text
stringlengths 44
776k
| meta
dict |
|---|---|
Look At All These Guns People Got for Christmas - trueduke
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/12/look-all-these-guns-people-got-christmas/60306/
======
cafard
What astonishes me about the AR-15 is the cost, roughly $900. I'm not sure
that it's practical for hunting, which leaves you two practical (and legal)
uses: target shooting, and self defense in the event of a zombie apocalypse. I
haven't gone target shooting in a while (since Nixon was president), and at
$900 I'll take my chances with the zombie apocalypse.
------
moystard
As a European, I cannot understand the reaction of people buying weapon (and
especially automatic rifles) after such a tragedy.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Transformer Zoo (a deeper dive) [slides] - che_shr_cat
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1dIadh_nIszxXG8-672vJmvFGT6jBp0mOqzNV4g3e2Lc/edit?usp=sharing
======
watersb
Transformers - the gundam robots, not the electrical component.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Bogdan and the Bugati: How I Found an Excuse to Benchmark EBS/Instance Store - rtisdale
https://breakbeat.tech/the-bogdan-the-bugatti-scalable-vs-performant/
======
rtisdale
Hey everyone! I wrote this up and felt it might be of interest to both the
technical peeps here (Scroll down midway for some EBS & Instance Store
benchmarks) as well as the less technical peeps (Stuff near the top for you
folks).
Would love to hear any thoughts about the article, my benchmarking
methodology, or anything else really!
Happy to answer any questions you might have as well :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Adobe Creative suite CS2 (including photoshop $ illustrator) is free now - stewie2
http://helpx.adobe.com/en/x-productkb/policy-pricing/creative-suite-2-activation-end-life.html
======
vitovito
This may not be the value it seems to be. These are pretty antique as far as
applications go, and might be okay to learn the basics with before getting a
"real version," but you're going to have trouble working with industry folk
using them. They were originally released in _2005_. If you run OS X Lion or
later, you'll probably have better luck booting into a Windows VM or using
WINE or CrossOver than getting the Mac versions going:
Mac OS X v.10.2.8–v.10.3.8. PowerPC® G4 or G5 processor
Microsoft® Windows® 2000/Windows XP. Intel® Pentium® III or 4 processor
They're also not eligible for upgrade pricing to Creative Cloud (CS3+). Most
professionals I work with upgrade every couple of versions; I don't know
anyone still using even CS4, for example.
------
lifeguard
Wow: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop#CS2>
The Standard Edition included:
Adobe Bridge (Since CS2)
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Version Cue
Design guide and training resources
The Premium Edition also included:
Adobe Acrobat Professional (Version 8 in CS2.3)
Adobe Dreamweaver (Since CS2.3)
Adobe GoLive
------
tait
Uhm, it requires registration and a known serial number. Were you advocating
any particular actions to extrapolate that into "free"?
~~~
stewie2
It gives you a serial if you download.
------
thornkin
Site seems down now.
------
stewie2
you need to register a adobe account to download.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How many typical workers does it take to make one Fortune 500 CEO's salary? - BryanB55
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/ceo-pay-ratios/
======
BryanB55
I've always found this an interesting discussion and I'm not really sure how I
feel about it. It seems that most people look down on the CEO's as being
greedy but I say if the company is in good health and not laying off employees
then good for them. They have obviously done something right to put themselves
in a position to acquire wealth. Thoughts?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
SUSE details its EFI Secure Boot plans - mrud
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/SUSE-details-its-Secure-Boot-plans-1664699.html
======
dsr_
I don't actually care how elegant and wonderful this method of preventing me
from booting what I want to boot on my paid-for hardware is.
I reiterate: once you pay the Danegeld, you can't get rid of the Dane.
(My apologies to current residents of Denmark: it's a thousand year old
historical reference.)
~~~
ajross
Sure, but the practical truth is that the Dane is here to stay anyway because
all your neighbors already paid him off.
Secure boot isn't going away. It has some value to consumers (albeit not
nearly as much as some people want to think). So we have to live with it as
best as we can. The Fedora/SUSE compromise (load a shim which then checks a
signature for the real bootloader) seems straightforward. The Ubuntu one (sign
a shim that will load anything) is preferable to me personally, but IMHO isn't
likely to survive as it's basically a security hole by definition.
~~~
yock
Is it really a security hole? Or does it just get us as close as possible to
where we are now?
~~~
mjg59
It permits the circumvention of the entire process, so if you think there's
any security then it's a security hole.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Plant-based version of Hacker News - mightybrenden
https://www.plantdietlife.com/
======
lmartel
Make a meat-based one and we'll talk.
~~~
mightybrenden
plant based isn't for everyone but here is an MMA fighter who is on a similar
diet (MMA Fighter Mac Danzig: Athletic Prowess on a Plant-Based Diet
[https://www.plantdietlife.com/post/11/](https://www.plantdietlife.com/post/11/)).
------
stuaxo
Wow, it's even the same style of story .. how odd !
~~~
mightybrenden
I don't know the complete story behind HN, will you please explain how PDL and
HN have a similar story to you?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Long Google Again - peter123
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/03/long-google-again.html
======
piramida
congratulations but I would've bought at 150 in half a year. and it has
nothing to do with google.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How do i get the nbc olympics widget off my imac? - metaprinter
how do i uninstall nbc's olympics widget from my imac. i only see the program when clicking the dashboard so i can't drag and drop it into my trash.
======
makecheck
If you hold down the Option key and point at the widget with the mouse, an "X"
will appear that you can click to remove it from view.
If you want to completely uninstall it, look in the "Widgets" folder of the
root "Library" folder (or a similar folder in your Home space), and drag the
file to the Trash.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CERN Open Data Portal: Explore more than 2 PB of open data from particle physics - lelf
http://opendata.cern.ch/
======
hi41
What software is being used to return the results? I tried it and feel the
response is very quick. 12 pb is such a huge amount of data.
~~~
dingalapadum
First of all it’s 2 and not 12 pb. But more importantly the search doesn‘t go
through those 2 pb. The search goes through the different ‚experiments‘ (or
whatever you call that) and the dataset for one of those experiments may
easily be hundreds of gb. Your hits are ‚experiments‘ not the content of those
large datasets obtained during the experiment... this reduces the size of the
search index by several orders of magnitude compared to the datasets itself.
So if for instance each dataset was 10gb in avg, you‘d ‚only‘ be going through
roughly 20000 entries. So letˋs make a very conservative estimate of the lower
and upper bounds, say something like 2000-2000000 entries (although 2 mio.
datasets/experiments would be A LOT - like 500 experiments each day since
2008. Anyway, that being the search feels snappy indeed, which is nice. I
agree with the other comment that ES is a good guess.
------
samstave
ELI5: what should anyone be looking for, how, and with what tools?
Also explain why they dont already have an Api/too/integration with *.edu.
Looker tableau wolfram?????
~~~
goldenbeet
Looks like the site has some resources for helping to get started.
I've also got a separate resource from a Meetup talk I went to a while back.
The speaker is an ML engineer who looked into some LHC datasets and posted a
writeup of her talk here: [https://lavanya.ai/2019/05/31/searching-for-dark-
matter/](https://lavanya.ai/2019/05/31/searching-for-dark-matter/)
------
marksbrown
Geant4 should have been open source a decade ago.
~~~
rkwasny
What do you mean? Geant4 was always open source, I did my bachelor thesis 15
years ago using it.
~~~
sdwa
Now, FLUKA on the other hand... no idea what their deal is.
~~~
wbl
It's very useful for studying ultra small highly metallic supernovas is
probably part of the issue.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What is the essence of what you do in your daily job? - andrei_says_
Besides money, what is it that you do and in what ways does it fulfill you?
======
cimmanom
Solve problems. Empower others to solve problems.
------
chrisbennet
Solve problems. Put in bugs. :-)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Jobs in Zürich - leoh
Hi all!<p>Very interested in the possibility of working in Zürich. I have some exceptional skills as a full-stack engineer (Python, JavaScript, AngularJS, pgSQL, Redis, AWS, and some more technologies) and have worked with some top people in California. I would very much like to improve my skills in German and experience living abroad for a few years. I am turning to HN to try to see if anyone might have any good ideas for jobs in Zürich for a developer such as myself. So far, I have applied to Google, but am interested in any suggestions anyone may have. Or perhaps you have a lead for me? : )<p>Thank you for your consideration!
======
mschuster91
I'd rather consider Berlin or maaaaybe Munich, Swiss German isn't exactly
German german or Austrian german. Besides that, Berlin is known for its
startup culture and scene.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Swiss to offer spy-proof cloud - Daviey
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/03/swisscom-cloud-idUSL5N0IM1XR20131103
======
Daviey
A related article: [http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/switzerland-wants-to-
offer-...](http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/switzerland-wants-to-offer-the-
world-a-spy-proof-cloud)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Privacy is Expensive. - inmygarage
http://savemefrombschool.com/2010/04/privacy-is-expensive/
======
wmf
I wish privacy was expensive, because then I could just pay for it and be
done. What bothers me are services where you can't get privacy for any amount
of money.
------
ZachPruckowski
I remember when I joined Facebook, it was at least in part because it
alleviated a lot of the MySpace privacy concerns. It didn't share data with
outside companies, and only people with a UVA email address or who I accepted
their friend request could see anything beyond my name, school, and photo. If
I had known they would eventually be sharing my data such that CNN.com gets it
if I just surf there or that it would publish my online shopping habits if I
didn't opt-out (thankfully a rescinded policy), I'd have been more hesitant to
sign up.
~~~
koanarc
You know, I had forgotten about this until reading your comment, but a major
(if not the only) factor in my initial decision to create a Facebook account
was the fact that it was limited to college campuses, and that I could be sure
that only other people at my university would have any interaction with my
profile. The first couple of weeks on FB were exciting -- all these new
people, and they're right here at my school! The next few months were useful
-- all these people that I know, I can get to know better!
And now? My account has been deleted with prejudice, and I pray to
Huitzilopochtli that their datacenters all catch on fire.
------
city41
The real issue, at least to me, is how shady Facebook is being about the whole
thing. They are trying really hard to expose people's data without the average
user realizing it.
But truth be told, I've also found the average user doesn't really care once
you tell them what is going on.
------
naner
If Facebook allowed me to pay a subscription fee to keep my data and usage
statistics private, I would do so. If I could trust them to keep that promise.
------
thefool
The whole thing with money is that its a way to mediate resource allocation.
As you point out, as the internet gets more ubiquitous, and there gets to be
more money on the internet, it is bound to end up looking more like the "real"
world.
~~~
dman
Funny thing is that the real world has much more finer grained privacy
controls. You can stash your magazines in a box, data is not very discoverable
et al. In fact at the risk of being self promoting I have a blog post about
privacy online and in the real world at <http://www.bitcrumb.com/blog/2>. By
most metrics online privacy trails real world privacy in sophistication.
------
hipsterelitist
Everything is expensive when you consider 'money left on the table.' Privacy
is not any more expensive than building a service to expose that data
outsiders for pay.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
ZFS on Linux – ZFS 0.8.3 Released - rubyn00bie
https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/releases/tag/zfs-0.8.3
======
ggm
Somebody should ask Linus if this is 'active development' or not. (his
comments to licensing stand. His other comments were ill-informed and do him
no credit)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Researchers Use 'Seafloor Gardens' to Switch on Light Bulb - abustamam
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4679
======
ChuckMcM
It is something of a stretch to go from voltage potential with a small
current, to building amino acids, enzymes, and RNA. But the result is
interesting as a phenomena.
------
Animats
Why is JPL doing bio with NASA money? That's an NSF function.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Computer Scientists Are Astir After Baidu Team Is Barred from A.I. Competition - T-A
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/technology/computer-scientists-are-astir-after-baidu-team-is-barred-from-ai-competition.html
======
nl
Some background:
This competition (the "Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge" aka
"ImageNet") isn't just some random competition. This is _the_ competition that
gave rise to the recent explosion in interest in Neural Networks.
In recent years Google, Microsoft and Baidu have been one-upping each other to
the point now where they are getting very close to better-than-human
performance (ie, humans disagree with other humans more often than their
systems disagree with the average human rating)[0].
Andrew Ng went to Baidu to start their team. I don't believe he is still
involved in this challenge.
Baidu has been getting close and close to Google's performance. Every year so
far Google has topped it at the right time, but Baidu has later passed the
Google benchmark that year.
There were reasons to think that this could be the year they finally beat
them. [1] is a story from January about the system that Baidu had built then.
Now this.
[0] [http://karpathy.github.io/2014/09/02/what-i-learned-from-
com...](http://karpathy.github.io/2014/09/02/what-i-learned-from-competing-
against-a-convnet-on-imagenet/)
[1] [https://gigaom.com/2015/01/14/baidu-has-built-a-
supercompute...](https://gigaom.com/2015/01/14/baidu-has-built-a-
supercomputer-for-deep-learning/)
~~~
Retric
They were just caught blatantly cheating.
This brings quite reasonable questions about their past performance.
~~~
jdmichal
> This brings quite reasonable questions about their past performance.
I don't think this second claim is necessarily derivable from your first. Yes,
they were caught cheating... By making multiple submissions of their own
systems in order to faster derive which is the most promising. IMO, the
performance they have achieved is still theirs to claim, because in the end
they did create a system that reaches that performance.
~~~
Retric
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overfitting](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overfitting)
Ideally, your final test data set should be completely separate from training
data. Because even limited exposure quickly renders that test data
meaningless.
PS: In the end it's much like taking the same test with word for word
identical questions a second time. Yes, it's a test of something, just not the
intended subject matter.
~~~
ninjin
It is hard to emphasize how bad overfitting on the test set is. Your cheating
analogy is accurate, and cheating in science is a serious matter. If it is
unintentional, you should have your work rejected or retracted. If it is
intentional, you should have your work rejected or retracted and, frankly
speaking, you should most likely leave the field.
Science is based on a huge deal of trust and violating that trust for your own
short term gains is inexcusable. Even worse, any honest scientist will have
find it more difficult to improve upon results that can be explained by
overfitting.
A good short description on several issues that plague the field is "Clever
Methods of Overfitting".
[http://hunch.net/?p=22](http://hunch.net/?p=22)
------
jordigh
Cheating is pretty entrenched in Chinese culture. Sometimes I even wonder if
they consider it's cheating at all or if it's just cleverness and they should
be rewarded for it. I believe they feel that way about infringing copyrights
too: why should they follow someone else's rules that puts them at a
disadvantage when they can instead demonstrate cleverness and break those
rules?
There was an interesting story recently about how a disproportionate amount of
Chinese students are expelled from US universities for cheating.
[http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/05/29/u-s-schools-
ex...](http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/05/29/u-s-schools-
expelled-8000-chinese-students-for-poor-grades-cheating/)
The problem is so entrenched that some students _rioted_ when they were
prevented from cheating, because they felt that this put them at an unfair
disadvantage compared to other schools where cheating was tolerated:
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/1013239...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10132391/Riot-
after-Chinese-teachers-try-to-stop-pupils-cheating.html)
~~~
stephengillie
If you look at it another way, it's not so bizarre. The person is retrieving
their information from another's head. They're using a social storage
mechanism. This works fine in the classroom, it works OK in the workplace. It
works well in most situations. The only place it breaks down is during
testing.
Because standard testing is only supposed to verify that you're storing the
data locally. Standard testing is designed in a way that only helps "local
storage" people, and alienates these users who get their information from
their environment.
Open-book, open-note, and open-internet testing removes this barrier and
levels the playing field for these "network storage" learners.
Or am I completely out of touch?
~~~
crimsonalucard
Why is it even bizarre? Chinese people cheat for the same reasons anyone would
cheat. Being chinese and born in America, I actually found it really
surprising the first time I met software engineers who refuse to download even
one copy of pirated software.
Culturally we just feel significantly less guilty about it. Doesn't mean we
aren't aware that it's wrong. Chinese people are fully aware of what's right
and wrong and we choose to deliberately cheat. Whether that's a cultural
tendency or genetic one is another story.
~~~
dimino
> Chinese people are fully aware of what's right and wrong and we choose to
> deliberately cheat. Whether that's cultural tendency or genetic one is
> another story.
What?! Genetic?! There is _very_ little, if _any_ evidence to support the idea
that genetics has anything to do with the Chinese propensity to cheat...
~~~
crimsonalucard
There's no evidence at all. Even when attempting to do research on this, the
political backlash could destroy any scientist's career. No official evidence
will ever be collected because of this.
I only speak from personal experience. I know many chinese people both born
here and born abroad. I am also chinese and born in the united states. I am
telling you, honestly, from a purely anecdotal standpoint: I think there's a
chance it's genetic.
Edit: Just to keep things from getting out of hand, and more balanced I want
to state this fact: Statistically, it is far more likely for a serial killer
to be a white caucasian male then it is for a serial killer to be of any other
race. Do I think this is a cultural thing? No. I'm leaning towards genetics.
But that's a purely anecdotal opinion as there's no evidence pointing in
either direction.
~~~
kmicklas
Why would those things be genetic? If there were a "serial killer gene" or a
"cheater gene", those traits should manifest themselves in all kinds of
obvious differences in behavior - which we do not see. It's hard to imagine a
protein causing such complex differences in behavior while affecting nothing
else.
~~~
crimsonalucard
What's the other explanation then? Culture? Why don't we see higher rates of
serial killers in other races born in the United States?
It's very possible for many differences in behavior between races to be
genetic in origin, in fact it's the more logical hypothesis versus the
alternative which states genetics doesn't influence behavioral differences
between races.
Think about it. If genetics influences physical traits from height, skin
color, facial features, and even athleticism, what black magic in this world
makes it so that genetics doesn't even touch behavior or intelligence?
>It's hard to imagine a protein causing such complex differences in behavior
while affecting nothing else.
It's impossible to logically deduce a conclusion from the bottom up. We simply
currently don't have enough knowledge to know how proteins scaffold the entire
human neural network. With highly limited knowledge, we can only look at the
problem from the top down. That being: genetics is known to influence physical
traits, therefore it is logical to conclude that it also influences mental
traits.
~~~
dimino
> If genetics influences physical traits from height, skin color, facial
> features, and even athleticism, what black magic in this world makes it so
> that genetics doesn't even touch behavior or intelligence?
Because we have no evidence that such is the case on a culturally grouping
level.
There is no genetic concept of "Chinese". It literally doesn't exist.
You're making this about the possibility of genetics impacting behavior, when
the real issue is you thinking cultural boundaries exist in genetics. They
don't.
~~~
crimsonalucard
There's no concept of humanity on the atomic level. It literally doesn't
exist. One configuration or mishmash of atoms we call rocks are no different
then the mishmash we call humans. Try, without using any high level concepts
or groupings, to define what configuration of atoms signifies a rock and what
configuration signifies a human.
If you go low enough on any topic the boundaries between categories become
vague and the definitions become extremely complex. It's very hard to define
what a human is in terms of atoms. The same goes for race, it's very hard to
define, at the genetic level what is chinese, and what is not, but the
category and boundary exists at all levels, and we can't ignore it.
I've heard of your argument before. They say that the delta in genetic
differences between two people of different races is the same as the delta of
two people, of the same race, therefore race doesn't exist. This argument is
flawed. I believe the "genetic" definition of race is immensely more complex
than simply the delta of genetic differences. Here's a more accurate
definition: People of the same race have a higher probability of sharing
certain genetic traits.
So let me redefine my argument in way you can understand. The people who we
label as "chinese" who share similar physical/genetic traits, I believe will
be more likely to also share a behavioral genetic trait that makes them more
likely to cheat.
~~~
dimino
I'm sorry, you misunderstand -- the people we label as "Chinese" do _not_
share similar physical/genetic traits.
Common misconception that they do, but there is very little genetic
consistency across cultural boundaries, and when such a thing does exist, it's
quite noteworthy.
~~~
crimsonalucard
> the people we label as "Chinese" do not share similar physical/genetic
> traits.
This statement is utterly and completely incorrect. It is a common myth in the
social sciences.
Please read:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_genetics#Population_ge...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_genetics#Population_genetics)
first paragraph from above page: "The relationship between race and genetics
is relevant to the controversy concerning race. In everyday life many
societies classify populations into groups based on phenotypical traits and
impressions of probable geographic ancestry and socio-economic status - these
are the groups we tend to call "races". Because the patterns of variation of
human genetic traits are clinal, with a gradual change in trait frequency
between population clusters, it is possible to statistically correlate
clusters of physical traits with individual geographic ancestry. The
frequencies of alleles tend to form clusters where populations live closely
together and interact over periods of time. This is due to endogamy within kin
groups and lineages or national, cultural or linguistic boundaries. This
causes genetic clusters to correlate statistically with population groups when
a number of alleles are evaluated. Different clines align around the different
centers, resulting in more complex variations than those observed comparing
continental groups."
In short it's saying genetic traits can be statistically correlated with
population groups (race) but variations of traits that are different within
population groups can actually be more complex than those observed when
compared with people outside of their race.
This is literally exactly my argument. Supported by wikipedia at the very
least.
~~~
dimino
I do not accept the given definition of race from this page, as it presumes
the term "race" is in any way scientific or rigorously defined when in
actuality it is not.
What we "tend to call" race is _not_ defined, despite this wiki page's attempt
to do so.
~~~
crimsonalucard
This wiki page is the reflection of the general opinions of the scientific
community. You can redefine any word to have any definition that fits your
universe, but when communicating with other people, we must go with general
consensus.
~~~
dimino
> This wiki page is the reflection of the general opinions of the scientific
> community.
It isn't. The concept of "race" is not rigorously defined.
~~~
crimsonalucard
A word not having a rigorous definition does not make the concept non-existent
among scientists. "Life" is not rigorously defined.
~~~
dimino
Life is very rigorously defined, however it's not unequivocal:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Definitions](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Definitions)
A word not having a rigorous definition means it cannot be discussed
scientifically. Hence the actual problem of studying the existence of life,
e.g. is a virus alive?
~~~
crimsonalucard
please note. Unequivocal and rigorous are synonyms.
[http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/unequivocal/4](http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/unequivocal/4)
>A word not having a rigorous definition means it cannot be discussed
scientifically.
Life is discussed scientifically in many contexts yet it is not unequivocally
or rigorously defined. In fact there's an entire field based on the study of
life. It's called biology, aka the study of life. If a scientific field can
stem from a word that does not have a rigorous or unequivocal definition, then
it can be discussed scientifically.
~~~
crimsonalucard
@dimino
I'm getting pretty tired too. You choose not to accept the facts even when a
scientific description proving my point is thrown in your face. Ideas need
evidence for support, you have presented me with ideas, but no evidence.
The folks in the field are in agreement with me, (see the old wikipedia link I
sent you). You got nothing, only empty claims.
------
trway
In a globalized world, institutions need to tighten up their safeguards
against cheating, fraud and dishonesty. In much of the world, cultural
attitudes toward cheating are a lot more relaxed than some of us presume.
There was a story about Indian students' rampant cheating at US colleges, that
was presumably flag-killed off HN despite the horror stories that were
emerging from academics. I've read about Australian universities basically
selling degrees to foreigners who can't speak English and get admitted
fraudulently. There is a currrent story about fraudulent admissions to US
colleges by Chinese students as a result of massive SAT cheating. I'm not
picking on Asians: Switzerland seems to have its fair share of scoundrels, as
the FIFA scandal reminds us.
We need to acknowledge that gloablization sometimes brings unwanted side-
effects and deal with these head-on.
~~~
rayiner
In my opinion, tightening up the safeguards isn't the right approach. Rather,
institutions, particularly educational institutions, need to fulfill their
obligation to inculcate the right values in people. Cheating and petty
corruption culture is an existential threat and the solution isn't to catch
the cheaters, its acculturate them to follow the rules.
Educational institutions, however, have totally abandoned this obligation.
Shocking cheating behavior will merit just a note in someone's record, if
administrators are even willing to take it that far. Cheating isn't
publicized, shamed, and punished in the way necessary to have any impact on
the cheaters' values. Instead, everyone gets to save face.
~~~
TeMPOraL
I totally agree with your opinion here, and especially that "cheating and
petty corruption" \- and the breakdown of public trust that follows - is an
_actual_ existential threat, something that may ultimately lead to a collapse
of technological civilization. The current trend of trying to figure out
trustless solutions for everything actually worries me.
~~~
bkcooper
_The current trend of trying to figure out trustless solutions for everything
actually worries me._
If you're worried about breakdown in the face of loss of trust, then these
sorts of solutions seem like very important things to be looking at. Do we
have any good ideas about how to create trust at the institutional level?
I agree with your concerns. I think they are representative of a broader theme
- the acceleration of technical change seems like it will eventually (if it
hasn't already) bring us to a point where the rate of cultural change is too
slow to catch up to properly adapt to what is now possible.
------
protomyth
Who wrote that headline. It makes it sound like they were barred for no reason
and the community is mad. A more accurate headline would be "Baidu Team barred
from A.I. Competition for cheating". Its like they are trying not to get
censored or something.
------
phreeza
As a former glider pilot I had serious trouble parsing the headline because of
the all caps and this:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grob_G102_Astir](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grob_G102_Astir)
~~~
mafribe
Astir (αστήρ) means "star" in greek. I imagine that's where the G102 got its
name from!
------
dekhn
One important thing to recognize here is that this isn't just unfair play (in
the sense of trying to win a competition by submitting multiple entries). It's
a loss for all players. The point of having distinct test and training sets,
and not training on the test set, is to ensure that your system can generalize
(IE, work on things it wasn't trained on). If you don't do that, you're not
making progress, just memorizing examples. Example memorization is fine on its
own, but it's not really a true improvement.
------
vdnkh
Just some anectdotal evidence, but at work I had to implement a clone of our
Google Maps application in Baidu Maps for our customers in China. The only
reason I was able to use their API was because they copied Google's
interfaces, in some cases, word for word.
~~~
IshKebab
Evidence for what? Sounds like a good thing that they used the same API as
Google for their maps to me. Like how Google used Sun's API for Java.
~~~
Zigurd
Google uses the APIs from Java 6 and back for the "boring" bits. Android Java
is the de facto client Java today because Google abandoned the UI APIs in Java
6 and created their own. Sun's, then Oracle's argument is that Google is
"harming" Java by breaking the standard.
~~~
virmundi
I think there is subtile difference. Java was, is and shall be a standard. To
say you had a Java implementation meant that you supported the Java APIs. It
was a legal definition. Google had Java-like runtime that they promoted as a
Java runtime. This led to the question of API protections and reasonableness.
Using Google's API for your own competitive product API is different. Google
has not set a standard for map APIs. At least not officially. It might be THE
standard for maps, but that is neither here nor there. At this point you could
call it cheating. They took intellectual property and appropriated it for a
clone. Plus side, we now have an implied standard. Downside, theft of
intellectual property.
~~~
Zigurd
You are mixing a number of issues here:
1\. Google Play Services APIs: These are optional, proprietary APIs. You don't
have to use them, and you have to treat them as optional if you want to
operate across Google, Amazon, and other AOSP-derived Androids. What's the
issue here? They're like any other proprietary API.
2\. "Breaking" the "Java standard:" Google "appropriated," via a permissive
open source license, an open source implementation of some Java base classes,
and the (not protectable) syntax of the Java language. They added support for
their own remote API feature and a bunch of APIs, mainly to make a usable UI
system. The result runs on a runtime Google devised, using a bytecode Google
devised. Where is the intellectual property theft?
------
ilaksh
It is odd that there is such a significant cultural difference. On the other
hand, the difference in culture may be more subtle than we realize.
For this test, they should have had an automated way to enforce that rule, if
possible.
Look at the actual levels of piracy in the US versus China. In the US, you
will get some people who say they are worried it might be wrong or that they
will get caught. But most people will say something like 'watching this free
stream doesn't hurt anyone'.
In the US, we have no problem with high end shoes that look similar to one
another, or low-end similar to high-end. But there is a subtle distinction --
there must be some way to claim that this is not copying the other. But maybe
it more often comes down to taking a different attitude towards the same
thing. E.g. "cheap Chinese knock-offs" versus "inexpensive sensible
alternative to overpriced designer brand".
Its also perfectly fine in general for companies to copy a successful business
model. But we insist that there must be some distinction. However the
difference between these companies may only be slightly greater or mainly
surface-level, and so when you get down to the fine analysis, I thinj the real
difference between the cultures is smaller than people want to admit.
------
chvid
Why is the competition designed in such a way that it is an advantage for a
competitor to "run test versions of their programs twice weekly ahead of a
final submission"?
How does it work? You submit your classifier to some server and it is run
against what? The data set that determines your final score - hopefully not.
~~~
solve
> Why is the competition designed in such a way that it is an advantage
See my comment & links at the bottom of this page. For some reason HN always
puts my comments near the bottom, even when they're getting many upvotes. (I'm
guessing that HN has a comment-editing penalty from editing my comments too
many times, but I'm not sure, or maybe it's from times I must have insulted
the mods here.)
Edit:
I constantly get "submitting too fast", so I'll reply here.
Thanks for the info kefka. Yeah, I'll happily agree with that linked comment,
that the childish crude moderation techniques used here have been hurting a
once great community. It was the exact same scenario for me as for that guy.
Seems I got rank-banned immediately after confronting dang about the trends of
excessive downvoting and increasing side-project criticizing on HN.
~~~
chvid
Is it correctly understood that in "Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge"
the competitor's biweekly runs ahead of the final submission is against the
set that actually determines the final result of the contest?!
~~~
mcguire
That's what I was wondering. If so, submitting many test runs makes it trivial
to provide a submission that works perfectly _against the test data_
specifically.
~~~
dumitrue
But the test set has 50,000 images (across 1000 categories). It's not that
easy to just "try many times" to get it right.
~~~
mcguire
...for some definitions of "trivial" and "perfect". At this level, I suspect
even a small advantage would result in winning the contest, which is the point
here.
------
solve
Background:
The technique is actually pretty fascinating. This is something that's been
well understood by the cryptography community for decades, but is somehow just
recently being fully appreciated by the ML community. See here:
[http://blog.mrtz.org/2015/03/09/competition.html](http://blog.mrtz.org/2015/03/09/competition.html)
[https://www.kaggle.com/c/restaurant-revenue-
prediction/forum...](https://www.kaggle.com/c/restaurant-revenue-
prediction/forums/t/13950/our-perfect-submission)
Summary -
Submitting guesses to a system that gives you back scores for your guesses,
will quickly leak out enough information that you can reverse engineer a huge
number of hidden numbers/labels in surprisingly few iterations, e.g. 700
iterations to covertly extract 10,000+ real numbers with high precision. This
surprisingly rapid convergence is a bit reminiscent of the birthday paradox.
Further, this not only lets you win the against the "test" dataset, as apposed
to the final "validation" set, but this allows you to significantly increase
the data available to you to train your model on, since now you can train your
model against both the "test" and "training" datasets.
Layman summary -
ML breaks datasets into 3 partitions "test", "train", and "validation". In
cases where they're evenly split, this technique can double the training data
you have access to, which is a massive advantage in ML competitions where
scores differ by tiny amounts.
Moral judgement -
My opinion, this moral argument is misdirecting the attention from where it
needs to be. Yes, it's bad what occurred here. But at this point, in 2015, and
with tools readily available to crack this problem effortlessly, it's
inexcusable for contests to allow so many scoring reports against their
validation sets anymore. It's no longer a question of whether contestants will
do it, but how many of them will. We'd might as well just let people self-
report their scores on an honor system, if we're going to be this overly
trusting.
Try creating a contest system like this in the cryptography field any time in
the past 3 decades and you'd be insulted and laughed out. Allowing so many
scoring reports against the validation set is fundamentally flawed. The only
solution is to _globally_ limit calls to the scoring api.
Another proposed solution -
Allowing everyone to see everyone else's guesses & resulting scores against
the "test" set, so that everyone is on equal ground for reverse engineering
the "test" set, and then globally limiting the number of scoring attempts so
that the test set isn't reverse engineered too significantly.
Overfitting the "validation" set actually is not a problem either way, because
none of these contests are dumb enough to let anyone score against the
validation set at all until the contest submission deadline is over.
~~~
kastnerkyle
Academia is basically "self-reporting on the honor system". It works generally
but there are lots of holes. Ultimately, "trust but verify" is necessary to
avoid getting caught in a wave of hype, or at least having someone in your own
"circle of trust" say it works. This system leads naturally to elitism and a
bunch of other problems which are seen in academia, but it seems better than
the current alternatives to me given the current rabid focus on exact
percentage score instead of quality/utility of an idea.
The "right way" to do it is test once only _per model /paper_. If you are
interested there are a huge number of sneaky ways overfitting can happen in ML
[1]. Also interesting that you too see crypto and ML as related - I see them
as opposites of the same coin. One tries to pull signal out of noise, the
other tries to bury the signal _in_ noise... but special noise.
[1] [http://hunch.net/?p=22](http://hunch.net/?p=22)
------
McElroy
Is training of the Google AI the reason that reCAPTCHA is now showing pictures
and asking users to select all images of a certain kind?
------
squigs25
This is clearly cheating.
HOWEVER, the goal of these contests should be to promote the most accurate and
powerful image recognition algorithms that will transform the world as we know
it. Limiting access to training data makes it more difficult to test changes
to an algorithm. These rules do not make sense to me, and I would advocate
against them.
~~~
sweezyjeezy
Two things - firstly you need to understand the concept of overfitting :
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overfitting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overfitting)
. If teams were allowed to train on the full dataset, it would be possible to
get a 100% score, yet still not have a model that was useful on any images
that were not in the training set. Furthermore, if you allowed infinite
submissions, teams could just train a million models with slightly different
hyperparameters, and submit the one that did best (which may be what Baidu was
trying to do here). This is a problem because now there is the possibility
that you are overfitting the test data - there would be no way to tell if the
accuracy generalised to other images without coming up with more labelled
data, i.e. making a new test set.
Second of all, cross validation : [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-
validation_%28statistics%...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-
validation_%28statistics%29). You don't HAVE to submit to the test set to get
a feel of how well your model is performing. On datasets this large, cross
validation should be effective, if more time consuming method (unless your
model is extremely unstable).
~~~
squigs25
Was there a training set made available and distributed? I got the impression
that there was not.
~~~
sweezyjeezy
Yeah the training set is called Imagenet, it's widely used in research.
------
programmer_dude
Funny for a moment I thought some one submitted a headline with an Indian word
in it. Asthir in Hindi/Bengali means unstable, not stationary or worked up
(remotely connected to Astir?)
~~~
dalke
My thought is that the "a-" prefix in this sense probably comes from the
Germanic use "to show a state, condition, or manner";
[http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/a-#Etymology_2](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/a-#Etymology_2)
. It's no longer used to make new words, but the "a-" form remains in many
words, including abloom, aflame, and abuzz.
The first known use of the word "astir" is from 1765, says Merriam-Webster at
[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/astir](http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/astir) . This is what I would expect if "stir" was a
word, "a-" was a possible mechanism to create new words, and eventually people
started to use "astir.
Etymonline gives a first known use as 1823:
[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&searc...](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=astir&searchmode=none)
:
> "up and about," 1823, from phrase on the stir, or from Scottish asteer; from
> stir. Old English had astyrian, which yielded Middle English ben astired "be
> stirred up, excited, aroused."
The root "stir" has a longer heritage. Etymonline at
[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=stir&allowed_in_fra...](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=stir&allowed_in_frame=0)
says:
> Old English styrian "to stir, move; rouse, agitate, incite, urge"
> (transitive and intransitive), from Proto-Germanic * sturjan (cognates:
> Middle Dutch stoeren, Dutch storen "to disturb," Old High German storan "to
> scatter, destroy," German stören "to disturb"), from PIE * (s)twer- (1) "to
> turn, whirl" (see storm (n.)).
Hindi is another descendant of Proto Indo-European, so that may be where
there's a connection to "asthir". However, do bear in mind that the surface
similarity is false - astyrian would be linguistically closer to the Hindi
than astir.
~~~
programmer_dude
Thanks for the informative post! However I think asthir may be a false friend
in this case. The a- prefix is used to negate sthir in asthir. Sthir in Indian
languages means stable, stationary, motionless etc. Kind of like the a- prefix
in English sometimes (social, asocial etc.)
But it is not uncommon for word meanings to change in such a way that they
take on a meaning exactly opposite of what they used to mean (see for example
the meaning of the word nice:
[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=nice&allowed_in_fra...](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=nice&allowed_in_frame=0)).
I wonder if there is a name for this phenomenon.
~~~
dalke
Awesome!
[http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=awe&allowed_in_frame=0](http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=awe&allowed_in_frame=0)
:)
------
peter303
In science and technology cheating is often self-correcting. Your result is
not reproducible or your product defective if you cheat too much. Everyone
will know.
------
aminorex
The PLA appears to have taken down the NYT story.
~~~
ohitsdom
Huh? Link works fine for me.
~~~
an_ko
PLA =
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army)
I think that was intended to humorously imply that the link appears down when
accessed from China.
~~~
chvid
NY Times has been blocked for years in China.
~~~
seanmcdirmid
For a couple of years. WSJ has been blocked for less than a year. CNN is still
up, though I guess its just a matter of time.
------
thansharp
I'm not an expert, so apologies if my question is stupid.
Why can't the competition have the same test data each week across all
participants? So that no matter how many accounts you create, you will train
with the same images everyone else gets to train with.
------
jokoon
I began watching Andrew Ng's course just this morning. I had also watched some
part of the courses by Pedro Domingo at the Washington University a few months
ago.
Having never been employed but having coded for 8, I wish I could get myself
educated in this field.
------
kailuowang
A major company spending so much, even risk their reputation, on a competition
in a field where computer already achieved better than human performance. I
start to feel that maybe the industry should start looking more on other new
application of deep neural network (e.g. reinforce learning by deepmind).
There is still a long way to go before we can achieve a thinking machine.
~~~
ohitsdom
We only recently (and barely) passed the performance level of a human. There's
still a lot to be gained from competitions like this.
------
amelius
Another solution would have been to allow other researchers unlimited access
to the test server as well.
~~~
mertd
That would turn the competition into an exercise in overfitting.
~~~
solve
It wouldn't, because final scores are only evaluated against the "validation"
set.
As for turning current contests into an exercise in overfitting the "test" set
- we already reached that point long ago. Test vs validation scores often
diverge wildly in these contests.
Edit - Replying to arnsholt:
Completely true. The huge problem I see, is that all the classic NLP tagging
corpuses are created from the very narrow domain of news articles, and a few
good corpuses now appearing for biology texts, and that's about it. Want to
do, e.g. NER for product reviews or chat logs? - Incredibly bad results.
There's a huge corpus problem in NLP today.
~~~
arnsholt
Not to mention out-of-domain performance.
I'm not familiar with computer vision, but in NLP taggers are hovering around
human-level performance, and parsers are quickly approaching that level. But
if you take a state-of-the-art system and test it on a slightly different
corpus (even something as simple as text from the same newspaper, but a year
later!) performance drops by a lot.
------
travelhead
What's more important, winning a competition or improving AI for the entire
world? Do the ends justify the means? I Don't think we should be too hard on
Baidu, considering they are attempting to improve their algorithm for the
interest of humanity (or evil AI that will bring an end to mankind, depending
on how you look at it).
~~~
netheril96
> I Don't think we should be too hard on Baidu, considering they are
> attempting to improve their algorithm for the interest of humanity
They are not improving the algorithm for the interest of humanity. They
submitted and obtained test results much more frequently than allowed. With
that information, they can tune parameters to more closely fit the test data.
Basically it is like scoring higher on an exam where some of the questions
have been leaked. It does not suggest you now have a better understanding of
the subject.
~~~
squigs25
If they are building an algorithm which overfits to training data, their
algorithm will lose performance on in the actual validation test.
It is NOT like looking at leaked answers. It's like re-reading the textbook
more than everyone else. Definitely an unfair advantage however.
~~~
varelse
You misunderstand. They're using repeated attempts on the test set to improve
their network. That is equivalent to training on the test set and that is
unequivocably cheating.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why the no-fun 'FarmVille' is so popular - edw519
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/09/28/farmville.popularity/index.html?hpt=Sbin
======
mxavier
FarmVille is a good barometer for telling you which of your friends on
Facebook don't make good use of their free time.
------
keltex
It's as fun as a slot machine, except you don't lose as much money. I think
it's a perfect game!
------
cemregr
Very unimpressive for an article published on CNN, zero substance.
~~~
TheSOB88
I learned a lot about Farmville from this article, having had minimal prior
knowledge. It was informative for me.
------
golgo13
As soon as I see a game like this, mafia wars, plant hero, etc. start gaining
traction amongst my friends, I immediately block the application. Presto! All
references to the game are gone!
~~~
brazzy
I wish there was an option to auto-block all applications...
------
notahacker
I'm aware of people assuming that it must "become fun" after reaching certain
milestones because surely their friends wouldn't all be playing it if it
didn't...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Another ICO Hacked: KICKICO Loses $8M After Smart Contract Breach - ccnafr
https://www.ccn.com/another-ico-hacked-kickico-loses-8-million-after-smart-contract-breach/
======
thrill
That's a very poor headline, seeing as the private key was what was
compromised, and not the contract.
------
paulpauper
mysql injection, weak passwords, compromised server..usual suspects
~~~
richrichardsson
How can shit like this still be occurring in 2018?
~~~
paxys
Regardless of the year, you have to hire devs who know what they are doing,
and that entails paying a real salary.
------
TekMol
Did any ICO ever result in anything useful?
~~~
gustavmarwin
Can we stop with the blockchain trolling please? It only makes you look very
ignorant.
Yes, there is a humongous number of scammy projects. But there are also
projects working really hard to succeed and they deserve a chance. Right now
I'm particularly impressed by what Augur pulled off, it's not certain whether
it will succeed long term but credit should be given where it's due.
~~~
taberiand
Augur: "Report the Outcome Report the winning outcome of the event after it
occurs. Other users can dispute your report if they don't agree."
I think I can spot the weak link in this system.
~~~
solveit
Yes, everyone who's spent two minutes thinking about designing a decentralized
prediction market has spotted that weak link. Hence that's what Augur is
designed to address.
Think it won't work? Go get your bug bounty, or even put in a massive short
and then break it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Partly Cloudy: The Start of a Journey into the Cloud - boulos
https://blog.twitter.com/engineering/en_us/topics/infrastructure/2019/the-start-of-a-journey-into-the-cloud.html
======
boulos
Disclosure: I work on Google Cloud and closely with Twitter.
This post has been a long time coming! The folks at Twitter also have a few
talks this week at Next, which will be recorded and online later if you want
more details.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
RIP 8 Bit? - bdfh42
http://www.drdobbs.com/blog/archives/2010/04/rip_8_bit.html
======
pixelbath
Ugh, dislike sites that require an independent registration to post a single
comment.
On topic, I doubt lower-power microprocessors will be going anywhere for a
while. Sure, you can stick an ARM in there, but what about battery life? You
might save money and effort, but if power consumption is an issue, you have to
weigh your priorities.
------
NateLawson
I don't get the author's point. It seems to be "because 8-bit micros are so
cheap, don't design with discrete components". This is valid and has in fact
been the goal since the MOS 6502 in 1975 ($25 vs. $300 for an Intel 8080 or
Motorola 6800). But he goes on to say "thus, 8-bit micros are themselves going
away".
The second part is just not true, nor does he offer any evidence for it. He
points out this deficiency in his argument himself by noting that many 555s
(mid-70's design) are still available.
I think a better point to make is to watch the applications for parts as they
age. You could buy 8-bit home computer from about 1975-1991. You could buy a
16-bit workstation from about 1981-1995. You can't buy either of those new
today. Even your home office router is 32-bit.
However, 8-bit CPUs are still almost everywhere today. I designed a new
hobbyist device with an 8-bit AVR with built-in USB DMA engine.
([http://rdist.root.org/2009/01/21/introducing-xum1541-the-
fas...](http://rdist.root.org/2009/01/21/introducing-xum1541-the-
fast-c64-floppy-usb-adapter/))
The TI MSP430 series uses microamps and run off a small battery. The 8-bit CPU
will always exist, it will just have more specialized onboard peripherals and
be used for different applications.
One unit of measure I like to use is "word size vs. clock rate". For example,
a Intel Core Solo running in 32-bit mode at 2.0 Ghz can represent ~2 seconds
of clock cycles in a native word. A 16 Mhz AT90 can represent 0.004 seconds in
its 16-bit word (actually 2 registers since it is 8-bit). So in general, the
AT90 is a bit harder to program than the Intel CPU since you have to worry
more about multi-byte arithmetic.
Another unit is clocks per byte of IO. With a gigabit ethernet adapter, the
Intel machine has only 16 clocks/byte. Running at the full USB rate of 12
Mbit/s, the AT90 has 10.66 clocks/byte. So they both need hardware support to
keep the pipe full.
It's fun to compare applications for various CPU types, but I don't think
8-bit is going to disappear even in the next 20 years.
------
ladyada
well... yes, hobbyists have more choices about what to use - a 555 or a PIC or
a laptop - and there's more bang for the $ with the new arm cortex chips. But
when it comes to products, there are some very serious constraints with
pricing and power usage. you can run a 555 on a single AAA battery and draw
microamps, costs pennies, have multiple suppliers and have less complexity
too. there are plenty of times you'd want that over a microprocessor.
Interestingly, from discussions with toy designers (barbies and such, with
talking or moving parts) they all use the same 4-bit processor core that has a
crummy audio playback module, some i/o and sensors. 4 bit! but its dirt cheap
and well understood.
------
sketerpot
It's a little ridiculous that we can now get a microcontroller with a 50 MHz
ARM Cortex-M0 core for $0.85 in bulk. Imagine how things will be in a few
years (and a few more process nodes).
------
maroc
NXP (<http://ics.nxp.com/products/mcus/cortex-m0/>) and Energy Micro
(<http://energymicro.com/>) are actively trying to kill the 8-bit MCU with
their ARM Cortex-M(3|0) offerings. Very low power consumption on these chips.
But, still, they require a lot more external circuitry than an MSP430 or
(SiLabs)C8051.
------
dmoney
Off topic, but I thought Dr. Dobb's Journal was dead. Or was that just the
print edition.
~~~
chbarts
Dr. Dobb's is certainly closer to being dead than 8-bit microcontrollers are.
It ceased publication as a standalone magazine in February 2009; it's now
online and a monthly section in _InformationWeek_ called _Dr. Dobb's Report._
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Investors to Zuckerberg: Please step down. - olidale
http://blog.crranky.com/facebook/investors-to-zuckerberg-please-step-down/
======
EvaPeron
Let's recall when Jobs was ousted - worked out real well for Apple, now did it
not? He had to be dragged in later to turn the ship around. FB has made some
mistakes no doubt, but do not underestimate the power of a visionary like a
Jobs or a Zuckerberg. Investors should give him more patience.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
More on that umbrella seller startup guy - Specstacular
http://internationalbs.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/catching-up-with-the-umbrella-seller-fella-part-1/
======
Scott_Culture
Nice update. The gumboots are cool...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Good Reason to Get Rejected - LawoftheHarvest
http://www.concepthacker.com/rejection-therapy-android-app
======
drunkenmasta
First impressions:
anything over free seems like a lot to pay for something that looks so
limited. pay $1 $2 do who or what? what would I do if unable to do challenge?
(don't have facebook.) only 30 cards? surely you could have come up with more
than that. (or are you planning on having card sets as in store purchases?)
some of the display photos are redundant and after looking at them I still
have no idea what kind of experience I might expect to get out of using the
app.
------
kaybe
I find the description unclear. Do I pay the money if I don't get rejected or
if I get rejected? (It would make most sense if I pay if I don't try. The text
is confusing in this regard though.)
How does it handle money/does it handle money? Or do I have to go and give
money somewhere myself? Where does it go?
Very confusing. I have to assume a lot. Depending on how it works, it could be
useful.
~~~
LawoftheHarvest
You're right, it should be clearer.
With Rejection Therapy, the object of the game is to get rejected. That
constitutes success in the game. So, if the challenge of the day is to 'ask
for a discount when making a purchase' and you fail to get the rejection, you
pay $1 or $5, depending on whatever you chose. That is the consequence.
Payment is taken via PayPal.
------
namenotrequired
The first sentence seems to say this is the first launch of the app, but from
the second sentence it sounds like a new feature to an existing app. Which is
it? What does the rest of the app do? The description of the app says nothing
more than this blog post, which appears to be about just one feature.
~~~
LawoftheHarvest
The Android version is new (only a few weeks old) and new features have been
released today.
But you're right, wording needs to be changed.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Project Scarlett: Microsoft unveils next-generation Xbox game console - sahin-boydas
https://venturebeat.com/2019/06/09/project-scarlett-microsoft-unveils-next-generation-xbox-game-console/
======
70122-_6
well, thinking outta da compton-box for just a second. Does anyone want to put
Ubuntu mate onto an Xbox360 classic?
'cos they only cost 20 bucks plus postage these days, libxenon being the
principal component.
[http://free60.org](http://free60.org) DM me, cheers.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Scientists find key to unwanted thoughts - joeyespo
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-41847030
======
sctb
Early empiricists find naturally-occurring GABAergic substance effective in
preventing unwanted thoughts; advise “Drown your sorrows.”
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Intellectual yet Idiot - taylorbuley
https://medium.com/@nntaleb/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e2d0577#.3pwxs3sij
======
wtbob
Taleb is always a great read!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Do you really need an MBA? - p1niu
http://www.careerpath.com/career-advice/do-you-really-need-an-mba/
======
p1niu
Do people who want to be successful tech entrepreneurs really need an MBA?
What do you think?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What is the nature of deafblind people's and animals' thoughts? - Arun2009
Before you accuse me of not googling, I freely admit that I am lazily information mining here!<p>Onto the questions.<p>When I think, I am simulating speaking to myself - I run over the words and sentences in my head and my internal experience is as if I hear the words pronounced. I am assuming that this is the case with most of us.<p>In contrast to this, what kind of thinking experience do people who have never associated any "utterances" (lip movement, hand signals, sounds) with ideas have?<p>A related question: Assume that animals can think, because they clearly seem to. What would be their thoughts like? Clearly they can't be talking to themselves as we do. Could they be using a lot of pronouns ("I could do that to that which will cause it to do that and that and then I can catch and eat it").<p>My basic motivation is to try to find a meaningful continuity between animals and ourselves in terms of intelligence. Biologically there are a lot of similarities, but it seems that intelligence-wise, there is a marked discontinuity between humans and other living organisms. What is it that causes this?<p>This is mainly for fun speculative thinking on a Saturday morning. I also think there's a need for succinct insights about thinking and consciousness to coagulate in various places on the net so that it may someday be useful to someone.
======
tokenadult
Agreed with the first reply. People with normal sensory function have
different habitual thinking styles. Noticing those differences in thinking
styles is one of the most enjoyable aspects of my work as a mathematics
teacher.
What I like to do as a teacher is help my pupils discover that they can learn
new thinking styles and, as I put it, put new tools in their toolboxes. My
wife, perhaps because of her east Asian education, has quite a diverse set of
thinking styles. I've learned some from her, and I hope our kids are learning
our whole repertoire of thinking styles from each of us. We do notice among
our four children some differences in habitual approach. But most people can
learn new ways of thinking, if they are exposed to those.
~~~
Mz
OT: Funny meeting you here. Not that I have any reason to believe you know of
me, but I think I know of you from your website. (At least it seems that way
since the name in the email address, location and other details match up.)
------
Mz
Not all people think the way you do. I've spent a lot of time learning about
the different ways different people think and learn in order to effectively
cope with the needs of my sons. My oldest son thinks in pictures (like Temple
Grandin, who wrote the book 'Thinking in Pictures'). He's been very
interesting to raise and live with. He sometimes makes mistakes similar to a
non-native speaker because anything he thinks has to be translated into
English before he can express it and anything he hears has to be translated
into pictures for him to understand it. I have learned to speak in a very
imagery-rich manner because it is a more effective means to communicate with
him. It turns out to be a fairly powerful means to communicate with most
people.
EDIT: He's not deaf-blind but he does have serious eyesight issues and
auditory processing problems.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina Is Running for President - uptown
http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/22/8470665/2016-presidential-candidate-hp-ceo
======
jgrahamc
Her name was Carly, she was a VP
With Lucent and AT&T and a degree from MIT
She went to HP and wowed the board room
And while she tried to be a star, sometimes went a bit too far
And then September 4, Compaq became the score
They were failing and needed each other
Leaning drunks galore!
At the HP, HP/Com-pa-q
The merger that upset the family
At the HP, HP/Com-pa-q
David and William were always the fashion
At the HP... they ran the show
His name was Walter, his dad was famous
He wasn't present for the board, but he wouldn't be ignored
And what she pro-posed, "Dad would've hated"
Then Walter went a bit too far, "Carly: time for au revoir!"
And then the insults flew and careers were smashed in two
There were ads and a lot of bankers, but just who screwed who?
At the HP, HP/Com-pa-q
The merger that upset the family
At the HP, HP/Com-pa-q
David and Walter are today the fashion
At the HP... they run the show
Her name is Carly, she was CEO
But that was 30 weeks ago, when she used to run show
Now she's a VC, but that's our Carly
Still in the suit she used to wear, new blonde highlights in her hair
She sits there so refined, and drinks to Walter's health
She lost her job and she lost the proxy, now she enjoy's her wealth!
At the HP, well just the HP
The toughest job belongs to Walter
At the HP, well just the HP
William and David were always the fashion
At the HP, don't buy the stock...
[http://blog.jgc.org/2008/03/bouts-complete-song-
parodies.htm...](http://blog.jgc.org/2008/03/bouts-complete-song-
parodies.html)
~~~
techdragon
I was looking for this the other day, thank you!
Prediction, if she became president, the USA would be sold to China before the
next election.
------
anonbanker
she's got my vote. maybe she'll do for the US what she did for HP.
and maybe she'll get an equally-good golden parachute for doing so.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: I built a simple monitoring dashboard app for my life - justinlloyd
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/weekend-side-project-justin-lloyd/
======
t_von_doom
Could you tell me a bit more about how your beacons work? I’d love to do
something similar tracking where/how I spend time around the house
~~~
justinlloyd
For the phones I use a combination of WiFi access point connection on my
Ubiquiti APs in the home, along with a small swarm of strategically placed
Bluetooth low-energy beacons around the home. A beacon in the drawer where we
keep the wallets, one by the coffee machine where there is a charging cable,
one by each nightstand, one in each bathroom, one by the kitchen computer, one
on the dining table, one at each desk in the respective home offices, and so
forth. I can query the Unifi API to determine which AP the phone is attached
to to get a coarse "Justin's phone is attached to the dining room AP." The
phones roam from AP to AP correctly so long as you dial down the power on the
AP so it only has a 3m or 5m range. Multiple APs in the house let you roam
easily and give good signal no matter where you are. I also query the beacons
at the phone's location to determine a more precise pinpoint.
For the wallets I use passive RFID tags (sourced from Aliexpress) and a couple
of wide and narrow RFID sensor stations, which either run over PoE (only have
two of that model) or are powered by a wall wart and connect to the WiFi and
they can be easily polled. "Your wallet is in the dining room" gives me the
wide range -- around 7m radius in real world conditions -- and multiple wide
range RFID sensors can then be queried and the positions triangulated (though
not entirely accurately) based on response.
The narrow range RFID sensors are strategically placed and cover about 18"
(45cm) radius. That gives me a more granular "your wallet isn't where it is
meant to be" report but it does give me "Your wallet is in the 'going out the
door, take these items with you' drawer" to make sure the wallets are put back
after usage.
For the pets I use a device known as a Loc8tor (British company I think) that
is attached to the collars, essentially active RFID (not quite, but that
description will do for this discussion), and several custom built sensor
location hubs.
For the tracking I took a lot of ideas from supply chain management and retail
environment solutions. Many years ago I worked on a "Big Brother" project for
a high end shopping mall that could do all sorts of scary tracking of phones
long before smart phones were a thing, that fortunately never launched. Now I
look back on that, I shudder at the implications. I also worked on a project
for the hospitality industry that can accurately track a guest's RFID tag worn
on a lanyard or a wrist strap as they move about a facility.
There's a lot of things I would change if I were doing this over again, or
spending any kind of time on it beyond a four day weekend. I would also not
use active RFID at all and just go fully passive. And I am not even sure I
would use BLE beacons for phone tracking, instead perhaps opting for more WiFi
APs to cover smaller areas. You can dial down the power to an AP so it would
serve the exact same purpose and Unifi make some wall mounted APs that are
very nice. That said, it would require a lot more cable runs in the home to do
that, that I am not willing to undertake.
If all you want is a heat map, and you have multiple WiFi APs, depending on
the brand of access point, you can easily track your phone as it hops from AP
to AP. Some of the research in how the WiFi radios of an access point respond
to a person being in proximity to them (a few metres) could also be deployed
for just simply tracking people.
The WiFi AP roaming and tracking is already a thing built-in to most
enterprise devices. The WiFi of the company where you work already knows where
you are, with reasonable certainty, and they know precisely how long you spent
in the bathroom and pretty much you're reading in there. The only thing I
really did different was "Weasley Clock" the phone tracking in to an easily
read smart home dashboard.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Musicians? - lincolnq
What instrument(s) do you play, and what's your level of involvement?<p>The Jargon File's entry on music (http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/M/music.html) suggests that music is a "common extracurricular" among hackers. Is this still true?
======
antiform
My pet theory is that playing a musical instrument is less common a hobby
among programmers now than it was a generation ago, because now programming
tends to be associated with "Computer Science" as its own discipline, rather
than a subdiscipline of math.
Near the end of this interview
[<http://tex.loria.fr/historique/interviews/knuth-clb1993.html>], Don Knuth
says that one way CS graduate students have changed since the 70s is that they
are less interested in music:
"What changes have you seen in the students coming into the computer science
program over the years?"
" _Knuth_ : There is a very profound change that I can't account for. In the
70s, the majority of our students were very interested in music. The first
thing we'd ask them when they came in was 'What instrument do you play?' We
had lots of chamber groups and so on. Now almost none of the students are
interested in music. I don't know if it's because a different kind of people
are enrolling in computer science, or because it's true of all today's
students, or what. If you ask computer science students now what their hobby
is, the chances are most of them will say 'Bicycling'. I recently had one who
played a harmonica, but there were almost no musicians in the group."
~~~
cperciva
_My pet theory is that playing a musical instrument is less common a hobby
among programmers now than it was a generation ago, because now programming
tends to be associated with "Computer Science" as its own discipline, rather
than a subdiscipline of math._
I'd say you have that backwards. Mathematicians and Computer Scientists have
always been interested in music; but Programmers haven't. These days if you
look around a computer science department -- at least, if you look at the
students -- you'll be looking mostly at programmers, not at computer
scientists.
When I was in Oxford, I saw a mix of "people interested in computer science"
and "people interested in programming" -- and as far as I could tell, every
one of the CS people was interested in music, while not even one of the
programmers was.
------
ntoll
Regarding music and hacking. Personally, music theory and the compositional
techniques I learned as a student "feel" very similar to hacking: writing an
examination fugue in the style of J.S.Bach involves complex thinking and
problem solving within a (semi) formal system with an additional (and
essential) appreciation of conciseness, grace, style and aesthetic.
Also, hacking music is fun! When I was learning to program I wrote a little
app to solve species counterpoint problems with a genetic algorithm. Although
not always up to "human" results (especially fifth species counterpoint) the
"solutions" were always fun to listen to. ;-)
As for me: I'm a tuba player - a graduate of the Royal College of Music with
an academic (rather than performance based) undergraduate music degree. I also
play organ and piano. I still play regularly and was recently a soloist with a
local orchestra in a performance of the Vaughan William's concerto. Life
without music would be unbearable... :-/
~~~
Flemlord
You just brought back a pleasant memory. Back in my C64 days I wrote a program
that created Bach inventions. One of my few early hacker accomplishments that
impressed my non-techie parents.
For anybody who doesn't know what that is, here's Bach's most famous:
[http://video.aol.com/video-detail/js-bach-
invention-13-rendi...](http://video.aol.com/video-detail/js-bach-
invention-13-rendition-guitar-a-solo-duet/118949678)
(Originally written for the harpsichord I believe.)
------
thomasfl
I am the lead singer in a Kiss tribute band. Everybody with low self esteem
should try singing in a metal band.
We don't use guitars, but have good tuba and violin players. I also play
keyboard: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7DgpSddLiU>
------
GavinB
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1phz4-G1tc>
I wrote the music and played the guitar and bass.
------
axod
I mess around on the piano, which I bought this last year. Love it to death,
it's great to just play when you need a break. (BTW I cannot recommend the
Yamaha GT2 enough).
I'm absolutely terrible at reading music, but I can play anything by ear, I
wonder if that's usual for hacker types.
<http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=y6UPJJqwc1k>
~~~
Flemlord
> I can play anything by ear, I wonder if that's usual for hacker types.
I think it has more to do with how you learned the instrument. Most
classically trained pianists I know couldn't sound out a Doors tune to save
their life. On the other hand, once I started playing in bands, just about
everybody I met could listen to a song and have it figured out within an hour.
I (a hacker type) was better than most classically trained types at sounding
out music, but still had difficulties compared to most people in the band
circuit. I usually couldn't really nail a part unless I found the music in a
magazine somewhere. (this was pre-Internet, today this wouldn't be an issue)
~~~
xiaoma
I have very little training myself, but my grandmother is a "classically
trained type". She was a cellist at Oberlin Conservatory and has perfect
pitch. I can send her into another room while I hit six keys on a piano and
she can name all the notes. I can kick a metal garbage can and she can say
what notes the resulting sound are closest to. While I was studying piano for
a short time myself, I tested her abilities pretty thoroughly. Writing out (or
just playing) a pop song is trivial for someone like that.
From what she's said to me, those skills weren't _that_ exceptional. Many good
strings players have perfect pitch, and even those who don't or those who play
other instruments have excellent relative pitch. I don't see how a classically
trained pianist would have problems with a Doors tune, especially considering
how few chord progressions pop songs use.
------
zkarcher
Electronic music producer, here.
The unofficial rule is: if you're a Flash programmer, you also create
electronic music.
------
cperciva
I play violin; I'm currently the concertmaster in the best non-professional
orchestra in Vancouver.
------
joshsharp
I've played guitar for years, not bad but I'll never be great. Just a bit of a
hobby, something manual to pick up and play with when I'm not coding.
------
NoBSWebDesign
I'm the lead guitar for Ann Arbor-based rock band, Moment of Inertia (we all
happen to be engineers... computer, electrical, mechanical, and aerospace
between the 4 of us).
<http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8umukDN_PVE>
We've been a band for 5 years now, and this is definitely my top activity
right after running our startup and right before autocrossing (oh, and my
girlfriend fits somewhere in there too).
------
brianto2010
I can play both violin and Bb clarinet; I started both in elementary school.
However, I only play violin now in high school.
From your link: _"music: n. A common extracurricular interest of hackers..."_
This definition is not just limited to just playing an instrument, though. It
also talks about music appreciation and genres of music.
To strictly follow that definition, try asking if we are significantly
involved with music in some way.
------
LogicHoleFlaw
I played woodwind instruments all through middle and high school. I started on
the clarinet, then the alto and tenor saxophones, and the bassoon as well. I
was quite proficient and seriously considered majoring in bassoon performance
in college but I decided to pursue CS instead. Unfortunately I haven't played
seriously since I graduated high school and I miss it dearly. I really should
find a used Tenor somewhere and pick it up again.
------
foulmouthboy
14 years of piano lessons. Also clarinet and saxaphone and I'll mess around
with just about everything else.
When I told my piano teacher that I was going to school for engineering and
got into the pre-med program (as opposed to music), she was in total shock and
her immediate response was, "wait... are you smart?"
------
pkeane
Fingerstyle guitar. <http://peterkeane.com>
------
liangzan
I play the classical guitar as a hobby(other than programming). Still learning
now. Now I'm performing for free at old folk's homes during festivals. That's
much more meaningful than playing it alone in my room.
------
nickfox
I've been playing guitar and singing for a good number of years. I'm working
on my second music video. It's the song Patience by Guns n' Roses. My first
music video was Across the Universe by the Beatles. I don't have very good
"stage presence" in my first video but the one I'm working on now will be much
better. Here's my first video:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7zro5VpUf0&feature=chann...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7zro5VpUf0&feature=channel_page)
------
baddox
Took piano lessons until 8th grade, in 9th grade picked up guitar on my own,
learned to play by ear, I'm pretty decent albeit a casual player. I don't play
in bands much, just jam around with friends, and I know I don't have the chops
to be a professional. Music is a great thing to geek out with, you can really
be a music gearhead just like with computer equipment. I'm especially
interested in digital audio workstation (DAW) technology, it's a perfect blend
of computer science and music.
~~~
baddox
<http://www.tshaddox.com/?cat=10> Some compositions of mine (mp3 downloads). A
modest piano composition of mine: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPS1DDVenrk>
------
lincolnq
I have played violin since I was very young, and more recently viola. I've
been interested recently in electric violin/viola, but I haven't gotten to try
them yet.
------
daydream
Played bass guitar for 8 years, and also have done a ton of audio recording
and engineering - recording bands live and in the studio, wore a bunch of
different hats on film and video projects, and did audio for some high-profile
art installations.
It's not my day job, but music is my main serious hobby outside of work, and
particularly with the music recording I've recorded literally in the 100's of
bands over the last decade or so.
------
artlogic
I actively play guitar and electric bass - I fool around on banjo, mandolin,
and drums. I'm also currently learning to play cello. I find that
playing/writing music often times gets me through a tough coding problem more
quickly than thinking about it directly. I'm also likely one of those people
who Knuth mentioned as I have pretty serious interests in the mathematics
behind computation.
------
tricky
Guitar. taught lessons to get thru h.s. and college (Best job ever for a punk
kid who happens to be punctual.) Went on the road for a few years with a band
(Best job ever for a beginning hacker (lots of time in the van with a
laptop.)) After that I got a "real programming job" and built copies of
vintage gear as a hobby. Now i'm in a working cover band and in a few
experimental things.
------
dag
I play in the church band every other week, that week involves 3 hours of
practice and a 5/6 song set. I highly recommend this as this setting includes
other people who require you to participate, and encourage you to play well.
Almost everyone in our band has a bachelor's degree, some have grad school,
and there are a couple PhDs and an MBA. Some of the musicians are amazing.
------
kaens
I actively play guitar, bass, and drums. Have been playing guitar all my life.
I can play piano and violin.
I like playing around with sequencers, I have some very quickly made tracks up
at <http://last.fm/music/kaens> , probably some stuff with more time put into
it up in a few weeks.
------
dmpayton
I've always wanted to play the guitar, and bought an electric (LP-style) when
I turned 18. Tried teaching myself to play, but life happened. Sadly, it's bow
collecting dust by my bedside.
When I'm not working 50 hours a week with several side projects on top of my
responsibilities as a husband and father, I'd like to pick it back up.
------
cheez80
drumset since middle school, orchestral percussion since about then too, and
mallet percussion (and drumline stuff) since high school. wait, that sounds a
bit misleading, since i don't do the orchestral, mallet, or drumline stuff
anymore.
i also played piano since like 6. stopped when i hit high school.
~~~
cheez80
oh yeah, also made this whilst in hs with a friend.
<http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR00828/>
so i guess i dabbled in electronic music for a bit too :)
------
maryrosecook
I've had a solo band for a few years
(<http://werenotthecoolkids.com/music/index.php>). I've been in several bands
with friends. I play the guitar, drums and sing. Being a polymath is really
important to me.
------
nickd
I started playing banjo 8 months ago. It's pretty much been my only hobby
since then. Though, I think the upstairs neighbors may have moved out as a
result. I still haven't found a way to practice that's fruitful, and yet isn't
way to loud for everyone else. Mutes just aren't fun.
------
elbicho
I play guitar, compose and do recording engineering
This is my profile in a nice collaborative site.
[http://www.kompoz.com/compose-collaborate/userName-
elbicho/p...](http://www.kompoz.com/compose-collaborate/userName-
elbicho/profile.member)
------
krepsj
I play harmonica. Not at very good level but good enough to be able to jam
with my friends guitar.
~~~
Zsolt
Right there with you. I picked it up only a few months ago so I'm an amateur
at best.
I always keep my harmonica within the reach of my hands, so whenever I'm tired
of coding I lean back and play a little.
------
timothyandrew
I play bass. Used to play the piano.
~~~
dag
Same, but played trumpet in between (I find that bassists have often played
trumpet in the past).
~~~
timothyandrew
Well, it's always easier to learn a second instrument if you have a firm grasp
on basic music theory. I hated playing the piano, but in retrospect, it's
really helped me pick up the bass faster/better.
------
nx
I play the piano, as a hobby. One or two hours a day. I go to classes and I've
been playing for five or six years. I have also composed some electronic music
and remixed popular tracks but I stopped doing that because of lack of time.
------
Flemlord
Piano. Classically trained, but after I dropped out of college (for unrelated
reasons), I spent a couple years playing in cover bands, church organ, piano
bars. Sadly, after getting into computers, I haven't touched it for 15 years.
------
drewcrawford
I've played keyboards for about 11 years. This summer, I was in a Dream
Theater cover band.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfmhWH7BVA4>
------
Erf
I compose electronic music. Attempted to learn to play keyboard at a late age,
but progressed unsatisfyingly slowly.
I would agree that a disproportionate number of programmers I know are
musically inclined.
------
chops
I play Piano and Clarinet. While it's been about 8 years, I used to write
orchestral and new age MIDI music for a few years (<http://gumm.8k.com>)
------
msg
I play and record myself on acoustic-electric plugged into a multi-effects
pedal, plugged into the computer, and I sing.
I suck at everything.
------
h34t
I hadn't played a musical instrument in 10 years, but last month I picked up a
keyboard and began teaching myself piano. I really enjoy it.
------
DTrejo
I used to play clarinet in middle school and elementary.
I racked up ~5 years before quitting.
I also have a Bb r13 clarinet for sale.
------
sctb
I play the guitar (electric, acoustic) and the electric bass. Before working
as a programmer I taught fretted strings professionally.
------
iloveyouocean
I play the Dumbek. Mostly middle-eastern style.
------
graywh
Playing an instrument has a good correlation with higher intelligence. And
it's no secret that hackers are some of the smartest.
------
MoeDrippins
I'm not sure I'm considered a musician, yet, but I'm learning bass guitar. I
practice daily, though not as much as I'd like.
------
statictype
I play the Veena on and off.
I find it's a good release valve from spending too much time in front of the
screen.
------
defunkt
I've played guitar for a while. I try to practice at least three times a week
for 1 - 4 hours each sitting.
------
brianr
Piano, guitar, bass, clarinet, viola. Haven't played the last three much in
the last few years though.
------
rms
I played various combinations of drums through high school. Right now I'm
taking a tabla class.
------
ynd
I play the guitar. But I wouldn't call myself a musician just yet.
Love music though.
------
mattdennewitz
my band (2-piece called coltrane motion) just played a sold-out show w/ mucca
pazza (look them up right this second) at the empty bottle (chicago) last
night. blown out hip-hop beats under farfisa, ms-10, and guitar noise. fun
stuff.
------
shutter
Piano, mostly. Actually, I'm graduating this year with a decree in both CS and
music.
------
runningskull
I play the banjo, and can't seem to stop playing the banjo. It's like a drug.
------
asdf333
played violin since age 2.
played in various national and all-state hs orchestras.
stopped playing in college though and haven't played since
------
paul7986
Piano & guitar - hobby songwriter
------
nose
I am re-learning the piano.
------
geuis
Trombone and baritone
------
tonetheman
i play guitar
------
curiousgeorge
piano.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Tesla survived and Fisker won't - ChuckMcM
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/513151/why-tesla-survived-and-fisker-wont/
======
ChuckMcM
Ok, so the Technology Review guys are hit and miss, but I found this article
pretty insightful. I've ridden in both a Fisker and a Model S and found the
operational difference to be quite noticeable.
But the thing that really struck me about this article was the "design"
question. And I put that in quotes because the guy that designed the Fisker
initially was working for Musk and then bailed on him to do their own car. The
hubris here was stunning but not atypical of what I see in start ups.
The way it works is that a category of product becomes commoditized and then
focused on the design aspects. This happened to cars, engines (diesel or gas),
suspensions, transmissions, all are complex but pretty well known kinds of
technologies. So the people who are the 'stars' at the car company are the
designers. They are the people who put people in your particular Taurus shaped
car vs Ford's version. The bits underneath are just "details."
But when your really being disruptive, the "win" is how it goes together, the
design has to be good but the technology has to be the focus. We saw this once
before in the car market when Honda came in and revolutionized the drive train
in small cars in the 80's. Originally derided as 'gas powered roller skates'
by the driving public, the key was that they could run efficiently on gasoline
for long periods of time with less maintenance. Doing that and keeping things
light was disruptive, the design of the body around the drive train only came
later.
My point is that reading this I thought, "Here is a good example where design
doesn't trump disruptive engineering." and it's important to keep those
examples in mind when deciding how much to invest.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Defending GCC considered futile - ekianjo
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-02/msg00457.html
======
Aqueous
Despite the inflexibility of RMS' arguments (they grate on me as much as
anyone) I feel like his position on continuing to develop GCC without modern
features like a fully exposed AST is necessary to keep the "moderate" position
where it is.
In other words, RMS' radical position is necessary for 'moderate' LLVM to
exist. Otherwise we'd still be living in the Borland/Metrowerks/Microsoft
world of the 90s - proprietary toolsets developed by private companies with
absolutely no intention or incentive to share their code.
In polisci there is a concept called the "Overton window." If a once-extremely
radical position is held and promoted by any significant number of people, it
shifts the entire conversation in that direction so that the formerly radical
position seems more moderate.
That's why RMS is very necessary. He shifts the Overton Window towards what
most of us consider the "reasonable" position.
~~~
cynicalkane
This is false--people are just as likely to respond to opposing arguments with
rejection and ideological hardening. This is replicated in psychological
studies.
In my personal experience, the less the opposing position acknowledges the
values of its opponents, the more likely it is to be rejected. Most people
reason by mood affiliation and use argumentation as a social tool, so this
should not be a surprise.
I think the "Overton window" is confusing cause and effect; it's the nature of
reasonable positions to generate unreasonable fanatics at the tail ends. But
if you pay attention to the loud fanatics at a given point of time, you find
most of them do not shift any window but instead fall into irrelevance. I
think that as RMS's software becomes less important, people will care less
about what he has to say.
~~~
Aqueous
Sure - "The loud fanatics" who have no following certainly drop into
irrelevance. I think if what you say were completely true we would not have
had any movement forward on positions that were considered radical just 10 -
20 years ago - like same-sex marriage. It is only because certain people with
large followings - Andrew Sullivan and others - began making a vocal argument
for gay marriage, which wasn't even considered a mainstream position until
very recently, that it is now the law of the land in so many states.
Radicals have to be able to articulate their position in a way that is
compelling and reasonable to a significant number of people in order for there
to be a shift. But I think political progress is largely explained by this
phenomenon.
~~~
leovonl
There's an enormous difference between having an opinion which is not aligned
with mainstream and being a radical.
The radical usually wants the world to convert to his/hers own views, which is
why they tend to get closed minded and hard to talk with as they get older.
~~~
RodericDay
_" I'll say nothing against him. At one time the whites in the United States
called him a racialist, and extremist, and a Communist. Then the Black Muslims
came along and the whites thanked the Lord for Martin Luther King."_
------
lultimouomo
ESR seems a bit over the line with this mail, but what never ceases to amaze
me is how RMS is disconnected with the present technology:
>From its name, I guess that LLDB is a noncopylefted debugger and that some
might intend it to replace GDB. But I don't know if that is so.
This is just one of many, in the recent arguments he has stated several times
that he doesn't understand how automated code refactoring works, he has not
experience with IDEs, and things of the like.
Beside the ideological point, he does not seem a person capable of steering
important projects, at least when it comes to compiler technology. He just
doesn't know enough anymore.
~~~
rayiner
We're talking about a C compiler and debugger. Lots of very technically
knowledgable people shun IDEs and automated refactoring in that space.
~~~
pjmlp
Only in the UNIX world.
In the game development world, embedded systems and desktops we like our IDEs.
~~~
vetinari
We are working with certain expensive application, developed by one big
multinational, that has virtual machine for extending the funtionality by the
user (or more realistically, contractor).
The supplied IDE for development is Emacs.
~~~
aardvark179
Is it a GIS application?
~~~
vetinari
Yes, it is.
~~~
CptMauli
Don't tell me that Smallworld is still started from Emacs???
~~~
vetinari
It is an option. However, I'm one of those guys, who like it that way :-)
------
zanny
So this was a discussion in /r/linux last week about LLVM and GCC et al, so
I'm just reposting my statements on why a world where GCC is irrelevant is
bad:
It takes little effort on Apples or Googles or Microsofts part to take
advantage of an LLVM dominated world to close off their own changes to it and
try to force developers to use their own proprietary LLVM distributions on
their own operating systems. It stops every other company in the future from
taking advantage of all the great LLVM tech to implement their own CPUs in
terms of LLVM IR, so they never need to publish their ISA and they can lock
down their platform with a blob LLVM of their own. The only thing stopping any
of that from happening is GCC being a still competitive alternative.
If LLVM came to dominate the compiler scene to such a degree that GCC were
irrelevant, it opens the flood gates to any major company forking LLVM into a
proprietary paid for compiler that they require on their OS to profit from. It
lets you do anything from what Apple is already doing with Swift, where you
create a programming language with a proprietary compiler, or you could go
from the other end and implement a proprietary translation unit so that you
never need to publish your ISA (something Nvidia never does) but that allows
all the LLVM compilers to target it.
Right now, nobody can close off their LLVM contributions because a hobbled and
fractured LLVM ecosystem is one that cannot overcome GCC. In the same way
Apple and Google had to cooperate on webkit until it was so dominate they were
in a position to fork and do their own things with it once Gecko was rendered
effectively irrelevant, but the difference is that webkit was LGPL and Clang
is its own permissive license - they still cannot directly modify the free
software parts without redistribution, so it is harder to make a proprietary
webkit, but Apple surely has succeeded since they have their own proprietary
patchset on top of trunk webkit nowadays.
~~~
josephg
I'm always confused by this stance. It presupposes that big companies like
Apple and Google will at some point become bad actors in the opensource world.
(They both contribute huge amounts of code). Even Microsoft is starting to
open up their codebase with the release of huge parts of the .NET ecosystem.
Frankly, I want the big boys on my side when it comes to opensource code. I
want them to use the code I write. Usually I indirectly benefit from them
using my code anyway, and they benefit, and everyone's happy. This is true
even if they decide to make proprietary changes which don't get pushed
upstream. I gain influence in my community and lucrative job offers. I get
invited to talk at tech conferences, and my projects (present and future)
attract more attention. I honestly don't see the downside here.
Apple might have a change of leadership and decide to swim against the current
and make LLVM proprietary, but if that happens can't we just fork it? As far
as I can see, MariaDB is doing just fine. And until that happens (which will
probably be never), we can get some huge compiler ecosystem improvements on
Apple's dime. All opensource.
Am I missing something, or is this fear of corporations totally unjustified?
~~~
vetinari
That pressupossition is not that unrealistic.
For example, see shader compilers for GPUs. How many open shader compilers do
you see around? Is there any motivation to open them?
On the other side, during the 90's, we have seen many vendors come with new
CPU ISAs, extensions of existing ISAs, new SOCs, etc. Many of them didn't have
resources or will to write a new C compiler, so they wanted to use someting
existing. They were willing to write new GCC backend - and GCC license
basically forced them to be open. After this, there was no point in keeping
ISA specification secret.
LLVM/clang does not have this effect. It pretty much rewards for being closed.
So today, we have shitty (especially on ARM-SoCs) shader compilers for secret
ISAs, and you aren't going to see their sources anytime soon.
~~~
j_s
I am not very familiar with the world of shader compilers, but it seems like
you have provided the most concrete example I've heard yet of how GCC
benefited in the long term in a way that LLVM/clang didn't.
I would love to hear from anyone with more expertise in this realm who might
be able to dispute this claim in any way... otherwise this seems to be a
smoking gun in GCC's favor!
~~~
GalacticDomin8r
I'm not sure about the exact conclusion you seem to draw but it seems to be
something like "GPL projects tend to have better outcomes than non-GPL". The
whole point of the thread doesn't support that conclusion coming directly from
the GCC brain trust. It's only natural that niche GCC users are going to hang
around the longest.
I'd also like to note LLVM/clang didn't gain large non-apple marketshare until
GCC adopted GPLv3 which has more to with it's stagnation than anything IMO. v2
is palatable to many business needs, v3 is not.
~~~
j_s
Mostly I was looking for a specific/practical current example where using LLVM
allowed a company to release something closed-source, where they would have
been forced to open it if they used GCC.
The rubber apparently meets the road with the NVidia shader compiler.
------
pekk
I strongly disagree with RMS on some issues (like Snowden) and I don't share
his hard line on proprietary software either. But RMS is just a particular
kind of animal. I respect the need for that animal in a diverse ecosystem and
I respect the reasoning behind free software.
In particular, I think gcc has played an _essential_ role in providing free
software to users _because_ it is licensed under the GPL. The BSD license is
great for less important things, but the moment giant corporations have
engineered the whole "open source" ecosystem so that they can distribute forks
of _all the basic build tools_ without contributing changes to the public
where we can see and influence them - that's the moment we've handed over the
keys to the kingdom. You have to be pretty out of touch with _history_ not to
see that point.
To hear the way HN talks about RMS, he is a nerdy, smelly, arrogant,
technically ignorant Emmanuel Goldstein, representing everything we hate most
about the nerdy computing world that pre-existed the current startup gold rush
(but which, coincidentally, entirely enabled it and us). Now a large
proportion of us here secretly harbor the belief that we are the next Steve
Jobs, so we pine for the good old days when people like that made bank on
companies whose business models were entirely based on platform lock-in.
Because so few of us actually remember how fucked up it really was for all the
users and programmers. Because we don't consider ourselves users and
programmers, just temporarily embarrassed millionaires and Chief Engineering
Architect Engineers. So it's no wonder that HN still doesn't understand the
point of GPL. Just like most of Marin county now thinks measles is something
to cultivate, like acidophilus.
~~~
twic
> The BSD license is great for less important things, but the moment giant
> corporations have engineered the whole "open source" ecosystem so that they
> can distribute forks of all the basic build tools without contributing
> changes to the public where we can see and influence them - that's the
> moment we've handed over the keys to the kingdom. You have to be pretty out
> of touch with history not to see that point.
So when in history has this actually occurred?
------
michaelhoffman
Thankfully, Emacs maintainer Stefan Monnier is being sensible about this:
> As mentioned earlier, in any case I will happily accept and install LLDB
> support into gud.el. So as long as I'm Emacs maintainer, your opinion on
> whether this might ruin the FSF's goals are not relevant.
[https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
devel/2015-02/msg00...](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
devel/2015-02/msg00498.html)
~~~
dekhn
Yeah. What's especially painful is RMS is basically saying "Hey folks, I want
to block this until I can research the issue." And then his research is "I
don't know anuything about this, can anybody tell me what LLDB is?"
My guess is (based on his past statements) that he doesn't browse the web, or
browses it through emacs sending mail to him (really!) and doesn't use search
so he can't really find out what LLDB is.
Do you really want to be beholden to a person who blocks software integration
(into a unified debugger interface) and then can't even do reearch to justify
that?
~~~
longlivegnu
Yes, RMS does not "browse the web" he has a server that runs a script sort of
like wget or cURL.
~~~
protomyth
Is there a source for why he doesn't "browse the web"? I've read about how he
does it, but the articles I have seen are very light on the reason.
~~~
tjr
[https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html](https://stallman.org/stallman-
computing.html)
I've never heard him flat-out say "why", but it sure appears to be in order to
maximize anonymity / privacy on the web.
------
sanxiyn
This is a bit over the top. As the rest of the thread points out, GCC in
general still generates faster code than LLVM.
"What does it take to get LLVM as performant as GCC" talk from 2014 LLVM
Developers' Meeting discusses details.
[http://llvm.org/devmtg/2014-10/Slides/Molloy-LLVM-
Performant...](http://llvm.org/devmtg/2014-10/Slides/Molloy-LLVM-Performant-
As-GCC-llvm-dev-2014.pdf)
"GCC versus LLVM performance analysis reveals the LLVM inliner 1) does not
inline certain hot functions unless a high threshold is provided at -O3 2)
produces larger and slower code at -Os."
The problem of LLVM inliner has been known for a long time. One of the best
discussion is "Optimization in LLVM" talk from 2013 European LLVM Conference.
[http://www.irill.org/videos/euro-llvm-2013/carruth-
hires](http://www.irill.org/videos/euro-llvm-2013/carruth-hires)
~~~
darkpore
Does it?
[http://imagine-rt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/c-compiler-
benchmar...](http://imagine-rt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/c-compiler-
benchmarks.html)
~~~
sanxiyn
Yes it does. Did you read my links?
Small benchmarks can go either way, but for large codebase (especially C++)
inliner is more important than just about anything else. So GCC wins, because
it has better inliner.
~~~
darkpore
Yep - you evidently didn't read mine as 165 k lines of c++ isn't exactly a
small benchmark :)
Anecdotal, but I've seen similar improvements over g++ in my code.
~~~
sanxiyn
There are many measures of benchmark sizes. One important measure is size of
codes that account for 99% of execution time. If your codebase is a million
lines but your hotspot is a thousand lines, benchmark result is sensitive to
optimization quirks and in some sense benchmark is small.
More on this idea here: [http://blog.pyston.org/2014/12/05/python-benchmark-
sizes/](http://blog.pyston.org/2014/12/05/python-benchmark-sizes/)
------
hywel
> Already my own experiments suggest that LLVM is a superior compiler, by
> every metric I know of
Except that it isn't copyleft, which is one of the most important metrics to
Stallman, FSF et al, and is why they're unlikely to stop defending it.
~~~
Htsthbjig
It is copyleft. In fact they leave you more rights to copy the source than
GPL.
~~~
hywel
From
[http://llvm.org/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html#license](http://llvm.org/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html#license):
"LLVM’s license is not a “copyleft” license like the GPL."
Rights to copy the source is not what copyleft means.
------
nothrabannosir
Obsolescence happens; this is nobody's fault. It will happen to
clang/LLVM someday, too, but today is not that day.
This is a beautiful line. Very wise, and it will hopefully help soothe the
otherwise pretty harsh message.
------
josteink
This quarrel should be considered in context of the LLDB patch being submitted
to gud.el.
For those who want to read it from the start:
[http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
devel/2015-02/msg002...](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
devel/2015-02/msg00274.html)
What made it a mega-thread was when RMS weighed in:
[http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
devel/2015-02/msg003...](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
devel/2015-02/msg00360.html)
------
phkahler
Reading ESR tends to make me angry in a special way. I can understand people
who prefer a BSD/MIT license over the GPL - they usually seem to understand
the difference and claim the former are "more free" while kind of
understanding the point of the later but disagreeing with its importance. But
when I read ESR, he seems to have it in for the FSF and doesn't really seem to
respect or even understand the philosophy at all. I've come to view him as a
formerly-high-profile troll.
~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
Remember that ESR writes things like this:
[http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5001](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5001) in all
apparent seriousness.
------
alayne
I don't know why you would make this argument now. Stallman argued clearly in
January why copyleft was more important to him than technical superiority.
[https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2014-01/msg00247.html](https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2014-01/msg00247.html)
~~~
cwyers
Everybody already knew that copyleft was more important to Stallman than
technical superiority. The problem is that there are a lot of people who put a
higher value on technical superiority than copyleft. Those people could be
counted upon as GCC users and contributors as long as GCC was the technically
best compiler available as open source (all free software is open source, not
all open source is free software, etc.).
RMS's goal seems to be to have GCC not be replaced by LLVM. From a reply
downthread of ESR's post:
> This means it is more than a potential problem.
> The possible harm is to replace copylefted GNU package with noncopylefted
> code. They must have worked for a long long time to replace the capabilities
> GDB already had.
So RMS thinks it's a "problem" and "harmful" if lldb replaced gdb. So RMS
cares not just about what GCC does, but whether or not other people adopt GCC
as well. In terms of that goal, it _does not matter_ what RMS considers more
important. RMS is not going to convince everyone else to use GCC instead of
LLVM by simply restating his arguements about copyleft forcefully again and
again. That doesn't mean he has to sacrifice his feelings about copyleft. But
it does mean he has to give a damn about being technically superior to LLVM
and lldb if he wants to beat them.
~~~
vidarh
He does not need to beat LLVM for GCC to remain available.
It would be detrimental to GCC to lose developers, sure, but I think one of
the reasons for the disconnect between RMS and others is that RMS' goals does
not require a large user base, and so he is willing to make decisions that
seems counterproductive to anyone who cares about usability and user
acceptance first.
The mere continued existence of GCC (and the other GNU tools) in many ways
safeguards the freedoms he cares about: It allows users to jump ship if they
in the future are prevented from doing what they want with the alternatives.
It's not the ideal scenario, but it better serves his goals than giving in,
and potentially see these freedoms slipping away at some future point.
Of course he'd be better served by GCC outcompeting LLVM. But if that isn't
happening, his goals are better served by slowing developer migration than
"capitulating" in a way that might affect developer mindshare by putting LLVM
tools in front of more people.
As you say, of course the problem with this is that a lot of us care more
about the technical superiority. _Especially_ when the competition is a
project that is as open as LLVM.
------
ajarmst
I continue to be amazed at people buying into the ESR-authored consensual
hallucination about his role and importance. His primary creative contribution
to the community has been a fictional mythology starring himself.
------
arca_vorago
Can someone explain to me what all the hubub is about. As far as I understand
it and even as RMS himself states, isn't this mostly about them trying to
block clang/LLVM tie ins to the debugger more than anything else?
I don't understand whats with all the _gcc sucks_ attitude these days. It's
worked for quite some time, and yes it's showing some age due to the lack of
development so it has lagged behind others, but we should all be worried when
people very influential in the GNU community start talking about why GCC is
bad.
I don't like this line of thinking at all.
If GCC is behind, fork it and do what needs to be done to make it competitive.
~~~
phkahler
>>Can someone explain to me what all the hubub is about. As far as I
understand it and even as RMS himself states, isn't this mostly about them
trying to block clang/LLVM tie ins to the debugger more than anything else?
The "problem" RMS has with llvm is its non-copyleft license. And yes, the
issue is that he doesn't want to support llvn with GNU tools. When LLVM
started they used GCCs front end to compile C code until their own matured
enough. So parts of GCC were being used to develop the middle and back ends of
llvm. The LLVM ecosystem is systematically replacing the GNU toolchain with
non-copyleft licensed versions and RMS does not want to support that in any
way.
>> I don't understand whats with all the gcc sucks attitude these days. It's
worked for quite some time, and yes it's showing some age due to the lack of
development so it has lagged behind others, but we should all be worried when
people very influential in the GNU community start talking about why GCC is
bad.
I don't understand it either. GCC is still a great compiler. Developers seem
to prefer the modular design of LLVM and they're probably right in that. Users
like some of the features enabled by that design as well - IDE integration and
cross compilation come to mind. GCC is starting to move, but slowly.
>> I don't like this line of thinking at all.
>> If GCC is behind, fork it and do what needs to be done to make it
competitive.
You make it sound like there are lots of compiler developers with time on
their hands for open source development AND who share the licensing philosophy
AND are unhappy with GCCs development path. Apparently there are not.
~~~
Htsthbjig
"I don't understand it either. GCC is still a great compiler. Developers seem
to prefer the modular design of LLVM and they're probably right in that."
There are lots of things that are simply very hard to do with GCC, but are
easily doable with LLWM.
IDE integration is just one, because it has the ability to compile just
lines(at least the Apple's version).
Things we have done with LLVM:
Millions of mollecules 3D paths' rendering.
Automatic testing of software and hardware.
Simulation of military vehicles doing all kinds of things.
Digital crash test.
Natural language(speech) understanding.
Before LLVM doing all this took years, now it takes months or weeks.
This exploits the ability of understanding languages of a compiler, but is not
just compiling c or c++ like gcc does.
~~~
arca_vorago
Could you please expand on what particular features of LLVM enabled you to do
this in months/weeks instead of years (presumably with gcc)?
------
wspeirs
I was under the impression that GCC would stick around as long as the Linux
Kernel was in existence because there was a tight requirement for GCC to
compile the Linux Kernel... well I was wrong!
[http://llvm.linuxfoundation.org/](http://llvm.linuxfoundation.org/) shows the
status of getting the Linux Kernel to compile using CLANG... and according to
the stats as of 1/28/2015 there are only 41 patches required to make this
work.
I wonder if any of the big distros will start compiling with CLANG instead of
GCC?
------
copsarebastards
I agree with Eric Raymond that GCC probably can't beat Clang.
However, I don't agree that this means we should just jump on the LLVM train.
The world still needs GNU. And LLVM isn't GNU.
The GNU community has historically held dominance in the compiler field, so
this is an uncomfortable time. We can no longer rely on the popularity of GCC
to keep GNU in the forefront. However, this doesn't mean we should just give
up--I think the solution is to start again from first principles and build a
better system, an alternative to GCC that is also released under the GPL.
I'm not saying we should drop support for GCC. But we need to innovate: GCC
became dominant because it was innovative and it lost dominance because it
stopped innovating. LLVM isn't the only non-GNU competitor. It's telling that
none of the major new languages (Go, Rust, Clojure, Scala) are released under
the GPL.
~~~
kibwen
The implementations of new languages aren't being released as GPL because the
process of introducing a new programming language is already a nearly
insurmountable task. To this end, language authors seek every advantage they
can get. Nobody's ever chosen a programming language by virtue of the fact
that its implementation was GPL, but I can easily see people ruling out such a
programming language out of fear that the use of such an implementation will
infect their own code with GPL (I fully acknowledge that this fear is
unwarranted if your licensing is set up properly, but it actually _can_ be
rather tricky to get right and most people are rightfully fearful of
interpreting this sort of thing on their own).
At the same time no developer of a fledgling language is going to worry about
someone coming in and taking their permissively-licensed code without
contributing back, because getting to the stage where someone cares enough to
seriously fork your language already implies an enormous relative degree of
success.
------
jhildings
Nice to see some classic maillist arguing instead of those hipster medium.com
articles or posts full of memes/gif/clipart to make a point
------
vezzy-fnord
This is pretty much the perfect moment for two egos like RMS and ESR to clash.
RMS is already getting a lot of flak for expressing his fear of GCC being
displaced in such a manner, whereas ESR is well known for his disliking RMS,
to put it mildly.
~~~
neindanke
It is not clear that RMS is driven by ego. He's motivated by a very clear goal
to keep free software free. Free as in freedom free. As for ESR, well, yup,
that's an ego that is sufficient in size to have a gravitational pull.
[http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2000082800620OPCYKN](http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2000082800620OPCYKN)
~~~
hga
I think this is an unuseful definition of ego. I had a significant degree of
contact with RMS in the period leading up to the launch of GNU, including
being one of his roommates when he formally launched it, and I assure you he's
very seriously ego driven. Are not his expounding etc. of his Free Software
philosophy, a rather big thing as in a set of principles etc., the actions of
a man very certain about himself?
I think you're just perceiving a difference in how it's expressed by each of
them, e.g. one reply is that ESR has a very clear goal of increasing the
quality of software. Which for me is the big difference between "Free" and
"Open" software.
~~~
ekianjo
> seriously ego driven
Oh, he is certainly ego-driven, but not in the same way as Jobs was, for
example. RMS does not put his person before everyone else, but he lives rather
through his principles and tries to convince everyone why it makes sense to
follow them. And he has a very solid rationale he has developed through the
years, making him very articulated.
------
danieldk
_Already my own experiments suggest that LLVM is a superior compiler, by every
metric I know of,_
I know OpenMP/Clang, but as far as I know OpenMP is not upstreamed in clang
yet, is it? If not, it's not superior yet in scientific computing :).
But it will happen soon. And at the very least, LLVM's approach has created a
large ecosystem that gcc did not have.
~~~
dekhn
OpenMP only covers a subset of scientific computing.
------
DannyBee
Eric is right, but not for the right reasons.
For starters, Apple's money is not the main driver of LLVM (In fact, publicly,
Apple is not the #1 contributor anymore).
Second, "but merely the fact that compiler technology has advanced
significantly in ways that GCC is not well positioned to exploit. " is simply
false
In fact, that's exactly the problem for GCC: Compiler technology has not
advanced _roughly at all_.
GCC caught up to everyone else for the same reason.
Time for a history lesson.
About 14 years ago,a group of folks including Diego Novillo, Jeff Law, Richard
Henderson, Andrew MacLeod, me, and Sebastian Pop (along with bug fixes/changes
from a lot of others) sat around and build a "middle end" for GCC.
Prior to that, GCC had a frontend, and a backend. The frontend was very high
level (and had no real common AST between the frontends), the backend was very
low level.
There was nothing in between.
We cherry picked the state of the art in compilers and research, and build a
production quality IR and optimizer out of it.
This research has not really changed that much in about 10-15 years. Most of
the research these days focuses not on straight compiler opts, but on things
like serious loop transforms, and helping runtimes (GPU, GC, etc), or dynamic
languages.
You can see all the tree ssa work here: [https://github.com/gcc-
mirror/gcc/blob/master/gcc/ChangeLog....](https://github.com/gcc-
mirror/gcc/blob/master/gcc/ChangeLog.tree-ssa)
This covers only until the branch was merged. At that point, it was "not a
piece of crap", but this was before people added all the stuff on top of this
architecture. On top of that architecture, it took another few years to get
good, and a few years after that to get really good.
Bringing us to today.
LLVM was started around the same time, but had less contributors back then.
Essentially, you could view it as "instead of build something in between two
really old parts, what could we do if we just redid it all". People thought it
was a waste of time for the most part, but Chris Lattner persevered, found a
bunch of crazy people to help him over the years, and here we are.
Because you see, it turns out compiler technology has not really changed at
all. So, algorithmically, LLVM and GCC _implement the same optimization
techniques_ in the middle of their compilers. Because there is nothing better
to do. Just slightly different engineering tradeoffs. To put it another way:
Outside of loop transforms, essentially static language compilers targeting
CPU architectures are solved. We know how to do everything we want to do, and
do it well. It just has to be implemented.
So given enough time/effort, LLVM and GCC will produce as good of code as each
other there. The question becomes "will they keep up with each other as
engineering/tuning happens" and "who can generate great code faster".
The problem for GCC on this front is three fold 1\. The backend, despite being
pretty heroic at this point, really needs a complete rewrite, but people value
portability over fast code.
LLVM, having started completely from scratch, has a modern, usable backend.
They are not afraid to throw stuff away.
2\. For any given thing you can implement, it's a lot easier to do it in LLVM
than GCC, so, given time, LLVM will produce faster code because it takes less
work to make it do so than it does to make GCC do so.
3\. Because it was architected differently and more modernly, clang/LLVM are
significantly faster at compiling than GCC. GCC can remove most if not all of
the middle end time (and does), but it's still slow in other places, and
that's really really hard to fix without fundamental changes (See #1)
~~~
deong
There are still plenty of open problems in compilers. For instance, writing a
program to effectively use all four of my CPU cores is pretty tedious. It
would be awfully nice if my compiler could automatically parallelize
operations, do effective register allocation across cores, distribute data for
best use of L1 cache, etc.
Certainly researchers who are working on this sort of thing today are doing it
in LLVM or some custom framework. I can't imagine GCC has any significant
traction at least.
~~~
DannyBee
The only open problem here is the one i stated "serious loop transforms".
Parallelization is not even "hard", it's just hard for languages like C++.
Fortran compilers have been parallelization for 20+years
The rest (effective cache/register/op usage) is all subsumed by cost models
for polyhedral loop transforms. See PLUTO
([http://www.ece.lsu.edu/jxr/pluto/](http://www.ece.lsu.edu/jxr/pluto/)) and
PLUTO+
([http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2688512](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2688512))
------
lwh
Making your own tool suck/break/be-difficult when license-compatible patches
are submitted to improve the program seems counter productive for everyone.
------
bmuk
I tend to agree with RMS, at least on his philosophy of free software. That
being said, I don't think adding LLDB support to emacs is a bad thing, and I
don't think the rise of clang/LLVM will be a big hit to free software.
As long as there are people who care about freedom, people will maintain GCC.
Even if the worst case happens, and there is extreme fragmentation of
proprietary patch-sets to LLVM, we can always still use GCC, or even still use
the free parts of LLVM/clang.
While there is some issue with fragmentation of the developer community, I see
this as a non-issue. These things generally work themselves out through the
natural ebb and flow of chaotic systems (just like the economy is largely
self-regulating).
We can always still use GCC. I don't really see where the issue is, am I
missing something?
------
madmax96
Isn't RMS' main issue with LLVM that people can create proprietary plugins and
those plugins benefit when LLVM benefits? How exactly is this different than
if a company were to make proprietary extensions to Emacs and sell them? Does
the Emacs license forbid against non-free extensions? Ultimately, it's not
LLVM's problem if people create non-free extensions. You could argue all of
Gnu/Linux is bad because some proprietary software runs on it. I don't think
that's a route we want to take.
------
Elzair
Has anyone considered creating a new libre compiler suite in Rust? That would
be pretty cool. I have wanted to do this, but I have so many other projects to
work on.
------
_pmf_
> If the clang/LLVM people decide they want to eat GCC's lunch, they _will_ do
> it
They have about 5-10 architectures and about 40-50 architecture variants to
catch up to GCC. It's doable, but it will take about the time it took GCC to
get there, and the result will be that LLVM becomes the kind of unmaintainable
mess that GCC is considered to be now.
One would assume that the author of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" would know
a bit or two about the lifecycle of open source software.
~~~
hga
As I understand it, the counter arguments are:
Not all of those architectures and variants are important going forward (I'd
actually be very interested in lists of them).
GCC was designed for and has been thoroughly maintained to be less
maintainable (one of the major points of these recent prominent debates).
C++ is more maintainable than C. (I don't know that I buy this at _all_ , in
fact, I'm about to dive into LLVM's source code to see if it could possibly
prompt me to revoke my oath to never program in C++ and Perl again unless
_absolutely_ necessary :-).
The last two, plus LLVM's Bazaar model of development in part enabled by those
technological differences, means it won't be an unmaintainable mess if and
when it grows out like that.
I have no idea if this will be true. I'd like to hear from seasoned developers
who are also seriously familiar with the LLVM architecture, development model
and code base (per the above, I rather hope I won't become one of the latter).
------
osw
gnu software considered harmful
------
markhahn
Reading stuff from ESR considered a waste of time.
------
ForHackernews
Anyone see the header on Stallman's response?
[https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
devel/2015-02/msg00...](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
devel/2015-02/msg00488.html)
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
He's such an adorable ideologue.
------
glass-
GCC is a technically inferior compiler that has been deliberately neutered to
enforce its license. When software has technical limitations to enforce its
license that is DRM, ergo GCC is defective by design.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Transcription, organization and analysis of user studies - thisisrobv
http://www.tryv.io
======
kevando
would this work with inspectlet?
~~~
thisisrobv
The use case at the moment is around media that includes audio of the user.
Usertesting.com sessions work well, but because you don't get any audible
feedback from Inspectlet we can't really do much analysis on those sessions as
our tech is focused on transcriptions and analyzing user testing
transcriptions.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Plain Text Offenders - snake_case
http://plaintextoffenders.com/
======
adentranter
I think it would be alot easier to consume this data if it was in a table-like
format vs image based.
Im more interested in the number and brands that are doing this vs the
evidence. ( Evidence should be easy to get to aswell so you can build trust
with your readers)
Cool site though.
------
flukus
Could a feature be added to name the digital agency responsible?
------
dreamlayers
Some accounts aren't really important, and then I don't care if they e-mail me
my password or if I reuse passwords.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New Twitter Has Become Browser Poison - mikecane
http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/new-twitter-has-become-browser-poison/
======
russ
Over time, NewTwitter does incur a large memory footprint. I've been traveling
for a month and haven't looked into the problem in depth, but I'd bet the
major culprit is our aggressive caching techniques. It's also worth
investigating the number of polls and their frequencies. Timeline refreshes
are dropped back to 90 seconds when the tab isn't focused, but not sure about
other ones.
As most people have reported, infinite scroll is an easy way to introduce a
slowdown over time. The sheer number of DOM nodes becomes quite significant -
there are things we can do to ameliorate that issue, as well. Will take a look
tomorrow. The feedback is greatly appreciated.
~~~
saurik
Infinite scroll is also a way to make scrolling infuriating, especially if you
are wanting to click links and fan out from that location: it forces you to
avoid your browser's carefully designed history stack like the plague (opening
new tabs or windows for navigation instead) lest you lose your incredibly
valuable document you've carefully been scrolling down in (and which is now so
large it is threatening to cripple your browser anyway). What happened to
normal "next page" paradigms? Does user testing really show that infinite
scroll is better?
~~~
wahnfrieden
That's not a problem inherent to infinite scroll at all. It's easily fixed by
setting a hash value on the current page (the #foo in a URL) corresponding to
the current scroll state, and updating it each time infinite scroll happens.
Why Twitter doesn't implement something like this is a whole different issue.
~~~
russ
You can imagine attempting to support something like this when the user has
scrolled 20 pages worth through a timeline. We could, of course, backfill
newer tweets subsequently up to the most recent (taking a minimum of two
requests and a maximum of 20), but this would be expensive.
I mentioned somewhere else in this thread that we could maintain an accurate
scroll height but detach more recent tweets when a timeline is scrolled a long
distance. We could do the same thing here, and backfill as the user scrolls
up. There are some challenging things to get right though if the user decides
to jump to the top, etc. Definitely non-trivial.
~~~
wahnfrieden
Thanks for the response, I thought the reality would be much more complicated
due to issues of scale.
This is primarily about supporting the back button, and I don't think users
expect the latest data when going back through their browser history -
generally pages aren't refreshed, and that's not an unusual or unexpected
behavior. So you could cache each page state, without worrying about
displaying newer tweets, though the caching mechanism itself incurs some
nontrivial cost.
------
rhizome
The thing I noticed in the slow new Twitter is that typing a new status seems
to involve continuous autofill-like behavior for each character typed, which
seemed to introduce round-trip lag (or javascript-parsing, or...) and causes
characters to appear at a rate of ~1/second. Unusable.
And this is one way that dominant sites fall: business considerations are
given priority over the user experience. Maybe they just have Flickr-itis and
just can't adapt to leaving well enough alone, but for the time being I'm on
old-Twitter and not contributing much to the Twitterverse until this is sorted
out. If it never winds up being fixed, I've got a head start in living without
them.
There is also a possible Second System Effect amongst Twitter's UX gods. It's
interesting that after having switched to the new Twitter a couplefew weeks
ago, last week I started seeing a "Wanna switch back to the old Twitter?"
header. Of course I did, but to me this possibly points to a level of
complaints that I did not realize.
~~~
j_baker
Or it could also point to a "Hey, this is different. I don't like change!"
reaction that you always get when you change something's UI.
~~~
rhizome
I don't think so. I'm not a huge tweeter and so anything that gets in the way
of the rare things really jumps out at me, of which the slow status box is no
small issue. Other than that the redesign is just that, an expanded sidebar
with some fleshed out boxes. No big deal. That it's causing different problems
for different people tells me that maybe something else is going on behind the
hood. Heck, maybe they just want to be the network and aren't interested in
providing a groovy webapp interface anymore, who knows.
------
epi0Bauqu
I've been keeping twitter open in its own Firefox browser on one screen (of
three). It routinely refreshes itself and there is some kind of memory leak
whereas after a day it is consuming about half a gig of memory, forcing me to
kill and restart.
~~~
ComputerGuru
Firefox has crazy memory leaks. Don't blame it on twitter, regardless how bad
their code may be.
A tab should be completely and utterly destroyed when refreshed. It doesn't
matter how much memory it used, refreshing it or navigating away from that
page should (ignoring optimizations, caching, etc. etc. etc.) be like you were
never there.
Just look at the hundreds of complaints here:
[http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/firefox-3-is-still-a-memory-
ho...](http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/firefox-3-is-still-a-memory-hog/)
~~~
naner
_Firefox has crazy memory leaks._
Proof? This was the case with Firefox 2 but now it just seems like this is
part of their reputation and is not necessarily grounded in fact.
~~~
redthrowaway
I routinely leave my browser open for days on end and simply cycle through
tabs, closing and opening new ones as needed, with usually ~10 open at a given
time. I, too, noticed that firefox was eating up about half a gig of ram even
when it wasn't doing anything, didn't have any youtube tabs open, etc. It got
to the point where I would have to close firefox and restart after a day or
two. Chrome fixed that. Now, I just use firefox with the modify headers
extension to watch domain-specific video, and have no plans to go back.
~~~
petdog
Now, maybe I'm to blame here, using the nightly build of chromium, but webkit
is a walking memory leak. Just for a comparison, I have the same amount of
tabs on firefox and chromium and firefox is using 500mb of ram, while chromium
is using 3.5 GIGABYTES. And I'm not even using it much. But really, the
problem is easily reproducible. Just open whatever webkit based browser you
want, and keep reloading the same moderately big page. Ram goes up, never to
return. That works with a trivial program that embeds webkit via gtk, too. Or
you can just look at the commits on webkit: a couple of leaks fixes every
week.
~~~
comex
Good thing Chrome kills the entire process hosting a tab when you close it.
------
bergie
In other news, you'll be way more productive if you don't hang out on Twitter
all day :-)
~~~
joelhaasnoot
And use some sort of browser extension...
------
Semiapies
I can't help thinking that the tacked-on whine about _this is why people want
iPads and not PCs_ would make more sense if this post were not about a web-app
that would probably slow down any tablet it was accessed on.
~~~
mikeklaas
No, because the site wouldn't be able to consume cpu and memory in a
background tab on the ipad.
~~~
Semiapies
In that case, wouldn't the "new twitter" view be utterly useless on the iPad,
anyway? Couldn't you as easily go to it with a bookmark?
------
wizard_2
I noticed the same thing on my girlfriends CR-48, twitter wont scroll properly
(studders) and everything else hangs a bit. She filed a bug report with google
chrome os support, but I suspect twitter is doing a lot of heavy stuff in the
background.
~~~
spinchange
I've noticed the same thing on mine. It seems like the site is only functional
when you first load it. After new tweets start rolling in, it becomes worse
and worse. I don't think it's the fault of the CR-48, I think we're just
seeing the effects worse on this hardware.
~~~
wyclif
Same thing here. It's not ChromeOS-related? I note the same problem in
Chromium.
------
watmough
Agreed, the new twitter is way demanding compared to the older version.
Once they stop allowing the old version, I'll probably have twitter loaded
much less. On a core 2 duo, even scrolling in new twitter is way below par.
Is there a low cpu-usage client? I tried one of the flash based ones, but it
brought the fans permanently on on my MacBook... Yeah, that's not going to
fly.
~~~
kylec
I'm using the new Twitter client from the Mac App Store - it's quite good:
<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/twitter/id409789998?mt=12>
~~~
rdl
While it's better than the web UI, it suffers from the "mp3 player" problem of
trying to make up its own widget library and UI style, and actually is kind of
lame in a lot of ways (there is no top-level "new tweet" button, which is kind
of a feature of all the mobile clients, and it's definitely a pain to use for
DM conversations. It pops up weird non-standard shaped windows all over. I'd
consider it a respectable indy effort, but pretty disappointing for Twitter,
Inc.
------
seanalltogether
New MBP here. It looks like it stays at a constant 7-8% cpu while sitting on
the page, with momentary spikes to 30% every 15 seconds or so.
~~~
watmough
3% cpu continuously is enough to make a (my) macbook noticeably hotter.
------
cgrubb
I've experimented with the new twitter web app on both Chrome and Safari
(Mac).
It automatically loads a chunk of data when I scroll to the bottom. The CPU
use seems to be proportional to the number of chunks that have been loaded.
Initially about 2% and increasing to 50% with 20 chunks.
The new twitter almost unusable because of this. Hoping for a fix soon.
------
mikecane
The point of my post is also this: Something changed in the behavior of New
Twitter. None of this happened when I was first given access to NT months ago.
The problems seemed to crop up simulataneously -- coincidentally -- with my
moving to Opera 11 beta. The problems have since spread to all 3 of the
browsers I wound up cycling through. So I think Twitter changed something on
their end and are unaware of the ripple effect on some users. Someone, on
Twitter, suggested they were once polling every 90 seconds in the beginning
and now that the switch is complete, we are getting "live streaming." That
might be too much for some systems to handle. Perhaps a user option to
throttle back polling? [typo edit]
~~~
russ
Currently, we're not live streaming. We poll every 30 seconds when focused and
fall back to 90 seconds unfocused. When we do push, we'll be using User
Streams (<http://dev.twitter.com/pages/user_streams>) with either Websockets
or Flash. Performance should improve when that happens. There are also some
other neat tricks we'll be able to do to make the site even faster.
~~~
mikecane
But something changed somewhere. Scrolling used to be a smooth experience. The
entire use of NT was exciting and not cloggy. Now it is hell scrolling and
very cloggy and even autocomplete of IDs is a torment. What did you guys do
over there to the code?
------
NathanKP
I didn't notice the excessive CPU usage until very recently, meaning that it
may be a recent patch or change causing this problem. Safari still operates
quite well as long as I don't have the Twitter tab open, and even then I don't
notice a slow down until a try to scroll the page.
That said, because of the problems with the web version I have switched to the
new standalone Twitter application for Mac OS X. I think this is better as
well as it allows me to use Growl notifications, notification sounds, and
other nice features.
------
Locke1689
This is the least scientific analysis I think anyone could get away with. Why
doesn't the author just profile the Twitter page to see how much time his CPU
spends executing Javascript code and how much memory it consumes while
running?
~~~
bkudria
The author mentioned Shockwave. I don't think he's too technical a user.
~~~
mikecane
I dropped Shockwave in there as yet another example of something else that
needs to be checked for the latest version. Not every plug-in is good about
saying there's an update and most of the time the update notifications come in
the middle of getting work done, so people tend to disable that distraction.
~~~
bkudria
Yeah - but New Twitter has absolutely nothing to do with Shockwave.
~~~
mikecane
Yes, I know that. You are taking it too literally, that one little bit. I was
simply listing a bunch of updates that techs always ask about having been
updated.
------
franze
well, i just deleted all twitter apps on my mac because they became too much
of a time hog, and well new twitter on the web sucks currently so this means
one thing ... i'm free
------
endlessvoid94
Am I the only person who doesn't keep twitter open constantly?
~~~
Semiapies
No. I only check it once or twice a workday.
However, this is because I use Google Reader to follow feeds and only use
Twitter to keep up to date with friends and acquaintances. That's not the
typical use-case.
------
Inviz
Profiling is a fair game, right?
[https://img.skitch.com/20110118-egpetjh52gwnsxr9ct2g8bxtad.p...](https://img.skitch.com/20110118-egpetjh52gwnsxr9ct2g8bxtad.png)
Gives a deep insight on what contributes slowdown to new twitter.
EDIT: I mean, that's on 3GHz 4GB RAM machine. No wonder it freezes slower
computers.
------
russ
The pronounced slowness was primarily due to an upgrade from jQuery 1.4.2 to
1.4.4 (we're going to downgrade). In addition, we're moving from listening to
the scroll event to a time-based dispatcher for loading subsequent pages of
tweets.
------
twodayslate
New Twitter has a login popup everytime I open it. I am already logged in. I
can close this popup and my twitter experience is not effected. Why is this
thing even there?
~~~
russ
Is the popup a HTTP Basic Auth window? If so, are you using Firefox? This is a
ridiculously elusive bug that a couple of us have been trying to diagnose. It
appears to be buried in the FF implementation of XHR when a reference to an
XHR instance is shared across iFrames. We're working on it.
~~~
bzbarsky
Have you done a Firefox HTTP log? I'd be curious to see what the browser
thinks is going on here...
------
sudonim
otoh, Twitter.app on the Mac is awesome.
~~~
simonw
... except it uses the t.co URL shortener by default for everything you post.
I had to switch back to the old Tweetie (which doesn't do this).
~~~
j_baker
I'm curious, what's wrong with t.co?
~~~
simonw
I don't want all of my URLs shortened.
------
chaosfox
isn't the whole point of chrome's tab-process thingy to avoid one tab f __-ing
up the rest ? if it's as the author says, that's not helping that much.
------
Raphael
Good luck doing anything intensive on a Celeron.
~~~
1337p337
Twitter is a web UI for a stream of messages. It shouldn't _be_ CPU-intensive.
~~~
tsmith
Good point, though not quite contradicting that of the grandparent post.
------
Daverk
New twitter page doesn't work on Opera browser
------
piramida
what is twitter?
------
andrewljohnson
I wouldn't even consider keeping Twitter or Facebook open in a tab. That's a
sure way to get less done.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mathematicians divided over faculty hiring practices that must promote diversity - furcyd
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/mathematicians-divided-over-faculty-hiring-practices-require-proof-efforts-promote?rss=1
======
downerending
> Mathematicians divided
I see what they did there.
I recall in grad school that there were still a few remnants of the loyalty
oath controversy around in dusty corners. There's nothing new under the sun.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Kestrel: Twitter's new message queue, written in 1500 lines of Scala - simonw
http://github.com/robey/kestrel/
======
simonw
More details on the additional features over Starling (big queues, blocking
fetches, reliable fetch) are over here:
<http://robey.lag.net/2008/11/27/scarling-to-kestrel.html>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is Google PageRank no more? - harishchouhan
This year, lot of efforts seems to have been put on connecting websites with Google Plus profiles and no updates to the Google PageRank toolbar in months.<p>Does this mean PR won't be updated any longer and maybe something new like Author Rank is introduced?
======
gesman
I think Google is steering away from algorithmic determination of page rank
due to spammers gaming the system with backlinks strategies.
Google started to add too many manual overrides to make this whole PR thing
essentially worthless.
------
rfergie
Don't make the mistake of thinking toolbar PR has much to do with the actual
PR of a page
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Full Autopilot in GTA Using TensorFlow - littlemtman
https://littlemountainman.github.io/2020/05/12/openpilot/
======
mistymountains
Let's all give this 12 year old kid some applause. Me water-cooling my xbox
360 (yes, and I wasn't alone in doing so) at 13 felt cool, but this is on
another level.
~~~
gibolt
The best part about being a kid is that you have nothing to think about other
than a little school work. You are free to scour the web finding all the
newest tools and put them to use for 'play'.
Not saying it can't be done as an adult, just harder to get that time and
unbroken/unlimited focus.
~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I’d love to spend some time living in a serviced apartment with meals
included.
Or something similar to a retirement village or university student
accommodation, or be able to afford a staff of servants. You get the idea
anyway.
~~~
squnch
You can do this quite affordably in huge numbers of countries if you can earn
your income with a decent remote job in the US. The things to think about are
time zone, tropical disease, quality of food, and safety. There are a whole
range of places from Arkansas, to Costa Rica, to Panama, to Nicaragua.
The thing you'll lose out on is anyone you know, unless you can get them to go
with you, or can make new friends in your destination.
~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I’m in Australia so I often half-joke: let’s sell everything we own and go
live like kings on a remote Indonesian island.
------
rvz
Grand Theft AutoPilot. Now that would be a great name for this project. :)
~~~
littlemtman
Yes that's true :)
------
tikej
And to me this is the essence of hacking and hacker culture, not “how do I
create MVP from my idea and become an entrepreneur” or “this and that in
company XYZ” mindset.
So glad to see people doing silly things that in fact require skill. This is
why I come to hackernews.
Keep up great work with this wonderful attitude!
~~~
smt88
Not sure why you need to put down entrepreneurs while praising this kid.
Hacking a company together is really hard. Like tech hacking, it requires
intelligence, creativity, and persistence.
There's no reason we can't read about and respect both on this site.
~~~
kick
The concern is in the appropriation of the term 'hacker'.
He's not putting anything or anyone down, he's saying that this is hacking,
and MBA posts of acronym soup aren't.
I think his implied conclusion is probably wrong-ish (both are arguably right
for HN, even if I vastly prefer this), but he's right in that this is hacking.
~~~
rapind
One could argue WeWork hacked unicorns.
~~~
toofy
One could argue anything they like, it doesn’t mean their argument (or
sophistry in general) leads to a better acquiring of knowledge through
discussion.
In my opinion, the gp’s discussion is one worth having.
------
wigl
What ever happened to the OpenAI/universe GTA sandbox? Is there any reason
Rockstar shouldn’t support research using their game?
~~~
numpad0
For some reason they really didn't like GTA being seen as a research platform
and C&D'd projects.
~~~
vhold
Perhaps because it could lead eventually to the most undetectable cheats yet
and undermine their Skinner box cash extractors.
------
numpad0
For inputs, roundabout but easiest ways I know is to either just get a Pro
Micro and use the gamepad library in Arduino IDE to make it a serial-to-
gamepad adapter, or use it in conjunction with a cheapest no-brand knockoff
Xbox 360 controller(which are easier than genuine controllers to mod as well)
and solder digital/analog out from Arduino to digital/analog sensing pads for
the same effect.
The latter allows real Xbox 360 to be used(don’t go online with it, that is
cheating). Xbox 360 is past EOL so I bet they can be had for cheap, steps to
capture is well explained by millions of wannabe streamers, and probably less
tedious to set up at the same time than a PC.
~~~
bluesign
Or full software solution for PlayStation is Remote Play.
------
hn_throwaway_99
This kid is awesome. I say that even though he's going 25 MPH in the left lane
:P
------
renewiltord
Great job, love it. Do commercial solutions use simulations and stuff? Sounds
like a great way to bootstrap is to use some of these more realistic games to
get some initial work.
By the way, I found this part funny:
> _...if it doesn’t make sense to you think about it and try to understand
> it._
We had a teacher once who'd say "If you don't understand, try to understand".
Haha!
~~~
dmoy
> Do commercial solutions use simulations and stuff?
Yes
Here's a random news article on it
[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/insid...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/inside-
waymos-secret-testing-and-simulation-facilities/537648/)
~~~
renewiltord
Très cool. Thank you.
------
nagyf
Reading the title my first thought was someone is driving a driverless car in
Toronto, how cool is that. I was disappointed to see it's about the game.
(Great article though)
------
braunshedd
I'd love to see this done in Forza, although I'm sure that's optimizing for
the wrong kind of driving behavior (lol)
Amazing work!
~~~
mhh__
A'I' in racing games is already a cracked problem I think (unless you mean
forza horizon?).
The AIs in Rfactor2 are even pretty good wheel to wheel on some tracks -
definitely a lot better than online rookies who are quick but blind. The only
noticeable thing is that they don't learn over the course of a race. They seem
to be programmed to make mistakes realistically, i.e. if the car loses grip in
the wet they don't lock back onto the track.
~~~
bowmessage
Sure, but this is a different kind of agent - one that takes screen frames as
input, rather than one that has direct access to game state.
------
mendelmaleh
sentdex did something similar a year or two ago:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQVvvaa0QuDeETZEOy4Vd...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQVvvaa0QuDeETZEOy4VdocT7TOjfSA8a)
~~~
littlemtman
Behavioural cloning, doesnt work in the real world ! I use path and lane
detection
------
Qworg
If you want to play with ML racing, AWS DeepRacer is free for May (and you can
compete against NASCAR drivers).
[https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/join-the-
formula-1-deeprace...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/join-the-
formula-1-deepracer-proam-special-event/)
------
CrumResearch
Howdy, I came here from [http://discord.comma.ai](http://discord.comma.ai).
littlemtman, what related source code is available? How about more details and
the code for connecting to the XBox controller interface, is it open?
~~~
cheschire
I'm not sure what OP used, but definitely look into FreePIE.
[http://andersmalmgren.github.io/FreePIE/](http://andersmalmgren.github.io/FreePIE/)
------
jaimex2
Reminds me of the the Mario Kart version someone made 3 years ago:
[https://github.com/kevinhughes27/TensorKart](https://github.com/kevinhughes27/TensorKart)
------
serf
this is pretty cool.
I used a similar scheme (two computers, one with HID control over the other,
and a webcam to observe) as a way to hide a simple aimbot as a proof-of-
concept for getting around on-computer anti-cheats that would search through
memory on popular FPSs. This was years ago on games with weak anti-cheats,
anyway.
It worked OKish. It had to rely on computer vision to do the aiming, so it was
significantly slower than examples that would rely on memory pointers or
straight pixel recognition from the screen itself -- but the point was proven,
the computer that was cheating looked fine as far as memory was concerned.
modern anti-cheats that look at things like pointer movement and player
randomness would definitely flag it now-a-days, but I had fun.
The hardest problems were room lighting, which at the time the cheapy webcams
had terrible issues with anyway, FPS, and resolution.
Major shortcuts had to be taken back then due to the resolution and fps
mismatches between the input and output, shortcuts by which reduced the bot
performance significantly, but I bet that'd be a lot easier to deal with
today.
Now, my point : I know that a majority of the memory structs are available,
documented, and deconstructed for GTA V, having written cheats for the game in
the past. Maybe you can exploit that to emulate some of the functions of an
IMU?
Lots of vehicle physics variables are fairly easily exposed. "GTA V Memory
Structs" google search will get you started on that road, should you care to.
Neat project. Good luck.
~~~
littlemtman
Thanks, yes maybe I will add proper sensoring to the project with emulating a
can bus.
------
savrajsingh
Great work! Now let's drive faster than 25 mph -- it's called Grand Theft Auto
for a reason :)
~~~
littlemtman
Yes I will add a speeding video !
------
jgalt212
The real challenge of AI vis a vis real world problems is how to create
_infinite_ examples, labelled observations, etc at _finite_ cost.
------
permalac
Can I buy stock of this company?
~~~
littlemtman
You can't
------
verelo
Can it drive a plane / the tank on the road? How do motorbikes go? So curious.
~~~
littlemtman
Yes a tank would be possible. Both only from the front camera view, the model
is not used to see the car it is driving otherwise !
~~~
pugworthy
Interesting. I have a World of Tanks twitch streamer's video playing on the
side as I read this, and also thought tanks.
------
z3t4
Since this is GTA, it would be cool to add pedestrians to the mix...
~~~
littlemtman
I tried it in the city center it was going nowhere, the bigger and complex the
models get the more they learn "intuitively" i.e. avoiding pedestrians,
avoiding crashes etc. Like the video where Autopilot predicted a crash 3
seconds before it actually occured.
------
tinus_hn
Wasn’t there a Twitch channel running this?
~~~
littlemtman
Yes but what he did was behavioural cloning, I do lane and path prediction
that's a whole different level
------
baron816
How about a self riding horse for RDR?
------
GekkePrutser
But can it do a drive-by???
------
muffin24
sick
------
bzb3
My heart broke when I saw it wasn't one of the renderware era GTA games.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Move Over WordPress, There's A New CMS In Town - JJColao
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjcolao/2012/07/17/move-over-wordpress-theres-a-new-cms-in-town/
======
mourique
Am I the only one who thinks this is BS? Don't get me wrong, Squarespace is a
really strong product and i trust their new version is beautiful et al. But
Wordpress is Open Source and even wordpress.com is free. How do they compare
at all?
~~~
rwhitman
Squarespace is quite possibly the most frustrating CMS platform I've ever
attempted to configure in my 10 year career. It is not a threat to Wordpress,
or even Weebly for that matter.
~~~
jasonbarone
That's interesting, how so? I found the complete opposite to be true when
using both Wordpress and Squarespace for small business sites like local
businesses, entrepreneurs, blogs, portfolios, etc.
Designing for Squarespace is by far the simplest process I've used. It's way
ahead of even Shopify, which has been touted as being incredibly easy to
design for. I can take 90-95% of a completed PSD design to Squarespace in
under an hour. If the design is already chopped up in HTML, even faster. It
cut my site development time in half, and my clients prefer the user interface
versus Wordpress.
The "Selective Display" section are comparable to Drupal, yet they are much
easier to work with.
My frustration with Squarespace's previous version (Version 5) was that it was
getting a bit dated and it was a bit closed off, meaning some designs and
project were just not possible. Squarespace 6 is solving a lot of this.
Regardless of whether or not it's a threat to WP or Weebly, it's an awesome
platform to work with and has many features that are simply amazing.
------
will_work4tears
This isn't likely to kill WordPress. Maybe WordPress.com, but not everybody
wants a hosted, limited control site - some want to host it themselves. That's
WordPress's strength (maybe the only one) and why places like Tumblr still
haven't overtaken it.
~~~
debacle
From Automattic's perspective, WordPress's strength is that the people who
don't want hosted, limited control sites write amazing plugins and themes that
the people that _do_ want hosted, limited control site also want.
In short, the OSS ecosystem around WordPress drives Automattic's revenue from
WordPress.com
~~~
JJColao
I don't deny that WordPress has a lot going for it, but Automattic's reported
$45 million in annual revenue doesn't put it too far ahead of Squarespace.
~~~
debacle
WordPress's annual revenue is 400% Squarespace's last reported revenue.
~~~
JJColao
Squarespace's last reported revenue was 2010. WordPress's $45 million is
projected this year - a two year discrepancy.
------
rwhitman
According to Wikipedia, Squarespace predates Wordpress by one month (April
2003). So "new" CMS is er kind of a uh load of total linkbait crap.
~~~
JJColao
It's not about when the company was founded, it's about the release of
Squarespace 6, which compares favorably to WordPress.com's current
incarnation.
~~~
rwhitman
Your title is misleading because "Wordpress" as a general brand encompasses
the open source Wordpress.org CMS workhorse, which most of us on HN typically
associate with the name. Wordpress.com the cloud blog platform has lots of
valid competition, notably Tumblr and Blogger.
I enjoy learning the bootstrapped rags to riches story about Squarespace, but
your title frames the story as if its about a new competitor to Wordpress the
open source CMS, and it is not.
~~~
JJColao
Point taken.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Stephen Hawking Says We Should Really Be Scared of Capitalism, Not Robots - antjanus
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stephen-hawking-capitalism-robots_5616c20ce4b0dbb8000d9f15
======
Moshe_Silnorin
You should note, this is an extremely misleading article. He is in fact
worried about AI.
Hawkings wrote this in the same thread:
You’re right: media often misrepresent what is actually said. The real risk
with AI isn’t malice but competence. A superintelligent AI will be extremely
good at accomplishing its goals, and if those goals aren’t aligned with ours,
we’re in trouble. You’re probably not an evil ant-hater who steps on ants out
of malice, but if you’re in charge of a hydroelectric green energy project and
there’s an anthill in the region to be flooded, too bad for the ants. Let’s
not place humanity in the position of those ants. Please encourage your
students to think not only about how to create AI, but also about how to
ensure its beneficial use.
This was what her wrote when asked about technological unemployment:
If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things
are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the
machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if
the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far,
the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-
increasing inequality.
~~~
oberstein
Thanks for bringing out his AI comment, it seems much more aligned with the
main superintelligence research community now than when I read his thoughts
last. Updated.
------
damosneeze
It would be nice if the elephant in the room were addressed: We are Not in a
capitalist society. We are in a corporatist society.
It took a joint collaboration between corporations and government to blow up
the economy with the 2008 financial crisis. And then the government bailed out
the financial elites. In a capitalist society, those who failed would go
under. In fact, we probably wouldn't have reached that crisis point, because
the Fed would not exist (and would not be manipulating interest rates), there
would be no revolving door between corporations and government (Former Goldman
Sachs CEO becomes Treasury Secretary, promptly gives trillions of dollars to
Wall St; Former senior executive for Monsanto becomes head of FDA).
Granted, pure capitalism is not exactly possible given the flawed existence of
humans and our fragile societies. But let's at least call our current system
what it is: corporatism. Maybe even with a dash of nepotism, militarism and
fascism.
~~~
minority-one
You're the only voice of reason on this thread.
What we should be really scared of is a population whose majority clamors for
democracy yet prefers to trust government over holding representatives
accountable.
The problem is the people have been rendered powerless through mis-education
to the point they've forgotten their non-interventionist history. Keeping guns
is necessary but not sufficient for the government to fear its people.
People have also been convinced the only way to get educated is to go into
debt, since independent thought is ridiculed on mainstream entertainment
venues. That gives governments an opportunity to control what people learn.
It goes on and on but it all starts with what you rightfully noted, that this
is no Capitalism, but Corporatism. I wouldn't expect a university professor
(even an economist) to understand this finer point as I know first-hand those
people either have approved opinions or they don't have a job in academia.
For those who only dabble in economics (and here I include up to Ph.Ds in
Economics) here's a hint: if your economy only has one money, and its price is
centrally controlled, as interest rates are by the Fed in the U.S., what you
have is not Capitalism, because no saving of capital is taking place.
~~~
damosneeze
Great points.
On the topic of mainstream education, my brother is "unschooling" his
children. They went to public school for one year, then he saw what was
happening not only with the level of standardized education, but also the
drills to "prepare" for school shootings. Schools prepare not by hiring
security guards, but by having realistic simulations of a shooter, and having
the children cower under their desks. Welcome to the new normal: Dept of
Education's standards for dealing with ~~nuclear~~ handgun proliferation.
i visited my brother last year and it was interesting to see his kids interact
socially. this is typically one of the big arguments that comes up for
homeschooled children: How will your children grow socially? How will they
learn to interact? After watching them at their golf practice, surrounded by
tons of other kids, it was clear: my brother's kids were leaders, and the
other kids were mostly followers.
his kids learn what they want, guided by their father's loose curriculum. They
started learning algebra at 7, with the assistance of some very clever iPad
apps. They read. They play games. And most of all, they enjoy life. They're
not just waiting for recess. Or high school. Or college. Or their first job.
Those kids will be just fine.
------
mpweiher
Right. The usual counter is the following: "This was predicted every time we
had technological upheavals, and it never happened. Therefore it won't happen
this time either."
Although there is some truth to this, the past tends to be only a limited
predictor for the future ("It's tough to make predictions, especially about
the future." \-- Yogi Berra ), and of course logically this stance cannot be
supported.
Also, there is some grounds to believe that this time actually is different:
whereas production and consumption used to expand to soak up new found
productivity, we're reaching both resource limits in terms of what can be
produced, and at least in the west saturation in terms of consumption. We
already consume way more than we really want/need, and more and more people
are realizing that their stuff is not liberating them, but rather taking them
hostage.
Furthermore, there also is evidence that this is already happening. Blue
collar wages are stagnating or in decline, same though to a lesser extent for
the middle class. Debt has soared as people try to maintain their standard of
living.
Robots have the capacity to help us bring about the 15 hour work week Keynes
predicted, or maybe even the 4 hour work week, but we probably will have to
restructure our wealth distribution mechanisms somewhat to achieve it.
~~~
dragonwriter
> Right. The usual counter is the following: "This was predicted every time we
> had technological upheavals, and it never happened. Therefore it won't
> happen this time either."
Which is, of course, false in its premise -- it happened with the
technological developments which were happening alongside the development of
the economic system which would become dominant in the developed world of the
time, which would later be named "capitalism" by its critics, and was
_mitigated_ to a certain degree (but not, by any stretch of the imagination,
_solved_ ) when capitalism was largely replaced in the developed world with
modern "mixed economies" which limit the capitalist property system through
the adoption of redistributive and socialized regulatory mechanisms while
retaining the capitalist arrangement in outline (in the developed world, this
approach has prevailed, for now, over both retaining -- or reverting to --
capitalism without compromising its structure and abandoning its property
structure outright.)
~~~
hammock
"It happened"? What is "it"? (credit to parent for being unhelpfully ambiguous
as well)
~~~
chc
I believe "it" refers to the sort of failure case described in the OP.
------
Tloewald
He's right of course. It's essentially the "billionaires in gated communities
guarded by robot drones" argument.
[http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-robot-
lords-a...](http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-robot-lords-and-
end-of-people-power.html)
It's amazing how many things look like a tragedy of the commons (rather than a
wonderful efficient market) when you hit boundary conditions.
------
heimatau
Well, his argument is very logical and grounded in evidence. Hypothetically,
robots could cause a problem but capitalism is currently tearing the fabric of
society apart due to wealth inequality.
When I first saw this article, I said this to myself, "But robots...but
matrix...but terminator" a few hours later, I realized the grounded logic he
is conveying.
Currently, robots/ai are like the gun issues of today. Guns don't kill people.
People do and legislating gun control is sticky (so is regulating ai).
~~~
BerislavLopac
I've always found this logic quite flawed: we have capitalism, and we have
wealth inequality, therefore capitalism causes wealth inequality.
As far as I am aware, every single economical system in history has produced
wealth inequality, so replacing it with something else wouldn't really change
much. It's been tried numerous times, and none of those experiments managed to
solve the issue of wealth inequality in a sustainable way.
Capitalism is far from being an ideal system, but it works, and replacing it
can cause only more pain for everyone. I can see the appeal of blaming it for
everything; it's a handy scapegoat, "the devil we know" \-- but I haven't seen
many realistic proposals what should replace it.
~~~
azth
> As far as I am aware, every single economical system in history has produced
> wealth inequality
Check out the Islamic perspective on economics and finance. It sets certain
restrictions, while keeping many things open to the requirements of the
society: no interest, shared risk, the population is responsible for the poor,
etc. while still allowing the opportunities to acquire wealth.
It was during the days of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz[0] that it was reported that
there were no more poor people left to take Zakat[1], because everyone did
their duties.
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_II)
[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat)
~~~
zo1
>" _shared risk, the population is responsible for the poor_ "
I pay taxes for those two already. Must I still blame capitalism?
Not trying to be obtuse, but some of the thing mentioned are already
supposedly part of our society. Represented by proxy through our government,
yet we don't hold it accountable. Capitalism is not our problem.
~~~
azth
Look at what the big corporations around us are doing. Capitalism is about
maximizing profit, with seemingly no regard for ethics or morals. Things like
opening slave shops in China for cheap manufacturing, with horrible working
conditions? That would be banned Islamically, because humans have the right to
work in safe places, and in decent conditions.
HFT and whatever Wall street is up to? Same thing. It's all exploitative and
benefits only a few, while harming most.
Edit: sharing risk on certain transactions, and paying taxes are two different
things.
Edit: another example: what about mind numbing advertisements? What about ads
for prescription only medication? Purely a product of capitalism. Sexist car
advertisements with naked women in them? Yep.
Edit: isn't tax evasion by inversion
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_inversion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_inversion))
also a product of capitalism?
~~~
BerislavLopac
"with seemingly no regard for ethics or morals"
Are you saying that economic systems have morality? And that all capitalist
lack ethics and morals? There are many different forms of the two -- who is to
decide which form is acceptable?
Again, the reason for everything happening in the society is not any single
political and economical system -- like soylent green, it's the people.
~~~
dragonwriter
> Are you saying that economic systems have morality?
Economic systems are about how scarce resources are allocated. The choice of
the mechanism for doing this is _always_ , inherently, based on a value system
(possibly an extremely simple one consisting of a single value proposition).
In that sense, _any_ economic systems involves a moral choice -- to say that a
particular economic systems has "no regard for ethics or morals" really
usually means that that system is perceived to have no regard for the _the
value propositions that the speaker believes to define correct morality_.
~~~
BerislavLopac
Well, no economic system exists in its own right; they're all just human
interpretations of a large number of human decisions and actions. So it's not
an economic system that involves a moral choice; it's moral choices that, on
scale, get interpreted as economic systems.
That being said, I absolutely agree with your final statement.
------
enahs-sf
I fundamentally don't understand how capitalism will work in a society where
scarcity is essentially nil. It doesn't make sense. Maybe someone could
explain it to me?
~~~
davidw
As the economists say, 'human wants are unlimited'. If one thing isn't scarce,
something else will be.
~~~
Amorymeltzer
I like the way Zach Weiner over at SMBC put this:
>A human is only happy if she has two, and everybody else has one. And even
then, she starts imagining three.
([http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3531](http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3531))
------
thoman23
I'm going to dumb it down a bit, and say that I like to think of two movies
with different visions of a technologically advanced future: WALL-E and
Elysium (aka that Matt Damon movie where all the rich people live on the space
station). In WALL-E, nobody works and everybody (well, everybody that survived
the initial apocalypse anyway) lives the literal fat life while robots serve
them all equally. In Elysium, the abundance of health and life that comes from
technological advances are hoarded away for exclusive use by the wealthy.
Of the 2 visions, I always found the Elysium model to be much more
likely...actually I would argue inevitable. Given human nature, I just can't
foresee a world where everyone lounges around in equally-served harmony.
No...there will always be an elite, and the elite will find a way to procure
and consume a vastly disproportionate amount of resources. Even in the movie
Elysium, after the proletariat storm the space castle at the end, any
"victory" will be short-lived and will just produce a new elite.
So I guess I'm suggesting that the proclaimed political/economic system is
irrelevant. The reality ends up looking pretty much the same in either case.
And that reality will probably not be pretty once human labor is fully
commoditized through technology.
~~~
zo1
The problem with Elysium is that it just does not sound plausible once you get
into the meat of it. Why would the rich "hoard" their technological advances
for exclusive use?
For that matter, what _is_ wealth in such a context anyways? What are they
wealthy of? Magical mythical currency that they exchange with other rich
people? No, they have to give it to someone to do something. Even if it means
giving it to the soldiers that have to police the ever-growing population
below.
Really, the whole story just relies on an unproven notion that "wealthy people
are evil", as that is the only motive that can hold up. Why couldn't the poor
simply pool their resources together (government?) and buy one of these things
from the rich people.
I'm really bothered that the narrative in the media and movies is constantly
presented as "the poor rise up against the evil rich".
~~~
DanBC
> The problem with Elysium is that it just does not sound plausible once you
> get into the meat of it. Why would the rich "hoard" their technological
> advances for exclusive use?
Right now today this minute there are poor children in India living near
garbage dumps picking through other people's litter.
[http://wiego.org/informal-economy/occupational-
groups/waste-...](http://wiego.org/informal-economy/occupational-groups/waste-
pickers)
[http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu-
projects/drivers_urb_change/urb_env...](http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu-
projects/drivers_urb_change/urb_environment/pdf_hazards_pollution/IIED_hunt_indiachildren.pdf)
Have a look at the image tab here:
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=child+waste+pickers](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=child+waste+pickers)
Your second paragraph is just saying "trickle down works" when we know it
doesn't.
~~~
zo1
" _our second paragraph is just saying "trickle down works" when we know it
doesn't._"
I was simply pointing out the fact that this story portrays the rich in some
sort of bubble, where they don't interact economically with the rest.
Any who, "trickle down economics", most popular straw-man ever (I theorize). I
don't subscribe to it, nor was I recommending it. Let's coin a new phrase:
"free-trickle" and let everyone trickle to everyone else. In the economic
sense.
>" _Right now today this minute there are poor children in India living near
garbage dumps picking through other people 's litter._"
Are you saying this is due to the rich hoarding their technological advances
for exclusive use? Poverty in the third world is a hugely complicated problem.
Not to mention the amount of money people, rich people, and government have
been throwing at it because it's universally recognized as a "Bad Thing".
I'm not going to stand by idly while a small group of people get blamed for
something we have all collectively tasked, and funded the government to do.
Let's assign blame where it's really due.
------
ddingus
He's right, but I am hungry for alternatives.
And what does a transition look like?
When I see this kind of thing, I think "of course!", but then I don't know
what to advocate for, and what that might look like and how people will manage
through the change.
~~~
Florin_Andrei
> _And what does a transition look like?_
That's the crux of the matter, isn't it?
~~~
BerislavLopac
No, this is: "but then I don't know what to advocate for"
Everybody "knows" that things should be changed, but nobody knows how and to
what.
~~~
ddingus
Indeed. I see positive, fact based and data driven policy advocacy as most
productive.
Fear, worry, shame based advocacy does more harm than good. Generally, of
course. Sometimes we need those things, but not as norms in the political
dialog.
When we are FOR things, it seems easier to work together on them to expected
outcomes. Being AGAINST things is much easier, but so often leaves a hole we
hope will be filled by market forces and that outcome will be better, or
worthy.
Sometimes it is. I believe in markets, but they do come with inherent
conflicts of interest that can be difficult to manage.
On this issue, it seems necessary to have a plan and a just and reasonable
outcome goal.
------
rsync
Are they different ? Is a construct that is built up and acquires a direction
and momentum that grows beyond human reins and sense any different than a
robot ?
They're both machines, which makes them distinct from humans and human
decisions and human reasoning. We should neither be on guard against "robots"
or capitalism[1] - rather, we should be on guard against machines in all their
forms as they tend to affect humans without the safeguard of human reasoning.
I paraphrase Herbert:
Thou shalt not suffer a machine to rule over you.
[1] ... or democracy or catholicism ...
------
mixedmath
I was the one who wrote that question to Stephen Hawking. Now that it's been
brought up here, perhaps it would be nice to ask the question here.
How does HN feel about technological unemployment?
~~~
calibraxis
The fact that people fear technological unemployment — freedom — is a sign we
live under an idiotic system.
~~~
rskar
Freedom, as in freedom from work? The supposed upside of that freedom is based
on the assumption that one is still somehow entitled to some of that good
stuff that AI/robots may bring. But that's exactly the issue. Right now we
understand "capitalism" (stakeholders entitled to dividends) and "barter"
(parties entitled to swap) as the sort of entitlements that underpin all
others, and both of these leverage property rights. A sovereignty/government
would then tap into these plus holdings of property itself by levying
tributes/taxes, from which it may then redistribute portions as some other
forms of entitlement.
Or not; it's still an open debate on whether and how sovereignty/government
might counterbalance via entitlements (such as basic income schemes, etc.) the
social changes that technological unemployment could bring.
In the meantime, the facts are that most people must strike bargains in order
to obtain most (or possibly all) of the material needs of their lifestyles
(and possibly also provide for dependents), and that the most usual bargaining
to be struck involves their offer of labor; hence their reasons for all the
dreading about technological unemployment. If most could clearly find their
way to situations where employment wasn't a requirement towards getting their
material needs met, then such fears would abate.
------
eevilspock
* crickets * (after 40 min on the front page, but it's there!)
How does HN, a hotbed of libertarian free-market worship that also reveres
smarts and science, respond to this?
~~~
solson
My response to Hawking would be a question: Who or what is smart enough to
decide how much wealth each person should have and design a efficient system
to distribute it and what evidence do you have that the outcome would be
better than a free market?
~~~
michaelchisari
You're arguing against a command economy, but there are multitudes of options
when it comes to creating a more equitable society than micromanaging wealth.
------
RRRA
I like how it takes a well known figure to state the obvious and get people to
actually talk about the basic flaws of a system...
------
kazinator
> _As it is, the chasm between the super rich and the rest is growing._
"The rest", as a complement to "super rich" in the above, clearly means "not
super rich". This necessarily includes various categories such as "merely
rich, but short of super", as well as "well-off", "struggling", and "flat
broke".
The poverty line is an abstraction that demarcates zones in a political field.
What it means to be "poor" is a moving target. Someone from the 1600's would
laugh at what constitutes a "poor" person today. How can someone be poor and
have all that stuff (automobile, iPad, high speed Internet, 50" TV, ...), and
weigh 300 pounds, too? And still alive at 45 years old, and smiling---with no
missing teeth when doing so. What's more, working only 5 days a week for some
7 hours a day.
------
dynomight
There must be a law, or observation, concerning a balance of effort expended
between 'labor replaced by tech' & 'hassle created by the labor saving tech'.
------
aggieben
It would help if the writers who want to complain about inequality knew what
_bourgeoisie_ means.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Closer to truth: Scott Aaronson - Tomte
http://closertotruth.com/contributor/scott-aaronson/profile
======
masonic
For those unfamiliar with it, _Closer to Truth_ has a weekly TV interview
program[0] that airs on public television in the USA.
[0] [https://www.closertotruth.com/about/tv-
program](https://www.closertotruth.com/about/tv-program)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Finance app Buxfer gets some iPhone love - ashu
http://www.buxfer.com/blog/2007/12/12/an-iphone-interface-for-buxfer/
We've just released an iPhone interface for Buxfer. Check it out, and let us know what's good, what's bad, and what's missing... <p>Thanks!
======
KB
On a semi-related note, I came across a finance article in the December issue
of Men's Health that happened to mention Buxfer.
That should work as some nice PR for them.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Robot Bites Man - qwerty245245
http://hackaday.com/2016/06/15/robot-bites-man/
======
qwerty245245
Some more discussion:
[http://www.fastcompany.com/3059484/mind-and-machine/this-
rob...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3059484/mind-and-machine/this-robot-
intentionally-hurts-people-and-makes-them-bleed)
[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36517340](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36517340)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How old were the inventors of major inventions? - tosseraccount
http://andolfatto.blogspot.com/2016/04/how-old-were-inventors-of-major.html
======
dredmorbius
Invention, creativity, and the benefits of invention are a topic for much
exploration.
The 34 inventions mentioned are a small set -- that's just at the threshold of
large-sample statistics for normally distributed data, and the datapoints here
may well not bbe.
For a larger set of inventions, Joseph Needham's _Science and Civilisation in
China_ might provide an interesting basis. Under development for over half a
century, the 27 volume work (several still in process) details thousands of
years of innovation in China, in excruciating detail. The work's Wikipedia
entry alone is staggering. Needham's biography has been written by Simon
Winchester, and is highly recommended.
There are numerous books on innovation I recommend. There's _What Technology
Wants_ by Kevin Kelley and W. Brian Arthur's _The Nature of Technology_ both
cover inventions and inventing.
Robert Gordon's _The Rise and Fall of American Growth_ (2016) looks at the era
of invention and development since 1870. Gordon writes in great detail, but
very readably, of the tranformation of the US landscape, cityscape, and
suburbscape over this period, focusing especially on domestic living and
lifestyle, transportation, food, medicine and health, work, communications,
and entertainment. I've got disagreements with some of Gordon's economic
thinking, but his history is solid.
------
kristopolous
That sample size is probably too small to faithfully break down things that
far.
Really this is when people got lucky enough (or perhaps influential enough) to
be attributed with an invention that is considered historically relevant.
I guess the real takeaway is just to keep trying to do great things
~~~
jdale27
Absolutely. Very sketchy to try to draw any meaningful conclusions from this
data.
Also, what about the people who invent/innovate on a smaller scale, which
doesn't get recognized as much as these inventions but is in aggregate perhaps
as significant? This analysis sort of rings bells of the "Great Man" theory of
history.
------
dataker
As someone in my early 20s, I can say the young innovator myth also severely
hurts the youth.
When you're told you need to achieve X by 30, you may end up destroying
relationships, having health issues and depression.
~~~
fidz
But what if we can achieve X in early age without compromising anything?
~~~
maxxxxx
Sure, it's great if you can pull that off. But for a lot of people expecting
they have to be a great success in an early age puts a lot of pressure on them
and I think it impedes learning.
~~~
tonyedgecombe
Which is why you should measure success based on what you put in rather than
what you get out.
------
gilrain
Ageism is an irrational pox on an industry that prides itself on being
rational.
~~~
kristopolous
Younger people work longer hours for less pay. You can burn them out and cut
them out of their fair share without mercy.
If you think it's about anything more than this, you don't know capitalism.
I get paid ~4 times as much but only work ~1/4th as much as I did 15 years ago
primarily because I'm not foolish and 19 ... I'm unlikely to actually be 16
times more productive for being 16 times more expensive.
~~~
DominikR
There is no such thing as a "fair share", you get what you negotiate. You are
free to not accept any such contract if you are not content with it.
Or is anybody forcing you to accept this or that kind of work?
~~~
auxym
I think his point is that 19 year olds are much poorer negotiators, and that
gets taken advantage of.
~~~
DominikR
Who cares? They have the chance to learn to be better negotiators, which
they'll hopefully be some day.
Do we need to handicap more experienced negotiators so that 19 year olds do
better?
~~~
kristopolous
huh? how did I offend your unrealistic neoliberalist fantasies here? oh right!
reality.
------
FreedomToCreate
The policies for improving innovation are too simple and don't work. Simply
increasing immigration of STEM workers, increasing STEM education and throwing
money at the education department won't get people more educated. Have you met
really intelligent engineers and scientist. The ones that make a difference
are not in STEM for the money, they are in it because they are inspired and
driven to research and invent. A culture of STEM needs to be created amongst
people to push this type of agenda forward.
------
nxzero
Idea that major inventions are by design is flawed; as such, any analysis of
the age of an inventor's age when discovering an invention is useless in my
opinion.
If you want to invent, do it.
If you want to discover a major invention, invent more often.
~~~
chaostheory
Why is having more data that may offer a different perspective or new insight
useless?
~~~
nxzero
No, my point is that "what is great" is random and not inherently reflected by
what becomes mainstream. In fact, it's very possible that age influence the
process due to younger inventors have less resources like capital, investors,
network, etc.
------
api
It takes a long time to learn enough and accumulate enough experience to have
a high chance of doing something new. Not saying you can't do it young since
many obviously do, but this doesn't surprise me at all.
I also think that youthful rebellion is a bit of a myth. The youth often rebel
how, against, and in the ways they are told to rebel by elder philosophers and
polemicists. It also often takes a lifetime to genuinely critique your culture
in a way that is truly incisive.
I think Tim Leary was joking about this with "don't trust anyone over 40." He
was over 40.
------
erikpukinskis
Makes sense. Before 25 it's unlikely you can even _see_ what's happening.
You're kind of flailing around blind trying to learn all the words and figure
out which "facts" presented to you are actually just stories.
Once you can see what's happening, you can start trying to solve a problem. It
takes 10 years for you to get good at the basic skills. It's not _that_ likely
that your pre existing skills are the ones you'll need. Then the world changes
while you're watching and now you have all the ingredients:
1) vision
2) skill
3) a head start
So 35 is sort of a bottom limit for some kinds of invention.
Of course there are exceptions. If you have skills in the family you can start
learning them at 5. And some people are just born in the middle of the
kerfuffle and can see what's going on at a very early age. That's where
someone like Bob Dylan or Fiona Apple comes from, doing world class work at
16-17 years old.
And the Internet makes the first step of "seeing what's going on" much more
accessible, for both young people and everyone else. so I would expect the
curve to expand out quite a bit this century.
The skill training is really just about hours though so I don't think the
Internet accelerates that much.
~~~
tamana
You should meet Ben Franklin, Galois, and Mozart.
------
karmacondon
No phonograph or light bulb on the original list? How odd.
~~~
perlgeek
Neither is the transistor, laser, integrated circuit, microscope (or indeed
optional lenses), or many other very significant inventions. So it's really a
sample, rather than a systematic coverage.
~~~
azazqadir
The point is, lots of inventions are not mentioned. This makes the sample size
taken, too small. So, the conclusion made in this article might not be
accurate.
~~~
DonaldFisk
The inventions mentioned by perlgeek and karmacondon don't change things much:
transistor (Bardeen 39, Brattain 47); laser: (Townes 43, Shawlow 37); IC
(Kilby 34); microscope (unknown). Telescope (Lippershey 38). Phonograph
(Edison 30); light bulb (Swan 32). The mean is 37.5.
I thought I'd also see how my own, admittedly very minor, inventions
([http://web.onetel.com/~hibou/Patents.html](http://web.onetel.com/~hibou/Patents.html))
fit into the pattern. Patents were filed when I was 32, 36, 36, 39, 44, and
55. So, 40.3, and that can only change upwards.
~~~
jrapdx3
Arguably the first US patent for a transistor, specifically the field effect
transistor, was awarded in 1926 to Julius Lilienfeld, though the invention was
not implemented back then. The later developers of transistors (Shockley,
et.al.) built model devices using the ideas in these patents though never
referenced or credited Lilienfeld's work. However, the later work was taken in
a different direction and avoided conflict with the earlier patents.
Lilienfeld went on to invent the electrolytic capacitor in 1931 when he was 51
years old. He was 44 years old when he patented the FET. This is very much in
line with the other data.
------
sparkzilla
There's a really great book, now out of print, called _Tolstoy 's Bicycle_,
which is an encyclopedia of the ages at which people achieved notability (not
always success) The title comes from Tolstoy riding a bicycle for the first
time age 67. Reading that, you'll see that success can come at any age.
------
Deprogrammer9
"Mr. Marconi is a donkey" \- Nikola Tesla
~~~
plainOldText
"Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my
patents." \- Tesla
I think this one is more illustrative of Tesla's character and the fact that
he was not driven by financial motivations.
~~~
stan_rogers
Well, except that Tesla didn't invent anything like the radio (the patent
grant was considerably later, only in the US, and specifically to freeze out
Marconi... who also didn't invent the thing). Marconi's apparatus was
essentially an improvement to Oliver Lodge's demonstration machine for the
BAAS memorial tribute to Hertz, largely done by the British Post Office
telegraphy engineers, with eventual help from the inventions of Lodge (a
tuning apparatus) and J. C. Bose. One could say that radio was accidentally
invented by several people several times over the preceding century, notably
by David Hughes, who at least tried to have the phenomenon investigated. It
was dismissed at the time as mere magnetic induction, something Tesla assumed
was the case as well, and so believed his cockamamie scheme for wireless
remote power was radio. Being able to convince interested nationalist laymen
that a foreigner didn't do it is not the same thing as actually inventing
something yourself. (Several of Tesla's other "inventions" were created by
other people before he was even born. The neon light, f'rinstance, is just a
Geissler tube.)
Look: many, many props to the guy for the induction motor and polyphase AC,
right, but he was rather in love with himself. He was an ingenious tinkerer
with a subtle mind, but there are some very good reasons to believe that he
didn't really understand _half_ of what he was trying to do, especially at
high frequencies. There's a reason why radio doesn't look like Wardenclyffe
now, and never did. Oh, and no financial motivations? That's a wee myth grown
out of his sale of patents to Westinghouse, without which arrangement AC would
have failed (because the onerous royalties due Tesla would have made it too
expensive compared to Edison's DC). He had no trouble begging for money while
looking for further fame and fortune.
------
ryanmarsh
Robert Greene deftly handles the issue of age and genius in his book Mastery.
I highly recommend it.
------
WalterBright
Interesting that they left Edison off the list.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How We Used a Python Script to Find Our Domain Name Yipit - ajhai
http://viniciusvacanti.com/2010/11/08/how-we-used-a-python-script-to-find-our-domain-name-yipit/
======
ignifero
Is there any chance - at some point - to create a new TLD that only registered
trademark owners can use?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Low adoption of features and the sad realization - damandloi
https://agyam.com/low-adoption-and-sad-realization/
======
dade_
I work for a large company and when discussing a product with a startup/small
company, usually in a relatively new market, I've noticed interesting
behaviour:
Before I meet, I try to think of ways their product could be provide benefit
including non-obvious ones. So I ask if their product does this or that, and
why I think it could be useful.
Some companies tell me: it is on the road map, or why they think the feature
will never be used, or an explanation of why it is extraordinarily difficult
to implement. Cool. You probably know what you are talking about and I learned
something interesting (to me anyway).
Other companies take it as a feature demand. I find this bizarre, because I
have barely (or never) used their product. Some almost seem insulted that
limitations in their product are being raised. Not my intention, and that
raises a huge red flag, for "The lady doth protest too much, methinks"
I also hate demos of enterprise solutions. The feature details never matter to
the financial buyer. What actually affects the financial buyer are product
implementation delays caused by a major problem such as resiliency
functionality or interoperability. Extending the timeline affects other
projects, the budget, and the pushes out the timeline for the benefit to be
realized. Edge cases and niche features don't, the business will usually sign
off on production with an agreement that these issues will be resolved by the
vendor. Rarely do the big problems arise in demos, but the small manageable
ones do. The technical buyer is thrilled that their pet requirements are met,
and the financial buyer is furious that their programme was a failure.
My 2 cents.
~~~
vsareto
People get offended by unsolicited advice all the time. Regardless of your
intentions, that's how some people will perceive it. It's worse if they know
you haven't used their product, because that makes you seem like you're
flippantly handing out advice. You're likely giving off the impression that
you think you're right without any experience or consideration of their
product.
None of that actually discredits your suggestions though; you could be right.
As a counter example, some people are PoC||GTFO types who wouldn't take
offense easily but would rather punch holes in your argument. Seems like you
might be jumping in with the advice before you know if it's that kind of
environment.
~~~
Gibbon1
I have thing thing. I think if you're going to punch holes in someones
argument then you should also commit yourself to figuring out if it can saved.
Otherwise you're just being an ass. That said one thing I'm aware of is one
should be careful when giving advice that you aren't dragging their vision
through the mud either.
------
donatj
The number of features sales has told us some big sale hinged on, that
subsequently no one has used, is very high.
We actually restructured our _entire product_ to win the sale of a very large
customer who’s users didn’t fit perfectly into our metaphor. It was unwieldy
and we basically rolled the whole thing back several years later.
~~~
breakfastduck
I could give almost limitless examples where we've been forced to drop
everything and jump on implementing a hacky version of a new feature because
sales convinced the CTO we were going to lose a major client if we didn't
implement it asap.
They were usually never used, or used by an incredibly small percentage of
users.
The platform ended up a complete mess because of the number of hacky features
implemented and was a nightmare to maintain.
I'm sure we ended up losing more business due to the instability of the
platform than we gained from adding these.
It's incredibly frustrating for the engineering teams who continually warned
of the risks of rushing these things in without any analysis of usage.
~~~
syshum
>>or used by an incredibly small percentage of users.
Sometimes it is not the number of users that need the feature but just 1 or 2
very important users... The ones that have the final say over Yes we use this,
or no we do not
~~~
breakfastduck
Yeah that can certainly be true - unfortunately we often found that the very
important users to us didn’t see us as important as we saw them, meaning we’d
implement these hacky features on their request on short timescales only for
them to then refuse to integrate for weeks - we could have done the feature
properly had we not been pressured into getting it over the line so soon.
~~~
syshum
Ahh yes the old "Hurry up and wait"... been there too many times....
------
strogonoff
> Customers tell the right problem, but never the right solution.
Thanks, I threw this on my phone’s lock screen.
I have a strong intuition along the same lines, but find it hard to phrase on
the spot when explaining to stakeholders (and myself) why issues filed should
not be considered actionable as is.
~~~
passthefist
FWIW this is called the
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem)
~~~
strogonoff
XY problem is invoked when someone is asking for help, to get to the bottom of
the problem.
I am dealing specifically with product users or prospective users who,
possibly via stakeholders, request new features to implement.
The tip I quoted is very helpful with the latter as means of explaining why
feature request should not be treated as actionable to stakeholders. Until I
manage that, neither XY nor any other approach can be used.
------
kstenerud
People don't like it when things change.
Change means things will break.
Change means your way of doing things won't work anymore, and you'll have to
waste time and money figuring out why.
Change means that your fixes for when things go wrong won't work anymore.
Change means months of hitting new edge cases.
Change is scary.
Once you have a solution that works well enough for your use case to succeed,
your motivation to adopt change goes through the floor. The bigger the
organization, the worse the worst case scenario, and the lower the appetite
for change.
~~~
falcolas
I really, really wish that Slack would learn this. Their constant creep in
features means I lose about a cumulative hour every other week trying to do
something that I once knew how to do.
~~~
craftinator
Reminds me of Microsoft Office's latest big UI change, removing drop-down
menus in favor of "toolbar ribbons". Went from being a power user / expert to
a complete novice over night. I always wonder if there's a better way to make
those types of transitions.
~~~
inetknght
> _I always wonder if there 's a better way to make those types of
> transitions._
Yes, there is. It's actually pretty simple and takes one step:
1) don't.
I can expand on that though with a few more discrete steps:
1) don't screw over people who already spent time (money) learning your
product
2) don't screw over people who paid money (and time) for certifications in
your product
3) don't assume that everyone will work better with the new flow
The toolbar ribbons tanked discoverability, readability, and usability.
~~~
wjdp
Something needed to be done though. I use LibreOffice every few weeks, they
still use the toolbar UI by default, and it's faster to google where an option
is than to go hunting for it.
As a dev I'd love a ctrl+p sublime style search.
------
ChrisSD
Constant change is a nuisance. When I'm working on a task I want to be able to
concentrate on doing that task, not relearning my tools for the umpteenth
time.
If the new feature doesn't affect my current workflow, then great! I can
ignore it until I'm ready. The trouble, as the article notes, is the
application making me aware of this brilliant new feature. Often application
developers do this either by breaking a workflow and forcing interaction with
the new feature or otherwise nagging me while I'm wanting to do something
else.
Education outside of the application (tutorials, good documentation, blogs,
etc) is perhaps a better way of driving adoption of features.
------
dan_can_code
Nothing to do with the content but the pop up for 'lack of dark mode
optimisation' on this website is more annoying than the actual lack of dark
mode optimisation
~~~
damandloi
Sorry for that. May I know what annoyed you the most? The old style popup (JS
alert) or the presence of the popup?
~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
You seriously have to ask? Pop-up blockers were invented for a reason. Things
that jump out and demand your attention are annoying, period.
~~~
damandloi
Thank you for your feedback. I have removed the pop-up for now. No warning
about the ugly readability experience in dark mode.
~~~
guitarbill
if you really care about it, can already detect it, and show a pop-up, surely
it'd also be doable to show a header or something?
as others have said, the pop-up is really the issue here.
------
dcolkitt
Seems like yet another manifestation of the Pareto principle.[1] 80% of
software value comes from 20% of the features.
[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle)
------
richard_g
A good sign is when people are trying to do something using a complex
workaround because they need it that badly, and you can implement a change to
make it easier.
If they haven't even attempted to do it now, chances are they won't after you
implement a new feature.
------
JoeAltmaier
Good advice to consider customer feedback carefully. Its been said, ask a
farmer what they wanted in 1900, they'd have said "A horse that can pull more
weight and eat less hay". They'd never had said, "a tractor".
------
mackle_hair
i've seen well respected product managers ship features that go unused. it
seems to be pretty common.. but i think what is uncommon is talking about low
adoption, it's not a pretty conversation to talk about for anyone. but a
product manager that does talk about it and wants to refine the roadmap
strategy is really valuable.
------
bumbledraven
It would be interesting to see the year each company graduated from YC. There
might be a cluster of Ruby startups in a particular time period, and maybe
many of the Go startups came later.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Career Advice For Young Developers - nreece
http://davybrion.com/blog/2008/10/career-advice-for-young-developers/
======
gojomo
Mostly common sense, but I disagree with the third point:
_Choose between actual jobs, not companies_
People change roles within companies more often and easily than they change
companies -- especially in smaller organizations. And good, growing companies
with interesting challenges promote people from any starting position quickly.
Meanwhile, a 'good' job in a more static company risks stagnation.
So I would counsel the opposite of this post: choose the company moreso than
the job.
~~~
nradov
I agree. Furthermore, it's important to choose the right type of company. Find
one where software development is a core competency and a direct part of the
value chain. When senior management sees you as just a cost to be minimized
your opportunities for growth and advancement will be limited.
I've been interviewing a lot of job applicants lately and have found that most
of those who have worked for years in typical corporate IT departments are
basically ruined. They only know how to do high-level "fill in the blanks"
development and don't have what it takes to work for a software product or
service vendor. Now to get back on track they would probably have to return to
school and start over from scratch. Don't fall into that trap.
~~~
queensnake
> When senior management sees you as just a cost to be minimized
And they'll have the same attitude toward your dev. environment. Noisy,
crowded environment, out-of-date tools, machines / upgrades hard to come by,
or take forever ... I'm at my 2nd such because of other constraints.
------
edw519
Nice writeup, but I think he forgot the most important one...
"Delight your users."
In my experience, everything else on OP's list is a byproduct of this.
When you delight your users, everything will be easier and more fun, you'll
get better feedback and support, and you'll be best positioned to steer your
career.
I you're not delighting your users (for whatever reason), do everyone a favor
and either figure out how to or move on.
------
tom_rath
How could he have neglected to mention _Test_?!
Test everything. Test it early. Test it extensively.
If testing 'isn't needed' and is a 'waste of time' for the simple thing you're
doing, it'll only take a few moments away from your busy day. If it was
needed, you'll be glad you caught the error when you did.
If in doubt, ask any veteran developer about the horror stories they ran into
in production due to a minor bug that could have been caught at the point of
development with a simple 'complete waste of time' test.
Edit: I cannot understand why this is being down-modded to negative territory.
This is classic 'advice to a young engineer'! Your development career is
headed to a dead end if you cannot create reliable software.
~~~
igorhvr
> Test everything. Test it early. Test it extensively.
While in some contexts appropriate and many times helpful, testing is not the
way to create reliable software.
Willingness to learn from mistakes, knowing your limits and biases, practicing
complete concentration, disciplined reasoning and careful thinking is.
~~~
tom_rath
Yes, testing is the way to create reliable software. How else can you find the
'mistakes, limits, biases', etc. which come from the 'concentration, reasoning
and careful thinking' you THINK you have?
Learning how to break your software is one of the best ways of ensuring you
stop writing software that breaks!
~~~
igorhvr
If you don't reason properly, no amount of testing will save you. It is only
part (an important one, surely) of what you need to create reliable software.
I saw too many developers in a cycle like this:
test->bang keyboard->test again (not working)->bang keyboard (now a hack)
->test again(still not working - let's try one more thing)->bang
keyboard->test again (it works - Don't touch it!)
which is why early focus on testing doesn't seem very sound advice. The
original post is about "Career Advice For Young Developers" - and for a young
developer, focusing on careful thinking is better than focusing on testing.
------
swombat
I'm not entirely sure the "Don't worry about job security" is that well timed,
given the market as it is now, but it is good overall advice.
~~~
gaius
You can worry about it, but worrying's not likely to help...
------
habs
What a fantastic article! over the last few months I've been thinking about
finding a new job, but didn't want to gamble job security. I think this
article has put a lot of things into perspective for me.
Oh and I couldn't agree more with bigbang. The company I'm working for
advertised themselves as a company with lots of goodies and great people
working in the company, but I very rarely get to do interesting work and an
hour at lunch playing on an Xbox really doesn't make up for that.
------
cellis
Career Advice For Young Developers: Start a startup while you're still young.
Before you turn 21. Then you're old!
~~~
modoc
I'm 28, and while I have a number of failed startup companies/ideas in my
past, my current one is a success (although it may not meet the criteria of a
startup here, it's a small LLC that I've "started up"). The reason it's a
success is that I have 10 years of experience working with hundreds of
companies (lots of contracting, etc...), so I KNOW how big companies work, I
KNOW what they need, and I KNOW how many large players in a particular niche
are failing to provide good services/products. Which made it easy to for me to
create a better offering, that was price competitive, and met the needs of a
niche of large customers.
So while I'm old, and while I definitely think you should start a startup when
you're young, being old has it's advantages too:)
~~~
curiousgeorge
I don't think you're old, and I'm glad your start-up (yes, it counts) is a
success. Perhaps you can elaborate on the lessons you learned and the
differences this time versus previous times around in a blog post sometime.
I'd be interested in reading it.
~~~
modoc
I'll definitely add that as a blog-post topic in the future.
I can summarize a few lessons I learned here though:
1) just because people like using something for free, doesn't mean even 1% of
them will be willing to pay anything for it. High traffic/member numbers don't
mean much unless you can monetize them, mostly they just cost you.
2) selling to a few large companies is often a much easier path than selling
to thousands of individuals.
3) there are a million services that are provided almost exclusively by very
large companies. Quite often they do a horrible job. There's a million
opportunities there.
4) don't count your chickens before they hatch. Getting a 1/4 million dollar
contract in a month, does NOT mean you'll get one every month.
5) if you start to make money, get an accountant/tax person. If you have
contracts with fish that bigger than you, get an attorney.
6) don't rely on free/cheap stuff from so-and-so's friend. They could vanish
and take your servers with them.
~~~
lliiffee
> 3) there are a million services that are provided almost exclusively by very
> large companies. Quite often they do a horrible job. There's a million
> opportunities there.
How do you find these opportunities? I guess there is no easy answer, or there
would be a lot more startups, but if you have any thoughts, that would be
great.
------
jhancock
oh yeah, and learn Objective-C. Apple has more cash than M$ now and Macs are
selling like mad.
~~~
silentbicycle
Better yet, learn several languages that are significantly different from each
other. That way, your mind will be more flexible, and you'll be able to pick
up whatever languages are currently popular for marketing reasons on fairly
short notice.
~~~
jhancock
ok, lets settle for learning languages from the two companies with the top
cash on hand: M$ and Apple. That should mean F# and Objective-C. And then
learn a new language each year just to keep the juices flowing.
~~~
silentbicycle
Will Microsoft and Apple lead the programming job market in ten years? (Will
they exist?) I would rather hedge my bets and just focus on learning to
program.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lawsuit: Trustwave owes $30M for 2009 breach at Heartland Payment Systems - ryanlol
https://cookcountyrecord.com/stories/511478100-lawsuit-data-security-firm-trustwave-owes-30m-for-2009-data-breach-at-heartland-payment-systems
======
ccnafr
Hmm, this is just the lawsuit's intro put into an article.
Here's a story with comments from Trustwave. They call the lawsuit meritless,
which appears to be so:
[https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/security-
firm...](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/security-firm-sued-
for-failing-to-detect-malware-that-caused-a-2009-breach/)
Appears the two insurance firms filed a counter-lawsuit in another state,
which is illegal in the US as you have to follow through with the first.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Finding New Employees, via Social Networks - zeedotme
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/jobs/31recruit.html?partner=rss&emc=rss#
======
Shamiq
Won't let me view the article.
~~~
vaksel
<http://tinypaste.com/9f701>
~~~
Shamiq
thanks
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What people in 1899 thought would happen to travel technology - justinY
http://www.tnooz.com/2012/09/04/news/what-people-in-1899-thought-would-happen-to-travel-technology-hint-we-failed-them/?fb_ref=wp
======
Cogito
This keeps showing up on HN for some reason!
Some previous discussions and articles for those interested:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4316895>
[http://publicdomainreview.org/2012/06/30/france-in-the-
year-...](http://publicdomainreview.org/2012/06/30/france-in-the-
year-2000-1899-1910/)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2271197>
[http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2010/5/2/jean-marc-cotes-
vis...](http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2010/5/2/jean-marc-cotes-visions-of-
the-year-2000-1899.html)
[http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2007/9/10/french-prints-
show...](http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2007/9/10/french-prints-show-the-
year-2000-1910.html)
<http://acidcow.com/pics/17678-futur-imagined-23-pics.html>
------
flexie
Funny how predictions on the future are often just extrapolation of recent
advances in technology.
~~~
cubancigar11
Directly quoting from Orientalism (E. Said) since he said it best:
"The French philosopher Gaston Bachelard once wrote an analysis of what he
called the poetics of space. The inside of a house, he said, acquires a sense
of intimacy, secrecy, security, real or imagined, because of the experiences
that come to seem appropriate for it. The objective space of a house—its
corners, corridors, cellar, rooms—is far less important than what poetically
it is endowed with, which is usually a quality with an imaginative or
figurative value we can name and feel: thus a house may be haunted, or
homelike, or prisonlike, or magical. So space acquires emotional and even
rational sense by a kind of poetic process, whereby the vacant or anonymous
reaches of distance are converted into meaning for us here. The same process
occurs when we deal with time.
Much of what we associate with or even know about such periods as "long ago"
or "the beginning" or "at the end of time" is poetic — made up. For a
historian of Middle Kingdom Egypt, "long ago" will have a very clear sort of
meaning, but even this meaning does not totally dissipate the imaginative,
quasi-fictional quality one senses lurking in a time very different and
distant from our own. For there is no doubt that imaginative geography and
history help the mind to intensify its own sense of itself by dramatizing the
distance and difference between what is close to it and what is far away."
------
daviddisco
I was surprised to see such accurate depictions of airplanes. This was four
years before the Wright brothers made their first flight.
~~~
kristopolous
That's because those are from 1910:
[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_in_XXI_Century...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_in_XXI_Century._Flying_police.jpg)
while ones from 1899, not so accurate:
[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_in_XXI_Century...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_in_XXI_Century._Air_postman.jpg)
The 1899 depictions are due to earlier models from people like
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_P%C3%A9naud> and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cl%C3%A9ment_Ader>
------
holdenc
I like the strapped-on-whale powered submarine. Any ambitious valley
billionaires ready to fund trips through the ocean on whale powered
submarines? Just make sure to collect the money before they get on the
submarine.
~~~
nsns
Shouldn't we use technology to _stop_ exploiting animals?
------
ekianjo
Well, hotels on the room... we kind of have that with sleeper trains and bar
services in wagons. Not too far :)
And playing sports underwater: already exists.
Net: we did not fail at everything.
------
MojoJolo
I'm really wondering if technology just happens because there's a need, or
just because it was based / inspired on art, movies, etc.
~~~
potatolicious
A bit of both I'd expect. Art is inspired by need, while technology is
informed by art.
See for example cell phones - wireless communication was the need, popularized
in many sci-fi shows in more specific, imaginative forms, and later informed
the actual product (flip phones/Star Trek communicators).
~~~
MojoJolo
I'm also inclined to that answer.
But a quick thought though. Isn't art is inspired by imagination? Which is if
"art is inspired by need", it maybe be just a need based from imagination.
Maybe not a really a need.
------
isuttle
Pretty awesome to see croquet being played on the ocean floor. Why not?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Toward Automated Discovery of Artistic Influence (2014) - lukeplato
http://arxiv.org/abs/1408.3218
======
hprotagonist
Towards[0] a title that doesn't start with "towards"...
[0]: [http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55285/is-
this-a-...](http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55285/is-this-a-tired-
phrase-journal-article-titles-that-start-with-towards-a-the)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Writing Elegant Code with React, Redux and Ramda - hharnisch
https://medium.com/javascript-inside/the-elegance-of-react-ebc21a2dcd19
======
SixSigma
Code always looks elegant until it spends time with A) Users and B) Business
logic
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Canada’s becoming a tech hub thanks to Donald Trump immigration policies - chollida1
https://www.recode.net/2019/3/19/18264391/us-tech-jobs-canada-immigration-policies-trump
======
richjdsmith
I'm sure companies are thrilled to take advantage of our low programmer
salaries compared to our neighbors to the south. Until that divide is narrowed
though, I see no reason Canadian talent will stay in Canada.
~~~
undoware
Canadian talent will go to the US on TN-1s and Canada will still see a net
increase from overseas. Did you read the article?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What are your biggest frustrations with Linux development? - buildops
For those of you who develop using Linux, what are your biggest frustrations?<p>Builds? CI? Testing? Lack of good IDEs? Lack of visualization? Dev tools? Refactoring? What are your challenges? (and of course what environment are you using and how does that affect it?)
======
r3bl
I have to say I'm pretty satisfied, even more than I was before when I was
using Windows.
Everything seems easier to install and I don't need gigabytes of space to
build my environment. (Visual Studio, I'm talking about you!) Working with Git
and gcc was as easy as it can get right at the beginning of my switch. Back in
Windows days, I was primarily using Dev-C++ and a GitHub desktop client (which
I really don't like btw). Now, I'm just using Atom with a couple of third
party extensions.
Although I have to say that I kind of miss the easiness of building desktop
applications using Visual Studio. I haven't found a single IDE that allows me
to create forms with just a few clicks like Visual Studio does. I stopped
paying attention to GUIs for my programs primarily because of that.
~~~
oneweekwonder
If you are willing to do Qt/C++, QtCreator can easily create forms, the same
way as VS.
~~~
giancarlostoro
I have to mention it's not as straight forward last I tried it, but it's still
usable. My lack of C++ understanding has kept me from really getting into Qt /
C++ though.
------
vhf
Lack of good hardware/laptops.
I had a Lenovo X200s for over 4 years and finding a viable replacement is
almost impossible.
I am saddened by the fact that there are no i7 / 16GB / highDPI with decent
keyboard at the price of a 2015 Retina MBP.
~~~
djent
Try a 2015 Dell XPS 13. Fits all your specs, also has a developer edition with
Ubuntu already installed.
~~~
jeletonskelly
Developer edition is not out yet... I thought. I got one a couple months ago
and run Arch on it. Support for the microphone hasn't made it into a kernel
release yet, so I thought they were waiting for that to release the developer
edition.
Also, it only supports 8 gigs max right now. I'm sure a 16g single dimm will
come out eventually, so you could upgrade it yourself.
~~~
beefsack
I believe the RAM is soldered on, upgrades may not be very feasible.
~~~
jeletonskelly
Oh no... you're right. I guess I'll just convince myself that 8GB is TOTALLY
enough :-(
------
scalesolved
I love working on Linux, running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on a Lenovo S540
(lightweight, 16gb ram,i7,ssd). The biggest pain point for me are mainly using
tools that other parts of the business want to use like:
Slack -> No Linux support, Zoom (video conferencing) -> Early beta support,
1Password -> I use last pass instead.
Macs have really dominated some areas of the tech scene especially in the non
engineering sections of the business, thus collaboration tools and such seem
to be Mac orientated or Mac only.
In every other respect I'm far more comfortable and productive on Linux.
~~~
Foxboron
But slack do have Linux "support". You can just use the IRC gateway through
any Linux clients, or look up a project like slk,
[https://github.com/drikin/slk](https://github.com/drikin/slk)
There are also projects that wrap around 1Password.
[http://www.lucianofiandesio.com/1password-in-
linux](http://www.lucianofiandesio.com/1password-in-linux)
It's far from perfect. But the great thing with Linux in my opinion is that
there are always alternatives.
~~~
scalesolved
Oh yeah, my only minor grumblings against it are lack of one or two clients, I
think with Slack's case I'd like to see them make an official client, with
$160m in funding I'm sure there is leeway to get an official linux client in
the works. Thanks for the slk link, gonna check it out! :)
------
staticelf
What I think really lack in Linux is:
\- Good hardware that is nice to use (look beautiful) and works well with
Linux.
\- A great IDE that doesn't look like shit right out of the box. I know many
can be configured and tampered with, but I simply do not enjoy that enough to
go through the pain.
Otherwise, my biggest pain and why I definately go back to Windows is that I
can't play my games on my machine. Many games still only work on Windows or
works much better on Windows due to bad graphics drivers.
I really like Linux, I always use it as a server or to host stuff. But in the
later years of my life I simply get too frustrated (often with small stuff) to
keep using Linux as my main desktop operating system.
At work I use a macbook because it has nice to use hardware with desktop
software that is more polished than any linux distro but still keep the unix
feel.
~~~
nextos
I think the trick is to cherry-pick laptops. There's only a handful of decent
laptops in the market that run Linux very well (drivers in kernel, perfect
powersaving, ACPI events from battery, etc).
My MacBook Air 11 inch 2012 (formerly used by Linus) is pretty good. So were
some Lenovos like x220. These days Chromebook Pixel or Dell XPS hold some
promise. Also cheap Chromebooks like some Acer and some Asus. I have my eyes
on cheap ARM machines for their capability to run blobless (e.g. Asus C201).
~~~
collyw
The keyboard is missing keys (like delete) and there is no button on the
mouse. Small things but pretty annoying if you are used to clicking the middle
button for pasting. And the battery seems to last about half of the time
compared to OSX
~~~
nextos
I get an _extra_ 10-20 min in Linux vs OS X thanks to powertop tweaks
implemented via udev rules and a minimal desktop with a tiling WM and no
desktop environment.
But I agree on the annoying omissions. I hate no dedicated insert, although
shift + backspace works well.
------
forgottenpass
The debugging workflow is a mess.
The visual studio debugger is great. gdb and various front ends for it are all
various levels of not so great. There is a better featureset in gdb for the
very skilled users to do tricky things, but it's still a bear to learn and get
conformable with.
Putting the .build-id directory on the network and getting subsitute-path
pointing at the right location to debug a continuous integration build from 16
months ago? The hardest part is happening to learn those features exist, and
the legwork to make it quick and easy to use is PITA too.
Some developers... they just want to open the visual studio debugger and smash
"step over/into" until their code works. This isn't the best approach to
development and they should probably do a bit more "sit and think about the
code" in their development. But professionally I have to support this
workflow, it's much smoother in VS than when targeting linux. And it's not an
excuse for bad debugging tools either, sometimes you do need to spend a day in
the debugger to solve things.
------
elektronjunge
Development tools on linux continue to be great. A visual studio quality ide
would be nice, but realistically I'd continue to use vim and the terminal.
What really irks me is the desktop environment situation. I haven't had a
linux install in a couple of years and it seems that all of the desktops have
gotten worse in the last few years. Unity continues to add on terrible
features and follows the similar ui antipatterns and gnome 3 has. KDE4/5 are
decent but very heavy. Xfce and lxde are great but you occasionally run into
some weirdly missing features (no font manager -- why?) that make you pull in
gnome/kde and question why you picked a lightweight desktop in the first
place. I'm not sold on the tiling window managers, ya the tiling is nice, but
they look terrible, require way too much config, and sometimes I just want to
use the mouse damn it.
~~~
uxcn
Linux Mint might be an option. It's essentially Ubuntu, but it swaps GNOME for
Cinnamon which does away with a lot of the more recent GNOME changes.
------
uxcn
I prefer developing with Linux. There are generally more tools available than
Mac and Windows. Some of the ones I use are xmonad, tmux, vim (nvim), ag, ycm,
clang, gcc, gdb, cmake, make, ninja, perf, valgrind, strace, etc... Compared
to Windows, even just having a decent shell with coreutils is huge. If there
is something that a tool doesn't already do, I can generally combine other
ones to do it. For example, _sed_ can handle basic refactoring. It's also
generally easier to install new tools through the package manager (I use
Funtoo).
I know a lot of people tend to prefer cleanly polished IDEs, and I do use
eclipse and eclim for java development, but normally IDEs tend to get in the
way for me. As for the specific questions, building definitely isn't an issue
and there are plenty of cross-platform build systems when it's needed.
Continuous integration is usually handled separately on a build server
(hudson, jenkins, team city, etc...). In fact, a lot of the collaborative
tools for things like continuous integration and issue tracking are mostly
usable via web applications (bugzilla, jira, etc...).
My biggest frustration is when tools that aren't usable on Linux get
standardized on. Outlook is the easiest example, but for anything where it's
absolutely necessary it's extremely easy to run a virtual machine with kvm and
libvirt.
~~~
buildops
Are you having issues with speed? You can't accelerate Scons or most other
Make tools, and CI is still slow when running thousands of tests.
~~~
uxcn
No. In most scenarios, make can parallelize builds and where compiling and re-
compiling are still bottlenecks distcc and ccache generally scale. LLVM also
tends to compile faster. For larger projects, cmake can also theoretically
generate a configuration for ninja (faster than make) only changing the
command line.
As for testing, I haven't really seen bottlenecks with integration and unit
tests. If anything, running continuous integration on Linux should be as fast
or faster though. I tend to use googletest where I can.
------
zoner
I'm mainly developing PHP applications (Magento, Symfony) And I found Linux
much easier. Back in 2000 (ish), when I switched to Linux the biggest
confusion was the different format of configuration files and scripts. In
Windows, I get used to .ini files and .bat batch scripts. When I switched to
Linux (well, it was more like a slow process) I was confused about this.
Fetchmail config format, the apt sources tree format (which seemed to be an
.ini) and all the config files in /etc was all different. I finally managed to
get my emails fetched and sorted to different folders based on topic and
sender, using Fetchmail, then I was happy to read them in Mutt. The UI looked
terrible (well, it was text after all) so I tried Balsa and used it for years,
then Sylpheed, Claws Mail, still backed with Fetchmail. I can imagine that the
different GUI libraries would confusing others, but I always managed to sort
my installation to use only one. If I had KDE, I installed only KDE or at
least Qt programs. If I had GNOME, then so that it. Nowadays, I use AwesomeWM
mainly with 3 or 4 software only, on 3 screens: the first screen is the
terminal with tmux, the second (middle) is the browser, Thunderbird, the third
is Sublime, so I don't get nervous about installing different libraries.
With all of these, Linux felt better than Windows and it's openness and
community support encouraged me to discover more and more. Back in those days
I really tried every programming language I could: Java, Ruby, C, C++ and I
had no confusion learning and using these on Linux. I was only confused when
sometimes I had to switch back to Windows. The lack of documentation, missing
libraries, unpredictable crashes on software upgrades (which came from
different sources, absolutely without automation, manually running
setup.exe's) and different UX, unsought taskbar icons really annoyed me. Now
if I sit in front of a Windows PC, I feel it's just an useless gadget.
Linux was the cause I became a software developer.
I have only experience with one IDE, which was Netbeans. I used it mostly for
developing Rails applications and I found this was the only IDE which does not
get in my way. I just can't get used to PHPStorm today and I found Eclipse too
slow, so I'm using Sublime as my primary editor now. Before it was Geany,
gEdit or just Vim. I was never able to learn Emacs, but probably it's my fault
:)
------
towb
I did the switch from OS X to linux about six months ago and I am pretty much
using the same tools for front and back end web stuff. Then there is a huge
plus for all the free new knowledge you get from using linux as a "power
user", so if anything, the switch made it easier to deal with all kinds of
things.
I suppose the question was more about low level development than in my case,
where tools depend more on the system it's run on, but for me it has only been
positive.
------
kurjam
Don't really have any frustrations to be honest. All my personal projects and
stuff I do for fun (both mostly in ruby) I do on ubuntu 14.04. Use VIM, a lot
of plugins and some custom CLI tools. Have never tried developing on Mac,
though so maybe I just don't know what am I missing (windows isn't even a
thing for ruby devs. And for good reason).
Only thing I'm kind of missing/sad about is lack of games on Ubuntu. Upside,
though, I won't get lost in a "quick 20 minute brawl to clear my brain" that
never lasts 20 minutes....
For sake of honesty, I do my daily job on windows. Stuff I use there is
awesome. VS is nice, Windows domain works well enough and lync, outlook,
fiddler, slack etc. are all nice. If, for w/e weird reason, I had to do my
daily job on linux, I would be sad.
But most likely, I'm not frustrated with linux because I chose to use it for
fun etc. If, in any point in my life, I would have been forced to use linux,
I'd probably find a lot of problems with it.
//EDIT And uhm. I've never really had any problems with linux and hardware.
For personal stuff I still run an old thinkpad t420s which hardware gets along
with linux a lot nicer than it did with windows 8. Touchpad acts a bit better,
touchpads 3rd button actually provides some nice functionality and most
importantly, gsm card worked out of the box (something I never got up and
running on windows 8). Once more, for sake of honesty, it shipped with windows
7 so maybe the drivers provided for the gsm card aren't compatible with win8.
who knows.
Never had any problems with my desktops running Linux nor my previous thinkpad
either.
------
navinsylvester
No gripes since Linux is by far the best development environment for most
technologies. I am running Ubuntu desktop(Gnome) vms inside my macbook pro and
macbook mini but going to install Ubuntu on metal itself. I like apple
hardware not much their OS(especially for development). Use quite a handful of
Ubuntu server edition without GUI for development and testing too. CLI can be
as ease for development but with right tools and config.
Tools: vim/nano, curl, grep, rsync, find, mitmproxy, autossh, tar, syslog,
seige, top, wget, netstat, lsof, sed, df, du, ifconfig, iptables -L, ping,
dig, traceroute, strace, screen, tcpdump, telnet, history
Dev setup config: pathogen.vim, ssh custom host config, ssh keyless entry, ssh
tunnel, .bashrc/.bash_profile, alias, /etc/init.d/, .gitignore,
vurtualenv(python), vagrant, docker, bash script for automation, supervisord
As a desktop user - I am a big fan of Gnome but just don't see GTK going
anywhere. My bias towards Gnome is due to it's design principle. Wish for a Qt
Webkit like layer on top of Gnome for native application development. For some
reason KDE seems cluttered to me but to their advantage they have Qt.
------
andrewchambers
Personally, I can't find a text editor I like. The closest I came was acme
from plan9, shown here
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP1xVpMPn8M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP1xVpMPn8M).
I would love to see an editor which clones acme, but follows a few of the
modern ui conventions.
------
bloodorange
* Having to make efforts to keep the system working smoothly after regular system updates
* Hardware vendors not showing much love
~~~
hga
I use server/workstation parts for systems (not a laptop guy), so that's not
so much of a problem, but can still be an issue with e.g. having to use a
newer kernel that's not getting security update love.
The update issue can be problematical with not all that many distros providing
Long Term Support. systemd + Debian's short term support, one year after a new
version plus a volunteer effort starting with squeeze is prompting me to
abandon it and its famed stability between releases. I'm trying Alpine for
Xen, with probably the current LTS Ubuntu without default systemd for
development and who knows what else on VMs.
Ah, yeah, the chaos in GUIs is not good, e.g. Gnome going off in a bogus
direction after version 2. I'm happy enough for now with Xfce, but its got
less mindshare.
------
captn3m0
1\. Fragmentation. Getting something as simple as a bluetooth speaker is a
challenge depending on which distro you are on.
2\. Package management. Again, a package may be available under vastly
different names or config depending on what your distro overlords decided
3\. Second class Citizens. Games and software that I want to use is very often
never available for Linux. Companies that used to develop are dropping it
(ynab). Indie game devs are picking it up, but companies like GitHub are still
to even commit to a linux client. Google Drive for Linux was announced more
than 3 years back to be under development, but is still unreleased.
I still love Linux, and refuse to switch to Mac (despite almost everyone
around me doing so). This is mostly because I love how easy and
straightforward it is to develop in Linux.
------
axle_512
From my experience several years ago:
Distributing binaries for Linux was complex. libstdc++ compatibility across
distros or different versions within a single distro wasn't great.
(Compared to Solaris, it seemed like libraries were always backwards
compatible. Running old binaries always just worked.)
------
danwakefield
Using xubuntu, switched from crunchbang a year ago after a drive failure.
It has some weird problems like forcing gnome-keyring-daemon to run which
breaks ssh-agent. The only fix I have found to to create a wrapper script that
always disables its ssh component.
I sometimes get focus issues requiring me to tab through the windows to
refocus the correct one.
I dislike the practice of littering my home directory with dotfiles. I prefer
them to be put in .config. I have 10 directories in $HOME and another 85
dotfiles/dirs there at the moment.
New ubuntu versions start you out with capitalized folder names which is
annoying.
NetworkManager often bugs out. displaying in a tiny one line box you have to
scroll through or disabling wifi when i attempt to start a VPN connection. I
cant be bothered to learn wicd though
------
PatKelly
I develop applications in C++ on Linux and Windows. On windows I can enable
heap tracing and have leak detection included in my test cases (Google
mock/test). On Linux I need to run my app under Valgrind for leak checking as
a separate process.
~~~
padenot
You want to make ASAN builds (simply build with clang or gcc > 4.8 with
-fsanitize=address on the command line).
Then you can break in a debugger, and do some tricks, explained in this page:
[https://code.google.com/p/address-
sanitizer/wiki/AddressSani...](https://code.google.com/p/address-
sanitizer/wiki/AddressSanitizerAndDebugger).
This will also detect any memory trashing or the like, while being quite fast
(compared to valgrind, of course). Then if things are really weird, you can
use valgrind.
------
karka91
Unstable virtual box networking on my arch machine that requires occasional
suspend and resume of a vm. No good looking and stable gui client for mysql.
I've been doing dev with linux for most of my carrier and I honestly don't
know why would someone use another os. Windows dev looks very weird to me with
trillions of popups, little windows and checkboxes. Mac looks like it's trying
to replicate linux tooling and while it's pretty good you still need to jump
some hoops
------
jamespcole2
My biggest frustration with Linux development is how poor it has made windows
development env look in comparison. Every time I have to fire up a windows VM
to do some work for some of our clients that still use MS tech I hate it.
Before using Linux as a dev environment I honestly thought windows and the
associated dev tools were really good. Now using anything else seems like a
huge chore.
------
jules
Anything sysadminy like building third party libraries or configuring tools
and getting them to work. I just want to write code, not fight with
installation and configuration. Editors and dev tools are all fine after they
are installed and configured.
------
Happpy
Thinkpad running fedora, a dream come true.
------
SFjulie1
Dealing with lazy people asking stupid questions and making everyone loose
time and resisting the urge to pick on them.
~~~
czardoz
Sometimes, people just don't know.
~~~
collyw
Most of the time techies don't know either, but have a sensible approach to
finding out.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Announce Day - YC W12 Applicants Chat on Wompt - abtinf
http://wompt.com/chat/yc#
======
simonw
W12 applicants: remember, your participation in YC isn't something you
necessarily want to publicise straight away. Announcing you are YC funded is a
press story in its own right (here's our story from when we announced our YC
participation: <http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/31/lanyrd/> ) - you should hold
on to the story until the right moment.
Just something to bear in mind.
~~~
Shenglong
It's easy to be overwhelmed by excitement. I'm sure everyone will appreciate
the reminder.
------
plamb
Also having issues; after logging in through google no people appear and I
can't type in the chat box; tried twitter and got some sort of socket error
after hitting 'sign in'.
~~~
SoftwarePatent
Using twitter gave me a socket error, Google worked.
------
patrickod
I logged into my Facebook account to participate in the chat and now the site
refuses to function. Anyone else having a similar problem?
~~~
abtinf
Thats odd. I would clear cookies and then try a different auth method.
------
Achshar
so exactly when are we getting our emails? or will the list be published
online?
~~~
psionic7
Also do they email the whole team?
~~~
Achshar
AFAIK, no. just the main contact..
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google's Top Stories Promoted Misinformation About the Vegas Shooting from 4Chan - Firebrand
https://gizmodo.com/googles-top-stories-promoted-misinformation-about-the-l-1819053288
======
aaron695
If you are searching for “Geary Danley” after the shooting then the result you
want 99.999% would have been the 4chan article or similar.
Google gave the exact information people wanted, no? He was a meme, people
searched for the meme and got it.
They offer up no evidence that this “Geary Danley” story was brought up
incorrectly on other search terms where it would have been inappropriate such
as "shooting", "shooter", "las vegas" etc
Do we want Google to hide a meme spreading around the community?
~~~
mikeyouse
> _Do we want Google to hide a meme spreading around the community?_
How is this even a question? Of course you want them to hide the "meme" of a
man falsely accused of mass murder. Google placed the 4chan threads in the
section normally reserved for news.
~~~
aaron695
So exactly why are you searching for "Geary Danley"? Are you interviewing him
for a job next week? Randomly sat on the keyboard?
Or like everyone who is searching on him you want more information.
Which is, it's from a 4chan thread, the exact information you'd be looking
for. The source.
As more reputable news sources get on board with alternate stories on the name
they will displace the 4chan article for searches on the exact name, as should
happen.
Until then you are hiding the narrative and the stories origin.
So no, in a educated, free society I don't want things hidden from me. I can
decide for myself if 4chan is reputable as a news source.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Whatever happened to Gallium-Arsenide? - rbanffy
https://www.quora.com/Whatever-happened-to-Gallium-Arsenide-Why-did-the-need-for-GaAs-go-away-What-technology-solved-the-problem-it-was-supposed-to-address?share=1
======
gaspoweredcat
Thank you for this, i remember reading about it back when single core chips
were hitting absurd temps (if memory serves the headlines were something like
"top end p4 produces more heat per mm2 than a thermo nuclear power plant")
before they managed to find another way there was much talk of GaAs
just for fun id love to see what a GaAs Bitcoin mining ASIC could do but i
seriously doubt anyone will be producing one of them
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
IDA Home is coming - custardfan5
https://www.hex-rays.com/products/ida-home-is-coming/
======
roblabla
Too little, too late. I'll keep using Ghidra, which is free, open source, and
doesn't crash every time I look at it wrong, thank you very much.
Ghidra is absolutely amazing - I've been using it since release and it's been
a huge breath of fresh air compared to the hot mess IDA is. Ghidra has great
APIs, which are really well documented. It has a very powerful decompiler. It
comes with a built-in, programable emulator for every platform! It has a
built-in way to do collaborative reverse engineering! And it's super easy to
modify the Sleigh if there's something that needs tweaking to improve the
decompiler output!
Not to mention, adding your own CPU is reasonably simple - all you have to do
is write a "Sleigh" description of your architecture (basically map CPU
instructions to PCode) and it gives you the disassembler, decompiler, and
emulator for free.
~~~
bogomipz
I've only just heard of Ghidra so I was happy to see your comment. I had a
quick question - what is the learning curve like for Ghidra?
I noticed earlier this week that there is a forthcoming book from NoStarch
about Ghidra. There's a sample chapter available in case anyone is interested:
[https://nostarch.com/GhidraBook](https://nostarch.com/GhidraBook)
~~~
brunoqc
coupon: OPERATION
------
xvilka
Note, there is a free and open-source alternative for both the console world
and GUI one - radare2[1] + Cutter[2] combo. Both are native and highly
portable, no Java inside. And they support various decompilers, including
Ghidra'one[3] and Retdec[4].
[1]
[https://github.com/radareorg/radare2](https://github.com/radareorg/radare2)
[2] [https://github.com/radareorg/cutter](https://github.com/radareorg/cutter)
[3] [https://github.com/radareorg/r2ghidra-
dec](https://github.com/radareorg/r2ghidra-dec)
[4]
[https://github.com/avast/retdec-r2plugin](https://github.com/avast/retdec-r2plugin)
~~~
cjbprime
Any news on debugger integration with Cutter? The combination of working
decompiler and stable debugger would get me to switch for sure.
~~~
xvilka
Debugger works already. There is a room for improvement, but basic features
are here already.
~~~
cjbprime
Hm, I think I tried it once and it just crashed immediately on a simple
binary. Is this r2's debugger or gdb/lldb?
~~~
xvilka
It's r2 debugger that supports native mode for all platforms, remote gdb/lldb,
remote WinDbg, and a few more exotic options. Both Cutter and radare2 are
developed with quite a pace, if you meet any bug - reach us and we'll try to
fix it as soon as possible. This year we were accepted into Google Summer of
Code 2020, and students will work on a few interesting projects [1].
[1]
[https://www.radare.org/gsoc/2020/ideas.html](https://www.radare.org/gsoc/2020/ideas.html)
------
alasdair_
Hex Rays need to take a look at how JetBrains (IntelliJ) handled the same
problem.
Initially, most students and home users I knew used a cracked copy because
there was no way in hell any of the students I knew had a spare $500 to pay
for an IDE.
JetBrains seemed to realize this so first, they made a "self purchase" option
that was half the price (or less) and belonged solely to the developer that
bought it, with the caveat that they had to use their own funds. It could be
used commercially too - this was the option to take if your boss couldn't be
convinced to buy you a commercial license and you still wanted to use it
legally.
Next, they made their tools free for people working on open source projects.
Then they made a version that had almost all the features available for free
(it may have originally been only for non-commercial use but it's fine to use
commercially now).
Then they worked with Google to make their free tool the default for Android
development, which added many more users.
Then they switched to a monthly licensing scheme that was about $12 a month
for a single product (while retaining the ability to outright buy a copy if
you wanted to).
Almost everything that IntelliJ does is possible with open source competitors,
but I still pay for it because of the level of polish they apply to each
feature and the intuitiveness of each feature.
I think that if a $12/month copy was available initially, the number of
cracked copies being used would have gone down dramatically.
EDIT: Photoshop did something similar. NO ONE I knew that used it for home use
had a real license because it was so damn expensive, but I know plenty of
people paying $15/month or so for access.
~~~
tomc1985
Unlike Adobe, JetBrains will periodically give you a perpetual license for the
most recent version. I really wish Adobe would do this.
------
daeken
I've been using IDA Pro for over 15 years, for hobbies and my job, and I am
thoroughly unimpressed with this offering. I get that Ghidra is eating their
lunch, but this is a poor attempt to claw back some marketshare. Unless your
only job is doing Windows malware analysis, this just isn't going to cut it;
no decompiler and single CPU family both kill it.
In any given month, it's likely I'll end up disassembling x86-64, AArch64, and
MIPS at the very least; that would cost me nearly $1200/year to do that as a
hobbyist using IDA Home, or $0/year with Ghidra. For me, there's huge value in
the muscle memory I've built with IDA, and generally I get my job to pay for a
license, but the odds of me still using it in 2025 are quickly dwindling to
zero. They need to make a big, big change or they're going to lose all of us.
------
jchw
Swing and a miss.
My problem with IDA Pro isn’t even the license cost. It’s the licensing
unfairness. Costs get multiplied a bunch of times if you want to work across
multiple host OSes or want both 32 bit and 64 bit decompilation for an
architecture.
I’m sure they know this stuff drives away home users, hence IDA Home. Where
they miss, is what home users do. Home users do _everything_. I’ve seen people
using Ghidra with 8-bit processors.
I don’t imagine things will continue to work out well with this strategy if
Ghidra gets support for debugging and continues to receive improvements for
its decompiler. Ghidra is already immensely useful _today_.
~~~
HHad3
I am wondering whether there is a management issue at Hex-Rays. The newly
released company website features a page which appears to advertise against
the product [1], because it entirely misses who their audience is.
The core point made regarding why IDA is a superior product despite license
unfairness is vendor support. However, the authors seem to miss that the
target audience of IDA are tinkerers, who would be fine with fixing their own
tools as long as the issues are only on the surface.
Hex-Rays is not Oracle, who can afford to live from license unfairness because
their product is embedded deeply into the livelihood of so many large
companies. Hex-Rays provides just a tool, which I have already replaced by
Cutter with Radare2 and Ghidra's decompiler in my workflow.
I would not use IDA Home even if it was free due to its limitations and lack
of Hex-Rays' Decompiler.
[1] [https://www.hex-rays.com/products/ida/compelling-reasons-
to-...](https://www.hex-rays.com/products/ida/compelling-reasons-to-use-ida/)
~~~
lallysingh
Holy crap that's an awful website. It stinks of clueless desperation. I wasn't
sure about trying Ghidra until seeing that site.
~~~
kube-system
Wow I don't think I've ever seen marketing that bad that wasn't satire.
It is literally shit-talking their own product.
> Isn’t IDA an aging software?
> Doesn’t it have shortcomings?
> Or structural limitations?
> Also… It’s closed source, right?
> And how about its high price tag?
> Well sure [...]
I didn't have half of these preconceptions before reading this page.... but
now I do.
------
heipei
I really don't get Hex Rays and their licensing. I've seen it first-hand a lot
of times: The kind of tinkerers and hackers that would use this in their spare
time usually won't spend even a dollar on software, but the minute they are
hired by a large corporation they get an IDA license along with their laptop.
They should release a free home version with mostly the same features
(especially Hex-Rays, nobody uses IDA without it) and just prohibit commercial
use in the terms of use. The kind of companies that already shell out tens of
thousands every year for IDA licenses will happily oblige by the "no-
commercial-use-with-the-home-edition" terms... If you want to curtail feature
set then make a compelling set of features for enterprises (e.g. builtin
collaboration, annotation sharing, fuzzy function search) and then make that
exclusive to the commercial version, not the decompiler. Just my two cents...
~~~
saagarjha
Considering the amount of concern put into detecting IDA piracy, making it
that accessible seems counter to Hex-Ray’s goals.
~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
It's actually faintly amusing. I suppose if you're going to try and protect
reverse engineering software against cracks, you're going to have to throw in
a _lot_ of effort or you're just wasting your time.
~~~
saagarjha
Hex-Rays throws in a fair amount of effort. (Apparently not enough, though,
because IDA cracks do exist…)
------
ZeroCool2u
Back in 2013 or 2014 I was in school for my CS degree and was getting
interested in binary analysis.
This was pre-Ghidra's release obviously, so I looked around for disassembler
and came across IDA. I couldn't find a student version, so I actually emailed
them asking about it.
The answer I got was a prompt, but terse, "No, sorry.".
I always wondered, how do you expect to gain mind-share if you won't even
throw an undergrad a trial license? Regardless, it looks like Ghidra is eating
IDA's lunch and at $365/year this doesn't seem like an adequate response.
~~~
lol768
Seems to be a common story in this area. I remember asking the Hopper folks if
they'd do even an academic discount and it was similarly a no. Their argument
was that it was on par with some academic textbooks .. maybe in the USA, but I
never bought a textbook throughout my 3 year CS degree! That's what the
library and electronic resources were for.
I concede it was more accessibly priced than e.g. IDA but it's definitely a
shame HexRays and others aren't as willing to allow non-commercial educational
use. I think they'd benefit in the long run, you'd definitely have some folks
using the products they're familiar with commercially after a few years.
Meanwhile for software development, you have companies like JetBrains and
GitHub offering premium products completely free of price.
~~~
saagarjha
Hopper has (or used to have) student discounts…
~~~
XMPPwocky
From my email in 2015,
> Thank you for your interest in Hopper. Yes, I usually offer a 20% discount
> to students. If you are still interested, please let me know, and I’ll
> prepare an invoice for you.
------
tux3
If this is a reaction to Ghidra, I'm really glad Hex-Rays is reacting
positively to the competition! I'm not an IDA Pro customer, but I know people
have been asking for something like this for years. I'm actually tempted to
buy this.
But that said, I'm still pretty wary about IDA's sales process. There seems to
be many negative stories, talking about what a frustrating & arbitrary
experience it has been in the past. If even Tavis Ormandy is being treated
poorly, that doesn't give me much confidence as a prospective Home user.
Hopefully things will have improved substantially!
And then there's little things like Linux and Windows licenses being sold
separately, so I have a choice between running IDA in Wine, or almost doubling
the price I'm being quoted.
But still, I think this is a very promising move! And the price might seem
high for hobbyist use now that there are very high quality free alternatives,
but compared to the previous high four digits quotes it's practically a
bargain =]
Let's see where this goes.
~~~
jjoonathan
> I'm still pretty wary about IDA's sales process.
Yeah, I got bit.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19316240](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19316240)
Hopefully the site redesign means they've given other parts of their sales
process some love, too: in particular, their self-service tool and their
policy of forbidding people from registering personal licenses to personal
emails.
EDIT: Looks like I got a reply from ilfak himself, but it was 6 days later and
I didn't see it. If anyone from hex-rays is listening, here's a subject line
with some order numbers in it: "Hex-Rays Invoice 2016-2240 orderID: (my-last-
name)_4732_20160515". My email is (HN-username)@gmail. I never did get that
license working, I'd greatly appreciate a reset.
~~~
ilfak
Since you gave more details, we could check it out and the outcome is: you
gave us your professional email address and we sent your license to it. So,
from our perspective, it looks like a successfully completed transaction. As
you have confirmed, you even received the invoice. You never came back with
any complaints, so my guess is that you received your license. Now, 4 years
later, you are saying that the license was not working. What was the problem
and why did you never contact us?
------
hannibalhorn
I find Hopper Disassembler just as good and the price is certainly much more
reasonable, especially when it's for occasional use - I get out a disassembler
to figure out undocumented/weird behavior maybe 4-5 times a year. IDA just
isn't the only game in town anymore..
------
lawnchair_larry
Sorry Hex Rays, your licensing is still poor, and you ignored your potential
and former customers for too long. Ghidra for life.
------
dang
Ok, it's coming, but there's no harm in waiting until it gets here. This is an
announcement of an announcement. Those are off-topic. A thread now just
duplicates whatever discussion will happen later, only generically and with
less information.
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22no%20harm%20in%20waiting%22&sort=byDate&type=comment)
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22announcement%20of%20an%20announcement%22&sort=byDate&type=comment)
Edit: well, this thread is unusually good, so maybe we'll relax the objection
this time.
------
mmm_grayons
Ghidra is better than IDA for almost every use case I've found. I was working
on reversing a bunch of mipsel binaries; Ghidra's decompiler worked, IDA
didn't. I also tried r2 with Cutter, which did a decent job and had by far the
slickest UI. Just my two cents.
------
mmxmb
"IDA Home has been exclusively designed to bring the experience of IDA Pro to
reverse-engineers hobbyists, for the equivalent of 1$ a day!"
I find it strange to imply that a RE hobbyist would use this software every
single day.
~~~
matz1
a lot of hobby is much more expensive than that...
------
beefhash
What even is this timeline anymore.
Though I don't see this recapturing the casual reverse engineering market that
Ghidra ate for lunch unless they have very compelling IDA Home pricing for the
decompilers as well (the “One processor family of choice from the most common
processors: PC, ARM, M68K, MIPS, PPC” statement is kind of vague about that).
------
banachtarski
Note: I reverse in my spare time and have occasionally been called on to
reverse at work. I find subscription based pricing for software like this
completely disagreeable.
~~~
non-entity
The only subscription for desktop software I've found I liked is Jetbrains and
that's mostly due to me getting their entire product line dirt cheap.
~~~
mdaniel
They also have a "perpetual fallback license," though which the product
becomes __yours __after a year or so; thus, you 're incentivized to stay on
the subscription, but if you decide to get off the train then your software
doesn't evaporate (:eyes: 1Password.com)
[https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-
gb/articles/207240845](https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-
gb/articles/207240845)
------
non-entity
I've only recently gotten into reverse engineering as a hobby recently and
have so far just used Ida Free and Ghidra to stuff. From what I've read it
seems a lot of people are disappointed on the lack of the decompiler being
included with this. How good is Ida's decompiler? I've tried using the Ghidra
decompiler, and tbh I'd rather just stick with raw assembly than what normally
gets generated from that.
~~~
roblabla
Ghidra and IDA's decompiler are fairly similar in my experience. There are
some specific situations when one is better than the other, but overall both
do a really good job at recovering the control flow. One thing IDA has that I
miss from Ghidra is a way to split/merge variables from the UI. In IDA, I can
tell the decompiler that two variables are actually the same, and it will
merge them.
------
sickygnar
IDA's license was too expensive for someone who wants to tinker, which is
probably most people who want to use it. I almost feel bad for hex-rays now
though, it's gotta be tough to compete with an excellent, free, state-
sponsored tool like Ghidra. I would have gladly paid a reasonably, hobbyist
monthly license fee for IDA for what I was doing (video game reversing in my
free time). If I were using it professionally I would have paid for a
professional license. It doesn't seem like hex-rays trusts anyone though -
unsurprising considering their domain.
------
inamberclad
Sounds like everyone like Ghidra now. I know people were leery of NSA tech at
first, but people's opinions have changed?
~~~
tW4r
Ghidra is open source so it makes it a bit easier to trust NSA on this
------
Thaxll
So the decompiler is not included?
~~~
ship_it
No, sorry
------
adamnemecek
$365 is still a lot for a hobbyist. Also I'm always entertained when Europeans
put the dollar sign after the amount as opposed to before (I'm also European
and it took me forever to notice this).
~~~
solarkraft
I do it intentionally, to annoy back the americans who write stuff like €30
... and because it makes sense zo me to write the unit after the value, or at
least have a standard way of doing it.
~~~
Cu3PO42
I hate to break it to you, but where currency symbols are placed is mostly a
language convention and not so much dependent on the the currency itself. €30
is very much correct when speaking English. In fact, it is the style
recommended in the European Commission's style guide [1].
That means there is a standard way of doing it, it just depends on your
language. If you were speaking German you'd also write 30,00$ and not $30.00.
All of that said, I agree that the inconsistency with all other units is weird
and unnecessary, but languages just are that way sometimes.
[1]
[https://publications.europa.eu/code/en/en-370303.htm#positio...](https://publications.europa.eu/code/en/en-370303.htm#position)
~~~
solarkraft
Interesting, thanks for the guideline. I'm not sure what to think about it
yet, since I'm also referring to consistency towards other units (nobody
writes "cm 20").
------
fredsanford
Well, I think Johnny and Deneice said it better than I ever could...
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3ceb5OVG7k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3ceb5OVG7k)
------
nikanj
Does this only support 64-bit applications? In the Windows world, apps are
still about 50/50\. Does it include the decompiler?
------
zerr
How big is the legit usage demand for this? I imagine the vast majority of
users are crackers.
~~~
cjbprime
Do you mean crackers as in people doing illegal things? Malware analysis and
exploit development are two large professional subfields of infosec.
~~~
zerr
Yeah, those who produce patchers (i.e. cracks) and keygens for proprietary
software, which is quite a big scene.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cambridge Analytica: The Data That Turned the World Upside Down - lakeeffect
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/big-data-cambridge-analytica-brexit-trump
======
conistonwater
I'm loath to uncritically accept the claims of this article. It just tells you
what they did and how Cambridge Analytica thought it had an impact. How do
they actually know it worked? The claims are pretty strong, yet the article
reads a little like marketing copy for the company. After all, _a lot_ of
things happened in the election, really _a lot_. Plus, the whole thing about
"shadowy private company relying on subconscious decision-making" does kinda
set off my bullshit alarms.
~~~
zby
Cory Doctorow agrees: [https://boingboing.net/2017/02/01/trumps-big-data-
secret-sau...](https://boingboing.net/2017/02/01/trumps-big-data-secret-
sau.html)
And a more thorough debunking: [http://civichall.org/civicist/will-the-real-
psychometric-tar...](http://civichall.org/civicist/will-the-real-psychometric-
targeters-please-stand-up/)
With this quote: "I have described them as the Theranos of political data: I
think they have a tremendous marketing department, coupled with a team of
research scientists who provide on virtually none of those marketing
promises." :)
But on a second thought. Planting this story is a masterpiece of promotion -
and isn't this kind of similar to promoting a politician?
~~~
edjw
It looks like it's more that Cory Doctorow agrees with Cathy O'Neil
[https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-01/trump-
s-s...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-01/trump-s-secret-
sauce-is-just-more-ketchup)
------
crawfordcomeaux
Whether or not I agree with the premise of Cambridge Analytics's services
directly leading to the Trump campaign emotionally manipulating loads of
disparate groups into electing him, it's alarming how easy it is to conceive
of someone intentionally doing such a thing at such a scale.
YC made a request for startups targeting news and democracy the other day. I'd
like to propose additional underlying unmet societal needs:
Emotional resiliency & nonviolent communication.
~~~
wheelerwj
We've all known that this has been coming for a long, long time. Education
won't get the job done. Strong business ethics won't either.
No, this shit needs to be regulated into the ground. No more of this opt in
bullshit, no more selling data that was never yours to sell, we have to cut
out immediately. We MUST limit the amount of datapoints that can be used for
advertising and we must limit access to that data with much stronger privacy
laws by outlining EXACTLY what data is being collected, providing consumers
access to that data, and not allowing business to sell data that to other
business. Internal use only, that has to be the rule.
Freedom of thought is at stake, we have to act fast or we are totally boned.
~~~
yummyfajitas
You lose the "freedom of thought" simply because a computer does exactly the
same thing that a good salesman would do, simply at scale?
~~~
dredmorbius
A hydrogen bomb does the same thing that Greek Fire does, at scale.
The gas turbine does the same thing the ox does, at scale.
Mustard gas does the same thing a bee does, at scale.
_Scale fucking matters._
~~~
yummyfajitas
Your examples illustrate my point quite well. It is (and should be) illegal to
pour greek fire on even 1 person - small scale doesn't make the action ok.
Does this mean we should pass a law against salesmen, and just general
interpersonal persuasion? If not, why not?
~~~
dredmorbius
I'm going to try to put my finger on the nature of your comments that's
troubled me for quite some time.
A key element that's lacking seems to be the principle of charity: seeking a
sympathetic understanding of an idea presented, and interpretation of ideas in
their most persuasive form.
I don't believe I've ever seen you do that. You might care to give it a
thought.
[http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/charity.html](http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/charity.html)
I'll through your questions back at you:
How is Greek Fire unlike a hydrogen bomb? How might considerations of these be
different? What else that shares elements of what a hydrogen bomb is, or does,
still substantively different in a way that would not require some sort of
regulatory treatment?
Why is it we pass laws, generally? What are the hallmarks of a good, or a bad
law?
~~~
dredmorbius
Gah. "Throw", not "through".
------
frebord
We royally fucked up with the internet. I literally have to question my own
motives for things, and often wonder if I have been manipulated into my
beliefs, opinions, and desires. It is kind of scary to think about!
How do we move to a less centralized internet and is it too late?
~~~
frebord
I mean Facebook for example, at its core for an end user it really just
mirrors what the Internet was built to do. I can easily host my own profile
and allow people to log in to it and talk to me. How did it become so
dangerously centralized?
~~~
mjevans
The average user is lazy, cheep, and unaware of how valuable their freedom is.
~~~
willemmali
Did you mean "sheep" or "cheap"?
~~~
tombrossman
I think we've just witnessed the birth of a new technology portmanteau on HN-
"Cheep: (noun) Member of one or more online herds of users who are exploited
for personal data". I like it.
_(sadly, cheep.com is already taken or I 'd be on that like white on
rice...)_
------
chkuendig
Not again this story. This is a very sensationalist take on the impact of
micro-targeting. It probably has some impact, but every political campaign has
been doing this for years and there isn't something inherently special about
Cambridge Analytica's approach (other then being funded by the Mercers and
hence Trumps go-to firm).
[https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-01/trump-
s-s...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-01/trump-s-secret-
sauce-is-just-more-ketchup)
~~~
Raphomet
Thanks for sharing. Cathy O'Neil is one of the most credible voices in the
room when it comes to understanding the unintended consequences of applied big
data algorithms.
The original post is sensationalistic and massively overstates what's
currently possible when it comes to micro-targeting.
------
snowwrestler
From a satirical article published on Halloween last year:
> [Campaign] has also hired a firm specializing in big data and advanced
> intrapsychologic modeling. [Data firm] then takes data from Cookie Monster
> and analyzes it using their own proprietary Artificial Intelligence-powered
> (AI) algorithm, which allows the campaign to not only identify key voters,
> but to also identify key parts of their brains that are activated by certain
> messages.
> “Most campaigns only look at individual voters. We take it a step further
> and dig down into key parts of the voter’s subconscious. That way, we can
> say, ‘This meme penetrated a voter’s volitional association area of their
> prefrontal cortex — let’s double down on this message.’”
[https://medium.com/soapbox-dc/every-political-reporters-
camp...](https://medium.com/soapbox-dc/every-political-reporters-campaign-
tech-article-ever-d46fe7b7e54f#.d1uejpogs)
I'm sure Cambridge Analytica would love us to think they had an unprecedented
impact. I haven't seen any actual evidence though.
------
bahatur
There are several elements of this article that are refuted by Dominic
Cummings, who ran the Vote Leave campaign (a different organization than
Leave.EU).
You can read a more detailed description by an insider for the software Vote
Leave used at his personal blog, here:
[https://dominiccummings.wordpress.com/2016/10/29/on-the-
refe...](https://dominiccummings.wordpress.com/2016/10/29/on-the-
referendum-20-the-campaign-physics-and-data-science-vote-leaves-voter-
intention-collection-system-vics-now-available-for-all/)
------
harshaw
The impression I got when I originally read this article was that:
1) Trump outsmarted Clinton (and the presumed technology advantage she
inherited from the Obama campaign apparatus) with psychometric local targeted
propaganda / communication
2) Some of that communication may have been deliberately targeted at
discouraging democratic voters by putting negative articles about Clinton in
their social media feed.
This is interesting in the context that Trump only won by a 70K voter
advantage split over three states.
~~~
Retric
Clinton was predicted to win which really hurt her turnout. She was also
relatively unpopular as her numbers would often drop after a personal
apearance.
While she won the popular vote by 3 or so million people, trump's message was
very targeted to areas that mattered. A republican with the slogan 'your
fired' ended up being the pro worker candidate in many areas. That takes very
skillful image manipulation and a gullible electorate.
PS: Don't forget he was predicted to have around a 40% win chance. That's far
from negligible despite what people where thinking.
~~~
anonbanker
> Clinton was predicted to win which really hurt her turnout.
I'm not sure this claim can be backed up by data.
~~~
Retric
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/omribenshahar/2016/11/17/the-
non...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/omribenshahar/2016/11/17/the-non-voters-
who-decided-the-election-trump-won-because-of-lower-democratic-
turnout/#631fc6fa40a1)
Is some support for turnout being a problem. "Wisconsin tells the same numbers
story, even more dramatically. Trump got no new votes. He received exactly the
same number of votes in America’s Dairyland as Romney did in 2012. Both
received 1,409,000 votes. But Clinton again could not spark many Obama voters
to turn out for her: she tallied 230,000 votes less than Obama did in 2012.
This is how a 200,000-vote victory margin for Obama in the Badger State became
a 30,000-vote defeat for Clinton."
My thoughts where people would have been more willing to hold their noses and
vote for her if they thought it was going to be a very close election. Few
democrats in Michigan really thought the state was up for grabs at something
like 78.9% vs 21.1% [https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-
forecast/...](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-
forecast/michigan/)
More support for this is new-hampshire (70-30) was predicted as a closer state
than Pennsylvania (77-23), but ended-up very comfortably with Clinton.
Remember, Pennsylvania (20) + Wisconsin (10) + Michigan (16) + 227 = 273 and a
win.
Now, I am not saying the effect was huge, but in tight elections it does not
take much. Further, both the Senate +2 and House +6 shifted toward democrats
though maintaining republican leaning.
~~~
snarf21
"Democrats close to Bill Clinton said Thursday that one mistake Clinton’s top
aides made was not listening to the former president more when he urged the
campaign to spend more time focusing on disaffected white, working class
voters.
Many in Clinton’s campaign viewed these voters as Trump’s base, people so
committed to the Republican nominee that no amount of visits or messaging
could sway them. Clinton made no visits to Wisconsin as the Democratic
nominee, and only pushed a late charge in Michigan once internal polling
showed the race tightening.
Bill Clinton, advisers said, pushed the campaign early on to focus on these
voters, many of whom helped elected him twice to the White House. The former
president, a Clinton aide said, would regularly call Robby Mook to talk about
strategy and offer advice.
But aides said the Clinton campaign’s top strategists largely ignored the
former president, instead focusing on consolidating the base of voters that
helped elect President Barack Obama to the White House. In the closing days of
the campaign, Clinton targeted young people, Hispanics and African-Americans
with laser like focus, casting Trump as a racist who only sought the
presidency to benefit himself."
[http://wtvr.com/2016/11/11/bill-clinton-
strategy/](http://wtvr.com/2016/11/11/bill-clinton-strategy/)
~~~
nl
Not sure where that says anything about a turn-out issue?
------
TeMPOraL
I wonder if this isn't some kind of mass denial happening in some subset of
the world. I've been seeing a lot of theories abot why Trump won, including
mass manipulation and Russian influence. But what about the simplest
explanation - that he won because _people voted for him_ (usual vote counting
shenanigans that happen every election aside)? Is this fact so scary people
need to rationalize it away?
~~~
snowwrestler
Saying "he won the election because he got more votes" doesn't explain
anything. The question is who voted for him, and why.
And that's not about Trump specifically, it gets asked after every election.
------
k_sze
What if CA could not, in fact, _influence_ the outcome of the election, but
instead _predict_ it, and then they just made the bet to approach the winning
party and got $$$?
And then they just keep doing this at each election or referendum and claim
each time to have been influential?
What if?
------
danielam
[https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-08/no-big-
da...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-08/no-big-data-didn-t-
win-the-u-s-election)
~~~
conistonwater
There's another one at
[https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-01/trump-
s-s...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-01/trump-s-secret-
sauce-is-just-more-ketchup)
------
kriro
So they received 15 million for being able to influence people on a massive
scale (at least that's the claim). The article makes it sound like they can
micro-target a solid percentage of the US population into action or non-
action. If this were true, 15 million is a ridiculously low amount of money
they got for that ability. I mean the money they should be raking in from
advertising should be...tons. If they can change the election behavior of
millions of people surely they can get millions of people to buy an extra soft
drink here and there...
------
mirimir
So maybe this is an advertorial for CA, or maybe it's Chicken Little
clickbait. Or maybe both. But even Kosinski's work alone is frightening. This
is one way that AIs will pwn us. Indeed, how AIs _are_ pwning us.
------
Lintaris
There were several articles on Cambridge Analytics and Trump but none made it
to the HN front page, including the English translation of the original German
article.
~~~
conistonwater
I think this is an (another?) English translation of that Das Magazin article.
------
petercooper
Is this title just the six most used words in the article? :-D
~~~
jat850
It's incomprehensible to me - after some time I just started parsing it as
"Big Data, Cambridge Analytica, Brexit, Trump". It'd be better if it was just
re-titled to use the article headline, I think.
------
rabboRubble
This HN title is word salad.
~~~
rabboRubble
Article's title has been improved. It was baaaad in its first version.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Structure (2013) - hownottowrite
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/01/14/structure
======
hownottowrite
NB: Includes discussion of Kevin Kearney’s Kedit and some wonderful anecdotes
about the care and feeding of non-technical users.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
One Map Shows How Many People Police Have Killed So Far This Year in Every State - DocFeind
http://mic.com/articles/124114/one-map-shows-how-many-people-police-have-killed-so-far-this-year-in-every-state
======
jaytaylor
Is the map adjusted to show the relative scale to account for population
differences between each state?
That would be far more informative and revealing than just raw counts.
~~~
hoopd
This map was designed to cause outrage, not to inform.
~~~
mtinkerhess
People should get outraged when presented with outrageous information.
Still, this would probably be more appropriate for HN if it showed interesting
statistical information like police violence per capita, violence against
minorities normalized by population, etc., and presented it with a flashy
interactive javascript chart library.
~~~
Kalium
It's easy to make information outrageous if you're willing to be misleading
with it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Objective-C ARC best practices revisited - dryman
http://www.idryman.org/blog/2012/11/22/arc-best-practices-and-pitfalls/
======
Wraecca
Nice article, iOS developer must read
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What is this FHScan thing? - dear
My website got a few requests from "94.242.163.1xx Mozilla/5.0 (FHScan Core 1.1) and asked for a bunch of things that (luckily) don't exist in my system, including a GET http://www.fbi.gov/ request. That's weird. I googled it. It seemed to be some sort of HTTP scanner/attacker.<p>I don't know what they were trying to do.<p>How do you guy make sure your website is safe?
======
smartwater
<https://github.com/bluedragonz/bad-bot-blocker>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Data-Driven Guide to Contagious Headlines on Medium - qoshibotu
https://medium.com/@herbertlui/your-headlines-sucked-these-didnt-why-32de26f893b2
======
vijayjeyapalan
Great read!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Chrome 29.0.1547.76 m breaks Google Business Photos - NicoJuicy
Updating Chrome to 9.0.1547.76 m breaks Google's own product... (Google Business Photos)<p>https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3L0CT834bhTYU11bGFVMVFaeFU&usp=sharing (screenshots)<p>Example: http://www.vanmarcke-software.be/Home/News/2013/10/Kom-eens-virtueel-kijken-bij-Vanmarcke-Computers<p>Kinda sucks we just went on promoting Google Business Photos though :-) (as you can see)
======
NicoJuicy
Clickable:
Screenshots:
[https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3L0CT834bhTYU11bGFV...](https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3L0CT834bhTYU11bGFVMVFaeFU&usp=sharing)
Live example: [http://www.vanmarcke-software.be/Home/News/2013/10/Kom-
eens-...](http://www.vanmarcke-software.be/Home/News/2013/10/Kom-eens-
virtueel-kijken-bij-Vanmarcke-Computers)
PS. Already reported the issue...
PS2. Everyone who has their services running on https will probably be
affected, when a third party website connects to your service on the
[http://](http://) protocol through Javascript / iFrame :-)
PS3. Haven't found a fix yet... :-( , if anyone knows one so our Business
Photos works for all users. I'd be glad to hear...
------
NicoJuicy
Just found out. Probably Windows only though. Not sure...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
It's Not Like Learning French - isthispermanent
https://www.philandrews.io/post/its-not-like-learning-french
======
furcyd
I disagree that learning programming is harder than learning a natural
language. At least, that was not true for me. Beware of broad generalizations.
There is also problem solving involved in designing a sentence, and even more
so, a coherent spoken/written argument. Plus there is pronunciation, accents,
etc., etc.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Disable Bing Backround Image - encoderer
http://help.live.com/help.aspx?project=wl_searchv1&market=en-US&querytype=keyword&query=egapemoh&domain=www.bing.com:80
Just discovered Bing lets you disable the BG image on its front page and all subsequent results pages.<p>It's linked directly from the main page when you click the "Help" link: http://help.live.com/help.aspx?project=wl_searchv1&market=en-US&querytype=keyword&query=egapemoh&domain=www.bing.com:80<p>And you'll see there that the links to do the actual toggle are simply:<p>http://www.bing.com/?rb=0<p>and<p>http://www.bing.com/?rb=1
======
encoderer
Just discovered Bing lets you disable the BG image on its front page and all
subsequent results pages.
It's linked directly from the main page when you click the "Help" link:
[http://help.live.com/help.aspx?project=wl_searchv1&marke...](http://help.live.com/help.aspx?project=wl_searchv1&market=en-
US&querytype=keyword&query=egapemoh&domain=www.bing.com:80)
And you'll see there that the links to do the actual toggle are simply:
<http://www.bing.com/?rb=0>
and
<http://www.bing.com/?rb=1>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is Microsoft Teams Coming of Age? - hoskinator
https://medium.com/capgemini-dynamics-365-team/is-microsoft-teams-coming-of-age-b819a45f9759
======
DaiPlusPlus
From the article: this is why I can’t use MSTeams despite being an Office 365
subscriber:
> Another significant concern appears when organisations have more than 1 O365
> tenant, often due to the result of acquisitions and mergers, inheriting
> additional O365 tenants, and users from each original organisation still
> using different tenants. Teams requires the user to login to a single tenant
> and can work in that tenant only.
> Although it is possible to have the users guested into the other tenant, and
> then they can switch tenants within the Teams user interface, so that they
> can collaborate with users in the other organisation, this is far from ideal
> as the user must actively switch between tenants before they will receive
> any notifications from that tenant, and cannot collaborate in 2 teams from
> different tenants concurrently. Also switching tenants can easily take 15–20
> seconds to complete, so switching back and forth feels cumbersome too.
I’m a member of 5 different Slack tenants, 2 of which are free/open tenants
(think: open-source projects). While Slack isn’t ideal (switching tenants in
the desktop Electron app takes about 1-3 seconds) in Teams it will likely
never happen because it’s counter to the Office 365 business model (I don’t
want to be a “guest”, I want to be a first-class user in multiple tenants
simultaneously - I need it for my work!)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Brazil World Cup wins paradox - nyc111
We say that "Team Brazil won the World Cup five times." This sentence is grammatically correct but it does not make sense. Who or what won the cup five times? For instance, the team who won the 1958 cup is totally different than the team who won the 2002 cup. A different team of players constituting the Team Brasil won each Cup. There are two things that remained constant: team's badge and its colors. But neither the badge nor the colors went in the field and played the game!<p>Since the elements who actually played the games and won the Cup, the players, were different, the correct sentence may be: "The Team Brazil badge won the World Cup five times." But that's absurd because the badge had no effect in winning the Cups. Different players played and different teams won the Cup. We should say, "a different team won one Cup each and this happened five times."<p>This appears to be similar to Xeno's Paradox, that is, a paradox about the assumption of continuity. This is actualy true for every similar statement assuming continuity because we know, by Heraclitus, that "one cannot cross the same river twice." The only constant is the change.<p>In some cases, the change occurs so slowly, so gradually and imperceptibly that we have no difficulty assuming that the subject stays constant. So we normally assume that a co-worker who comes to the office every morning is the same person even though he always changes in some ways. But in the case of Team Brazil we know that the entire team changed. This is like Lincoln's axe problem: Is it still Lincoln's axe if the metal and the handle had been changed along the way? No. That's a different axe now.<p>Similarly, the team who won the 1958 Cup and the 2002 Cup are two completely different teams. The two teams have the badge as common but the badge did not play the games and had no influence in winning the Cups. This seems like a paradox to me. Do you agree? Or is it just a semantic issue with an appearance of a paradox?
======
gringoDan
Jerry Seinfeld has a good comedy routine in which he says sports fandom is
just rooting for the uniforms/laundry
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we-L7w1K5Zo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we-L7w1K5Zo)
~~~
nyc111
This was funny. He explained the idea in fewer words!
------
logicfiction
It seems to me like the intent is to be talking about the meta-concept of the
Brazilian soccer organization in the statements, but that's a mouthful and
people contextually understand this sentiment when Team Brazil is used even
though that more literally means a transient state of the organization.
------
celticninja
Also known as the 'Trigger's broom paradox's
[https://youtu.be/BUl6PooveJE](https://youtu.be/BUl6PooveJE)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The CRAPL: An academic-strength open source license (2010) - _ZeD_
http://matt.might.net/articles/crapl/
======
ngoldbaum
I really don't like seeing people advocate using this license or any other
non-free license. The whole point of making analysis code available is to aid
reproducibility _and future research_ , but this license explicitly forbids
reuse of code for anything other than peer review or validation.
~~~
JesperRavn
Good catch. Academia seems like the strangest place for people to be
especially possessive over the IP they produce, since the actual knowledge the
produce is generally intended to be shared freely and used for any purpose.
And yet academia seems to push for patents for their ideas (admittedly these
ideas tend to be less obvious than the patents coming from industry) and non-
commercial licenses for their software. I think it's time for academia to
reevaluate what their purpose is, and whether sharing software and
implementation details should be considered as essential as sharing ideas.
I personally think that academia should use _permissive_ licenses, since they
are primarily funded by the government, and so the software should be
available to all without restriction, just as scientific knowledge is. But I
guess that depends on your views on software "freedom" (which I characterize
as the belief in _natural right_ to modify and copy software that one owns).
~~~
ngoldbaum
Another common weird academic license issue I've run into is people making up
licenses to try to enforce academic norms about citations. Usually in these
cases there will be a term in the license that requires a citation in any
paper that gets written about data processed by the code.
Since it make it legally questionable to use the code (what if I forget to
cite them? Will they sue me?), fewer people will want to use it, making the
whole exercise of publicly releasing the code less useful overall.
------
tjradcliffe
This is a worthy initiative because academics really are shy about releasing
crap code, and yet access to other people's code can be critical in
understanding why their results differ from yours. It can save a lot of
headache.
But it's also a demonstration of two ancient adages:
1) Developers should not name projects for the same reason marketing people
should not write code
2) Legally binding instruments should be written by people with legal
training. It doesn't have to be lawyers, but people who at least know enough
that "By reading this sentence you have agreed to donate your body to science"
or similar is not going to fly.
------
kctess5
I feel that the title is somewhat misleading.
"[1]Open source software is software that can be freely used, changed, and
shared (in modified or unmodified form) by anyone. Open source software is
made by many people, and distributed under licenses that comply with the Open
Source Definition."
IANAL, but a cursory glance shows that this license is (probably) not
compliant with terms {1, 3, 4, 5, 6} of the Open Source Definition[2].
Therefore, I would file this license in the non-open source file cabinet.
[1] [http://opensource.org/](http://opensource.org/) [2]
[http://opensource.org/definition](http://opensource.org/definition)
------
haddr
sorry for not too constructive comment, but the acronym of the license brings
some negative connotation to my mind...
~~~
WD-42
Are you aware of what most academic code looks like? The name is fitting.
~~~
haddr
haha, I know it, anyway I still have difficulty imangining the situation when
you go to your prof. and say: how about releasing our work as CRAPL?
------
zitterbewegung
If I know about licences why would I use this over BSD/GPL? Also this licence
introduces incredibly vague parts and seems to be more of a joke licence than
anything.
~~~
vacuo
I must say, I have never seen this in a license before...
1\. By reading this sentence, You have agreed to the terms and conditions of
this License.
------
solomatov
This looks like a joke.
~~~
ngoldbaum
Sadly not a joke:
[https://github.com/search?q=crapl&type=Code&utf8=%E2%9C%93](https://github.com/search?q=crapl&type=Code&utf8=%E2%9C%93)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sorry, everyone: The future of sex is total apathy - imartin2k
http://fusion.net/story/333323/future-of-sex-total-apathy/
======
erdevs
It has been interesting to watch US sex culture evolve the past several
decades. Widely taboo in the 50s and before, partially romanticized in the 60s
and 70s, more censorious in the 80s, then celebrated and promoted in the
mid-90s through to today.
I'm glad that sex and sexuality are no longer as repressed. I think, though,
that the pendulum now may have swung too far toward near cultural obsession
and proactive promotion in recent years.
I'll be glad if we settle in a spot where sex is just a thing-- an experience
with many variations just as with most of life. Neither censored nor
overexposed. No real fuss, no real shock value, no special forbiddenness or
"cool" factor. It feels like we're getting closer to that, which seems
healthy.
~~~
fao_
Well, the only way to let it be just a thing, is to not have it censored. The
current taboo aspect of some parts of sex is harmful to this goal. If you want
it to just be another experience, and not special (For any reason) or
different, then you have to treat it exactly like you would any other
experience.
~~~
Arnor
This is all very perplexing. I don't understand any of this internal logic. I
can't see how you can "treat [sex] exactly like you would any other
experience" because we treat all experiences differently. We don't treat
riding a bike like eating. We don't treat gardening like watching a movie. So
how can we treat sex like gardening, watching a movie, biking, and eating?
Likewise, I don't see how making sex "just another experience" makes it "not
special." I hope that most of our experiences in life are special. I'm sure
I've completely missed the point. Sorry if that's the case.
~~~
eightofdiamonds
I think they are just saying that until we can treat sex like the things you
mentioned, biking, gardening or watching a movie, then it will be viewed
differently.
And we are not going to do that any time soon. You're right any experience can
be special. But they are saying special treatment, we handle sex differently
as a society. And while I think openness and education about sex is great I
don't want my kid to walk down the street and see people having intercourse.
I think it's like how we sexualize breasts. Other cultures do not to the
extent we do because they are just treated like another part of the body. They
are not covered, they are always there. We hide them and show them off to get
a glimpse, but for the most part they are censored in most situations in the
U.S. That makes them not "just another experience". It drives curiosity.
------
Spooky23
I kind of zoned out in this article. What exactly is the point?
The author seems to be upset about a bunch of low-signal articles that claim
that young people don't want to have sex anymore. So she writes an even lower
signal rant about it.
~~~
spiderfarmer
An hyperbolic article about a couple of hyperbolic articles, written by people
completely out of touch with reality. I think our hormones and natural
instincts are perfectly able to take care of this new hipster attitude towards
sex and if not, natural selection will take care of it.
~~~
bluejekyll
Exactly. This is all I could think while reading this.
It also goes against the happiness stuff that has been linked to having more
sex.
If there was a point, it's to allow people who already opt to not have sex, to
not feel stygmatized by it.
------
ferrari8608
Could the obesity epidemic have a little to do with this? With around two
thirds of the US population overweight, that's a lot of conventionally
unattractive people. For males especially, being overweight drastically
reduces the odds of being noticed by a potential partner. I suspect hormone
imbalances, part of the metabolic syndrome umbrella shared with the symptom of
obesity, might also have a hand in this.
~~~
tmptmp
Well said. General physical strength and health have a lot do with your
appetite and your appeal for sex.
But, I guess, there is another factor too. With easy access to too much and
uninterrupted entertainment (TV, internet, whatsapp, snapchat etc) our brains
may be getting too tired to bother about sex or our brains may be getting too
satisfied to desire sex.
------
kahrkunne
It's already happening in countries like Japan. I agree with the author that
the age of sex is coming to an end.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
As Cognition Slips, Financial Skills Are Often the First to Go - pif
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/your-money/as-cognitivity-slips-financial-skills-are-often-the-first-to-go.html?src=me&module=Ribbon&version=origin®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Most%20Emailed&pgtype=article
======
copperx
To be honest, counting down from 100 by subtracting 7 every time is not easy
for me. Am I the only one here?
~~~
miketuritzin
Yeah, and it's also something that most people have probably never tried to do
before in their entire lives. It strikes me as an odd choice to test for
dementia.
~~~
bsder
No, the fact that people haven't done it before is exactly _why_ it's a good
test. Many people have memorized things like count up by 3, 5, etc. so they're
not good tests of cognition.
The point isn't to do it fast. It's to do it at all.
Another test for dementia is to draw an old-school analog clock with a
specific time on it. Being unable to draw the time, or even _the clock_ (it
will look like Salvador Dali) is a sign something is wrong.
------
cynwoody
No, you are not.
seq 100 -7 0
ruby -e '100.step(0,-7) {|n| puts n}'
python -c 'print [x for x in xrange(100,0,-7)]'
Humans should think; machines should work.
~~~
tomjen3
Indeed. Never send a human to do a machines job. It may just be a cheap quote
from a scify movie, but it is also one of the design principles I use at work.
~~~
Argorak
Never underestimate a humans ability to do a complex job on the spot after 2
minutes of explanation. Even if it were easy to automatize.
~~~
abc_lisper
Also don't underestimate the number of the jobs that need automation ;)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Elon Musk announces secret Model S battery swap feature. - colinplamondon
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/346895679471357952
======
ianstallings
Does this mean that they will be swappable like a propane tank and you only
"rent" the battery or pay a deposit and get that back when you buy a refill?
If so this is a pretty big game changer. I hope it's easier than going to a
dealership and it means service stations can swap the battery quickly.
------
mtgx
This seems like the Better Place strategy. But unlike them, Tesla didn't base
their whole company on that strategy. I still think the _right_ strategy is
the Supercharger network one, and they need to expand that all over the world
as soon as possible.
But this swappable battery thing is certainly a nice "feature" and I'm sure
some customers will take advantage of it, and it's a decent stop-gap until
superchargers are _everywhere_ , which could be another decade or more.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Stack Exchange CEO: "Nobody Wants To Find Yahoo Answers In Their Search Results" - thankuz
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/12/founder-stories-stack-overflows-joel-spolsky-nobody-wants-to-find-yahoo-answers-in-their-search-results/
======
pg
Just last night I used search to ask a question (where to go to watch planes
take off and land at SFO) and found the answer on a Yahoo Answers page.
~~~
argv_empty
I'll take StackExchange over Yahoo Answers for technical topics (where YA is
mainly populated by kids posting their homework and spammers advertising
tutorial sites unrelated to the question), but YA has been effective for
getting information on popular opinion (e.g. what people think are good
restaurants where I'm going), expectations in social situations I'm rarely in
(e.g. how to properly tip a bartender), etc.
In both cases, it's nice that I'm never the first to want a particular
question answered.
~~~
rokhayakebe
"Opinion" is the keyword here.
------
Tycho
I don't think that's true at all. Yahoo Answers has often proved useful for
me. It also lacks the snootiness of SO. TechCrunch seems to have a serious
vendetta against Yahoo. Or maybe Yahoo-bashing is just cool right now. But I
remember when the Yahoo CEO mocked Arrington on stage during an interview. It
seems personal.
~~~
Homunculiheaded
My problem with Yahoo answers is the number of times I've come across answers
that are out right wrong (sometimes to the point of being dangerous) and
supported by a number other people, with no right answer in sight. For this
reason I completely avoid Yahoo answer regarding any topic I'm ignorant of.
~~~
exch
This is the reason why I occasionally do answer question on YA! If nobody
comes in to fix the obvious errors, it will always be full of nonsense.
The real danger is that the site is used buy a lot of young people who will
consistently walk away with a completely skewed and incorrect notion of the
subject they are asking about.
As they say: "Be the change you want to see around you".
~~~
danilocampos
I'm not sure that grassroots corporate welfare through band-aiding a broken,
crappy product with a sewer for a community and zero moderation is what Ghandi
really had in mind, there.
Much more effective would be to advance the cause of workable communities or
products while starving out the page views of ones beyond repair.
~~~
ajays
The name is Gandhi, not Ghandi.
And Gandhi never added qualifiers to his statement. As a matter of fact, the
more broken a system is, the more it needs good people to step up and affect
change.
------
rokhayakebe
CEOs should be careful about their public statements. I am going to bookmark
this page because I am sure some day another high-rising CEO will say "Nobody
wants to find SO answers in their search results".
~~~
db42
What you are saying looks good for making an argument, but seriously, he is
saying the truth to some extent.
~~~
nostrademons
The truth _now_. The problem is that words on the Internet live forever, and
most people don't bother to pay attention to date stamps. At some point in the
future, StackExchange will be the hulking behemoth that nobody likes, and then
people will dig up this post and say "turnabout's fair play".
(It just occurred to me that someday I may come to regret all my HN comments.
Gulp. Ah well, it's been fun so far.)
~~~
catshirt
so you should not provide subjective commentary on the internet because _one
day it might not be true_?
~~~
rglullis
Yes. Or at least be specific so people can tell whether you are providing
commentary or reporting on concrete facts.
Even subjective commentary needs to provide context, if it's meant to be
useful.
Take the case with Joel (or at least the headline): Joel is saying, basically,
"Yahoo Answers suck". It misses context: why does it suck? Does it _always_
suck? Apparently it doesn't _always_ , given that most upvoted comment here is
PG giving a reasonable counter-example.
The thing is, objective statements are boring and don't make the headlines. If
Joel went to an interview only to say "Gee-whiz, actually SO is doing well
because we managed to provide a decent alternative to EE, but for non-
programming topics people are still being served by more established players
like Yahoo Answers.", there would be no headline for Techcrunch, and we
wouldn't be wasting our time discussing about this.
~~~
catshirt
you're right. but that's the kind of thing that got techcrunch where they are,
right? it's easy to point back at your accurate predictions, and not remind
anyone of the wrong ones.
------
dirtyaura
The headline is sensational, but the interview is good.
I've always liked Joel's observation of Usenet nit-picking culture and how
it's likely related to easy quoting.
I haven't followed discussion about StackExchange site creation and user
acquisition models, but I think that Joel's practical, organic approach is
good. Although there isn't StackExchange for medical professionals yet, if the
growth rates are what they claim, it might be that in the near future there
are enough doctors participating in cooking, photography and all the other SE
sites, that medical SE site will emerge.
------
CurrentB
His comments on Yahoo Answers' traffic coming from users migrating from
Myspace struck me as way off. No one "hangs out" on Yahoo Answers because
their tired the lack of anonymity on Myspace. The masses didn't leave Myspace
because of any form of stalking.
Interesting interview overall I guess but his comments on this subject really
annoyed me for some reason.
~~~
iamgoat
That seemed a bit strange to me too. For all I know, Yahoo Answer users are
there because they are young, they know the Yahoo brand (maybe from their
parents), and they like the cuteness of the site,
------
nhebb
I'm usually happy to see Stack Overflow in my search results, but I was
reminded of a flaw this morning when I searched for "Manhattan layout
algorithm". I clicked the "Show more results from stackoverflow.com" option.
It turned out that a number of the SO listings appeared only because they all
had the same link in the "Related" sidebar. I don't know if this is a common
problem with other sites that list internal links in sidebars, but I only seem
to notice it in Stack Overflow results.
_(Unfortunately, I never did find a good description of the algorithm.)_
~~~
hugh4life
Exactly... that "related" sidebar is terrible for getting relevant search
results from Stack Overflow.
------
trotsky
Tech Crunch (an AOL property) leading with yet another slam against Yahoo, a
competitor? I'm shocked.
I think I'd probably add TC to a google site ban list if I used google search.
The difference between the AOL way and a content farm seems to be about ~30
minutes of effort per piece.
------
efsavage
The yahoo answers that come up in search results may not be as good as those
on stackexchange, but they're generally pretty good if they've ranked high
enough on a google search.
For non-tech questions, I encounter many of the other mee-too q&a sites, and
they usually yield someone (probably scraped from other sites) asking the
question, with no answer. This has been happening with alarming frequency
which to me, puts the ball in google's court.
Fixya.com, for example came up as unanswered questions in enough car/DIY
searches for me recently that as soon as I saw the google blacklist feature I
added them from memory.
------
jschuur
Anecdotally, it feels like Yahoo Answers has been more useful for me for non
technical topics. Usually, when I'm googling for the name of a song from a
commercial or trailer, I'll find a Yahoo Answers page with the info.
------
Tichy
I just want to find an answer to my question, I don't care so much where.
There are far, far worse places where answers pop up. Like what are these
weird mailing list to web converters, where you can not even see the
conversation thread properly. Or all those private simple machine forums about
the weirdest topics.
I remember when Yahoo! Answers came out it was actually pretty cool. I
participated for a while and had fun. Has it deteriorated so much since? And
why should other answer services fare better?
Btw, there are a lot of really low quality answers on Stack Overflow, too.
------
jakegottlieb
Yahoo! answers does not guarantee the integrity of their information. Most of
the time (in my experience), the answers are uninformed and not very
applicable. Are you interested in finding people's opinions when actually you
are looking for a fact/answer? I am sure some of them are useful and maybe
they could secure this by a Hacker News type voting (of course this could be
abused, but...).
~~~
mirkules
It's true that none of yahoo's answers are fact, but I would like to point out
that almost everything on the internet should be taken with a grain of salt
(ahem, wikipedia). That said, your skeptic meter should be higher with yahoo
than with SO but that can also be attributed to the fact that SO deals with
programming (either it works or it doesn't), so bad answers are going to be
discriminated against much more quickly and more correctly.
~~~
jakegottlieb
I agree with that of course.
------
jasonkilkner
Joel's really vocal about Yahoo!Answers, which is not fair to Yahoo!Answers.
It's a huge site that caters to a broad base of users: take this question from
a user
Why do universities cost more than community colleges?
[http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AukI2XODG.mO_QE...](http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AukI2XODG.mO_QEq7Gd_y4jj1KIX;_ylv=3?qid=20110312142258AAGwiAp)
It's just a question, picked from the front page.
It's a legitimate inquiry. I don't see a "what do penguins eat?"
More important question is what is Joel Smoking? What are his investors
smoking? To let him make such off the wall assumptions.
------
Limes102
I think Yahoo Answers are quite useful. I hate Experts Exchange, however.
------
hugh4life
I actually don't mind Yahoo Answers in my search results... I know when to
click there based on what I search for.
------
dillon
They both have there good reasons for existence. For example, when I was
taking Biology and Calculus those specific questions could always be answered
with Yahoo. As far as technical questions I think Yahoo has a poor community
to answer them while Stack has a very technical community.
------
JasonMoy78
What happened to Joel Spolsky? I saw him at a conference two years ago and he
looks terrible in this video. Not sure if it's the stress or whatever, but I
don't want to see him working himself into a hole... get some time off dude.
It's more important than your startup.
------
digamber_kamat
Yahoo answers are useful in many cases. Ask a question about health, sex,
travel and its awesome.
------
cpeterso
Yahoo Answers is regularly trolled and the source of some memes, such as "How
is Babby Formed":
<http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-is-babby-formed>
------
jscore
Disagreed, seems like Joel is being his usual self and claiming that
competitors products are useless.
I have found a lot of useful answers on yahoo answers on a range and depth of
topics that do not exist within SE sites.
------
db42
Though, a ceo should not make a comment like this, this is certainly true for
me.
------
drivebyacct2
Someone posts my Chemistry homework on Yahoo Answers and the answers generally
walk all the way through the problems and are very helpful.
------
danmarrone
No offense, but Joel Spolsky looks pretty worn out and exhausted. Having a
startup is great, but I suggest to Joel he take some much needed time off.
Your body needs it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Our SaaS Startup Just Reached Ramen Profitability - timurmamedov
https://www.veed.io/blog/journey-to-ramen-profitability-saas#t
======
_6
Nice article :)
To me this highlights the importance of a dependable business partner. It's
pretty impressive that you both persevered through the storm.
I'm running a business on my own atm. Despite lower expenses and no
possibility for conflict, it sucks not having someone to share the ups and
downs with.
------
AZargaryan
That's amazing!! Some tips for struggling startups like us?
website-> www.parceltracker.com
------
adelivet
Congrats for reaching this milestone and your transparency.
~~~
sabbakeynejad
Really appreciate it, thank you!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Where do I find a math super-hero? - bprater
My team is developing some advanced reports for determining the effectiveness of folks working in a call-center.<p>It has become clear that we simply don't have the background in mathematics to create the necessary formulas to get the data we need.<p>Where do you guys turn to when you need to bring in a start-term specialist in a field not directly related to development?
======
djloche
I would go to your local university and find a graduate student in the field
of expertise you need. These folks are usually looking for new, exciting ways
to use their skills and get paid for it, while still working on their
masters/phd
------
DevX101
Shoot me an email on what you're trying to do. I'll let you know if I can be
of help.
~~~
S4M
If he can't help, shoot the email to me and I'll see if I can do something.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Silicon Valley Frat-Boy Culture Shown as Sex Jokes Spark Firings - willcodeforfoo
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-22/silicon-valley-frat-boy-culture-shown-as-sex-jokes-spark-firings.html
======
hkmurakami
I was pretty disgusted at how Blooberg news twisted the chronology of events
to sensationalize the story.
Amanda Blum's blog post was far come comprehensive and fiar in describing the
chronology of events.
<https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Linux touchpad like a MacBook: April 2020 update - seltzered_
https://bill.harding.blog/2020/04/26/linux-touchpad-like-a-macbook-pro-april-2020-update/
======
pcr910303
I personally find the Linux desktop to be never as polished as macOS because
it’s hacks over hacks.
One of the problems in inertia scrolling is that in Linux, it’s implemented in
the driver level — which means that while scrolling by inertia, if I close the
window, the window below will scroll. This is basically a hack because of
backwards compatibility with the legacy APIs that only concern mouse events.
The proper way to do this (which is implemented in macOS) is to do this
inertia scrolling in the GUI toolkit, which in macOS is AppKit. (macOS
implements this in NSScrollView.)
Fixing this in Linux will be hard, since it needs coordinated effort between
at least GTK, Qt, libinput, and the harware vendors — it’s an artifact of the
fragmented ecosystem of Linux.
~~~
mcv
At this moment I'm just generally frustrated with the state of desktop OSs in
general. I used a Mac for a decade, and was generally happy with it, but not
so happy with Apple's direction and recent poorer hardware. I recently
installed Windows on a couple of machines, and that's just a horrific
experience, and below the shinier surface, the OS is still as clunky as ever.
I've been putting my hope on Linux, but what the world really needs, is for
someone to create a unified vision for a Linux/BSD/open source based OS and
hardware that basically takes the Apple approach, or at least the approach
Apple had 15 years ago.
It's amazing how little progress there has been in this field. If I had money
and some expertise in this area, I'd start my own company making better
laptops with a Unix-like OS that's not afraid of breaking compatibility with
old Linux ideas like this that are holding us back. But that's never going to
be more than a dream.
~~~
cassianoleal
> making better laptops with a Unix-like OS that's not afraid of breaking
> compatibility with old Linux ideas
That's what OS X did, only for BSD rather than Linux.
~~~
mcv
That's why I loved OS X 15 years ago. But it's not open source, and it feels
like it's getting less open with every new version. But worse is their
hardware: I can't access it anymore. In a way, I think they peaked with the
2011 unibody design.
------
whatever1
Thanks for the contributions!
Unfortunately the state of Linux as a desktop OS in the past decade has missed
entirely the hardware developments. No proper support for scaling for hidpi
monitors, scrolling with precision mice/touch pads, no touch UI, UI is that
still not deep enough and casually requires the user to spawn a terminal,
graphics drivers that are still not stable and do not support the latest
standards like hdr.
I wish there was a for profit company that would focus on making a polished
desktop linux distro. There is only that much that the oss community can
provide for free, but it is simply not enough.
~~~
Nursie
> No proper support for scaling for hidpi monitors
I'm sitting here with a 4k 32" monitor and a 1920x1200 24 inch side by side,
scaled perfectly so both are pretty and readable, in xfce, and when moving
things between screens nothing changes size, or re-renders weirdly, or can't
be resized due to invisible boundaries, or ...
It's better than windows or MacOS can manage with the same setup.
I'm not sure what you count as 'proper', and yes I had to write a two-line
script with xrandr commands so ease of use isn't massively present. But the
underlying system absolutely has great scaling support.
Graphics drivers are also fine these days, I've not had any problems with my
mouse either. Hardware in general "just works" better than windows these days,
with older devices supported and no drivers to hunt down on the web.
I'm not trying to claim it's better for _you_ , only you can decide that. But
it works great for a lot of people.
~~~
kccqzy
> I'm sitting here with a 4k 32" monitor and a 1920x1200 24 inch
You didn't understand the problem mentioned by GP. Neither of your monitors
requires HiDPI scaling. Your first monitor has approximately 138 dpi and the
second a paltry 94 dpi.
Compare that to a 2012 MacBook Pro that has a 15.4-inch display with a
2880x1800 resolution. That's 221 dpi. The hallmark of a HiDPI is that its DPI
is so high that you need to render UI elements at 2x or more (though sometimes
1.5x also works), so that originally a one-pixel line becomes two pixels wide.
This requires support not just in drivers and the OS, but the application.
ArchLinux has an entire wiki page discussing application support:
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI)
~~~
Nursie
> Neither of your monitors requires HiDPI scaling
I beg to differ, 4k/32 does need scaling to my eyes. I don't want things to be
that tiny.
Not every application needs to support scaling, so long as the GUI framework
they use does, and the window manager does (XFCE has support, which I have
activated) that makes the 4K screen more usable to me (while allowing the full
res to be used for smooth rendering), then I use xrandr to scale the lower-dpi
screen back down so elements are the same size across both. Sure, there are a
few apps that don't behave brilliantly, but they aren't things I use much.
Like I said, it works better for me than MacOS or Windows (I have both, and a
2103 Retina MBP I still use).
~~~
Nursie
Of course I meant a 2013 rMBP, I'm not a time traveller :) I'm still impressed
that it can do its scaling stuff on a 4K screen, using onboard intel iris
graphics. It's been a great investment that little machine.
------
seltzered_
Noticed an update to this project. Here's some of the earlier posts by
wbharding:
Linux touchpad like a Macbook: progress and a call for help (Mar 2019)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19485178](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19485178)
Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing? (2018)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17547817](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17547817)
NOTE: I should've read the 'WIP' comment at the top before posting this. Sorry
if I shared this early!
------
gitgud
> Are you a developer interested in working for $50/hour to improve life for a
> bunch of Linux touchpad users? Here are the job requirements:
> \- Has access to a modern Linux laptop
> \- At least a couple years experience with C/C++
> \- Proven track record of delivering projects on schedule (please provide
> examples)
> \- Strong English skills
> \- Self-starter, able to make progress toward high level goals with minimal
> oversight
> \- Positive, solution-oriented collaborator
> \- (Preferred) Has personally struggled with Linux touchpads.
These requirements are _much much lower_ than majority of programming job
descriptions out there...
~~~
toohotatopic
You are talking more about the usual job descriptions, but has he missed
something important? Which other requirements should be added?
------
bokchoi
[http://archive.is/9AnoX](http://archive.is/9AnoX)
~~~
cpach
Good old hug o’ death :-p
------
syntaxing
Interesting, does this mean that a macbook's "superior" touchpad is actually
software driven? I always thought it was a hardware issue vs software issue.
~~~
WesolyKubeczek
It pretty much is. Speaking from experience of dual booting macOS and Linux on
a MacBook Pro.
Oh, and also from booting the same Dell XPS laptop in Linux and macOS, guess
which trackpad experience is superior.
~~~
syntaxing
How hard is it to load Hackintosh on a XPS? Do you recommend a certain model?
I hear the 9360 is preferred because something about the graphics card?
~~~
icefo
Somehow I never imagined an xps hackintosh but I want to try with mine now.
If it works reliably you could have great hardware with a good OS and a decent
price.
------
WesolyKubeczek
There’s one thing that’s bothering me about this “project”. How is it supposed
to work with the upstream? Is this supposed to be a rivaling fork? How am I
supposed to have it on my system?
Also, it rubs me the wrong way that the blog author is seeking a person to do
all the dirty work — even for compensation — and then what? Have all the
credit? Basically, act as a glorified Forward button?
If I felt up to the task enough, I’d slap a sponsorship button onto my github
on my own. And here’s the difference: prior to asking for the money, I’d have
something to show to prove I’m not a phony.
The upstream is not without its problem as well. Right now it’s being
maintained by Peter Hutterer from Red Hat, and judging by his LinkedIn, it’s
pretty much his job description. Recently he did a talk about how overloaded
he is with libinput[1], and how someone volunteering to comb through pull
requests and issues would easily become his “number two”. Which also is
striking me as odd.
libinput, given its importance for Linux ecosystem as such in general, and Red
Hat ecosystem in particular (especially since they bet on Wayland as the
future, and there libinput is the only choice), is important enough that Red
Hat better make sure it’s well maintained. It’s Red Hat/IBM, really, who
should be interested in making sure the bus factor of libinput is > 1\. Thus
the problem should be raised within Red Hat’s management, and they should
_hire_ additional people for fair buck to help. Otherwise it looks as if
someone who’s paid for X input stack maintenance is seeking free labor to help
him.
If I asked someone to help me do my paid job for free, open source or not, I
don’t think it would even be ethical.
[1] [http://who-t.blogspot.com/2019/10/libinputs-bus-factor-
is-1....](http://who-t.blogspot.com/2019/10/libinputs-bus-factor-is-1.html)
------
montebicyclelo
Having used a Macbook for the last 10 years, I can confirm that the trackpad
feels better than trackpads on windows laptops, Chromebooks, and Macbooks with
Linux installed (IMO, that I've tried).
However, I think the tracking may change slightly with major MacOs releases.
So which version do we prefer..?
------
wldlyinaccurate
The touchpad on my current gen Dell XPS 13 is superb on a stock Ubuntu
install. I'd love to know how much of the "bad touchpad" reputation that Linux
has is down to low quality hardware versus software support.
~~~
brabel
Have you tried a Mac touchpad? I use both a Dell XPS13 (Ubuntu from factory)
at home, and a MacBook Pro at work. The Mac's touchpad is miles ahead... and
that's even after I spent a couple of days messing with libinput settings to
make the Dell's touchpad more acceptable (it's fine now, just not really close
to the precision of the Mac's touchpad).
~~~
notechback
In what ways is it ahead? I'm quite satisfied with the touchpad on Linux, so
really wondering what I'm missing.
On the other hand _touchscreen_ is really disappointing on Linux (Ubuntu),
just not a smooth experience at all for me.
~~~
pmx
It's really quite difficult to quantify what's actually different. It feels
really precise without being "flicky", using it feels very natural and you
sort of forget about the touchpad and just will the cursor on the screen to do
as you wish.
~~~
filleduchaos
I've always struggled to articulate why I prefer the MacBook's trackpad to
every other trackpad I've used, and I think you've hit on something with that
last sentence. It _feels_ so natural that I really just don't ever think about
it, my brain skips straight to the actual interface I'm using it to
manipulate.
I get the same feeling with high vs low quality touchscreens (e.g. my phone vs
some ATMs), and especially with gaming controllers. With a good, ergonomic
controller I sort of forget about the shape and weight of the controller in my
hands after a while; my entire sense of it narrows down to the
buttons/triggers/joysticks.
------
ht85
Can people who work on both platform comment on the biggest issues for them?
Nowadays I work mostly at my desk, but for several years I've worked 90% of
the time on my laptop keyboard. Synaptics with a bit of customization
(Area*Edge size for palm detection, single and double tap timings) worked
extremely well, and I consider myself very picky.
Edit: this seems to be about libinput, in which case I understand, as the two
times I've used libinput I gave up after a few hours of intense frustration
~~~
riquito
I use a mac at work and a Thinkpad with Linux (Fedora) at home. Personally I
can't notice any difference (on the other hand the Thinkpad keyboard is
glorius). I wonder if people refer to gestures, which I don't use.
~~~
pcr910303
It’s about cursor acceleration — macOS uses an acceleration scheme so that you
can get from one’s end to the other in one swipe if it’s fast enough — if the
swipe is slow, the cursor becomes more precise and slower.
I’m not due how it is in Linux, but last time I tried running Ubuntu on my
2017 MBP, It wasn’t possible to move from edge to edge in one swipe.
~~~
ubercow13
Every OS uses cursor acceleration by default
~~~
pcr910303
It’s just my experience — it might be that Linux’s cursor acceleration isn’t
as sophisticated and comfortable as macOS.
------
josteink
> Since I don't regularly use a Linux laptop and haven't in a couple years
I’m in the opposite camp. I’ve been using a Linux laptop at home (by choice,
obviously) for the last 5-10 years and have finally been able to setup a
Linux-powered workstation at work.
It feels so refreshing and liberating. I can’t imagine ever going back.
------
mikekchar
It's funny... I have never touched a MacBook. I'm actually very happy with the
Linux touchpad drivers. I went to the article hoping to get a clear idea what
the author likes about the MacBook drivers that are absent in the Linux
drivers... But he doesn't say. Instead there was a poll asking _me_ what I
thought was wrong (which is nothing)... The parts about multi-touch were
interesting because I _really_ like the way multi-touch works in the current
driver. So I think I'm missing something.
So for those of you frustrated with the Linux touchpad driver... what is the
problem? Or is it just that it's not the same (which is a completely valid
complaint, IMHO)?
~~~
ancarda
From using Linux on my MacBook, I remember poor palm rejection being one
frustration. Also, I think multi-touch - such as scrolling with two fingers -
didn't work.
Just all round it wasn't very pleasant to work with. Perhaps if you have been
using trackpads on Linux all your life, you are used to moving your hands away
from the trackpad when not in use -- and so accidental presses are maybe never
an issue for you.
~~~
alias_neo
I've only ever used a MB once or twice; usually little more than trolling
someone who's left their machine unlocked in the office, but I did find the
touchpad intuitive.
As an exclusively Linux user, my only real issue with touch pads is palm
rejection, I feel like it has never worked so I end up in all sorts of awkward
hand positions trying not to tap it by accident.
As a 6ft4in male (with the large hands to go with it) it becomes painful when
trying to do this for any period on my XPS 13. On the XPS 15 it's easier
because there are large enough spaces either side of the touchpad to rest my
palms.
~~~
garmaine
I have repetitive strain injuries, so I simply cannot use Linux. The way I
have to twist my wrists so the touchpad doesn’t mistakenly register a palm
print is obnoxious and pain inducing.
------
mstaoru
I was very surprised to find out that XPS 15 touchpad cannot report pressure
on Linux, felt so contrary to everything else I can adjust and tinker with
under Linux. But touchpad tap is just tap / no tap and there is no middle
ground. I'm coming from Linux->Windows->Mac->Linux background, and I can
certainly feel the pain coming back to Linux from Mac (2014 models with the
sane touchpad size). Palm rejection and tap sensitivity are two major issues,
but you learn to live with it. Two-finger browser "back" gesture is something
I also miss direly, and no amount of experiments with funky Ruby (!?) based
gesture libs could fix that.
------
wayneftw
I'm sitting here at my dual 24" 1080p monitor, natural keyboard, vertical
5-button mouse, 32GB/500GB Linux (XFCE) desktop and I couldn't be happier.
Fuck touch pads and hidpi monitors. They're honestly dumb. Who wants to work
all day on a laptop? People who optimize their equipment for working in
meetings or working on the move are doing it wrong.
No wonder Silicon Valley is a bubble of Mac users. They're concerned with all
the wrong things, just like the Mac OS UI or any other OS that has been
tainted by its influence.
~~~
Doctor_Fegg
I work 90% of the day on a desktop. That doesn't mean that I want my 10%
laptop time to be an exercise in frustration. Linux touchpads are exactly
that. (It's the main reason I abandoned my short experiment with a Linuxified
Chromebook and reverted to a MacBook.)
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Understandable. I was initially confused - moving from Linux to MacBook? But
'touchpad' explains it.
My frustration with MacOs is, mousing around to all four corners of the screen
constantly. They've separated everything into the corners. But with a
touchpad, less frustrating.
------
gitgud
Does Linux on a MacBook make the touchpad feel worse?
~~~
wavee
yes
------
Brakenshire
Looks like this has been posted before the guy has even got his sponsorship
links ready, seems unfair to leave it up.
~~~
RasmusWL
Yep. I went to sponsor him with a few bucks, but as you say, it wasn't set up.
Think the best we can do for now is to give a star to
[https://github.com/gitclear/libinput](https://github.com/gitclear/libinput)
although it doesn't feel very significant.
> I presume nobody is randomly visiting pages on bill.harding.blog, so you
> aren't seeing this.
FeelsBadMan.
------
londons_explore
From a technical approach, is it even possible?
How many touchpads expose the raw touch data (ie. A bitmap of capacitance
data) necessary to replicate macos gestures? Things like palm detection
absolutely require that.
Is the project worth it if it only works on one model of hardware?
~~~
oaiey
Microsoft "enforces" nowadays a generic touchpad interface they call Precision
Touchpad. When your notebook has one of these, the Windows generic driver
kicks in and the experience is MUCH better. I never owned a MacBook but I
never again will accept a Windows laptop without a precision Touchpad.
So, I have good hope that Linux users will enjoy this experience also one day.
Microsoft forces the vendors in it.
~~~
wtallis
I have an HP laptop that supports the Precision Touchpad drivers, but it takes
considerable effort to use them. By default, Synaptics drivers will be
downloaded by Windows Update and override the Windows built-in drivers. It
doesn't make much difference to the cursor motion that I have noticed, but the
Synaptics configuration UI is just as bad as it was 20+ years ago and doesn't
seem to offer the same range of options as the Windows settings page it
disables.
~~~
oaiey
This download is strange. Because synaptics was the role model for th e
interface. Probably HP messed this up.
------
smacktoward
With big OEMs like Dell and Lenovo finally offering laptops with Linux
preinstalled, is there any chance one of them could put in the investment
required to solve this once and for all?
~~~
ilmiont
My XPS 13 has a wonderful touchpad out-of-the-box, one config line and natural
scroll works (think you can enable it in settings on a stock Ubuntu install
though).
~~~
dsego
Thinkpad is also adequate for me for basic pointing and two-finger scrolling.
But I still miss the pinch to zoom feature. Also, natural scroll is nice, but
it turns on for everything and it shouldn't imho. For example with natural
scrolling enabled the gnome speaker icon requires scrolling up to decrease
volume and down to increase, which doesn't really make sense to me.
------
macintux
Does Linux offer tap to click? Of all the many things I love about trackpads
on the Mac, tap to click is very close to the top. Such a tremendous reduction
of friction.
~~~
spiderfarmer
It's not default behaviour on MacOS. So many people are missing out.
~~~
macintux
Not only not default, but at least pre-Catalina it’s buried in accessibility.
Haven’t run Catalina yet so don’t know whether that’s changed.
~~~
satysin
In Mojave and Catalina it is an option in Trackpad preferences rather than
accessibility.
[https://i.imgur.com/d0EeOG7.png](https://i.imgur.com/d0EeOG7.png)
~~~
LeoNatan25
I think this has been there for a very long time, but my mind could be playing
tricks on me.
~~~
macintux
Actually, I just remembered it’s the 3-finger drag that’s well hidden inside
accessibility. Mea culpa.
~~~
satysin
Ah yes the three-finger drag is still hidden away in accessibility. It is one
of the few options I enable there, such a great option I am kind of surprised
it isn't the default as once you use it it becomes so natural.
------
konschubert
I could not see the sponsor button on the linked github project. Has it been
removed?
------
modzu
the hug of death says it all: we wish!!!
------
ThePowerOfFuet
>so you aren't seeing this.
I beg to differ, Bill.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Review my App (Android)- Sqardius - sqardius
Hi all,<p>I just launched the project I was working on lately, and I need advice on everything, and especially on how to promote it and spread the word.<p>Sqardius allows you to share and view pictures around you, and save them for others who will be there later.<p>Here the link: http://www.sqardius.net
======
sqardius
A clickable link: <http://www.sqardius.net>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Anti-Piracy Chief Pleads Guilty to Drug Trafficking - DanBC
http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-chief-pleads-guilty-to-drug-trafficking-130421/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+%28Torrentfreak%29
======
DanBC
All those times I've had to sit through unskippable anti-piracy ads on DVDs
that I've bought, telling me that PIRACY FUNDS CRIME, PIRACY FUNDS DRUGS,
PIRACY FUNDS TERRORISM.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
RVM (Ruby Version Manager): seriously? - etix
http://www.lucas-nussbaum.net/blog/?p=550
======
briandoll
Wow, this is the first time I really wished I could down vote an article on
HN.
Wayne, the author or RVM is a smart and incredibly nice guy who is very open
to evolving RVM to include new techniques. He is a model open source citizen
and RVM has helped a great many.
Regarding this post, spewing angry criticism without moving the conversation
forward is just sad, and I'm really glad I don't have to interact with Lucas
on a regular basis.
Regardless of the brash and unhelpful tone of the post, Wayne still models the
selfless open source maintainer by attempting to pull out any value that may
be hidden behind all the rhetoric.
~~~
bhiggins
And what exactly do you think of Lucas's criticism on a technical level?
~~~
briandoll
RVM has just announced reaching the 1.0 milestone. RVM is insanely useful to
the many Ruby developers that use it.
Lucas doesn't appear to use it, but is instead poking at the source from the
perspective of security and strictness within the shell.
I'm sure many of his points are valid and RVM could be more explicit, more
strict, and support a wider swath of environments. Wayne, in fact, within the
comments on this article, is trying to tease out actionable directives from
Lucas' criticisms.
The real issue here, from my perspective, is that Lucas is burying what may be
good technical feedback inside an angry ranting blog post. What good does that
do? I'm not sure I'd be as open to feedback as Wayne has been, coming from
someone that sounded like Lucas.
~~~
bhiggins
Is Lucas providing good technical feedback or not? You seem to want to bury
the technical feedback as well. That doesn't help anybody.
~~~
briandoll
No, he is not. Good technical feedback is actionable. All else is ego-
boosting, regardless of its merit.
------
jameskilton
And the point of this article is? Seriously, it's nothing but bashing a
library for no point or reason. And who cares if it's ever "accepted into
Debian"? Bashing with no solution or attempt to help fix problems? Sorry, but
this is nothing but flame-bait.
RVM is a terrific piece of software that has made my life as a maintainer of
multiple ruby libraries so much easier. Wayne is an awesome developer who's
always ready to help people, super accepting of patches to any part of his
projects, and is just an all around great guy.
~~~
bhiggins
I don't know Wayne or Lucas but I think the point of the article was to
criticize RVM's code. Far from flame-bait. Maybe you are being too sensitive.
------
Vitaly
To: Ignorant debian developer.
Subject: RVM is better then the shit you got in your repo
Ruby and especially rubygems in debian are so braindead that lots (most?) of
people that choose debian for its other great features have to compile their
own rubies and gems. RVM solves a real pain, while Debian ruby/gems packages
only inflict more of it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What it's like hitting the front page - twice - jonhmchan
http://www.jonhmchan.com/thoughts/2013/9/21/lessons-learned-hitting-the-front-page-twice
======
jlgaddis
~18 months ago, Gizmodo linked to[0] a page on my web site. It was then posted
to Reddit, was shared several thousand times on Facebook, and also linked to
by The Atlantic. (I'm not sure if it was ever linked to on HN or not or how to
even check.)
I was at a customer's site that morning (one where cell phones are absolutely
not permitted and I couldn't exactly pull up my personal e-mail) and my first
hint that something was up was when I looked at my phone upon leaving for the
day and seeing the absurd number of "new follower" e-mail messages from
Twitter.
I knew something was up but didn't know what until I got home that evening and
could get online. By then, the page had in the neighborhood of 145k page views
and the worst was over. I thought it was cool as hell but the girlfriend, meh,
not so much. I had already arrived home later than expected, making us late
for dinner w/ friends, and she certainly did not share in my enthusiasm, to
say the least.
When it was finally over, that page had received just north of 180k page views
and made me a few hundred bucks thanks to the AdSense banner across the top of
the page. It was certainly a neat experience.
[0]: [http://gizmodo.com/5881627/have-you-ever-unlocked-any-of-
the...](http://gizmodo.com/5881627/have-you-ever-unlocked-any-of-these-
computing-achievements)
------
asdfprou
Sick post, brah-ski.
In all seriousness, great work here. I especially like the point you make
about not fighting back. Too often the HN hivemind will try to take someone
down just for submitting something opinionated ("Why would I learn PostgreSQL
so late into my web development stream?!??!"). Let people say what they have
to say and stay your ground.
Keep it up!
~~~
jonhmchan
Thanks for the feedback. It was such a crazy day yesterday and at one point I
did make some mistakes. I think it's really important to remember that people
probably aren't trying to ruin your life if they give you criticism - just
roll with it!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
History of credit cards. - jadence
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2819/is-it-safer-not-to-sign-the-back-of-your-credit-cards
======
gamble
Signing credit cards has always seemed a bit absurd. Any thief that cared to
forge my signature has a perfect reference right on the card. Five minutes
practice should be enough for anyone to approximate a signature to the point
that no clerk is going to challenge them.
On the other hand, if someone steals my card and the signature isn't on the
card, then they'll have no idea what my signature looks like and it will be
obvious from the receipt that the purchase was fraudulent.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Faster than native, introducing FastMail’s new mobile web interface - cylo
http://blog.fastmail.fm/2013/10/21/faster-than-native-introducing-fastmails-new-mobile-web-interface/
======
DigitalSea
On iOS in particular it has been proven when it comes to web apps, from a
performance perspective they can never truly be as fast or faster than a
native app due to the security restrictions around JIT.
I just tried it out and Fastmail have done a good job, probably as good as you
can get with a web based interface. In terms of speed, I think they are
referring to user interface response and page load times, not actually faster
than native speeds because due to limitations in regards to how pages are
loaded, although the title does seem to deliberately suggest otherwise.
I would love to see some benchmarks and tests as to how fast the new Fastmail
is though.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Stewart Brand: Rethinking Extinction - benbreen
http://aeon.co/magazine/science/why-extinction-is-not-the-problem/
======
headShrinker
There are 7.3 billion people on the planet, all consuming, reproducing,
driving and expelling, burning, cutting, killing, clearing, digging, and
searching for the American dream. The very existence of humankind is now
completely outside of the natural food cycle. Most everything humans eat is
farmed in numbers by weight that you or I simply can not imagine. Our economy
is based on the processing and consumption of planetary resources multiplied
by a rate of exponential growth. There are over 1 billion cars on the planet,
and 2,300 coal power plants. 1.3 billion cows bred almost solely for human
consumption, each cow eats about 4 tons of food per year. Humans are killing
all the animals, burning all the fossil fuels, and toxifying all the potable
water. We give back to the natural cycle; plastic garbage, VOCs, heavy metals,
radioactive waste, trillions of tons of carbon bonded to oxygen. The only
other organism that functions with such destruction and haste is a virus.
There is no mistake and scientists are not confused. This is the 6 major
extinction the planet has ever seen in its 4.5 billion years of existence.
This extinction is occurring faster than the dinosaur extinction 65 million
years ago. If humans all disappeared today, it would take the planet 12
million years to repair the damage we have done. In human terms, that 12
million years longer than human existence itself.
This guy wants to reshape the discussion but he can't remove the fact that
extreme irreversible damage is being done. The damage we see is only a canary
in the coal mine for the damage we don't see. There is a reason no one
celibrates Earth day. It's a reminder of our failure to recognize the facts of
our current situation.
------
GotAnyMegadeth
For anyone too lazy to Google: Judas Goat -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_goat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_goat)
------
andyjohnson0
Talk by Steward Brand on "Reviving Extinct Species" (May 2013)
[http://longnow.org/seminars/02013/may/21/reviving-extinct-
sp...](http://longnow.org/seminars/02013/may/21/reviving-extinct-species/)
------
blacksmith_tb
I think it would fair to summarize Brand's thesis as "worry about ecosystem
degradation and climate change, extinctions are a symptom of these, not
something to be addressed in isolation."
------
bantunes
I wonder which industrial lobby has this guy on its payroll.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Need a Kidney? Not Iranian? You’ll Wait - heelhook
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/31/need-a-kidney-not-iranian-youll-wait
======
jweir
The article is incorrect
> In every country that does transplants — except one — patients have two
> legal ways to get a new kidney. One is to have a friend or relative who is a
> blood and tissue match donate a kidney. The other is to get on the waiting
> list for a deceased donor.
There are also kidney exchanges. If you have a friend or loved one whose
kidney is not an exact match, they can exchange it for a matching one in an
exchange market.
The NYTimes covers it some here
[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/magazine/the-great-
america...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/magazine/the-great-american-
kidney-swap.html)
There is an excellent EconTalk about matching economies as well. At 10:32 in
is the kidney discussion
[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/07/alvin_roth_on_m.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/07/alvin_roth_on_m.html)
UCLA's kidney exchange program
[http://transplants.ucla.edu/site.cfm?id=112](http://transplants.ucla.edu/site.cfm?id=112)
------
invaliduser
There should be more focus on the deceased donors issue: even when a dead
person explicitly stated they were willing to donate organs, the
administration still asks family, and they often refuse, mostly for religious
reasons. Look what happened in France when the government tried to make
deceased donation the default: all the religious zelots went postal about it,
and it didn't happened. As a result, people continue to die by dialysis.
~~~
iofj
The real stink is about the problems of organ donation from somebody who is
dying (contrary to intuition, you cannot get an organ from a dead person, even
if they've only been dead 15 minutes. Chances of success are not zero, but so
low it's only done as a very last resort). So what people think happens, that
when you die organs are harvested, is not what happens. Sadly, that just
doesn't work in the real world. Organs are harvested from live people.
The main reason people that you want organs from die is heart failure, doubly
so for young people (if you bleed to death, say a large open wound, what kills
you is failure of the heart to maintain pressure in your circulatory system.
Internal bleeding ? Ditto ... So most accidental deaths are heart failure. ).
Things like car accidents, falling of a building, stabbings accidental and
otherwise, getting shot, ... all of these generally lead to heart failure.
If you die from heart failure, at the point where your brain stops working all
the organs except the heart and lungs will have failed (the body has a
priority system for blood distribution : first the heart and lungs. Then, for
pregnant women, the baby and the womb and muscles involved in birth, then the
brain, then the systems and organs in your trunk, then your extremities. If
you intend to ever have a kid, I suggest you never read the medical literature
on what can happen to a woman during childbirth, and learn this by hard:
NEVER, for any reason whatsoever pull on a birth cord or cut it. Just put the
baby on top of the woman, cover with a blanket, wait (even if the woman is
hurt or even dead, just don't take the chance).
This means that, in the very common case of circulatory failure, if you wait
for a patient to die, there will be no organ transplants available from that
person. So in the usual case, the decision to harvest organs must be made
before the brain fails, sometimes long before the brain fails. Can be hours
before the brain fails in the case of internal bleeding.
In addition to that, a number of treatments that can work to save your life in
the case of heart failure, such as lowering your body temperature by a lot, or
simply operating on you for a few hours, will screw up any chance of
successful transplants. Therefore, for donors they are not done.
Another thing that seriously lowers the chances of successful transplantation
is using anaesthetics. It is not done. Organs are harvested without any kind
of pain relief.
And also here's the difference between signing a donor card and not signing
it. With a signed donor card, you are a donor. It's in the doctor's hands to
take the decision to harvest your organs without any consultation (given the
factors previously mentioned).
Without a signed card, doctors can still harvest your organs if either you or
your next of kin agrees. Doctors will have to fairly explain the situation to
you (if possible) or your next of kin, and then they get to make a decision,
aware of the factors above. Needless to say, almost everybody says no.
Why ? At that time, "Yes" means certain death, and cessation of all medical
efforts to save your life, "No" usually means 80-90% chance of death.
Example article on the subject :
[http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240529702046030045772699...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204603004577269910906351598)
~~~
invaliduser
The WSI article seems pretty biased but ok, everybody is entitled to an
opinion.
However please note that we differ on two important things:
\- You seem to think that "dead" means the heart is not working anymore. For a
lot of people, me included, if my brain is dead, then I'm dead, period, even
if my heart is still pumping. Consequently, you misrepresent reflex (like the
legs of a frog still able to have a reflex even if it's dead) with pain, which
is not.
\- Your "80-90% chance of death" are unsourced and seem invented, which makes
me question most of your arguments.
So basically you're just against deceased donation, and that's your right, but
please do not mislead people with erroneous informations.
------
endtime
Ironic to see a particular kind of freedom we'll likely never see in the US in
a country which is less free in so many other ways.
~~~
TillE
Poor people selling their organs really doesn't qualify as "freedom" except in
the most meaningless, pedantic sense.
~~~
chad_oliver
Why not? That's a serious question; I'd love to hear your opinion.
It seems to me that _if_ they freely consent to sell their kidney, then
they'll only do it because it's a better option than not doing it. Sure, in a
perfect world everyone would have enough money to survive, and there would be
no need for this. But is it really ethical to _deny_ them options?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fascinating new map shows EVERY river basin with a different colour - vinnyglennon
https://twitter.com/davemwall/status/1088003350556303360
======
vinnyglennon
[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6511869/Fasc...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6511869/Fascinating-
new-map-shows-river-basin-globe-different-colour.html) For world maps
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: US/Canadian companies? - cwp
A while back I read a blog post by a founder discussing how his company is structured. He's based in Québec (Montreal, I think), but set up the country in such a way that he could easily take on US-based investors. There's a Canadian company that employs the team, but the IP is all owned by a parent company registered in Delaware.<p>Does this ring a bell for anyone? I don't remember the name of the blogger or the company. Or do you have any other resources that discuss this kind of thing? I'm a dual US/Canadian citizen starting a company in Vancouver, and trying to navigate the legal minefield that results.
======
eps
I am not sure if there _is_ a legal minefield to begin with. I had a startup
incorporated in Vancouver few years ago, it got mentioned on TechCrunch in
passing and this generated a torrent of calls from VCs, many of which were
from States. None of them appeared to be a bit concerned about Canadian
registration, and in the end the company got acquired by the US company and
that too happened without much legal fuss.
What it is that you are trying to safeguard against? Perhaps you are
overthnking the issue?
~~~
cwp
Oops, I guess my original question was a bit misleading. The blog post I was
trying to dig up organized the company with a US parent in order to be
friendly to US investors, but that's not the issue that concerns _me_.
The problem is that I'm a US citizen starting a Canadian company. The US has
laws that are designed to prevent people from running all their income through
foreign companies as a tax dodge. (See, for example,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_foreign_investment_comp...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_foreign_investment_company)
and <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Foreign_Corporation>). I say
"minefield" because the application of these laws depends on subtleties of
accounting and tax filings (not my strong suit), and the cost of screwing is
are potentially quite high. (Eg, the IRS might decide that I should pay
personal income tax on my company's gross revenue.)
Now, it's not completely untenable; I do know a couple of people with US
citizenship that have started Canadian companies and haven't had any real
problems. However, I'm thinking it might be easier and safer to have a US
entity other than my personal self own the foreign corporation. Right now I'm
trying to figure out what's involved in setting up such a structure and
whether or not it will actually help.
Anyway, thanks for the response and congratulations on your success! What was
the name of your company?
------
olalonde
Might want to ask over there: <https://www.facebook.com/NextMontreal>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lego Turing Machine - justin_hancock
http://www.reghardware.com/2012/06/21/turing_machine_incarnated_with_lego/
======
tzs
Here's a moving head Lego Turing machine:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYw2ewoO6c4>
I'd be more interested in a Lego Turing machine that isn't using a
microprocessor to run the motors and sensors. I believe I saw a link to such
once, but can't find it now.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Desktop version of Alta, Texas - EwanG
http://nawegr.blogspot.com/2013/01/alta-texas-demo-version-for-windows-mac.html
======
EwanG
Link is to the free demo for Linux, Mac, and Windows. Versions for purchase
are at: [http://nawegr.blogspot.com/2013/01/alta-texas-desktop-
versio...](http://nawegr.blogspot.com/2013/01/alta-texas-desktop-version-for-
windows.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Thomas Cook insolvency leaves 150,000 travelers stranded on holidays - tosh
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2019/sep/23/thomas-cook-travel-chaos-insolvency-leaves-150000-stranded-on-holidays-live-updates
======
DEADBEEFC0FFEE
I heard on the news that the government will stump up the 150M needed to help
the travellers. Does Thomas Cook or the traveller have insurance?
~~~
mytailorisrich
There are industry schemes such as ATOL and the Air Travel Trust Fund, which
should cover most of the costs, not the taxpayer, even if operations are
managed by the government.
> _As at 31 March 2018 the ATT fund had a surplus of £170 million._ [1]
That should do.
[1] [https://www.caa.co.uk/ATOL-protection/Air-travel-
trust/About...](https://www.caa.co.uk/ATOL-protection/Air-travel-trust/About-
the-Air-Travel-Trust/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Y Combinator-like without funding but with advice, connections, and stock in the startup (what would happen?) - amichail
======
jwecker
While it sure is generous and I'm sure the founders appreciate it, a couple of
months worth of rent and ramen noodle money isn't really funding a company.
What you describe is already what YC is- it's just making sure that you are
available full-time to really do something about the advice and contacts. :)
~~~
brett
Yeah, given the amount YC gives it's as if they just want to make sure poorer
founders won't have to get day jobs in the time they've alloted to impart
advice.
~~~
pg
That's exactly how we look at it: the most important thing we offer is advice
and connections, and the money is just to pay your living expenses so that you
can focus entirely on the startup for long enough to get it properly launched.
It always annoys us when people say YC is a ripoff because we want an avg of
6% of a co for $15-20k. One reason we don't argue (much) with people who say
that is that we treat the question as a sort of preliminary IQ test in the
application process.
~~~
Harj
hoarding your equity like it's gold dust is a typical mistake of inexperienced
founders. we did exactly the same and it got us nowhere. when we realised our
equity was worthless unless it was held by the right people, with the right
connections, things moved far more smoothly.
------
danw
Sound good in principle but there are a lot of people who want advice. You
need to find a way to prioritise who would benefit most from your advice and
connections. What better way to decide than to ask yourself "Who would I
invest in?". Then you're back at the YCombinator model.
If someone can figure out how to make this work then great. I'm not sure YC
will work without you narrowing applicants down and giving them money.
Perhaps instead of having a single team who advise founders you could have a
self supporting community. Put all the startups in a coworking/barcamp like
environment for a summer and tell them to help each other out and to share
connections. It would be interesting to see how well they could do on their
own. You still have the problem of where they would get money to stay alive
without funding.
[sorry if this is incoherent, I'm sleepy. Will edit to make sense in the
morning]
------
amichail
Since advice and connections are the major benefits of Y Combinator, why not
take on many more startups without funding most of them at all?
I suspect that many people would be happy with such an arrangement and Y
Combinator may end up making quite a lot more money as well.
~~~
RyanGWU82
Two hypotheses:
1.) Y Combinator's advice and connections are a limited resource. There are
only so many phone calls their partners can make in a day. Y Combinator's
business is not scalable unless they generate more y combinators.
2.) Y Combinator's application process allows them to invest in startups that
are most likely to succeed. If they spread their resources around a larger
base of companies, they would be investing in startups less likely to success.
With more failures, their return on investment would fall, not rise.
~~~
pg
Actually the scalability of YC is a fascinating question. As hackers we're
always thinking about that. And of course as hackers we have ideas about how
to do it. We've been gradually growing the number of startups in each batch.
But we often speculate about what we'd have to do to fund, say, 1000 startups
per year. There has to be some way to do it. Whatever the answer is, it would
be something to see, wouldn't it?
~~~
jullrich1
VCs = Angels = YC = Agents They all finance and support young entities for a %
of a future asset.
Compare a very scalable model, IMG Worldwide. Take baseball for comparison
sake.
Talent Scout = PG colleague who reviews applications using performance
criteria = bank using advanced credit scoring system to approve or reject
loans
Reddit = Alfonso Soriano = Successful loan applicant
Paul Allen = PG = Drew Rosenhaus
YC is popular not because they aren't a VC but because they are a VC who
provides more perceived value for what they charge. That means just like IMG,
their model is scalable as long as their value proposition is maintained and
continues to be favored. All YC needs to do to fund 1,000 companies next year
is to hire/acquire/develop 50 more PGs with specialties in more focused
markets and sub-markets. Not simple but definitately doable. Also fully
automate the application and evaluation process so that "people" only touch
the top 3%. Continue to be careful with funding amounts but generous with time
and connections. Continue to distribute and increase your value through your
customers by financing their meeting each other and adding value to each
other. Basically, YC is a social network with most of the value right now
distributed offline through their customers. News@YC will change that to be
sure. I think it's not only possible to grow up real big, but the direction
you are already headed. Just make sure your scalability has a bit of Ben &
Jerry's thrown in, they did a great job of keeping their value system in place
long after they grew. PG, you mentioned it's the scaling of the partners
responsibilities that is hard. If the partners maintain the integrity of the
barriers to entry (active role in developing and maintaining your application
evaluation tool) and support (ensuring key events and high-level connections
are solid and cascaded down from their organizations to yours) you can do it.
Just my $.02.
~~~
danw
So what your suggesting is creating mini YCs with specialist interests?
For example you could have a mobile apps 'agent'. This person would seek out
the best ideas for mobile apps, find the best teams, maintain connections with
mobile blogs & mobile network operators and pass the best teams back up to
main YC.
O'r you could have geographical specialists who, for example, look out for
startups in the UK and send the most promising over to Boston/Mountain View.
~~~
jullrich1
Yeah Dan, that's right on. The basic business practices employed today would
flow through to the tentacles of specialization and the over reaching controls
and management would still reside at the top like any other holding company
structure. It's likely you could improve on the typical holding company
structure but something along those lines. I work at the Group level of a
global financial services firm and I think my stripes are showing a bit here
:) Not just mobile apps but also a p2p apps expert, b2b apps expert,
transaction processing expert...the options are as broad as the marketplace.
I'm thinking big.
------
volida
I don't think the money is the issue here, which results to many companies
being funded because of the relatively low cost for them to bring up to life
startups, comparing to VCs.
So, they invest enough money to get u going. Their actual contribution is
their network and their guidance, which isw hat consumes their time and what
everyone applying wants.
So, the quantity and the limit of the "many people" is relevant to how big YC
is and how many people they find worthful to invest.
------
danielha
YC-organized Startup School supplies advice to a larger audience, along with a
chance for connections. I'd also contend that news.yc is another such tool
offered by YC.
The summer/winter batches are a chance for picked companies to receive
specialized attention. YC can't do that for everybody.
------
jamongkad
I myself rank advice and connections a little more important than the money
itself. That's what really pulled me here to Y Combinator in the first place.
------
JoeEntrepreneur
Wouldn't it be in YC's interest to take some equity WITHOUT providing any
funding in return of advice, Guidance, and a platform and connections.
------
pixcavator
Makes sense to me. But my guess is that time would be an issue.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Photos show scale of North Korea's repressive prison camps - tejbirwason
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/04/world/asia/north-korea-amnesty-prison-camps-report/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
======
wahsd
Funny thing; the American prison corporation complex was just exposed as
gloating about how many "beds" they have and that each bed means more profit
margin and shareholder returns.
Oh, yeah, we also have the largest ratio of imprisoned population and also the
largest rate of ever having been imprisoned. ..... But yeah, booooo North
Korea.
~~~
pedalpete
It is important not to ignore the American prison system issues (I'm not
American, don't live in the US), but that doesn't mean Amnesty International
and news outlets shouldn't do what they can to expose the system in North
Korea.
The flaws in the system in the US are out in the open, they aren't hidden or
ignored. They aren't discussed enough to make them change, but that is up to
the American public to respond which probably needs the rest of the world to
shame them into it.
On the other hand, North Korea keeps everything private, nobody really knows
how many people they imprison, or why (from everything I've been told).
In other countries, though we may disagree with the judicial system, there is
an adequate count of who is imprisoned and why, therefore, by focusing on the
why, it is possible for the culture to adapt in an attempt to lower the
numbers.
Much like health care, it would be great if the Americans could implement a
system where by the lack of users (more healthy people/less prisoners in these
examples) is the measurement of success. Like in China where reportedly,
doctors are paid when their clients don't get sick.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Evaluation of SDR boards and toolchains [pdf] - wglb
https://gitlab.com/librespacefoundation/sdrmakerspace/sdreval/-/raw/master/Report/pdf/Evaluation_of_SDR_Boards-1.0.pdf
======
MegaDeKay
A bit surprised that HackRF wasn't even mentioned, never mind included, given
that it is fairly popular. My understanding is that HackRF's noise figure
isn't that great so maybe that is why, but that wouldn't jive with the
inclusion of the RTL-SDR.
~~~
elkos
The document at hand evaluates the use of SDRs for satellite communications
(including Low Earth Orbit signals). HackRF is an awesome product and project,
no doubt about that. Personally I would suggest anyone interested in a
benchtop SDR get a HackRF. It's a great open-hardware project.
------
sciurus
This is an evaluation of performance on bands used for satellite
communications, i.e. VHF and above.
If anyone is looking for an SDR primarily for HF and below, I think the Airspy
HF+ Discovery is considered the best affordable option right now. If you want
a good general-coverage SDR, I'd recommend one of the SDRplay products like
the one they reviewed or the cheaper RSP1A.
~~~
dsd
I'm interested in HF, but I'm interested in transmitting too. It's my
understanding that Airspy is receive only?
------
TomMasz
I have the RTL-SDR and use it mostly for monitoring VHF/UHF, and it works just
fine. There's nothing interesting in my area above 900 MHz so the frequency
limitation above 1 GHz isn't an issue for me. It's a great way to get started
with SDR if you're limited with your budget.
------
jcims
Holy crap, just skimming this it’s obvious this is going to be an amazing
resource for folks making the agonizing decision of what kit to go with.
Awesome!!!
~~~
madengr
I’d go for the widest real-time BW and best phase noise (clock jitter), as
there are things you can do with offset tuning, low IF, and decimation to get
around some of the spurs and dynamic range limitations that are inherent in
these direct conversion transceivers.
A few external components (LNA, filter) can make a large increase in
performance, so specs like noise figure are minimal for many applications.
~~~
jjoonathan
That's good advice.
But yes, the best way to cure the ailments of zero-IF is to use low-IF, and
the best way to cure the ailments of low-IF is to use high-IF and filters --
and we're back to standard RF architecture.
Nothing will make you respect traditional superheterodyne architecture quite
like fighting with software image suppression / signal path correction.
~~~
drmpeg
Or direct sampling. Although they're expensive, there are 10 Gsps ADC's these
days.
[https://www.analog.com/en/products/ad9213.html](https://www.analog.com/en/products/ad9213.html)
~~~
yourapostasy
Holy moly you weren't kidding, they're nearly $6K USD apiece. Does anyone's
SDR kit drive these?
------
jhallenworld
On SDRs that transmit, I'd like to see the how much harmonic suppression there
is. For example, if you transmit at 144 MHz, what's going on at 432 MHz?
If they use switching mixers I would expect a lot of power in the harmonics.
If they use analog multipliers, less. There has been work to make the front
end mixer more multiplier-like using "harmonic rejection mixers". Apple bought
one such company, I forgot which. The advantage is that you can reduce the
analog filtering needed.
I think it should be the same for receivers: I assume they pick up a lot of
noise from the harmonics.
~~~
drmpeg
They're horrible. The 3rd harmonic is just a few dB down.
~~~
madengr
Yep. The killer for the AD9364 is the 5th harmonic of the 2m amateur band
falling on this nation-wide (USA) LTE signal. That damn LTE seems to be
everywhere, and it’s strong.
------
elkos
Hi people. I'm the vice chairman of Libre Space Foundation
([https://libre.space](https://libre.space)) together with the European Space
Agency ([https://esa.int](https://esa.int)) we coordinate this report.
Just wanted to make sure that this document is still in review and it's
results shouldn't be considered final yet.
Cheerio.
~~~
tunk
Why was the HackRF not included at all?
~~~
csete
I don't have a good definitive answer to your question, other than we had to
limit the scope of our work and we chose a representative set of devices
amongst the ones that people showed interest in. Despite its popularity in
wireless security research, I don't think the HackRF is widespread in the
satcom or cubesat communities.
~~~
elkos
As far as I know (@csete or others might correct me here if I'm wrong), HackRF
is primary a benchtop Software Defined Radio, and it's excellent for testing,
prototyping, etc.
The paper @csete works on is focused on the use of such devices to enable
satellite communications one should take into accounts the limitations and
challenges of such signals (especially when working with Low Earth Orbit
satellites).
HackRF is a great product with great value; if you are seeking to experiment
with a versatile Software Defined Radio. In my personal opinion, it is the
"swiss army knife" of SDRs.
~~~
tunk
Thank you for the explanation, I appreciate it :)
------
dsd
Does anyone have a good reccomendation for an HF transceiver? It seems like
many popular SDRs are receive only or crazy expensive. I've been looking at
the RS-HFIQ ([https://www.hobbypcb.com/index.php/products/hf-radio/rs-
hfiq](https://www.hobbypcb.com/index.php/products/hf-radio/rs-hfiq)) but it
doesn't seem to be that popular and I can't tell if it's because it's got too
much "hacker" in it for the average ham, or if something else is going on.
Maybe I should just spend more money?
~~~
th0ma5
There is a duality between affordable and performance. For example, the Hack
RF is pretty great and has a large frequency range and wide bandwidth for a
relatively small cost. But for HF transceiving you need probably need better
filtering, which has to be specific to the band and mode, amplifiers both
ways, although, with transmission you probably need several stages of
amplifiers and filtering in each stage as well. So all of those things would
be costly and depending on what you want to do it may be better to buy a
regular radio.
~~~
dsd
I agree with the duality that you describe. Nevertheless, wouldn't the
software part of an SDR reduce the need for expensive physical electronic
components, while increasing ability? An amplifier seems to be the only
additional expense (as you pointed out). It seems like the amplifier negates
any cost benefit, yet utility remains superior if one doens't consider
multiple components and building blocks a liability. It seems like there are
expensive SDR transceivers (e.g. Flexradio) which utilize SDR technology to
beat out the competition in specs and performance. To get on the air with a
budget SDR, I haven't seen lots of demand for the idea. is the utility of a
budget SDR just not better than your basic radio? It seems like it to me but
where's the demand?
~~~
th0ma5
Yeah I think most big name radio producers see amateur sales as a secondary
market. There are some hobby projects like the uBitx and the mcHF, and both
are low power. The amplification and filtering are in opposition to dynamic
range and total power output. For instance without filtering, a very strong
signal will blow out the dynamic range and quieter signals will get lost. If
you say were to build a ZetaSDR and plug it into a 192khz 24bit sound card,
you would have excellent dynamic range for weak signals, but you'd still want
to filter out local FM and AM stations.
I think as more SDR stuff gets reduced to single chips for commerical or
military reasons, then perhaps the amateur equivalent will be viable... But
filtering and amplification is still something that is difficult to
miniaturize due to heat and wavelength.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Thank-You Note to the Hacker News Community from Ubuntu - dustinkirkland
http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2017/04/thank-you-note-to-hackernews.html
======
tie_
I have a strong dislike for systemd, so while I'm really sorry that upstart
"lost" the fight, Ubuntu gained a lot of respect in my eyes with the decision
to go with the rest and avoid unnecessary fragmentation. This could have
_easily_ ended up another as another community rift, slowing down everybody
along the way.
Now they do it again with Wayland/Mir! It actually takes a significant amount
of both balls and goodwill to give up on the product that you invested so much
into for the sake of aligning better with your open source community. Bravo!
FWIW, I too would like to keep the DE experience of Unity, and especially the
Dash panel and shortcuts. If that expose-text-search could scan non-focused
browser tabs that would be a killer feature, but that's for the other thread.
The idea of "Let's simply ask HN users what they think" is a gem, that I
suspect will now make it into many PMs' playbooks ;)
~~~
peterwwillis
I don't think anyone has ever dropped a distro because it _wasn 't_ using
systemd, just like I don't think anyone ever moved to Ubuntu from a sysvinit
system just because Ubuntu had upstart. I don't think there was ever a "fight"
\- they simply wanted to use systemd, and so they did.
If Slackware ever moves to systemd, it will be a sad day, but i'll keep using
Slack because it's the whole distro that I want, not just how the system
initializes services. If I could deal with Windows's bullshit, I can deal with
systemd. Just like ConsoleKit, and PolicyKit, and NetworkManager, and UPower,
and PulseAudio, and HAL, and UDev, and DBus, and all the other annoying crap
that's been shoved down our throats over the years. Now I know how old people
feel when they talk about modern cars...
~~~
mgbmtl
> "I don't think anyone has ever dropped a distro because it wasn't using
> systemd"
That's an odd assumption. I have. I'm a big fan of standardisation.
I understand some people not liking systemd, but there are a lot of folks out
there who really prefer it. Once I started adopting it, I no longer
needed/wanted to support cross-distro start scripts, since systemd does that.
So non-systemd distros were dropped.
~~~
peterwwillis
Most distros have different package managers, different flavors of compiled
and packaged software, different libraries, different system management tools,
and different kernel versions. Yet you switched distributions because of the
two whole different methods of start-up scripts. The one thing that only has
to be written once, and then forgotten about forever.
~~~
rtpg
Isn't this the point though?
We're moving more and more to having unified low-level services across Unices,
so it stops being about stupid things like "Oh sorry, Arch can't run this
because it uses its own audio stack even if we're just using audio to make a
notification sound", and starts being about the things that are fundamentally
different about the systems.
Think about how nice it is that we don't have to recompile most things for
most kernel versions. Why do we have to set up multiple startup script
mechanisms?
~~~
peterwwillis
_> Think about how nice it is that we don't have to recompile most things for
most kernel versions._
Yes, nobody has ever had to recompile their application to work on a new
kernel. If you mean that's nice that there's binary backwards compatibility, I
agree. I don't see what this has to do with supporting multiple systems.
_> Why do we have to set up multiple startup script mechanisms?_
Why do we have to support multiple <insert any kind of software> ?
_> We're moving more and more to having unified low-level services across
Unices_
AFAIK, the only thing I know of moving toward middleware unification
specifically is Linux desktop software. Choosing to use systemd in exclusion
of everything else is "unification" in the same way that
nationalism/xenophobia/homophobia are. (i'm aware of how mean that sounds, but
it's the closest comparison I can think of)
It is certainly nice that there is now middleware that abstracts the
underlying software that controls the hardware, for example, or that
authentication and authorization are more uncoupled. But this is really almost
the opposite of what systemd does.
------
zserge
I believe that the major pitfall here is that the feedback you've received is
mostly about the changes that people want to see. However if we consider the
number of people who want Gnome vs the number of those who want Unity 8 vs the
number of conservative users who like Unity 7 as it is now - the results might
be different.
I personally am very happy with the current Unity. I find it intuitive and
more aesthetically pleasant/polished than Gnome Shell (I've only used that as
it comes with Ubuntu Gnome).
So please, don't drop current Unity. Or if you have to switch to Gnome Shell -
please keep the user experience as close as possible to the current Unity to
help users migrate.
~~~
kleiba
In other words: people who like the current status quo are less likely to make
themselves heard than those who want something changed. So the trends you
tried to extrapolate from the HN discussion may be biased.
~~~
Old_Thrashbarg
As an anecdote, that was exactly my experience. I'm one of those light-weight
desktop Linux users. I've only experienced Windwos, OSx and Ubuntu. I can say
that I really enjoy the current Ubuntu UI, but due to lack of knowledge of
Wayland and whatevery, I'm disinclined to speak up.
------
josteink
Awesome to see our response followed with such attention, not to mention
feedback with concrete promises about what (and what not) to expect dealt
with.
Good job, Canonical! Happy to be a user!
(And good job finally ditching Mir. You could have kept Unity for all I care.
Linux can handle a few dozen DEs. But having more than one display server, now
that was just nuts.)
Edit: while the feedback post here may have been the most discussed post on HN
ever, the announcement of dropping Mir clearly made rumbles too, with a record
10,000+ upvotes in a "niche" subreddit like /r/linux. When a player like
Ubuntu does the right thing, people clearly _care_.
------
icc97
> Official hardware that just-works, Nexus-of-Ubuntu (130 weight)
I really like this one. I'd made comments of wanting pre-installed Linux, but
the Nexus concept is a much better idea. It's following a model that seems to
have worked well for Google.
It's a fantastic way to break the chicken and egg situation of getting pre-
installed Linux available.
~~~
Paul-ish
I hope down the road, if the program is successful, they can increasingly push
for open hardware in the machine.
~~~
ethbro
I also like the Dell XPS 13 model.
Offer a pre-installed Linux version of a machine at higher cost, but do your
best to upstream patches and homogenize hardware with the Windows pre-
installed version.
Seems to split the difference between "a Linux laptop is economically
unfeasible" and "with a little care in component selection and upstreaming
drivers / fixes, compatibility can be assured."
~~~
AdmiralAsshat
_Offer a pre-installed Linux version of a machine at higher cost, but do your
best to upstream patches and homogenize hardware with the Windows pre-
installed version._
I actually find the fact that the Linux version is more expensive to be
insulting. If anything, it should be cheaper, given that you're paying the
"Windows Tax" on the W10 version of the laptop.
Now if they cost the _same_ price, with the caveat that the $80 or so that
would normally go to the W10 license is instead going to Dell's Linux team to
ensure hardware compatibility and/or submit upstream changes to Canonical /
Red Hat, then I'd be all for it.
~~~
shock
_I actually find the fact that the Linux version is more expensive to be
insulting. If anything, it should be cheaper, given that you 're paying the
"Windows Tax" on the W10 version of the laptop._
I just created a product comparison¹ on Dell's site and it looks like the
Ubuntu version of the XPS13 is $100 cheaper than the Windows version.
① - [http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/configuration-
compare.aspx...](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/configuration-
compare.aspx?ocs=cax13w10p7b5125,cax13w10p7b5122,cax13w10p7b5122ubuntu,cax13w10p7b5125ubuntu&returnURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dell.com%2Fus%2Fbusiness%2Fp%2Fxps-13-9360-laptop%2Fpd%3F3x_nav%3DOS_BRAND%253DUBUNT%263x_page%3D1%26filterCollapsed%3Dtrue)
~~~
r3bl
McAfee LiveSafe could explain that difference. It costs around $90 for a 12
month subscription that you get with the Windows version.
------
DoofusOfDeath
Hey Dustin, thanks for the follow-up!
In your original story, I posted a request for Canonical to come up with
_some_ viable strategy to get Adobe CS (and related color-calibration HW/SW)
usable on Ubuntu.
I expected a lot of traction for that suggestion, because AFAICT a lot of
creative professionals are looking for a way to escape the Windows/Mac
duopoly.
However, it looks like my suggestion didn't make the cut for the list you just
posted.
Can you share any thoughts on why getting Adobe CS usable on Ubuntu is / isn't
a strategic priority for Canonical?
~~~
dustinkirkland
Hey there! Thanks for the suggestion.
We're engaging with dozens of major vendors of traditional/proprietary
software about delivering their software onto Ubuntu via Snaps -- which is a
new packaging format that solves many of the traditional problems associated
with proprietary software working well on Linux.
I'm going to ask Evan Dandrea and Michael Hall from Canonical to engage with
Adobe around CS and anything else in their suite that might make sense to
Snap.
Cheers! @dustinkirkland
~~~
monort
Adobe Photoshop CS6 works almost perfectly in wine, but Photoshop CC isn't
working. Probably, it can be fixed easily.
~~~
mhall119
You can create a snap with Wine and a windows application together, which is
one route this might go. However, because Photoshop isn't open source, we
wouldn't have a legal ability to distribute it.
------
apexalpha
A sincere thank you to Ubuntu from someone who didn't study anything remotely
close to IT but is now a software engineer anyway.
I've always been interested in software and computers in general and, besides
with the raspberry pi, I think Ubuntu has been the biggest influence on my
interest in software and decision to learn programming.
A few months back I looked up my first ever forum post.
[https://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_message/28824598#2...](https://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_message/28824598#28824598)
Asking why my PC wouldn't boot after 14 year old me stuck some components,
including the HDD, in another pc. Turned out you needed something called
'drivers' to run a motherboard.
Shortly after this I ordered my first red Ubuntu live CD that you guys shipped
and that was my first experience with Linux.
Anyway, open source projects that allow you to thinker with software and even
break it played an important role in my life, and Ubuntu was my doorway to a
decade of learning, playing and wonder about software and technology.
Running 1604 LTS now. Sad that you guys are dropping Unity for GNome but still
happy with Ubuntu. I'm sure it'll work out.
Thanks, and good luck.
~~~
josteink
They're not dropping Gnome. They're dropping Unity and Mir _for_ Gnome and
Wayland.
And that's just awesome. A few years late, but still awesome. Linux needs more
Wayland-love than just Red hat/Fedora.
~~~
apexalpha
Hit refresh. I noticed :)
------
mi100hael
_> Add night mode, redshift, f.lux (42 weight) This request is one of the real
gems of this whole exercise! This seems like a nice, little, bite-sized
feature, that we may be able include with minimal additional effort. Great
find._
This one should come for free with the switch to Gnome, since it's now present
in 3.24.
[https://www.gnome.org/news/2017/03/gnome-3-24-released/attac...](https://www.gnome.org/news/2017/03/gnome-3-24-released/attachment/night-
light/)
~~~
bkor
I'm using 3.24. There's still a few improvements to be made. People want the
change to be a little bit less sudden (never noticed the transition, but
apparently it's like an on/off thing). And personally I'd like the thing to
turn off while you're watching a movie.
You can temporarily turn it off, which is pretty cool. Once you do the real
colours seem super bright.
------
mschuster91
Ad "LDAP/AD integration":
> This is actually a regular request of Canonical's corporate Ubuntu Desktop
> customers. We're generally able to meet the needs of our enterprise
> customers around LDAP and ActiveDirectory authentication. We'll look at what
> else we can do natively in the distro to improve this.
OK I get the need that some may have to integrate an UI but please don't ship
a full-blown Samba/winbindd plus config generator as default.
Here's the why:
Everyone has different LDAP setups. Some use a homegrown LDAP, some use MS AD
in varying versions, some use Samba as AD in varying versions - and then
everyone uses a different LDAP/AD scheme (e.g. is the username attribute
lowercase-able, which attribute is it mapped to, are all PCs/users in a single
OU, do you want to restrict logins to specific groups, does the organization
need "full" AD setup or will a plain ldap_bind be sufficient ...) and you
almost always need to hand-tune the configuration for your specific setup. A
GUI configurator will most likely only work OOTB for people sticking with a
standard MS AD, and make problems with non-standard setups, multi-domain
memberships or similar.
And: Non-enterprise users will most likely not need AD/LDAP support. Those who
do should have competent admins anyhow, but what I can certainly say is that
the documentation could be updated (e.g.
[https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Samba_Winbind/](https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Samba_Winbind/)
only works for 12.04/14.04). I'd rather like if the documentation were
improved than yet another shoddy Samba config generator that's falling out of
sync with Samba more sooner than later...
(source: lost more than a few hairs wrestling with AD and LDAP)
~~~
ansible
_And: Non-enterprise users will most likely not need AD /LDAP support._
I strongly disagree with this. Everyone with more than 2 users in their
organization can benefit from AD/LDAP support, if it is easy to set up and
administer.
Because... what else is viable for managing multiple user accounts across
several machines? Twenty years ago, I would have said NIS (from Sun,
originally called YP for 'yellowpages'). But that was horribly insecure. NIS+
was supposed to fix that, but support was never there in Linux land.
Kerberos? That seems too difficult for most small networks.
Don't get me wrong, I _don 't like_ LDAP, but there isn't anything better that
I'm aware of. LDAP has some support for other applications (for example, we
use it for Redmine user accounts), I don't know of anything else besides LDAP
that has widespread support.
But the initial configuration was a bit of a mess, where I was going back and
forth among the official docs, the Ubuntu docs, and other guides. I should
write my own guide so that I can add to the confusion.
~~~
mschuster91
> I strongly disagree with this. Everyone with more than 2 users in their
> organization can benefit from AD/LDAP support, if it is easy to set up and
> administer.
You will always need a server. And aside from QNAP NASes (which aren't cheap)
there are no "set it up and it runs" options which are free and easy to
maintain.
Cheapest option, hardware wise, would be a RPi but it will melt when you try
to use it as a filer. Next option is a PC, which adds at the minimum 200W of
24/7 power requirement, not exactly cheap given today's electricity prices.
Software-wise you have the option of MS Small Business Server which clocks in
at 200€ but definitely requires a PC plus someone who can set it up, and a
Linux variant with Samba which is free but definitely requires someone
skilled.
Then there comes the maintenance - with Windows there shouldn't be a problem
with regular updates, but with Linux... not so much.
The maintenance and the energy consumption of a server is what keeps small
businesses off AD.
~~~
zokier
FreeIPA and RPi should be pretty good combo for prosumer/SB market. RPi has
definitely enough horsepower to run a small domain, and FreeIPA bundles all
those admittedly gnarly pieces into one neat packages
~~~
mschuster91
> RPi has definitely enough horsepower to run a small domain
Maybe enough for the DC part (i.e. Kerberos server, LDAP server, ntpd) but not
enough for a fileserver given the Pi is still 100 MBit and limited by its USB
ethernet connection, as well as that it doesn't have eSATA, mSSD or any other
high-performance storage option. Plus SMB/CIFS implementations are known for
performance issues.
Also, a Pi is nowhere near reliable enough for running something as mission
critical as an AD server. Good luck when your micro-SD card gets corrupted,
e.g. due to power fluctuations. And you WILL get corruptions, especially if
you have high write throughput.
------
padraic7a
There's something very HN about the fact that the author of one of the most
discussed posts in the site's history can issue a follow up post, dealing with
that discussion, to such little notice.
~~~
cbhl
It was very interesting to see the summary view of the comments, but frankly,
the real follow-up was the announcement that Ubuntu is moving back to GNOME in
18.04:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14043631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14043631)
That action was, IMHO, one of the biggest thank yous they could have given us.
~~~
adelarsq
I agree. I did stop using Ubuntu when Unity was introduced. May be time to be
back
~~~
reitanqild
Same here. Was a huge fan before. Disliked Unity so much.
Seems some people honestly like the look of it, how it works etc.
I however strongly dislike DEs that:
1\. messing with alt-tab
2\. mess with menus (I liked the idea but found the implementation to be
painful)
~~~
slitaz
This dislike should be mostly psychological. There are people that got primed
to dislike Unity and when they attempted to use it, they struggled because of
the 'old dog learning new tricks'.
We saw this with the intro of Gnome Shell, which fractured the community
between the old Gnome UI and new UI.
If we continue to split up when something new is introduced, we are doing it
wrong.
~~~
reitanqild
I am _not_ against new. I'm almost embarrassingly simple to get enthusiastic
about new tech.
The things I mention however are things I have found to be actual problems in
my workflow.
They obviously work well for others and I respect that. I hope others can
respect my observation that with Mac/Unity alt-tab more keystrokes or waiting
might be necessary.
It is also an objective observation that with Mac style shared menu on top of
the screen in a dual monitor setup you will sometimes have to move the pointer
across two screens to reach the menu, then back again to continie working.
~~~
braveo
To this day I still get frustrated on Windows because they broke Alt+Tab.
Used to Alt+tab would simply cycle through in order of most recently used. Now
they've got some functionality where shit can inject itself into that list so
alt+tab and then alt+tab back and then alt+tab back to bounce between two
different programs doesn't work consistently anymore.
I'm sure I just don't understand the use case for the new behavior, but it
drives me bonkers.
I also hate, and I mean HAAAAAAATE when text editors autocomplete matching
brackets, single/double quotes, etc. It completely fucks with my flow.
so maybe I'm just an old control freak.
------
JepZ
I also really like the idea of 'Official hardware that just-works'. Not just
for users without much technical knowledge but also for the rest of us.
I mean nowadays we somehow manage to get most hardware working 'somehow'.
Sometimes it takes a few years before your sound/bluetooth/wifi chip actually
does what it is supposed to do, but most of the time we find ways to make use
of our hardware.
But when you are going to buy new hardware you are a bit lost. You can try to
find out if there are any major problems with some hardware, search the ubuntu
hardware database, but especially for new, rare or expensive hardware there is
often not so much to find about. For example a few years ago I bought a 22"
touchscreen for my desktop and for almost a year it somehow worked but didn't
do the things it was supposed to do.
Officially supported hardware by vendors would be a great step in the right
direction.
~~~
sparkiegeek
Perhaps you're not aware that Canonical already do this and publish results at
[https://certification.ubuntu.com/](https://certification.ubuntu.com/) ?
~~~
JepZ
Well, I was not aware of that ;-) Thanks :-)
------
Andrex
I feel guilty: I didn't respond on the initial post because I doubted the
_really_ outrageous/far-out ideas like "dump everything you've been working on
for the past five years" would actually be fruitful, but man, Shuttleworth
shut me right up haha. Congrats on the Ubuntu team for the courage to make
bold changes when necessary and to actually (finally?) listen to pointed
community feedback and constructive criticism.
I haven't been this excited for Ubuntu since 2010.
------
Johnny_Brahms
Not related to Ubuntu, but maybe someone here knows a good way to kill the
swipe left/right to navigate in blogs. I accidentally left the page about 5
times, which is rather annoying.
Using ff mobile if that helps.
Edit: hallelujah! Set dom.w3c_touch_events.enabled to 0 in about:config
~~~
lucb1e
Yeah this is a real pain in the ass of the Blogger® platform. Not sure there
is anything Dustin can do about this, other than move the whole blog over...
Nice find of the about:config setting though!
~~~
reitanqild
Googlers around here: any idea when you'll start fixing/resetting blogger to
how it was?
------
hatsunearu
Why is dropping Unity lumped with dropping MIR?
Unity is great and I love it, I don't want to lose it.
~~~
josteink
If I remember correctly Unity was a fork of Gnome with lots of patches applied
to the point of having both Gnome and Unity on the same system taking effort
and being risky w.r.t. stability.
My guess is that they've invested entire Unity vNext on Mir, and if they're
dropping Mir, they'll might as well drop Unity 8. That leaves them with Unity
7, and to unfuck a decade worth of changes they've done to make it work with
mainline Gnome source.
Basically lots of work to have a 6 year old product back to square one, before
they can, once again, attempt to further develop it.
I'm guessing they've decided that's not worth the effort and that their time
is better spent helping improve something already mature (Gnome 3).
Touché, but they could have listened to the community back when they announced
Mir and Unity 8 too ;)
~~~
bkor
They reduced the number of patches quite a bit. For some of the things they
do, they depend on components that are not commonly used within GNOME.
Meaning, it's not a patch, but as a sole user they'll have to maintain
components if they're the only "user". Something written on top of Tracker
IIRC; not started by Canonical, but nicely used by them. That's always a bit
of a difficult explanation, sometimes Canonical expects maintenance to happen
magically.
------
gingerbread-man
Link to the original post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14002821](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14002821)
"Ask HN: What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10?"
------
Jerry2
I currently use Ubuntu on one of my laptops precisely because it's not GNOME.
I can't stand GNOME3's hamburger menu UIs, giant title bars, lack of real
menus, inability to make changes without digging into their version of dreaded
"registry" and that pointless menu bar at the top. If I'm being forced to move
to GNOME, I'll be switching to Fedora instead since they have a solid track
record of GNOME and Wayland support.
My desktop will always be Arch, however with Cinnamon and, occasionally, i3
for development.
~~~
gurkendoktor
Even if Canonical only keeps a fraction of its desktop staff, they could
easily improve on GNOME's default settings and theme, something that Fedora
won't do.
~~~
bkor
It should be much easier since GTK+ "4" (not too many changes in GTK+3.x)
combined with finally having a theme API, though the intention is to have some
bits of GNOME run these development GTK+ versions at some point in future.
They're redoing how widgets work in GTK+ "4". That's basically like changing
HTML and having slightly different elements. Though there's a theme API, I
wouldn't be surprised if some theme work is needed as a result.
See the last bits at [https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2017/03/31/gtk-
happenings-3/](https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2017/03/31/gtk-happenings-3/)
for why I think above things.
------
dankohn1
Congrats to Dustin not just for some amazing crowdsourcing with the original
post, but then for an extremely concise, thoughtful and humble followup for
those of us who couldn't wade through all of those suggestions ourselves.
~~~
dustinkirkland
You're welcome Dan! It was a _lot_ of work, but so, so, so worth it. I'd do it
again in a heartbeat. Or rather, maybe in 6 months :-)
------
mwcampbell
I'm impressed with your thoroughness in processing the responses. But I'm just
curious: Why did you lump usability for children and accessibility for users
with disabilities into one suggestion? Anyway, returning to GNOME should help
with the latter.
~~~
bkor
The accessibility of GNOME under X11 should be really good. Not so sure about
Wayland though. E.g. not sure how dasher would work, nor orca. Secondly, some
of the things (IIRC pointer highlighting) actually is done using some X11
application. That needs to be moved (e.g. mutter).
------
akerro
No one mentioned better Steam support/collaboration with Valve? CPU and
operating systems are made for gaming, it's gaming that attracts users and
investors from big companies and developers. Ubuntu would only benefit if they
invested in MESA, faster AMD GPU integration and cooperate with Valve on Steam
clients and gamedev research for Linux.
------
sunstone
While it's true that Ubuntu still has a few inconveniences, from my
perspective it's still much better than the alternatives.
The mere thought of having to use Windows or IOS for development make me want
to curl up in the corner with my blanket.
Daily I use ubuntu for my desktop, laptop, TV streamer and cloud servers.
Overall my satisfaction level across all devices is at least 9/10.
Great job team Ubuntu!
------
sandGorgon
The one thing I'm incredibly worried about is the packaging war starting all
over again. There are zero reasons for having multiple packaging formats
across liNux distros .
I was hoping that snap or flatpak becomes universally adopted, but it seems
that Redhat and Canonical are again split along political fault lines here.
~~~
gurkendoktor
As Canonical has moved its focus away from end users, we might end up with a
more intuitive split: snaps for the cloud, flatpak for desktop apps?
~~~
sandGorgon
not really. check this -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14053627](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14053627)
_We 're engaging with dozens of major vendors of traditional/proprietary
software about delivering their software onto Ubuntu via Snaps -- which is a
new packaging format that solves many of the traditional problems associated
with proprietary software working well on Linux._
------
BudFox
It is sad to see the modern and reliable Unity 7 put out to pasture. GTK was
not used for Unity 7. Canonical chooses QT for Unity 8. KDE can easily
replicate Unity 7 look/feel. QT no longer has an objectionable license. It is
not clear why Gnome is the choice over basing on KDE?
------
19eightyfour
Here's a perspective on FOSS and Ububtu. One point of free open source
software was we didn't need to be stuck with features we didn't like, that
were decided by some majority, or leadership, because we could fork our own
and customize as we like. So I think the enthusiasm for responsiveness of a
central body to feature requests, is an enthusiasm for a thing not normally
associated with a FOSS, which therefore demonstrates that either: that the
Ubuntu ecosystem says it is FOSS, but actually operates like something else,
or that FOSS fork-your-own theory doesn't apply in practice on large projects
with lots of people, or that this perspective just related here is missing
something.
~~~
slitaz
The UI is the type of big software that needs design and follow this design.
Otherwise you end up with a complex piece of software. You get this with all
types of big software that need to keep a clean design to avoid future pains.
------
agd
" Fix /boot space, clean up old kernels (92 weight)
...committed to getting this problem solved once and for all in Ubuntu 17.10
-- and ideally getting those fixes backported to older releases of Ubuntu."
Great news! Thanks for taking this feedback onboard.
------
MrTonyD
Back in the days there were backroom deals to get Adobe on Apple platform.
Steve would meet with Adobe executives and trade them cash and offshore stock
(untraceable, of course) so that they would port to Apple. All the development
for Apple was fully funded for Adobe. In case it isn't obvious, Adobe could
choose to support only Windows and do just fine - eliminating development and
support costs for the Apple platform. Thus, bribing the rich and greedy became
the effective technique.
~~~
no_wizard
Source? This seems incredibly unsubstantiated. There were public efforts Steve
made to keep Adobe on the platform and I know there were developer meetings to
ensure the transition to Carbon and Cocoa went fine.
I have seen no evidence of illicit stock grants or Apple giving direct cash to
executives at adobe.
I hate to be _that guy_ but I would like more information on this, otherwise
it feels rather unsubstantiated and just paints both Apple and Adobe in a bad
light for no reason.
~~~
MrTonyD
I worked on projects for Steve and reported to his direct reports. One would
have to be very naive to think that this isn't just typical business practice.
Or do people really fall for that "free market" stuff that we are being sold?
~~~
no_wizard
Well, I'm not naive. I'm sure there is a lot of things that the public would
find unsavory that happens all the time at the upper echelons of companies
like this, sure. I'm willing to believe that.
I just have never seen any substantiation between Adobe and Apple doing this
sort of thing, even when Steve was alive. This is the first time someone has
even confirmed it yet alone alleged this happened. I know both companies had
done things in the past that were less than savory (see that whole lawsuit
about suppressing wages. Very disgraceful!)
Never this. It's been alleged for years, but never once was there evidence.
I'm sure you could make a mint here if you wanted to, if you could
substantiate any of it.
~~~
MrTonyD
Steve talked about a lot of things - and even more to his direct reports. But
the only people who would have proof are also people who would never talk
about it. I also worked for a direct report of Bill Gates and a direct report
of Larry Ellison. They did the same types of things - often illegal. But
everybody who was involved is very motivated to never talk about it. I may be
one of the few people who turned down executive positions when offered - I
didn't like the "business values".
------
drej
Just an irrelevant side note:
When you do a requests.get(url), you can use the .json() method on it instead
of all the json.loads([...].text). I remember doing the same for years and
only discovering .json() recently, I love it.
~~~
dustinkirkland
:-) Awesome. Thanks for the hint!
------
mapreri
Just a note about Reproducible Builds: "We've been working with Debian
upstream on this over the last few years, and will continue to do so" — well,
apart from the regular sync/merge flow from Debian to Ubuntu, AFAIK Canonical
never reached out to us Reproducible Builds folks from Debian. That said, we/I
plan to reach out to Ubuntu/Canonical soon :)
~~~
dustinkirkland
Canonical employs dozens of Debian developers, whose work goes to _both_
Debian and Ubuntu. ;-)
~~~
mapreri
I know, I collaborate with several, and I am both an Ubuntu an d Debian
developer :) Just that I know no Canonical employee is working with us on
Reproducible Builds. (I only remember a very spotty contact like 2 years ago
on IRC from somebody saying Canonical was interested) If they are working,
they are doing it behind a curtain, which I'd find interesting ;)
------
shalmanese
It would be nice to get this list sorted by most surprising as well. A lot of
these feedback points seem to fall into the category of "faster horses" which
usually tend to dominate when you solicit ideas from the general public.
------
jseutter
Just want to chime in with others and say thank you for making this followup
post. Regardless of the outcome, distilling the results the way you did means
a lot to me and I'm sure others as well. Thanks!
~~~
dustinkirkland
You're welcome. Thanks for following along.
------
_jordan
I would have really liked to see gnome2-esq style DE - bare bones, focus on a
great windows like task bar / windows management. I really hated the unity
dock thing and I especially hated the color scheme.
~~~
noisy_boy
I think the Mate desktop aims to deliver just that.
~~~
_jordan
Indeed, but it's just missing a lot of the polish and modern features
------
trololo12345
Will this mean, that the integrated Amazon search in the desktop is also gone
forever? I'd like to see Canonical making money with support instead of that
Amazon thing or selling "Apps" to the user. That is the number one reason, why
I do not recommend Ubuntu. Other than that, I'm amazed how much the community
was heard! Also thanks for the in-depth analysis blog post :)
~~~
slitaz
The Amazon thing was gone in 2016. Having an option for integrated payments in
the software store is a nice thing, isn't it? You get the donations feature in
the store instead of going elsewhere.
------
Alan_Dillman
Nice read, and I am wishing I had been in on the original topic.
If I had, I would have commented that the version upgrade process sucks for
anyone that starts from a minimal base(like I do). If I go through the
upgrade, I will end up with all the default stuff.
If I don't have thunderbird installed, don't install it for me.
In short: upgrades could be smarter, faster, better, stronger.
------
deadfece
I think the best news out of this is hopefully that it seems you (as
Canonical) have shifted away from "This is not a democracy. [...] we are not
voting on design decisions." and the (paraphrased) "This is good because we
[Canonical] made it!"
~~~
slitaz
Which project is "voting" on design decisions?
------
PleaseHelpMe
I am slightly sad by the fact that rarely anyone mentioned about the battery
life of ubuntu, but got excited with the "Nexus-of-Ubuntu" thing. I wish the
best to ubuntu.
~~~
dustinkirkland
Power/battery management definitely made the list. See the blog post ;-)
------
hysan
I was really happy when that Ask HN thread was first posted and even happier
now knowing that all of the comments were read and thoroughly considered. That
said, what this blog post and the general feeling I get from Ubuntu as a whole
is that:
1\. There is too much of a focus on how far Ubuntu has come and not enough
focus on how far things still need to progress. I too remember the days when
sleep/hibernate were a crap shot, but that was when I viewed Ubuntu as an open
source alternative without much expectation. Nowadays, I see Ubuntu as a
mature desktop and as such, I judge it much more harshly. Anything that
doesn't work or isn't 99.99% stable is a red flag for me. So I do hope that
the Ubuntu team puts more focus on making things up to date, rock solid, and
super stable rather than go chase after new features. Just like a building,
you need a stable foundation before building upwards.
2\. There isn't a clear target audience for Ubuntu Desktop. What does Ubuntu
Desktop want to be? Before it was convergence and while a very neat idea, I
was never clear on who was supposed to use it. The requirements screamed high
income, tech savvy end users. However, development focused on Unity, Mir, etc.
with work going into features that didn't fit the target audience. For
example, like the post says, HiDPI & 4K were a surprise. Why was this
surprising? The group that would most likely be your early adopters and trend
setters are the same exact group that would have this type of hardware. Same
with trackpad, gestures, customizability, flux, root on ZFS, security, etc.
All of those are used heavily by the demographic most likely to follow the
news on Unity and convergence. It baffles my mind that Ubuntu's Product
Management couldn't make this connection and understand what core features to
build out first in Unity/Mir. Yes, these are on the sidelines now, but I
really hope the Product Management team takes the time to figure out some
direction.
3\. At the moment, Ubuntu is at a major crossroad. Even after Mark
Shuttleworth's post, this post, and all of my usual Linux news following, I
don't really know where Ubuntu _Desktop_ is going to go. Tell us _what_ we can
expect as users. Tell us _when_ we can expect it to come. Tell us _how_ you
intend on getting there. And most importantly, tell us _how we can help_!
Either though regular posts to various communities like the Ask HN one, or
ways we can contribute actual work. Not everyone is a dev, but as an example,
I used to do professional QA and yet I found it extremely difficult to find
out how I can help QA things and submit useful bug reports (this isn't just
Ubuntu but most open source projects). The usual "check the docs/wiki" or
"submit something on the issue tracker" are not helpful. In all of my years
using Linux, that Ask HN thread + this blog post was the first time I ever
felt like I was heard and managed to contribute to Ubuntu. Even something as
simple as periodically getting feedback from the community and telling us what
you heard from us makes me feel more optimistic about Ubuntu's future.
I apologize for the rant-like nature of my comment, but hopefully this gets
read and something positive comes out of it. Thanks for reading.
~~~
bokchoi
> Anything that doesn't work or isn't 99.99% stable is a red flag for me. So I
> do hope that the Ubuntu team puts more focus on making things up to date,
> rock solid, and super stable rather than go chase after new features. Just
> like a building, you need a stable foundation before building upwards.
I agree. I was surprised that the "More QA, testing, stability, general
polish" wasn't higher on the list.
------
jumasheff
Re: Make WINE and Windows apps work better
How about booting ReactOS to run Windows apps? Sounds like a Frankenstein-ish
solution, but...
------
shmerl
Thanks for deciding to focus on Wayland from now on. This will benefit
everyone.
------
analognoise
I stopped using Ubuntu after it came with Amazon shit installed.
~~~
cdelsolar
ok
------
Arizhel
Instead of adopting Gnome3, they should adopt KDE. It's far more customizable
(so "Easily customize, relocate the Unity launcher (53 weight)" would be
already done) and much better architected than Gnome. And for people lamenting
the loss of Unity, it wouldn't be that hard to make a custom theme for KDE
which largely replicates the look-n-feel of Unity. Gnome simply is not set up
to allow any kind of customization, and the devs actively discourage it. The
opposite is true for KDE, and a distro that wants to stand out with its UI
would be better served with a DE that allows them the freedom of
customization.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Are Microcontrollers Obsolete? - jsn
http://www.cashdollar.org/2012/11/01/are-microcontrollers-obsolete/
======
dkersten
For home automation - maybe.
For a large percentage of the vast number of other uses of microcontrollers -
no, most definitely not.
A microcontroller has a number of properties things like the raspberry pi
don't have: they cost a hell of a lot less (the micros I've used cost between
about $0.50 and $3 each when buying about 10 at a time), have a much smaller
physical footprint (SMD micros are anything from a few mm^2 to a cm^2 or so)
and require very very low amounts of power.
------
harrydoukas
It really depends on the use case and the applications, some times it is an
overkill to use a system like the RaspberyPi fo r just monitoring some sensors
or controlling a relay switch. Especially when it comes to price, size and
power consumption, microcontrollers are the only answer. System on a Chip
devices can make great gateways for microcontrollers and supplement
functionality by providing e.g., data processing, secure communication, etc.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
3 Problems AWS Needs to Address - aaronwhite
http://blog.jacobelder.com/2012/05/3-problems-aws-needs-to-address/
======
Smerity
The ability for S3 and CloudFront to properly handle GZIP compressed files
would further encourage the use of S3+Cloudfront for static websites. As a
host S3 + CloudFront have arbitrary scalability, good performance across the
globe and is pay as you go.
With GZIP compression, bandwidth drops but more importantly load times can
decrease significantly. "It takes several round trips between client and
server before the two can communicate at the highest possible speed [and for
broadband users] the number of round trips is the larger factor in determining
the time required to load a web page"[2]. There was a graph depicting the non-
linear impact file size increases have on load times but I can't find it... =[
In the Google article on compression, a 175% increase in a page's size (non-
GZIP version of Facebook.com) results in a 414% increase in load time on DSL.
Load time does not increase linearly with file size and hence why GZIP
compression is so important for performant websites!
[1]: [http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2011/02/host-your-static-
website-...](http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2011/02/host-your-static-website-on-
amazon-s3.html)
[2]: <https://developers.google.com/speed/articles/use-compression>
------
ComputerGuru
It's a little-known fact that CloudFront supports GZip just fine, so long as
you're using pull from custom origin (like most people are).
You just need to configure your origin servers to serve GZip _even to HTTP
1.0_ (which is what CF requests will come as) and set the "Vary: Accept-
Encoding" header to prevent users of old IE versions from having GZip'd
content they don't support stuffed down their throats.
For example, this is my nginx configuration which serves both GZip'd and non-
GZip'd versions of the same objects via CF. The second and third lines are the
most important for correct AWS CF GZip distribution:
gzip on;
gzip_vary on;
gzip_http_version 1.0;
gzip_comp_level 4;
gzip_proxied any;
gzip_types text/plain text/css application/x-javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript image/png;
gzip_disable "MSIE [1-6]\.";
Note that "image/png" is only in there because Google PageSpeed is very stupid
and marks not GZipping PNG files as a "bug" because I can save "up to 1%" by
employing GZip on PNGs.
~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
>gzipping format that uses deflate compression
ಠ_ಠ
~~~
nphase
This isn't reddit. Please reply with a helpful comment describing why this
is/isn't the right way to do things.
([http://stackoverflow.com/questions/388595/why-use-deflate-
in...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/388595/why-use-deflate-instead-of-
gzip-for-text-files-served-by-apache))
~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Sorry, I made assumptions that people knew what gzip was. EDIT: That wasn't
meant to be condescending, I apologise.
To clarify the original comment: I think it's rather pointless to gzip a PNG
file, since PNG files use deflate compression, the same method gzip uses, and
hence it has very little real benefit, if any.
~~~
Terretta
Your look of disapproval seems to have overlooked why he said he was using it.
He's clearly aware of your point, and even mentioned the uselessness: "Up to
1% savings" while explaining why: Google Page Speed is stupid.
~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Yes, I was pointing out the stupidity of that further because you're
compressing something twice.
------
RoboTeddy
Missing support for Cross-Origin Resource Sharing headers is a big problem for
some applications. For example, drawing images to a canvas from s3/cloudfront
will unavoidably taint your canvas.
(<https://developer.mozilla.org/en/CORS_Enabled_Image>)
Right now I'm proxying image requests to s3 through nginx, which is a terrible
workaround.
The AWS forums has a topic on the issue started in 2009 (~200 replies so
far...): <https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=34281>
~~~
sofuture
We do the same thing for the same reason. Luckily we were able to split off a
lot of our other content serving (same content, not to canvas elements) to a
CDN which is backed by our origin servers. It's a little crazy, but is the
best we can do until there's better CORS and custom SSL for Cloudfront.
------
jorgeortiz85
S3 has eleven nines of durability.
The author will find, to his dismay, that durability is not the same thing as
availability.
~~~
kozubik
The complexity implied by anything "better" than three nines is a recipe for
disaster.
In reality, neither you, nor Amazon, nor anyone else has any idea how durable
S3 is. But if they _did_, it wouldn't matter because unexpected interactions,
cascading failures, and SNAFU will keep it from ever being realized.
Much better to have more frequent, very boring failures than to have rare
spectacular ones.
~~~
jorgeortiz85
The author is proposing to serve his site entirely from S3, claiming it's
better than using a couple of nginx boxes because S3 has eleven nines of
durability.
Durability means you will get your data eventually (it will not be lost).
Availability means you will get your data right now, which is probably what he
really cares about in terms of serving live internet traffic.
Put another way: S3 not infrequently has availability hiccups (files are
temporarily unavailable, resulting in a disruption of service), without taking
durability hits (your files haven't been lost, you just can't see them right
now).
------
flyt
This is less "AWS" and more "S3/CloudFront".
there are many other product features that EC2/R53/ELB/etc could use, but
calling this AWS is a little too broad.
~~~
benatkin
He uses other AWS services but these are all of his major gripes. So I think
it's fair for him to say AWS.
Also AWS is an organization (part of a larger organization), but S3 is a
product.
------
mistercow
> You could break your CSS into multiple files, but this is in direct
> opposition to one of the tenants of website optimization: minimize the
> number of HTTP requests.
Am I missing something here? Your fonts were going to be in a separate file
anyway, right?
------
akoumjian
I tweeted the same thing to that account and got no response. I'm glad you
did. the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header has been a heavily requested
feature since 2009:
[https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=34281&...](https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=34281&start=175&tstart=0)
One example of how fundamental this is: you cannot currently perform a direct
AJAX upload to an s3 bucket from a web application hosted on an ec2 instance.
There is a postMessage hack that will work with small files, and of course you
can use a proxy, but you'd think it would be a common scenario to want to
upload files directly to S3.
~~~
boucher
You can upload files directly to s3 from your website:
<http://aws.amazon.com/articles/1434>
~~~
Smrchy
This only works standalone and not embedded in an AJAX application.
I only wish someone from the S3 team at Amazon would at least answer to this
thread:
[https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=34281&...](https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=34281&start=175&tstart=0)
Hundreds of messages in this thread and no answer after 2 years and counting.
~~~
boucher
Well, "AJAX application" is too nebulous of a term to really be meaningful
here. If you mean you can't use an XHR request, sure, but you can certainly
construct the necessary <input> element and POST request dynamically with
JavaScript.
------
ww520
Actually I would like to see S3 support custom SSL certificate. That would be
an awesome addition to make S3 a great static page server.
~~~
sofuture
Related: custom SSL for Cloudfront. It's a real show-stopper that I can't
serve Cloudfront over SSL via a CNAME.
------
diminish
"...Someone monitoring the @awscloud account opened a trouble ticket to my
email address asking for clarification" support through twitter is going
mainstream. It is like praying loud ad getting a response.
~~~
corin_
1.) AWS staff doing something is the very definition of not mainstream when it
comes to stuff like Twitter, their customers are developers
2.) AWS have always been awesome at responding to customer feedback in my
experience
3.) But you're right, except change "is going" to "has gone". A friend of mine
who works in SEO and social media (the good kind) says "In 2009 companies
needed to have social media accounts, in 2010 they needed to put out content
on them, in 2011 they needed to respond to customers through them" and he's
right. The mentality of customers of Twitter/Facebook has, for the most part,
moved from "holy hell, a company ACTUALLY SAW MY TWEET?" to "I tweeted about
my problem an hour ago, where the fuck is my answer?".
~~~
jasonkester
_"I tweeted about my problem an hour ago, where the fuck is my answer?"._
Can anybody else verify this? To me, it seems ridiculous that anybody would
expect to get support by posting something to a random website. Personally, I
go to twitter.com about four times a year and type in the names of my products
to do a quick vanity search about what people are saying about them. I've
never seen anything like a support request (or even a complete coherent
thought) in there. It just doesn't seem like something worth monitoring.
My product sites all have a contact page with an email address on it. If you
want to contact me, that's how you do it.
Amazon has forums with dedicated representatives monitoring them. That's how
you get in touch with them. I've never gone more than a few hours without a
response from somebody who knows what they're talking about in there.
~~~
hemancuso
I certainly get tweets in this vein for my app @expandrive and storage service
@strongspace. Especially if something is effecting availability.
Lots of users realize that there is likely a faster response from twitter than
[email protected] because the developer has some amount of face at stake
with the dirty laundry in public.
~~~
jasonkester
But it's not really "in public" though, is it? I mean really, how many people
would you expect to go to search.twitter.com and type in "expandrive" in the
twelve or so hours that they cache that post? That's the only way anybody
would know that your dirty laundry was airing, and then only if they could
parse what the airer was trying to say.
If you really wanted to "expose" something in public, you'd put it up on a
blog or someplace that's actually on the public facing internet. Not that it
would get you any more chance of the company hearing about it, but at least
other people might see it.
And, of course, if you run a company that simply doesn't respond to things on
Twitter, the customer in question will hopefully learn that they can send you
an email and get a fast response.
------
yummybear
The lack of CORS support have been known by Amazon for years, but they still
have chosen not to fix it. There's a long running thread on their support
forums somewhere where they start by saying they'll look into it. I believe
this was years ago.
------
melvinmt
Cloudfront actually does support gzip encoding if you use Custom Origin, just
not with S3.
~~~
jelder
Technically, CloudFront supports Accept-Encoding/Transfer Encoding, and /not/
compression. If client and server supported ROT13 as an encoding, CloudFront
would support that, too. CloudFront is neither compressing nor decompressing
anything.
------
23david
These issues have been known to Amazon and to serious AWS users for a long
time. Why do you expect that this time they will actually do something? It
will take more than a simple twitter response from the AWS team to believe
that they actually will make changes to fix the situation...
------
bsimpson
We've been hosting our gzipped JavaScript via S3/CloudFront, and have had no
problems serving to IE7:
[http://libraries.netshelter.net/javascript/netshelter/librar...](http://libraries.netshelter.net/javascript/netshelter/library/1.4.2.min.jgz)
------
atechie
Also SQS should accept utf-8 in message body rather than a restricted set of
characters.
~~~
mleonhard
SOAP is the cause: <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#charsets>
Fortunately it looks like AWS is starting to use JSON for newer APIs:
[http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/amazondynamodb/latest/deve...](http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developerguide/DataFormat.html)
------
spullara
You can use S3/Cloudfront for compressed assets as long as your main page is
dynamic. It can just generate different URLs for assets based on whether the
browser supports gzip or not. See bagcheck.com for an example.
------
jwr
These are valid points and the same ones I've encountered when using S3 and
CloudFront. I am actually amazed that gzip encoding _still_ isn't supported —
people have been complaining about this for years.
------
driverdan
On a related note, do not use S3 on the web, use CloudFront. S3's performance
is highly variable and latency tends to be high. Serving files from S3 and not
CloudFront is foolish and will slow your site down.
------
ceejayoz
I'd like to see Micro instances available in Virtual Private Cloud.
In the forums, an Amazon rep promised it'd be available within 2011. No luck,
though.
------
malandrew
They also need websockets support over ELBs.
~~~
gabrtv
At OpDemand we're using WebSockets successfully through multiple ELBs. The
trick is setting the listener to use TCP instead of HTTP. With TCP forwarding
you lose X-Forwarded-For headers, Cookie stickiness and a few other HTTP-
specific features.. but you can always spin up a separate listener for that.
------
hypervisor
Only three problems?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.