more experienced than you saw and that
you missed. A paper that took me 3+ hours of intense study would take a
postdoc a good half hour to get more information out of.
I feel like this article makes reading articles well seem a lighter
undertaking than it really is. It's really no wonder we see studies
misinterpreted so often on the internet, where people Google for 5 minutes and
skim an abstract.
~~~
yskmt
> it took 2 years to become reliably able to read and evaluate a research
> paper well
This completely coincides with my experience. When I started grad school, it
took me a few hours to read one paper, and I probably understood only 50% of
the materials even though I had some foundations in the research area from my
undergrad studies.
Reading textbooks is a great advice. Then one can start reading some review
papers in the area to get some more depth in his/her knowledge. I think the
difficulty is that it is hard to find good textbooks and review papers for the
subject that one is interested in, especially when the subject is in a niche
field.
------
kronos29296
As a student who needs to read research articles for my project, this article
gave some new ideas on how to approach those long boring and cryptic pieces of
text that just take days to understand. Thanks to the person who posted it.
------
luminati
A couple things I try to do when reading research papers, inspired by these
two amazing [b|v]logs.
[1][https://blog.acolyer.org/](https://blog.acolyer.org/)
[2][https://www.youtube.com/user/keeroyz](https://www.youtube.com/user/keeroyz)
I try to paraphrase the paper into a Acolyer like 'morning paper' blog post on
evernote while mentally I am directing a 'two minute paper' video on the paper
:)
------
DomreiRoam
I would like to have a digest or an overview written for a IT practitioner. I
did go SC/IT conference and enjoyed the talks and I noticed 2 things: 1/ You
learn new things and new approach that can bring value to our job 2/ It seems
that the research sector discover stuff that are already known in the
industry.
I think it would be great to have a journal/blog that would construct a bridge
between the industry and the university.
------
yamaneko
This suggestion by Michael Nielsen is also very good:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=666615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=666615)
------
pitt1980
What's odd to me, is that lots of professors have blogs in which they write
quite a bit in plain language that doesn't require an instruction manual in
order to be read
------
syphilis2
Why don't the authors do these 11 steps for us?
~~~
danielalmeida
Because they are not writing for non-scientists.
~~~
pitt1980
all scientist were non-scientists first though, correct?
Look, I get that there's some natural professional context and lingo that goes
into these things, but for all the angst that goes into what esteem that
population at large holds up the science community
making their work more accessible to both novices and interested outsiders
would be a nice step in the right direction
~~~
danielalmeida
I agree with you. To put it simply, papers are optimized for the scientific
community and making them "more accessible" to outsiders has a cost. I'd
settle for better writing and presentations within the scientific community
for now. If you ever find researchers that blog about their research in simple
terms, I think it's safe to assume they're using their personal time to do
that (I know of very few; Andy Ko [1] comes to mind).
[1] [https://medium.com/bits-and-behavior](https://medium.com/bits-and-
behavior)
------
amelius
I'd like an answer to: how/where to ask the relevant community a question
about a scientific paper.
------
minademian
this is a great guide. i wish more writing on the Internet has this blend of
substance, message, tone, and grit.
------
apo
Sensible advice overall, but I completely disagree with these:
> Before you begin reading, take note of the authors and their institutional
> affiliations.
and
> Beware of questionable journals.
Institutional affiliation and journal imprimatur should have no bearing in
science. These are shortcuts for the lazy, and they introduce bias into
evaluation of the paper's contents.
Even more than that, dispensing advice along these lines perpetuates the myth
that scientific fact is dispensed from on high. If that's the case, just let
the experts do the thinking for you and don't bother your pretty little head
trying to read scientific papers.
If the author's approach to reading a paper only works by checking for stamps
of approval, maybe the approach should be reconsidered.
~~~
burkaman
They aren't shortcuts for the lazy, they're shortcuts for non-scientists who
aren't capable of fully evaluating the science alone. If you're capable of
objectively peer reviewing a paper, you're not the audience of this article.
~~~
apo
> They aren't shortcuts for the lazy, they're shortcuts for non-scientists who
> aren't capable of fully evaluating the science alone.
It's a shortcut fraught with potential for deception, as even a casual glance
through a site like Retraction Watch will demonstrate:
[http://retractionwatch.com/](http://retractionwatch.com/)
I'm not sure what you mean by "evaluating the science." A scientific paper
should present a hypothesis, the author's best attempt to disprove the
hypothesis, and an interpretation of the evidence gathered in the processes of
testing the hypothesis. There's going to be a back-story, and it's likely to
be quite involved.
The article does a good job of presenting a method for navigating a paper on
this basis. I don't see what checking credentials adds to the process. On the
contrary, it may do harm.
~~~
semi-extrinsic
While we may find the high profile cases featured on Retraction Watch mainly
in high impact journals, that's precisely because unscrupulous people deem
these journals _worth it to cheat to get into_. Nobody cheats to get their
paper into the International Journal of Architecture, Engineering and Nursing
Science - because it and it's ilk are utter pieces of crap that will accept
anything, up to and including randomly-generated text and pro-Sri-Lanka-
highly-racist-UFO-conspiracies (real example). Teaching laypeople to avoid
these is a very good idea.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Featured Image from a feed - fadelakin
On my WordPress blog, I have a syndicator plugin, with 3 or 4 websites it pulls feeds from.The problem was that it would pull the story and create the post and tags and all that - but the image would not automatically drop into the Featured Image (lower right column in the Post screen). So the home page would have blank boxes with titles, and the full post view would have images. I end up shifting it to draft mode and the stories have to be manually tweaked and posted. I think, a quick tweak to the theme design should allow the first image (usually the only one) that get's pulled in from syndication to be inserted automatically as the Featured Image as well. The problem with this is I've tried multiple times, but nothing seems to work.
======
pavel_lishin
Try StackOverflow for this kind of question.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mercurial 2.0 has added largefiles extension (older r. are downloaded on demand) - ognyankulev
http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/LargefilesExtension
======
kevingadd
This could actually give Mercurial a big edge over Git for development
environments where large binary files are a core part of your workflow - like
game development. Products like Perforce are a big hit in games precisely
because they are really good at handling this specific class of file.
It's a shame, because I hate using Mercurial, but this would give me a very
strong reason to use it for my game projects instead of Git.
~~~
EGreg
Why do you hate using mercurial? You like to type things like this:
git fetch <project-to-union-merge>
GIT_INDEX_FILE=.git/tmp-index git-read-tree FETCH_HEAD
GIT_INDEX_FILE=.git/tmp-index git-checkout-cache -a -u
git-update-cache --add -- (GIT_INDEX_FILE=.git/tmp-index git-ls-files)
cp .git/FETCH_HEAD .git/MERGE_HEAD
git commit
instead of this:
hg pull --force <project-to-union-merge>
hg merge
hg commit
Mercurial "just works", and its commands are less arcane.
To be fair, git is now much easier to use. But also to be fair, mercurial has
become much more powerful. In mercurial, doing straightforward things is
simple, and doing complicated things is more complex, which is the way it
should be IMHO
It even has rebase, although one might argue that is not a great
differentiating feature for a REPOSITORY
~~~
rdtsc
> You like to type things like this:
Why would I have to type that? I have been using git for 4 years and never had
to type git-update-cache --add or copying .git/FETCH_HEAD. Are you spreading
FUD?
~~~
viraptor
It's an edge case, but still true... Not something you'd do more than once a
year probably ;)
------
joeyh
I'm the developer of [git-annex](<http://git-annex.branchable.com/>) which is
AFAIK the closest eqivalant for git. I only learned about the mercurial bfiles
extension (which became the large files extension) after designing git-annex.
The designs are obviously similar at a high level, but one important
difference is that git-annex tracks, in a fully distributed manner, which git
repositories currently contain the content of a particular large file. The
mercurial extension is, AFAIK, rather more centralized; while it can transfer
large file content from multiple stores it can't, for example, transfer a
large file from a nearby client that happens to currently have a copy, which
git-annex can do (if a remote is set up). This location tracking also allows
me to have offline archival disks whose content is tracked with git-annex. If
I ask for an archived file, git-annex knows which disks I can put online to
retrieve it.
Another difference is that the mercurial extension always makes available
_all_ the large files for the currently checked out tree. git-annex allows a
tree to be checked out with large files not present (they appear as broken
symlinks); you can ask it to populate the tree and it retrieves the files as a
separate step. This is both more complex and more flexible. For example, I
have a git repository containing a few terabytes of data. It's checked out on
my laptop's 30 gb SSD. Only the files I'm currently using are present on my
laptop, but I can still _manage_ all the other files, reorganizing them,
requesting ones I need, etc.
git-annex also has support for special remotes, which are not git
repositories, but in which large files are stored. So large files can be
stored in Amazon S3 (or the Internet Archive S3), in a bup repository, or
downloaded from arbitrary urls on the web.
Content in special remotes are tracked the same as other remotes. This lets me
do things like this (the first file is one of my Grandfather's engineering
drawings of Panama Canal locks):
joey@gnu:~/lib/big/raw/eckberg_panama>git annex whereis img-0124.png
whereis img-0124.png (5 copies)
5863d8c0-d9a9-11df-adb2-af51e6559a49 -- turtle (turtle internal drive)
7e55d8d0-81ab-11e0-acc9-bfb671110037 -- archive-panama (internet archive http://www.archive.org/details/panama-canal-lock-design-papers)
905a3a64-4149-11e0-8b3f-97b9501cdcd3 -- passport (passport usb drive 1 terabyte)
9b22e786-dff4-11df-8b4c-731a6178061c -- archive-leech (archive-6 sata drive)
f4c185e2-da3e-11df-a198-e70f2c123f40 -- archive (archive-5 sata drive)
ok
joey@gnu:~/lib/big/raw/eckberg_panama>git annex get img-0124.png --from archive-panama
get img-0124.png (from archive-panama...) ok
I'm hopeful that git will grow some internal hooks for managing large files
that will improve git-annex and also allow others to develop extensions that,
perhaps, behave more like the mercurial largefiles extension. I recently
attended the GitTogether and this stuff was a major topic of discussion.
~~~
baq
does git-annex work on windows? if not, do you have plans to port it? it's an
important problem and it'd suck to have a solution which doesn't work on all
major platforms.
~~~
joeyh
Not so far. Discussion is here: [http://git-
annex.branchable.com/install/#comment-4637ce9b32a...](http://git-
annex.branchable.com/install/#comment-4637ce9b32abecf6ebf94c75f907f351)
It's fine on OSX though.
------
wcoenen
Another option available since Mercurial 1.5 is to put the large files in a
subversion repository and reference it as a subrepository.
[http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/Subrepository#SVN_subrepos...](http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/Subrepository#SVN_subrepositories)
~~~
gecko
That options work fine, _provided_ that all of your binary assets sit at one
location in the tree, _and_ that you just happen to have a Subversion server
lying around at the time. largefiles allows you to put your assets where you
want, and allows you to avoid setting up a Subversion server.
------
protez
I don't get what it does. Does this extension make large binary files
"diffable," as it states that's the problem it solves?
~~~
gecko
Binary files are already diffable, both in how they're stored (in fact, the
_only_ thing that Mercurial stores internally are binary diffs), and in terms
of sending around patches (that's what the Git patch format is for).
There are two problems that largefiles tries to solve: first, that while
binary files are technically diffable, most of the popular ones store large
amounts of compressed data, which means that their diffs are insanely poor.
Combine that with the second problem, which is that distributed version
control systems tend to include the entire history in every repo, and you've
got a recipe for disaster: those 200 MB worth of textures that you just color-
corrected are now going to be another 200 MB of data that every last developer
needs to get whenever they attempt to fetch your repository.
largefiles solves this by saying that certain, user-designated files, are
_not_ actually stored in the repository. Instead, stand-ins, which are one-
line text files with the SHA-1 hash of the file they represent, are stored
instead. Whenever you update (checkout, in Git parlance) to a given revision,
largefiles fetches your missing files on-demand, either from the central
store, or (if available) from a per-user cache.
The benefit of this approach is that, if just want the newest revision, you
don't have to also fetch all the historical versions of all the assets. The
downside of this approach is that a clone doesn't, by default, have the full,
reconstructable history of the entire repository. Whether this trade-off works
for you will largely depend on who you are and what your workflow is, but
we've found many Kiln customers who find it to be an excellent trade-off.
------
splicer
I wonder whether Kiln will end up using this.
~~~
gecko
Of course! largefiles is a direct descendant of kbfiles (our initial, Kiln-
specific version of this functionality). We are really happy to see it
integrated into the official Mercurial release, and will be supporting it
within the next couple of weeks. We're just working on making sure that the
switch is painless and transparent for everyone who's currently using kbfiles.
------
luckydude
/me wonders when Mercurial will ever do anything other than copy BitKeeper.
We've been doing this for years, my photos are in a ~100GB BK/BAM repo.
Release notes for BitKeeper version 4.1 (released 12-Oct-2007)
Major features
BAM support. BAM stands for "Binary Asset Management" and it adds support to
BK for versioning large binaries. It solves two problems: a) one or more
binary files that are frequently changed. b) collections of many large
binaries where you only need a subset. The way it solves this is to introduce
the concept of BAM server[s]. A BAM server manages a collection of binaries
for one or more BAM clients. BAM clients may have no data present; when it is
needed the data is fetched from the BAM server.
In the first case above, only the tip will be fetched. Imagine that you have
100 deltas, each 10MB in size. The history is 1GB but you only need 10MB in
your clone.
In the second case, imagine that you have thousands of game assets distributed
across multiple directories. You typically work only in one directory at a
time. You will only need to fetch the subset of files that you need, the rest
of the repository will have the history of what changed but no data (so bk log
will work but bk cat will have to go fetch the data).
~~~
gaoshan
To really copy BitKeeper Mercurial would need to start charging for use and
come out in Basic, Pro and Enterprise editions, with things like BAM support
disabled at the lowest level. Fortunately they don't do this.
~~~
luckydude
It's easier to copy than it is to invent stuff, sad but true. hg has a long
history of doing illegal copies of BK tech, we could have sued them out of
existence years ago. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I guess
we should be flattered :)
Legalities aside, the point I've made for about a decade now is that it would
be interesting to see a release announcement from hg where I went "That's
cool! Why didn't we think of that?"
As for the 3 levels of product, um, when you build commercial products with
commercial support, you don't do that? You really want only one offering? That
doesn't play well in the commercial world, we tried that. If you are just
taking a dig at commercial software, sorry about that, but we have to pay for
dev somehow. I'd love a way to open source the thing and make money, haven't
found it.
~~~
rdtsc
> we could have sued them out of existence years ago
really? but you didn't, from the goodness of your heart, right?
~~~
luckydude
We didn't see the upside of sueing and we could sure as heck see the PR down
side.
What would you have done? You got a well known hacker who all of the open
source guys will side with, so you lose the PR battle, but the guy is ripping
off your technology, his employer basically admitted that in front of your
lawyer. What would you do?
~~~
rdtsc
Yeah, not sure, not an easy problem. Maybe go public? In open source world
reputation is almost everything. Honesty figures in that well. If you have
good proof, their reputation would be ruined.
I personally don't care if this was RMS himself or Torvalds, if they are
copying code from others as their own, I lose respect for them and will refuse
to use or promote their projects.
Maybe present it in an exploratory kind of blog post -- "So yeah we found this
out and we don't know what to do, what does the community think?" Just make it
public.
~~~
msbarnett
This is either him reminding everyone of the hissy-fit Bitkeeper threw when
Tridgell telnet'd into a bitkeeper server and typed HELP, or the hissy-fit
Bitkeeper threw when Bryan O'Sullivan dared to contribute to Mercurial while
his employer held a license for Bitkeeper.
Either way, the reminder that Bitkeeper's licensing terms are so utterly
ridiculous that either of the above cases were considered in any way, shape,
or form "nefarious" only strikes me as a good way to scare away even more
potential customers from their product.
~~~
luckydude
Tridge is not exactly telling the whole story. That telnet thing is quite but
the part he left out is when Linus was at his house running BK commands and
Tridge was snooping the network to figure out the protocol. There isn't any
chance that Tridge figured out what to do by telneting to bkbits and I'll back
that up with a $10K challenge for anyone to write the same code Tridge wrote,
in the same time frame, with the only resource being telnet to bkbits.net.
Go talk to Linus and see what he says about all this, don't take my word for
it.
~~~
garenp
People don't take your word for it though, so it's much ado about nothing. The
burden of proof is on you, not anyone else ("Extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence") hence no need to "go talk to Linus," because your
claims are so highly suspect.
Because, really, nobody thinks BK contains some kind of rocket science for
anyone to rip off in the first place. If there is, IMNSHO I don't see it in
the mercurial or git sources, which is readily available to anyone. Hence why
nobody takes seriously what you, or even a supposed "employer" or "lawyer"
says either (and what your lawyer would say is even more highly suspect :)).
And if all this supposed restraint is due to some kind of self-interested,
game theoretic calculation as you imply, why does that same thinking not
restrain you from touting unverifiable claims? It's only generating "bad PR"
for you which you wish to avoid, makes you look bad, and by extension your
claims ever more doubtful. That can't be good for business.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Welcome to the Library of Technomadics - jacquesm
http://microship.com/
======
VLM
I remember those days...
The article on the link can be read in the original on page 254 of
[https://archive.org/details/80_Micro_1983-12_1001001_US](https://archive.org/details/80_Micro_1983-12_1001001_US)
Page 255 is a single person software company selling $20 applications before
"office software" existed.
Page 257 has ads for basically TRS80 GDB debugger for $40, a bible grep
command for $50 or $200 sold using an Apple II picture in a TRS-80 magazine
(WTF, guys?) and Radio Shack (may god rest their souls) sold computers with
tin/lead corrosion connectors and this aftermarket gold connectors could be
soldered on. Personally I never needed any of it.
Page 258 talks about the AppleII vs Franklin copyright loss. This was years
before the PC Clone era, and AppleII clones were not legal.
Look at the silver bullet on page 262. Some things never change.
On page 264 notice how people have been complaining about display technology
and trying to sell a profitable magic solution for roughly 30+ years now. Also
check out the prices on page 265.
Check out page 314. My dad bought a floppy drive upgrade from those guys;
worked perfectly. Those numbers are not inflation adjusted BTW and thats
vaguely what he was paying for the mortgage back in those days.
There's some nice modems on page 316.
Come to think of it, the most interesting artifact of this era was 322 page
long computer magazines. Think about that pagecount for a second. It truly was
a different era.
~~~
dwarman
Including seriously long and detailed code and algorithms and discussions
about sam. I got a really nice byte based lookup table method for computing
CRC16s (any feedback points) from a Byte mag in 1976. Don't see these today.
------
gonzo
I gave him the SPARCbook back in the day.
[http://microship.com/update-kentucky-rainstorm/](http://microship.com/update-
kentucky-rainstorm/)
------
maxwelljoslyn
The BEHEMOTH cycle is just something else. A Mac in the front of a bicycle
with head-mounted controls and a keyboard in the handlebars is just the tip of
the iceberg.
Mr. Roberts' projects are seriously cool. Just think of all the dozens of
different technologies that this guy understands intimately, from the highest
to lowest levels.
------
dwarman
And he did that trip twice, with two generations of original systems -
Wonnebago and Behemoth.
Yes, Steve is indeed really cool. No contest.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bypass Slack mention Restrictions - fortytw2
https://www.schalla.me/post/bypass-global-mention-restriction-slack/
======
dlsniper
I just seen it, guess someone forgot not to trust user inputs.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Out of the Cell - fern12
https://granta.com/out-of-the-cell/
======
jessriedel
> As a little boy in Oxford, I was encouraged to worship the mind. I and my
> friends, often sons of professors, were being drilled in French and Latin
> and Greek before we turned seven,
> ...
> Marcus Aurelius had given me all kinds of wisdom for dealing with loss –
> impeccable in theory – and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar had taught me about
> the fury of the irrational. But when I thought of texts like that, I was
> back in the mind of my schoolboy days, and that was the structure that now
> lay in rubble.
> ...
> As a writer, I’ve come to feel that the best thing I can share with readers
> is not dazzling argumentation, or references to the classics, but those
> moments we all know when we sit, helpless, before ravenous flames, or sense
> that we can only bow before those turns along the road, harrowing and
> uplifting, we will never begin to understand.
Is the author really claiming that all that fancy book learning is overrated
because it didn't emotionally prepare the author for having his house burn
down? Does he really think reading the sorts of emotional retrospectives like
the present one would have prepared him?
I hear this argument all the time from artists: "Oh you analytical types, you
spend all this time with sophisticated theories and discussion, but you don't
really understand X because you haven't experienced it." Which is fine insofar
as they only argue that analysis cannot fully replace first-hand experience in
some human affairs. Duh. But very often they continue by arguing (either
explicitly or implicitly) that _consuming art_ somehow prepares you better.
This is something that I've just never understood. Of the dramatic emotional
experiences I've had, I've never thought art prepared me. Rather, I've very
often thought "Wait, _this_ is what they were talking about? This is what all
those love songs (or whatever) were written about? It is _completely_
different than I expected."
If artists were serious about accurately communicating experiences (either to
prepare the viewer for ones they would later have, or to allow the viewer to
know about something they could never experience), the practice of art would
look a hell of a lot different. For instance, there would be much more effort
made to _check_ to see if various artistic works actually communicated things
accurately by (say) studying whether viewers who had an experience were
surprised by aspects of the experience despite having previously consumed the
relevant art. (This is useful even if most viewers never have the true
experience.)
Instead, the practice of art looks much more optimized for giving viewer
intense compelling experiences _without_ trying to maintain accuracy at all.
And that's fine if that's the end goal. But they shouldn't pretend it's
somehow about preparing you for life.
~~~
carbocation
> For instance, there would be much more effort made to check to see if
> various artistic works actually communicated things accurately by (say)
> studying whether viewers who had an experience were surprised by aspects of
> the experience despite having previously consumed the relevant art.
This is a fascinating idea. Imagine Facebook injecting various works of art
into the timeline of 1 billion people (since the effect size will almost
certainly be minuscule, you're going to need a large N). Then, as these people
report various life experiences (ended relationship, etc), their
happiness/despair/resilience scores (which are probably already being
computed) could be assessed and the relationship to the art, if any, could be
ascertained. ( _Caveat_ being that conducting a trial in the fashion I
described would be pragmatic, but at least arguably unethical.)
~~~
Spooky23
That’s an amazing idea and example of what something like Facebook could be,
versus the more banal reality.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fluent: An innovative new interface for Gmail (from ex-Google Wave developers) - cpeterso
https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9227899/Fluent_review_An_innovative_new_interface_for_Gmail
======
mikexstudios
Actual link: <http://fluent.io/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Facebook Is Dying and Here’s the Proof - MichaelKSpencer
https://medium.com/futuresin/facebook-is-dying-and-heres-the-proof-dbfce2196c0a
======
HBlix
The title and the contents of the article are seriously at odds, and I _wish_
that FaceBook was dying. All I can say is that I wish every business I’m
involved with could “die” like FaceBook, because traveling the world on a
super yacht staffed by Swedish coeds seems like a nice way to retire.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Timeslot makes planning your day a breeze - chetan51
http://timeslot.me/
======
dools
My experience:
1) submitted my signup details, the page never returned a response and just
hung there, but I did receive an email and was able to login
2) There's no difference between "add item" and "insert after" on the last
item - but there is no way to add an item to the start of the list. I have to
insert after the first item then re-order
3) I could never use this on a daily basis but I could really use it for week-
to-week planning, especially if it had an API
4) As such I would prefer gcal style dragging/gantt style blocks
5) If you could create a simple "time block allocation" tool I'd pay to use
it.
The use case for me would be to plug my task system (for which I actually use
my own CMS where I create pages for each "sprint"). I currently use Google
Calendar but the API is kind of hellish and I've never gotten around to using
it.
The fact is that _daily_ planning revolves around a few things for me: things
that arrive in my inbox, things i'm supposed to be working on (time blocked
off in google calendar) sales/follow up tasks (I use highrise, this comes
under "things that arrive in my inbox") and appointments (for which I use
google calendar).
I then timesheet everything via an IRC chat room (as do my colleagues).
All that's missing is an elegant interface for blocking off time for tasks,
being able to rearrange them and then export all the information via an API so
that I can see directly how scheduling is affecting my cashflow without having
to update a bunch of spreadsheet data.
~~~
chetan51
So that's how someone would use the API. Other than it's current
functionality, what more would I need to add to the API for you to be able to
use it in your natural workflow?
~~~
dools
Well, as I mentioned I would prefer it to be inter-day rather than intra-day -
not sure how difficult it is for you to make that an option.
The API - I guess I need to be able to do this:
$estimated_days - numDaysScheduled($item_name) = $deficit;
where numDayScheduled is an API call. Then I would like a way to take a bunch
of sprints I've added in my task system, and dump them into the calendar so
that no task was overlapping for any one assignee - then I could go and play
with the schedule.
This whole thing is straying pretty far away from your initial concept,
though, maybe if you want to discuss it further send me an email.
------
chetan51
Here's a quick description:
Timeslot is a cross between a Todo list and a calendar. Simply add items to
your day's agenda, and specify how long each will take. Timeslot will
automatically generate start and end times for each item, so when you have to
make a change, your entire agenda will update to flow around it.
An interesting tidbit you might notice about Timeslot: Once you log in,
literally every bit of text on the screen is editable. I personally find this
quite neat :)
------
kloncks
A few things:
1\. What technology is behind this? Ruby?
2\. Mobile is VERY important. So important, in fact, that if I were you, I'd
make a mobile version of the website right now to work across
Android/iPhone/webOS/Windows/etc and start working on an actual native app
asap.
3\. Syncing. I'd love to be able to Sync this with iCal and Google Calendar.
Of course, this is a huge thing; syncing is a lot more difficult than most
people realize.
4\. Mixing To-Dos in there with the Calendar would be killer. Especially if
you let me bring over my To-Do list from popular To-Do list websites and then
make your own version.
5\. I love the fact that it's so simple and nice. Please keep it that way.
~~~
chetan51
It's using Django on the server and Backbone.js on the client. It was quite a
pleasure to code with these frameworks, actually.
As for your suggestions, I totally agree with all of them. They are all
features I would love as well, and I have some ideas on how to make it so it's
easy to plan on every level of granularity, from day to week to month to year,
and to make them all play well with each other.
~~~
kloncks
Best of luck to you then; truly great start it seems!
------
tomstuart
Looks interesting, but I don't want to sign up just to try it out. Have you
considered a demo mode where you can fill an empty schedule, or edit a
prefilled one, without being able to save changes? That's how I'd decide
whether I was interested enough to give you my email address, generate a
password, etc.
~~~
Quiark
Exactly. Now I have to go through countless number of clicks (register, check
email, click on the activation link, confirm activation, insert login details
again) just to try the service.
------
jkahn
I'm a business guy that has a lot of meetings. Why would I use this and not
Outlook?
~~~
jkahn
I'm surprised I haven't had an answer to this. I thought I was the target
market.
This looks like an inferior web based edition of Exchange/Outlook
functionality. It was a serious question - is there an advantage to using
this? If not, you might need to do some market research to better target the
problem you are trying to solve.
~~~
kaiwetzel
From the short presentation on the home page I did not get the impression that
you (a current exchange/outlook user) are the target market, actually. (But I
could of course be wrong or we got a different branch of an A/B test)
I think the examples are pointing in a different direction, i.e. a simple and
straightforward tool to help you juggle daily life with a focus on
spontaneously rearranging tasks, rather than fixed business meetings and
scheduling events for teams even.
------
Stuk
I really like this idea, and have been meaning to code up something similar
for a while. A few points:
* I would like to set lengths of time shorter than 15 mins. * If you visit a URL like <http://timeslot.me/agendas/#day/2011-4-29> without being logged in then the interface appears, and slightly works. A redirect to the login would be better * As others have mentioned, drag/drop of tasks and length would be great * And a random idea: I would quite like to have a "repository" (todo list) of tasks with the length already set which I could drag onto a day.
With the drag and drop functionality I would happily pay a few dollars per
month for something like this.
~~~
chetan51
* I'll make the duration selector better, so that you get a drop down of 15 min intervals, but also you can type out an exact duration if you want to.
* Yup, I'll fix that.
* The todo list idea is on my todo list (haha, see what I did there?). Thanks for the suggestion!
------
masnick
This is a really interesting idea. A few thoughts:
I personally think the click+drag interface in Google Calendar or iCal is more
efficient for setting the length of events. The select box with all the time
intervals from 15 min to 24 hr in 15 min increments seems hard to use. I
personally would even prefer typing "15 min" or "1 hr" to trying to scroll
through all that.
It would also be great if this pulled automatically from Google Calendar (or
any iCalendar) to fill events. I would probably use this to schedule my day if
I didn't have to manually put in my recurring events, meetings scheduled with
Tungle, etc. that are already in gcal.
Nice work -- thanks for sharing!
~~~
chetan51
Drag to extend / shorten duration of events is on my todo list; it would
definitely improve the interface.
It seems like Google Calendar syncing is something everyone is looking for.
I'll be sure to focus on that. Thanks!
------
csomar
This is a great start to solve the calendar and time management problem. Here
are a few points.
1\. The Mobile App will be a killer feature. I'm not in front of the computer
24/7, but my mobile is. It's faster and quicker to take my mobile and start
typing.
2\. Your App works for daily usage. However, I can plan things on the morning
but I can also plan them a day or more before that. There is a need that your
app account for that (calendar), but no sure how the implementation should be.
3\. Smooth integration with Google Calendar can be a killer feature too. For
example, if I set day xx is my friend birthday, so it remembers me to plan for
it the day before.
~~~
chetan51
Thanks for your feedback!
1\. Yes, I will definitely be making a mobile version of the app. Maybe it can
be part of a paid plan?
2\. You can actually already plan any day of the calendar. Just click on the
date of the agenda to edit it.
3\. Yup, another great idea I plan on implementing in the near future.
~~~
bostonvaulter2
> 2\. You can actually already plan any day of the calendar. Just click on the
> date of the agenda to edit it.
Editing the date of the agenda seems quite counter-intuitive. I would think
that editing the date would move all of the current events to that future
date.
------
fragmede
This is quite good.
I look forwards to todo integration.
I'd add that forcing a item to start at '4' probably shouldn't default to 4am.
Start with one-way gcal into Timeslot - things I've scheduled into my calendar
are less likely to be movable since there are other people involved.
I quite like the simplicity of the UI, but there needs to be more signaling in
the UI that things are editable - the date, especially. I did not think I
could edit it until after I tried editing the URL.
~~~
chetan51
Thanks for the feedback, you're quite right. I'll make it more obvious that
everything is editable.
------
nametoremember
Somehow I added in a 12 hour free time slot. I WISH I had 12 hours free but I
don't. I can't get rid of the 12 hour free time slot.
That's the end of the road for me and this app.
------
abhishektwr
I small feedback, I am assuming you are using django-authentication which
might have few problems, 1\. User can register many accounts with same
email(make it unique to avoid any problems) 2\. While I am authenticated I can
still visit register and login pages, may be you want to redirect user to
avoid any confusion. Otherwise looks good to me, just added few slots on my
account. cheers
------
codejoust
Another Suggestion: I like the interface, but iCal sync and/or having it
printable with checkboxes, etc. would be really helpful to get it OFF the
computer (or cell phone interface, jQuery mobile, etc). I like how you
currently implement the add to day interface, keep up the good work!
------
swah
Does the program learns how bad my time estimates are? That would be the
something interesting for me.
If I already knew how long it takes me to do each thing, I probably wouldn't
need the app.
------
Maro
I don't understand. I signed up, I logged in, but it only lets me add an
appointment at 7AM. Is this a bug or a feature?
EDIT: I guess I have to edit by hand and type the time? Not liking that.
~~~
chetan51
You can edit the start time of the day -- just click on it. I guess it's not
clear enough that's editable, I'll fix that.
------
dshipper
This is really cool. I would send this over to Sebastian Marshall at
sebastianmarshall.com. His blog has a good amount of readers and I think he
would love to cover something like this.
~~~
chetan51
Thanks! I was wondering how to spread the word about this. I think Lifehacker
would be interested too. I'll be sure to contact Sebastian Marshall.
~~~
kloncks
Sebastian is great.
But I'd also just start contacting literally every news blog you can think of.
TechCrunch, TheNextWeb, GigaOm, CenterNetworks, ReadWriteWeb, everyone.
What can you lose ;) ? And just getting one of those will get you a lot of
hits.
~~~
eitland
What can you lose ;) ?
Mostly agree, wouldn't like to get all attention at once, thoug.
~~~
greengirl512
I reviewed it on Useful Tools: <http://www.usefultools.com/2011/04/plan-your-
day/>
------
mike-cardwell
I added the item "マイクカードウェル" and it worked. Then I refreshed the page and
every character was replaced by question marks. You need to fix your encoding.
~~~
chetan51
Will do. Thanks.
------
marquis
Consider making an API available, perhaps as a paid service? I can think of
several projects that would like to be able to use something like this.
~~~
chetan51
Sure, that would be no problem (it's already built on a REST interface). How
do you think other projects would use this?
------
ramupatil
buddy, you need to go to drawing board again. As a user, at this moment, it is
of no use to me. Complete it then share with others. IMHO, it is incomplete.
Let people feel privileged to give opinion about your work. People reading
this site are serious. Wish you luck.
~~~
Sukotto
Downvoted.
I read your comment as condescending and I strongly disagree with your advice
for the OP to complete the app before asking for feedback.
------
gpambrozio
Interesting idea. Will try it. Congrats.
------
netflask
this is a really neat idea and I like the clean design.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Kendo UI vs. ExtJS or other frameworks? - BusterG
We've been trying to identify a framework we can use to replace a traditional Windows back office application with a web-based equivalent which ideally we could build on Rails.<p>In the process we've been evaluating Sencha and ExtJS but found this post here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7152922 (amongst others) which practically mirrors our own experiences.<p>The sample applications and controls are obviously what attracted our attention. Specifically inline editable tables like this: http://dev.sencha.com/extjs/5.0.0/examples/grid/row-editing.html although weve also been inspired by both of these: http://dev.sencha.com/extjs/5.0.0/examples/desktop/index.html and http://dev.sencha.com/extjs/5.0.0/examples/portal/index.html<p>I'm hoping for your opinions regarding KendoUI IE do you use it? do you like it? if you had a choice, would you use it again?<p>Is Kendo UI any better/worse than others frameworks regarding usability, functionality or even the learning curve?
======
endriju
Just a quick answer - I am actively developing with ExtJS for about 3 years
now. It depends on what product are going to build. I always say that ExtJS is
great for 'excel on the web' kind of applications - desktop like apps. The
grid component is unbeatable, so is the layout system (which limits the CSS
nightmare pretty much).
However there are caveats of which mostly discussed is steep learning curve.
It's true that it takes some time till one uses ExtJS in the right way. Blog
posts like this one are a good read before starting new project
[http://www.sencha.com/blog/top-10-ext-js-development-
practic...](http://www.sencha.com/blog/top-10-ext-js-development-practices-to-
avoid)
I have no experience with KendoUI, but from what I saw it is the closest match
to ExtJS in terms of developing desktop-like JS apps. And it's free.
Edit: looks like KendoUI is not free anymore.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Need volunteer developers for unique website idea - aswin8728
I am trying to start up a website that will be beneficial to college students and employers alike. It will help connect students to employers and give them a better idea on what career path to pursue once they graduate. If you'd like to be involved, get in touch!<p>Email [email protected] for details
======
tbomb
Theoretically your career should start in college.
I know that many people don't end up in the same field that they studied in
college. However, the goal of college is to teach specialization to a field.
This is why there are narrow majors such as engineering disciplines
[mechanical, civil, computer], business disciplines [accounting, management,
finance, marketing], education, etc.. Maybe this should be aimed a little
lower to high school seniors/college freshmen, so it will set them up on the
career path to pursue once they graduate.
Just my 2 cents.
Edit: grammar
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Ask HN: Is there a name for the concept of "value changes upon read"? - uvTwitch
I'm trying to think of a name to use to describe a value which will reliably change upon being read. Not the nature of the change, but naming this concept of change-upon-read.<p>For example, I have this, complete with syntax error:
class Alternator{ bool value; implicit cast(bool) { get { return value = !value; } } }<p>I know that this phenomenon exists in quantum physics - that the state of a particle will change due to the act of reading the particle's state - but I don't know if there is a term for it, though if there is it would be ideal.<p>I figure naming it is important, because otherwise i'm left with mystery object with dodgy tacit behaviour, which is not cool for the uninitiated.
======
shaunmaxawesome
I mean "In* quantum mechanics* a wave function* is said to "collapse" when
observed, so maybe a collapsing value?"
~~~
uvTwitch
This sounds about right; and 'collapsing' has the added benefit of sounding
inherently dangerous-handle-with-care. Thanks! :D
------
bigiain
I'm not sure what the right name for _that_ is, but I have no doubt it'll be
used to write heisenbugs...
~~~
uvTwitch
exactly why I want a name for it, to reduce heisenbug potential.
It certainly necessitates careful application, but does have it's uses in
reducing copypasta.
------
damian2000
Not sure what it was called, but some early RAM technology had this exact
behaviour. Whenever you read one bit from memory, it got toggled so you had to
immediately write it back again, which toggled it back to the correct value.
------
shaunmaxawesome
In quantum mechanics a wave function is said to "collapse" when observed so
maybe a collapsing value?
------
timecircuits
"a write"
------
shasty
Its typicaly considered the worst of all side effects of a programming
language. Ive heard it referred to only as a side effect. But there is the
issue of representation in quantum physics which is real, observation does
change the state.
Good question but programming languages avoid this, you would have to coin
your own.
------
shasty
I would call it a "volatile read". Maybe it changes the state maybe it doesnt.
Especially since we dont know yet _why_ exactly this occurs.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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The only way to hit net zero by 2050 is to stop flying - makerofspoons
https://www.ft.com/content/e00819ba-4814-11ea-aee2-9ddbdc86190d
======
SomeoneFromCA
Netzero has never been a good internet provider anyway.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PayPal Acquires Modest - foodstances
http://www.braintreepayments.com/blog/paypal-acquires-modest/
======
wyldfire
also here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10085093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10085093)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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End of “social VR”? Sansar shifting emphasis away from VR - Kroeler
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2018/05/sansar-social-vr-linden-lab-pc.html
======
berg01
Linden labs. A dying company. Not sure what this is relevant for.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Why don't aeroplanes transmit pictures/sound off the plane? - hoodoof
Seems a little odd that in 2015 when there is an aviation crash that the source of the data is primarily from the black box recorders.<p>Why isn't there a camera in the cockpit that sends pictures periodically off the plane to somewhere else? Or an audio log that gets transmitted?
======
jacquesm
At any one time there can be as many as 50,000 aircraft in the air. You'll
probably need more than one stream to get the relevant action so you're
looking at substantially more bandwidth than all the communications satellites
currently in orbit would be able to provide (and you'd have to shut down all
the other services they carry).
You're also going to have to take into account that aircraft are moving
relative to the satellites so you'd need to have a way to keep the antennae
aligned (phased arrays or actuated dishes or both depending on which end
you're looking at).
The only 'plus' in the whole scheme compared to terrestrial stuff is that
airplanes are physically a bit closer to the satellites.
And then you'd need double the bandwidth at the satellite ends for the
downlinks (unless you want to store at the satellite and only downlink in case
of a crash).
Crack this and money will flow your way in wide rivers.
~~~
Throwaway90283
No need to track 50,000 aircraft. Instead, have the stream automatically
switch on when the plane is in distress, when it's losing altitude, when an
emergency has been triggered, or when it's going off the flight path.
~~~
jacquesm
You have just complicated the system considerably. If you want something to
work during an emergency you're going to have to keep it as simple as
possible. Also, some emergencies happen so fast that if the system has to
switch on 'when an emergency has triggered' then you're too late.
Define: 'going off the flight path'...
In theory this is a simple problem to solve, just install a couple of webcams
and hook them up to the in-flight wi-fi. In some cases that might even work.
But if you want it to work in _all_ the cases, especially those cases where
things are going wrong then you'll need to think this through very carefully
or it will be worse than useless.
------
JacobAldridge
Where "somewhere else"? There's an awful lot of ocean without any transmitting
towers, and the vast expanse of no receiving ability seems surprising to we
landlubbers accustomed to cell phone towers on every other corner.
This was a big debate 12 months ago around MH370.
------
saluki
How about multiple ejectable tubes(wing tips, tail and nose locations)that
record flight and voice data and are ejected if an explosion or structural
failure is detected or if the speed and trajectory indicates the plane will
impact the ground. Eject with a small parachute and are made to float, along
with a homing beacon, flashing LEDs. And capability to transmits the data to a
satellite if possible or maybe even remotely to a surface ship or search team
without physically finding the tube.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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A description of a simple Ray Tracer (1995) [pdf] - laex
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwmalone/p/rt95.pdf
======
angersock
Everybody should try implementing a ray tracer at least once in their
programming career. The math is well-documented, and the wow factor is pretty
great.
It also is a rabbit-hole of optimizations and modularity; you can always add
on yet-another-cool-thing, and so never become bored. :)
~~~
igrekel
I fully agree, I had written one and eventually ended up using it in a
parallel programming class to modify it into a parallel program. It was a lot
of fun and the wow factor was definitely there. Since then I've ported it to
java when I learned the language. Added features now and then over the years
when I wanted to try something new.
------
Betelgeuse90
How handy is this? I need to get a simple Ray Tracer working by the end of the
month for a course. :)
Thanks! heh.
~~~
laex
I highly recommend Ray Tracing from Ground Up by Kevin Suffern. The book
assumes no prior knowledge.
[http://www.raytracegroundup.com/](http://www.raytracegroundup.com/)
I took the raytracing course taught by Kevin at UTS. It was great.
~~~
Betelgeuse90
Thank you! This is really great stuff.
Totally unrelated, I noticed I got downvoted. I hope it didn't seem like I'm
going to cheat or anything. I was just looking for good reference material.
------
chrisbarless
simple.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
'Dating’ Site Imports 250,000 Facebook Profiles, Without Permission - gatsby
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/02/facebook-dating/
======
ryanclemson
They don't really need permission to scrape public Facebook profiles now do
they? The first version of Facebook (Facemash) used pictures and names scraped
from a private Harvard directory - hacked by Zuckerberg . Facebook is just
getting a taste of their own medicine.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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