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Inflation in job titles reaching Weimar levels - j_baker
http://www.economist.com/node/16423358
======
joe_the_user
Now wait a second, _Weimar levels_ of title inflation would be where I would
be called "planetary dictator" on the third month of a temp assignment... At
the end of Weimar inflation, Wikipedia claims a single gold Mark had reached a
value of a billion paper marks.
Perhaps Economist Headline inflation has reached Weimar levels, though.
------
buro9
How long until the word founder means something else? That's at least the one
I trust most.
"Founder of the Stationary Cupboard"
I quite liked being a dev and then a senior for years. I felt it meant
something that everyone understood the difference between a junior dev, a dev
and a senior dev. I also felt that I understood what I needed to know, have
experience of and be skilled in to progress through the dev levels. And it was
nothing to do with job titles, and everything to do with learning and applying
that learning.
I liked that I could take something like the programmer competency matrix (
[http://www.indiangeek.net/wp-
content/uploads/Programmer%20co...](http://www.indiangeek.net/wp-
content/uploads/Programmer%20competency%20matrix.htm) ) and know where I fit
into the grand scheme of things and why I didn't yet deserve a job title
beyond my experience and knowledge at that time.
IMHO, a slim hierarchy of clearly titled and well understood job titles can be
a very good motivator and guide to someone wanting to master their profession.
Inflated titles hardly motivate people to improve themselves.
~~~
gaius
These days there are no "junior" devs and you become "senior" with one year's
experience.
------
frisco
Did they really reference "ninja" developers as an example of title inflation?
That must be what it's like to be completely on the outside of tech community
in-jokes.
~~~
j_baker
Someone should key recruiters in on that in-joke.
------
mikemol
I don't think it matters, really. As the article notes, it leads to cynicism
about title changes and promotions, but job title prestige isn't (and probably
have never been) a good way to evaluate employee and/or role value.
It used to be that it wasn't the company's president you wanted to satisfy,
but his secretary--yet which held more prestige?
~~~
lsc
I'm with you. Giving someone a grand title is free; If a ridiculous title
makes an employee even a little bit happier, who am I to deny him that small
boon?
~~~
gaius
Why assign any meaning to any word then?
C'mon. You're a programmer. You should be used to unambiguous use of
language...
~~~
lsc
with regards to titles, the ship has sailed a long time ago. It's like calling
a product or service "cloud" - it can mean almost anything.
The thing is, some words and phrases have a very specific meaning. Say, xen-
based virtual private server, and you have a pretty good idea what you are
getting. Other words have a very nebulous meaning. say "cloud service" and you
might as well say "solution" for all the information it conveys. It's folly to
insist on a tight definition of a word once the rest of the industry has
decided it's meaningless.
------
Timothee
One problem with that that didn't seem to get mentioned in the article is that
it's an arms race. If your company doesn't play, you have a resume that might
give you a less-fancy name for the same position as your friend's. Sure titles
and resumes are not the whole thing when being hired, but everything else
being equal, you always have "well that second guy does have experience as
manager" when it doesn't mean he actually managed anybody.
------
notahacker
The sooner everybody's a VP, the sooner we judge them on their actual
competence rather than assumed level of seniority.
------
brc
I could never present my business card with a straight face if it had a
ridiculous title.
In fact I just went to a school reunion and answered most peoples questions
with 'software developer', But maybe that's because it shuts 99% of the
population up.
~~~
billswift
Straight faces are seriously overrated. Smiling brightens everyone's day, if a
ridiculous title helps you smile, more power to it. (I just finished typing my
handwritten notes from _How to Win Friends and Influence People_ into my
computer, so this sort of stuff is on my mind right now.)
------
mahmud
This was sad:
_The number of members of LinkedIn, a professional network, with the title
vice-president grew 426% faster than the membership of the site as a whole in
2005-09_
~~~
gaius
If you've ever worked in banking, then anyone who's been there for a few years
will be a VP. The original rationale was, as a banker you could be managing
the same amount of cash as a VP in another company would have in their budget.
Even that was pretty flimsy, but it's long been totally out of hand.
------
Maven911
reminds me of student clubs where everyone was a VP
~~~
ephermata
My friend and I ran a chess club in high school. We really just wanted to play
chess, but made everyone who joined a "Director." Why not? Plus, It was a bit
of a joke reaction to the high pressure competition we saw in other extra
curricular activities.
------
erikstarck
I'm not surprised. I find it very difficult to explain what I do. Tried to
summarize it on my LinkedIn-profile as "Opportunity Cloud Builder" but, yeah,
it's quite corny. :)
~~~
gaius
No-one wants to be a "programmer" anymore, kids all call themselves "Certified
Enterprise Java Solutions Architect" or something. Architects? I call 'em
"Visio resources", and I can draw fluffy clouds myself...
------
nostrademons
Impressive. They managed to self-Godwin in the subtitle.
~~~
ataggart
Not really. The Weimar Republic's hyperinflation preceded (and contributed to)
the rise of the Nazis.
~~~
nostrademons
Right, it's the "and contributed to" part that I'm referencing. Godwin's Law
is "...a comparison involving Hitler or Nazis..." Usually once you reference
the Weimar Republic, people immediately think of the rise of the Nazis ten
years later. It's an implicit comparison, even if the words are never
mentioned.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Revenge of the Nerds (2002) - _bxg1
http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html
======
_bxg1
The most interesting part of this for me is actually under the header
"Appendix: Power", which could be its own short post. Key excerpt:
> When I see patterns in my programs, I consider it a sign of trouble. The
> shape of a program should reflect only the problem it needs to solve. Any
> other regularity in the code is a sign, to me at least, that I'm using
> abstractions that aren't powerful enough-- often that I'm generating by hand
> the expansions of some macro that I need to write.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Common Lisp Cookbook - Strings - Shamiq
http://cl-cookbook.sourceforge.net/strings.html
======
Shamiq
This may be old hat to some, but I just bumped into this while working on my
Introduction to AI Programming homework.
Hope it's helpful.
~~~
astine
It's a good page actually. Every time I forget a string operation this is
usually my first stop.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The East-Coast Blizzard from Space - danhak
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=41979&src=eorss-nh
======
ANH
I work with the folks who calibrate the data from the instrument (MODIS) that
acquired that image. They do good work!
------
geofffox
I am a meteorologist. This GOES-14 visible image loop is amazing (aka even
better).
[http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/projects/svr_vis/eastcoast_s...](http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/projects/svr_vis/eastcoast_snowstorm/ch1loop.asp)
~~~
vito
It's Santa! <http://i.imgur.com/5cnxD.png>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How To Find Hackers At College? - pashle
======
zaidf
If you have an entrepreneur's club, I've seen couple hackers hangout at that
club. It is easier to work with a hacker who is already looking to be an
entrepreneur than someone who is doing a Masters and looking forward to making
that nice salary after graduation--selling your vision to him is one hard
task.
------
pashle
I agree with pg's belief that college is the best place to find cofounders,
so...
1\. Where do hackers like to hang out on campus?
2\. What languages do great hackers love using?
~~~
gyro_robo
1\. The computer lab where the Vaxen are... d'oh. These days, check freshmeat,
the programming sub-reddit, and mailing lists for languages/projects of
interest.
2\. All of them, and they keep writing new ones
------
RyanGWU82
YC News seems like a good place to start. ;-) Anyone here at Stanford? If so,
hit me up (my email is in my profile).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Our new app Just Because lets you send the gift of startups - rosenjon
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/07/give-the-gift-of-startups-just-because-lets-you-give-freebies-to-friends-from-the-startups-you-love/
======
rosenjon
Would love some feedback from the Hacker News community on the app and how we
can improve it!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I quit my job. Today is Day 16 - keslert
http://www.nevertryneverfail.com/i-quit-my-job-today-is-day-16/
======
gedrap
>>> I’ve felt the pull. However, personal motivation to succeed keeps the
wheels churning.
I really like your point about motivation.
I'm a freelancer and working from home, and I used to think that nutrition,
physical activity etc has a lot to do with it. Yeah sure it does but recently
I think at the end of the day, it's just about will power and deep, personal
motivation. If you are not enjoying it, no diet will make you more motivated
or energetic. It's about an ability to say firm 'no' to distractions.
Especially the 'short' ones, because they never tend to be short [0].
Sometimes there is just shit that needs to be done. I mean ugly stuff, like
code written by someone else and you have no idea how does it even work in
first place or think that the the other programmer was drunk when coding it.
Something that your mind says 'I didn't signed up for this shit!'. You just
have to focus on it, and get it done. No 'just going to starbucks downstairs',
or 'just a cigarette' will help.
Actually, I think one of the best indicator of maturity of software engineer
is dealing with unpleasant tasks. Less mature developers try to delay it to
the last minute (when bad comes to worse), or impulsively suggest re-writing
everything from scratch, etc. Mature developers just get their shit together
and get it done.
[0] Once I noticed that the biggest productivity killers are longer than 5min
breaks because once you are away, it's so tempting to do one more thing, and
then another. I blogged about it "It's all about the short breaks"
[http://blog.gedrap.me/blog/2014/02/09/its-all-about-the-
shor...](http://blog.gedrap.me/blog/2014/02/09/its-all-about-the-short-
breaks/)
~~~
Swizec
With the current market for engineers, if you aren't enjoying your work most
of the time, you're doing something wrong and should probably find a more
interesting project to work on. Fire yourself if you have to.
That said, good diet, healthy social life, and exercise are of paramount
importance to will power. The better balanced your life, the more will power
you're going to have.
But it's also important to manage will power. When you're tired, just stop,
take a break. Even leave things for tomorrow. You are likely just fooling
yourself that you can still get stuff done and wouldn't you rather just take a
proper break than spend the next hour or two shuffling your feet and getting
neither rested nor getting work done?
As for short breaks -> Timers. Use timers. Seriously, use a timer.
Shameless plug, I've been working on a book about this stuff:
[http://nightowlsbook.com](http://nightowlsbook.com)
~~~
gedrap
Good points!
>>> With the current market for engineers, if you aren't enjoying your work
most of the time, you're doing something wrong and should probably find a more
interesting project to work on. Fire yourself if you have to.
Yup, I'm starting a new job in 1.5 week, extremely excited :)
>>> Even leave things for tomorrow.
That is also very true, blogged about it too a while ago as well [0]. Trying
to get something done for 3hrs can be replaced by 1hr burst next day, as long
as 'tomorrow' doesn't become a procrastination. What is important is to make
sure that you are actually having a break, your mind is totally away from
work.
And yeah, I agree about the timers. I sometimes use a pomodoro timer app and
trying to make it a habit, planning to make a physical arduino one. Some day
:)
[0] "3\. Take a break and don’t feel guilty about it"
[http://blog.gedrap.me/blog/2014/05/19/4-things-i-learned-
the...](http://blog.gedrap.me/blog/2014/05/19/4-things-i-learned-the-hard-way-
while-freelancing/)
~~~
Swizec
> Trying to get something done for 3hrs can be replaced by 1hr burst next day
I've often found that impossible bugs that I struggle with for hours on end
and just can't figure out no matter what I do, get solved in 10 minutes next
morning.
Now how do I teach this to junior developers? I've worked on teams where
juniors will frequently overwork themselves in an effort to "pay their dues"
or whatnot, or just because they feel they should offset their lack of skill
with stronger work ethics and I am fairly convinced it's counterproductive.
But I can't seem to find words to explain this to them. Or maybe I'm wrong and
the "leave it for tomorrow" only works when you've reached a certain level of
skill.
These are the questions that keep me up at night.
~~~
gedrap
Good point again!
Programming largely is creative, with some degree of standard and quite
autopilot code. Creative work can't be produced by staring at a blinking
cursor.
I agree with counter productivity, and I strongly agree with companies who
approach this with 'just get it done, whenever you want'. Twitter certainly
does so, Netflix I believe does.
>>> Or maybe I'm wrong and the "leave it for tomorrow" only works when you've
reached a certain level of skill.
I think there is some skill involved, or more accurately, experience. The
problems we are solving are often unique but still share something in common.
After solving a bunch of them, you have a gut feeling when something's going
right, and when you must to take a step back.
And it has to do with corporate people and managers, not everyone understands
how programming works. Young developers are afraid to look lazy in front of
their non-technical managers. It's often important just to appear working
hard, e.g. reading HN in terminal ;)
------
meritt
Can you please please remove SumoMe? Or add a button which allows me to
disable the stupid highlighting / clickjacking shit it does?
~~~
danielweber
I wants me to do _something_ but I can't tell what. Tweet things, maybe?
~~~
keslert
Thanks for the feedback guys. It is supposed to make tweeting easier, but
apparently it's not doing a very good job (although it probably does make you
want to tweet nasty things about me :)
I'll look into a better solution.
~~~
endersshadow
I find that many-a-web developers don't realize that people impulsively
highlight sections as they read them. I usually triple-click to highlight a
paragraph as I read it. It's just a habit, but it's apparently one I share
with many people. This also frustrates me to no end on the NYT site, and it's
the sole reason I'm not a subscriber.
~~~
thatjoist
Highlighting text you're reading increases readability as it adds a visual
clue to where on the page you are reading if you look away from the page.
A lot of people pick up the habit without being taught it because of that.
------
keslert
I added caching to my blog, but in case there are issues, I posted to Medium
again as well.
[https://medium.com/@keslertanner/e6eeeb60360c](https://medium.com/@keslertanner/e6eeeb60360c)
------
ibrad
I wish you good luck. I will be in the same boat in 2 days. Quitting your job
is very hard especially when you are not going for another one. Working on
your own project is exciting but the toll comes when you don't see progress
for a while and these times will come believe me.
I too will be working on my own ideas but I know after the honey moon is over
I will have to face the fact that I have no paychecks coming every two weeks.
It will be hard, but if success was easy, everyone will be doing just that.
Again good luck, and I do think freelanceinbox is a neat project.
~~~
arethuza
Good luck - and if it helps here is a quote that I find rather motivating (and
yes, I do know what it is like to leave a steady job for your own project):
_" It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong
man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The
credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred
by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short
again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but
who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the
great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows
in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with
those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."_
[It's an awesome quote made even better by the role it had in a fantastic
sporting/political event - involving rugby so therefore doubly awesome]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic)
~~~
keslert
That is epic. Needs to belong to the wall behind my monitors.
~~~
thix0tr0pic
you can also check out zen pencils, prints are usually available
[http://zenpencils.com/comic/theodore-roosevelt-the-man-in-
th...](http://zenpencils.com/comic/theodore-roosevelt-the-man-in-the-arena/)
------
beat
Oh man, the feels, they burn!
Tomorrow is my last day of dayjobbing. I'm committing full time to my startup.
On saturday, I plan to sit down with my lawyer for re-incorporating and re-
branding. I've had an LLC and an initial name I used for expenses and stuff,
but I have a better name now and I want to start with a completely clean
slate.
I have no idea where my mind is going to be in a month, or in six months (I'm
giving myself six months of runway to have revenue at least trickling in).
Euphoria and terror, all at once.
~~~
keslert
That's awesome and I completely understand :) Best of luck and feel free to
reach out anytime.
------
elwell
Freelance Inbox piques my interest, but have you considered a commission fee
business model as opposed to monthly payments? I'd like to _try_ it out your
service without putting any money up, and if it works well I wouldn't mind
paying a certain percentage (or flat rate) to you if the lead turned out to be
profitable.
~~~
jarrett
I suspect that collecting on such commissions would be a real challenge. I'm
not saying the service's customers are dishonest, but...it's easy to "forget"
to pay your commission when it's on the honor system. Other bills come in,
other responsibilities push it out of one's mind. Human psychology may thus
work against an honor-based commission system.
As a customer who's rooting for the success of Freelance Inbox, I want the
subscription fee to stick around. Not to be an elitist, but by its nature,
this type of service can only work if it's exclusive. (Too many freelancers,
and the fierce competition makes the leads worthless.) Which is why I'm also
pleased to see that Freelance Inbox will/does have a membership cap.
~~~
elwell
Good point about it being exclusive
------
clarky07
I remember those days. Quitting was really exciting. I got more work done in
the first few months after I quit than probably at any other time in my life.
I'm on day 1100ish now and it doesn't come as easy, but it is still pretty
awesome working for myself. It's still kinda scary, but I consider the
experiment at least pretty successful considering I'm still at it 3+ years
later. Good luck to you.
------
mathattack
I like the intellectual honesty and perspective that comes with time. And I
hope this post generates interest in the business for the OP.
------
ark15
I don't have any words of wisdom since there are too many people here who are
smarter than I am that you should be listening to.
But for whatever it is worth -
I signed up to freelanceinbox to show my support.
Not sure how useful it would be since my niche is enterprise web applications
but I am going to keep my subscription alive for at least a few months to see
if anything converts.
I also promise to sign up for your pro community when you launch that.
If there is at least one lead that converts into a decent client every month,
I'd be happy to pay 2-3x of what you are charging right now.
Good luck!
------
ehurrell
Great post, good luck with the product! I recently did almost the exact
opposite of this, quit work with a startup.
While I learned a lot of what you mention in your post (being a self-starter
is a huge asset) at the time continuing work there seemed untenable. In
retrospect, even though I was quitting into nothing and the next two months
were some of the hardest times money-wise I've ever had to get through the
decision was the best one I could have made.
I guess what I'm saying is congrats on taking control, which I think is more
important then the vector of travel, I'm glad it's going well.
------
sologoub
Has anyone used the Freelance Inbox?
Curious to know what the experience is/was like and if you actually closed any
meaningful business.
------
jctanner
Great followup to the last post. Interested to read the three month post!
------
zrail
This is so inspiring. I'm looking forward to reading your continual followups,
hopefully they'll help push me over the edge.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tea with Ron Conway - jwu711
http://www.skyara.com/tea-with-ron-conway-and-mc-hammer/san-francisco/141
======
yosho
So I'm one of the co-founders of Skyara. We worked pretty hard to set up this
event and would hate to see it go unnoticed. We actually haven't even met Ron
ourselves and we're giving away a chance for a lucky startup to meet him so we
think that's a big deal.
It's also supporting a good cause, the UCSF children's fund which we've been
participating in, so check it out.
We would also like some feedback on any other interesting experiences you guys
would like to see on our site. We promise we'll try to get them listed for
you.
------
lkozma
" and MC Hammer"
Title is incomplete.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How can one find the best quality item with the least amount of markup? - aridiculous
======
aridiculous
OP here:
Certain goods have high status and markup but aren't high quality.
Can you think of a strategy of finding great quality items that don't have a
luxury "tax" bumping up margins far than a typical good, due to the status
they communicate to others.
In other words, how does one find high quality items without status included
in price?
Let's say I'm buying a wallet and I would like to find a very high quality
wallet (workmanship, materials, design). Let's also say I'm willing to spend a
limitless amount for the wallet.
How would I find the sweetspot of a top quality wallet, but with the least
amount of markup due to perceived luxury/social status?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Should What Happens at Applebee's Stay at Applebee's? - minikites
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/02/should-what-happens-at-applebees-i-stay-i-at-applebees/272756/
======
dmckeon
Here's a first-person response from the person who posted the receipt and was
fired:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/01/fired-
ap...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/01/fired-applebees-
waitress-needs-tips)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Microsoft trademarks word "i'm" - nickb
http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/
======
hugh
No, they trademarked the word "i'm" in some small and particular subset of its
possible uses.
There's nothing to stop you making a car called the "i'm", or a web-based
social cause instant messaging advertising thingy (or whatever the hell this
is) called "Focus", but trademark law will stop you from selling a car called
"Focus" or a (whatever this thingy is) called "i'm".
Doesn't change the fact that "i'm" is a pretty bad name for anything, though.
------
vaksel
that doesn't mean they own the word in all possible variations.
~~~
nickb
Heh, you'll probably receive a violation notice if you name your product with
anything that's of the form "i'm *". Unless you're a big co, good luck
fighting MS.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: I've coded an iOS App to sell more websites - hilti
In Germany a lot of small businesses have old websites which are technically not state of the art. Most of them are using HTML4, Frames or simple DIY-Website builder by 1&1 etc.<p>In total there are about 3.2 million small businesses and 30% don't even have any site. That's why I focus on this market.<p>Every time I speak to a potential client the first thing I do is analyzing his website for some key facts. Most of them are technical facts like page title or page description. Another tipping point is to show the clients website on a smartphone. It "hurts" them if they see how hard it is to pinch, zoom and scroll on their current website, which often is not optimized.<p>To be faster in acquisition I've developed an iOS App on my own which addresses these technical points and includes some other functions like checking Adwords click prices.<p>I've started to learn iOS development about 10 months ago. Coming from PHP and Ruby, the learning curve to Objective-C was pretty tough. About 300 hours of coding and learning went into this app.<p>Now my question to the hacker news community:<p>What would You pay for this app? What Do you think is the right pricing in the app store?<p>Here's the link to the app: https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/onpage-seo/id854357492?mt=8<p>Thanks for feedback.
======
hilti
[https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/onpage-
seo/id854357492?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/onpage-
seo/id854357492?mt=8)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Brain scans predict which criminals are more likely to reoffend - ananyob
http://www.nature.com/news/brain-scans-predict-which-criminals-are-more-likely-to-reoffend-1.12672
======
biggfoot
Quoting:
Wager adds that the part of the ACC examined in this study “is one of the most
frequently activated areas in the human brain across all kinds of tasks and
psychological states”. Low ACC activity could have a variety of causes —
impulsivity, caffeine use, vascular health, low motivation or better neural
efficiency — and not all of these are necessarily related to criminal
behaviour.
Something tells me this will be completely ignored in any future reports.
------
qwertzlcoatl
The word 'likely' renders this technique useless.
------
Aqueous
It is not in your best interest to be a criminal.
So why are people criminals?
We have to give up this silly notion of free will. The more we learn about the
brain the more it turns out to be a fantasy.
~~~
mpyne
> We have to give up this silly notion of free will. The more we learn about
> the brain the more it turns out to be a fantasy.
If you're right, there's no possible way for us to "give up" this notion...
it's predestined to end up whichever way it ends up and we're just cogs in the
machine.
~~~
Aqueous
Free will and self-awareness are different, but we seem to confuse them a lot.
We are a cognitive agent and can know many different kinds of facts. Our lack
of free will is just another fact that we might become aware of.
~~~
mpyne
> Our lack of free will is just another fact that we might become aware of.
Sure, but even if it's a fact there's no use arguing about giving up the
notion of free will because it's not under "our" control whether we will or
won't, no matter how self-aware we might be.
Self awareness is the easy part. I can run lm_sensors on my box at home to let
the computer know about its own motherboard temperature and many other things,
but it's still not a cognitive machine.
~~~
Aqueous
Right, I agree. It is not our decision when we collectively stop thinking we
have free will. It might not happen at all. When I say "We ought to" I really
only mean that facts point in one direction, and our beliefs point in another,
and whenever they become aligned we'll be better off.
------
DamnYuppie
I agree with many of the quotes below in that this his findings only state
they are more "likely" to commit another crime.
I wonder if the lower activity in the ACC isn't a factor in them committing
another crime but in them being caught? To put it bluntly they don't have a
lot going on upstairs so they will do something very dumb, where as a criminal
with more cognitive capacity would likely take longer to slip up.
------
ananyob
"In a twist that evokes the dystopian science fiction of writer Philip K.
Dick, neuroscientists have found a way to predict whether convicted felons are
likely to commit crimes again from looking at their brain scans. Convicts
showing low activity in a brain region associated with decision-making and
action are more likely to be arrested again, and sooner."
------
liberte9
This reminds me of phrenology.
~~~
illuminate
With enough investigation, I'm sure it'll be just as useful.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pluto is more intriguing than ever - hcrisp
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20150712-3
======
jcr
previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9868908](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9868908)
------
steffenfrost
Is it me, or do all the photos seem out of focus? Million miles is 4 times the
distance to the moon so perhaps this is the reason why.
------
Sir_Cmpwn
This is yesterday's picture, by the way. Most space enthusiasts saw it
yesterday, "new photo" is a bit insincere.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bloomberg on why farmers can’t work in information technology - jelliclesfarm
https://twitter.com/petermentes/status/1228518467776761856
======
rs23296008n1
Done both. Farming is harder.
Bloomberg has no clue whatsoever. Farming is not just gardening. That would be
like saying programming is just typing. Wrong.
~~~
salawat
To expand on this, Agriculture is so god-blessed complicated when it comes to
doing it in a way that gets you worthwhile returns.
Off the top of my head: Plant Ag: Soil quality is an art form of it's own.
Figure out what your soil is, and ameliorate the he'll out of it to get it
fertile again.
Plant/crop choice: Guess what? Now you get to learn the biology of every crop
you're familiar with, their cultivars, and the effect they have on soils/the
local fauna. Decide whether you are going mono-culture, or companion planting.
If monoculture, Note your lifecycle (for harvest times and other necessary
processing ) then proceed to equipment maintenance, operation, and financials.
If companion planting, get ready for making your jigsaw of a planting space,
and figure out your crop rotation for the next few seasons; then jump to
equipment operation, maintenance, and financial buggery. Oh yeah, make sure
your choice properly reflects what your environment can support, and decide
whether or not you're going no-till or not, pesticide/herbicide free and
adjust accordingly.
Did you remember pollination? Them Bees hardly ever just grow on trees
anymore! Better make friends with a bee keeper!
Animal Ag: Welcome to fence and belligerent animal hell. Make sure you have
your herd culled of any children of the last sure, or you've rotated out last
season's males, as inbreeding is a big fat nono. Keep your males spread out if
you don't want injuries and be ready when your carefully orchestrated
separation fails because somebody got randy.
Farmers could make fantastic frigging programmers, I have no doubt; what I
doubt they'll be is the most accommodating or tolerant of the typical code or
feature mill environment; and for that God bless 'em. Besides which, I'm
fairly sure you'd have some serious tech culture shock as the other side of
the intellectual landscape filtered in. These are people who have become
optimized in figuring out how to do things without creating extra work.
If the man truly had the gall to suggest IT is somehow harder than farming, I
hate to bust bubbles, but he needs a reality check. It often only looks easy
because years of hard work have gone into the land and processes to keep it
productive.
~~~
jelliclesfarm
There is a general derisiveness towards farmers because we produce a lot of
value and give it away for so very little. It became worse with govt subsidies
and market forces because it further devalued what we do.
Tech does not help farming and ag. Whatever ‘Agtech’ is happening now is a
data play. Every technology out there that has gotten funding is because they
collect data and that data is a commodity that can be sold for more than the
value of the food produced by farmers who are at the bottom most rung of the
supply chain.
I do say this with a touch of bitterness because I applied for YC twice and
won’t again because I was told that there is no money. (Without serving the
data gods) I get the logic of it, but that doesn’t stop me from being bitter.
It is particularly nauseating that Bloomberg should say this because the most
invested Agtech is for commodity crops that get traded on Wall Street and the
kind of crops like corn and soy and input companies and land surveys etc. and
it’s business.
I will never vote for Bloomberg even though he was in my shortlist. Something
has been triggered that bought forth all that I have witnessed and
subconsciously recorded about the devaluation of farming by tech and business
communities since 2011 when I first started looking into at ways to improve ag
with tech. The bubble just burst when I read that. This quote was from 2016.
~~~
rs23296008n1
I remotely occasionally support a bunch of farmers with fleets of raspberry
pi, arduino and psoc. Those guys probably directly look after more computers
than a lot of webguys. Writing C/python seems the most common.
~~~
jelliclesfarm
Farmers can learn anything. Still laughing over Mike Bloomberg’s instructions
for growing corn “1. Dig a hole..”
Show me a guy who digs a hole to grow corn..and I will show you someone who
has never farmed before.
Don’t need gray matter for that..
~~~
rs23296008n1
Programming is just typing fast after all. Don't need to think either. Just
need a dark room, a hoodie and the light of green text reflecting on your
face.
Or something.
------
aaron695
He clearly is talking pre the information age (500 years ago) farming was not
complex.
Which it wasn't.
Now farmers have to use robots, and machinery and data services and chemicals,
breeding patterns.
It is far more complex.
Fake News FTW.
On Twitter even. The clip is specifically cut to be bad, but actually is in
context if you have ears, but it seems people are really really stupid.
~~~
jelliclesfarm
Not Fake News
[https://www.theblaze.com/news/bloomberg-triggers-
bipartisan-...](https://www.theblaze.com/news/bloomberg-triggers-bipartisan-
backlash-for-condescending-remarks-about-farmers)
[..]While speaking at the University of Oxford Saïd Business School in 2016,
Bloomberg was asked if Americans living on the coasts — who are generally more
liberal — could be unified with those who live in middle America, who are
generally more conservative.
In response, Bloomberg implied that anyone could be a farmer because it
requires a low-level of intelligence to be successful.
I could teach anybody, even people in this room, no offense intended, to be a
farmer.
It's a process. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add
water, up comes the corn. You could learn that. Then we had 300 years of the
industrial society. You put the piece of metal on the lathe, you turn the
crank in the direction of the arrow and you can have a job. And we created a
lot of jobs. At one point, 98 percent of the world worked in agriculture;
today it's 2 percent in the United States.
Now comes the information economy. And the information economy is
fundamentally different because it's built around replacing people with
technology and the skill sets that you have to learn are how to think and
analyze, and that is a whole degree level different. You have to have a
different skill set, you have to have a lot more gray matter.[..]
------
jelliclesfarm
[..] Bloomberg on why farmers can’t work in information technology
MB: “I can teach anyone how to be a farmer 1 dig a hole 2 put a seed in 3 put
dirt on top 4 add water 5 up comes the corn”
The skill 4information technology is completely different you need more grey
matter[..]
------
consultutah
What an idiot. We deserve better leadership
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Libreboot: Open Letter to the Free Software Community - jff
https://libreboot.org/#open-letter-to-the-free-software-community
======
jordigh
This is a nice statement to hear. I have had some IRC conversations with some
of the involved people, and the whole affair was rather unpleasant.
I hope things really are quieting down, and I'm really excited over the
possibility of disabling ME. Being unable to get rid of hardware backdoors is
essentially why I haven't bought a new laptop in ten years. Remarkably, my
ten-year old Inspiron 1420 dellbuntu still works great, and it's delightful to
be able to still buy parts for it, but I'm starting to feel the desire for
newer hardware.
~~~
Tharkun
You would think that there enough geeks out there who are aware of the issues
with Intel ME to do something about. But after this time the best we have is a
nasty hack that can kind of disable it.
Don't we have the numbers (and quite frankly the money) to solve this issue at
the root? Why can't we (the broader tech community) sell a laptop aimed
principally at ourselves. Without Intel ME. Without closed-source firmware. No
binary blobs.
Pardon the rant. I'll go back to being naive in silence.
~~~
userbinator
_Don 't we have the numbers (and quite frankly the money) to solve this issue
at the root?_
Consider that there's a probably not-small team at Intel responsible for
designing and implementing ME. All of them have decided, either explicitly or
implicitly, to willingly follow the company plan and keep ME secret. How many
of those would, if there were no negative consequence to themselves, defect
and leak _everything_ they knew about it (including the critical private
keys)? As it is, a handful doing it would be sued into oblivion, but if
_everyone_ working on ME somehow decided to defect, it wouldn't be easy to
stop them.
Just like with those who work on designing and implementing DRM and other
anti-user features, I've always wondered: do these people genuinely believe
that they are an overall good and actively promote/advocate for them, or do
they personally oppose, but take the job because of some other factors and
decide not to stand up for themselves due to the consequences? I mean, if I
were forced to work on such things, I would likely not make them so strong and
maybe even introduce some weaknesses, because I am fundamentally opposed to
it.
~~~
nmjohn
> including the critical private keys
If anyone actually has access to those keys in a manner in which they could be
leaked, that is... utterly terrifying. Like the private keys for root CAs,
they likely are under strict access controls making exfiltration quite
difficult (hopefully impossible barring multiple levels of process breakdown)
~~~
userbinator
For a first attempt at an ME-less system it would suffice to have them sign a
firmware that completely disables it, and while I don't think I've ever heard
of a CA leaking its private keys, there are plenty of instances where CAs have
issued "rogue" certificates. (Who knows, maybe the NSA has already gotten
Intel to sign their own backdoored version...)
_multiple levels of process breakdown_
...which is exactly the "everyone working on ME decides to defect" situation I
mentioned.
------
josteink
> I hope that any damage I caused to the community is not permanent.
While I believe Leah is honest about realizing her mistakes, I fear this part
is unreasonably optimistic.
Libreboot as a project has clearly been tainted all across the internet, and
we all know how long these things persist when they've first been given a
chance to take hold.
I'd love free firmware though so let's hope whatever stains remain won't be
too damaging for these projects as a whole (coreboot, librecore and
libreboot).
~~~
aanm1988
The fact that reason was able to take hold and get things back on track
actually gives me more hope for this project.
Hopefully this be a lesson to others as well.
~~~
pluma
I think that the other contributors actually held out long enough to let her
come to her senses speaks for the project. They seem to be invested enough to
actually spend six months seeing the project be dragged through the mud and
still come back and work with her.
~~~
Chaebixi
Didn't the other contributors leave to join a fork?
[https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Librecor...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Librecore-
Formation)
[http://librecore.info/](http://librecore.info/)
~~~
pluma
I was specifically referring to the contributors that didn't leave. The open
letter was penned by someone other than Leah, so no matter how many have left,
some of them seem to have stayed.
------
ajarmst
I guess I'm officially part of the greybeards now. This sort of thing just
makes me feel tired. I know it's naive to want your engineering projects to
come without politics and drama (hell, I'm less than a decade junior to
Stallman, I was _there_ for some of the reasons politics came in), but part of
me is all "just fork the damn code and let's move on".
~~~
ivanbakel
I think it's naive to believe there's something that comes politics-free at
all. Engineers can be keen to get stuff done without political disputes, but
from personal experience, that mostly just means not challenging anything
taken for granted.
I think the very existence of the FSF is proof of the fact that you can't take
politics out of even basic engineering questions. The real assumption is that
anything apolitical is doing something more than pandering to your views.
~~~
ryan-allen
Keeping politics out of work is just simple professionalism.
Sure, be an activist, but keep it out of work and do it on your own time.
~~~
wz1000
Free software is explicitly a political movement.
It is a mistake to assume everything done within work hours is apolitical.
~~~
infodroid
The problem here isn't the politics, it's the mission creep. Libreboot has
clear techno-political goals, to free our hardware from the shackles of BIOS
and UEFI.
It wasn't created to serve as a vehicle to protest a case of alleged sexual
discrimination against a friend in a different project.
There are many ways to protest at perceived injustice, but I don't think
derailing a volunteer project to do that is good for the movement as a whole.
------
jandrese
IMHO all of this personal drama is a sideshow compared to the inability to
support modern Intel or AMD hardware. I know they're working on enabling ARM
Chromebooks now, but without support for Intel or AMD it's hard to see how
this project isn't dead in the water.
~~~
azrazalea
You act like that is the project's fault though.
The whole point of libreboot is to be a purely free software alternative and
they can't do that with modern AMD/Intel.
Sure, that means the project will never be mainstream but it doesn't mean it
is dead in the water.
~~~
simcop2387
There's been some hacks recently that have managed to nerf the ME on
sandy/ivybridge. It's still a blob but it disables a lot of the other
functionality so there's hope for newer hardware.
------
gcb0
> At this point, it doesn’t matter. Indeed, it is unlikely that Libreboot will
> ever rejoin GNU, but feuding in an already fragmented community helps
> nobody.
how is this not paradoxical/delusional?
oh boy, here we go again. An apology full of grandiose but still standing on
the previous stubborn point. That is not how apologies work.
~~~
red023
Exactly what I was thinking. Admitting it was all BS, yet still sticking with
it. Probably already making stuff up like that they where indeed biased
against "her" because - micro aggression's showed it in their faces or
whatever they come up with these days.
~~~
icebraining
Nobody "admitted it was all BS". All was said was that the reaction was poor.
~~~
red023
To me saying "maybe, maybe not". "substance abuse" "gender dysphoria" "sorry
sorry sorry" tel me that is was all BS. To me it was admitted between the
lines.
------
lucb1e
This is a message one rarely gets to read and I'm happy to see it: rather than
having an endless flamewar and a person being put out of the project, at least
from the project's side people are just moving on and the number one priority
is simply the project. These things drag on way too long too often.
This is the first and only thing I read about what apparently happened, so I
might miss some details, but the basic message I'm seeing is "actions
regretted, won't happen again, also more people have access now, let's get
this thing back on track".
------
itsmemattchung
Because I'm unfamiliar with the project, can someone provide some context as
to what happened ?
~~~
pluma
It's pretty much there in the letter.
Leah had exclusive control of libreboot. Leah is transgender. The FSF fired
someone who happened to be transgender. Leah accused the FSF of doing it
because they were transgender. Leah pulled libreboot out of the FSF, burned
various bridges by calling people names and retained exclusive control of
libreboot, making statements in the project's name.
Apparently she changed her mind and libreboot has transitioned into a more
democratic project and she's sorry for what she did and cites personal issues
which the letter spells out as gender dysphoria and substance abuse.
A quick googling shows that both the FSF and Leah have mostly refrained from
naming names when talking about who got fired but Leah explicitly called out
individual members of the FSF (which she apologises for in the letter,
indicating she no longer thinks her accusations hold any water). There are
also various posts from libreboot contributors complaining about Leah having
effectively locked them out of the project and apparently the entire ordeal
didn't exactly result in quality software releases (which is to be expected).
tl;dr: maintainer with exclusive access has personal problems, lashes out
against FSF, takes project hostage, works personal problems out over the next
six months, hands control over project to the other contributors and repents.
~~~
azrazalea
> indicating she no longer thinks her accusations hold any water
This is the only thing in your summary I disagree with. From my reading of the
issue and knowledge from following it I think Leah still very much believes in
her accusations. She just has realized that at this point even if she's right
nothing positive is going to happen and realizes she handled the whole
situation awfully so is apologizing for that.
I didn't read anything that suggested that she didn't think the accusations
were true anymore.
~~~
RangerScience
I didn't get that.
What I got was that she thinks her prior actions, although incorrectly
reasoned, were still reasoned.
It's almost but importantly not identical to "Based on what I knew at the
time, I was correct. Based on what I now know, I was incorrect" \- except that
part of the "what I knew" was how herself was functioning.
As a child, I always used to hate the phrase "that's just an excuse". I'd do
something my parents didn't like, they'd ask why, I'd answer, they'd reply -
that's just an excuse. It's not, it's the causal reason [that I could
identify].
She saying she did things based on actual reasons. She's also saying that
those reasons, in hindsight, were wrong, and that those resulting actions were
wrong. She's accurately reporting the emotional states at the relevant times.
This is a good thing.
------
infodroid
I don't know why free software projects are so dominated by personnel issues,
I wish they weren't.
~~~
CriticalSection
Having worked for corporate software projects and for free software projects,
I can't say that free software projects are dominated by personnel issues any
more than corporate software projects.
The main difference is things tend to happen out in the open for free software
projects, and things happen behind closed doors within corporations. So it
just seems like there is more drama, because issues are hashed out in public,
things are not swept under the rug.
~~~
praptak
If personal issues create problems in a corporate project, people get fired.
This alone creates a chilling effect - people put up with a lot of crap before
they make the problems public, see Uber or any other story about a toxic
workplace.
~~~
infodroid
The chilling effect seems only true for toxic environments. Yet most
workplaces are not toxic in the way that you might imagine Uber to be. There
are many tech companies (large and small) that are pro-active about creating a
good environment. Also, the workplace makes you think twice about bad
behavior, because it has real consequences like losing your job, unlike on the
internet. See also cookiecaper's comment.
------
dijit
I hate to be cynical but I've been trained to pass politico-speak and Leahs
apology is only that she attacked individuals. Her apology is devoid of
stating that she believes the FSF did the right thing or absolve them of any
wrong-doing regarding termination of that employee regardless of their gender.
To a very cynical person (which I am being for the sake of this comment) it
sounds like "I won, I did the damage I wanted; but now my project is hurting
and this is damage control."
EDIT: Someone is bitter.
~~~
andrewguenther
This seems like a pretty unreasonable conclusion to draw. We don't know what
happened with the FSF, and I think that Leah is entitled to her own view. Her
resulting behavior was what caused damage, and she's apologized for that.
~~~
dijit
But she's not going back on her forcibly removing the project from the FSF.
It's platitudes without that. She "punished" them successfully.
------
CodeWriter23
I think they are naive to leave Leah in any kind of position within this
project. I'm not saying she is a government operative, but activist projects
like this that seek to end the potential for electronic eavesdropping via the
IME are going to be at least spied upon, if not disrupted. And stirring up a
bunch of crazy drama is a known controlled opposition technique. Like I said,
I am not accusing Leah of being such, and I have no knowledge to make such an
assessment of her. I just know that in my line of activism, someone acts a
fool like that, they're out. Period.
~~~
tux3
That sounds like a double-edged sword, since by those rules an Evil Attacker
Organization™ could now get rid of key people by stirring up enough drama
around them.
~~~
Chaebixi
> That sounds like a double-edged sword, since by those rules an Evil Attacker
> Organization™ could now get rid of key people by stirring up enough _drama
> around them_ [emphasis mine].
I don't think it is. It's one thing to have drama around you, but it's quite
another to be the source or instigator of it. Leah Rowe is clearly the latter.
~~~
swsieber
Was, not is. I believe that's an important distinction.
~~~
DashRattlesnake
> Was, not is. I believe that's an important distinction.
It is, but it's yet to be seen if this kind of dramatic behavior is behind the
project's leader. It was all very dramatic and still very fresh. An apology is
only the first step towards making it past-tense.
~~~
CodeWriter23
There is also the reality that recovery from addiction doesn't always take on
the first try.
------
castle-bravo
A wise man once told me: "no politics at work". As time goes on, the value of
that advice becomes more and more certain.
There's no reason that libreboot needs to be a political project. There are
enough reasons to want our firmware to be free. We rely on our machines for
our work, for our art, for our lives.
~~~
icebraining
_There are enough reasons to want our firmware to be free. We rely on our
machines for our work, for our art, for our lives._
That's a political position as well.
You can't avoid taking political positions in a public social environment, all
you're doing is silently accepting the existing position.
~~~
ticviking
Or declaring that this is not the time and space for those discussions.
~~~
icebraining
You don't need discussions; distributing code is a political action by itself.
The project is inherently political. Limiting discussions is just a power
play.
------
gravypod
Any news on that X220 support mentioned? I have, and use, an X220 for all of
my personal computing. How would one flash this and what would improve/break?
I've heard things about different mini PCIe cards working after flashing to
different types of BIOSs.
~~~
owenversteeg
Yeah, I have an X230T (X230, tablet version.) How likely is it that any X220
supported stuff would work on the X230?
~~~
gravypod
Funily enough I have an X230T too and I'd like to switch over to that. I cant
get my battery life on my X230T to match my X220 at all. Any tips for this?
I can't wait to have a note-taking pen tablet laptop thing, battery life is
just a big factor for me. I'm a college student and need to be able to run my
laptop from 8AM to 12PM. X220 works great for that. X230T is not there yet for
me.
------
pdimitar
I am very proud of all sides that are involved. The letter was very on point
when stating "The world of free software is shrinking and under attack".
All of us doing OSS must absolutely forgot any personal differences and work
towards the cause -- and never forget the cause. There are strongly
opinionated people, there are bigots, there are paid trolls, there are sexists
and racists -- like in all human groups. In the end though, we still must come
together.
------
hackuser
> With all of this in mind, were the allegations against the Free Software
> Foundation true? Perhaps. Perhaps not. At this point, it doesn’t matter.
It may matter very much to the person who was fired.
------
zokier
What is the relevance of libreboot anymore? Why not just focus instead on
librecore?
------
peterwwillis
Does anyone in the free software community really care about all this? Did
this really need a press release?
------
Hydraulix989
It looks like this got hit with the HN effect. Does anybody have a mirror?
------
romanovcode
So turns out they need GNU after all?
------
ailideex
can I get TLDR on all the drama ?
~~~
romanovcode
\- FSF fires underperforming and problematic employee who happen to be
transgender
\- Libreboot exists FSF and publicly denounces it believing that firing was
based because of the transgender a la discrimination
\- Community gets divided, Libreboot doesn't get as much help/code/growth as
before
\- Libeboot realised it made a huge mistake (but doesn't admit it), wants
things the way they were
------
calebgilbert
Without going into specifics that would surely prove to be incendiary to some,
this whole thing makes me feel like some portion of the world has completely
lost it. If you feel differently than me or hostile towards me for saying so,
that is your right, but I wanted to have at least one comment on here for
posterity for anyone else who feels the way I do so that they do not feel
alone.
------
calebgilbert
This is very telling to me that I get down voted for _having_ a differing
worldview opinion. Social justice for all unless they disagree with you, eh.
~~~
gizmo686
I can't speak to why others downvoted you. However, your comment says nothing.
I have no idea what you think about this; but I do know that your comment adds
nothing to the conversation.
~~~
calebgilbert
gizmo686 - For you this may be true. I don't think you can speak for everyone
that comes to this thread though. I've said as much as I feel comfortable and
safe to say given how hostile the internet and 'discussion' about certain
subjects have become in general.
~~~
albedoa
You attributed the downvotes to having a different opinion, but in this very
comment you admit to being intentionally vague.
Maybe you should instead attribute the downvoting to the very good reason you
gave us.
~~~
calebgilbert
Yeah, well I ended up with more upvotes than downvotes in the end. So
apparently your 'very good reason' was not widely shared. Thanks for trolling
anyway. Can alway count on the internet to provide plenty of them.
~~~
albedoa
Ah, glad your cognitive biases turned out to be right in the end!
------
sillysaurus3
_Finally, on a personal note, she was at the time struggling with gender
dysphoria and substance abuse. Since then, she has been managing these issues.
She agrees that her behaviour was rash and is determined to find a unifying
solution._
Is it really necessary to air this in public? Did you get her permission?
~~~
AdmiralAsshat
To be honest the "substance abuse" parts explains alot more about her behavior
than the gender dysphoria. During the incident period there were a number of
level-headed supporters of the project trying to dial it back, and it's as
though she would double down at every opportunity.
~~~
Sunset
> she would double down at every opportunity.
People with this kind of personal politics ALWAYS double down.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
U.S. Government Says Hoverboards Are Verboten - mrfusion
http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/19/u-s-government-says-hoverboards-are-verboten/
======
runin2k1
That is not what the government has said. They've asked for the device
manufacturers to submit their products for UL certification.
No bans, recalls, or any other measures have been taken by the government.
~~~
xaqfox
"They've asked"...that's an even worse characterization of the article than
the headline failing to qualify that only non-UL Certified devices are
"verboten" (by being deemed automatically defective and seized).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Creating word clouds using image processing methods - szhorvat
http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/2334/how-to-create-word-clouds/
======
jasondavies
See <http://www.jasondavies.com/wordcloud/> for a version that uses JavaScript
and canvas for bitmap-based collision detections.
~~~
szhorvat
Looks interesting, thanks for sharing it! Your algorithm is also based on the
same "spiral out" technique described by Jonathan Feinberg on StackOverflow.
(It's also what I used in my reply to that Mathematica.SE question.) Heike's
solution is interesting because is always finds the tightest possible fit with
a not-very-bad performance (the image processing operation used can be
implemented in terms of correlations, which can be fast when done using fft).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Frighteningly Ambitious People - zohaibr
http://diegobasch.com/frighteningly-ambitious-people
======
javert
_When it comes to ambition, I tend to agree. Ideas are not ambitious, people
are._
The author just doesn't support this claim. All the examples he gives (Bill
Gates, Zuckerburg, and people leading successful companies) could just as
easily be explained by:
_Successful people are usually those who find a line of work they truly enjoy
and pursue it, with some luck._
To me, that kind of person seems more likely to make it than someone who is
just "extremely ambitious" without those qualities.
To me, this little writeup comes across as a pseudo-philosophical pep talk
(i.e., basically hogwash).
~~~
diego
Yeah, it's all idle speculation based on personal life experiences. No hard
science to back it up.
------
tsantero
"Ambition is key because he[Bill Gates] could have left Microsoft much
earlier, and moved on to do anything else he wanted as extremely wealthy man.
He was already a billionaire when he chose to stay, and turned Microsoft into
an empire."
Value creates opportunity.
I'm not suggesting that Bill Gates wasn't/isn't ambitious, but if one of your
ventures has made you a billionaire I'd imagine it be much easier to stay on
board and see how far you can ride that train.
------
intenex
Sperm vs monkey climbing a tree to eat a banana? I'm not sure that's a valid
comparison on any level.
------
shingen
I think it's entirely possible to be both throughout a lifetime. I've been
frighteningly ambitious and conservative at different points in my life and
with different ideas.
When I was 21 / 22, I decided I was going to take on eBay. The premise, circa
2002, was to wipe out fees and shift the monetization to information and
reselling (provide analytics & data to the sellers, and a re-selling channel
in which they could contact buyers and attempt to generate repeat business).
Basically sell tools and productivity to the sellers, instead of just slapping
them with fees; at the time eBay was borderline retarded when it came to
analytics and data provided by the marketplace.
I built the service, launched it, got modest early traction, took no venture
capital, used guerrilla marketing, and then a really bad event struck my life
that was outside my control. Shit happens and all that.
My latest venture is more modest, and I'm older and wiser. The odds of success
are radically higher in this venture.
At 30 (no kids yet), I find my threshold for frighteningly ambitious projects
is now primarily dependent on my personal finances. At 21 I didn't give a
shit, at all. When I add another layer of financial security, I'll chase the
dragon again - I really can't wait.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PaidContent: The Fallacy of the Linked Economy - shafqat
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-the-fallacy-of-the-link-economy/
======
onreact-com
"a very large share of the people who were visiting the site were merely
browsing to read headlines rather than using the aggregation page to decide
what they wanted to read in detail."
It's exactly the way I use a newsstand. I mostly browse the headlines and
unless I find something every interesting I don't buy a newspaper or magazine.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Taskulu, Next-gen role based project management platform - seansh
https://taskulu.com
======
andy_ppp
Another Task management app... I think it's fine as far as it goes, but I'd
like to see a protocol based implementation of this stuff that is simple
enough to work as human readable extensions to email (one of the transports,
obviously a rest central server being another).
Then you can use whichever interface you want or build one yourself.
Meh, maybe I'm crazy.
------
jauco
Looks nice. The guys took a good look at trello, that's obvious. But I think
they tackled some of the problems we're having with trello and some of the
workflows we sortof patched on top of trello.
~~~
farhadhf
Yep, of course we got ideas from Trello! We love Trello, but it lacked some
features which made it hard to use for us - Most importantly we were creating
multiple boards on Trello to keep track of a single project (clients/remote
teams/local teams/etc) and that's why we added in-project roles and
permissions!
~~~
jauco
One thing that trello has on you is that I can make waaay more than 4 lists in
trello. We usually have around 8-15 lists on a board.
~~~
farhadhf
You're not limited to 4 lists on Taskulu! You can have as many lists as you
want (and Sheets/Boards within your projects). But To make it easier to follow
the process, each list can have up to 4 sections (i.e. todo/doing/testing/done
- You can change the section titles.) - if you change it so that each list has
only one section it'll act exactly like Trello :)
------
patman81
On first glance, it looks like a clone of Trello
([https://trello.com](https://trello.com)).
~~~
farhadhf
We've got other features, including realtime communications, time tracking,
and more importantly, the ability to define roles and dynamic permissions (so
two users with two different roles see two different views of the the same
project!)
~~~
hobofan
Do dynamic permissions really make sense for projects of this size? (I guess a
single project is aimed at a size of =< 8 people)
~~~
farhadhf
Our target is teams of 10-20 people, and companies doing client projects and
outsourcing parts of the work (they usually want to keep the client(s) in the
loop without them getting in direct contact with the developers and the remote
teams).
------
makmanalp
Man, if someone builds something like this with github issue board support,
I'm won over. Currently I use zenhub but it annoys me that it's so simplistic
(e.g. dragging something to the last column won't close the issue, and closing
the issue makes it disappear) and doesn't really allow non-github tasks, so I
have to pollute my issue list. I'm torn whether to switch to their paid plan
or not.
~~~
farhadhf
Thanks for the feedback, Github support is actually on our todo list and is
under development! follow @taskulu on twitter, we'll post about new features
there!
~~~
k_
Good to hear! Any gitlab support in your todo list, too? :P
~~~
farhadhf
Probably yes, but it'll definitely come after Github (We're using Gitlab to
manage Taskulu repositories!)
~~~
k_
Now that's good news!
------
pandemicsyn
Theres a little bit of a annoyance/bug during the sign up process. I signed in
with Google so you populated the email field for me (awesome) and the username
field (also awesome). However, since you copied my email name for the username
I have a "." in the username which the form didn't like when I actually went
to submit.
~~~
farhadhf
Thanks for the feedback! Fixed :)
------
seansh
Everyone in a real world project has roles and depending on his roles can
see/do a specific set of tasks/actions.
Right now you're probably creating multiple projects for handling this (a
separate project for keeping your client up to date without them getting
involved with your development team?)
Taskulu makes it all easier by letting you define roles and permissions for
the people involved with your project with a really simple interface so you as
the project manager can spend less time on the management process and get
better results.
------
dkersten
This looks really slick - I like it a lot!
However, from my brief look, there are two things that would prevent me from
moving from trello:
1\. The in-task checklists that trello has
2\. I use the trello app on my phone a lot while I commute. I especially like
the "quick add card" feature. I don't think I can switch to another tool until
it has a decent (Android) app... (maybe this has one and I overlooked, but I
wouldn't expect a brand new web app to also have mobile apps)
~~~
farhadhf
Thanks! We do have in-task checklists, try editing the task description, you
can add checklists to the task description using a Github-style markup. Also,
Android and iOS apps are coming soon! :)
~~~
dkersten
Fantastic, I'll keep an eye on it. This is a definite contender as a Trello
replacement for me once the apps are ready :)
I feel a little dumb missing the checklist now - there's a big button right in
front of me! Nice!
One last thing that would prevent me from switching: I don't see any terms of
service or privacy policy on your site.
------
beagle90
I can't see anything without signing up? How as a user should I know whether
it's worth signing up for ? Or indeed what I am signing up for. A simple
'About' or 'Features' section is much needed IMHO.
Aside from this, once you're in it looks awesome. Like someone added all the
great features that a project manager would want added to trello!
~~~
farhadhf
We had a features page before (actually, our homepage talked a lot about the
features too), but we decided to simplify everything and just focus on our UVP
- Roles and Permissions. But depending on the results and feedback we get we
might just put the features page back!
------
tim_nuwin
It looks very polished, congrats!
Is there ever going to be an on-premise / self-hosted version (e.g.
[https://www.taskfort.com](https://www.taskfort.com))?
/shameless plug
~~~
farhadhf
Yes, once we're out of beta (hopefully in 3-4 months) we'll have a solution
for you to set up Taskulu on your servers.
------
soh3il
The product is very neat. I already love it so much. It has more features than
Trello and a lot less heavy than Asana.
Will try to have the team to switch to Taskulu.
------
RichardZite
I need only 2 reasons to use this instead of others. Which do you think should
be those?
------
tomaskafka
I'm not sure how this should be used, pre-filled example project would
definitely get my attention before thinking 'meh' and closing the tab.
~~~
farhadhf
There are in app tutorials once you create a new project and there should be a
"Welcome to Taskulu" sample project for new users! I'll check to see if it's
not being created... Thanks!
------
netstag
Typo on landing page:
> Same project as viewed by two peoeple having different roles
I know... It's niggly!
~~~
farhadhf
Haha! thanks, fixed! :)
~~~
djokkataja
A couple other typos under Project Settings -> Integrations: Google Drive /
Github "comming" soon
~~~
farhadhf
Ah, yes, thanks! This one needs a coffee script recompile, we'll take care of
it in tomorrow's build! :)
------
copter
Unfortunately I can't create a new project. It constantly gives error. And the
error message is 'error'.
~~~
farhadhf
I can't reproduce this error, can you please give me your user name so I can
take a look and see if there's something wrong with your account specifically?
Thanks!
------
rezakamalifard
Do you have plan for integrating a version control system like git into
Taskulu ?
~~~
farhadhf
Yes, we're working on Github integration :)
~~~
rezakamalifard
I mean a git system inside taskulu not connection with github or bitbucket
~~~
farhadhf
Nope, sorry, we're not planning to host any kind of version control system
inside Taskulu.
------
farawayea
Is there anything open source like this? I don't want another basecamp
experience.
------
sntran
It has been 30 minutes or so, and I haven't received any confirmation email?
~~~
farhadhf
So sorry, Mandrill limited our account but it's fixed now, Can you try logging
in with Google/Github?
~~~
farhadhf
Btw, If you're using a corporate email it might be the spam filter that's
preventing the email from being delivered to your inbox :)
------
danr4
neat. looks like it could be more robust than trello, but simpler than asana.
one thought: Remove the Logout from the sidebar and just keep it up there with
on/near the profile. already misclicked it :)
~~~
farhadhf
Thanks for the feedback! We're thinking about changing the sidebar actions on
that page and making it simpler/less confusing!
------
pegahke
Great product. Looking forward to your future updates.
------
afshinmeh
Good job :-)
------
nimah2o
very good project managment
------
farmad
Great
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What were your favorite CCC talks this year? - georgeglue1
Every year, I usually see some talks bubble up onto the frontpage or some recaps posted, but I'm not sure I've seen anything yet.<p>What are your favorites/highlights from this year?
https://media.ccc.de/c/34c3
======
osivertsson
Dude, you broke the Future! by Charles Stross
[https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9270-dude_you_broke_the_future](https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9270-dude_you_broke_the_future)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Facebook employees stage virtual walkout in protest of company’s stance - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/technology/facebook-employee-protest-trump.html
======
mc32
Activists want to eat their cake and have it too.
On the one hand they say platforms may exercise “their” free speech by
moderating posts or banning people and that’s okay because it’s a private co.
and not obliged to be platform for everyone.
Then on the other hand a different company also exercises its free speech
(under their own argument) by not moderating posts and now that’s bad because
some speech should be moderated and they disagree with those voices.
So like basically they’re for corporate free speech when they agree with the
controls but are against it when they disagree with the results.
Just say it. We only want to allow our approved views — we don’t want free
speech.
And not only that but they protest free speech but totally don’t walk out when
they unscrupulously slurp up data on everyone.
~~~
metalgearsolid3
Do you not understand that these non-approved views, for the most part, come
from actual nazis? Like, real life nazis. People that _will kill you_ because
of your skin colour.
I've read a lot of bootlicking comments on this website lately from people who
want to talk in upper abstractions about free speech and discuss moral theory.
You are all completely missing the point. That black people are needlessly
DYING because real life white supremacists are having their voices promoted
and platformed on the internet.
When it comes to activists eating their cake and having it too, yea, those are
the privileged facebook employees taking a paid day off as a way of making a
statement. What a joke.
You know who needs their voices heard? Who needs free speech? Black people.
And our society silences them through gruesome MURDER. Murders with no
justice. God forbid someone get their tweet "fact-checked".
~~~
brigandish
It took 2000 years of anti-Jewish hatred and even then it required violence
for Nazis to "win" that argument. The anti-Jewish hatred was protected by
blasphemy laws, and the Nazis were banned in the 1920s and several of them
prosecuted under hate speech laws. And _then_ there was no freedom of speech
in Nazi Germany.
Hardly a glowing recommendation for limits on speech. It's easy to argue
against National Socialism and it's easy to argue against anti-Semitism _as
long as free speech is allowed_. Allow people to argue instead of fight
violently and the better argument will win.
If you don't think you have a better argument than a Nazi then I'm really
worried for you.
~~~
metalgearsolid3
Was I making an argument?
------
vsareto
>Silence is complicity
I'd like to point out that the argument that you must choose a side or you're
an enemy is a farce and bullying tactics (which is behind the spirit of this
statement).
Both sides can say this. Meaning, of course, they are both wrong because I
cannot be complicit in both sides of this at the same time.
Participation is optional. Non-participation implies silence. Silence is not
complicity.
~~~
MarkLowenstein
Excellent logic vsareto. It's hard to verbalize what you have done here so
well...which is why they choose this weird phraseology to begin with. Netflix
told me that I was complicit in this same way yesterday--so I canceled my
subscription. Goodbye Netflix!
------
justchilly
Dozens of employees. Put in PTO. Facebook has 44k+ Employees. There are
protests going on across the US/World. If anything the news should be how few
employees are part of this.
------
adpirz
> Employees participating in the protest requested time off and then added an
> out-of-office response to their emails notifying senders they are
> protesting, The New York Times reports. Facebook has since acknowledged the
> walkout and said it will not require employees to use their paid time off.
Is this really a protest when it amounts to a no-penalty day off from the very
employer you're protesting?
~~~
renewiltord
Well, no bastard ever successfully protested by imposing a cost on himself. He
successfully protested by imposing a cost on some other dumb bastard.
The ideal protest applies amplified damage to the other guy at low cost to
yourself.
I hope The Zuck stays strong, though. Let everyone speak.
~~~
adpirz
> by imposing a cost on himself
What would you say to people who have been arrested, beaten, or in some cases,
even lost their lives in protests like these and those before it?
~~~
geodel
That its good on them. Unlike these FB virtual protesters who will not put
virtual mask and put their virtual health in danger to show they "stand" for
something.
------
thoraway1010
So - the tesla driving facebookers get a day off from work - paid - not even
using their vacation - and this is a walkout?
Are they forfeiting their stock to protest facebooks offensive conduct?
This is the look at me style of protesting.
Quit your job and work a better company if you think facebook is a scum
company.
~~~
chickenpotpie
The whole point of a walkout is to cost the company money. If they forfeited
their stocks and used up vacation time it wouldn’t be nearly as effective.
Also why go straight to quitting when you can keep your job and change the
company?
~~~
thoraway1010
This I think illustrates nicely how privileged and out of touch Facebook
engineers are.
\---
I demand the right to protest my own employer. Facebook: Sure
I demand the right to take unplanned time off to protest even if it disrupts
operations. Facebook: Sure
I demand to post my feelings on my company email autoreply so other employees
and customers are informed of my opinion via company resources. Facebook:
Sure.
I demand to get paid for my time off. Facebook: Sure - we give you lots of
generous PTO and don't really track you that carefully in terms of hours
worked.
I demand to get paid for my unplanned time designed to disrupt operations to
protest my employers actions and post my feelings on company email including
communication with customers / partners and get paid for this WITHOUT using
PTO (but as regularly working hours). Facebook: Sure!!
\-----
Wow!!
~~~
chickenpotpie
I would say they’re very in touch if they can successfully walkout without any
repercussions. They seem to know they have the upper hand right now and have
the power to influence the company.
------
TechBro8615
It would be a more powerful statement if they were actually sacrificing
something. Instead, they're taking a day off from their cushy $200k/year jobs
that they're too scared to quit.
If they really care so much about a lack of censorship, they could show it by
quitting. But then how will they pay for their $3k/month SoHo lofts and their
twelve person birthday dinners in Williamsburg?
It's amusing to me when these overpaid employees think they're some kind of
last bastion of intellectualism, looking out for the common man, when in fact
they could not be more disconnected from reality, and comprise one of the most
gullible flocks of sheep on the planet. Their mindset makes for the perfect
employee, really.
------
shaan1
Correct, these guys want to have the cake and eat it too. If they don't like
Facebook, they should just leave. They want the money. Its too attractive to
them.
------
sixstringtheory
A thought experiment regarding the "just quit" argument:
You're placed in a room with a person who is raving about homicidal fantasies.
A gun is placed in the middle of the room. You don't think they should have
access to this gun because of their statements. Is the solution to:
1) leave the room
2) try to get control of the gun before they do
Facebook is a tool, the same as that gun.
~~~
dnissley
You can certainly make a case for facebook being a weapon, but you could just
as easily make a case that it's not. This is a terrible thought experiment
that has us assume the former without considering the latter.
~~~
sixstringtheory
I didn't mean to make the case that Facebook a weapon. I even said
> Facebook is a tool, the same as that gun.
But I chose a weapon to try to show something with high impact that is simple
to understand.
Try it with an unhappy neighbor, a tree on your property line and a set of
garden shears.
------
KaiserPro
Some background
Some head of content made a post defending not enforcing the rules on trump.
Trump made a post that incorrectly stated how registration for mail in votes
work in california
They wrote 8+ paragraphs of nonsense, starting with "we have seen some
upsetting videos, [..] we hope it spurs change" However, even though we know
this post clearly violates our community standards, we're going to allow it,
because well, he's trump.
Then the post about "looting and shooting" which also violates the community
standards as well:
> Statements advocating for high-severity violence; or > Aspirational or
> conditional statements to commit high-severity violence
The post came out, and people were already pissed off, knowing that something
they were working on was partially responsible for the ratcheting up of
violence. Twitter had given facebook cover to enforce it's own rules. but the
management "team" chose not to.
Zuckfuck then said "I'm going to spend $10mil on an indulgence" "stop hassling
me, I'm not going to give in to employee pressure." (paraphrase)
Then the head of HR made another long rambling post devoid of content along
the lines of: "zuck has spaffed $10m on un specified charity for the black
people what more do you want [..] blah blah blah freedom of expression"
The management keep on banging on about "private companies shouldn't censor"
If you have a set of community standards which are plain and well written,
enforce them equally.
Whats in them is up for debate, but we haven't got that far yet, because we
seem to be allowing any politician to say what they like (from either side of
the debate)
THey don't seem to have noticed that the media have always been deciding what
to publish, ever since thomas paine was wafting around being his annoying
autistic self.
------
sys_64738
They're virtually quitting their jobs by the sounds of it.
------
throwawaysea
Whenever the 'protesters' are counted in one of these activist employee
actions, the numbers tend to be exaggerated. They say dozens, and I will take
it to mean a couple dozen at best. Even so, this is a company with tens of
thousands of employees. Why should leadership care about their voice, and why
should outlets like NY Times amplify this message without any honest attempt
to find differing views?
These activist employees enjoy psychological safety from taking on views that
align with the political culture surrounding them - namely progressive far
left political views that are common in the Bay Area, Seattle, etc. But the
reality is, there are still many employees, both who are progressive and
otherwise, that would prefer that the company take a nuanced, preferably
neutral stance on these matters. They aren't speaking up because they are
either busy or afraid of social/professional fallout (due to the prevailing
views at these companies about Trump).
The only way to understand the true sentiment of the employee base is to take
an anonymous poll of them, so that psychological safety is not an issue.
Otherwise, what we'll see, and have been seeing at these big tech companies,
is a tyranny of the vocal minority.
------
dang
Url changed from [https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/01/facebook-employees-
stage-v...](https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/01/facebook-employees-stage-
virtual-walkout-in-protest-of-companys-stance-on-trump-posts/), which points
to this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Crystal on Windows: A Deep Dive on Exception Handling - sdogruyol
https://medium.com/futuredev/crystal-on-windows-a-deep-dive-on-exception-handling-97d8c3142059
======
sdogruyol
Crystal is a Ruby inspired compiled language, allowing it to run blazingly
fast with a very low memory footprint. It uses LLVM for emitting native code,
thus making use of all the optimisations built into the toolchain.
Website: [https://crystal-lang.org/](https://crystal-lang.org/)
Github: [https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal](https://github.com/crystal-
lang/crystal)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mathematician Claims Proof of Connection between Prime Numbers - doc4t
http://news.yahoo.com/mathematician-claims-proof-connection-between-prime-numbers-131737044.html
======
doc4t
Relevant discussion at mathoverflow.net
[http://mathoverflow.net/questions/106560/philosophy-
behind-m...](http://mathoverflow.net/questions/106560/philosophy-behind-
mochizukis-work-on-the-abc-conjecture)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sorry, Young Man, You're Not the Most Important Demographic in Tech - afuchs
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/sorry-young-white-guy-youre-not-the-most-important-demographic-in-tech/258087/
======
untog
"A young man contemplating his decreasing significance on the world stage"
...hilarious.
There's some truth in this. And it's what often concerns me about the tech
world- that it's a big echo chamber of young, tech savvy people that actually
represents a tiny demographic. It's one of the reasons I like living in New
York- it gives me perspective. I see hundreds of people that are using
'dumbphones' and are quite happy with them. I know I've been reading too much
TechCrunch when my friends who work in fashion, media, finance- anything but
tech- tell me to shut the hell up.
"Path? What's that? A social network that limits how many friends I can have?
Why the hell would I use that?". Sometimes it's good to be exposed to a little
cynicism in life.
~~~
look_lookatme
I agree with you in theory but I'm equally, if not more, skeptical of whatever
perspective I think I'm getting from living in NYC.
~~~
sneak
Concentric bubbles of culture.
Entrepreneur bubble, inside of the hacker bubble, inside of the "internet
culture" bubble, inside the Anglophone bubble, inside of the white male
firstworlder bubble...
It's really quite hard to get actionable perspective, sometimes.
------
goodside
This is an extremely bold and unsupported assertion:
"[Men] were the one who decided what products failed and what products
succeeded. That's why companies like Asus tweet ridiculous, sexist stuff.
That's one reason why less than 10 percent of venture capital-backed companies
have female founders and there is a massive gender gap in tech."
There are plenty of industries where there is a huge discrepancy between the
gender ratios of consumers and entrepreneurs. Fashion and cosmetics companies
for example are far more less female-dominated than one might presume from the
extreme over-representation of females in their customer bases. The author
hasn't given any reason to suspect that male dominance in tech is caused by
gender-linked consumer trends influencing employer demand rather than more
mundane explanations like gender differences in employee preference for
developing programming skills.
~~~
jaems33
Indeed. Despite the fact that women's fashion is far more lucrative and with a
larger market, the majority of top end fashion houses are headed by men or
whose label is a man's name.
~~~
ljf
Indeed, but they are men who have made it their life's mission to understand
their audience needs and enjoy everything that comes with that. I think the
issue is young men in tech (and many other indistries) presuming that everyone
is just like them and have their needs and interests.
------
citricsquid
No evidence is presented that women are the more valuable market, just that on
average they spend more time online and using their devices. Which would you
pick: 10 customers that use a mobile phone for 20 hours each vs. 100 customers
that use a mobile phone for 3 hours each?
No statistics are posted on how much male usage counts for, saying 17 percent
more is a big difference when 100% is 4 hours vs. 40 hours.
> One huge reason is the relative lack of women at major venture capital
> firms, startups, electronics makers, and Internet companies.
This seems like a strange conclusion, the obvious conclusion is that on
average 1 18 - 24 Male (the "most valuable demographic") is more likely to
spend money with the advertiser after seeing advertising than a female
counterpart, isn't it? They present no evidence disproving the obvious
conclusion. I also don't see how tech adoption can be that important to a
company like Apple. Maybe if it's 25% more likely a female that owns an iPhone
will recommend to a friend and have them purchase it and the chances of a
female purchasing vs. a male based on an advert is equal then sure, but if a
male is 10x more likely to buy after seeing an advert what value is women
causing "adoption", isn't people buying your products adoption?
Not a very good article. I would suggest it's just written to fit the
narrative ("not enough women in tech") or it's just really badly written: you
can't make assertions without proving them.
Sales = adoption.
~~~
donzimmer
"No evidence is presented that women are the more valuable market, just that
on average they spend more time online and using their devices."
Perhaps that's because the evidence has already been stated clearly?
Here are the stats:
"Women account for $7 trillion in consumer and business spending in the United
States, and over the next decade, they will control two thirds of consumer
wealth.
Women make or influence 85% of all purchasing decisions, and purchase over 50%
of traditional male products, including automobiles, home improvement products
and consumer electronics.
BUT 91% of women say that advertisers don’t understand them."
(via [http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/01/24/the-
top-30-stat...](http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/01/24/the-top-30-stats-
you-need-to-know-when-marketing-to-women/) )
~~~
xanados
Those aren't real stats. Those are just numbers on a page. That link doesn't
include any methodology for how they collected these numbers, doesn't include
any references, doesn't included any reason I should believe any of them
whatsoever. Some of those numbers are either obviously false or obviously
misleading, such as the theory that 51% of private wealth is controlled by
women when we know the huge concentration of wealth in the US and know the
huge disparity in sexes in the top 1% of earners. This statistic thus is
either completely false (perhaps they surveyed a power law distribution or
something), or their definition is extremely poorly represented by their
choice of words.
Edit: It's probably not a good sign that they have two directly contradictory
statistics for the amount of US private wealth controlled by women.
~~~
enobrev
Not really interested in this specific argument about whether or not the OP
has real statistics, but I thought this was interesting (and includes sources,
which I haven't checked).
<http://www.catalyst.org/publication/256/buying-power>
[http://www.she-conomy.com/report/marketing-to-women-quick-
fa...](http://www.she-conomy.com/report/marketing-to-women-quick-facts)
------
csomar
It began with
_That's one reason why less than 10 percent of venture capital-backed
companies have female founders and there is a massive gender gap in tech._
and then
_It turns out women are our new lead adopters. When you look at internet
usage, it turns out women in Western countries use the internet 17 percent
more every month than their male counterparts. Women are more likely to be
using the mobile phones they own, they spend more time talking on them, they
spend more time using location-based services. But they also spend more time
sending text messages. Women are the fastest growing and largest users on
Skype, and that's mostly younger women. Women are the fastest category and
biggest users on every social networking site with the exception of LinkedIn.
Women are the vast majority owners of all internet enabled devices--readers,
healthcare devices, GPS--that whole bundle of technology is mostly owned by
women._
That's a whole world of difference. There is production, and there is
consumption. In the first part, he talked about production. In the second
part, he is talking about consumption. I can't make a link.
~~~
doktrin
The OP is describing what he believes to be an emerging trend.
Specifically, he is challenging the stereotype that technology is still a
male-dominated market on the consumption side. Part of his argument centers
around the fact that _because_ the production side is heavily lined with men,
they can be partially blinded to the fact that women are becoming a very
important tech market.
To piggyback on the above, consumption logically would precede production.
Most of those working in technology today had some interest in it prior to
their career. If the author is correct, we can probably expect to see the
gender gap narrow over the coming years.
------
zxcvvcxz
I'll probably get downvoted for this, but honest question -
How come that ASUS tweet message was considered so sexist? Using attractive
women in advertisements has been around since the dawn of, well,
advertisements. And she definitely had a nice rear.
I mean what if the woman was replaced with a strong muscle man and the tweet
said "Nice biceps" or "Nice pecs" or something? Hell, say "Nice rear" for a
man, why not? Would that also be sexist?
Why are we all so uptight about this stuff?
------
wglb
Time to go read [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/26/software-for-
underserved...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/26/software-for-underserved-
markets/) again.
~~~
smoyer
Or watch his talk at BoS on how we suck at marketing to women. I guess you can
choose to be capitalist or sexist ... show me the money!
------
nerdo
Easier to make a profit by painting it pink, under-speccing and overcharging:
[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/03/does-this-
smartphone-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/03/does-this-smartphone-
make-me-look-stupid-meet-the-ladyphones/1/)
------
nadam
"there are clear business reasons for technology companies to focus their
efforts on women. But few do."
Well, for example I am creating a writers' tool (basically a markdown editor).
I wonder if there is _anything_ in the product design with which I can target
man/woman. I was thinking in terms of ease of use, intuitivnes, efficiency,
etc...
I am thinkging in terms of power users / casual users, geeks / non-geeks,
etc... but should I think in terms of women / men?
The article says Asus has sexist tweets... Wouldn't it be sexist if I had
prejudices about women's use of a 'word processor'? I am not cynical, I
genuinely ask this.
~~~
jmathes
'Sexist' has as many definitions as there are English-speakers. It's not a
useful word unless you're a politician or a journalist.
If you thought women never used words longer than three letters, then you
could design some very useful features for them, like smarter autocomplete,
spell check, and inserting the space automatically after three characters.
Then you'd do what everyone building a product should do - try to sell it, and
if it won't sell, try to find out why. You'd quickly learn that women can use
big words just fine, and you'd redesign your product accordingly.
I used an example misconception in which you underestimated women, because in
the other direction it'd be politically incorrect. But, you need to be
objective about what you see. You can't be afraid of the political
ramifications of knowing the truth about your market. If the data were to tell
you something drastically politically incorrect, like that Brits and Canadians
never buy your word processor because they're too busy eating babies, you
still need to redesign your product to fit your customers, and your spell
checker should not accept "colour", "lorry", or "hockey".
------
elchief
Is there a hackernews that isn't focused on consumer software?
------
astrofinch
So where is the female-dominated equivalent of Reddit?
~~~
ericabiz
It's called Pinterest -- 82% female:
<http://mashable.com/2012/02/28/pinterest-women-marketing/>
Perhaps you've heard of it? ;)
~~~
astrofinch
Fair enough.
To be honest, I was hoping for something more intellectual like Hacker News.
It would be nice to have a website where I could get my fix of thoughtful
discussion that didn't feel like a sausagefest.
Any idea how more intellectual discussion sites could cater to women?
~~~
cldrope
>sausagefest
Honestly I think the ones who have a problem are the ones who see a
difference. Those that just put what they have out there and discuss openly,
maturely will generally find (regardless of where they go) some kind of
return. Even on PInterest you'll find immaturity and other negative qualities,
merely exhibited by men instead of women. Does that make it innately better?
~~~
nsxwolf
Is sausagefest offensive?
~~~
cldrope
It's juvenile.
------
vacri
_So it turns out if you want to find out what the future looks like, you
should be asking women._
No, that's the wrong lesson to take home. If you want to see what the future
looks like, you should be asking women AND men. It's not an either/or
proposition. This comment just reverses the bias.
------
ender7
A great place to see this in action is with smartphone ads.
Almost all of the smartphone companies have been producing ads that cater only
to the young male (see: those terrifying Motorola Droid ads). Apple is an
exception, as usual.
They finally seem to be getting their act together, however. The latest Droid
ad is almost Apple-esque.
------
gbog
Wondering why every weekend HN needs a dose of gender issue in tech posts.
Genuine question.
~~~
swdunlop
No idea. Seems like HN rolls out a gender dispute on a slow news day like
Congress rolls out flag burning when they need to avoid a decision.
------
sixbrx
I'm starting to suspect that the "sorry" in the title is not really sincere...
Also interesting that the title was originally "Sorry _white_ guy...", as
evidenced by the permalink.
------
codedivine
I wonder if it is true only in geographies like the USA or Canada, or whether
it holds true in countries like India which have a much younger population?
------
omonra
tltr: women yap more, today they do it using phone/skype/facebook.
------
krakensden
The technical term for this is "concern troll".
------
Camillo
I already knew this from reading Hacker News.
------
billpatrianakos
Although this was surprising to me at first it doesn't take long at all to
realize why this is: women communicate more. They're all about communication!
We think of men as being all about tech specs and building new tech but really
it's the user of the tech that's important. What is the Internet but a big
communication platform. That's probably why women are using it more. I realize
I may be called sexist for saying this but I thought it was pretty widely
accepted as fact that women are far more adept at and likely to use
communicate with others via any channel than men are.
------
eswangren
Did we really need a study to tell us that women spend an inordinate amount of
time sending text messages and stalking profiles on Facebook?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What Corporate America Can't Build: A Sentence - pg
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/07/business/07write.html?ex=1260162000&en=ceef4ee37d74c0ee&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
======
palish
Also, I can't type (that's a (tm)) without  appearing before it. Unicode
problem? To reproduce, go to a text box and hold ALT. Press 00153 on the
number keypad, then release ALT, then post.
~~~
pg
If anyone knows how to fix this, let me know. Someone told me I could fix it
by adding a tag saying
meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"
within the head on every page, but this had no effect. Would appreciate it if
anyone could tell me what I'm doing wrong.
~~~
abstractbill
Setting the charset on each page is necessary but not sufficient.
My guess: you also need to tell the browser to send form data as utf8. Perhaps
by specifying "accept-charset" as UTF-8 in each form tag.
~~~
euccastro
If that works it would be better than guessing. :)
Since you are sanitizing the input string, I still recommed translating to
native mzScheme/Arc unicode, doing the transformations in that format, then
retranslating back to utf-8 for display. The call to get a canonical string
from utf-8 is:
(bytes->string/utf-8 input-txt)
~~~
euccastro
And if I may abuse this thread to add one request, please store the raw string
as you got it from the browser, and do the processing before displaying it
(unless you determine that would be a security risk or a performance killer).
If I use ampersand tags or other formatting to write a comment, they are lost
when I edit it. It's kinda irritating to lose the indentation of a code sample
(lots of s) when editing out a mistake. :)
------
byrneseyeview
" "If you want to indicate stronger emphasis, use all capital letters and toss
in some extra exclamation points," Ms. Sherwood advises in her guide,
available at www.webfoot.com, where she offers a vivid example:
"Should I boost the power on the thrombo?
"NO!!!! If you turn it up to eleven, you'll overheat the motors, and IT MIGHT
EXPLODE!!""
Well, yes. If the consequences are fatal, an all-caps message is a good idea.
But intensifiers only stay intense if they're used rarely -- if you're always
fucking swearing, for example, you can't use swearing to express
anyfuckingthing.
~~~
jamesbritt
if you're always fucking swearing, for example, you can't use swearing to
express anyfuckingthing.
I worked with a guy who used "fuck", and assorted variations, the way people
use "um", "like", and "you know".
I had a hard time following what he was saying because I was so distracted
with wondering how many times he would use that word.
------
yubrew
"E-mail is a party to which English teachers have not been invited," Dr. Hogan
said.
"hI KATHY i am sending u the assignmnet again," one student wrote to her
recently. "i had sent you the assignment earlier but i didnt get a respond. If
u get this assgnment could u please respond . thanking u for ur cooperation."
__Most of her students are midcareer professionals in high-tech industries,__
Ms. Keenan said.
------
euccastro
Enlightenment is 11 bucks away. :)
[http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-
Strunk/dp/0205313426/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-0126140-9313474?ie=UTF8&s;=books&qid;=1182549113&sr;=8-1](http://www.amazon.com/Elements-
Style-Fourth-William-
Strunk/dp/0205313426/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-0126140-9313474?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182549113&sr=8-1)
------
Psyonic
This is why I take honors writing classes alongside my CS degree, despite my
counselor's caution that it's "unnecessary."
~~~
jamesbritt
I minored in Tech Writing for my CS major, despite my counselor asserting
(before he knew my plans) that such a combination would not make sense.
------
Alex3917
I hope that some day I'll be smart enough to have an idea that can't be
expressed without a semicolon.
Writing well is easy. Just use shorter sentences that don't "take advantage"
of English's more esoteric features. You don't really lose that much, if
anything. Plus, it forces you to think (and write) more lucidly.
------
palish
Wow.. Well, where I work it's nowhere near that bad. Everyone's fully
punctional(tm) and coherent, except one guy (an artist). He makes up for it by
being a totally awesome person. ;)
Writing skills are usually a must though.
------
cmars232
VC DO NOT WANT BOOTSTRAPERZ ROOL
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Holography without Lasers: Hand Drawn Holograms (1995) - peter_d_sherman
http://www.amasci.com/amateur/holo1.html
======
wbeaty
> fiddled
So did lots. Three people managed to automate, one even non-trivial. Also,
it's mass produced from metal master: on a vinyl album release of Jack White
'Lazaretto' (with rotating angel by Tristan Duke of MIT Media Lab)
Here's a long youtube playlist of scratch-holo:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL60100E8F3572CEB1](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL60100E8F3572CEB1)
Still nobody has found one etched on pre-Columbian pottery glaze. Or Egyptian
scrying mirrors! :)
~~~
mistercow
One guy even managed to render opaque surfaces:
[http://blog.robindeits.com/2012/02/20/more-scratch-
holograms...](http://blog.robindeits.com/2012/02/20/more-scratch-holograms/)
~~~
wbeaty
Like mine here?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUy8lELWhJg&t=50s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUy8lELWhJg&t=50s)
When people at work angrily insisted that these were not true holograms
because you can't make opaque objects, I sat down and drew opaque objects.
This was around ?1996? Instructions from published paper: sect. 3.3.1
[http://amasci.com/amateur/hand1.html#331](http://amasci.com/amateur/hand1.html#331)
------
Jolijn
Ha, strange, I submitted this yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9047015](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9047015)
It's a form of arbitrage, I suppose, if not coincidence.
------
glibgil
Gunshot at 0:57
[http://youtu.be/XUy8lELWhJg?t=57s](http://youtu.be/XUy8lELWhJg?t=57s)
~~~
wbeaty
> Gunshot at 0:57
Lol, editing cut.
[http://youtu.be/XUy8lELWhJg?t=34s](http://youtu.be/XUy8lELWhJg?t=34s)
The really anomalous thing is the big 60/120Hz pulse at 0:37, click above. I
was shooting out front of the house, and I reviewed the whole video while
standing there, and found the 120Hz. WTF!? It had to be EM, there'd been no
audio like that while filming. Was I painted by a uWave beam?
I'm right near airports, also a couple miles north of a Boeing mil black
project building. But radar is clicks, not 120Hz. And it sounds like changing
PWM during the pulse.
~~~
danbruc
To me it just sounds like a car or motorbike driving by.
~~~
wbeaty
That was my first thought ...while standing out there checking the video a few
seconds after shooting. But it was confusing me, because there was no
motorbike. I'd been trying to shoot without car noise, so I was facing the
road, and (mostly) waiting for any vehicles to pass. When cars pass you can
hear the loud wind/wheels hiss in this vid. I noticed that weird hum even in
my tiny camera speaker. Later I checked for it indoors, and still there.
I suppose I should check the frequency. If not right at 60/120Hz, and has
doppler of moving vehicle, then it's much more likely to be a bike(etc.) that
I'd not noticed down the road, and then my brain had edited out while I was
talking. Finally, there's a power line about 20ft up on the other side of the
street. Huge current surge? The usual b-field from that thing is so strong
that any small pickup coil in my house will detect it, and for sensitive work
I have to go to the back of the kitchen, over 100ft distant.
~~~
darkhorn
Also, I've found that modern smart-phone microphones are better than than my
ears.
------
femto
These holograms are essentially a set of overlaid Fresnel lenses, and they
work by the same principle?
~~~
wbeaty
Same principle as Benton white-light holograms, see 2003 SPIE paper linked on
the site, also "Not true holograms?" The scratches are line-scatterers, not
flat-bottomed as Fresnel, so no focal length.
Basically it's an enlarged Zoneplate rather than a fresnel lens. Arrays of
curved line-scatterers can reconstruct single pixels with programmable depth.
The fringes of Rainbow holograms do this, and their 3D image-reconstruction
requires no interference nor monochromatic illuminators. Insight: change the
spacing of the fringes of a rainbow hologram, or even randomize the spacing,
and the 3D reconstruction still works fine. The 3D image doesn't depend on
optical interference. A very weird effect! So, can we draw a Rainbow hologram
by hand with a needle, by scratching the fringes with random spacing? Yep. We
get 3D images, but they're white in color with no rainbow artifact.
------
TeMPOraL
Amazing. Just tried it with scissors and a CD case. Got a proof-of-concept
working :).
------
scentoni
I fiddled with this myself a few years ago.
~~~
wbeaty
So did lots.
Three people managed to automate, one even non-trivial. Also, it's mass
produced from metal master: on a vinyl album release of Jack White 'Lazaretto'
(with rotating angel by Tristan Duke of MIT Media Lab)
Here's a long youtube scratch-holo playlist:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL60100E8F3572CEB1](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL60100E8F3572CEB1)
Still nobody has found one etched on pre-Columbian pottery glaze. Or Egyptian
scrying mirrors! :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Paul Romer's "Charter Cities" - kingkawn
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/can-charter-cities-change-the-world-a-qa-with-paul-romer/
======
biohacker42
This is profoundly silly, only very intelligent people can be this silly.
_Q.
What makes you confident that land and a good charter are all it takes?_
His answer is long but it boils down to _Because!_
My god, if only it were that easy to create competition among governments, if
only it were that easy to create the peace and stability necessary for
economic growth.
If only you could just convince Mugabe or Kim Jong Il to give a chunk of land
and let you administer it for everybody's benefit.
This is a variation on the underpants gnomes' strategy. But instead of step 2,
step 1 is missing.
Step 1. ????
Step 2. A safe piece of land with attractive legal and/or physical
infrastructure.
Step 3. Profit.
~~~
barry-cotter
Eh, I agree on the low likelihood but I think the massive value creation from
a success renders the expected value high enough for it to be worth
campaigning for. The problem of binding a sovereign is very real whether the
titular sovereign (whoever, Namibia, Haiti, Cuba) or the world-sovereign (the
US, obviously) to their stated policy is, ah, rather difficult.
Also, Dubai. Not shining bright at the moment but really 30 years ago there
was practically nothing there and it hardly has Western standard rule of law
even now, but look at what's there.
One way of setting this up I could see would be some country with massive
illegal immigration problems setting up an SEZ without freedom of movement to
the metropole, and allowing free immigration to that along with some very
minimal law enforcment. I know Greece has insane immigration from illegals and
it's not going to stop. Imagine they take some barren Agean rock, ~ Manhattan
sized and allow free immigration with no minimum wage or constraints on
voluntary contract for people over x years of age. Eastern Mediterranean New
York in 15 years.
I think you overestimate the difficulty of physical infrastructure, that's a
solved problem, throw money at it.
~~~
hughprime
_I know Greece has insane immigration from illegals and it's not going to
stop. Imagine they take some barren Agean rock, ~ Manhattan sized and allow
free immigration with no minimum wage or constraints on voluntary contract for
people over x years of age. Eastern Mediterranean New York in 15 years._
What if the result winds up looking less like New York or Hong Kong and more
like Mogadishu? There are no guarantees that this bold social experiment might
not wind up going wrong in all sorts of ways. What will Greece do if it finds
it suddenly has an impoverished crime-ridden city on its sovereign territory?
~~~
barry-cotter
Deport everybody. Or just leave it there. Mogadishu/Somalia isn't even that
destabilising to East Africa which _mostly_ has more or less functional
states. Also, the only reason Somalia doesn't have a stable internationally
recognised government at the moment is that the US has a hate on for Islamists
of any stripe. If they hadn't put so much effort into the puppet Transitional
Government and the invasion of Somalia by their Ethiopian client Somalia
(possibly absent Puntland, probably absent Somaliland) would no longer be a
failed state, it would just be a _really shit one_.
Seriously, imagine the Cosa Nostra take over the running of AgeanManhattan,
protection rackets and all. Now, what do you call them? The government.
They're a subsidiary government of Greece, which holds ultimate,
internationally recognised sovereignty over AgMan, but whosoever holds the
monopoly over the use of force is thus legitimate and sovereign.
Also, seriously Greece is not a terribly impressive first world country but it
is one. I wouldn't be surprised if they had paramilitary police units
sufficient to subdue a dense, networked city of 6 million. I figure 20K would
do it easily. They would more or less definitionally have total air
superiority, which combined with large well trained, armed and co-ordinated
police/soldiers would render any putative contest grotesquely one sided.
Also, these people wouldn't be citizens, they'd be guests/subjects. No vote,
no political power, no constituency. The Greek police don't play very nice
with _Greeks_. I imagine the Greek Army would be nastier.
(Leaving to go to bed, will reply to any reply tomorrow, hoping there's a
discussion here when I get back, ciao)
~~~
hughprime
_Deport everybody._
I'm not too familiar with Greek politics, but I'm sure there's a sufficiently
large bleeding-heart constituency which would oppose any cruelty to the
huddled masses just offshore.
_I wouldn't be surprised if they had paramilitary police units sufficient to
subdue a dense, networked city of 6 million. I figure 20K would do it easily.
They would more or less definitionally have total air superiority, which
combined with large well trained, armed and co-ordinated police/soldiers would
render any putative contest grotesquely one sided._
Well yes, I'm sure they're militarily capable of doing it, but it's still
enough of a headache that it seems to push the risk/reward ratio of this
Aegean Manhattan firmly into the "not worth the effort" category.
------
barry-cotter
An incredibly long, well reasoned and cited, highly vitriolic and personally
insulting to Romer take on the "charter city" idea. (Really, I'm not kidding
it is _incredibly_ long.)
Summary: There is an English word for charter city, and it is colony.
[http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/08/from-
cr...](http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/08/from-cromer-to-
romer-and-back-again.html)
~~~
mr_luc
I disliked almost everything about the tone and content of that article -- at
first. His vitriol at the beginning is juvenile, bombastic, etc.
When he starts citing the case of the Belgian Congo is where the article
becomes readable.
But when he writes in the imagined voices of Cromer et al -- well, that's good
reading. He was making his points there, and not (just) bloviating. (<\-- new
word)
Then, carried away by the religious zeal that unpopular truths to often
engenders, he drifts into 'papau new guinea people are neanderthals', and 'all
third-world countries are dependent on foreign aid and protection,' etc. Huh.
The guy writes like a crank.
But, hey, some people call Wolfram a crank, and yet I'd rather have read him
than not.
~~~
llimllib
> Then, carried away by the religious zeal that unpopular truths to often
> engenders, he drifts into [falsehoods]
This problem is endemic to MM's work, but I still consider him worth reading.
It's important to read him critically.
------
ableal
_Think about the truly important changes in political systems. Back in the
middle ages, suppose that someone described a legal system that enforced rules
and contracts that everyone had to obey, even the country’s leaders. What
would informed opinion of the day have been? Great idea, but it will never
happen. No question it was hard to pull off, but it did happen._
The shadows of Thucydides, Aristotle and Polybius (among others) may question
the quality of the "informed opinion" ...
------
javert
I loved this. Don't understand why all the other top-level comments are so
negative.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Save the web for paper later - dewey
https://www.paperlater.com/
======
dmacedo
At the same time that I think this is a fight not worth attempting; both for a
print service as well as a post delivery of it... A curated paper might be
interesting if you think of other uses it might have.
Not only do we probably never come back to some bookmarks,
getpocket/readability/readitlater lists as often as we'd initially think...
But there's a number of users and use cases that are curiously interesting to
consider (older users; people more interested in disconnecting; those who like
the paper feel; or just want a permanent storage of interesting articles kept
on the attic to never read again; etc...)
------
apricot13
so is this like pocket/read it later printed? wouldn't that have copyright
issues?
The advantage of pocket/read it later is that you can view it on a small
screen within the confines of your neighbours armpit despite how nice it is to
read things on paper.
Do you check each paper for mistakes? I switched from pocket because rendering
was iffy. I'd be even more annoyed if my paper was printed and was missing
images and lists like pocket used to do.
------
lwh
It feels like this should be named kill the trees or blacken the hands
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Toyota takes Elon Musk's “Bullshit” and powers a car with it - wiremine
http://www.businessinsider.com/toyota-is-taking-on-the-hydrogen-car-haters--including-elon-musk-2015-4
======
Someone1234
The Elon Musk thing seems like an unnecessary tangent.
What I really want to know is: How is the hydrogen packaged? It seems like in
a lot of ways hydrogen would be an incredible fuel source, since as they say
in the article it burns clean and at least in theory can be refueled like oil-
based products.
From my understanding hydrogen's biggest problem has been that it has to be
delivered under pressure, which both makes it more dangerous/explosive, but
also makes pumps and cars more expensive.
There was some talk in the mid 2000s about binding hydrogen into a chemical
compound which makes it more stable, but not so stable that it is difficult to
extract again (essentially giving it an diesel level of stability, rather than
a water level of one). What happened to that?
Is this Toyota car another high-pressure hydrogen project or something new?
~~~
toomuchtodo
> From my understanding hydrogen's biggest problem has been that it has to be
> delivered under pressure, which both makes it more dangerous/explosive, but
> also makes pumps and cars more expensive.
Its biggest problem is that its not a fuel; there are no hydrogen stores on
Earth, and the only way to produce it is through highly inefficient
electrolysis or through cracking natural gas.
In this case, they're taking methane and producing hydrogen....when they could
just burn the methane in the existing natural gas engines they've put in
Camrys for god knows how long.
Showcasing a terrible technology doesn't magically make it feasible for large
scale production and distribution.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Followup to “Not as SPDY as You Thought” - phenylene
http://www.belshe.com/2012/06/24/followup-to-not-as-spdy-as-you-thought/
======
josteink
Basically the whole post can be summed up via these choice quotes:
_Overall, I disagree with his title, but I don’t disagree with his results_
... _his methodology, it’s mostly fine_
_Guy tested partial SPDY page loads, not full SPDY page loads. More
specifically, he tested this case: if you upgrade your primary domain, but few
of your other domains, your CDN, etc, how does SPDY perform?_
(followed up with a table showing that this is a very realistic test scenario)
~~~
felixc
Well, not entirely. He also explained that the original test counted sub-
domains that the primary page owner also controls as non-upgraded third-party
ones, whereas someone performing a SPDY roll-out would most likely also
upgrade them. The table then showed exactly how many resources that were
counted as "non-upgradeable" were in fact most likely upgradeable (most or
even almost all of them).
------
newman314
Is the site down?
~~~
tav
Seems to be down here too :(
Google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.bel...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.belshe.com/2012/06/24/followup-
to-not-as-spdy-as-you-thought/&hl=en&prmd=imvns&strip=1)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Scientifically Backed Method for Drinking All Night Without Getting Drunk - chippy
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/a18609/how-not-to-get-drunk/
======
chippy
So, wouldn't the carton of yoghurt line the stomach more than the yeast?
I heard that was what Robert Maxwell swore by also, having yoghurt before
drinking.
If it is the yeast, would "yeasty" beers be better? Aren't those cloudy wheat
bears full of yeast?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: RemindEat - never forget what you ate - jpadilla_
I like going out with my fiancé and tasting new dishes in new places. Once I get to a place I've been before I never remember what I previously ate.<p>So we decided to sit down and think of something we could do to help solve this and came up with our first project together. RemindEat emails and/or sends you an SMS when you check-in at any food place, reminding you to note down what you ate. Next time you check-in you'll be reminded of what you've eaten there before and to note down what you'll eat this time.<p>Its built on top of Flask, Twitter Bootstrap, uses Twilio for SMS, and Postmark for emails. Obviously powered by Foursquare.<p>Please go to http://remindeat.com, try it out and let me know what you think.
======
sebg
Great work getting something up and out!
Some thoughts - 1\. Reminds me of <http://www.foodspotting.com/> but more
personal. Instead of being told what other people liked, i'm able to remember
what I liked. 2\. Is it possible to use foodspotting as the back-end? 3\. Am I
able to comment on what I ate? For instance - dish a was delicious but small
so order 2 next time? 4\. nitpicky - the white font over the food picture is
hard to read. Especially near the end when it's a white font on a white
background.
Great work - looking forward to seeing how this develops!
------
codegeek
The link remindeat.com/login gives me a 403 error.
------
AznHisoka
What's the use case for this?
~~~
jpau
My experience is that my enjoyment of a restaurant (or take away joint, or
whatever) is partially dependent on my knowledge of that venue.
For example, my local burger bar. I've tried all of the burgers (well, at
least the ones that sound appealing to me), and know exactly what I like/don't
like. I can better enjoy my experience (and... oh boy... do I! _drools_ ).
Compare this to the following - I recently went to a restaurant with my
partner that I had been to before, rather recently - but not recently enough
to remember what I had (but obviously did not dislike it). In fact, this is
not an infrequent event - not necessarily as a 2nd visit, but perhaps even a
3rd, 4th of 5th and yet still I rarely remember what's good/not good in such
places. For me, this is a missed opportunity - if I could keep notes that last
longer than my thoughts (which last 1-4 weeks only), I could gradually build
up a better experience over time.
I like the idea.That said, I never caught onto 4sq...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Confessions of a Used Programming Language Salesman (2007) - tosh
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.72.868&rep=rep1&type=pdf
======
zubairq
Excellent read, nice to see such an interesting post on languages
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Coming Soon to Yale: A Class Taught by Harvard - melling
http://online.wsj.com/articles/coming-soon-to-yale-a-class-taught-by-harvard-1417746212?tesla=y&mod=djemGreaterNewyork&mg=reno64-wsj
======
melling
CS50 is coming to Yale.
[http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/11/9/yale-faculty-
app...](http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/11/9/yale-faculty-approves-
cs50/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Top Algorithms for Coding Interview - rubyHedgehog
http://www.programcreek.com/2012/11/top-10-algorithms-for-coding-interview/
======
kellros
Thanks for the post. You made a typo on 'toCharyArray' \- I'm pretty sure
that's not a method :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ludum Dare 48 hour game coding compo this weekend - bemmu
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/rules/?25
======
petercooper
Strongly recommend giving this a go if it even vaguely sounds interesting to
you. I got into it several contests ago, first lurking and watching other
people code, and now taking part myself. It has been a great experience and
there are some lovely people involved with LD.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Episode 33: The Asymco Trilogy with Horace Dediu Part 3 – The Asian Cars Edition - bleongcw
http://analyse.asia/2015/05/25/episode-33-the-asymco-trilogy-with-horace-dediu-part-3-the-asian-cars-edition/
======
bleongcw
Synopsis: Horace Dediu, current fellow of the Clayton Christensen Institute
and founder of Asymco.com joined us for an epic and insightful discussion
focusing on few key interesting topics: (a) new market disruption theories,
(b) Apple in China and the luxury market and (c) the Japanese automotive
industry and how it shapes up against disruption from Tesla, Uber and Apple.
In the last and final part of the trilogy, Horace discussed the Japanese
automotive industry, and provided interesting insights into how Japanese car
culture contrasts against the European and US counterparts. Using the
innovator’s stopwatch framework, Horace explained the challenges on how Tesla,
Google, Uber and Amazon could disrupt the car industry, and provide some
thoughts on what approach Apple might take on creating the car if they are
doing it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Building an API with Go at Microco.sm - hebz0rl
https://speakerdeck.com/mattcottingham/building-an-api-with-go-at-microco-dot-sm
======
feniv
My experience has been pretty similar: Go is perfect for building high
performance APIs. A lot of the library infrastructure is still in early
stages.
One suggestion: Don't bog down your application server with serving static
files (Slide 7. favicon and robots.txt). I put all of my css, js and image
files in a /static sub-directory and configured nginx to serve any URL
starting with /static without hitting my go-server.
~~~
motter
Thanks for pointing that out. The static routes in the talk are just for
illustration -- we use nginx to serve them in production.
One thing I haven't touched on at all is html template rendering, something
I'd like to take a look at in detail at some point.
Would like to hear more about your experience with Go -- is there a writeup
somewhere?
------
redbad
Nice overview. Somewhat frustrating to see non-gofmt'd code examples. Fix that
up :)
------
koblas
Maybe I missed it - but it would be really cool to see a large fragment of
working code for some of the apis.
------
motter
None of the links work in the embedded version, but if you download the PDF
they're fine.
------
ajack
As a member of LFGSS and HN, yes!
~~~
asselinpaul
same :)
------
zeckalpha
18k lines? Does that seem high to anyone else? Or am I missing something
important?
~~~
motter
High compared to what?
It's just the output of
wc -l `find microcosm/ -name *.go`
so is really just a rough indication of the size of the project.
~~~
zeckalpha
Compared to the amount of work that needs to be done for this project to
function.
~~~
motter
In that case, I don't know a number that can be used for that comparison. 18k
is the total number of lines in the source code files; the SLOC will be
different.
In hindsight, I should've left this number out. It was intended to give
background to the overall program size, but it's a small detail that shouldn't
be the focus of this discussion.
~~~
realrocker
Well, Go has been touted for lower lines of code.
------
pjmlp
Please call them web services or REST API, just API is confusing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
One Man’s Unlikely Quest to Power the World with Magnets - mudil
https://www.wsj.com/articles/one-mans-unlikely-quest-to-power-the-world-with-magnets-11558029179
======
mudil
Live stream of the engine:
[http://earthenginelive.com/mobile/index.html](http://earthenginelive.com/mobile/index.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: QEDServer: A standalone playground for JS and AJAX - bphogan
http://qedserver.napcs.com/
======
glhaynes
Cool, thanks!
Sorry to get off-topic, but this really spurred me to think of something
somewhat similar that would be very useful to me personally: a generic "mock"
server. A static call-responder, if you will.
Rather than already having an API like this one does, it'd be one where a
browser-side developer could specify on the server a list of static
call/return pairs in a form similar to:
for web service call _c_ with parameters _p[0]_ = 'abc', _p[1]_ = 123, and any
value for _p[2]_ , return string ' _some JSON string_ '".
That way one could easily have front-end folks working on browser-side code,
making real web service calls and getting back real-looking results that are
appropriate for this app. Later, as the real back-end progresses, the front-
end can be repointed toward it.
This would need to be setup-free enough that most front-end folks wouldn't
have any trouble creating/maintaining sets of these. Perhaps best would be for
it to be a public service so that the devs wouldn't even have to run their own
server.
Anybody know if anything like this exists?
~~~
bphogan
Hey. That was suggested to me by a good friend when I showed this to him.
QEDServer's code is on Github... it's just a Sinatra app wrapped by jRuby. I
could see a situation where we just have a config file and we just say "this
route returns this string" or something. It wouldn't need to be anything fancy
at all and probably wouldn't take terribly long to build.
I wanted QEDServer to be zero-install, zero-setup because I do a lot of
teaching with jQuery, etc. But this makes two people, plus me, who thinks that
would be neat.
Thanks for the feedback!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A site I made to make London look sunnier on Street View (Chrome only) - shmeano
http://www.ianbutterworth.co.uk/sun/
======
quotemstr
Chrome only? No thanks. I'm not supporting the webkit monoculture.
~~~
shmeano
Just noticed that chrome allows the filter css3 property to be exercised on
street view. I assume this will be adopted by the other platforms too? But I'm
not a particularly educated programmer, so I don't know the likelihood!
------
gpjt
Nice. Works in Chrome on my ICS Android tablet too :-)
~~~
shmeano
Thanks! Glad to hear it.
------
whatshisface
What does this use that is only supported by chrome?
~~~
shmeano
Chrome seems to be the only browser that allows the -webkit-filter to be
applied to the street view object. -webkit-filter, or filter or whatever you
want to call it does work on other browsers, but it only works with the street
view window in chrome
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Windows 10 is getting an easier way to update and install drivers - GordonS
https://www.windowslatest.com/2019/12/25/windows-10-is-getting-a-easier-way-to-update-and-install-drivers/
======
gruez
>Windows Update’s Optional Updates section will let you see all optional
updates including drivers and monthly non-security updates in one place.
If I remember correctly, all the way up to windows 8.1, you could choose which
updates to install. It was only with windows 10 that they removed the ability
to select updates. It's ironic how they're touting this as a new feature, when
really it's fixing a regression.
~~~
zerkten
Choice is a problem with updates, but they probably went too far. When a
choice is possible then people will skip updates which endangers the whole
ecosystem.
The prevalence of Windows means that they can't let individuals make too many
choices because bad outcomes reflect on Microsoft and not those users or
admins who contributed to the problem. There is pressure from governments and
companies for protection from infrastructure threats which drives some of this
thinking. This is not limited to Microsoft, even Firefox introduced updater
changes which limits how users can opt-out of automatic updates.
There was likely an assumption that restart-less upgrades would become a
reality more quickly than they have, so the responsible teams went with a
simplified update mechanism to protect the ecosystem. That backfired in a
range of other ways, but at least the ecosystem is relatively safe.
~~~
TeMPOraL
> _When a choice is possible then people will skip updates which endangers the
> whole ecosystem._
There is a reason for that. Reason not being just the choice itself, but
mostly that automated updates tend to range from inconvenient, through
bloating up the machine, to outright dangerous to your data and software.
The reason to install updates is security. The reason to not install them is
all the other things that get included. Because of that, I wish it was a
standard to run security updates separately from feature updates, and keep the
second type fully optional. Yes, it's more work for the developers, but it's
better for the users (and our industry is going too far with preferring its
own convenience over end-user value).
~~~
ohithereyou
>Because of that, I wish it was a standard to run security updates separately
from feature updates, and keep the second type fully optional. Yes, it's more
work for the developers, but it's better for the users (and our industry is
going too far with preferring its own convenience over end-user value).
This exists for Windows 10. It's called Windows 10 Enterprise Long Term
Support Channel. It gets feature updates every 2-3 years but each release
comes with a minimum of 10 years of security support.
Leave it to Microsoft to make stability as an Enterprise fearure.
------
Havoc
If this gets rid of NVIDIAs god forsaken driver update BS then I’ll be
delighted.
(Requires logging in with a password/profile it doesn’t remember between
updates and disabling pi hole for some stupid reason)
~~~
knolan
Isn’t this part of the (awful) GeForce experience app? You can still just
download drivers directly from the Nvidia webpage without logging in.
~~~
tony
Yes, plain drivers are available:
[http://www.geforce.com/drivers](http://www.geforce.com/drivers)
That said, Windows 10 driver handling _already_ handles the basic drivers out
of the box (at least for me)
Generally though, these manufacturers have their own driver / bios update
software that 1.) creates additional background / tray apps 2.) autostarts 3.)
offers implicitly to download extra "helpful", "optional" software
Examples of software where all three happens: Fujitsu ScanSnap, Gigabyte Aorus
Motherboard, Lenovo Advantage
So now there's a passive, consistent performance loss on the system, a tray
icon hogging up space, "helpful" notifications, and unsolicited popups not
offering driver updates, but to download additional software (box is already
checked)
One nice thing about Linux/BSD desktops is even when Nvidia did proprietary
stuff, the most you'd see back in the day is an Nvidia logo when starting X
(editing xorg.conf could disable it)
~~~
vbezhenar
I bought Lenovo laptop few days ago and installed fresh Windows. Then I
enabled WiFi and left it for a hour. It installed ALL drivers including Nvidia
drivers and Nvidia control panel. I checked driver versions with Lenovo
support page and every driver was fresh. Windows did awesome work with
automatically installing drivers. Nvidia driver was not fresh, I think it was
from July, 22, 2019, but I don't think that it's that old anyway. So for
ordinary users Windows does very good job at installing drivers and I would
recommend against doing anything by hand, unless absolutely necessary.
------
RandomInteger4
I built a new computer and for the first time in over a decade I wanted to try
Windows, but apparently I was missing drivers for something. It never told me
what I needed drivers for, and even with all the drivers for all the parts I
could find on a separate USB drive, it couldn't find the drivers that I
supposedly needed, so I gave up and chose to install Ubuntu instead.
Ubuntu apparently knew all the drivers I needed, fetched them from beyond the
great ether, and all was in harmony.
Why is this so easy for Canonical, but not Microsoft?
------
tinus_hn
Now if only they’d vet the drivers in Windows Update and block these enormous
bloatware turds that have become fashionable.
------
jokoon
I have a non-computer-savvy friend who regularly has to reinstall nvidia
graphic drivers because windows 10 update REGULARLY overwrites them with
drivers that CRASHES blizzard games (world of warcraft, overwatch). Has to be
done every 4 days or something like that.
It's really weird to not know who is at fault here, if it's nvidia, microsoft
or blizzard. There are no good way (other than disabling updates) to prevent
windows update from overwriting drivers.
I wish microsoft would do something about this. Can't even remember if I
submitted some feedback. Not to mention this computer is crazy slow since the
upgrade from win8 to win10. I know the usual "get a SSD", but that computer
was NOT THAT SLOW before the upgrade. Anyway this computer is a all-in-one,
which has weird hardware. But still, it's a i7, with 6GB of ram. It's hard to
believe it takes so long to open the start menu or just a folder.
Oh yeah, other thing: another friend bought an used laptop which had some
insider preview enabled. 3 weeks ago her microphone just stopped working.
Apparently you cannot remove an insider win10 build WITHOUT REINSTALLING. I
was not able to fix it. I'm not even a maintenance guy.
~~~
derefr
> Apparently you cannot remove an insider win10 build WITHOUT REINSTALLING.
Well, yeah. If a beta takes a wrong direction in the design of a new on-disk
data structure, do you really expect them to write a reverse-migration that
turns it back into the old format? That's a lot of work for a tiny point-
release on branch of development they're not even sure they're going to make
public. No commercial OS supports this.
~~~
TeMPOraL
They could've warned instead of defaulting to failure.
I wish they'd ease up with signing core system files with short-lived certs
either; I once had to reinstall my PC after not booting into Windows for ~3
months - when I tried to start Windows after that break, I discovered some
core DLLs had expired certificates, preventing the system from booting.
------
thibran
It's the year 2019. We communicate with the speed of light across the ocean
and manipulate DNA, but installing drivers is still not a solved problem on
Windows...
... and a modern display server is still not used by default on Linux.
~~~
JohnTHaller
To be fair, one less desire-able 'solution' to drivers issues would be to not
allow the hardware to work at all. MacOS users don't have access to Nvidia
graphics cards, for example. I'll take Windows' driver work over that any day.
~~~
Wowfunhappy
MacOS includes drivers for (most) 700-series graphics cards. It's just, Apple
hasn't shipped Macs with nVidia cards since 2013ish, so they don't ship Mac OS
with drivers for cards they never used, either.
nVidia used to ship third party Mac drivers for their newer cards, but they
decided to stop maintaining them a couple years ago, possibly because Apple
said they wouldn't sign them them†, depending on how you interpret vague PR
statements. Still, the third party drivers work on slightly older OS's—I'm
currently typing this from a macOS High Sierra machine that has a GTX 1080 Ti.
† I want to note that driver signing isn't some draconian Apple thing, 64 bit
versions of Windows also require signatures. You can install unsigned drivers
on macOS by partially disabling SIP, but presumably nVidia didn't want to ship
drivers that would require that.
~~~
maximilianburke
It’s not the driver signing that’s the problem. It’s that Apple is a
gatekeeper for driver signatures and won’t release drivers unless it suits
them.
I know the GTX 1080 works on High Sierra, but that OS is at (or near) the end
of its supported life.
Microsoft manages the driver signing process but doesn’t play these games. If
nVidia wants to write and maintain drivers for macOS, why get in their way?
~~~
Wowfunhappy
I guess it just depends on what's actually happening. What nVidia has said is:
> Apple fully controls drivers for Mac OS. But if Apple allows, our engineers
> are ready and eager to help Apple deliver great drivers for Mac OS 10.14.
A lot of people have decided to interpret this as "Apple is refusing to sign
nVidia drivers", but I'm not ready to jump to that conclusion without more
explicit details.
For example, nVidia has continued to release drivers compatible with High
Sierra security updates (necessary because nVidia driver coded their drivers
such that they'll refuse to launch on non-whitelisted build numbers). Apple
has not suddenly refused to sign those drivers.
My personal theory: in Mojave, all desktop compositing goes through Metal, so
nVidia would have needed to a major rewrite of their drivers. Given how few
Mac users install third party graphics cards, this isn't worthwhile for
nVidia. nVidia wants Apple to implement some type of legacy shim in macOS that
drivers can plug into, and Apple characteristically said no.
That, to me, makes more sense than Apple suddenly deciding not to sign any
drivers which are compatible with 10.14+.
~~~
unicornfinder
People also seem to be interpreting the line "eager to help Apple deliver
great drivers" as Nvidia having new drivers ready to go, which I strongly
suspect isn't the case.
------
GordonS
Windows 7 does this for some drivers, but it only seems to be for a limited
list (e.g. selected Intel NICs), and the drivers are woefully outdated.
I guess this might be "enough" for people buying some of the most popular PCs
(e.g. Dell), but it's certainly not going to be for everyone.
~~~
deith
Every part of my computer, which I built myself, gets its drivers from Windows
Update. Drivers have been pushed from Windows Update since... forever?
Granted, I always install a more recent version myself.
~~~
GordonS
Huh, I've used Windows 10 for years now, and didn't realise it still had this
feature - I don't recall ever seeing any "optional updates"?
But then, for most things I always install recent'ish drivers from the
manufacturer myself, which I guess would disable this feature for at least
those things.
~~~
deith
Only that they are not optional, they force you to install those drivers
(unless you're installed your own before). But they do indeed show up on
Windows Update.
[https://filestore.community.support.microsoft.com/api/images...](https://filestore.community.support.microsoft.com/api/images/2f0c0423-8e09-4b73-bc97-c4d0359f2538)
------
Quiark
i love how all the way to Windows 7 (not tested any newer) it still has the
same GUI for driver installation as Windows 3.1
------
tpmx
I have been using Windows 10 (and its ancestors) on a kick-ass desktop PC for
the past decade or so. It's been a shit-show. I've probably spent about 2 full
days totally out of action, during this period, if I'm only counting downtime
caused by MSFT idiocy.
~~~
partiallypro
Are you a time traveler? Because it only came out 4.5 years ago...
~~~
tpmx
I'd like to remind all commenters of this part the HN Guidelines:
"Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and
substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. Have curious
conversation; don't cross-examine."
~~~
Dylan16807
Fair, that was snarky. But your response of offering a photo of your windows 7
disk was worse. Your initial comment didn't make sense until you edited it,
and there was no need to be so defensive about that. You could have just said
you meant 7-10.
And it's not the same product any more than XP and Vista are the same product.
A free upgrade is still an upgrade.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cappuccinocasts: free screencasts on the Cappuccino framework - henning
http://cappuccinocasts.com/
======
pvg
I wonder how many people find this sort of thing more useful than a text
article with a few well-placed screenshots. I can easily see how a video can
be handy when explaining some highly visual and interactive environment but in
this case, you're mostly staring at a dude's editor or browser while he types
things and clicks things. A dude with the accent and cadence of a cartoon
hypnotist, no less. The effort expended in producing a screencast must easily
exceed that of writing up the same information. Not to mention ease of
addressability, indexing, updatability, etc, etc, etc.
~~~
erlanger
Yep, it makes no sense, and you shouldn't need OCR to get code samples on your
clipboard.
~~~
goodkarma
He includes links to code on the site. There is a GitHub repository with all
code in it.
------
Semiapies
"Free" screencasts? Is anyone actually straight-facedly trying to charge for
screencasts?
~~~
Hagelin
<http://peepcode.com> and <http://www.screencastsonline.com> both charge for
what they call screencasts.
Arguably much of the content from <http://www.lynda.com> and other video
training providers could also be called screencasts.
~~~
Semiapies
Huh! Thanks.
------
goodkarma
I look forward to seeing some new screencasts on that site. The last one is
from May.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Are data markets a bust? - emrgx
It does not seem like data markets are taking off despite the initial excitement around them. Where do you think this market is heading?
======
rpedela
It depends. I think the problem most data websites have is that the user still
has to do a lot of work to actually use the data.
Although not exactly a market, data.gov is a good example of what not to do.
It is a gigantic list of datasets which is hard to search. Often the dataset
is not in a usable format such as PDF or HTML, or it just links to another
website which has a worse UI for accessing the data. The counter example is
Factual which has a nice API and the ability to download their curated and
cleaned datasets.
Many data websites are more like data.gov than Factual.
EDIT: I made the assumption you were asking about data websites. There are
data markets that have existed for years behind closed doors between big
companies. An example is health insurance companies buying de-identified
health records for research purposes. As far as I aware, these markets are
still doing well.
------
chewxy
In what sense? DMPs are doing fine in online advertising.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How I set up my Linode VPS server (an Ubuntu 12.04 LTS build with a LEMP stack) - cbracco
http://cbrac.co/1561ytR
======
cbracco
Please note that I am a front-end designer, and this was my first extensive
foray into the sysadmin world. Constructive criticism welcome!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Where should I move to maximize my career potential? - ncarlson
Hi everyone,<p>I'm coming to a turning point in my life. I'll be graduating from university soon, and I'm looking forward to moving to a more hacker friendly city with brighter prospects. My question to the community here is... if you were in my position, which city would you choose?<p>Some background information:
I'm a bit of a laggard in graduating, being that I'm 25. I spent two years abroad in Japan, and upon entering university, switched majors more than once. However, my time has been well spent, working on various software projects.<p>I live near Boulder right now, but I'm originally from Detroit. While the Boulder/Denver area is certainly in a better position than Detroit in terms of tech related jobs, I feel that there are better cities out there.<p>Here are some cities and locations I'm considering:<p>* Chicago<p>* New York<p>* SF Bay Area<p>* Seattle<p>* Boston<p>* Houston/Austin<p>From a lifestyle and interests standpoint, any of these cities are acceptable. However, my gut tells me that the SF Bay Area is where I should really be. Some of my tech proficiencies are a bit esoteric (read: Erlang). So I think that given the large concentration of tech related companies in the SF area, the probability of me finding a suitable job there would be greater than that in a different city. I could be totally wrong though.<p>What do you think?<p>Thanks for the help.
======
tokenadult
<http://paulgraham.com/startuphubs.html>
Yes, I think the SF Bay Area is the credited response here.
------
wdr1
I'm from Chicago (and still consider it home), but without question,
California is the place to be. I moved west 10 years ago and it's been a fun
ride.
------
vaksel
If you want to work with the web, SF Bay Area hands down. + its the shortest
move for you
------
noodle
if everything else is equal, SF bay area. if you have other considerations
that do have sway beyond brazen careerism, then that might change things. or
it might not.
------
anamax
While SV is a reasonable answer, why isn't Japan on your list?
~~~
menloparkbum
If you aren't Japanese, Japan is not a good place to further your career.
~~~
ncarlson
Why? I disagree.
If you go over there to teach English or engage in an unrelated job, sure,
it's not a healthy career move. But there are plenty of large multinational
companies working out of Tokyo.
~~~
menloparkbum
Even at a large multinational, the experience you get in Japan is not
applicable anywhere else. When you move somewhere else, nobody cares about
your experience abroad and the language and cultural skills are no longer
useful.
Few people would consider moving from the USA to Germany or France a career
building move for a software developer. Yet, there is some mystique about
Japan.
It might be a cool place for international banking, or importing and exporting
obscure luxury items, but it's actually a bad place for a software developer.
Programming is considered a low-status job for dorks. The techniques are bad
and outdated. The work culture is anti-conducive to creative software
development. There aren't many good Japanese programmers. The ones that are
good are almost all indie developers - it's not like they're hiring. I mean,
just think about it... where would you even work? Try to name 10 places where
it would be good to work as a software developer in Japan.
I don't want to dissuade someone from living abroad. I've lived in Japan and
Australia and had a great time. However, if I had wanted to focus on a
software career it would have made more sense to just get a job at Google.
------
earl
I've lived and worked at startups in both NYC and SF. It isn't even a contest.
The amount of startup activity, the character of the companies (ie are the
founders left in charge or do you have to have a Harvard MBA to pass muster
with the VCs), the ecosystem surrounding the companies, cheaper housing, the
ability to move between companies (you mostly can't enforce non-competes in
CA) -- come to SF. Oh, and the weather.
Paul Graham will give you the same answer in a much more detailed form -- go
read it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Two Cameras in every NYC Citi Bike - scranglis
http://johnjpowers.blogspot.com/2013/07/citi-bike-latest-nyc-surveillance.html
======
conroy
No need to get the pitchforks out, this post is satire. The two quotes in the
article aren't sourced. A quick Google search shows the last quote only
appears in this blog [1].
[1]:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=The+vigilance+of+New+York+Ci...](https://www.google.com/search?q=The+vigilance+of+New+York+City+is+unmatched+and+the+technology+that+it+takes+to+bring+criminals+to+justice+has+just+caught+up&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-
US:unofficial&client=firefox-aurora&channel=fflb#client=firefox-
aurora&hs=sMY&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aunofficial&channel=fflb&sclient=psy-
ab&q=%22The+vigilance+of+New+York+City+is+unmatched+and+the+technology+that+it+takes+to+bring+criminals+to+justice+has+just+caught+up%22&oq=%22The+vigilance+of+New+York+City+is+unmatched+and+the+technology+that+it+takes+to+bring+criminals+to+justice+has+just+caught+up%22&gs_l=serp.3...6131.7573.0.7835.4.4.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....4...1c.1.23.psy-
ab..4.0.0.6FrmYRC-
nzc&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.49967636,d.cGE&fp=945f60794c60d115&biw=1440&bih=787)
~~~
girvo
The scary thing is, I thought it was legit until you pointed that out. The
worlds take on surveillance makes me sad.
~~~
BRValentine
Anyone else just go out and give one of these bikes a close once-over? That
was me at Spring and 6th Ave. pawing the rack of Citibikes just a minute ago.
I was going to start carrying around a roll of tape...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to communicate your value without selling out - skilled
https://www.fastcompany.com/90385831/you-are-not-a-brand
======
dsaavy
“The idea of “personal brand” sounds phony because it is. Brands are carefully
contrived; they are not real. Brands are flat, soulless, and artificial
“personalities” designed to convince others that the brand is something it is
not.” Good point.
Sounds like the author is getting to what some philosophers would call
Essence. For some this Essence would include a judgment of thecAuthenticity of
their being.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Quantum Information Processing Near Spinning Black Holes| Portal to the Universe - ovidiu69
http://portaltotheuniverse.org/blogs/posts/view/513001/#.V_tX4mPtK6A.hackernews
======
ovidiu69
Waiting for the quantum computer to decode the messages coming from the black
holes!!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Intent to Implement: Display Locking - bpierre
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mSQhTtaYFNy0qv5KifopEYm-ZKAZULnHyNcmKL8J4e0/mobilebasic
======
wallflower
This reminds me of the time many years ago when we worked on a VB app that had
to resort to the sledgehammer of Win32's LockWindowUpdate API call to do some
hefty calculations and not "freeze" the UI even though we were, in fact,
freezing the UI.
[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/desktop/api/winuser...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/desktop/api/winuser/nf-winuser-lockwindowupdate)
------
jenscow
Better link: [https://github.com/chrishtr/display-
locking/blob/master/expl...](https://github.com/chrishtr/display-
locking/blob/master/explainer.md)
TD;DR: [https://github.com/chrishtr/display-
locking/blob/master/READ...](https://github.com/chrishtr/display-
locking/blob/master/README.md)
~~~
tmpmov
Interesting. My, perhaps wrong, visualization of the janking effect, without
the display update, concerns resizing, or showing, a column or pane in a web
app. During the resize, the content in both frames are not updated until the
resize is complete under certain (most?) conditions.
"If an undue delay is likely to be caused, the work already completed is
processed and the update phase yields to other update phases for unlocked
content."
My interpretation for a pane/column resize or hidden to visible operation:
display-locking reduces jank if I could operate on these elements with the
display lock tools. This jank reduction produces more fluid updates in
elements not affected by the lock.
Question: If sub elements have complicated draw/render cycles, how will the
interplay of locks at different layers affect the result? Composing objects
with libraries that use these locks makes me wonder about this issue (or if I
make sub-components myself).
------
CharlesW
Wow! When I first learned web development way back when, I was surprised that
something like HyperCard's _lock screen_ didn't exist/wasn't possible. Being
able to do this on an element level is a huge improvement over that. This is
great.
------
jessedhillon
Has there been substantial discussion about this feature? Neither of the two
links provided lead to deep discussions about this. It doesn't seem like this
is related to any agreed upon standards process.
As far as I can tell, this is being presented as a change to the programming
model which will be undertaken unilaterally. Are we back to the days where one
browser gets to decide how the web works, and everyone else can catch up if
they like?
~~~
aboodman
This is just about implementation, not shipping. It's still extremely early in
the process. See:
[https://www.chromium.org/blink/launching-
features](https://www.chromium.org/blink/launching-features)
------
bcoates
Is the point of this just to reduce visible jank, or to obsolete shadow-dom
implementations by replacing them with lock->modify->unlock?
------
duskwuff
There's a more detailed explanation of the proposed API at:
[https://github.com/chrishtr/display-
locking/blob/master/expl...](https://github.com/chrishtr/display-
locking/blob/master/explainer.md)
------
jedberg
TIL _jank_ is an actual term people use in formal documents.
~~~
vermilingua
Jank is an actual term, it’s the time-derivative of acceleration. Page jank
looks how motion jank feels; unexpected and uncomfortable.
~~~
dward
Jerk is the derivative of acceleration. I haven't heard jank used in that
context.
~~~
vermilingua
Brainfart, my bad.
------
mbrumlow
Will this allow content providers to lock content so that ad blockers can't
change the content ?
~~~
emsy
No, this is about increasing performance by taking elements out of the slow
DOM update cycle
~~~
phkahler
>> No, this is about increasing performance by taking elements out of the slow
DOM update cycle
The question was not about the intent of the feature, but a possible use case
that may not have been intended. A more specific reason for the "No" could be
more informative.
~~~
xg15
Interesting idea - though I think any kind of script API can be circumvented
by ad blockers pretty easily: They can always inject their own script before
anything from the page is executed and manipulate the API functions or replace
them with "do nothing" implementations.
------
AriaMinaei
This is one of multiple proposals to make DOM read/writes more performant.
More are listed here: [https://github.com/chrishtr/async-
dom](https://github.com/chrishtr/async-dom)
------
mcmatterson
For someone who doesn’t follow lower level browser dev that closely, this
seems like an optimization pretty specifically for a react style ‘nested
redraws’ use case. Is this at all correct?
~~~
ramses0
Basically "<ul id='foo'><li>...</li></ul>" && #foo.append( ...li... ) may
cause a redraw, recalc, reflow, of layout + styles for each LI you add to the
UL, as well as the rest of the dom containing the UL.
However if you can do: "BEGIN TRANSACTION; ...#foo.append(...)...; END
TRANSACTION;" it gives you a mechanism to "freeze" all or some of the display
(think of it as a subset double-buffer), and "blit" the changed dom to the UI
when you're done (with the possibility of: " && CONTINUE TRANSACTION".
Imagine a simple list of search results with alternating row colors (white /
grey backgrounds) specified by css (nth-child %2 == 0).
If you prepend elements, instead of appending elements it might cause all
elements to change color and re-render, on each insertion.
If you append elements instead then it's likely a more efficient on an
individual element basis than prepending, but if you had the ability to "lock"
the affected display area until you're done with your for-loop, then the
browser can avoid updating the area at all until the "COMMIT" call (multiple
actions, with a single commit resolution at the end).
Think of it as "batch these dom updates..." Git/SVN multi-file commits vs CVS
commits (single-file).
~~~
the8472
For many such cases, i.e. layout changes triggering the recalculation of
siblings or ancestors, contain[0] might be a more lightweight alternative.
[0] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/CSS/contain](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/CSS/contain)
------
delinka
"...without jank."
Is this a technical term?
~~~
alangpierce
I think it's a reasonably common technical term in Android circles (possibly
elsewhere) that means "non-smooth animations" or "skipped frames".
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jank](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jank)
------
Kenji
Why not just double-buffering the DOM? That'd be much simpler. Mutate your DOM
all you want, then swap it in when it's ready.
~~~
spankalee
This allows the browser to delay all style, layout, and paint work on attached
DOM, and then also spread that work across multiple frames during a commit,
reducing jank for the unlocked portions of the page.
If you synchronously swap a large portion of DOM, style, layout, and paint
will likely blow your frame budget.
~~~
ballenf
Either I don't understand double buffering very well (not unlikely) or I don't
know what you mean by "frame budget". Wouldn't swapping one buffer for the
other be faster than most or all of the computations going into calculating
that background buffer and easily doable in a single frame?
What am I missing?
~~~
dfox
Normal double-buffering involves doing something trivial at the moment of
buffer-swap, like changing pointer or at most doing large-ish memory copy.
Double buffering DOM would either not solve the problem (in the case of doing
the layout computations in background and then swapping already layed out DOM)
or would involve doing all the layout computations at once when the swap
happens (with the implication of this being mostly equivalent to loading new
page and thus slow and in many cases too slow to happen at 30, 60 or whatever
Hz)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
2020.02.02. 02:02:02 - szines
2020.02.02. 02:02:02
======
sabas_ge
02/02/2020 20:20:20
------
simonblack
2020.02.22 22:22:22
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Zuckerberg in Holocaust denial row - sudenmorsian
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44883743
======
bsenftner
We were told all we needed to know back when The Facebook was a Harvard only
site, and his reaction towards the trust others were granting him was "those
suckers!". He may be rich beyond all our dreams, but he's a dumb smuck for
never realizing the opportunity he blew.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard - dpritchett
http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html
======
pradocchia
To boil that down, Chinese is So Damn Hard due to:
1\. the writing system
2\. the lack of cognates
3\. tones
Comments:
(1) could be argued applies to all learners of Chinese, regardless of
background or age, _but_ it should be obvious that a Japanese student would
not find characters so daunting--in fact, they would probably find some
comfort relative to western alphabets. Characters _do_ form a system--highly
irregular yes--but there are definite systematic qualities that can be
leveraged once you reach a certain level.
(2)&(3) are relative to your linguistic background, obviously. Mandarin
Chinese phonology and grammar is much simpler for children to learn than
English or many other languages. It's the end product of centuries of
simplification.
If one were to postulate a universal budget for linguistic complexity, the
Chinese skimp on phonology and grammar, and splurge on orthography, while most
other cultures do the opposite. Note the Japanese have an even simpler
phonology, a moderately complex grammar, and an even more complex orthography.
I would add, Chinese is So Damn Hard because the pedagogy sucks, but that's a
separate issue!
~~~
xiaoma
After studying Japanese in school, getting to a respectable communicative
level and then later spending most my adult life in Taiwan, I've got to
disagree about the orthography. The burden of learning a couple Japanese kana
syllablaries of under 50 symbols is nothing compared to that of needing to
learn literally thousands more Chinese characters.
Additionally, I find that most learners have a much harder time with Chinese
phonetics. I've known many, many Taiwanese people who have studied Japanese
and many Japanese who have moved here to learn Mandarin and there is no
comparison between their abilities. In general, the Taiwanese learners of
Japanese do pretty well albeit with a few grammar hang-ups. The vast majority
of the Japanese learners of Mandarin I've known have had great difficulties
communicating and had to put in much more time to reach similar levels of
competence.
~~~
pradocchia
IMO, two syllabry + kanji w/ multiple readings is more complex than strictly
monosyllabic characters w/ the occasional secondary pronunciation.
I can _guess_ how a character I don't know might be pronounced in Mandarin or
other dialects, with fairly good accuracy. Even tone! But Japanese? Maybe an
On reading or two. But kun'yomi? Forget about it.
And yes, Chinese phonology is more complex than Japanese, but the grammar is
simpler. A wash, perhaps?
~~~
xiaoma
I have a strong feeling that as long as writing systems are ignored, just
about every language is "a wash". There's a limit to the difficulties a
natural language will throw at someone. Since writing systems are constructed
that may not be the case.
It's also possible that the very different experiences of Japanese and Chinese
learners learning to read are due to the expectations the locals place on
themselves. In Japan, once you know the Joyo Kanji, you can be pretty
confident that you'll have furigana to help you when tougher words show up in
newspapers, in video games or even on TV. In Taiwan, on the other hand, the
only place you'll find significant help from zhuyin is in materials made for
children. China has a bit more pinyin for the illiterate population, but it is
still nothing compared to the furigana in Japanese media.
~~~
pradocchia
that's a good point, two syllabries + kanji + furigana for non-joyo is a
finite set, whereas chinese is a open set (virtually).
some spoken languages _are_ known to be simpler than others, as measured
through their phonology, morphology and syntax. trade languages, creoles,
pidgins, etc.
mandarin is a trade language/pidgin of sorts, with resulting simplification of
its phonology relative to other dialects. bahasa indonesian is another well-
known example.
fun factoid: while the number of Chinese characters throughout history number
in the hundreds of thousands, the working set for any one writer at any time
has been shown through textual analysis to be ~8000 for a well-educated
person, with an upper bounds under 20K.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Adjustable height desk recommendations? - tgibson
I'm looking for a good quality, somewhat budget friendly (< $400) sit/stand adjustable desk. I've searched around and found some options. But I'm interested to see what folks on HN have gone with.
======
luxpir
If you're asking for sit/stand, not necessarily adjustable, grab one of these:
[http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90087541/](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90087541/)
And pair it with a bar stool. I've done just that and it's got me standing
more often than the 5x more expensive adjustable solution would have done.
That's assuming the default position for the adjustable would have been down.
Which it would have been for me. It's sturdy, compact and tidy when coupled
with the under-desk cable-tidy (just fits diagonally).
I've lost the comfort factor of the big chair and desk, but I've gained a more
active default position. It's also easier to wham the treadmill under the desk
when I'm feeling lively.
Folks, I do _try_ not to be a tragic startup cliché.
------
etewiah
I've been using this for the last few months:
[http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/bed...](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/bedroom/19087/)
While its not really designed to be a standup desk, it works quite well for
me. I only use it for a couple of hours or so a day though.
------
thenomad
I used one of the Ergotron line of mechanically adjustable sit-stand desks for
a long while. They're pretty good - I've subsequently changed to a full-on
powered sit-stand desk because I can fit more monitors on it, but the Ergotron
did the job.
------
devnill
Its a little out of your price range, but these are really nice:
[http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S29022488/](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S29022488/)
~~~
aquark
Just bought one of these for home last week $593CAD + sales tax (~ $457USD)
It is certainly good value, and a fraction of the price of the one I had for
work a few years ago (different brand totally). It can feel a little
flimsy/wobbly when raised, but certainly not dangerously so.
------
sthorn
I've been using this for the lat month:
[http://www.varidesk.com/standing-desk-pro-
plus-36](http://www.varidesk.com/standing-desk-pro-plus-36)
Best of both worlds.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A New del.icio.us Soon? - buckpost
http://www.markevanstech.com/2008/01/21/a-new-delicious-soon/
======
halo
IIRC, there's been a semi-private beta of the new version available to certain
members for 6 months, so this isn't really surprising anybody.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tim Cook Passes on $75 million dividend - dmvaldman
http://www.slashgear.com/tim-cook-turns-down-75m-dividend-25230107/
======
smackfu
That's... odd. Can anyone guess why he did this? Maybe tax reasons? He got a
million shares for becoming CEO, so it's not like he's just into saving Apple
money or anything.
~~~
feral
This is a guess:
Perhaps its because he's the new CEO, and Apple has just issued a large
dividend for the first time in a long time - it looks better if the new CEO
isn't a major beneficiary of the policy shift. This shows everyone that he's
in for the long run - there's no possible accusation that the dividend was for
short term personal gain.
This also sends the signal that he isn't just paying the dividend because he
thinks share growth (otherwise his main compensation) is finished with.
------
ryangilbert
Apple really has some classy people representing their company. Well done.
------
nknight
This seemed extremely bizarre to me until I read the filing itself[1].
The RSUs in question are unvested. Apparently a change was just made by the
board that means unvested RSUs will collect dividends which will be paid out
upon vesting. Cook is declining those.
I can kind of understand that it would look strange to make a change like this
to already-granted RSUs, but if it were that big of a concern, it seems odd
that only Cook would decline the dividends, or that the board would have made
the change retroactive in the first place, so I still don't entirely
understand declining them.
[1]
[http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/00011814311203...](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/000118143112032458/rrd346000.htm)
~~~
smackfu
Dividends on unvested stock options kind of suck. You don't get the money, but
the value of your stock goes down (in theory by the amount of the dividend).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Klipper:News consumption app which summarizes content - snapoutofit
http://klipperapp.com
======
vishalchandra
I do not like the shade of blue. Though, works like killer. Good stuff!
~~~
snapoutofit
Thanks, we have had quite a lot of feedback on the blue! :D, hope the color
does not take away from the summaries.
------
DudeKumar
Very neatly done and surprisingly accurate !! Loved the Api !!
~~~
snapoutofit
Thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Racking Mac Pro (trashcan) in a Datacenter - jijojv
http://photos.imgix.com/racking-mac-pros
======
teovall
That's cool and all but how on earth is it not more financially advantageous
to just port their software to Linux and run it on commodity hardware?
This is staggeringly inefficient. Not just in the cost of the hardware, but
all the lost time spent designing this rack system. Not to mention the costs
of performing repairs. Macs are not designed for maintainability.
------
JoshTriplett
Despite what seems like a comical waste of space, this does have 4 systems per
4U chassis, which averages out to 1U per system.
(Though I'd also suspect the actual guts of a Mac Pro could pack much more
densely than 1U each in a blade-style form factor.)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Researcher shows that black holes do not exist - staatsgeheim
http://phys.org/news/2014-09-black-holes.html
======
BigTuna
Alternative theories are fine but this doesn't explain any of the observations
that have led us to believe black holes exist in the first place. If black
holes don't exist, what exactly is Saggitarius A* then? The stars at the
center of our galaxy are orbiting something invisible and truly massive (about
4 million solar masses.)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
If you use Waze, hackers can stalk you - chiochio
http://fusion.net/story/293157/waze-hack/
======
brudgers
Previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11574753](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11574753)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Marie Curie Got Her Start at a Secret University for Women - lermontov
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-secret-polish-university-for-women-where-marie-curie-got-her-start
======
inputcoffee
I cannot imagine doing this today, although there are still places that need a
secret university. However, I wonder if we have the solution, at much less
risk.
I wonder if, 30 years from now when a whole new generation has grown up, we
will discuss poor countries (or, say, people under the Taliban, or in North
Korea) learning from the Khan Academy, Coursera and the like in the same way.
"What was it like, mom?"
"Well, kid, they didn't have these fancy holographs. First you had to find a
really good 'connection' ..."
~~~
lumberjack
Unlikely. Those people don't have the luxury of time needed to put any serious
efforts towards their education.
~~~
benbreen
You'd be surprised. A good friend of mine is an Afghan who grew up sleeping on
a dirt floor alongside his 5 siblings. When he was 15, his parents sent him
off to their family village in order to fight the Taliban.
I first met him at our PhD program orientation in the US. He speaks four
languages and and is one of the most well educated people I've ever met.
Granted, he's an exceptional person but by no means of a unique one.
Edit: can't help sharing something that just happened last week, I was with my
wife in Athens, where she had just started her thesis research, interviewing
Afghan refugees in one of the big Greek refugee camps. She befriends a 17 year
old Afghan kid named Javad, no family or money, speaks nothing but Dari, and
one of the first things he asks her is "can you send me a PDF of an
intermediate to advanced level mechanical engineering textbook?" We're
planning on sending him an ipad with a bunch of PDFs and sci hub articles.
I realize these are just two personal anecdotes but they have definitely
changed my mind on this subject. Curious people tend to be curious regardless
of their life circumstances.
~~~
Myrmornis
That's an awesome story. How was Javad planning to receive / read the PDF? Or
did he want a paper copy?
~~~
benbreen
His cell phone. He buys data 5 euro at a time from a shop in the town or goes
to cafes to download English and engineering textbooks. That's what my wife's
thesis project is about - specifically figuring out the best ways to share
useful information with refugees who have cell phones but not much else,
especially women who might not have a chance to go out in public much, or have
a formal education. It's not my field at all but I find her work to be
fascinating.
If you're interested, This American Life just did two whole episodes from a
Greek refugee camp. In the second episode they interview a guy who patched
into a power line under a tree to charge 6 cell phones at once! The group that
both TAL and my wife were talking to is really doing good work, they're called
the Greek Forum of Refugees.
[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/592/a...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/592/are-we-there-yet)
~~~
pjc50
This is a salutary anecdote which I wish we could convey to all those people
who think that having a smartphone makes you "not poor". It's the exact
opposite: it's so useful that even people who have not much else will go
through hell or high water to keep their link to the world.
------
ekianjo
> to a post World War II effort by Communist Russia, who once again took
> control of Poland
Inaccurate - it did not wait for post-WW2. Russia invaded already the second
half Poland as soon as 1939 (2 weeks after Germany) and on top of that,
without declaring War.
~~~
ch4ck
That was not Russia. That was Soviet Union. Those parts of Poland became parts
of Ukrainian and Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republics (Western Ukraine,
Western Belarus). Most of them are still parts of Ukraine and Belarus today.
In 1938 Poland invaded Czechoslovakia together with Germany and Hungary to
"protect" Polish population in Zaolzie. In 1939 Soviet Union "protected"
Ukrainian and Byelorussian population. In 1938 Stalin's plan to fight Nazi
Germany and protect Slavic Czechoslovakia was rejected by the West.
~~~
jazzyk
Let's not rewrite history here: _Germany_ invaded Czechoslovakia. Hungary and
Poland annexed small parts of ethnically mixed areas to their respective
countries
~~~
ch4ck
And Germany invaded Poland on the 1st September 1939. The problem is we signed
up treaties with Czechoslovakia regulating the issue You think the eastern
part of Poland was not ethnically mixed and there were no problems with this?
------
Mz
Education for the sake of education, for people with a desire to learn. This
pretty much has to be better than education for the purpose of credentialing.
~~~
ajuc
They were mostly nobles (Poland had lots of these - almost 5% of population)
or rich middle class women before feminism (so - no need to work).
~~~
Mz
If you read the book "More work for mother," which details 300 years of the
history of housework, women have long been saddled with about 60 hours a week
of housework. In modern times, if a woman works a full time job of 40 hours a
week, that only falls to about 40 hours per week of housework.
I seriously doubt most of these women were living a life of leisure.
Additionally, let's assume you are right: How on earth does that rebut my
comment about educating people who _desire to learn_? Because surely the
leisure class could have been bar hopping and throwing or attending wild
parties instead of trying to learn something in spite of it being against the
rules to get an education.
~~~
ajuc
> Additionally, let's assume you are right: How on earth does that rebut my
> comment about educating people who desire to learn?
It doesn't, why should it?
------
kaikai
I worked on a project called Free Skool that's essentially the same thing.
Even in wealthy, "free" countries, there are plenty of people that don't have
access to educational resources, and can benefit from sharing knowledge with
their peers. We had classes on everything from maths and philosophy to sewing
and figure drawing. Education shouldn't be something that only happens when
you have a ton of money and years of free time to spend on a university
degree.
~~~
KajMagnus
Do you have a website? Would you like to link to it (or send me via email?)
~~~
kaikai
I worked on Free Skool Santa Cruz
([http://santacruz.freeskool.org/](http://santacruz.freeskool.org/)) but we
stopped a few years back. It's entirely decentralized, and there's a bunch of
projects around the world. Here's a wiki page that has more links and
resources:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchistic_free_school](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchistic_free_school)
------
Myrmornis
The one-person stage play "Manya - A Living History of Marie Curie" is
fantastic incidentally.
There's a clip here; I don't know if a full recording is available.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8GTXNkkFPs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8GTXNkkFPs)
------
belorn
Looking through the sources, its bit unclear if she joined before the various
pro-education groups were united into a single secret university open for both
sexes, or after. Before 1885 she was tutoring, but I can't find any reference
if thats was connected with the university.
------
c2prods
Fascinating how outsiders change the world. Despite their progress, it should
be food for thought for our modern-era universities too.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The power of a whiteboard - dhotson
http://www.agile-software-development.com/2009/03/power-of-whiteboard.html
======
gord
I remember being somewhat underwhelmed when interviewing at a Hedge Fund where
they had leather seats decorating a beautiful inlaid wooden table, and not a
white board on the whole floor - reminded me of Feynmans comparison of
Princeton versus CalTech..
Apparently at Caltech they had a cheap accelerator, but they got great
results, because the physicists knew it inside out and tinkered on a daily
basis.
I did spend a year doing what Id describe as 'guerrilla white-board driven
architecture' where we basically argued hammer and tong for three hours a day,
putting ideas up and tearing them down. So every module and code interface was
nutted out in detail and usually simplified. It seemed to keep a team of 12
developers focussed on building the same thing. A smaller wb was used to keep
a simple list of what the teams working on. Backed up by an open Plone
intranet this brought us to delivery. Probably more suited to medium size
teams as in game dev. Part of the success was having done a prototype
beforehand.
Whenever I see a w/b covered in those cute little pink and green post-it
notes, my reaction is that they are embracing agile too rigidly - that the
focus is 'process' not action. Its not a white board if theres nowhere to
write, right?
So I think the main benefit is simply that the board, being blank, beckons you
to draw whatever idea is bouncing around, which you then have to explain...
~~~
krav
Great writeup. I have a whiteboard in my bedroom so I can visualize ideas.
There's something about putting it on the white space that makes them easier
to edit and play with.
~~~
alecco
With loose blank A4 pages and a pencil you don't have to stand up. In my
experience, it works better if it's paper printed on the other side picked
from the recycle bin.
~~~
krschultz
I find for brainstorming with myself, regular paper (or and roll 11" wide - I
found a few for free and they last FOREVER)is best, but with a bunch of people
the whiteboard works better.
I am somewhat hampered on the whiteboard by my incredible lack of drawing
ability, but it still works out.
------
anamax
I talked early NetApp into covering all the side walls of the main conference
room with whiteboard.
One of the interesting behaviors that I noticed that no one else seems to have
commented upon is that the level of activity around a large expanse of
whiteboard is related to overall mood.
When things are going well, folks are drawn to whiteboard, looking for
interaction and information.
When things are going badly, they'll avoid it.
------
larrywright
I've had a similar experience. We do use some software tools to help us with
the process, but I would feel very comfortable managing a moderately sized
team doing Agile development using nothing but a whiteboard. It's still my
teams go-to tool when we need to create ad-hoc lists of "this is the critical
list of defects to fix prior to the release" type of lists, as well as
hammering out architecture decisions.
That said, I now have one member of my team who is remote full time. That has
made it a little less useful. We use Skype and a Logitech webcam, which helps
him to be able to see the whiteboard, but he can't really participate in the
drawing and writing. I'd love a two-way digital whiteboard, but alas those are
fairly pricy.
If anyone has worked with teams like this (majority of the team on site, one
or two remote), I'd love to hear suggestions on how you've overcome these
problems (if in fact, you have).
~~~
DanielBMarkham
I'm kind of lucky in that I can watch dozens of teams simultaneously. So I've
seen various combinations.
Here are some ideas:
\- Open line. Teams leave a VOIP or regular phone line open on a PolyCom in
the middle of the room on both ends. If the equipment is good enough, this
gives you some ambient noise from both sites.
\- Open cam. If you've got the bandwidth, use it. An open cam, especially one
that can be controlled over the web (not that anybody uses it, but heck, its
cool) lets both sides keep an eye on what's going on. You can make use of an
old spare notebook to do this if you like.
\- We're all in standups together. If you do a morning coffee or standup or
group breakfast or whatever, the remote folks are part of that too. Lots of
time the most critical information gets discussed in the most relaxed informal
venues.
\- VR. I've got two teams that are using Virtual Reality for team colaborative
space. While they're using Second Life, I guess you could use anything like
that. I have lots of comments on this idea, but I'm saving them for a blog
entry :)
\- Adapt. Don't be afraid to try something and then throw it away. I don't
think there's one answer that fits all situations, so the critical factor here
is the creativity and adaptivity of the teams involved. Try some ideas you
think are good and see how it works. Heck, try some ideas you think suck and
see how it works. Lots of times our initial estimate of how much something is
going to help or not is way different than reality.
Hope that helps some. Drop me a line if you'd like to hear more pontificating
:)
------
joshsharp
Great article, spot on. Given the high-tech nature of my (our) work, I find it
amusing that whenever people ask me, "what software do you use to track X" or
"how do you manage your tasks efficiently" I just say, "I use a whiteboard."
And it works too.
------
hboon
I almost read it as "The power of a white beard". Which sounds appropriate in
the software industry.
Anyway, a whiteboard is not just great for software development. It's good
because it makes it easy to share thoughts among participants. It helps to
encourage participation, visualizing of concepts, and the very act of writing
down ideas also helps the writer to build his/her own idea more concretely.
When we build up our office in my last workplace, I made sure we had writable
glass surfaces for our walls in the conference room. I'd wanted it on our
tables too, but thought it would be quite dirty. Everyone who came to our
office liked and used it.
When I was shopping around for standalone whiteboards, I was surprised to find
a few variations, other than those whiteboards that you can attach a printer,
save to flashdrives, auto-erase, there was a kind (not a "board" anymore, but
it served as one) where you stick 2-3 attachments onto a normal wall and used
a special pen for drawing on the wall. You had to have a projector and a
laptop for it to work. You can draw with the pen on the wall, and the software
will capture it onto the laptop, projecting it onto the wall, pretty cool.
------
erso
At ThoughtWorks Chicago nearly the entire perimeter wall interior surface is
floor-to-ceiling whiteboard wallpaper.
It's magnificent.
------
DanielBMarkham
I liked the article -- full of good advice.
My only nit is the author's bold-facing every fourth word or so. It got
distracting.
One of the harder things to do in a large company when introducing agile is to
get people back to the whiteboard. Large non-agile teams are so used to having
their own electronic tools and document templates that when you ask them to
work "without a crutch"? It's like speaking in Klingon.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Does 1+2+3+... Really Equal -1/12? - CarolineW
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/does-123-really-equal-112/
======
Ruud-v-A
Here’s what’s really going on:
You can define a function f from a subset of the complex numbers to the
complex numbers where f(z) = \sum_{n=1}^\infty 1/n^z. Be careful with the
domain of this function: the series does not converge for all z. You can plug
in -1 and see that symbolically, f(-1) = 1 + 2 + 3 + .... But the series does
not converge for z = -1, and it is simply not true that \sum_{n=1}^\infty n =
-1/12; the series does not converge; equating it to something is a nonsensical
thing to do.
What is going then? Even though f is not defined for all complex numbers,
there exist functions from the complex numbers to the complex numbers that --
restricted to the domain of f -- are equal to f. They "continue" f to all of
the complex numbers. And if one imposes a restriction on these continuations
(namely that they are analytic), then it turns out that there is a unique
analytic continuation of f: the Riemann zeta function. And zeta(-1) = -1/12.
Don’t confuse the definitions here. The Riemann zeta function can be defined
as the analytic continuation of the series, the series is not defined in terms
of the Riemann zeta function!
~~~
nwjtkjn
What bothers me is that it seems there could be many ways of writing 1 + 2 + 3
+ ... as the "specialization" of a formal series depending on a variable z,
and for which the formal series converges to an analytic function on some
domain away from the specialization. I can imagine there's a way of doing this
in such a way that the function's analytic continuation to the specialization
evaluates to any number you want, not just -1/12\. However, I'm having trouble
cooking up such an example.
~~~
DavidSJ
A trivial and artificial example is g(z), defined as the sum of G(n, z) for n
from 1 to infinity, where G(n, z) = 0 except if z is -1, in which case it is
n.
Thus g(-1) is 1 + 2 + 3 + ... while g(z) is otherwise 0 + 0 + 0 + ... = 0. And
then the zero function is the unique analytic continuation of g.
The reason people care about the Riemann zeta function is because of its deep
connections to analysis, number theory, and physics.
~~~
nwjtkjn
Hm yeah, I was thinking of something more natural, like requiring the G(n,z)'s
themselves be analytic on some domain. Anyway, sure the Riemann zeta is
important, but I'm not sure how it's canonical.
------
tinco
Tl;dr: No it doesn't. Under some unintuitive definition for infinite summation
that is useful in some physical calculations it does which is surprising.
Under the normal rules which hold for direct use obviously the answer is
positive infinity just like you would be expect, you're not stupid and you
could be a mathematician if you wanted to.
edit: For fun, a short story:
If Muhammed is on top of a strangely shaped mountain that with every step down
gets one step wider. The mountain is so high he can't see the bottom yet
Muhammed wants to move this mountain. So Muhammed starts fetching horses and
ties them to the mountain with ropes to move it. That's a direct use of this
equality, and you can't stand from afar and look at the scene and say "my, I
think that's about -1/12 horses Muhammed is fetching". You'll see Muhammed
taking an infinite amount of time fetching an infinite number of horses, and
you'll definitely seem him do it more than once.
~~~
dskloet
How does an infinite sum of integers appear in nature (physics)?
~~~
inlineint
It appears in some quantum field theory calculations, in particular for
Casimir Effect.
In simple words Casimir Effect consists of a force that emerges between two
conductor planes that are parallel to each other. The force is proportional to
sum of energies of all possible standing electromagnetic waves between the
planes. In calculations for this force a divergent series of sum of all
natural numbers (or their powers) appears and physicists use 1 + 2 + ... =
-1/12 to calculate it (or continuation of zeta function in other points if
appropriate).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect#Derivation_of_C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect#Derivation_of_Casimir_effect_assuming_zeta-
regularization)
and
[https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics/Casimir_ef...](https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics/Casimir_effect_in_one_dimension)
~~~
cohomologo
I've never seen a physics book that treats this using the zeta function,
except popular articles that try to present this calculation as mysterious. In
practice, in my QFT class we needed to compute the sum
lim \epsilon -> 0+ ( \sum_{n=1}^\infty n e^{- \epsilon n} + ...),
that is the series was multiplied by a decaying exponential function with a
rate of decay that goes to zero. This sum can easily be evaluated for small
epsilon takes the form
sum = 1/epsilon - 1/12 + O(epsilon).
The 1/epsilon term (which goes to infinity) drops out of the final physical
result when you do the calculation properly.
------
whack
Just watched the entire video. Using the same "proof" that they used, I can
also prove that 1+1+1+1.... = 0
Proof:
S1 = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4.....
S2 = 0 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4...
S1 - S2 = (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ...) \- (0 + 1 + 2 + 3 + ...) = 1 + 1 + 1 + 1....
S2 == S1 (by definition, since all you're doing is adding a 0) => S1 - S2 == 0
Therefore __0 = 1 + 1 + 1 + ..... __
Obviously this is pure nonsense. You can 't just "shift things around" and use
elementary mathematics when dealing with infinite series that don't converge.
Maybe there's a more convincing proof out there, but the one they presented in
the video is bogus.
~~~
zeroer
> Obviously this is pure nonsense.
This is begging the question. Why can't 1 + 1 + ... = 0?
Also, I wouldn't be so sure that S2 == S1. You can't re-arrange infinitely
many terms in an infinite series and still be guaranteed the sum is the same.
~~~
whack
S2 is identical to (0 + S1). Are you suggesting that (0 + S1) != S1 ?
~~~
zeroer
Precisely. Adding 0 to the front of an infinite series is shifting every term
by one to the right. It's not clear that shifting terms in series keeps the
sum the same. For instance, re-arranging infinitely many terms in
conditionally convergent infinite series changes the sum.
~~~
whack
> Adding 0 to the front of an infinite series ... not clear that ... keeps the
> sum the same
I don't know if I would go that far... but I agree with the general spirit of
your comment. Which is also the point of my original post. If you think that
my appending a zero calls my proof into question, the proof presented in the
video takes far more dubious and horrific liberties.
------
CorvusCrypto
From my point of view, what Numberphile did was wildly successful. I think the
video's "wow" factor, as the author put it, is doing its job of getting people
interested in maths. Yes they could have explained some things a little
better. However as noted by the author and some of her other field-mates she
referred to at the bottom of the article, I think really the only sore people
are the mathematicians. I also think that this is because they already know
the rest of the story behind this interesting result. Once we know something
in detail we as humans tend to scoff at incomplete explanations because in our
eyes it does injustice to the topic.
However, to the normal viewer this video probably made maths look incredibly
interesting and more than likely even caused them to research it a bit more. I
would hazard to say an article like the one Dr. Lamb wrote would not have that
same effect, though it is technically more correct. Numberphile to me is more
about reinstating the interest in maths in a society where you are usually
introduced to the topic by doing repetitive, seemingly impractical
calculations and this video of theirs as referenced in the article has
definitely done that.
~~~
foofoo55
The 6 or so people I know who have seen the original Numberphile video
responded with statements like "I'll never understand math", "that's just
stupid", and "I don't get it". None expressed a greater interest in maths as a
result; quite the opposite.
Just like a good host at a party, a good educational video should leave the
viewer felling positive and better about themselves. So clearly, in this case,
it depends on the audience.
~~~
knownothing
> Just like a good host at a party, a good educational video should leave the
> viewer felling positive and better about themselves.
Is the purpose of education to make the other person feel positive and good
about themselves?
~~~
ajmurmann
No. However, unless you have a captive audience you will quickly lose your
education opportunity of you don't. Even with a captive audience you are
likely to achieve better results if your students enjoy the topic and can feel
like they are accomplishing something. Motivation matters as it turns out.
------
numlocked
Reading a couple of the linked posts, I thought this was the best take on it
from mathematician Jordan Ellenberg (it certainly made sense to my comp-sci
brain):
It's not quite right to describe what the video does as “proving” that
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + .... = -1/12. When we ask “what is the value of the
infinite sum,” we've made a mistake before we even answer! Infinite
sums don't have values until we assign them a value, and there are
different protocols for doing that. We should be asking not what IS
the value, but what should we define the value to be? There are
different protocols, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The
protocol you learn in calculus class, involving limits, would decline
to assign any value at all to the sum in the video. A different
protocol assigns it the value -1/12. Neither answer is more correct
than the other.
------
mcbits
I think a good analogy to make this seem less mysterious would be the various
methods of determining an average. E.g. we have no problem saying the "average
family" has 2.4 children despite the impossibility of any family having 2.4
children. The number is just useful in other calculations for income,
expenses, etc.
From there it's not hard to imagine that the -1/12 result could be useful and
justifiable as an intermediate step in other calculations despite being an
"impossible" destination on its own.
------
MichaelBurge
No need to invoke the Riemann Zeta function and analytic continuation. In high
school they summed this series(valid for x < 1):
1 + x + x^2 ... = 1/(1-x)
Plug in x = 2 to get:
1 + 2 + 4 + 8 ... = -1
There's a million of these series in your dusty old Calculus textbook. Or you
could look in 'generatingfunctionology' to find others.
Complex analysis makes it more interesting, because the additional Cauchy-
Riemann constraints make the solution unique. And so people are more willing
to say that the unique solution is the "true" answer.
Really, I say this is just another example of the complex numbers being weird.
I took a couple different courses in it(one in college, 2 online) because it
was clear something interesting was happening with them, but there was never a
unifying theme. I can kind of spot a rule like "analytic functions preserve
90-degree angles" in the Cauchy-Riemann equations, but it hardly explains all
the crazy theorems.
That series is just another example of someone taking a well-behaved series,
analytically continuing it into the complex numbers, and now it's clear
something interesting is happening but it's not clear what.
~~~
thaumasiotes
Who says it's only valid for |x| < 1? That series isn't just a cute bit of
trivia, it is the basis for signed integer mathematics in your CPU. "True"
enough for you?
~~~
MichaelBurge
Are you doing something like this:
* Define the series over the 2-adic numbers rather than the reals
* Associate every 2-adic integer with its corresponding sequence in the inverse limit Z/2^nZ for n = 1..infinity
* Truncate the sequence to a certain precision(an index i), and make an equivalence class a ~ b if a and b agree on the first i elements. You get a field Z_(2^n), and identities in 2-adic analysis should carry down to the equivalence classes. Here 1 + 2 + 4 ... = -1 in the 2-adics.
That isn't the way I would've thought about signed integers, but it seems like
it would work.
~~~
thaumasiotes
It's not necessary. Just interpret the bits as coefficients of powers of 2, in
a purely conventional manner. Say that leading digits match the high bit
rather than being 0 regardless of the high bit. And you're done, you have
working signed arithmetic that displays all the behavior you expect and
conforms to the geometric series equality. Here 1 + 2 + 4 + ... = -1 in the
integers.
------
amelius
This is what you get when mathematicians start "hacking". Instead, they should
have invented a proper notation conveying what is really meant by the sum and
the "..." ellipsis. This notation apparently does not cut it.
~~~
MichaelBurge
ζ(s) has been in use since 1859, when Riemann introduced it. Riemann's paper
isn't as thorough as it could've been, but it seems clear he knew exactly what
he was doing, being one of the founders of Complex Analysis:
[http://www.claymath.org/sites/default/files/ezeta.pdf](http://www.claymath.org/sites/default/files/ezeta.pdf)
This series is ζ(-1). I don't know about the Youtubers or Scientific American,
but mathematicians studying Complex Analysis know exactly what it means.
------
beefsack
As soon as I see people dropping GIFs and image macros into intelligent
discussions like this, I can't help but immediately become sceptical of what
they're saying.
It happens a lot in fairly serious technical computing blog posts and I've
been trying to wrap my head around why people do it.
~~~
ColinWright
Many times now when people have looked at my carefully written, carefully
reasoned, well-laid out writings, have gone:
Aaarrrggghhhh !!!
WALL OF TEXT !!!
Aaarrrggghhhh !!!
It seems that many people need humorous (for some definition of "humorous")
images and animations to make them think tat what they are reading is
entertainment. I _hate_ it, but it is an increasing trend, and I'm not
surprised.
Disappointed, but not surprised.
~~~
91823791
I am surprised, because this presentation style used to be restricted to
children's books. I was unable to finish this article because I refuse to have
Riemann mixed up with memegenerator.net.
~~~
nommm-nommm
Unable is not the same as unwilling.
~~~
ars
I had a hard time as well - the moving image was very distracting, I had to
cover it to try to concentrate on what the text was saying.
~~~
nommm-nommm
That is not what the comment I was replying to said. There was a "refusal" to
mix academic content with Internet memes.
------
jiiam
No.
Source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines)
EDIT: Some further elaboration: I'm sick of the question. The answer is: not
in any sense that would be meaningful to the people to whom this stuff is
being told. You're just being misleading by implying that the sum of positive
integers can converge. I don't want to hear any "But if you take this analytic
continuation..." or "But in a certain sense...", they're just misleading as
the thousands of proofs that 1=0.
------
olsgaard
In the numberfile video he doesn't explain the way he calculates 2・S_2. He
says he shift it, but doesn't explain why that is valid.
Shifted version:
1-2+3-4+5-6 ...
1-2+3-4+5 ...
sum: 1-1+1-1+1-1 ...
Multiplied version:
2-4+6-8+10-12 ...
The multiplied version shifts between +(2n) and -(2n). Following the logic
that S_1 = 0.5, because that is the average between 0 and 1, I would argue
that the multiplied version of S2 should equal 0, as that is the average
between a postitive constant and its negative (but the variance is going to be
infinite. Doesn't that have a say?).
What if we triple shift?
Triple shifted version:
1-2+3-4+5-6+7-8+9 ...
1-2+3-4+5-6 ...
sum: 2-3+3-3+3-3+3 ...
Look! now 2・S2 is equal to 2!
~~~
diogofranco
I don't think your math adds up.
Your triple shifted version would be between -1 or 2 depending on the cut
right? So, still 1/2.
~~~
olsgaard
Yeah, that was a brainfart on my end.
What about the multiplied version? That is how I would intuitively understand
2S_2, and I still don't accept that shifting is the same.
------
egjerlow
I'm gonna be contrarian and say, yes it does - it's been physically proven!
The casimir effect, as other people here have mentioned, depends on this being
true, and it has been experimentally tested.
To me it's one of those things where you just go 'damn' because of the
perplexing relations that exist between math and physics. If anything hints at
what the hell goes on in this universe, to me it's stuff like this.
~~~
quantumhobbit
The analogy to complex numbers is really useful. Of course sqrt(-1) doesn't
exist. But if we just pretend that is does exist, we can build a rigorous
theory out of these imaginary numbers. Once we do that we notice that these
numbers are really useful for calculating real physical things. So maybe
imaginary numbers aren't so imaginary.
Same with these infinite sums. By the math you learn in middle school, you
can't have infinite sums. But break the rules for just a second and again we
have something that is helpful with real physics.
~~~
chowells
I don't know what you mean by sqrt(-1) not existing.
What does it even mean to exist?
Far better to talk about whether a number is defined _in a particular
numerical system_.
In the real numbers, sqrt(-1) isn't defined. But why privilege the real
numbers as "existing"? Despite an official-sounding designation, they're very
deeply weird.
The real numbers are famously uncountable. But any subset of them that can be
enumerated is by definition countable.
Think about the consequences of that for a moment. No matter what you do, the
subset of the reals you can enumerate is countable, meaning the subset you
can't enumerate is uncountable. In a rather flippant way, you could describe
the real numbers as "mostly useless." Most of them exist to make some theorems
work, rather than being a number that you could ever use to describe anything
- solely because describing the number would require an infinite amount of
information.
In a pretty significant sense, it's valid to say that the real numbers are
mostly figments of analysts' imagination.
If they "exist", might as well say complex numbers exist too. They're actually
more useful in physics than real numbers are.
~~~
quantumhobbit
I'll admit that the concept of numbers "existing" here is quite poorly
defined. I was trying to capture the effect of people upon encountering
complex numbers for the first time to just sort of shut down and refuse accept
that they are "real" ( pun intended). It is hard to remember how weird complex
numbers feel after years of middle school math teachers saying that you can't
take the square root of a negative.
Similarly weird feeling is encountering zeta(-1) = -1/12 after years of
calculus teachers telling you to ignore divergent sums because they are
infinite.
~~~
sebastos
I think the point is that if that's true, the concept of complex numbers is
being taught incorrectly. If you tell a student that this number is fake but
useful, what are they to make of that? It just starts to make mathematics seem
spooky and unpredictable.
When you're first learning about imaginary numbers in 8th or 9th grade, the
answer to "what is sqrt(-1)?" _should_ be undefined. If you claim otherwise,
you're pulling the rug out from under their feet, because the number system
that they are familiar with indeed has sqrt(-1) undefined.
Instead, the teacher should go on to introduce a new system of mathematical
objects that have certain rules, and the students could play around with them
and see how they have two components, how you can plot those two components in
2 dimensions, how you can think of them as arrows sticking out of the origin,
how you can combine their components to rotate each other, etc. Then work
backwards into showing that we can call these objects complex numbers for
short, because those operations are similar to addition, multiplication, etc.
And finally, just as a curiosity, you can see that sqrt(z) = i for z = -1 +
0i.
There's no need to introduce this whole concept of an imaginary number line
that points off in a direction nobody can see or measure. The whole takeaway
should be that you can't just square real numbers get negatives. If you have
something that can "multiply" by itself to get its own inverse, then you have
either overloaded the multiplication operator with something very very
different, or you're dealing with an object that can "rotate" through another
dimension. It's an ordinary two dimensional space, and the only difference
between the two axes is their name, just like "x" and "y". In my opinion, this
lesson should actually be reassuring to a young mathematical intuition:
there's only so many ways to skin this cat.
~~~
nkurz
You're likely aware of it, but in case others aren't, there's a classic online
presentation that makes the same case:
[https://betterexplained.com/articles/a-visual-intuitive-
guid...](https://betterexplained.com/articles/a-visual-intuitive-guide-to-
imaginary-numbers/)
And here's some "ancient" HN commentary on that article:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2712575](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2712575)
------
TheCondor
It doesn't satisfy the Cauchy criteria, it can't converge.
The trick step of assuming that 1+0+1+0.... converges is also not Cauchy.
It's interesting and string theory and some other physics get results by using
-1/12 but it's not strictly correct. No more than the omni proof
------
pesenti
For the mathematically inclined, Terence Tao's explanation provides an easier
intuition of the relationship using real-variable methods:
[https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/the-euler-
maclauri...](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/the-euler-maclaurin-
formula-bernoulli-numbers-the-zeta-function-and-real-variable-analytic-
continuation/)
------
psyc
The other YouTube popularization that regularly irks me is when people beam
about how "there are lots of different sized infinities", without explaining
that when mathematicians use the word "size" and "infinity" in that context,
it means _cardinality_ (technical term) of an infinite set, within an
explicitly defined set theory that includes the axiom of infinity (all
technical concepts).
------
vaidhy
I had found this YouTube video before that explained it in a way I can
understand -
[http://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DjcKRGpMiVTw](http://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DjcKRGpMiVTw)
~~~
CarolineW
I think there's something wrong with the link you've provided:
> Our systems have detected unusual
> traffic from your computer network.
> Please try your request again later.
Perhaps this is the video you intended:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcKRGpMiVTw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcKRGpMiVTw)
~~~
ryanschneider
I came here to post this video as well, Mathologer is a great channel, I often
prefer his explanations to Numberphile's. Highly recommended.
------
xg15
I want familiar before with the concept of analytic continuations and so this
part really confused me:
_( "The" is the appropriate article to use because the analytic continuation
of a function is unique.)_
Let f: N -> N, f(x) = x be a function on the natural numbers. Then I could
define two functions g(x) and h(x) on N u {foo} that behave just like f for
natural numbers. However, g(foo) is 42 while h(foo) is 666. Wouldn't g and h
both be valid analytic continuations of f in N u {foo}, according to the
definition of analytic continuations explained in the article?
I'm wondering about that as the uniqueness seems to be an important property
for the rest of the explanation, yet it is simply assumed here without any
further explanation.
~~~
Bahamut
Uniqueness requires proof - it relies on a theorem/lemma having to do with if
an analytic function is constant in a region, then it is constant everywhere.
Uniqueness then arises as if there are two analytic continuations that are the
same in that region, then the difference is 0 there, and thus 0 everywhere,
resulting in the two being the same.
That is a non-trivial theorem/lemma though, and the proof is typically gone
through at a graduate complex analysis course.
------
lisper
[http://blog.rongarret.info/2014/01/no-sum-of-all-positive-
in...](http://blog.rongarret.info/2014/01/no-sum-of-all-positive-integers-is-
not.html)
~~~
nkurz
Encountering it now, I think your followup article "Does it matter if the sum
of all integers is -1/12?" makes an excellent case for why it does in fact
matter a lot:
_The fact that the unsound reasoning in this particular case led to a
conclusion that superficially resembles a conclusion that can also be arrived
at by sound reasoning just makes it that much worse. It encourages people to
think: because this mode of reasoning led to a "correct" conclusion in that
case, then it will probably lead to correct conclusions in other cases._
_If the problem were confined to mathematics I might not make such a big deal
out of it, but it 's not. The problem of people uncritically accepting
conclusions drawn by unsound methods of reasoning pervades our society and
causes real damage._
[http://blog.rongarret.info/2014/01/does-it-matter-if-sum-
of-...](http://blog.rongarret.info/2014/01/does-it-matter-if-sum-of-all-
integers.html)
------
mcv
As it happens, I have a proof that 1 == 2. Of course my proof involves a step
that involves division by zero, but if it's legal to define undefined results,
then why can't I do that if it helps my proof?
Because as far as I can tell (with my admittedly limited understanding of
mathematics), that's basically what's going on here: they define the result of
1-1+1-1+1-1... to be 1/2, which it can of course never be. The result is never
1/2; it's either 1 or 0. Taken to infinity, the only reasonable definition for
that sum is undefined. If I can say that 1/2 is fine too, then I should also
be able to attach my own definition to 1/0.
Also, if string theory really relies on such questionable mathematical steps,
then that would make me question string theory even more. As far as I
understand, string theory makes no testable predictions, which suggests to me
that no results based on this questionable mathematical trick have been
experimentally verified. If there is some real, experimentally verified
physics that relies on the sum of all natural numbers to be -1/12, then I'd
love to be corrected (though I doubt I'll understand it).
------
rrmm
Terry Tao shows how to get from side of equality to the other:
[https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/the-euler-
maclauri...](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/the-euler-maclaurin-
formula-bernoulli-numbers-the-zeta-function-and-real-variable-analytic-
continuation/)
It goes into detail and shows the derivation and internal consistency of the
method.
------
throw94
From Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance <i> “The law of gravity and
gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton." ...and what that means is
that that law of gravity exists nowhere except in people's heads! It 's a
ghost!" Mind has no matter or energy but they can't escape its predominance
over everything they do. Logic exists in the mind. numbers exist only in the
mind. I don't get upset when scientists say that ghosts exist in the mind.
it's that only that gets me. science is only in your mind too, it's just that
that doesn't make it bad. or ghosts either." Laws of nature are human
inventions, like ghosts. Law of logic, of mathematics are also human
inventions, like ghosts." ...we see what we see because these ghosts show it
to us, ghosts of Moses and Christ and the Buddha, and Plato, and Descartes,
and Rousseau and Jefferson and Lincoln, on and on and on. Isaac Newton is a
very good ghost. One of the best. Your common sense is nothing more than the
voices of thousands and thousands of these ghosts from the past.” </i>
~~~
j1vms
To go a bit further, _everything_ as one perceives it is necessarily in one's
mind (or nervous system, to be precise). One consciously or unconsciously
determines that something is happening outside of their mind, which makes that
determination simply a philosophical one. This is a reminder to all, as to why
the highest degree granted at any conventional institution is labelled a
Doctorate of Philosophy in a given subject.
I would go as far as to say that just as the Uncertainty Principle prescribes
a limit on what is knowable in quantum physics, so does philosophy suggest
limits on what will ever be rationally proven through human perception, ideas,
and knowledge.
------
Tergmap
This was in one of Rumanajan's textbooks that he sent to Hardy. It changes the
semantics of established notation instead of invnting new.
------
lifthrasiir
Somehow the title is missing an ellipsis, which made me confused for a second.
~~~
CarolineW
Now added - apologies for the confusion.
------
dahart
Good time to remember 0^0=1. Or some people (like Knuth) like to assign that
definition because it's convenient, and it makes everything work out in
certain situations.
I don't think it's bad to say that 0^0=1 when you hear the whole story, which
is that there are multiple right answers given how we define exponents and
operations on 0. But it's misleading to say 0^0=1 and stop there. Similarly,
after reading about this today, it's making more sense to me that we can, if
we choose, define 1+2+3+...=-1/12, and it makes sense in some contexts. It's
just that this isn't the only answer and it isn't the whole story.
I liked the article, and ended up reading a bunch of Evelyn's column earlier
today. I see some people complaining about the pictures... I thought they were
funny and relevant, my only nit pick is I can barely read the light blue text
on the wink gif, the colors are so hard for me to look at.
------
hhjkjhkjhhlkj
Animated gifs made me ill. Couldn't read article :(
------
empath75
As a computer programmer, this actually feels fairly intuitive. If you had a
function that computed the sums of convergent series and returned errors for
inputs for which it was undefined, and replaced it with one that computed the
reimann zeta function, you'd still get the same results for convergent series,
but would get results for the formerly undefined inputs. Thought of this way,
it's pretty clear that you're talking about performing two different
calculations, and they aren't equal.
------
owenversteeg
Glad SciAm is helping to spread correct info. I think that basically, the
problem with many math videos in this style is that they tend to make
uncommon, if interesting, assumptions without explaining what they are or why
they make the assumption in order to get clicks. This is my comment from the
last time this video was mentioned:
> "The sum of the series 1+2+3+4+5+6... = -1/12" is patently false, without a
> previous assertion that we have assumed the Cesàro sum of a series is equal
> to the series. Even mathematicians working with Cesàro sums surround such
> statements with "this holds only if we interpret the infinite sum defining Z
> to be the Cesàro sum..." [0] Precisely none of the times I've heard the
> "1+2+3+4...=-1/12" bullshit has the person stating it prefaced their
> statement with "this holds only if we interpret the infinite sum defining Z
> to be the Cesàro sum..."
> If you say that "1+2+3+4...=-1/12" without stating your prior assumptions,
> you suddenly allow anyone to make any assumption whatsoever, no matter how
> obscure it is. In your imaginary world, someone could walk into a store and
> claim that "this 95 cent pack of gum is free" because they just made the
> unstated assumption that all non-integers do not exist, and seconds later
> they could return it for a full refund of $0.95 after making the unstated
> assumption that in fact the rational numbers do exist. Numbers, and in fact
> the entire system of mathematics fail to work at all once you allow
> arbitrary, unstated assumptions no matter their obscurity. And in fact, the
> assumption that non-integer numbers do not exist is made far, far more
> frequently than the assumption that the infinite sum defining the sequence
> is the Cesàro sum.
> The only difference is that assuming the non-integer numbers do not exist is
> a defensible assumption in many, many scenarios... but Cesàro summations are
> only invoked about twelve times a year, in pure math or advanced physics
> papers.
> [0] Madras, Neal. "A Note on Diffusion State Distance." arXiv preprint
> arXiv:1502.07315 (2015).
My favorite post on the subject still has to be this:
[http://goodmath.scientopia.org/2014/01/17/bad-math-from-
the-...](http://goodmath.scientopia.org/2014/01/17/bad-math-from-the-bad-
astronomer/)
------
TheRealPomax
tl;dr: there is no "real" or "one" kind of maths, you'll have to first pick
which field of mathematics you're working with. Arithmetics? Then no:
1+2+3+... is a divergent sum. Using calculus, specifically analytic
continuation on the an Euler series? Then yeah, you can apply the rules in
such a way that you get this answer and it's a mighty useful identity that can
be exploited in complicated proofs.
------
JoeCamel
I loved this video
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFDM1ip5HdU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFDM1ip5HdU)
"An exploration of infinite sums, from convergent to divergent, including a
brief introduction to the 2-adic metric, all themed on that cycle between
discovery and invention in math."
------
chris_wot
So when you have an infinite series of the form 1-1+1-1+1-1+... then because
there is no single point of convergence and so you average the two values 0
and 1 to give 0.5.
Why does an average of the two values that you can converge on help?
Also, what about something like:
sin(π/2) + sin(3π/2) - sin(5π/2) + sin(7π/2) - ...
what would this be?
~~~
tamana
The average is simply a _summary_ description of the behaviorat infinity.
Averages are a standard way to summarize complex phenomena.
More precisely, the sume is 0.5+/-0.5, which is greater than 0 and less than 1
and ambiguous in between.
------
Chinjut
I didn't think the Numberphile video on this was well done, in its "Math is a
bunch of inscrutable magic you laypeople will never understand, and every
attempt you (as represented by our camera man) make to voice your dumb
intuitions is dumb, you big dumb dumbs!" way, but I even more was annoyed by
the sneering "You're not allowed to do that! There are clear fixed rules and
single, permanent, all-purpose definitions!" dismissals of the 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
... = -1/12 result in the backlash.
I'm going to copy and paste the explanation I originally wrote at Quora
([https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-intuition-behind-the-
equatio...](https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-intuition-behind-the-
equation-1+2+3+-cdots-tfrac-1-12/answers/3900029)), because I think it
captures well everything I'd like to say about this at every level of the
discussion:
The sense in which 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ... = -1/12 is this:
First, consider X = 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + .... Note that X + (X shifted over by one
position) = 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + ... = 1. Thus, in some sense, X + X = 1, and so,
in some sense, X = 1/2.
Now consider Y = 1 - 2 + 3 - 4 + ... . Note that Y + (Y shifted over by one
position) = 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + ... = X. Thus, in some sense, Y + Y = X, and so,
in some sense, Y = X/2 = 1/4.
Finally, consider Z = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ... Note that Z - Y = 0 + 4 + 0 + 8 +
... = (zeros interleaved with 4 * Z). Thus, in some sense, Z - Y = 4Z, and so,
in some sense, Z = -Y/3 = -1/12.
In contexts where the above reasoning is applicable to what one wants to call
summation, we have that 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ... = -1/12\. In other contexts, we
don't.
That's it. It's that simple. Everything else I'm going to say is just to
comfort those who are uncomfortable with the game we've just played.
Note that I've said "in some sense" several times in the above argument.
That's because, while we all know how to add and subtract a finite collection
of numbers in the ordinary way, when it comes to adding and subtracting an
infinite series of numbers, there are many different ways of interpreting what
this should mean. Just knowing how to add finitely many numbers doesn't
automatically tell us what it means to add a whole infinite series of them.
And when it comes to summation of infinite series, it turns out there's not
just one nice notion of "summation"; there are many different ones, which are
nice for different purposes.
One such notion is "Keep adding things up, one by one, starting from the
front, and see if the results get closer and closer to some particular value;
if so, that value is the sum". On that account of what summation means, you
clearly won't get any finite answer for 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ...; since the terms
never get any smaller, the partial sums will never settle down to a finite
value (and certainly not a negative one like -1/12!). They instead, in a
natural sense, should be understood as summing to positive infinity.
And there's nothing wrong with this! You are not wrong to feel that 1 + 2 + 3
+ 4 + ... is positive and infinite, and math does not deny this; there
absolutely is an account of summation corresponding to this intuition.
It's just not the only account of summation worth thinking about.
We could instead consider other notions of "summation", including ones
designed precisely so that arguments like the one we made at the beginning
(which are very natural arguments to make!) counted as legitimate ways to
reason about such "summation". And then, by definition, we will have that 1 +
2 + 3 + 4 + ... = -1/12, on such accounts of "summation". (In doing so, we
will lose certain familiar properties such as "A sum of positive terms is
always positive". But this is how generalizations work; generalizations very
often lose familiar properties. Even the textbook, limit-based account of
infinite summation loses familiar properties like "The order of summation
doesn't matter". Even finitary summation of integers loses the familiar
property "If a sum is zero, so are all the summands" from basic counting. But
there is a web of resemblances to more familiar kinds of summation which can
justify, in certain moods, thinking of each of these generalizations as a form
of summation itself.)
If you insist that "Keep adding things up and see if the results get closer
and closer to some particular value" is the only account of summation you're
interested in, you'll object to the argument we gave at the beginning, saying
"You're not allowed to do that kind of shifting over and adding to itself
reasoning all willy-nilly; look at what nonsense it produces!".
But it _can_ be made sense of, and is even fruitful to make sense of, in
certain contexts in mathematics, and there is no need to blind ourselves to
this insight.
Again, that's it. It's that simple. Everything else I'm going to say is just
to comfort those who are _still_ uncomfortable. For those who want a more
systematic, formal account of series summation of a sort which validates the
above manipulation, read on:
[Comment too long, will be continued in reply]
~~~
Chinjut
[Continuation of original comment]
We can look at it this way: We can try to assign values to a non-absolutely
convergent series by bringing its terms in at less than full strength,
producing an absolutely convergent series, and then increasing the terms'
strengths towards full strength in the limit, observing what happens to the
sum in the limit as well.
This is the idea behind the traditional account of series summation, mind you:
at time T, we bring in all the terms of index < T at 100% strength and all
other terms at 0% strength. This gives us our partial sums, and as T goes to
infinity, each term's strength goes to 100%, so we can consider the partial
sums as approximating the overall sum.
But we don't have to be so discrete as to only use 100% strength and 0%
strength. We can try bringing in terms more gradually. For example, rather
than having strengths discretely decay from 100% to 0% at some cut-off point,
we can instead have the strengths decay exponentially in the index. (So at one
moment, we may have the first term at 100% strength, the next term at 50%
strength, the next term at 25% strength, etc.). Then we consider what happens
as the rate of exponential decay slows, approaching no decay at all.
In symbols, this means we assign to a series a0 + a1 + a2... the limit, as b
approaches 1 from below, of a0 * b^0 + a1 * b^1 + a2 * b^2 + .... Put another
way, the limit, as h goes to 0 from above, of a0 * e^(-0h) + a1 * e^(-1h) + a2
* e^(-2h) + ..., where e is any fixed base you like. (Let's take e to be the
base of the natural logarithm for convenience, and call this function of h the
characteristic function of the series).
Again, this is not so different than the traditional account of series
summation; we're just using exponential decay rather than sharp cutoff in our
dampened approximations to the full series. (Actually, for the results we're
interested in, it's really just the smoothness of the decay that's of
interest. We could use other forms of smooth decay as well, and get the same
results, but exponential decay is so convenient, I won't bother discussing in
any further generality right now)
Now we've turned the question of determining the value of a series summation
into the question of determining the limiting behavior of some function at 0.
Well, it's easy to determine limiting behavior at 0. Just write out a Taylor
series centered at 0, and drop all the terms of positive degree, leaving only
the term of degree 0. Boom, you've got the value of the function at 0.
Except... suppose the Taylor series has a few terms of negative degree as
well. (As in, say, 5h^(-1) + 3 + 4h^2). Then the behavior at 0 isn't given by
the degree 0 term; rather, the behavior at 0 is to blow up to infinity!
And, indeed, we'll find that this is precisely what happens when we look at
the characteristic function of a series like 0 + 1 + 2 + 3 + ...; we get that
f(h) = 0e^(-0h) + 1e^(-1h) + 2e^(-2h) + 3e^(-3h) + ... = e^(-h)/(1 - e^(-h))^2
= h^(-2) - 1/12 + h^2/240 - h^4/6048 + ....
Note that there is a negative degree term there. So in a very familiar sense,
we can say that the behavior of this series is to blow up to infinity.
However, since any time a series DOES converge in the ordinary sense, the
value it converges to is the degree 0 term of this characteristic function, it
is very tempting and fruitful to think of the degree 0 term as the sum even
when there are those pesky negative degree terms.
And in this more general sense, we see that the value of 0 + 1 + 2 + 3 + ...
is that degree 0 term of f(h): -1/12\. [In fact, we can understand the
argument at the beginning of this post as outlining a rigorous calculation of
this degree 0 term. (See [https://www.quora.com/Mathematics/Theoretically-
speaking-how...](https://www.quora.com/Mathematics/Theoretically-speaking-how-
can-the-sum-of-all-positive-integers-be-1-12/answer/David-
Joyce-11/comment/3444455) to see this spelt out)]
Now, you _can_ propose other manipulations to produce other answers for this
series in other ways, but this is one particular systematic account of
summation which leads to this value alone and no other. [That is, for the
series whose nth term is n. I should warn that, in the presence of negative
degree terms in the characteristic function, this method is sensitive to
index-shifting, so we would get different results if, for example, we
considered 1, 2, 3, ... to be not the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, ..., terms, but rather
the 0th, 1st, 2nd, ..., terms, respectively.]
Why should you care about this particular account of summation? Well, you
don't have to; I can't force you to care about anything. But it's fairly
natural and comes up with some significance in mathematics. It is, in a
certain formal sense, precisely the account of summation which allows one to
interpret the sum 1^n + 2^n + 3^n + ... for general complex n, yielding the
Riemann zeta function (of great significance in number theory, and whose
behavior (specifically, the Riemann hypothesis concerning its zeros) is
generally considered one of the most important open problems in mathematics).
So, you know, there's reason for some people to care about it, even if you
don't.
------
blueprint
No, it doesn't.
------
quantumhobbit
I forget who said, "In mathematics, you don't learn things, you just get used
to them." But it applies here.
~~~
CarolineW
According to this link[0] it was John von Neumann:
Young man, in mathematics you don't
understand things. You just get used
to them.
[0]
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann)
------
pfortuny
It boils down to what you mean by "equal."
------
ojknkjnsdf
I don't understand why people keep playing with infinite series like this...
it's not sound math and doesn't lead to anything useful. Just a cheap way for
worthless mathematicians to feel clever.
------
powertower
Is it saying that the complex version of the series (1+0i)+(2+0i)+(3+0i)... =
-1/12?
------
serge2k
Knew it was that numberphile video before I clicked.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Something to Write Holmes About - pepys
http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/something-write-holmes-about
======
ableal
A rather good perspective on how the stories came to be.
I recently came across The Autobiography of Sherlock Holmes, by Don Libey,
which was also pleasant reading.
(Not particularly addicted to Holmes, my re-readings tend to be Rex Stout's
mysteries, Jack Vance's picaresque fantasies and P.G.Wodehouse's dessert
products ;-)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
SocketCluster – WebSockets that scale to 100K messages per second on 8 cores - BukhariH
https://github.com/topcloud/socketcluster
======
alecsmart1
From their readme-
"The test was only set to reach up to 100 concurrent connections (each sending
1000 messages per second) - Total of 100K messages per second."
So they had only 100 concurrent connections.
~~~
denizozger
Number of connections, message size, and frequency of messages sent are three
main parameters to measure performance, and for some frameworks like
Engine.IO, number of connections seems to have the biggest impact on
performance ([https://medium.com/node-js-
javascript/b63bfca0539](https://medium.com/node-js-javascript/b63bfca0539)).
It would be good to see the benchmarks with much higher number of connections,
as non-blocking IO is usually why people choose Node.js platform.
------
teacup50
Is 100K mps on _8 cores_ considered high for node/websockets microbenchmarking
of the socket path?
That doesn't seem like much from past experience writing high-throughput
messaging code, and all this is doing is spitting out length-framed messages
to a socket.
~~~
limsup
Can you give some numbers of your past experience?
~~~
brianwawok
Not OP, but a solar flare can shoot 20 million packets per second..
[http://www.solarflare.com/09-11-12-Solarflares-Industry-
Lead...](http://www.solarflare.com/09-11-12-Solarflares-Industry-Leading-
Highest-Performance-Adapter-Now-Available-in-Dell-Mezzanine-Form-Factor)
You need to totally bypass the linux kernel to do this, and have high perf C
or Java code...
~~~
chmod775
That's raw network (TCP/UDP) packets, not WebSocket frames/messages. Plus that
product is a solution to a hardware problem, not a software problem. It
doesn't relate at all.
------
lacksconfidence
This is interesting, how does it compare to using nginx(or another proxy) in
front of multiple socket.io instances on the same machine?
~~~
jonpress
I wrote SocketCluster. I haven't tried that yet, it would definitely be
interesting to test.
~~~
tracker1
I'd be interested in seeing how difficult it would be to modify this to use
multiple communication servers (redis, cassandra, etc) so that it can be
scaled across multiple instances.
Would also be interested in seeing how many connections it could handle doing
say 5-10 messages per second.
------
johtso
There's also sockjs ([http://sockjs.org](http://sockjs.org)) which has some
rather impressive benchmark results when using the python/tornado server with
PyPy ([http://mrjoes.github.io/2011/12/15/sockjs-
bench.html](http://mrjoes.github.io/2011/12/15/sockjs-bench.html)).
155,000-195,000 messages per second on a single core.
------
Rauchg
It'd be nice to compare it with: [https://github.com/automattic/socket.io-
redis](https://github.com/automattic/socket.io-redis)
I wrote an example application using it here:
[https://github.com/guille/weplay](https://github.com/guille/weplay)
~~~
alecsmart1
How many simultaneous connections are you able to achieve?
------
denizozger
Why does each worker need a seperate store process? It seems on an 8 core
machine max worker count can only be 3 (1 master, 3 workers, 3 stores). If
workers had in-memory stores -or at least connect to a Redis server-, with 4
more workers performance should increase.
~~~
knodi
node is single threaded
~~~
denizozger
I'm aware, and what's the relevance? I didn't even mention threads.
~~~
AYBABTME
You can't use more than 1 core with a unique node process. So they spawn n
cores for n processes. With a multithreaded runtime, this would not be
required.
~~~
denizozger
Yes exactly. My suggestion was the application to fork (CPUs - 1) workers, ie.
1 master 7 workers, instead of 1 master 3 workers and 3 stores, and have
workers manage their key-value stores. Apparently each worker don't need a
store, see author's comment
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7713561](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7713561))
so it looks good.
------
trungonnews
Do you think Golang can handle more connections than NodeJS?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: where is the tech community in Shanghai? - 42tree
Does Shanghai have any tech community for startups? Any tech meetup or co-working spaces in Shanghai?
======
shlomof
Yes, there are a bunch of them, like "people squared". I'm from BJ, so I know
some about it. But, to your questions. Yes, there is. Someone from SH comment?
~~~
42tree
I have been here for 6 months, tried really hard to find local tech community,
sadly without any luck.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What kind of personal robotic services would you buy? - sharemywin
If you could pay for robots to complete a personal or small business service, what would it be? Not looking for what's practical today, just ideas. Also, what would you definitely not want or trust a robot helping you with?
======
sharemywin
Here the list I was thinking about:
1\. trash can that goes out front to be emptied. 2\. loads dishwasher and puts
away dishes. 3\. laundry 4\. person drives truck that drops off lawn mowing
robots in a neighborhood. 5\. I think you could automate subway and it would
be neat to watch it. 6\. drone that carries a women's purse or a backpack. 7\.
set of drones that delivers tapes flyers to people's doors. 8\. something
involving paintball/laser tag and drones. 9\. a robot that finds toys on the
ground and puts them in a toy box.
------
dragonbonheur
Just design robots that follow you around or even precede you and carry your
stuff (and kids). They will be useful in airports,supermarkets, hotels, malls,
warehouses,golf courses etc.
------
dragonbonheur
Mini-drones that hunt agricultural pests, thus eliminating the need for
pesticides.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The bomb-testing problem in quantum mechanics - neilc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elitzur-Vaidman_bomb-testing_problem
======
mattmaroon
I wish I were smart enough to understand that.
~~~
curi
If you really want to understand, read the second chapter of this book:
[http://www.amazon.com/Fabric-Reality-Parallel-Universes-
Impl...](http://www.amazon.com/Fabric-Reality-Parallel-Universes-
Implications/dp/014027541X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201139580&sr=8-1)
Just the second chapter isn't too long, and should help tremendously.
~~~
Leon
Quantum bomb testing is pretty cool. Considering you can become arbitrarily
close to probability 1 of detecting which are bombs, this is really cool.
The link at the bottom of the page also explored other areas at the end of
their essay, <http://nonlocal.com/quantum-d/v2/kbowden_03-15-97.html> like
computers 'bomb testing' humans, and alternatively 'bomb testing' computers
running calculations that are seeded with a random quantum generator. In this
way, it sounds like you could potentially run every possible input of a test
program (you are still limited to the number of computations from the
potential length of time you are testing that machine's quantum state), and
bomb testing different programs you could find which will complete in the time
tested on all inputs. Heck, if I'm reading/understanding that right it might
be possible to 'bomb test' a polynomial verifier on randomly chosen subsets
for linear time to the maximal input length and check if it
validates/completes, i.e. a summing of a randomly chosen subset of elements of
a larger set to see if they add to 0 in testing time the length it would take
to sum all elements ;)
Either that or, more likely, I'm totally confused by this quantum madness.
I'll have to ask my physicist friend :(
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: PCBs with Full-Color Graphics - schappim
https://www.littlebird.com.au/blogs/news/colourful-printed-circuit-boards
======
wanderingjew
So this is something I've been involved with for the past few years. This is
_not_ the first PCB with full-color graphics. A company out of Shenzhen called
Makernet was doing something similar to this, and produced some interesting
boards for me [1] and Maker Faires in China.
Additionally, others have gotten very, very good at putting alternative
coatings on PCB. You can do remarkable work with spray paint and a vinyl
stencil. Others have done multiple colors of soldermask on the same board. You
can get very good results with black and white silkscreen, and using the
standard complement of soldermask colors, something any board house can do
very easily.
The problem with _all_ of these solutions is that these coatings do not work
in a reflow oven. The issue with UV printing is that you can not put it
through a reflow oven. This is important, because you do not want to put the
coating/image on after you populate and solder -- parts would get in the way,
etc.
The solution I've found is pad printing [2]. This is a process that is similar
to silkscreening t-shirts, but instead of pushing ink through a screen, a
design is picked up by a silicone pad and deposited on a PCB. I've done this
with 'blockchain token Tide Pods' (I made a blockchain of Tide Pods), and
various designs for other 'artistic' PCBs. Pad printing also has the advantage
in that every city has a shop that does pad printing, and provided the design
you want to print is small enough, this is very easy to contract out. Pad
printing is highly geared towards mass-production, whereas UV printing is low-
volume on the order of dozens or hundreds of units.
This isn't to diminish how cool this is. There's an entire community of people
building artistic PCBs out there that would love this capability. Only wish
there was a bit more information about obtaining, setting up, and producing UV
color PCBs
[1][https://imgur.com/wgmO1jK](https://imgur.com/wgmO1jK)
[2][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rTrSIKjpNY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rTrSIKjpNY)
~~~
schappim
Hi, I'm Marcus from Little Bird.
>> Makernet
I believe they were only doing pad printing/silk printing.
>> The problem with _all_ of these solutions is that these coatings do not
work in a reflow oven.
PCBs can be printed on before population with parts (although not always
required depending on the design).
We bake our PCBs, _specifically in reflow ovens_. We adjust our colours so
that they match the target colour after heating cycle completes.
>> The solution I've found is pad printing
We looked into pad printing, but it was too limiting in terms of setup time
and graphics.
It also lacked the ability to for mass customisation of products.
~~~
cmroanirgo
Marcus,
Great that you're doing so well! I used to buy some components off you when LB
was still a part time thing for you... many many moons ago. Love that you're
still exploring and pushing your own boundaries!
~~~
schappim
Thanks Craig!
The real credit should go to Maddy who consistently does the drudge work day
in, day out. This frees me to explore things with the amazing JP Liew.
------
kasbah
Beautiful! If you are interested in making custom designs for a process like
this (or even for the regular PCB processes) then you might want to check out
SVG2Shenzhen which lets you export from Inkscape to KiCad on all PCB layers.
[https://github.com/badgeek/svg2shenzhen/](https://github.com/badgeek/svg2shenzhen/)
~~~
SuperPaintMan
You can also get good results by dithering images and using the default bitmap
importer packaged with KiCad! I posted a link to some images below, been using
the technique for a while now. Not as sexy as full colour but it works with
damn near all fabs.
[https://www.gboards.ca/product/gergo-
kit](https://www.gboards.ca/product/gergo-kit)
------
lostgame
Hey, this is very cool, and excellently-executed. It would be very neat to
have clear cases on stuff like this, such as the game controller presented as
an example.
------
peterburkimsher
What I'd like to see is a silkscreen design where the traces are coloured, for
educational purposes.
If every ground point was black, and every V+ trace coloured red, it would
help students not to short out their boards.
~~~
taneq
Every PCB CAD package I've ever used gives you this view while you're laying
out the board, so the easiest way would be to just take a screenshot of that.
If you wanted to get a bit fancier then generate it directly from the Gerber
files. :)
------
bacon_waffle
Nice!
If you're interested in graphics using more traditional manufacturing,
halftone can work well on PCBs. It's not too hard to do with your favourite
raster graphics and CAD packages. If you use KiCad, here's a shameless plug
for a toy project:
[https://github.com/ianrrees/kicad_halftone](https://github.com/ianrrees/kicad_halftone)
.
~~~
schappim
I like the idea, do you have a photo of the end result (on a PCB)?
~~~
SuperPaintMan
I actually do this with my programmable keyboards! There's some images on the
site if you browse around :)
[https://www.gboards.ca/product/gergo-
kit](https://www.gboards.ca/product/gergo-kit)
------
mysterydip
First, I really like how these turned out. I'm sure the market for this is
niche conpared to the overall market for PCBs, but a great option for those
who want it.
Second, I hadn't heard of the CC public patent license before, but it seems
like a good way to go to keep an idea "free", rather than not pursue a patent.
~~~
anbop
The market is niche but not necessarily the profit pool. Dell buys PCBs from
Foxconn who buys the components in large bidding processes from commodity
vendors who probably are eking out basis points of profit. Whereas if
someone’s making this for a hobby project or a piece of home decor they might
be willing to pay $20 for the printing. Could be a very nice profit stream.
------
kazinator
Neat! This seems like an easy DIY.
I have a bunch of experience making PCBs at home using laser printer toner
transfer. Next time I have an opportunity to build something, I will try to
transfer an underlying image onto the silk side of a one-sided PCB, followed
by the silk screen layer itself. Probably, I will merge the images digitally
to do it in one transfer.
Typically, PCB layout software doesn't support that sort of thing, but when I
do toner transfer, the artwork ultimately ends up in a mirror-imaged .PNG file
anyway. That can easily be merged with color imagery.
------
anfractuosity
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyS37xjVvC8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyS37xjVvC8)
is it similar to that, using inkjet printing + coating (which the UV light
would be used to cure)?
Edit:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatbed_digital_printer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatbed_digital_printer)
has some info on UV printers, seems you can get inks which are themselves
curable under UV.
~~~
schappim
I'm Marcus one of the co-founders of Little Bird. Yup you can get some inks
that are curable (primarily designed for doing cases), you can also get UV
curing top-coats.
------
DanBC
These look lovely.
Can you talk a bit about how the PCBs will work in production?
How do component silk screens work? What about fiducial marks? Do machine
vision systems (when looking for fiducials) cope with the graphics or do they
get confused?
~~~
schappim
>> How do component silk screens work?
Component silk fiducial marks/screens/ident layers (where necessary) are
merged into the graphic being applied.
>> do they get confused?
Naturally the milage will vary depending on your Pick and Place. We use a
CHM-T48VB, and have yet to have a problem. It would be interesting to test
what the limits are...
------
equalunique
I'd purchase that first PCB just for the Memphis design on it.
~~~
schappim
Thank you for putting a name to this. We've been calling it attack of the 90s.
I guess things took a little longer to get to Australia.
------
the_gipsy
This could be a thing for custom keyboards.
~~~
SuperPaintMan
That's my gameplan :)
------
taneq
I can’t believe that nobody has ever applied a full colour decal to a pcb
before, but this is still pretty awesome.
~~~
schappim
Yeah the results can be pretty sexy. Here is a higher res photo of what can be
done:
[https://files.littlebird.com.au/Screen-
Shot-2019-07-18-09-36...](https://files.littlebird.com.au/Screen-
Shot-2019-07-18-09-36-38.80.png)
------
nullobject
Looks amazing, well done.
------
r0gueSch0lar
This is awesome!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Serious and the Smirk: The Smile in Portraiture - larrys
http://publicdomainreview.org/2013/09/18/the-serious-and-the-smirk-the-smile-in-portraiture/
======
sliverstorm
_With an ISO of about 1, it’s not uncommon for exposure times to fall in the
5-10 second range, even in broad day light. Smiling is not recommended for
these long exposure times._
\-- Fernando Ramirez, _Making tintypes_
[http://nondo.net/blog/?p=486](http://nondo.net/blog/?p=486)
~~~
jeremyjh
Yes that was my guess upon reading the headline. I was surprised they did not
even mention this.
~~~
azernik
It's mentioned, just not in the context of early photography:
When a camera is produced and we are asked to smile, we
perform gamely. But should the process take too long, it
takes only a fraction of a moment for our smiles to turn
into uncomfortable grimaces. What was voluntary a moment
ago immediately becomes intolerable. A smile is like a
blush – it is a response, not an expression per se, and
so it can neither be easily maintained nor easily
recorded.
------
MrJagil
This is close to blogspam. I think the source article is better:
[http://publicdomainreview.org/2013/09/18/the-serious-and-
the...](http://publicdomainreview.org/2013/09/18/the-serious-and-the-smirk-
the-smile-in-portraiture/)
~~~
potatolicious
Petapixel is all blogspam, they appropriate a _lot_ from their sources,
including rehosting photographs they don't have the rights to. The amount of
content they take from their sources seems to go well beyond the typical
"quote and link" blog format.
------
hcarvalhoalves
> By the 17th century in Europe it was a well-established fact that the only
> people who smiled broadly, in life and in art, were the poor, the lewd, the
> drunk, the innocent, and the entertainment.
Not sure this explains it all. Maybe later not smiling got established as the
style of portraiture of high class because the high class was the only to have
portraits in the first place, but doesn't explain why they didn't smiled in
the early days.
The best explanation I heard about this was technical: old photos had long
exposure, and holding a perfect smile for long is tiring.
~~~
ginko
Take a look the portrait paintings here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_painting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_painting)
Barely any smiles either. And paintings don't have the long exposure time of
photographs. Sure, you would have to pose for an extended amount of time, but
a talented painter could apply any facial expression he chooses from a quick
sketch.
------
beat
In modern (as opposed to old) photography, smiling is often forced and
awkward. As a serious photographer, I don't like posed photos at all, except
from people who are comfortable and expressive while modeling. For most
people, I prefer candids. And in my candid work (which isn't necessarily
representative of the world at large), people tend to either look serious, or
be laughing. Smiling is less common.
~~~
stan_rogers
Thinking of your portrait subjects, even in the most formal portrait setting,
as "modelling" is starting at the wrong end. Personally, I'd like to see the
word _model_ eradicated from the ordinary photographer's vocabulary; we have
had the perfectly good _subject_ and _sitter_ to work with for longer than
we've had photography. A model is just that — a stand-in for a "real" person
(or persona). It's a job that people can be good or bad at, and when we think
of our "real people" subjects as models, we immediately expect too much of
them.
The root _portray_ in the word _portrait_ , on the other hand, is one we
should pay more attention to. As photographic portraitists, we don't have the
luxury of creating an expression that represents the essence of the subject
from a (relatively) long period of observation; we need to elicit and capture
a person's natural expression (sometimes one that fits a target portrayal)
under conditions that are anything _but_ natural. That's people skills, not
camera or lighting skills, and those skills can be learned. (If you want a
quick but not-so-cheap lesson in basic technique, it might be worth checking
out Peter Hurley's video _The Art Behind the Headshot_. As a photographic
technician, he's merely competent, but he's good at waking people up and
making them themselves.)
~~~
beat
I agree that model work (and I don't have a problem with the colloquial
meaning of "model") is fundamentally different from formal portrait. But that
said, I do actual models and studio photography quite a bit.
Even when using models, I'm generally after some essential expression of
personality. The difference between a good model and an ordinary sitter is
that they can achieve direct expression directly and comfortably, and through
indirect means (such as playing a role or wearing a costume).
------
bane
My in-laws are definitely not American (they're East Asian) and grew up as
young children at the tail end of a rather serious war which killed several
million.
My Father-in-law is quite genial and smiles quite often in person, never in a
photo. My mother-in-law usually doesn't smile in photos either (despite being
an incredibly warm person who smiles and laughs quite a bit), but she smiles
enough that there's a photographic record of her smiling exists.
But, I've never taken a photo of my father-in-law or even seen one where he is
smiling. In family portraits everybody has a nice warm smile, except for him.
He looks like he's attending a funeral.
It's funny because the photos of my mother-in-law, the ones where she's
smiling, seem to capture her personality much better than the ones where she
is not. And you'd never guess at the personality of my father-in-law from a
photo at all.
About 2/3s of people of my wife's generation generally smiles. And pretty much
100% of the next generation smiles.
------
qwerty_asdf
I had always assumed that it was due to the long exposure times of early
photographic techniques such as the Daguerreotype.
Specifically, since photographic skill was in short supply, and people with
equipment had bad experiences with blurry faces when people couldn't maintain
their smiles long enough for the exposure, that a trend emerged advising
people not to smile.
Then, as this trend became firmly entrenched and everyone forgot the original
reason, an idea was collectively conjured that it simply wasn't "fashionable"
to smile in a photograph.
------
Gravityloss
The question could be asked in another way: why do Americans smile so much in
photographs, compared to many other cultures? Right now.
This research seems quite insular.
~~~
chc
I've met a lot of people from a lot of different cultures, and all of them
tend to smile in photographs. Can you list a few where smiling in photos is
odd?
------
lnanek2
I've heard some Americans that work with Russians comment that they actually
feel this way about smiling during the day at work. It's a sign that you are
an idiot or not taking things seriously or something.
~~~
seiji
Serious doesn't require being bleak, solemn does:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/paula_scher_gets_serious.html](http://www.ted.com/talks/paula_scher_gets_serious.html)
------
JonnieCache
Does anyone else clearly see a cheeky smile on lincoln's face in 3/4 of those
photos?
~~~
brudgers
Looking at the uncropped image (from the source link) of the "smirking
Lincoln", the smirk disappears [for me] and he simply looks relaxed.
[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abraham_Lincoln_O-116...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abraham_Lincoln_O-116_by_Gardner,_1865.png)
In fact, after returning and looking at the cropped image, he no longer looks
like he is smirking at all. Maybe it's the power of suggestion in the article.
------
AznHisoka
I don't like smiling at all in photos. It seems so fake, and unnatural. If
they do insist on me smiling, I smile as big as I can to the extent it looks
more scary than happy. "What? You wanted me to smile?!"
------
bcoates
In what universe is having a big grin associated with being a humorist? The
people in the top half of photos look more _bored_ than serious, but Lincoln
and Twain with their set jaws, intense stare, slightly tilted/twisted head and
expressive, engaged faces look like they're about to say something either
deadly serious or seriously funny.
Those bottom half ones would all be great modern photos, I wish I could
capture people like that. Most of the subjects I photograph wind up looking
either confused or goofy.
------
jpalioto
_A photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning
to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever.
"_
Adding this for posterity: I have such a huge stupid smile on my face to help
maintain my privacy.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Startup Quote: Jason Fried, founder, 37Signals - raychancc
http://startupquote.com/post/3199512154
======
raychancc
No is easier to do. Yes is easier to say.
\- Jason Fried (@jasonfried)
<http://startupquote.com/post/3199512154>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google’s Chrome Hackers Are About to Upend Your Idea of Web Security - dsr12
https://www.wired.com/2016/11/googles-chrome-hackers-flip-webs-security-model/
======
draw_down
Hell, why not just put "NOT SECURE" on everything? Then people will just be
extra careful all the time!!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: A scalping proof ticketing system that doesn't use Blockchain - arjunram
So, I've built out a scalping proof ticketing system that doesn't use blockchain because I think it's quite unnecessary to use blockchain to solve the ticketing industry's problems at this point in time. More ranting here:
<a href="https://medium.com/@arjun.ramjam/bits-of-paper-to-bits-on-the-blockchain-the-history-and-future-of-the-ticketing-industry-888aea0df4aa" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@arjun.ramjam/bits-of-paper-to-bits-on-th...</a><p>Check out more on the actual product below and please let me know what you think about it! If you'd like to use it for your next event, do reach out!<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ybtZcvpUlI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ybtZcvpUlI</a>
======
_betty_
Was interesting read until it suddenly ended without solving anything.
Sometimes I like to consume text articles because videos aren't suitable, and
sometimes I watch videos when text articles aren't suitable. Publishing your
answer is both formats is great as long as they both have all the content.
~~~
arjunram
Hey, I just updated the article with more content in the ending part. Can you
take a look at tell me more? Thanks for the feedback! Really appreciate it!
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Goodbye Microservices: From 100s of problem children to 1 superstar - tejohnso
https://segment.com/blog/goodbye-microservices/
======
kostarelo
It seems to me that was a classic case of "Microservices done wrong". Yes,
splitting the destinations to be able to scale independently makes sense but
doing so in different repos AND with shared libraries of business logic, that
is just bad engineering (and I've done that my self, and I'm doing bad
engineering choices every day).
Microservices fits nicely when you have identified the appropriate domains of
your system and you want to give these domains the freedom to take their own
path, independently from the others.
In your case, especially when talking about that many destinations a.k.a.
services, I would have split them up in different deployments, keep them in a
monorepo from the beginning so they can share common infrastructure code (not
business logic) but they would be able to have their own logic so engineers
could change a field in one that wouldn't affect another one (always doing
backward-compatible changes, never removing fields, etc).
We live and we learn. Thank you for your post. :)
------
mikece
How many people are writing microservices just because it's the conventional
wisdom to do so? Probably the best talk I've ever seen on microservices was a
demonstration of how to scale Identity Server to handle authentication for an
app with a billion users. This is highly unrealistic for almost everyone but
the speaker had actually done this (well, at least to 100M users) and the
revelation I had from the talk is to design knowing how you would decompose a
service into microservices IF YOU HAD TO and then respect those boundaries
going forward. You almost certainly won't need to scale like this... but if
you do, knowing how you're going to split up a service into microservices and
respecting those context boundaries will save time now and allow you to scale
to absurdity if you ever need to.
~~~
kostarelo
Unfortunately, it is common. It reminds me of the "let's go with MongoDB even
though we have a relational schema, just because it's easier".
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JavaScript framework for building browser-based synthesizers - traxmaxx
http://beepjs.com/
======
stewdio
I was just looking at Beep’s inbound traffic and saw this HN post in the list.
Made me smile. Cheers, Trax.
~~~
traxmaxx
Hah, it's fun playing around with beep.js so I needed to share it : )
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ASK HN: Now Play Us Feedback - iisbum
A few people I work with at MadGlory went to the Startup Weekend in Saratoga, NY and treated it more like a hackathon, to build an idea we'd been thinking about.<p>Now Play Us is a scheduling app for video gamers.
http://www.nowplay.us<p>We're video gamers and had been having a hard time scheduling games with our friends, so came up with the idea of scheduling games with a simple app.<p>The app is built with Rails, uses Postgres and Redis and hosted on Heroku.<p>Would love to get your feedback on the idea and the execution.
======
iisbum
Link: <http://www.nowplay.us>
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Amazon rainforest 'close to irreversible tipping point' - sasvari
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/23/amazon-rainforest-close-to-irreversible-tipping-point
======
jammygit
>Forecast suggests rainforest could stop producing enough rain to sustain
itself by 2021
> The report sparked controversy among climate scientists. Some believe the
> tipping point is still 15 to 20 years away, while others say the warning
> accurately reflects the danger that Bolsonaro and global heating pose to the
> Amazon’s survival.
Would this count as an example of a future positive feedback loop?
~~~
pstuart
In what way positive?
~~~
istorical
Just means that it is additive to itself / accelerates.
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How WeChat faded into the silence in India - HalfRebel
https://factordaily.com/how-wechat-faded-into-the-silence-in-india/
======
yorwba
WeChat seems to have never tried very hard to adapt their app for
international users.
The English interface is reasonably well-tested (many of my Chinese friends
use it to practice their English), but other languages might cause overflowing
UI elements because the translated text is longer than accounted for.
That problem also affects the English version in some places e.g. when adding
a contact, the short introduction you can write to explain who you are and why
you're adding them has a length limit. It's probably enough for Chinese text,
but requires being very concise when using English.
Many features are designed to prevent virality. Comments on a friend's
timeline ("moments") are only visible to your shared friends. Small chat
groups can be bootstrapped by scanning a QR code or by typing a shared
passcode simultaneously, but beyond 100 users newcomers need to be invited by
a member first. Comments on public articles are hand-picked by the author and
only the author can reply directly. There used to be a feature displaying
trending articles, but it seems to have been removed.
Those limitations prevent regime-critical opinions from spreading too quickly,
but they also mean that only users with a large social circle on WeChat are
going to stick with the app.
The article mentions women being harassed via the "people nearby" feature. My
impression is that it is mostly used by men looking for hookups and by "women"
who are prostitutes or pretend to be prostitutes to scam those men.
Successfully entering a market without already-strong ties to China would have
required making large changes about the way their app works.
~~~
vorg
The people nearby and friend invite requirements being in problem in India but
not in China can be explained by:
> QQ messenger – already had over 750 million monthly active users by the time
> WeChat launched. A user could port her entire QQ social graph to WeChat by
> just logging in with her QQ ID.
It sounds like WeChat is really just a renamed QQ of sorts. So any adoption
comparison of messenging app uptake in other countries with that of WeChat in
China should use the QQ launch of 1999, which makes WeChat's rise to ubiquity
far less impressive.
~~~
dangrover
More impressive is that, while this was going on, the original QQ quickly
pivoted the actual mobile version of QQ in competition with WeChat.
Mobile QQ had more users than WeChat until 2015, and even today, there remain
parts of the country + user segments that strongly prefer QQ on mobile.
------
0xcafecafe
It's interesting how ubiquitous whatsapp has become in India that it has
become a verb. My parents and other older generation folks often say "whatsapp
this to me".
~~~
otoburb
WhatsApp seems to have similar widespread market adoption in Brasil[1] too.
[1]
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/whatsapp-i...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/whatsapp-
is-upending-the-role-of-unions-in-brazil-next-it-may-transform-
politics/2018/06/09/777e537e-68cc-11e8-a335-c4503d041eaf_story.html)
~~~
davchana
Orkut too was much popular in India & Brazil, looks like these both countries
have similar users.
~~~
pkaye
From my limited experience, I know in India you can get a lot of SMS spam. I
wonder if people migrated to whatsapp for that reason?
~~~
abhgh
I think one of the bigger reasons was something the article touches upon -
image sharing. Internet connections can often be sketchy, and Whatsapps
compressed image sharing often ran circles around its competitors.
The other reason was the identity to phone number mapping and the ease of
setting up communities with those identities.
Yet another reason was you didn't need to separately pay for a mobile data
package and a SMS package anymore - WhatsApp replaced SMSes and it fit
frugally into the data plan.
I know that in my circles these played a big role. Reason 1 was especially
significant for my parents/older relatives since my conversations with them
are not text heavy (maybe them getting used to a device to type in for casual
communication is a factor) - we often share images, family photos - and
WhatsApp killed it in this niche use-case.
------
bruceb
TL:DR WeChat was too big for phones back few years ago when many people didn't
have space to spare and data was expensive and slow. WhatsApp compressed files
so they loaded quicker and you could keep more of them.
Then in 2016, Tencent for some reason invested in Hike Messenger when it was
already in trouble. Hike was created by the son of a telecom guy. Sorta if the
son of Verizon's CEO created an instant messenger app and got investment and
support from his dad and the company.
~~~
pmlnr
The last time I tried Wechat it slurped into the 300MB range after
installation (apk + app data) - I have 3 contacts there.
Comparison:
WhatsApp apk 39.86MB (2018-10)
I have a few leftover installers for ancient windows, eg. XP, for the fun and
memories.
1.9M Apr 18 2009 SkypeSetup.exe (2.6 I think)
8.7M Dec 15 2007 trillian-v3.1.9.0.exe
I so badly want the ancient skype back.
~~~
fooker
Ancient Skype pioneered the concept of having a shim setup and downloading the
actual setup.
~~~
pmlnr
That's... valid, though I seem to recall that particular version was skype
itself. I need to install that on an XP without internet now to verify.
------
thedancollins
Can anyone tell us if WeChat's inability to flex to the Indian market was
intentional and "arrogant" or was it unintentional? They call them "blind
spots" for a reason.
------
type-2
hike is dead, everyone uses whatsapp, the kids use snapchat, and people use
telegram for large groups / interests.
~~~
nolok
I'm not sure what your message is supposed to be saying / bringing to the
table.
Also, what a very localised generalisation. The article is about how the
dominant app in China is faring in India. Other countries have different
usages.
Eg near both india and china Line and fb messenger are dominating Thailand
while Whatsapp has trouble there (lots of people have it, nobody uses it),
snapchat is still hisptery/rare, wechat is limited to chinese expats and
nobody has even heard of telegram.
~~~
type-2
Just my personal observations. I thought we were talking about use of chat
apps in India so of course it makes sense for me to talk local. Another
personal observation; the tibetan community in india uses wechat, snapchat is
very popular among the youth, so is instagram. FB is for old people. The
important thing to take away from the article was that _" India is divided
into three consumer segments: the first 100 million, mainly the urban or
affluent Indians and are the main targets of indulgent e-commerce brands; the
second 100 million classified as the aspiring class; and the last a little
over a billion — three segments he calls the splurgers, strivers and
survivors."_ and wechat appealed to none
------
exabrial
Perhaps backdooring by the Chinese government?
~~~
exabrial
To the downvoter: I'm sorry but this is not speculation but a statement of
fact. All Chinese communication systems are state mandated to be backdoored,
and given the industry, state officials get an automatic share in the company
and a seat on the board. It's not too say the CIA/nsa/FBI hasn't tried to do
the same in America, but it's _legal_ to provide secure software here, whereas
in China it's illegal.
------
mrweasel
What supprised me is that you need to design your app around the fact that the
entire country has a stalker problem. That really annoys me.
~~~
westiseast
I think that point in the original article isnt 100% accurate.
The ‘People Nearby’ feature can be turned off in the settings, but you also
have to click into it to use it - it’s by no means automatic (ie. you sign
into Wechat and suddenly it start getting random harassing messages). Your
visibility expires after a few minutes.
It’s never been used as a feature to add a contact - in China is was mostly
used for hookups in the early days, and now if you’re in a big city it’s
mostly prostitutes and/or people trying to sell products.
Chinese women using that feature would absolutely have received ‘stalking’
messages, but that’s basically the same as women receive on _any_ kind of
dating or hookup app.
The only difference I can see (speculating somewhat about Indian users) is
that Chinese users have always seemed quite happy to use an app for their
work/business/friends/school that also includes basically sex-on-demand type
features. I know whenever criticisms of Wechat are brought up in the West, a
lot of people focus on the fact that how could you recommend this app to your
dad or gran or kids, knowing that it has this weird dark and nefarious corner
in it.
So I dont think it’s fair to say India has a stalking problem based on this -
more like, Wechat has a weird feature that enables potential sexual harassment
that Chinese users don’t seem to care about.
~~~
yorwba
> Your visibility expires after a few minutes.
Last I checked, it was 6 hours. You can clear it manually, but that might not
be obvious to a first-time user who clicked through the explanatory pop-up
without reading. (Or maybe that was added later.)
~~~
dangrover
This is set differently based on account region. International users have a
higher expiry time.
------
kawaiiKitty123
After reading the article, much more assertive on DO NOT USE Whatsapp. Hate
being sent messages from strangers. Even I have someone on my contact,
probably it is someone I somehow know from work or long-time-no-see met-once-
person, why do you you want to have them on your social chatting app?
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Study suggests lithium in drinking water to lower suicide rate - mmm_grayons
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/association-between-naturally-occurring-lithium-in-drinking-water-and-suicide-rates-systematic-review-and-metaanalysis-of-ecological-studies/B7DDAF6E2A818C45EA64F3424E12D67A
======
LatteLazy
[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/opinion/sunday/should-
we-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/opinion/sunday/should-we-all-take-
a-bit-of-lithium.html)
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Studying the science gender gap at the high school level - araneae
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/11/study-shows-girls-find-high-school-science-to-be-ho-hum.ars
======
Kliment
Fairly flat when it comes to details. There have been a number of studies in
this direction showing similar results. This one appears to use experience
sampling, which I personally have a problem with, since being interrupted and
having to answer a set of questions tends to work pretty badly. When I was
trying out a similar response system, I got frustrated after the second time
it happened and spent as little effort as possible on the questions after
that. One experience sampling study that I saw (run in Italy in the form of a
mobile phone application administering a questionnaire back in 2006, meant to
measure flow) took almost 10 minutes to fill in and had lots of free text
questions requiring reflection on personal goals and evaluation of other
people's effects on the subject (it's no longer politically correct to say
"subject" in psychology, make that "participant"). It did an excellent job at
breaking whatever "flow" the subject might have been experiencing. It would
pop up at various times during the day and bother users until they filled it
in. I wonder how much of a distraction the pagers were in those classes.
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Ask HN: Is this game work safe? Do you know its origin? - omidfi
I knew this game from years ago, we played it at a company event recently and everyone had tons of fun.
I published the game under creative commons.<p>However I'm worried if this could be taken as offensive, or just not suitable for work events.<p>https://www.thegameofholes.com/<p>Am I worrying for no reason?<p>Also if you know anything from its origins please let me know.
======
brudgers
The link was down when I clicked, but it does not matter.
If you are concerned that the game might be offensive and that concern is
based on not wanting to offend people, then don't use it and find something
else. Pretty simple.
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Remote text editing with SublimeText and TextMate - octopus
https://solarianprogrammer.com/2014/08/16/remote-text-editing-sublimetext-textmate/
======
facorreia
I would recommend moving away from the "snowflake server" pattern and store
the server configuration under version control, automated via a tool such as
Ansible, Chef or Puppet. I find it useful even when I only plan to have one
instance of such server, because I know I can recreate it if needed.
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Biological entities found in stratosphere - mikeleeorg
http://journalofcosmology.com/JOC22/Milton5R.pdf
======
stephengillie
These are "life" in the same way that a batch script is a "computer program".
I'm starting to think that any group of molecules that can utilize energy to
do something will be called "alive".
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Most common one-line bugs in C? - solipsist
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5438347/most-common-one-line-bugs-in-c
======
gtani
There's lots of C gotcha lists out there; the "Undefined behavior" series is
good (and I think Koenig's Pitfalls book from 1989 is still worth reading
(pre-ANSI C)
<http://www.literateprogramming.com/ctraps.pdf>
<http://blog.regehr.org/archives/232>
<http://blog.regehr.org/archives/226>
<http://www.andromeda.com/people/ddyer/topten.html>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1990244>
------
jerf
I have to admit that after reading that over, I find myself wondering why we
teach students C as their first language...
~~~
cperciva
I agree; we should start with assembly language. Students will never
understand why these are dumb things to do until they can visualize the
assembly code they get translated into.
~~~
Animus7
C, being the glorified assembly language that it is, would be an excellent
intro to programming if we didn't insist on teaching it as a high-level
language.
A beginner's course in C will tell you "uninitialized variables are bad", and
"don't use pointers after free", but it won't explain the stack frames or
heaps that underpin so much of our computing.
I happen to think that having C blow up in your face (and fixing it) is one of
the best ways to learn the subtleties of programming.
~~~
pjscott
A lot of students would not respond well to that kind of approach. It's too
much at once; you're trying to teach them to think like an idiot savant
computer, _and_ teach them common patterns for translating their thoughts into
code, _and_ hit them with a bunch of low-level details about pointers and
stacks and instructions? Some exceptional students would thrive. Others would
dig in and do sort of okay, passing the test and then maybe learning it
properly later on. Many -- maybe most -- would just get discouraged and switch
majors to something where they'll never have to deal with null pointers or
case fall-through or (god help us) malloc alignment along dword boundaries.
If you want to do it that way, you've got to take one thing at a time. Colin's
idea of starting with assembly language isn't nearly as crazy as it sounds; I
know several people who learned that way. Personally, I would start with very
simple, linear programs in a high-level language like Python. Let them get a
feel for it, and fiddle around. Then gradually start introducing more and more
difficult concepts, like if statements, or looping, and how to use these
strange new wonders. Later -- much later -- you'll be able to talk about the
low-level details exposed by a language like C. If you try it too early,
you'll either get head-explosions or blank stares.
(Incidentally, head explosions are preferable. One of the greatest horrors of
teaching is that there will always be students who stare at you with looks of
blank incomprehension, and it always might be your fault.)
~~~
h0bbit
I mostly agree with this answer. However, in my experience, starting with a
high-level language (like python) is a double-edged sword.
a) It fails to get people interested in low-level things like call stacks and
frames. Someone once told me, "My language frees me up to think about the
really important things: like solving the problem at hand. I don't have to
worry about things like the stack and where my memory is going or coming
from." Perfectly valid point maybe, but I didn't learn about these things
because I needed to, I did it because I was interested and curious. I think C
and it's pointers played a big role in helping me "get interested".
b) People take the _awesome_ things in high-level languages for granted. When
I first moved into python from C, functions as first class entities blew me
away! Lisp macros were like learning to do magic. People who have only used a
high-level language don't give these features the credit they deserve.
(Alright, this might just be a pet peeve of mine...)
I think that C _should_ be taught to students, at a slower pace and in more
detail than it was taught to us. And if it occasionally blows up in their
face, I think they'll be better off for it.
------
biot
Anyone else remember the magazine ads for PC-Lint, each of which featured a
subtle C bug? Those were fun!
edit: <http://drdobbs.com/199900339>
------
astrofinch
Makes me wonder how hard the programming languages that C defeated must have
sucked.
~~~
rwmj
BCPL barely had types. Everything was an "int" and you stored pointers,
addresses, floats and so on in that same type (no concept of sizeof(int) !=
sizeof(void*) in those days!)
Edit: nice intro to BCPL. It's much worse than I thought:
<http://www.davros.org/c/bcpl.html>
------
ja27
Most common in my world? Not checking return codes. Or check return codes and
logging "there was an error" rather than using errno.
A couple uncommon ones: for (float x = 0.0; x < 3,5; x += 0.1) {...}
if (flag == TRUE) {...} (TRUE was #defined as 1 somewhere, but someone else
set flag to a different non-zero value like -1, !0 or ~0.)
~~~
bartonfink
With the float for-loop, is the bug initializing the variable inside the loop
declaration or is it the comma in "x < 3,5"?
~~~
kragen
I think you mean "declaring the variable inside the loop initialization",
which is not a bug in C99 and not subtle anywhere else.
The intended bug is that 0.1, in floating-point, is not exactly 0.1. On x86
(and probably anything with IEEE-754 floating-point) the loop counter reaches
0.5 successfully, is a little bit high when it should have reached 1.0,
remains high up to when it reaches slightly more than 2.2, and then suddenly
becomes low when it should have reached 2.3, and continues to be slightly low
and get progressively lower thereafter, all according to whether the sum is
being rounded to a value that's slightly too high or slightly too low. The
consequence is that the loop runs for an extra iteration with x ≈ 3.5, or 3,5
if you're from, say, Argentina.
------
bryanallen22
If someone has enough SO reputation (I don't), you might mention on pmg's post
that casting malloc is a good idea, even though it's not necessary in C.
Otherwise, should your code ever move to a C++ environment it'll be an error
-- not even a warning.
~~~
cperciva
That sounds like a good reason to omit the cast. Compiling C code as C++ is a
bug: You can take valid C code, run it through a C++ compiler without any
errors or even warnings being printed, and have it behave differently.
If you want to use C code from a C++ program, you MUST compile it with a C
compiler and link it in.
------
sliverstorm
One of the commentators mentions some... frustration... with _void main()_
Out of curiosity, is there any reason to have a return value from main() in
something like a microcontroller, where there's nobody and nothing (that I
know of) to care what main() returns?
~~~
cperciva
_Out of curiosity, is there any reason to have a return value from main() in
something like a microcontroller, where there's nobody and nothing (that I
know of) to care what main() returns?_
It's very unlikely... but yes, just possibly. There are some very wacky
calling conventions out there; among them, "caller reserves space for result
on the stack after the function arguments".
If you run into this particular variety of crazy, declaring _main_ as
returning _void_ will result in the compiler looking in the wrong place for
_main_ 's parameters, with obvious and very rapid breakage resulting.
I'd say that you don't need to worry about this, except that microcontrollers
are exactly the sort of niche environment where you're likely to encounter
craziness -- so it's better to play it safe and declare main correctly.
~~~
JoachimSchipper
Starting the program is almost entirely implementation-defined in freestanding
environments (i.e. those without a host OS), so I don't think your example
works.
Of course, there are reasons not to use "void main" - for one, a strict C99
compiler will not compile it.
------
nowarninglabel
Does it count as irony that when I loaded this link I hit a SO maintenance
page with this image at top: <http://sstatic.net/stackoverflow/img/offline-
ide-1.png> ?
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As a teenager, Adolfo Kaminsky forged passports to help children flee the Nazis - aaronbrethorst
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/opinion/sunday/if-i-sleep-for-an-hour-30-people-will-die.html
======
qwrusz
Related Question: apologies my background is not tech, does anyone have
insight if "hacking" documents like this is easier or harder today as things
move digital?
Ignoring paper passports for a moment, as records move to digital over
physical paper, will adding or removing names become easier or harder?
Thinking of the guy who was able to fake a first class lounge airplane ticket:
[https://mic.com/articles/150812/this-guy-figured-out-how-
to-...](https://mic.com/articles/150812/this-guy-figured-out-how-to-hack-his-
way-into-fancy-airport-lounges#.104VAW7IG)
TL;DR what is harder vs. easier: paper ID forgery or digital ID forgery?
~~~
zigzigzag
Modern passports have an NFC chip in them which holds a digitally signed
version of the passport data. Some of them are more sophisticated chips that
are also uncloneable (but not all of them).
Even the basic form of the chip prevents the creation of entirely fictional
passports, assuming the integrity of the official passport issuing
infrastructure. My understanding is that modern passport fraud therefore tends
to be based on stealing passports on demand from someone who looks like the
client, and/or forging passports that aren't protected by the chip.
~~~
throwaway049
I second this. I have interviewed a substantial number of people in London who
entered the UK on someone else's passport (sometimes rented not stolen). I
also noted when travelling into the UK with someone who holds a UK Biometric
Residence Permit that no use was made of the biometric data: The border agent
just looked at the photo and at the person the old fashioned way.
------
gioele
> The youngest member of the group, the lab’s technical director, is
> practically a child himself: Adolfo Kaminsky, age 18.
I doubt that people referred to 18 years old men as "children" in 1944. In the
'40s the average age for marriage was 23 for men and 21 for women.
~~~
jakobegger
Is it actually common to refer to 18 year olds as children today? Or is that a
US thing? I considered myself a grown up at that age; and it wouldn't occur to
me to call someone who is older than 15 a kid.
~~~
icebraining
"College kid" is a common term in US media. In my (European) country, we call
them "young" (as in, "Young invents device" or "Two youngs were yesterday
found ..."), not children.
~~~
Symbiote
You probably use the word that translates as "youth". (Jugend, unge etc).
It was normal in Britain, examples are youth hostel, youth centre, Fountain of
Youth.
But in the last 20 years or so, I think it's been used negatively so often
("drunken youths", "aggressive youths") that if you begin with "a group of
youths..." most people will expect something bad. "A group of teenagers" or "a
group of children" is neutral.
As an adjective, it's still fine. "Youth football team" and so on is fine.
------
sylvinus
You should watch the TEDx talk of his daughter:
[https://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kaminsky](https://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kaminsky)
------
nstj
> “The smallest error and you send someone to prison or death,” he told me.
> “It’s a great responsibility. It’s heavy. It’s not at all a pleasure.”
Serious dedication to the cause. A splendid story.
------
zigzigzag
Hmm. Great story, although it gets somewhat dark towards the end. He may have
started out as a noble forger saving children from the Nazis but it sounds
like he kept going for decades and made false passports for whoever wanted
them, no questions asked. "I can't deal with the details because all humans
are equal" sounds a lot like post-hoc rationalization. Forging passports is
all about dealing with tiny details. Understanding why your customers want
false papers seems a lot larger than just a "detail". He wouldn't have forged
papers to help the Nazi's I assume, but apparently after the war ended he
somehow lost his discerning nature.
I'm also 100% not buying his story about never doing it for profit. During
WW2, sure, I can buy that. For the three decades he continued afterwards, when
it was apparently close to full time work? He was a professional underground
forger who made passports for whoever wanted them, no questions asked, even as
the difficulty and sophistication of the needed equipment constantly rose.
Hell yes he asked for money.
~~~
r2dnb
I guess the millions of innocent people deported and killed by the nazis in
front of him gave him a different perspective on what's a detail and what's
not. Perspective probably different than green-pastures-based ones.
I do not endorse breaking the law, and I wouldn't do it myself. But sometimes
it is possible to understand where other people are coming from.
~~~
zigzigzag
Sorry, that doesn't work for me. Lots of people came out of WW2 scarred but
did not go on to become professional criminals. The article flat out says that
some of the groups he worked with were rebel forces in Africa trying to
overthrow governments, not exactly people who are famous for their cuddly
nature.
~~~
r2dnb
>The article flat out says that some of the groups he worked with were rebel
forces in Africa trying to overthrow governments, not exactly people who are
famous for their cuddly nature.
Granted, thanks for insisting I didn't realize that, missed that part. I think
like you that his good intentions might have gone too far and turned into
rationalized behaviour.
~~~
ceejayoz
That statement could cover anyone from Joseph Kony to Nelson Mandela.
------
nefitty
A lot of us work and live for acknowledgment. There are so few brave enough to
work and live for effect.
------
clydethefrog
Reminds me of the similar touching story of Chiune Sugihara.
[http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/07/11/national/history...](http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/07/11/national/history/chiune-
sugihara-man-conscience/)
~~~
tagawa
Similarly Sir Nicholas Winton. He kept his actions quiet and there was a
moving TV programme 40 years later where they uncovered the list of children
he saved:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nicholas+winton+%22that%27s+life%2...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nicholas+winton+%22that%27s+life%22+1988&iax=1&ia=videos)
------
fma
On a similar note, there's Ho Feng-Shan. He worked at the consulate in Vienna
and saved over 3,000 Jews by giving them visas to Shanghai so they can leave
Austria and escape Nazi persecution.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Feng-
Shan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Feng-Shan)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Yahoo acquires Maven video $160M - iamelgringo
http://www.siliconvalley.com//ci_8250173
======
cellis
i swear on everything that is dear to me, i have never heard of Maven.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A client-side encrypted PasteBin - tvvocold
https://0bin.net/
======
viktorelofsson
Shameless self promotion: I did something similar a while back, available at
[https://cryptob.in](https://cryptob.in)
Haven’t had the time to publish the sources, but I didn’t obfuscate the JS
(where all the interesting and important stuff is happening)
I like your idea with the file uploads.
The “Copy To Clipboard” link in Chrome shows a puzzle icon overlay to activate
Adobe Flash.
------
slx26
interesting, but I'm not sure of some of the UI decisions. upload file a bit
too relevant, easy to confuse with submit, when people is most likely to copy
paste. I would have also added at least a 1 week expiration option, and
probably set that as a default, though that's very personal, and would have
added code coloring as an option in the front page too, though I like the idea
of autodetecting by default. short url generation doesn't work here either,
chrome in my case. can't write tabs manually in the text area either.
------
ivanfon
There are also Up1 instances, which support pastes as well as files, and
encrypt everything client side.
[https://share.riseup.net/](https://share.riseup.net/)
------
Lunatic666
I was using 0bin quite often, but a couple of weeks ago they had problems with
their SSL certificate, so no browser would let me use the site. Happy to see
it's back!
------
NVRM
This project had moved to
[https://github.com/PrivateBin/PrivateBin](https://github.com/PrivateBin/PrivateBin)
[https://privatebin.info/](https://privatebin.info/)
------
garaetjjte
Decryption is very slow for some reason. In comprasion
[http://sebsauvage.net/paste/](http://sebsauvage.net/paste/) works
instantaneously.
------
dole
NSFW warning: Don't get curious about the Sam & Max link at the bottom of the
page and subsequently scroll down unless you like meatspin.
~~~
acatton
For those who don't know them, Sam & Max use to maintain a French blog about
"Python, Django, Git and Sex" they gave tips and good practices about those
tools, and once in a while they would post about their sexual experience.
They now changed the blog motto to "Some code, and some sex". But the concept
is the same: NSFW meme as a pictures for french technical blog posts.
0bin.net in itself is just the Python implementation of ZeroBin. ZeroBin in
the first implementation of an client side encrypted pastebin, it was written
in PHP by another french blogger: sebsauvage.
[https://github.com/sebsauvage/ZeroBin](https://github.com/sebsauvage/ZeroBin)
The reason the french community is so active on this matter is because of
multiple past french parliament bills equivalent to DMCA/Patriot Act in the
2010s.
------
royalharsh95
Didn't generate the short URL for me. I'm on Firefox.
~~~
opencl
It's using the old goo.gl link shortener API... which no longer exists. The
server is open source and hasn't been updated in a few years.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
San Francisco bans credit-only stores - aritraghosh007
https://www.sfgate.com/business/technology/article/San-Francisco-to-join-list-of-those-banning-13824319.php
======
GaryNumanVevo
Credit-card only stores actively shut out a lot of people. Cash customers have
a large number of reasons to not use a card. Either they don't have an account
in the U.S, they prefer not to be tracked, or are homeless.
------
PHGamer
whatever happened to not shopping at stores because you didnt like their
terms. kinda stupid at least for the amazon store. the entire point of that
model was you didnt need to deal with a register because its got your face and
phone tracked. dealing with a register slows the process down.
~~~
kkarakk
it's a stopgap solution, there still isn't a solution for poorer folk who
can't afford a card(or the fees for a card). until our government issued
implanted chips come around i see physical presence of a human for
transactions being necessary to handle cash related issues
------
Traminer
In Italy we have exactly the opposite problem. Sob.
------
booblik
So now the $10 avocado toast will become affordable?
------
DeonPenny
good it was prejudice practice
------
xfour
Noticed it said brick and mortar. I’ve seen the practice much more prevalent
with the popular food trucks. In both cases I feel like speed is essential and
the moments where change is being made add up.
It is also like the article says dog-whistling the type of client you want at
your establishment though.
~~~
aritraghosh007
Uber accepts cash in many countries partly because they were also cash-first
economies but it'd be only fair to allow the full spectrum of the socio-
economic strata to be part of the everyday life proceedings, the very founding
pillar of the modern day democracy. A person shouldn't ideally be refused
service on a lawful ground, having cash or not having a card isn't a crime,
yet!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Two new presumed-positive Covid-19 cases in Washington State - ISL
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/2-new-coronavirus-cases-emerge-in-washington-in-king-county-and-snohomish-county/
======
jwilber
Anybody in the Seattle area taking precautions? I’m wondering what else I can
do aside from stock up on food, wash my hands, WFH, and wait this bad boy out.
(Before anyone chimes in about the mortality rate being low and me going
overboard, I understand that is generally the case. Unfortunately I have
cardiovascular issues, including a recent heart surgery).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
H.R.899 – To terminate the Department of Education - Operyl
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/899
======
Arizhel
Sounds great to me. Let education in the US become an inconsistent hodge-
podge, and mostly much worse overall with religion being taught in science
class like in Turkey. I'm sure America's competitors will love that America is
shooting itself in the foot and guaranteeing its long-term demise as
superpower. But if that's what the voters want, let them have it.
~~~
rajacombinator
Would you say the Dept of Ed is effective in its current role, whatever that
is? I can't think of any impact it had in my education.
~~~
wfo
The DoE collects a huge amount of nationwide data. If any policy, rule, or
idea that was based on evidence and is related to education affected you,
there's a good chance it's thanks to the DoE.
Education in the US is pretty decentralized but there's plenty of work the
federal DoE does that's very important, here's a good place to start looking:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_for_Civil_Rights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_for_Civil_Rights)
The DoE enforces many of these laws which prevent abuse, bullying (teacher
tolerance of it), discrimination, etc in education, which is pretty important.
It's almost certainly the case that the DoE has seriously impacted the
education of you or someone you care about through lawsuits, intervention,
investigation which all change policy at the local level in a big way.
There's plenty of more things that it does. Take some time to look at what the
DoE does and answer the question for yourself, it isn't hard.
In particular there are a lot of states that would love to let private
religious schools torture gay children to try to turn them straight. The DoE
is the only reason they can't do that.
~~~
angry_octet
From that perspective its pretty obvious why some Republicans (Tea
Party/Trumpists) want to shut it down then, they don't think government should
be an equalising force on society at all. Given that philosophy, it seems
almost inevitable they will shut it down. Can anyone think of reasons they
wouldn't?
------
snowwrestler
It's worth pointing out that bills get introduced all the time, and
essentially mean nothing until they are scheduled for actual consideration by
a committee.
Introducing a bill is an easy way for any member of Congress to "take a stand"
on some issue, and it happens thousands of times per Congress.
~~~
Operyl
If anything, just curious that it's right after DeVos got confirmed. Heh..
~~~
shaftway
It's a direct response to DeVos's confirmation:
> "Unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. should not be in charge of our
> children’s intellectual and moral development."
[https://massie.house.gov/newsroom/press-releases/rep-
massie-...](https://massie.house.gov/newsroom/press-releases/rep-massie-
introduces-bill-to-abolish-federal-department-of-education)
~~~
jklowden
We won't mention that our elected bureaucrats have an 18% approval rating.
------
bfrog
I was able to go to engineering school thanks to FAFSA. FAFSA seems to be run
by the Dept of Edu. I want my taxes to go to such programs personally. My
family has certainly become wealthier and been able to pay _more_ in taxes
because of FAFSA. Big govs investment in me has paid back 10 fold by now.
The next looming debt crisis is one founded on education loans. Does this sort
of government gutting really help with that? Is congress planning on giving a
check to every college student enrolled instead with the money saved? Are they
planning on forgiving a large portion of mortgage sized education loans? If
not I fully expect another financial crisis to arise in the next 10 years
primarily caused by student loans.
~~~
paulddraper
Economics 101: supply and demand. Grant money makes prices _higher_ not lower.
Take a look ITT. They took billions per year of poorly spent government
grants, and left taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of millions. That school
would not have existed were it not for federal grants.
Separating the payer from the decision maker yields very uneconomical
decisions, in education, healthcare, whatever.
There are two options (1) restore sanity by regulating the hell out of
education pricing or (2) restore sanity with market pressure.
I lean towards #2, but either way, grants aren't effective at lowering costs.
~~~
jklowden
Ah, but the facts contradict ye. Look at private school tuitions. Look at the
cost of daycare. They're not publicly subsidized, and they've risen just as
fast as private college tuition.
You're also overlooking the rising value, and rising recognized value, of a
college degree. Since 1979, only college-educated workers have seen median
wages rise. A high school diploma earned a -27% real return over the same
period. Is it any surprise young people are encouraged and willing to pay
anything, anything for a shot at economic opportunity? (Further information at
epi.org.)
The rise in public university tuition is largely explained by reduced
subsidies. Year after year, states "hold the line" on higher education
spending, leaving ever more of the cost to students (and students' families,
of course). To the point that California famously once spent more on college
than prisons, and now spends more on prisons than college.
~~~
paulddraper
Private school tuition can be subsidized by federal student grants and loans
as well.
Grants and loans have been around for a long time. I'm not saying they're the
cause of rising tuition. I'm saying increasing them wouldn't help.
I agree that the value of a college degree has a lot to do with increased
tuition costs. If the average person will earn more than a $1 million more
over his lifetime for getting a college degree, even expensive college is
still "a good deal".
------
thetopher
If you want to know what the department does, just look at its budget:
[https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget17/17action....](https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget17/17action.pdf)
Eliminating the department doesn't necessarily mean eliminating all of its
current functions. It just means that it will not exist in the same tier of
government, with a cabinet member at its head.
~~~
Hydraulix989
I don't see any proposals for other departments picking up the slack though...
------
headcanon
This administration will likely render the federal Dept. of Ed useless anyway,
even if it sticks around. Getting rid of it is a way to make the removal of
its policies, and the increased state control that follows, more permanent.
~~~
gragas
> removal of a department of government
> increased state control
I don't follow.
~~~
DerpyBaby123
I think the GP means 'controls by individual states'
~~~
headcanon
That is correct - in the US, typically the term "state" is used to refer to
the 50 states, rather than the abstract term which is meant to refer to any
governing body.
------
nickm12
Some folks might find it interesting that Thomas Massie is an MIT alum, former
entrepreneur, and junkyard wars competitor.
[http://news.mit.edu/2002/two-teams-mit-battle-it-out-tvs-
jun...](http://news.mit.edu/2002/two-teams-mit-battle-it-out-tvs-junkyard-
wars)
------
rogerthis
John Taylor Gato and you'll be free.
------
computerwizard
Sounds great if they terminate outstanding student loans as well!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bitcoin banned in Russia? - markmassie
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&nv=1&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://top.rbc.ru/economics/06/02/2014/903864.shtml&usg=ALkJrhgdOzgXxs2Ebd-QI_S3udaTO61stQ
======
jnbiche
I'd avoid trusting any one source on this, given that blackhatters wanting to
crash the value of Bitcoin to buy low have taken to hacking into Russian
newspapers and planting false stories:
[http://www.coindesk.com/russian-prosecutors-office-btc-e-
inv...](http://www.coindesk.com/russian-prosecutors-office-btc-e-
investigation-hoax/)
------
zwtaylor
There's an interesting resource on the evolving regulations in Russia on this
site.
[http://www.bitlegal.io/nation/RU.php](http://www.bitlegal.io/nation/RU.php)
~~~
twobits
I would love a site like this for all laws in (almost) all countries.
------
jasonlingx
What most people do not realise is that it does not matter if Russia, China,
the US or any country bans or criminalises bitcoin. All it takes is for 1
small country (like Singapore) to embrace bitcoin for it to be worth
$1,000,000 a coin. The first country that wises up to bitcoin, starts
investing in mining and other bitcoin infrastructure in a big way, and
legitimises its mainstream usage as a currency, is going to reap tremendous
benefits. And it's only a matter of time before this happens.
~~~
AnIrishDuck
> The first country that wises up to bitcoin, starts investing in mining and
> other bitcoin infrastructure in a big way, and legitimises its mainstream
> usage as a currency, is going to reap tremendous benefits.
Like what? Being tied to a deflationary currency? Being unable to influence
their own monetary supply? Tying the buying power of its citizens to the
computational ability to hash numbers really quickly?
Seriously, what benefits possibly favor this approach over creation of an
e-currency that the central bank has control over?
~~~
tlrobinson
_Tying the buying power of its citizens to the computational ability to hash
numbers really quickly?_
I'm not sure how those two things are related. Mining is an entirely optional
activity for users of Bitcoin, and indeed, the vast majority of users never
have nor ever will mine.
~~~
AnIrishDuck
They do not have to _do_ it to be influenced by it. The exchange rate of BTC
is always going to be tied to mining activity, and hence hashing speeds.
~~~
tlrobinson
You've got it reversed. Mining activity will be tied to the exchange rate.
Total mining rewards (denominated in BTC) are constant no matter how many
miners there are, so the higher the exchange rate, the more people mine as it
becomes profitable for them to do so. Mining _is_ a zero sum game.
------
snarfy
"A distinctive feature of Bitcoin as a virtual means to mutual savings and
security is the lack of real value"
As opposed to what, a fiat currency like the ruble?
------
dobbsbob
All that happened is Russia's central bank issued a warning about bitcoin
there is no ban. Localbitcoins Russia still has plenty of listings, plus many
Russian fixed rate exchange sites are open for business.
------
sangfroid
I went to the website for the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian
Federation and nowhere can I find the document that is circulating in all
these news posts.
This link, which you maybe shouldn't click, because who knows what's going on
here,
[[http://www.genproc.gov.ru/smi/news/genproc/news-86432/](http://www.genproc.gov.ru/smi/news/genproc/news-86432/)]
indicates that it should be in the news section. But when I go there directly,
I can't find it.
Has anyone been able to even verify the authenticity of the original
announcement, let alone interpret what it means? If so, can you share where on
the official website you found it?
Thanks.
------
shmerl
They are just freaked out that it would undermine government control. With all
kind of draconian censorship laws on the rise there, this isn't surprising.
------
sdegutis
I have mixed feelings about this situation. On one hand, I can understand the
advantages of banning Bitcoin in Russia. On the other hand, there are also
disadvantages of banning Bitcoin in Russia. Overall, I feel that this is a
trade-off, and I'm not sure whether they made the right choice in their
decision. I know there are people who will disagree with me about this, but
honestly, I have to respectfully disagree.
~~~
icebraining
Welcome to HN, Sir Humphrey Appleby.
------
kolev
At least one country is doing the right thing to protect its citizens from
bubbles unlike the US where bubbles are government-sponsored.
~~~
amaks
Or the opposite, Bitcoin is just hard/impossible for Russian government to be
placed under its control.
~~~
kolev
You're free to use foreign currency in Russia unlike in China and other
countries, so, I don't get your point.
------
ommunist
At the same time Russia allows existence of virtual currencies like Yandex
Money and WebMoney. Which really makes me think the whole BTC prohibition in
Russia was lobbied by existing russian virtual currency holders. Because I do
not want to believe that Obama called Putin and asked to prohibit BTC in
exchange of his presence in Sochi.
------
thomasjames
I suppose this would have nothing to do with the current decline in the value
of the ruble, now would it?
------
perlpimp
No the article says that it is being used in money laundering operations and
tax evasion as such the government is monitoring the situation.
------
Techskeptic
Its a money laundering vehicle. It will be banned.
------
Eleutheria
Bitcoin can't be banned, silly rabbit.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
On the topic of Steve Jobs - telemachos
http://waxinandmilkin.com/post/9355099157/on-the-topic-of-steve-jobs-i-always-liked-this
======
telemachos
See also: [http://www.tuaw.com/2011/03/01/mac-os-x-lion-features-
hidden...](http://www.tuaw.com/2011/03/01/mac-os-x-lion-features-hidden-
tribute-to-steve-jobs/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Apple Watch as a Heart Monitor? - _bxg1
I have heart palpitations sometimes and sometimes-high blood pressure (and acute anxiety), and with all the stuff coming up around COVID and heart health it's got me wondering if I should be monitoring mine (for an undiagnosed condition, or otherwise).<p>I've heard good things about the Apple Watch as a monitoring device but I'm wondering: is it good enough to buy it purely for that reason? I can live without having phone notifications on my wrist and I wouldn't really use it as a "workout device", exactly. Just a passive way of tracking my day to day health.<p>Anybody have thoughts/anecdotes/informed opinions?
======
justrudd
I am not a doctor nor do I have anything to do with the medical field...
Have you been diagnosed by a doctor? Specifically a cardiologist? They'll
recommend a device to monitor your heart if they are worried about it.
If they're not worried about it and you want to monitor yourself, Apple Watch
would probably be fine. Although pricey if all you really care about is HR.
Personally, I wasn't that impressed with it. I found it was always off by a
few beats per minute. And there were times that the sensor didn't work at all
(which I attribute to having very dark tattoos on both arms right where the
sensor sits).
If you just care about heart rate, there are cheaper alternatives out there.
LETSCOM, Lintelek, etc. on Amazon have HR wrist monitors that are <= 30 USD.
For me, that is in the "grab one, if it isn't great, get rid of it" range.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Are Udacity's Nanodegrees worth the monetary cost and effort? - deep_srch
I graduated from a post-baccalaureate CS program (BS-granting) ~1 year ago and have since been working as a full-stack .NET dev for a small-medium sized company. I'm starting to think about next steps for myself skills and career-wise and am curious as to people's experiences with Udacity's nanodegree offerings. My initial impression is that a sequence that is a bit more nuts-and-bolts in terms of subject matter, like their React program, might be a safer bet in terms of tangible career benefits. That said, if their ML / NLP programs are likely to render one a competitive candidate in any of those fields (which I'm skeptical of), I would be very interested in pursuing one.
======
yandexed
waiting answer here too
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Robot Goes Rogue at Shenzhen Fair, Injures Bystander - eplanit
http://www.sixthtone.com/news/robot-goes-rogue-shenzhen-fair-injures-bystander
======
Hydraulix989
Headline inaccurate:
It didn't go rogue; it was teleoperated, and the person controlling it pressed
the wrong button on the remote ("forward" instead of "reverse").
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Airtel wants Google, Facebook and Yahoo to pay for network usage - Kmanicka
http://www.indiadigitalreview.com/news/airtel-asks-trai-impose-interconnection-charges-internet-companies
======
Skiptar
I can see their viewpoint, however I don't agree. If I were to rent a computer
to do my work on, should the rental company seek a portion of any profit I
make using that machine?
A bigger issue would be where would you stop the charges. They would be quite
happy to charge the big names such as google and facebook for when people
connect to them, but what about small websites? Where would the distinction
lie?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Add confetti to your website with just 1 element - mothepro
https://www.webcomponents.org/element/lit-confetti
======
Yeezythedev
Great build!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Which cloud do you use, and why? - Nelkins
Hey all,<p>The recent HN post on the "$10 super computer" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9575683) was actually very timely, as I am working at a client in the financial space who is evaluating various IaaS providers (up until now they have been using a small on-site data center). There is plenty information out there about which services are available, but less about why one should choose any particular provider over another. I'm curious to hear about the experiences of the HN community on this, and especially from those who have used several different services. What sealed the deal for you? Was it the price? Ecosystem of services? Ease of use? Was it the only thing available at the time? etc. Would also love to hear about any other factors one should take into account when making this kind of decision.
======
davismwfl
AWS currently and for the last ~4 years. We have also placed more than a dozen
clients into AWS.
We have used SoftLayer, Peak10, Google and Azure at different times while
testing things out. SoftLayer we actually ran some processes in for about a
year.
I recently had posted on HN about services like DigitalOcean because there are
ways for us to save money using those types of services, or even Heroku. In
the end the ecosystem, ease of use, reliability (when architected right) and
flexibility of AWS is still just too powerful for us. The costs are not the
cheapest way we could do something, but when you factor in the minimal amount
of man hours we spend on infrastructure compared to what we could be, I think
it is a good deal. We try not to get too ingrained to AWS only features, and
where we do we will hide their implementation so we can switch them out if
ever needed. I also classify them differently too, for example, DynamoDB or
MySQL (via RDS) wouldn't be something I'd try to wrap, it is your database and
could be used from anywhere so you aren't really locked into AWS as much as
your database there. But something like SQS, we used but wrapped, and
eventually moved to RabbitMQ with very little extra effort.
I have had to use AWS support a few times, and they have been AMAZINGLY
helpful. And for non-critical things they usually answer forum posts pretty
quick too. AWS isn't a panacea with no issues, but for my money its the best
thing going right now. And they are constantly releasing new things and
tweaking things, not everything is for the better, but for the most part it
is.
------
benologist
Heroku for backend, automatically grow or shrink resources, nothing to
maintain, nothing to configure and tons of services available alongside it.
Netlify for frontend, it is a static hosting service with some neat features
like url rewriting that lets you proxy e.g. /api to a backend without
revealing api keys and under the same origin / domain.
What really draws me to this is:
\- no servers or software to maintain
\- horizontal scaling by design (heroku kind of forces it)
\- deploy process is "git push", fresh deploy is one click (heroku) and a few
mins doing config on netlify though they have an api so maybe that's redundant
\- no lock-in, easy to replicate locally
\- databases are managed wrt backups, recovery etc
\- entire front end is static and will scale indefinitely with massive uptime
[https://heroku.com/](https://heroku.com/)
[https://netlify.com/](https://netlify.com/)
~~~
pspeter3
Why netlify and not S3 + CloudFront?
~~~
benologist
The final outcome is the same - static files on a cdn - so it won't always
matter but netlify lets you:
1) run a build process
2) own domain with automatic ssl and redirecting to w/e www-or-not, https-only
etc
3) deploy with git push
4) url rewriting, header inserting, proxying
~~~
ChristianBach
Exactly, and because of the automatic URL rewriting Netlify will also give you
instant cache validation. So when you update your site, unlike most static
site hosts, you won't have to wait to see your changes live. But at the same
time you get a very cached and very fast site. So best of both worlds.
------
Avalaxy
Azure, awesome PaaS services, very easy to set up, good documentation, good
pricing, very good performance and I really like the fact that they are
working really really hard on Azure. Big new stuff is being released every
month.
~~~
at-fates-hands
Combining Azure with Cloudflare has really been great for my dozen or so
clients I manage.
It ups Azure's performance and adds another layer of excellent security. The
Pro plan at $20/month is well worth it.
------
lewisl9029
I'm using Azure.
Mostly because of this very little known offering called the Microsoft Action
Pack subscription:
[https://mspartner.microsoft.com/en/ca/Pages/Membership/actio...](https://mspartner.microsoft.com/en/ca/Pages/Membership/action-
pack.aspx)
It costs around $500 per year, offers your company access to a large number of
Microsoft software licenses, free access to seats of Office 365 Enterprise
(for hosted email on your own domain, in addition to the software), and most
importantly, $110 in Azure credits per month.
The Azure credits alone make this an amazing deal that essentially cuts all
Azure pricing by more than half, making it more than competitive with
AWS/GCE/DO on the pricing front.
~~~
jurymatic
I'm a current Azure user so this intrigued me, but I don't see anything on
that page about monthly credits. Am I missing something?
Edit: Never mind, I guess? I found it in some fine print on another page.
Weird that they don't advertise it more prominently...
~~~
lewisl9029
Yes it's pretty ridiculous how well they've hidden one of the best perks of
the subscription. I only know about it because I was enrolled in a previous
version of the program that advertised the Azure credits a lot more
prominently.
Their marketing in general is sorely lacking seeing as how few of the people
who would benefit from it actually know about it.
For anyone else wondering, I managed to find it mentioned on this page (deeply
hidden under "Microsoft Action Pack – cloud and on-premises Internal Use
Rights licenses" accordion, under the "Management" section in the dropdown,
under the "Cloud Services" heading):
[https://mspartner.microsoft.com/en/us/pages/membership/inter...](https://mspartner.microsoft.com/en/us/pages/membership/internal-
use-software.aspx)
"Microsoft Azure
US$100 monthly credit. Microsoft Azure credit is in addition to current on-
premises internal-use software licenses."
------
brianwawok
Digital Ocean
\- I only want to build off base Linux VM, I do not want to be locked into S3
+ SQS + ...
\- Price is right for young startups
\- Speed is nice
~~~
3pt14159
I just wish there was a single VM that wasn't SSD backed. I write web crawlers
sometimes and I usually only have to parse the HTML / JS _once_ into JSON or
SQL, but I like to keep the data backed up just in case I need to re-parse it
later, or to see the changes between crawls. It's completely impossible for me
to even fit it on their $640 / month box. But I love Digital Ocean for
everything else.
~~~
shortstuffsushi
Couldn't you potentially push that aspect elsewhere, into a data storage
solution like S3 or something (not sure of the cost efficiency, not a huge
cloud guy myself). Then you'd just be utilizing the DO server for processing.
It would have the added benefit of allowing you to scale your crawling
horizontally if you wanted, as all your servers could have access to the same
set of data.
~~~
3pt14159
Yeah I could, and I currently do - but I don't like to. I want the data on the
same network for lots of reasons and I also don't like maintaining two sets of
deployment systems. I'd prefer to just use Cloud66 + Digital Ocean and focus
on writing code, not setting up and maintaining servers.
~~~
shortstuffsushi
Oh yeah, I totally understand that, was just offering an alternative as a non-
ideal workaround. I have the same set up for a service I offer, primarily
because (afaik) it's hard to beat S3 pricing.
------
snehesht
[+] Digital Ocean
Pros 1. Inexpensive, Pay as you go
2. automated deployment
Cons 1. Capped Network I/O
[+] Azure
Pros 1. Cheap CDN, all-in-one cloud solutions
2. Pay as you go
Cons 1. Expensive VM's (0.6gb $13)
[3] RunAbove
Pros 1. Inexpensive
Cons 1. Not mature yet, they changed their pricing twice already
------
drzaiusapelord
Linode. Support is great, service is great, pricing is good, and seems less
"cowboyish" than Digital Ocean and others.
~~~
pan69
I've been running a VPN over multiple data centres on Linode for the past few
months. Seems to work great so far. The performance is good enough for what
I'm doing with it and I know exactly what my bill is going to be.
------
vyrotek
Microsoft Azure
\- The admin portal is great
\- Deploying to websites is just a simple push
\- I can programmatically spin up new SQL DB instances
\- I really like C#
\- There are a LOT of additional services available
\- Microsoft is very aggressive about keeping prices low
~~~
slg
I think Azure gets a bad reputation in this community from the old "Microsoft
= bad" bias that a lot of us have. However, if you are in a Windows stack
and/or a corporate developer (and that is a large but quiet percentage of
developers) it really seems like the best solution. Also the variety of
services they provide under one umbrella is neck and neck with Amazon for best
in the industry.
~~~
Gys
I wanted to try Azure a few weeks ago for a small project. But I found the UI
to be confusing. Part old and part new ? Trying to match up with the current
Windows look (which I am not familiar with) ?
I also had trouble using one of their API's. Got even thrown out very quickly
for abusing it. No idea why, just trying to access. Maybe MS does not like my
coding style :-) Never had something like that before. Reference to possible
explanation page did not work. Faq did not cover it. Still I got an automated
email a few days later to congratulate me with using Azure, while actually I
was locked out...
But I have no commitment to Windows, so its easy to switch. I normally use DO
and AWS and stick with them for now.
~~~
Avalaxy
If you really want to manage your Azure you'll have to go PowerShell anyway.
------
santoriv
Azure for the main infrastructure - I'm running a .NET MVC app and their Paas
offering is excellent.
I agree with the other comments about Azure's VM's being too expensive though.
Amazon S3 and Cloudfront b/c Azure CDN doesn't quite have all the features I
need.
------
jrs235
AWS - primarily S3 because their cloud storage is inexpensive and easy to
administer.
Azure - websites and mobile services (and by extension SQL Database) because
we use .NET
------
untog
AWS, because we make a lot of use of S3 - last I looked there weren't any
alternatives that truly rival it. Largely then end up using EC2 for cost (data
transfer in-data centre) and billing simplicity.
------
siquick
Used AWS for a couple of years but switch to DO and haven't looked back.
Great interface, pricing and service.
Their customer support is also awesome and I've found their support community
articles to be thoroughly useful.
[https://www.digitalocean.com/community/](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/)
------
hashtree
OVH, SoYouStart, and KimSufi with Dokku Alt (for quick apps) or custom
Ansible/Docker deployments (for big apps). Since OVH created their North
American DC I took the leap and have been very very happy. Knowing just how
cheap the hardware/ops game is, I just can't bring myself to spend anything
more than what these guys do:
- $115/mn for a 64GB ECC, 3x Intel SSD, Xeon E51620v2, 500Mbps, etc
- $50/mn for a 32GB ECC, Intel Xeon W3520, 4TB SATA
- $15/mn for a 4GB RAM, Atom N2800, 1TB HDD
I scale differently as a result; huge gobs of RAM/SSD/CPU is easily within
reach. For instance, I can use Redis Cluster as a primary data store with then
op/s an order of magnitude higher than most might be used to.
------
thomasfoster96
I used to use Rackspace, but now I'm using AWS. Rackspace was nice, but AWS
was a bit better on price (thought the two are priced slightly differently)
and a secure setup was quicker on AWS than on Rackspace. I tend to use docs or
forums to solve issues I have, so Rackspace's customer support wasn't all that
useful compared to whatever Amazon offers.
Since then I've started using a few things like Elastic Beanstalk and
continuous deployment, and getting them working on AWS was pretty pain free
and easy. I don't think I could do as much on AWS now as I could on Rackspace.
Heroku looks nice but because of price I never tried it. Azure is also
tempting to use, but as a non-customer their non-Windows offerings seem to be
predictably second-rate.
~~~
thomasfoster96
All of that said, IaaS is still way too complicated. I'm sure there's room for
someone to come along and have an offering that's 10x simpler to manage and
use.
------
rsync
I have provided my own cloud, in the form of a 1U server, since 1998. I run my
(very tiny) website there as well as my own mailserver, and I read email over
SSH using (al)pine.
Backups offsite go to the obvious place :)
This setup might not be that interesting, but I think it's worth noting that a
cloud computing paradigm/model has functioned well for 16 years now with no
significant changes. I have not had data on my own personal computers for that
entire 16 years - all data has been in the "cloud".
I think a decent goal is to be a peer on the network. I think a good step in
that direction is to have your own server, with fixed IP, on the network. You
can build quite a bit on that.
~~~
at-fates-hands
I would love to do this, but handling the security of your own server to me
seems labor intensive.
How easy is it for you to manage keeping your server and data secure? I would
really like to do this, but my fears of getting hacked have kept me from doing
it.
~~~
rsync
Well, my system runs nothing but sendmail, lighttpd (with no modules or
features) and sshd. That's it. So there's not much to lock down.
sshd is hidden behind port knocking, for what that's worth. (No, I do not want
to have a religious argument about port knocking this morning)
The real key to the simplicity and security of my setup is email over SSH with
a console client. Not only does that remove _oceans_ of attack surface, but it
also means you can read email without the emails themselves traversing the
network. I guess the characters go over SSH, but that's not quite the same
thing...
~~~
xtrumanx
Thank you for introducing me to port knocking (wikipedia link for the
unintiated [0]).
Not trying to lure into an argument you're trying to avoid but I'm just
curious; what is the religious argument about regarding port knocking? I know
about both sides to tabs/spaces and vim/emacs but am curious what people have
against port knocking.
[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_knocking](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_knocking)
~~~
rsync
Heh.
In short, port knocking is a very, very short/weak password. And is a very
weak authentication measure.
This is absolutely true and nobody could argue that.
So if you only did port knocking, or if you _depended_ on port knocking,
you're making a bad decision.
I believe in defense in depth, and therefore I think that port knocking _on
top of everything else you already do_ has good value - especially considering
how simple and lightweight knockd is and my experience of it running stably
for _years_ at a time.
------
geori
Rackspace
\- pricing and offerings are similar to AWS
\- they answer the phone when you have problems
~~~
fraXis
Their support is first rate and the #1 reason I won't change to another
provider. There is nothing better than opening a chat window and having
someone who is knowledgeable respond and who can get the problem fixed right
away. To me that is worth the premium I pay for using Rackspace over a service
like Azure or AWS.
~~~
smacktoward
I've been a big Rackspace Cloud user and advocate here on HN and elsewhere for
6+ years now. This line of thinking was exactly why.
However, in the last year, my experience has been that the quality of support
has collapsed. It _used_ to be I could open a chat window and get a
knowledgeable person who could fix my problem, but that's not the case
anymore. Now I get someone who either doesn't understand what I'm saying or
tells me they can't do anything to help unless I upgrade to their gold-plated,
top-of-the-line support tier, which would push them from "somewhat more
expensive" to "absurdly expensive." It's gotten so bad that I'm in the process
of moving all my systems off their cloud at the moment. I can't in good
conscience recommend them anymore.
It's all very disappointing, as quality support has been Rackspace's key
differentiator forever. My guess is that they've decided to give up competing
with AWS on the high end and Digital Ocean et al on the low end, and
concentrate on selling into Fortune 500s who need basic VPS services and are
willing to pay out the nose for them. But that leaves small shops like mine
out in the cold, which is too bad.
------
4ad
Joyent.
\+ DTrace available
\+ Great predictable performance
\+ Solaris
\+ no VM
\+ fast non-capped network
\- client tools are written in node.js (but you can write your own if you
really care)
Doesn't matter to me, but might to some people:
\- Relatively few datacenters
\- Solaris (they do have KVM too, so you can run whatever, but then you lose
the many benefits of zones)
Also don't matter to me, but might to some people:
\+ completely open source stack, so you could install the same environment in
your private datacenter
\+ it does not use openstack
------
lmm
I use AWS:
\- Everything integrates with it, there's a lot of tooling
\- Safety of the herd
------
woohoo7676
Using Azure currently:
\- Good PaaS offerings and pretty easy to setup
\- Bizspark ($150 free of services per month per account (and yo u can create
up to 5 accounts) for 3 years)
\- Decent speed (Azure SQL used to be a dog, but has gotten a bit better with
the V12 updates)
------
deet
AWS, because it's what I know to be productive with from previous work. In the
early stages of my current business I cannot afford to take the time to learn
anything else.
With AWS I know the two biggest risks to its use are vendor lock-in and cost.
Vendor lock-in is easy to mitigate early on through wise tech choices, and
cost is something to mitigate later at scale when it matters more. And it
preserves the option to use those additional, propriety services if at some
point it is deemed worth the lock-in risk.
------
ZainRiz
A good first question to ask is what are your needs?
Do you just need to host a web site with some storage? If you're looking at an
ecosystem which services interest you?
You might find this article useful: [http://www.troyhunt.com/2015/02/stories-
from-trenches-sizing...](http://www.troyhunt.com/2015/02/stories-from-
trenches-sizing-and-penny.html)
[Dislaimer: I'm a dev in the Azure Web Apps (was called Azure Websites) team]
------
gmac
Historically, Linode. Good performance, and decent value.
More recently, Heroku. Expensive, but I love being able to leave the sysadmin
to someone else.
~~~
jerhinesmith
I set up my first rails app on Linode about 5 years ago and used to scoff at
people that went the "easy" route with Heroku.
Now I'm using Heroku and wonder why I wasted so much time before worrying
about disk space, permissions, rotating logs, etc. I definitely get it now.
------
blfr
I use RunAbove[1] usually. Mostly because it's nearby (low latency), based on
OpenStack (opensource and all the tools works ootb), and inexpensive.
[1] [https://www.runabove.com/](https://www.runabove.com/)
~~~
sfilipov
Looks too cheap. For how long have you used them and is all your experience
positive. Their $/GB RAM is more than twice cheaper than DigitalOcean which
are already quite cheap (compared to AWS and the like). Apparent downside of
RunAbove is that the ration of cores to memory is lower.
~~~
blfr
It's OVH, the largest hosting provider in Europe. Cheap is their thing.
I have been using RunAbove specifically since October. It's fine. Even the
sandbox instances.
------
Blackthorn
I've used Google Compute Engine to host new web sites. It's cheap, it's rock
solid.
I'm still running my fairly large wiki on Linode, just because I haven't had
the time to properly migrate it to Compute Engine.
------
dbrianwhipple
Cycligent.com - layers on top of AWS. Allows for multiple simultaneous
versions of an app on the same URL. Also, the easiest deployment I have ever
seen.
------
mbesto
If I have a standard Rails app then Heroku. For anything more complicated it's
either DO or AWS. All services on AWS (R53, S3, SES, etc)
------
steelframe
Google Compute Engine. Their Cloud Security team is staffed with rock stars in
the industry.
------
ic-junk
Microsoft Azure
\+ Admin portal is good
\+ Git Deploy to "Websites" is slick with no setup (builds binaries)
\+ NodeJS / C#
\+ Azure Integration in Visual Studio
\+ Aggressive pricing
The other reason is there are other services that I can use if I don't want to
build my own.
~~~
chrisseaton
Are you posting exactly the same comment multiple times with slightly
different wording and a new user account each time?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9583236](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9583236)
~~~
denzil_correa
I think the user just copy-pasted the linked comment. The linked comment
account is quite old - 2487 days.
~~~
ic-junk
No copy and pasting. 2 Different users posting around the same time. We just
had same experiences. Mine was originally all in one sentence but I edited it
after and reformatted to be bullet points.
~~~
johnmaguire2013
The same points, in the same order, in the same hour.
~~~
ic-junk
It was within 5 min of me posting. It wasn't displayed when I was typing mine
in. I don't have the same points. I didn't even mention SQL DB because I don't
use it. I see I also mentioned NodeJS where they didn't. I also talked about
Azure integration in Visual Studio and they didn't. These points are quite
typical for Azure users.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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