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Ask HN: How to cope with social anxiety and panic disorders, without drugs? - init0
======
kristianp
I believe that the current best practice is that the combination of cognitive
behavioural therapy and drugs together is better than either alone.
Good luck.
~~~
init0
I was on cipralex!
------
Edmond
Speak to a psycho-therapist, they can recommend behavioral modification
strategies... however if you speak to such a professional and they determine
that drugs are best for your situation, you really should follow their advise.
We take meds for headaches and all types of other ailments, there should be no
stigma in taking meds for mental problems when you need them..
hope this helps.
------
factorialboy
Meditation. Google "Jon Kabat Zinn", "Ajahn Brahm" or "Eckhart Tolle".
PS: Meditation has nothing to do with Hinduism, Buddhism or any other
religion. ;-)
~~~
init0
:D Nice!
------
farseer
Strenuous exercise or other activity that keeps your mind busy throughout the
day. A hectic work routine helps.
------
cpt1138
Maybe strenuous exercise and eating right. It's done a lot for my anxiety.
YMMV.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Real Turing Machine Running The Busy Beaver - pkrumins
http://www.catonmat.net/blog/a-real-turing-machine-running-the-busy-beaver/
======
rauljara
11 minutes 7 seconds to run 107 steps. 667 seconds to run 107 steps. That
machine is about a 0.16 hz processor. And yet still I want one so badly...
------
mdg
pkrummins is the Lil' Wayne of blogging.
~~~
pkrumins
What is that supposed to mean?!
~~~
mdg
You and Lil' Wayne both are consistent and put out lots of material.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
In China it's difficult for non-Chinese to pay - saadmrb
- doesn’t accept btc
- doesn’t accept usd
- doesn’t accept credit cards
- doesn’t accept chinese fiat<p>Only accepts wechat pay. And you can only order with their wechat mini app.<p>It has been very hard to pay for things without wechat pay. Incredible how much things have changed since last here.<p>And wechat pay is only available to people that connect a Chinese bank card. The country runs on a fully KYC digital payment rail.<p>a few more data points:<p>- plenty of places accept cash but virtually every time they have asked can we use wechat instead?
- some accept cash so infrequently they are literally carrying no cash to make change. had to run to a store to make change for my cab driver
======
tdeck
Imagine how much control Tencent (company behind WeChat) could have over
someone's life in such a system. If you live in China and your account gets
closed, tough luck.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: A Twitter management app I've been working on over the last year - kryptonix
http://www.cannycrow.com/
======
kryptonix
I've been working on this app for about a year on and off now. Everything was
designed/built by me personally.
It's still very much beta and still needs a lot of work but I'd love to hear
any comments you guys have.
There is a free trial if you'd like to try it out =)
------
edoceo
What's up with that pricing? Why $6.35/mo and then $13.25? Mark it 8 dude,
make the next step 15.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Has any progress been made on large format E-ink displays? - semisight
Context upfront: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13771203" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13771203</a><p>I'd really like to have a decent (let's say >13") display to hang on a wall in my room and display weather, my todo list, etc. It doesn't necessarily have to be E-ink proper, but I like the idea of having something that doesn't emit its own light. More like an electronic whiteboard.<p>Alternatives include something like the Vestaboard, which is <i>not cheap</i>, and probably fairly noisy.<p>Are there products I'm missing here?
======
GekkePrutser
If you're interesting in building your own you can get a 12" one from
waveshare:
[https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/12.48inch...](https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/12.48inch-
e-paper-module.htm)
This is the black/white one, they do a black/white/red one too. But beware,
they take really long to refresh (the red color takes several refreshes to
appear). And the one with red is on backorder till June.
It can be powered by a raspberry pi (or ESP32 or Arduino) and is (much)
cheaper than the ereader options of the same size: Only about $170.
PS Beware: You can't simply start up a user interface like X-Windows on it.
You have to write software to display on it. The display is addressed in 4
separate sections so it's not super easy.
~~~
bluedays
Neat. I was looking for one of these. Wanted to make a KindleBerry Pi to do
some writing/coding in a destruction free environment.
~~~
tinkertamper
I wanted this for some time, an eink coding experience for outdoor use and
good battery life. Do you know of any active projects online where people have
got this working?
------
lolryan
The technology is there, but E Ink (the company) is steadfastly refusing to
lower prices because they believe there's a market for this. Now go to Alibaba
and find that you can get a flexible, full-color OLED sheet for the same price
as a given size E Ink panel.
Go on eBay and buy an older NOOK device (they all ran Android) for $20, tape
it to your wall, and point at your web page of choice.
~~~
TaylorAlexander
A great example of patents strangling innovation. If anyone has more concrete
details on the way this company is holding back this technology I’d love to
read details. Thanks!
~~~
amenod
The irony is that they are probably limiting their profit too. With lower
prices the number of applications would skyrocket and they would get much
bigger income.
The only reason I can think of is that scaling the production would be
difficult for some reason?
~~~
areactnativedev
From skimming through their website, it looks like they target business
applications with bigger displays (Health Care, Transportation, Industrial &
Packaging, ...) which I would assume are high margin contracts.
So maybe another reason would be that offering lower prices for big displays
would reduce profits from these business clients more than it would increase
profits from the additional low-margin mass-market volumes.
------
ipsum2
Have you looked at [https://remarkable.com/](https://remarkable.com/)? It's a
little smaller, 12" diagonal.
Dasung sells a 13.3" e-ink monitor: [https://www.amazon.com/Dasung-
Paperlike-13-3-E-Ink-Monitor/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Dasung-
Paperlike-13-3-E-Ink-Monitor/dp/B00MWEPM3C)
~~~
dheera
Can anyone comment on the difficulty (for a hacker) of using Remarkable with
Kindle books? I have a Kindle already, if that makes a difference in
generating DRM-free files of content I already purchased reading rights to.
~~~
enricozb
I have never been able to get EPUBs to reliably work on remarkable. My
solution is to convert them to PDFs.
~~~
jdkaiwei
You can also install KOReader on remarkable as a reader. Works better IMHO.
[https://github.com/koreader/koreader](https://github.com/koreader/koreader)
~~~
polskibus
If you do it, do you lose the ability to annotate?
------
mortenjorck
I've long wondered why electrophoretic displays (the generic term for E Ink,
which is a proprietary name) continue to be exponentially more expensive at
sizes larger than a Kindle while other technologies like OLED have become
vastly more affordable in larger formats over a similar timeframe.
The best I can tell is that there just hasn't been an investment in scaling up
fabrication anywhere near what the likes of LG (mostly LG, actually) has done
with >40" OLED panels. Presumably the demand isn't there yet, and so larger-
format electrophoretics remain the product of low-volume, high-cost
manufacturing processes.
~~~
lostgame
But e-ink technology isn’t ready to go out of the gate - the refresh rate is
still a _significant_ issue that makes it virtually purposeless for much
beyond reading. If it is at this point, it just didn’t happen quickly enough.
~~~
nitrogen
I'd like a very large e-ink display for artwork, signage, and metrics. It
doesn't have to refresh more than once every several seconds.
~~~
lostgame
Then you are a niche case. In order to forward a new technology, the masses
need to adapt it. Apple, for instance, had to upscale the manufacture of
Retina displays by starting with a proven successful product - then moving it
to the iPad, then moving it to MacBooks.
We had e-book readers for e-ink, but they stayed at a super slow refresh rate.
There was no reason to create a tablet sized e-ink display until the
ReMarkable removed the issue of the delay.
Now we will have clones of that, and after that we will see a push to larger
displays.
Mass manufacturing is hugely about cost balance vs. demand.
I think digital whiteboards in offices would be a great market for this.
Again, though, if you’re going to draw on it at _all_ there needs to be zero
latency.
~~~
dingaling
>There was no reason to create a tablet sized e-ink display
Of course there was; large-format publications like newspapers, magazines and
technical documents. All requiring large display area and not needing fast
refresh. But yet, all ignored by the manufacturers and so LCD tablets became
the default for those despite their drawbacks.
------
luka-birsa
Large format E-ink displays are currently used primarily in digital signage
scenarios (outdoor advertising, passenger information systems,...) - examples
are Soofa ([http://www.soofa.co/](http://www.soofa.co/)) and Mercury
Innovation ([https://www.mercuryinnovation.com.au/digital-bus-
stop](https://www.mercuryinnovation.com.au/digital-bus-stop)).
The largest size currently available is 42" and it is used in outdoor and
indoor scenarios. Indoor use is for education purposes as a digital whiteboard
- see Quilla ([https://www.engadget.com/2017-01-03-quirklogic-s-quilla-
is-a...](https://www.engadget.com/2017-01-03-quirklogic-s-quilla-is-a-42-inch-
e-ink-whiteboard.html)).
None of these are especially applicable for home use due to the price tag
(just to be clear, the display itself is very expensive). What you could do is
use Sonys larger format eInk tablet, use Remarkable EInk tablet or hack your
own solution from an older Kobo reader.
We're offering solutions somewhere in the middle - traditionally we were
focused on SME, where our devices are being used as universal digital signage
([http://www.visionect.com](http://www.visionect.com)) or tailored for room
booking ([http://getjoan.com](http://getjoan.com)), so a bit pricy for home
use. But we just launched a 6" device called Joan Home
([https://getjoan.com/shop/joan-home/](https://getjoan.com/shop/joan-home/))
that syncs to your calendar and are looking to expand it with new
functionality in the future. We're thing of integrations with home automation,
pomodoro timer, IFTTT, etc...
Comments on the Joan Home are welcome - as we're actively thinking of
developing this into a more feature rich product in next two months.
~~~
Operyl
What a cool product for meeting rooms! But .. and maybe I'm just not the
target audience, there's no way in any universe am I paying 250 bucks for a
"do not disturb sign" in my house. That's just way too expensive.
~~~
luka-birsa
Yup. We did get a lot of that with our meeting room solution. We'll be
expanding the feature set over the near future, to entice home users to go for
something like this even with a price tag of 250.
~~~
Operyl
I can't even imagine what you'd add to make it useful for 250 dollars. Like,
look.. If I don't want to be disturbed, I close my door. If I am OK with being
disturbed, it is open. That's not going to cost me 250 bucks. If the product
were in the 100 bucks range, maybe I'd bite, but it is far from that. This is
trying to be pitched to me as a home solution, but with the price tag of what
I'd consider for a company instead.
~~~
ionwake
I don’t see what your problem is with the device - it’s an e ink calendar for
250 euros thats cordless, I like it. Even tho it is expensive for me.
~~~
Operyl
“ Comments on the Joan Home are welcome - as we're actively thinking of
developing this into a more feature rich product in next two months.”
Just giving my feedback. Like I originally said, it’s a cool product, but it’s
got a price tag that makes it not a “Home” product like you just said.
------
ThrowawayR2
32" e-ink panels exist but are still too expensive to be practical for home
use: [https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2˝-monochrome-epaper-
di...](https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2˝-monochrome-epaper-display-
ed312tt2/)
The only commercial product I know of that uses it is from Visionect but it's
a meant for digital signage rather than as a computer display:
[https://www.visionect.com/product/place-and-
play-32/](https://www.visionect.com/product/place-and-play-32/). It's less
expensive than their earlier system but still around $2500.
~~~
pplante
I thought that might be an awesome splurge someday, then I saw the refresh
rate of 750ms. Nearly an entire second to see a screen repaint every time I
move a cursor.
~~~
tekknolagi
For a smaller size, apparently the displays made by Dasung are pretty nice.
------
solarkraft
This isn't perfectly within your search criteria, but you may still find it
interesting. Just today I researched the available solutions for driving a
ED097OC1 (compatible) display, which was built into the Kindle DX, has a
diagonale of 9,7" and can be obtained for about 30€ [0].
There are some projects dedicated to driving the screen with an ESP32, which
already has WiFi built in, has good low power modes and is pretty cheap as
well [1] [2].
There's also a project driving e-ink displays with an stm32 [3] and one to do
it with an FPGA [4].
Beyond 13" things get really expensive and hard to find - best I can do is
12,48" for 150€ [5].
[0]:
[https://aliexpress.com/item/32983492389.html](https://aliexpress.com/item/32983492389.html)
[1]:
[https://github.com/dqydj/PaperBack_EPaper_Display](https://github.com/dqydj/PaperBack_EPaper_Display)
[2]: [https://hackaday.io/project/168193-976-e-paper-controller-
ki...](https://hackaday.io/project/168193-976-e-paper-controller-kindle-
screen/log/174926-v2-underway.A)
[3]: [https://hackaday.io/project/11537-nekocal-an-e-ink-
calendar](https://hackaday.io/project/11537-nekocal-an-e-ink-calendar)
[4]: [https://github.com/vd-rd/project_rorschach](https://github.com/vd-
rd/project_rorschach)
[5]:
[https://aliexpress.com/i/32929629021.html](https://aliexpress.com/i/32929629021.html)
~~~
solarkraft
So that's the current state of available stuff - The ESP32 stuff is quite
interesting because it's all you need for an IoT module and in the right
version it even has enough RAM for full screen updates.
I don't know specifics about the voltage conversion yet (these screens need
about -20V - 20V), but I reckon that if you're really frugal you could make a
battery powered wall display for under 60€ with this stuff - and that's part 1
of what I'm thinking of doing.
Part 2 would be to stick in a Pine64 SOPINE System On a Module [6], put on a
capacitive touch layer [7] and run a mainline Linux with KOReader and maybe
even a Wayland compositor to be able to run any Linux app (the high contrast
GTK theme seems perfect for this application).
All hopefully for under 200€, which is a lot less expensive than other
e-readers if that size and a whole lot cooler.
Any tips?
[6]:
[https://store.pine64.org/?product=sopine-a64](https://store.pine64.org/?product=sopine-a64)
[7]:
[https://aliexpress.com/item/32984143128.html](https://aliexpress.com/item/32984143128.html)
[8]:
[https://github.com/koreader/koreader](https://github.com/koreader/koreader)
------
robocat
I suspect you would be interested in this:
[https://hackaday.com/2016/01/19/a-digital-canvas-thats-
hard-...](https://hackaday.com/2016/01/19/a-digital-canvas-thats-hard-to-
spot/)
It matches the LCD lighting to the ambient light, so that it doesn’t have that
“glowing screen” look, but instead looks like a flat picture.
Something else irrelevant to your question, but trés cool:
[https://hackaday.com/2019/08/17/great-artificial-daylight-
vi...](https://hackaday.com/2019/08/17/great-artificial-daylight-via-broken-
tvs/)
------
agys
In Shanghai they are used as timetables at bus stops. Almost A2 size in some
stops and smaller ones, about A4 (vertical) at others... The small ones had a
clock which updated every minute (windowed mode) while the passenger data
updated in longer intervals, probably hourly.
~~~
riqbal
Thank you for the info. I just searched and found this post
[https://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2018/11/15/e-ink-
fo...](https://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2018/11/15/e-ink-for-the-
shanghai-bus-system)
~~~
agys
Yes. That's the bigger one!
It's strange that the list of buses is sorted by bus number and not by time…
Also: finally a display where advertisement is probably not so attractive.
~~~
yabatopia
> It's strange that the list of buses is sorted by bus number and not by time…
You don't randomly hop on the first bus that arrives at your bus stop. You
need the bus that brings you to your desired destination. The bus number is
important to know you're on the right bus. Sorting by bus number makes it
easier to scan for arrival time of the bus you actually need.
~~~
tda
Also, every route can be displayed on the board, even if the next ten buses
are all on a different route with better service. Better to have the next bus
for every route than just the next expected buses
------
Abishek_Muthian
There is a need gap for 'Affordable E-Ink large external displays'[1].
Dasung, Onyx have been market leaders in this category and they are expensive.
There are E-ink tablets from several other manufacturers as mentioned in other
comments, but they rarely are external displays.
Then there are reliability issues with cheap DIY E-Ink displays, they don't
last long and especially when displaying low refresh rate data like Weather,
todo list; there will be ghosting issues quite soon.
I'm not exactly sure on whether manufacturing large E-ink external displays is
just an unit-economics problem which will get resolved with improvement in
technology or there is some underlying Intellectual Property issues from the
likes of Amazon,Dasung,Onyx etc.
[1][https://needgap.com/problems/43-affordable-e-ink-large-
exter...](https://needgap.com/problems/43-affordable-e-ink-large-external-
displays-eink-displays)
~~~
scottlocklin
Not only are Onyx expensive; they're basically unusable. A rooted Kobo H2O
with koreader in landscape mode is vastly better.
Sony is apparently still selling the DPT-RP1, and it still doesn't connect to
Linux or read DjVu. I guess at least it has an OSX client.
~~~
j88439h84
Onyx boox note pro is expensive but fwiw I really like it.
~~~
Abishek_Muthian
Are you using it as an external display? Is it seamless as in traditional
color monitor albeit the refresh rate?
~~~
te0006
The BOOX MAX 2 sadly doees not expose its full native resolution through the
external monitor interface which is a real shame. Worse, none of the supported
resolutions are integer fractions of the native resolution so scaling
artifacts are unavoidable. It doesn`t even seem possible to sacrifice some
border area and use a suitably-sized subwindow of the screen (e.g. FHD
1920x1080) without scaling. (If somebody knows better, please leave a comment)
Onyx pretends there is no problem and cheerfully tells frustrated users to
adjust their OS theme and font sizes, over and over again [1]. Shame on them
for ruining what could have been a great and unique feature. because wouldn`t
it be for this problem, the MAX2 would finally be a decent sunlight-ready
external laptop screen, at least for text writing and some light coding. Well
perhaps the problem is solved in the new MAX3 device.
[1] [http://bbs.onyx-international.com/t/max2-hdmi-not-useable-
wr...](http://bbs.onyx-international.com/t/max2-hdmi-not-useable-wrong-
display-resolution/58)
~~~
Abishek_Muthian
Thanks.
Reg feedback for Onyx, you can try passing it to this YouTuber; he covers
electronic shows world over and seems to have good relations with Onyx -
[https://mobile.twitter.com/charbax](https://mobile.twitter.com/charbax).
------
trevyn
Soooo surely someone here knows something about this... at the fancy Harry
Potter ride at Universal Studios Hollywood, they have “living paintings” as
part of the ambiance, which are very clearly digital. They are large and in
color, TV-sized. But they _look_ like they are not emitting their own light.
My best guess is carefully controlled brightness and some special coating
(they have a paint-like finish), but that’s just a guess. Anyone know more
details?
------
macawfish
I'm using the Dasung Paperlike HD and I really like it for writing code. 13
inches, but it's real nice.
I imagine in 5-10 years or so, we'll see what you're imagining.
~~~
PaulStatezny
Could you share about the refresh rate and how it impacts you when
programming? Is it at all an obstacle, at least at first?
Also, can you share more about the resolution?
This timing is superb; I'm this very week considering purchasing a Pro-F
(1600x1200) from Dasung, which has faster refresh but lower resolution. Also a
few hundred $$ cheaper. Really curious if you think the lower resolution will
be a bummer, or if the higher frame rate will be unnecessary.
~~~
macawfish
Go with your gut. The higher resolution means that the text looks more like
"real ink", but I'm not sure if this is a big deal for you. For me, the
refresh rate is just fast enough that I don't notice it while I'm editing
text.
One important thing to consider, which maybe I should have shared in the other
post: I don't really enjoy using the mouse on the e-ink display, because of
the refresh rate. It's doable, but noticeably choppy.
If using the mouse is important to you while you code, go for the faster
refresh rate!
The lower resolution might actually be nice too since it might better match
your other displays.
~~~
PaulStatezny
Thanks for the response, I just ordered a 2019 Pro-F from Dasung. I'm hopeful
it will help my eyes like it has helped yours.
------
keanzu
_A Canvas Made of Pixels (claybavor.com)_
The most interesting problem to tackle was “the blue glowing screen problem”.
One of the many ways that screens give themselves away as screens is by
emitting light that is “out of character” with the surrounding environment.
They can be too bright or too dark relative to the things around them, and
indoors, displays often seem too blue.
I solved these problems with what I call “luminance matching”. The basic idea
is to sample the light falling on the frame several times a second, and then
adjust the display and image parameters so that what’s displayed is “correct”
given the surrounding environment.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10900439](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10900439)
~~~
ipsum2
This is what Apple is doing with True Tone.
~~~
keanzu
Clay Bavor published in Dec 2015 but Apple filed their patent on March 30,
2015 - seems Apple just got in under the wire there.
[http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...](http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-
adv.html&r=17&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=\(apple.AANM.+AND+20160623.PD.\)&OS=aanm/apple+and+pd/6/23/2016&RS=\(AANM/apple+AND+PD/20160623\))
~~~
heavenlyblue
So Clay Bavor did _not_ invent that
~~~
keanzu
"A year ago over the holiday break, I created a large-scale digital “canvas”"
posted December 27, 2015
[https://www.claybavor.com/blog/a-canvas-made-of-
pixels](https://www.claybavor.com/blog/a-canvas-made-of-pixels)
He claims to have invented it prior to Apple, but he didn't publish before
they got their patent in.
~~~
heavenlyblue
What makes him think they didn’t invent it earlier? It takes time to publish a
patent.
People like that are the worst. The sorest losers. I have unfortunately known
quite a few of them and they tend to overestimate their abilities by a lot.
~~~
necovek
There is no such claim on the blog post: instead, a commenter here is making
that case.
Anyway, I hate the use of "invent" here: people come up with similar ideas all
the time — mostly because the tooling and technology of an era makes a set of
problems solvable in a "novel" way that was not possible beforehand. Who gets
to patent anything does not necessarily mean they "invented" it.
~~~
keanzu
Good point. Clay at no point used the word "invent" \- that was entirely me.
My rather rudimentary understanding of law means that prior art would
invalidate any patent. Had Clay published his design when he claimed to have
built the device (Dec 2014) it would seem to have rendered Apple's patent
worthless, or nearly so.
A patent is a form of intellectual property protecting an invention. An
invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition or process.
If it was a invention worthy of patent in March 2015 - according to Apple -
then it was an invention worthy of patent in Dec 2014, when Clay claimed to
have devised and built the device.
------
Animats
They exist. They still cost more than color displays. Larger sizes are still
"call for quotation". The current sales pitch seems to be "you don't have to
wire AC power to the sign", for bus stops and such.
------
thomas
Relevant article with many related updates and context:
[https://cloudconfusing.com/2020/02/07/e-ink-monitors-
ready-f...](https://cloudconfusing.com/2020/02/07/e-ink-monitors-ready-for-
prime-time/)
------
JoshTriplett
Since the demise of Pixel Qi, does anyone else have a credible laptop screen
based on e-ink, that has a high enough refresh rate to be usable, and/or the
ability to switch from transflective/zero-power e-ink mode to a normal screen?
~~~
Waterfall
[https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/circuitbreaker/2020/1/...](https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/circuitbreaker/2020/1/6/21051340/lenovo-
thinkbook-plus-e-ink-screen-price-date)
There's going to be a big display revolution soon. Microled will probably
outclass everything until we're at cheap retinal laser displays.
------
j88439h84
Boox makes large e-readers. They're not cheap but they are good.
[https://shop.boox.com/products/boox-note-pro#custom-
tab-1](https://shop.boox.com/products/boox-note-pro#custom-tab-1)
~~~
akavel
Kinda look sold out... _nudge nudge hint hint_ at all the super fancy Business
People of HN...
------
matheweis
There’s an article on the front page right now about an individual who created
an art project displaying a newspaper page with a 31.2” eInk display:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22831323](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22831323)
Unfortunately it looks to be quite expensive, but the technology is there.
As others have already pointed out, the newly released Remarkable 2 sounds
exactly like what you’re looking for.
[https://remarkable.com/](https://remarkable.com/)
------
TACIXAT
Also interested in reflective (non backlit) LCDs. The only ones I've seen are
very small.
~~~
mhh__
Like the sharp memory LCDs?
They're pretty cool but I think the limiting factor is demand rather than
technology (although they do have a pretty niche construction in that the
control sillicon is AFAIK actually fabricated inside/along the LCD panel)
~~~
TACIXAT
I'm actually more interested in a high refresh rate, non backlit monitor.
Power isn't really an issue for desktops, so that part of eink doesn't appeal
to me. I'm trying to limit my time looking at illuminated sources.
Something like [1] with no front light.
1\. [https://youtu.be/kDk-t6XkFvc](https://youtu.be/kDk-t6XkFvc)
~~~
namibj
Would greyscale be ok? If so, you should be able to delaminate a panel and
replace the backlight with a reflector. If you'd do that with a color LCD,
you'd have a very dark image, however.
------
Mikho
Here is E-Ink's 13.3˝ ePaper Display:
[https://shopkits.eink.com/product/13-3%cb%9d-epaper-
display-...](https://shopkits.eink.com/product/13-3%cb%9d-epaper-display-
ed133ut2/)
31.2˝ monochrome ePaper Display:
[https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2%CB%9D-monochrome-
epap...](https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2%CB%9D-monochrome-epaper-
display-ed312tt2/)
And here is 42˝ monochrome ePaper Display:
[https://shopkits.eink.com/product/42%cb%9d-monochrome-
epaper...](https://shopkits.eink.com/product/42%cb%9d-monochrome-epaper-
display-ed420tt1/)
Pricey, unfortunately. But does the work.
------
sureklix
Good question, I wonder the same. I would say E-ink is still the best bet in
terms of no-light emission property. Someone from ReMarkable could give really
good insights as they are the hottest startup building a product within this
space. Other than that possibly the cheapest option would be to tile old
kindles and find a way to interface with them...
Sad that Amazon makes Kindle very closed to modification in terms of software.
Therefore I am a huge fan of ReMarkable because an underdog may allow us to
finally build e-ink apps: [https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-
reMarkable](https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable)
------
efreak
> It doesn't necessarily have to be E-ink proper, but I like the idea of
> having something that doesn't emit its own light.
Such as an older LCD panel without a backlight? It doesn't sound like you're
looking for anything special here.
~~~
tomxor
Was thinking something similar - rather than an old panel you could take a
newer large high res panel, chosen carefully so it's easy to separate from the
back-light.
I wonder what it would look like with just paper behind it instead? (or a
slightly more reflective white material). I wouldn't expect color to
"transflect" very well, but it might work ok as a simple 1-bit screen, fully
transmissible as possible reflecting off the paper, or fully opaque.
The LCD still needs continuous power, but far far less than the backlight.
That might end up being a superior balance... a small amount of continuous
power, with the benefit of up to 60hz refresh rate if you want it.
~~~
gen3
This sounds pretty similar to the display on the Pebble Time. It was a color
LCD, sometimes marketed as a low power LCD or reflective LCD. For the majority
of the time the display didn't use the backlight. They don't seem to be widely
manufactured in my attempts to look for them... I should check again!
~~~
numpad0
Sharp’s Memory LCD, I think. Combination of SRAM cells to hold state in each
pixel and improved reflexive backing, otherwise normal LCD, so data input can
be stopped without losing contents.
Also to parent comment: backlit LCD without backlight looks like brownish
tinted frosted glass. Transreflexives look like calculators and never like a
paper. There were high contrast monochrome variant in those Memory LCD
products and it looked like half silvered mirror, respectively.
------
numpad0
I forgot to reply to the previous post on topic but is there someone looking
for a single purpose typewriter laptop?
One that I know is Kingjim Pomera line. They have a few reflexive LCD models
based on some rare Toshiba uC, an E Ink model that runs on good old
ARM926EJ-S, IIRC, and a color backlit LCD model that just runs Android Linux
stripped bare(no Android GUI at all). Some people are running X on the last
one.
Those are only available in Japan with JP106 keyboard(think of ANSI with ISO
return, ISO symbols and two extra keys next to spacebar) and I can’t assure
hackability, but as an input...
------
hkiely
There has been a great deal of improvement in color sub 12“ displays in the
CPG space. Start watching for them at Walmart and Target.
------
myuseraccount
Artec Design offers products for digital signage based on E Ink's 9.7", 13.3"
and 32" panels:
[http://www.artecdesign.ee/products/e-paper-digital-
signage-p...](http://www.artecdesign.ee/products/e-paper-digital-signage-
platform/)
------
technobabble
I use a DPT-RP1 13”. I use it everyday, however the pen has an adequate
writing experience and the build quality isn’t great. I’ve used the ReMarkable
before and it has a much better build quality and a better writing experience.
Foe just an electronic whiteboard there are Boogieboards.
------
Vordimous
I found this on Hacker News. does it count? [https://onezero.medium.com/the-
morning-paper-revisited-35b40...](https://onezero.medium.com/the-morning-
paper-revisited-35b407822494)
------
j45
QuirkLogic builds large 42" e-ink displays that double as whiteboards.
I would suspect they have smaller ones too.
[https://www.quirklogic.com/collections/all](https://www.quirklogic.com/collections/all)
------
macawfish
Check this out, a 32 inch reflective LCD:
[https://www.j-display.com/english/news/2016/20160520.html](https://www.j-display.com/english/news/2016/20160520.html)
~~~
solarkraft
Looks cool! Where can I get it?
~~~
macawfish
Good question!
I found a demo here on YouTube:
[https://youtu.be/4hu0B2F4HU4?t=12m](https://youtu.be/4hu0B2F4HU4?t=12m)
------
cosmoian
Visionect 32“ or for outdoor soofa.co 42“ EInk itself has a Whiteboard now
------
husamia
[https://onezero.medium.com/the-morning-paper-
revisited-35b40...](https://onezero.medium.com/the-morning-paper-
revisited-35b407822494)
------
cosmoian
Check out Visionect 32“ - we use 42“ for outdoor - check out Soofa.co
------
NiceWayToDoIT
ReMarkable 2 ?
[https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2](https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2)
------
lowdose
Magic Mirror?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7696017](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7696017)
------
arvinsim
An iPad-sized, Kindle-like reader would be a godsend.
~~~
solarkraft
These things do exist (Sony DPT, Onyx Boox, ReMarkable) - they're just more
expensive than you'd expect them to be considering what they can do.
~~~
beezle
Remarkable has a premium for the ability to write on the display with tactile
feel and response time near identical to ordinary pen/pencil.
~~~
namibj
The Eink Carta generation (300dpi, 4-bit greyscale) has about 15Hz refresh
rate when driven in 1bpp mode (black/white only). Combined with efficient
partial refresh, this sounds like it'd not be more than a stylus sensor behind
the display (as usual), and some software to properly translate this into
partial refreshes.
The premium is not really high just from them having to spend particularly
much. Either they make very nice margins on it, or it's really that expensive
to get a screen that size.
~~~
diffeomorphism
> this sounds like it'd not be more than a stylus sensor behind the display
> (as usual)
And that would be a wrong guess. Eink readers with wacom styluses are not
particularly new (e.g. Hanvon, onyx etc.). The remarkable 1's "claim to fame"
was a greatly improved latency _compared to these_ , i.e. to be much better
than what you describe.
~~~
namibj
I tried one. And the screen did not seem any faster than the "EInk Carta" one
in e.g. the Tolino Epos readers. I assume they fixed the issue with software
being in the way of latency, and seem to make extensive use of partial
refresh. And, yes, they did seem to integrate on a much lower level than any
other recent consumer HID->screen drawing pipeline.
Back in the days of the C64, it was normal to have sub-frame average latency
with +-0.5 frames jitter, due to low-level control that prevented artifacts
when drawing directly to the framebuffer.
------
csours
Hah, this question is a blast from the past! I guess I kind of gave up at some
point.
------
downshun
Is it that hard to tile smaller displays together?
------
CHsurfer
BVG
------
est
There are some large E-ink display at bus stops in China
[http://einkcn.com/post/216.html](http://einkcn.com/post/216.html)
[https://www.sohu.com/a/330365162_100238338](https://www.sohu.com/a/330365162_100238338)
I think it's a waste of tax-payers money. Besides why it's not been stolen
yet?
For consumer electronics I found modern e-ink tablets have very good refresh
rate. Watching video is pretty smooth.
~~~
missosoup
> Besides why it's not been stolen yet?
Because it's not really useful to anyone.
Anything worth stealing in China does get stolen, like their attempted solar
cell bicycle paths.
------
Waterfall
If you don't need refresh, a drawing board can be suitable. You can use this.
[https://m.aliexpress.com/item/4000550295706.html?pid=808_000...](https://m.aliexpress.com/item/4000550295706.html?pid=808_0000_0131)
OLED can work very well and I have used it for night reading over the eink
display Kindle use. You may be interested in reflective LCDs like epaper too.
A window outside is better for weather and writing a todo list is a better
reminder. If you change your goal from remembering to do things and knowing
how the outdoors is, you'll see that a large eink screen is not at all a
productive use of money nor will it be the most optimal for knowing the
weather or reminding you to do things. Writing notes in class helps you
remember more than typing it, which in turn is better than taking a picture of
the whiteboard. Famous tech enterprisers such as bill Gates and Steve jobs did
not allow electronics to be used as learning tools for their children because
they deemed them too distracting.
~~~
wolco
In fairness their children haven't done anything in the tech space or much of
anything near tech/science. Of the 7 children: Jobs kid's one is a writer,
celebrity son, goes to school. All Standford grads or attending. Of Bill
gate's kids one goes to art school, the rest not much.
I would not copy them unless you have the billions for them to fall back on.
~~~
Waterfall
In higher level education they also use the familiar chalkboard rather than
electronics. I use this not to say the merits of their children's occupations
(regression to the mean is common in families of great achievements) but as a
warning of what people in tech see as a threat to their own children's well
being. Electronics are wonderful but not for everything. If screens work
better for you, perfect! They have been a hindrance to me, addiction to
screens is very common today and I am weak enough to fall into they category.
~~~
necovek
Wow, "regression to the mean".
Creating something motivates most of the people on this planet, and without
going into specifics, I would claim that Gateses and Jobses of this world are
not all that rare as far as their abilities are concerned. Situation and,
well, luck, are a big part of where life takes people. And having been
provided for will discourage most from being as driven to "succeed" (in either
financial or tech/scientific sense, two most common accepted ways to success
on HN).
Which is to say: don't judge according to your standards of "success".
And raising kids is anything but science, unless you have such a large number
of them that statistics applies (though even then, you'd probably be breaking
a bunch of laws if you tried to be scientific :)).
As such, addiction to screens is usually, imo, an addiction to specific type
of content, or rather interaction (or lack thereof) type.
~~~
Waterfall
If they're not that rare, why are they rare? Where did I make a judgement on
their success or even use that word? Are you replying to the right person? I
doubt you've looked into the theory behind screen addiction (I didn't believe
it either). It's the vivid colors and the effects they have on your brain
according to neuroscience, plus the manipulation that companies utilize. I've
changed my screens to grayscale and have no such problems now.
~~~
necovek
I think I explained why they are "rare" even if they aren't: circumstances,
motivation and drive to succeed in a particular way, a way you classify as
"great achievements" (not success, sorry for equating it: I might have missed
some nuanced differences there).
It's actually quite interesting that you even consider Gates and Jobs having
"great achievements" (other than business success, which is clear), yet
condone screen addiction (which their core business were mostly about).
A quick search does not give me any study relating technical properties of
screens to addiction-like effects: do you have any pointers? (Other than the
common "LED-light-interferes with sleep patterns".)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
"Give me the 100 most recent messages" / syncing channel posts in buddycloud - imaginator
http://buddycloud.com/cms/content/%E2%80%9Cgive-me-100-most-recent-messages%E2%80%9D-or-why-message-synchronisation-so-difficult-open-social-n
======
jfoutz
step 7 would be a lot nicer with message estamates.
Even a poor estimate will reduce the amount of data you have to shuffle around
a lot. Just a simple moving average of the last 5 posts would give great
results.
something like
for(Channel c : channels)
{
messages = c.requestLastNMessages(estimateForChannel(c))
c.messagesPerHour = requestsPerHour(messages)
totalMessagesPerHour += c.messagesPerHour
}
for(Channel c : channels)
{
updateEstimate(c, Math.max(5,c.messagesPerHour/totalMessagesPerHour))
}
I think you want to keep the moving average in case something bad happens. a
buddy might update once a week, but after an accident or something, might
update very quickly. you'll want to track that.
~~~
imaginator
I think the solution is to build caching into the "home server" - it keeps a
copy / can quickly retrieve messages from a remote server.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Making closed-source software that handles personal data illegal? - seven-dev
Basically, if someone is handling your personal data, you need to be able to know exactly what they're doing with it.<p>Of course they'll always have other ways to access that data but it would be a good start.<p>That would also mean that the server would have to be as secure as possible because the code would be open to the public.<p>What do you guys think?
======
sharemywin
Depending on what you call personal data you could argue all data is personal
so all software must be open source?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Piercing Through WhatsApp’s Encryption (2) - Heliosmaster
https://blog.thijsalkema.de/blog/2013/10/08/piercing-through-whatsapps-encryption-2/
======
jlgaddis
In case you missed them, like me:
Part 1 of blog post: [https://blog.thijsalkema.de/blog/2013/10/08/piercing-
through...](https://blog.thijsalkema.de/blog/2013/10/08/piercing-through-
whatsapp-s-encryption/)
Part 1 HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6512310](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6512310)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Chrome Extension to find useful topics for products on Amazon - ddrum001
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gefilter-fish/bbllaogfafkckhodkhkiofnfoenjcnmd
======
busymichael
Up-vote for the product name: GeFilter Fish! I notice the first extension was
posted to the Chrome App store around Passover -- well done!
One place you could grow your app: I know that people who sell products on
amazon are always looking for popular items that they can improve. Items on
Amazon with large numbers of reviews and large sales volume, but where the
reviews reveal a flaw in the product are hard to find.
Those are products where people can make a new version that fixes the flaw of
the popular product.
If you could re-purpose your product to discover those products, I know amazon
sellers would pay for that info.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Advice on (Harvard) Grad School? - jaytera
Hi all,<p>Strange asking this question. I wanted to reach out to ask for advice around going to US Grad School as an international student, particularly with the aim of moving to the Bay Area to contribute to the startup ecosystem - perhaps with my own startup or perhaps to help others!<p>So at this time, the situation is a very fortunate one. I have a full-ride scholarship to Harvard this fall to continue my Architectural Studies (my gentleman's hobby...) Fortunately, I also get to skip the first year which means the course is 2.5 years with the last 1.5 years of those allowing me to take whatever option courses throughout Harvard and MIT - I'm curious about too much so that possibility is awesome.<p>On the other hand, I have now developed a lot of doubts about whether the overall situation will be worth it, both short and long term.<p>- I am British/Irish based in London. Thus have short term immigration problems despite having all visa paperwork.<p>- First semester+ will be remote (the embassies are closed and they will be bound to have a ton of backlog to work through, providing COVID doesn't again provoke the government to shut down immigration in winter). Working alone without really meeting anyone properly/having the campus experience really drops the value of going back to university.<p>- Unfortunately for all, it seems quite likely that international working visas will be attacked and reduced (H1-B, OPT etc). Another drop in value.<p>- My self-propelled study (learning now to pull together software the past year), would be slowed down significantly. At least on my own, I would be able to learn much more outside of a university. Especially a remote university.<p>- I have some fantastic opportunities in London where I would actually be paid to go to university, with all the uncertainty, this option is getting more attractive.<p>Thus it's a bit more of a nuanced than that I'm used to!
======
jaytera
\- Extension Comment -
Going back to the idea of the Bay Area (which is somewhere I believe I will
end up somehow), will it help me a lot to be in the country? Could anyone
manage to get anything done bombing it to the valley on a tourist visa? What
would you do if you were in my situation?
Apologies for the long post, it's a situation that I'm really questioning and
struggling to answer. The tuned-in wisdom of you guys on HN would help a lot!
~~~
KuriousCat
You seem to be keen on startups, have you explored startup schools/incubators?
~~~
jaytera
I have - infact I'm just at the end of going through one now
------
giantg2
I feel like startups value credentials less than experience. I would probably
just jump into a startup now so that you can continue to learn while getting
real life experience and building that network.
~~~
jaytera
Agreed, although I find a big disconnect between what I'm genuinely interested
in and the start-up scene here in London/Europe and turned down a few startup
offers ultimately for that reason. May be naive but with a visa but there is
generally much more exciting opportunity (purely around startups) in US and SV
in general - and the visa is what I'm missing and grad school would deliver.
~~~
giantg2
Oh, ok. Have you reached out to any US-based startups that you are interested
in? Perhaps you can convince them they need a remote European team to help
them expand or give them more off-hours support from a different time zone.
~~~
jaytera
This is an absolutely great idea - I'll get on it
------
catacombs
Be prepared for the debt to follow you for a while.
~~~
jaytera
What debt?
~~~
catacombs
Student loans, unless, of course, you got an entirely free ride to Harvard.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Version 2.084.0 of DMD, the D reference compiler, has arrived - pplonski86
https://dlang.org/blog/2019/01/05/dmd-2-084-0-has-arrived/
======
stevefan1999
Congrats to the D dev teams. It is so sad that D is so underrated and was
eclipsed by other languages such as Go and Rust. D is definitely a diamond in
the rough
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How much do you spend per month? - tuqweid
I am a software developer in London (UK) and spend GBP 7,200/month for a family of 4 (my wife, two children and myself).<p>This seems ridiculously high to me. However, this is after looking carefully at expenses, and reducing as much as possible.<p>This does NOT include housing costs, as I own my flat.
This includes paying GBP 2,200/ month for a nanny and GBP 800 for groceries.<p>We are trying to reduce our expenses as much as possible, but seem unable to do lower than that. We've bought a cheap second hand car, don't go to the restaurant any more.<p>I've been dreaming about Early retirement, Financial independence. However, this spending habit seems way too high.<p>I'd like to get an objective view on where my spending habits lie on the spectrum. So here's my question: please let me know which city/country you live in, how many people in your household, and how much money you spend per month or per year.
======
switch007
So after housing, childcare and food, you're spending £4,200/month? Is this a
troll? I'm not sure you've tried hard enough to reduce expenses. That is very
high for someone who wants early retirement. It'd be much quicker if you
enlightened us with what you spend it on.
And which spectrum are you referring to? People who earn your salaries?
A couple in London, both working full time, in good average jobs in London may
net around £5,500 month total (£50k/year each, 10% pension contributions).
Their mortgage might be £800-1700. Childcare, as you know. Council tax and
utilities might be another £250-400, groceries £200-600. £200-400 on public
transport. Many families are lucky if they have £1,500 left after all normal
expenses.
~~~
tuqweid
Thanks for your answer. No, this is not a troll unfortunately. We have about
GBP 900/ month of miscellaneous stuff that we can't classify in any regular
category. We have about GBP 500/ month of medical expenses that are not
covered by the insurance.
~~~
switch007
I don't mean to pry, but I'm confused about your medical bills and why you
have huge regular medical bills not covered by the NHS? I admit I'm somewhat
ignorant of NHS eligibility for non-citizens.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
3 Stages to Beating an Entrenched Competitor - fookyong
http://yongfook.com/3-stages-to-beating-an-entrenched-competitor
======
gtog
I think your first bit is misleading. You probably mean that you should be
looking to get out of the gate with the minimum feature set, and then move
into differentiation to build a loyal customer base. Trying to feature-match
from the get-go can cost a lot of time and money, with no guarantee that a
competitor won't blow you out of the water while you do so.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The effect of cryptocurrency mining on LTE spectrum - iminehard
https://github.com/iminehard/gpunoise/wiki
======
Animats
If you just ground the device ground to a solid earth ground, RF emissions
will usually go way down. The mounting stake and screw of a PC-slot card is
its grounding point. He's bolting those things to painted metal that's bolted
to other painted metal. Just sand the painted metal down a bit at the screw
points before you attach, tie the frame pieces together electrically, and
connect to a power plug ground. Check for ground continuity with an ohmmeter.
~~~
oasisbob
It would take some serious "skill" to plug in a PCI device and not have it
grounded. There are at least a half dozen ground pins in the interface itself.
I don't see what tying the GPU to ground again is meant to accomplish - it's
not adding any shielding to the system as a whole.
DC continuity is not a good measure of impedance as you move into higher
frequency RF signals. Wires that look like low-impedance connections can
easily become accidental antennas.
~~~
dogma1138
It’s not since for PC there is ground to earth through the case since the
(power) ground through the power supply is often interrupted and does not lead
to true earth.
~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
Why? The power supply is a metal box in contact with the metal case; it is
really not connected internally?
~~~
oneweekwonder
As parent said "painted metal". In this video showing how pc cases is made[0].
They mention they automate the powder coating of paint. So the external case
should be well insulated.
[0]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX2i-QhPCD0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX2i-QhPCD0)
~~~
Animats
_As parent said "painted metal"._
Look at the pictures in the original article. He built his open racks from
multiple painted metal parts. The metal parts probably don't provide a solid
path to ground. Connecting the ground stake to a big piece of metal that's not
grounded adds an antenna to the thing and makes emissions worse.
Easy to fix. Use a Dremel tool and grind off the paint where the stake is
screwed into the metal rail. Use jumper wires (properly, green ones) and
crimped screw lugs to connect the rails together. Connect those to something
that has a grounded case. Check with an ohmmeter to see that there's
continuity between the metal cooling plate on the GPU and the ground pin of
what plugs into the wall. Should be less than 1 ohm. Use an outlet tester to
make sure your wall outlet has a valid ground pin. Now most of your RF hash
gets clamped by the tie to ground.
------
superkuh
My interests in cryptocurrency and my interests in radio astronomy started at
about the same time, ~2010. I've definitely been able to notice that broadband
low VHF noise when mining at home. By now I have literal years of recordings
of it. For me it's worst around 144 MHz with my series of AMD GPU (5770, 7870,
7950) using DVI.
------
fra
I wonder: isn’t this just the kind of things electronics get FCC tested for?
How did nvidia get accredited by an FCC certified lab given the strong
emissions in those bands?
~~~
blattimwind
Graphics cards only have to comply to EMI standards while mounted inside a
computer chassis.
Ultimately the person/company putting a computer together (or importing it) is
responsible for the whole computer adhering to EMI standards.
~~~
exikyut
Heh, I just pictured a GPU inside an empty PC case, and then immediately
realized of course that wouldn't work, and am now wondering, how do you
generate the necessary load to correctly EMI-test a GPU?
Do GPUs include a secret "crank everything to 11" test mode feature that
exercises all the cores and RAM and everything, so you can just bolt it into a
case, maybe connect it to a fake motherboard that supplies 3.3V or whatever so
the card initializes properly... or do vendors test with a massive pile of
motherboards, measuring and offsetting for the EMI generated by each
motherboard?
~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
If the GPU + Motherboard passes EMI compliance, then the GPU - Motherboard
must also pass, since the motherboard doesn't provide shielding but only adds
noise. So I don't think the particular motherboard should matter. The measured
interference will always be >= to the real interference produced by the GPU
under test.
~~~
exikyut
Hmm, good point, didn't quite look at it that way.
But now I'm wondering if there are motherboards out there that radiate a
little bit more than they should, and force peripheral vendors to do extra
work clipping EMI in their own products.
This is probably not true, since all PCI card vendors would have to test their
products with tons of different boards.
------
universenz
This seems like the sort of tool you could use to find large mining rigs that
have been set up in suburbs.
~~~
dogma1138
Thermal imaging is likely going to be better worse case you find a growhouse.
------
maxander
This sort of RF signature could allow an "ecowarrior" to go around finding and
sabotaging mining outfits. (Or, y'know, for a boring old burglar to go around
stealing GPUs.)
------
tatersolid
Why not enclose your “open” racks with some cheap aluminum screening from the
hardware store?
Attach with Velcro. Also keeps out debris and literal bugs as a side benefit.
------
yuhong
It probably does not help that the use of the lower ranges for LTE is
relatively new.
~~~
Scoundreller
Which also penetrates through concrete and drywall better...
------
chx
Eventually these cryptoclowns will hit a frequency the FCC will rue and then
we will finally have some much needed respite of this hype as they are shut
down, hard.
~~~
HarryHirsch
The article cited says the FCC has already started:
[https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2018/02/bitco...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2018/02/bitcoin-miner-in-nyc-home-interfered-with-t-mobile-network-
fcc-says/)
The crackdown can't happen soon enough!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Chemist Who Hasn't Showered in 12 Years Explains Why He Doesn't Stink - molecule
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-chemist-who-hasnt-showered-in-12-years-explain-why-he-doesnt-stink
======
PhantomGremlin
Previous discussion about 3 weeks ago.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10367852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10367852)
Not showering or bathing might seem gross to most inhabitants of first world
countries, but it's also the default condition for many poor people around the
world. And it has been the default condition for most of humanity throughout
most of history.
Personally, I love taking long hot showers.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Chicago95 Linux Theme - clircle
https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95
======
userbinator
The GUI elements look right for the most part, but the font and spacing gives
it away --- the way it's rendered just screams "Linux" to me, for some reason.
Here's a previous attempt at something similar, and once again the fonts
produce a "something is off" feeling:
[https://kmandla.wordpress.com/projects/lookalike-windows-
xp-...](https://kmandla.wordpress.com/projects/lookalike-windows-xp-classic/)
~~~
smt923
Honestly it might be a trivial thing to most people but I really do find the
way Linux tends to render fonts to just be really telling and ugly, this has
genuinely put me off using Linux more for development stuff as it's a big
problem with VSCode in my experience
~~~
carbocation
I use the go font[1] for VSCode on Ubuntu 18.04 and I find it to be pleasant.
1 = [https://blog.golang.org/go-fonts](https://blog.golang.org/go-fonts)
~~~
Jaruzel
Took me while to find _just_ the TTFs...
Here if anyone else just wants the fonts:
[https://go.googlesource.com/image/+/master/font/gofont/ttfs](https://go.googlesource.com/image/+/master/font/gofont/ttfs)
/
Edit: They don't work with Windows. :(
------
dmitrygr
That looks beautiful. Why don't we make nice clean Uis that use space well
anymore? Why is everything now light grey on dark grey, and 80% blank space?
~~~
seba_dos1
Protip: Don't use GNOME :)
------
rocky1138
I just set this up on LXDE (Lubuntu). It's great. I had to combine it with the
Openbox theme 'Micro95' in order to get the correct title bars, though.
------
lamby
(Can this really be MIT/GPL given the artwork..?)
~~~
tux1968
That must really depend on the jurisdiction, no?
------
aceperry
Brings back some horrific memories. I was scarred by the windows 95
experience, which is how I got started on linux.
------
unsatchmo
Cursed theme
------
agentofoblivion
Why is this a thing? Serious question, not being snarky.
~~~
agentofoblivion
Why would someone want their modern computer to look as if they’re on Windows
95? That’s a reasonable question.
And F the elitist douche that thinks I’m not smart enough to read Hacker News,
as if tech people are just sooo brilliant.
~~~
dleslie
There's no need for a greater purpose or a deeper need or a technical goal.
Someone wanted it and decided to make it. That's all there is to it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tumblr (No Revenue) Investment Values It at $800 Million - liuwei6
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904009304576530920265948358.html
======
vicngtor
Um last time I checked we are still in a bubble
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Problem with PaaS - renaebair
http://www.intridea.com/blog/2012/6/25/the-problem-with-paas
======
daulex
He makes some very good points, but I think it's still very early days for
PaaS and it's evolving at a very rapid pace.
I'm sure functionality such as "load balancing between multiple data centre
providers" isn't too far around the corner.
~~~
gsiener
Exactly, just came here to say that. Heroku has some serious cash and
resources post-Salesforce.com acquisition, seems like they should prioritize
redundancy across another provider or whatever datacenter(s) Sfdc are using.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Slack Needs to Die in a Fire: Replace Channels with Threads - teejayvanslyke
http://www.guilded.co/blog/2016/08/24/replace-slack-channels-with-threads.html
======
dglass
"But we'd probably end up discussing it in the same channel where once we were
talking about the hot new restaurant down the street or posting pictures of
cool explosions."
If you're talking about production bugs and restaurants and explosions in the
same slack channel then the problem is not with slack, it's with the teams
communication style.
We have #general and #random channels for these exact conversions. Why can't
you create a #restaurants or #explosions channel? Hell, we even have a #giphy
channel that is reserved for all gifs. This helps us keep cat gifs out of our
important conversions. All of our development communication happens in
#engineering or #frontend. We don't experience the problems the author is
ranting about at all.
Regarding threads: what happens when the site goes down and suddenly 5
different engineers create a thread about it. Now you have 5 different
conversations trying to debug what just went wrong. Do you merge the threads?
What happens if you need to split a thread into two conversations? I get that
threads are good in certain contexts, but to me it's just more complexity
switching between multiple threads.
It's not the tool that's broken. It sounds like the author needs to
communicate to others that certain conversations are meant for certain
channels, and they need to enforce that rule when it doesn't happen.
------
dexwiz
I think Salesforce Chatter is a good implementation of this. Basically any
object in Salesforce (cases, contacts, any custom object like bug reports) has
a chatter feed attached to it where people can post and reply. Its got
functional @mentions and file attachment. There are also generic Group feeds
for communication with a group of people not relating to a specific object.
However, it's more of a comment thread than a real time chat application. You
have to refresh the page to see new updates. Also since there is no where to
"hang out," it's hard to talk to someone directly. Sometimes you post and have
to @mention three of four groups to find someone to respond.
------
smb06
Happens in our dev channel all the time. Optional threading of a new
conversation in an existing channel would be really helpful.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Tech Press: Screw Them All - asnyder
http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/07/tech-press-screw-them-all/
======
sc68cal
The news industry. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and
villainy. We must be cautious.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I got into YC after applying six times. Here's my advice for YC applicants - DanielRibeiro
http://iamwil.posterous.com/i-got-into-yc-after-applying-six-times-heres/
======
leoh
I'm sort of confused with the obsession some people have with applying to YC.
It seems like something a lot of people do now because it is sort of
prestigious and because a lot of the companies seem to do well afterwards.
Maybe that's good enough, but I often feel confused reading posts like "How to
get in to YC" because I'm not sure I've read one of these posts yet where the
author articulates a clear reason why getting into YC was so important.
~~~
jacques_chester
> _I'm sort of confused with the obsession some people have with applying to
> YC._
Reading HN will give you a skewed perspective. This site is literally and by
design the HQ for YC applicants, alumni and fellow travellers. A lot of those
fellow travellers worship pg.
Read the comments whenever a new essay is posted. Lots of /r/cringe material.
~~~
jacquesm
Don't blame the band for the groupies.
Being in YC definitely has its advantages, it will - all other things being
equal - give a stamp of approval to a start-up that will translate into easier
funding, more press coverage and more 'buzz'. Those are real advantages when
it comes to competition.
Right now, planetwide in my opinion there is no other single advantage as
large as YC for as little dilution. If you can spare the time for an
application when you're seriously (that's the bit that many people seem to
overlook) working on a startup then applying to YC is an absolute no-brainer.
This has 0 to do with pg worship. And being part of the YC alumni network is a
benefit all by itself.
~~~
lifeisstillgood
Plus 1 on this
In fact I would say that _any_ entrepreneur / startup Network will far exceed
in returned value the costs of setting up. For example a mailing list and
regular meet at the Starbucks nearest londons silicon roundabout would mean
more to introduce new startups into the area than any government program
There may already be one
------
tferris
I am slightly annoyed from the fanboyism glorifying YC between the lines. The
post is full of good advice + quotes from PG and I highly appreciate YC's
contributions to the startup ecosystem but people shouldn't think that being
part of YC is the only option. People like the OP telling us that they needed
six attempts to get in YC send the wrong signal: that YC is the one and only
way to get a real entrepreneur. PG created a great brand and yes, it must feel
amazing going through YC but it could also mislead young entrepreneurs --
instead of building a great product they focus too much on the application
process and potential credentials they might get from YC. You can get all the
knowledge, peer pressure and get in front of any investor you want without
being part of YC.
~~~
iamwil
I started applying to YC back in 2005. That's why it was six times between
2005 and 2011. I wrote it assuming you already know what the benefit of YC is
and want to get in, or that you know, but are on the fence about it.
------
iamwil
Hey all. OP here. When posterous announced the acquisition a year ago, I moved
all my posts from both blogger and posterous to wordpress.
[https://iamwilchung.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/i-got-into-
yc-a...](https://iamwilchung.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/i-got-into-yc-after-
applying-six-times-heres-my-advice-for-yc-applicants/)
Excuse the ugly template, but the story's still there.
~~~
flipside
As a 4 time YC reject I really liked this post. I'm surprised I haven't come
across this before given how much research I've done on YC.
On monday we're starting our beta, so we'll finally be able to apply with
traction data.
“Be so good they can’t ignore you” are words to live by.
------
codex
Wow--the author wasted _five years_ of his life trying to get into YC? Talk
about a huge opportunity cost. He could have founded multiple companies in
that time and learned air more by year 2013. Sometimes you just have to stop
making excuses for procrastination ("I'll do that hard stuff once I get into
YC") and just start doing.
~~~
felixchan
How do you know he wasn't working on his companies WHILE he was applying to
YC?
~~~
nostrademons
Yeah, it's not like life stops in-between YC rejections. I applied to YC 4
times between SFP2005 and SFP2008. In the meantime, I redid the backend for a
100,000 user website, wrote one of the top Haskell tutorials on the web,
launched 2 products for a financial software startup, founded a company,
pivoted said company 4 times, watched said company die, ported Arc to
JavaScript, and learned a whole lot about programming, startups, and myself. I
did eventually have a chance to be a cofounder of a YC startup (not by
applying the normal way, but because PG put me in touch with one of the
applicants in SFP08 that needed a technical cofounder and they offered me 20%
of the company), but by then I'd realized that it wasn't really what I wanted
at that point in my life. If the need arises, I'll apply again, but by now
I've realized that my drive is to innovate and I don't care whether that
happens in a big company or a startup.
I'd like to think of YC as something like the SATs, APs, or patent
applications. It is a credential. It makes life easier for you in the future.
Pick it up because you're ready for it and have already learned the skills you
need for it on other more worthy projects, but don't make it your life's goal.
Once you do that, it's only a weekend's worth of work.
------
DanielRibeiro
A sad moment, as Posterous shuts down[1], we can lose some amazing history on
the web.
[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5228997>
~~~
kintamanimatt
A lot of people will migrate their content, but there's hope that a lot of it
will be preserved by the Internet Archive.
You're covered at least!
[http://web.archive.org/web/20120106215046/http://iamwil.post...](http://web.archive.org/web/20120106215046/http://iamwil.posterous.com/i-got-
into-yc-after-applying-six-times-heres)
~~~
derefr
> there's hope that
Is there some way to poke the Internet Archive, saying "please get a fresh
backup of this whole thing right now before it goes down?"
~~~
kintamanimatt
I don't know. Maybe there's some way we can reach out to someone high up to
make it happen quickly.
------
jhuckestein
Will, I'm glad you wrote this. I'm sure it'll help some people who were
unnecessarily discourage by a YC rejection.
Slightly OT: This post could really benefit from some editing (re clarity,
overall length, succinctness). I like to think a lack of editing is why some
people think they "can't write". They don't realize how much editing helps,
even if they do it themselves.
Next time you write something, ask a few friends to review it, especially if
you intend to _channel PG_ ;). I'd be happy to help, too (I'm by no means an
expert, though. I'm not even a native speaker)
------
brianmcconnell
I've never been much of a joiner, and suspect that many entrepreneurs are of
that mold. The concept of incubators as a sort of real world B school makes a
lot of sense to me, sure it works for many people. For those who choose to
follow their own path, the following advice served me well.
* Position yourself as an expert on X, where X is a skill/trade/industry that is hot but not overcrowded (and where you can stand out, even if you're not the smartest person in the room)
* Get consulting gigs, which should be pretty profitable if you avoid tournament type situations with too many people chasing work (see above)
* Work on a couple side/hobby projects that could turn into a business, experiment with them, and watch results
* When something starts to roll, scale back on consulting biz
* Archive every contact you have, always be networking by sharing ideas with people (versus networking by hard selling).
Odds are any one of your ideas sucks. Eventually one of your ideas will click
with users, and you'll be in a good position to build on it. Until then,
you're building skills, network and stashing cash for future use, plus you're
not under arbitrary deadline pressure to succeed or else.
------
kt9
> If you're a single founder, It's definitely harder to get in. But that
> doesn't mean you can't be a single founder. For single founders, if you can
> demonstrate traction, it's much easier to get in. Traction solves
> everything.
I would have thought that the reason a single founder would apply to YC would
be so that the program would help gain traction (or pivot till product/market
fit).
If a single founder builds a product and demonstrates traction then IMHO the
hard work of building a company and getting customers is done and advantage of
applying to YC is less apparent (atleast to me).
In other words, if you build a product and get traction and have customers
then what is the value of applying to YC vs just pitching to VCs?
I'm sure I'm missing something here. I just don't know what it is.
~~~
napoleond
Getting traction does not necessarily mean having customers, FWIW.
------
6thSigma
I'm surprised YC doesn't do more Skype interviews, especially with teams right
along the cutoff line.
------
m1chael3ma
Still relevant advice to people applying to YC today.
------
Macsenour
And still single founders are frowned on...
~~~
TillE
By YC. You absolutely don't need them to be successful - see Rob Walling's
approach, for example.
~~~
Macsenour
I agree completely.
------
nraynaud
> Founders are more savvy now, and no longer ask questions like, "So when we
> get money from investors, when do we have to pay them back?"
this is frightening, where are the first-timer business-clueless technical-
geniuses who did the innovation?
------
BlindRubyCoder
I'm not so sure that applying for YC is different from any other VC firm. But
it is good advice here.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
FP Complete's online Haskell IDE is now free for community use (try it) - chrisdone
https://www.fpcomplete.com/
======
chrisdone
I'm super excited to submit this. Hacker News was really open to messing with
Haskell when I announced “Try Haskell”
([http://tryhaskell.org/](http://tryhaskell.org/)) a while back. Loads of
people said, “yeah, great, but now what?” This is a nice next step.
I'd recommend:
1\. Open Learn You a Haskell in a window:
[http://learnyouahaskell.com/](http://learnyouahaskell.com/)
2\. Open up anything that takes your fancy from the tutorials:
[https://www.fpcomplete.com/school/starting-with-
haskell](https://www.fpcomplete.com/school/starting-with-haskell) (they have
interactive snippets)
3\. Open up the IDE in another window.
Start learning and playing!
It's a full IDE with sweet Haskell-specific features like built-in Hoogle and
type information of any sub-expression. This is SOOO nice for learning.
Similar to Github, for _extra_ features there's a 9.99/mo upgrade. And coming
next month is external editor support for the hardcore Emacs/Vim/Sublime. I
work at FP Complete, so if you have questions, feel free.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Flux OSKit: Reusable Components for OS Implementation (1997) - deepaksurti
http://www.cs.utah.edu/flux/papers/oskit-sosp97.html
======
peter_d_sherman
FYI: The main project URL listed on the site,
[http://www.cs.utah.edu/projects/flux/oskit/](http://www.cs.utah.edu/projects/flux/oskit/),
results in a "page not found" error.
The correct URL apparently is:
[http://www.cs.utah.edu/flux/oskit/](http://www.cs.utah.edu/flux/oskit/)
------
rnd0
1997? The OSKit is old enough to go out and drink beer now, yikes.
They stopped development on it shortly after this, didn't they? Like within 4
years? It's easy to see why, given changes in the codebases that they pulled
from (Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD) to support newer hardware.
It's been over 15 years but the impression I have is that the complexity and
need for "glue" makes OSKit impractical for learning,and the dated nature of
the drivers makes it impractical for cherry picking.
I wonder if we have anyone from the osdev community/forums here interested in
commenting. It seems like the kind of thing they'd be very disapproving of[1].
[1][https://wiki.osdev.org/Duct_von_Tape](https://wiki.osdev.org/Duct_von_Tape)
------
adamnemecek
Reminds me of genode
[https://genode.org](https://genode.org)
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genode](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genode)
------
troglobit
Wow, I have fond memories from when we tried porting GNU/Hurd to this. Good
times!
[https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/microkernel/mach/history.h...](https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/microkernel/mach/history.html)
------
snaky
> We built our system, called ML/OS, by porting the Standard ML of New Jersey
> (SML/NJ) implementation [6] to run on a PC using the OSKit. SML/NJ is a
> complex, Unix-based system comprising about 144,000 lines of code, in over
> 1000 source files. The run-time model used by SML/NJ is fairly exotic - for
> example, the system runs completely without a stack, using instead very
> aggressive heap-allocation and garbage-collection techniques to manage
> procedure frames.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Dell to Buy EMC in Deal Worth About $67B - necubi
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-12/dell-to-acquire-emc-for-67-billion-to-add-data-storage-devices
======
markhuge
To any EMC employees reading this: Dell is probably going to pay out your
vacation balance as cash in a lump sum prior to the merge. Around that time
your EMC title will be mapped to something at Dell. There's a pay range
associated with the new title that probably won't match your current title.
If you're planning on sticking around (and your manager likes you), see if you
can work with them to tweak your title before the deal goes through.
~~~
walterbell
Would such HR changes also apply to subsidiaries like RSA and VMware?
~~~
markhuge
No idea. My personal experience with a Dell merger was with a company that had
no subsidiaries.
------
hkmurakami
So numbers from the article: Dell went private in 2013, valuing itself at
$23B. EMC has a market cap of $53.6B (Dell would have to pay some sort of
premium on this). Dell is raising $40B in debt to finance the purchase.
Let's say Dell pays a 20% premium on EMC and buys it for ~$65B. Let's also say
that Dell's market cap has increased somewhat since 2013, since the market has
generally been a bull market. Let's say that their $25B valuation is now $30B.
So the companies combined have a valuation of $95B, with $40B in debt. They
both seem like high cash flow, low margin businesses. I'm very curious to see
the manner in which (by which I mean the degree to which they will use
questionable financial engineering) they use these "business assets" to drive
home a favorable financial outcome for the stakeholders.
~~~
CrazyCatDog
Dell has maintained a relatively legit bond rating...this will certainly
change things. Their cost of capital will increase, and I'm not quite sure I
ne'er stand the strategic value in the acquisition... Why not just partner/jv
it?
~~~
einrealist
Maybe, they will transform from a hardware to a cloud infrastructure company.
Because many companies are moving applications into the cloud and buying less
servers or or just avoid or give up on custom data centers at all. VMWare may
be the key.
~~~
CrazyCatDog
Folks,
We are not yet in a world where cloud > local for the top 45% of Dell's _most
profitable customers_ (think big, very big). And if we ever get there, I don't
think they will be looking to Dell/VM for a solution.
Those "whales" are going to want a more integrated solution, so Amazon,
Google, and Msft will take their cloud services one step further--further away
than Dell/VM will ever be able to take it: dedicated fiber for their largest
customers. How? Any of these three can lour their existing client base as bait
and cut a deal with the Verizon and ATTs of the world for bulk (dedicated)
bandwidth purchases. And if they don't have enough existing clients (Azure)
they can post a cash-bond guaranteeing revenues to the telecom (just like msft
did with the record companies to sell music in Win8).
At any rate, when your borrowing cost is exponential, and you have no cloud
business to speak of, you won't be able to take your services to that next
level. I may end up eating my words here, but this is too little too late for
Dell--the beginning of the end if you will.
This is not financial engineering, but rather Silverlake and EMC denying
reality, or at least postponing it until they can each cash out.
~~~
koko775
> We are not yet in a world where cloud > local for the top 45% of Dell's most
> profitable customers (think big, very big). And if we ever get there, I
> don't think they will be looking to Dell/VM for a solution.
> Those "whales" are going to want a more integrated solution, so Amazon,
> Google, and Msft will take their cloud services one step further--further
> away than Dell/VM will ever be able to take it: dedicated fiber for their
> largest customers. How? Any of these three can lour their existing client
> base as bait and cut a deal with the Verizon and ATTs of the world for bulk
> (dedicated) bandwidth purchases. And if they don't have enough existing
> clients (Azure) they can post a cash-bond guaranteeing revenues to the
> telecom (just like msft did with the record companies to sell music in
> Win8).
You're kidding, right? Dell has _provided_ the solutions for two of those
three companies. The datacenter segment of their business is both successful
and demolishing its only real competitor: a crumbling HP.
Dell's able to build and deliver ridiculously energy efficient datacenters at
scale, very quickly. And they do, for Microsoft, eBay, and a number of other
companies.
Their competitive advantage on the hardware side is substantial. Controlling
VMWare would catapult the software side of things very, very far forward. If
they want to build a new cloud platform, they've got extremely strong
fundamentals to launch it from. If not, well, they'll probably power whoever
does build it in some way (and profit handsomely).
------
dang
Url changed from [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-12/dell-
said-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-12/dell-said-set-to-
reveal-emc-purchase-monday-at-about-33-share), now that the deal is confirmed.
We've also rolled back the time decay on this post as a way not to fragment
the threads, since submissions about this are coming in by the dozen.
~~~
detroitcoder
Out of curiosity how often do you tweak the time decay of a given post? Also
do some posts have different time decays based on the content (eg. Who's
Hiring? vs YC job post vs standard post)?
~~~
dang
It's nothing fancy. We just alter an internal timestamp.
Yes: job ads have their own time decay algorithm that starts them out at #6 or
so and steadily lowers them over about 3 hours. There are other switches that
cause some posts (e.g. stories without URLs) to decline faster, but I think
they all work on other variables than time.
------
vessenes
I like this play, even if it's 15 years late. Dell had a shot at being AWS and
EMC put together in the '90s and 2000s.
I think if you're a large-scale commodity hardware integrator, and you look
around, you say "We better have a cloud offering right now."
Most interesting to me is that you now might have two cloud providers which
have a history of total focus on razor-thin margins, competing with a few that
don't have that DNA at all. I think Dell could be surprisingly compelling at
the cloud game with EMC and VMWare tech in-house.
~~~
dba7dba
While Dell may have had a shot at being AWS and EMC in 90's and 2000's, it
never entered into their mindset. They were PROUDLY claiming how they were not
wasting money on R&D but rather simply churning out boxes of computers as
cheaply as possible using innovations developed by others.
But it is good to see a possible competitor to AWS.
~~~
rodgerd
> They were PROUDLY claiming how they were not wasting money on R&D but rather
> simply churning out boxes of computers as cheaply as possible using
> innovations developed by others.
Yep. And the downward spiral of companies like HP was chasing them down that
path.
~~~
yuhong
That is partly because Intel beat them in many of their R&D though.
~~~
dba7dba
Apple? Samsung? Plenty of innovation from non-Intel.
Believe it or not one of the early thin/light Dell laptop that sold well was a
rebadged Samsung laptop. It was Dell X1 laptop. 2.5lb laptop with 12inch
screen in 2005, or even earlier.
~~~
yuhong
I was thinking of the workstation/server market, though HP did have their
Vectras back in the 1990s.
------
whocanfly
It is official now, [http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/secure/dell-emc-
tran...](http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/secure/dell-emc-transaction)
------
johnymontana
I'm curious how others think this will impact Spring framework, since Pivotal
(sponsors of Spring) is mostly owned by EMC / VMware. What is Dell's OSS
record and how does that fit into Dell's business?
~~~
anomnomnom
Also wondering about this. Interviewing at Pivotal this week. Should I be
reconsidering?
~~~
mattzito
I think you are so many degrees of separation away that you should be fine.
EMC has always been very hands off with VMware, and VMware is relatively hands
off with Pivotal.
The most possible disruptive outcome is that Pivotal spins out entirely, but I
don't see that happening for a while, or even being influenced one way or the
other by the Dell/EMC deal.
I wouldn't worry about it assuming you've got a timeline for the next 12-24
months.
~~~
tedsuo
Pivotal was spun out. It's a privately owned company with EMC, VMware, and GE
as large investors. OSS isn't going away at Pivotal any time soon, it's core
to a number of business models.
As an aside, Pivotal also heads up Cloud Foundry, which is an open source PaaS
that runs on top of every IaaS. We have been good at selling it to large
companies (I work at Pivotal). Everyone in this thread is wondering how EMC
breaks into cloud computing, but no is mentioning Cloud Foundry. That's
currently the tip of the spear.
------
ChuckMcM
Given Dell's experience with buying LeftHand networks I was surprised when the
WSJ indicated they were thinking of doing this. I would have expected someone
like NetApp to buy EMC (or perhaps Hitachi) but the enterprise storage
business has been banged around lately. When I was at NetApp, EMC were the
folks everyone wanted to be, the turn around still amazes me.
I guess at the end of the day its hard to be a successful storage company in a
world dominated by things like S3.
~~~
pinewurst
Dell didn't buy LeftHand, HP did and continue to sell it as StoreVirtual. Also
Dell was going to buy 3PAR but was outbid by HP, which is why they ended up
with Compellent.
ex-NetApp, ex-EMC and greatly preferred the latter as an employer even if I
miss my net worth at the former.
~~~
ChuckMcM
Your right, I was confusing them with EqualLogic (I went back and read this
page
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dell_ownership_activit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dell_ownership_activities))
to figure out what I must have been thinking about.
Thanks for the correction.
------
selimthegrim
So, how much more vulnerable does this make HP with its upcoming split?
~~~
aaronbrethorst
Meh, EMC has been a part of the walking dead for years. There were rumors a
few months ago that VMware— _a spinoff from EMC_ —was going to acquire EMC.
Dell doesn't care. They've been private for a couple years. No one's going to
pummel their stock tomorrow morning.
Anyway, HP has much more to fear from HP than they do from the synergistic
effects (lol) of Dell+EMC. HP is a total disaster, and is far more likely to
kill itself off than die from consolidation around it.
~~~
kbuck
Small correction: VMware isn't a spinoff of EMC, it's a subsidiary. VMware was
originally founded in 1998 and acquired by EMC in 2004.
~~~
geofft
My reading (and another comment implied the same thing) was that the rumors
were that EMC would simultaneously spin off VMware and then get the rest of
itself acquired by the newly-independent VMware. Here's a _Re /Code_ analysis
that got picked up by _Fortune_ :
[https://recode.net/2015/08/05/emc-considers-a-buyout-by-
its-...](https://recode.net/2015/08/05/emc-considers-a-buyout-by-its-own-
subsidiary-vmware/)
~~~
vonmoltke
Can't spin off a subsidiary that is already a separate, publicly-traded
entity. VMWare is only a subsidiary because another corporation, and not a
real person, owns a majority of the stock.
------
chocks
On a side note: Last year John Chambers the then CEO of Cisco made a
prediction about IT consolidation in the future, wonder if this might be first
pieces of that puzzle: [http://www.businessinsider.com/cisco-ceo-brutal-times-
for-it...](http://www.businessinsider.com/cisco-ceo-brutal-times-for-it-
coming-2014-5)
~~~
zupreme
This is definitely not the first. It's been happening in the networking and
software spaces for years. Now the trend is moving solidly into the storage
realm.
------
chocks
Here's the official press release:
[http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/secure/2015-10-12-de...](http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/secure/2015-10-12-dell-
emc-transaction)
------
samfisher83
Why is the stock still trading at 28? It looks like the market doesn't expect
the deal to go through?
~~~
crapshoot101
I think its more that the market is pricing in two things in its probability
estimation:
1) The deal won't actually close until next summer. Even if we know for
certain that the price is locked in at the numbers specified (due to collars
or what not), you're investing at $28 to get $33 while locking up assets for a
year, while still being subject to risk of Dell issuing a lot of debt that's
going to get more expensive (when the Fed raises rates later this year). Ie,
its a nice ~15% yield for 1 year, but its a risky asset. Also, unlike typical
cases where a company is in play, this trading price suggests that the market
doesn't think an alternate bid (IBM? MSFT? ORCL?) is likely to emerge, or at
least not a more substantial one.
2) The structure of the tracking stock is unique, and its not clear if the
biggest agitator in EMC (Elliot) is on board with this transaction.
My personal bet is that the deal will go through - but the markets are
probably pricing in the a) long time frame and b) potential debt exposure from
an interest rate rise that may blow it up. For what its worth, in most
transactions like this, there's always some gap between the "sale price" and
the trading price.
~~~
mcintyre1994
Elliot seem to be on board : [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/elliott-
management-comments...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/elliott-management-
comments-on-emc-dell-transaction-2015-10-12)
------
devonkim
I feel the most pain for the former Compellent engineers right now because
they're likely going to be the ones getting laid off since they'll directly
overlap with EMC's product lines except for the lowest budget stuff that
nobody in their right mind should use.
------
kriro
What's the ethical situation for a journalist who leaks this like? How long
and hard do you question the agenda of your source? Don't you usually need
multiple sources before you publish something like this? I'm not a journalist
but am curious how these "insider info that most certainly will influence the
deal price" scenarios are generally handled.
~~~
GBond
It is often the case a leak is intentional. The Journalist gets their story -
leaker get the intended word out with Anonymous Source protection (the
"greater" ethic). In this case the motive may be lead time for other bidders
to throw their hat in the ring.
~~~
yuhong
Thinking of it, this reminds me of the Twitpic fiasco. The problems need to be
fixed.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
WAT – A lightning talk by Gary Bernhardt from CodeMash (2012) - bontoJR
https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat
======
ColinWright
I haven't been able to find any substantive discussion of this, despite there
being at least twelve previous submissions. So many submissions, so little
discussion ...
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10092845](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10092845)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9918165](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9918165)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9845637](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9845637)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9706892](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9706892)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9154382](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9154382)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8529441](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8529441)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8529309](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8529309)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8458673](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8458673)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8387038](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8387038)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8225418](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8225418)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7698231](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7698231)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7313186](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7313186)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tanglewood: A brand new game for the Sega Mega Drive - whiskers
http://tanglewoodgame.com/index.html
======
gadgetoid
I came across this a few weeks ago, what really fascinated me was the
development kit video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLfNgKutK-g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLfNgKutK-g)
He uses an original SEGA Mega Drive/MegaCD development kit, and a crusty old
PC to go with it. I'll never complain about my developer tools again.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Free tool to schedule and receive SQL emails? - bruno2223
There is any tool to schedule a SQL query and then receive the results every day?<p>I need to receive an email every morning telling me if my crawlers did run fine last night. I can do this with a simple SQL query.<p>I am willing to build this tool (in Node.js) if this tool does not exists just yet.<p>* No SaaS, please. I'm looking for a self-hosted option. I do not want to give a read-only password of my database for anybody.
======
viraptor
Why not use cron?
mysql the_database << "SELECT ...." | mail -s "Daily report" your@email
You can insert some formatter in between if you want. If you'd rather send
emails from a proper account and not local mailer, you can use ssmtp and
configure a smarthost. ([http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-use-gmail-as-a-
smarthost...](http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-use-gmail-as-a-
smarthost.html))
~~~
bruno2223
But how to send the result of this SQL query in a beautiful table format in
email's body?
It would be nice to have HTML tags with CSS style.
I am thinking in build an easy tool to do that, really similar to your
solution using cronjob, but more fancy and easy to ready on email (also with
an .csv attached with all data)
What do u think?
~~~
flukus
> But how to send the result of this SQL query in a beautiful table format in
> email's body?
The same way. But get cron to invoke a ruby/python/bash script or program to
get the output you want.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Scientists assessed the options for growing nuclear power. They are grim - spenrose
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/7/11/17555644/nuclear-power-energy-climate-decarbonization-renewables
======
spenrose
Abstract of the referenced (and paywalled) PNAS article:
"Nuclear power holds the potential to make a significant contribution to
decarbonizing the US energy system. Whether it could do so in its current form
is a critical question: Existing large light water reactors in the United
States are under economic pressure from low natural gas prices, and some have
already closed. Moreover, because of their great cost and complexity, it
appears most unlikely that any new large plants will be built over the next
several decades. While advanced reactor designs are sometimes held up as a
potential solution to nuclear power’s challenges, our assessment of the
advanced fission enterprise suggests that no US design will be commercialized
before midcentury. That leaves factory-manufactured, light water small modular
reactors (SMRs) as the only option that might be deployed at significant scale
in the climate-critical period of the next several decades. We have
systematically investigated how a domestic market could develop to support
that industry over the next several decades and, in the absence of a dramatic
change in the policy environment, have been unable to make a convincing case.
Achieving deep decarbonization of the energy system will require a portfolio
of every available technology and strategy we can muster. It should be a
source of profound concern for all who care about climate change that, for
entirely predictable and resolvable reasons, the United States appears set to
virtually lose nuclear power, and thus a wedge of reliable and low-carbon
energy, over the next few decades."
~~~
nkurz
[http://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1804655115](http://sci-
hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1804655115)
------
sand500
How much good does putting the capital for a new nuclear power plant into
gridscale energy storage do?
~~~
spenrose
Those investments are happening anyway because they make sense on their own
terms.
"batteries have a slate of use cases and multiple value propositions; with
costs declining, analysts say there is much more capacity on the way."
[https://www.utilitydive.com/news/eia-700-mw-of-utility-
scale...](https://www.utilitydive.com/news/eia-700-mw-of-utility-scale-
battery-capacity-installed-in-us/514409/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I got over 1000 people (now 1275) to look at my auction by selling an idea - joubee
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=265391347
======
jasonlbaptiste
current bid: $5.50. proof pageviews != value.
------
joubee
Fair observation.... but the point was that people were interested enough to
have a look at this auction (much to my surprise). The auction listing cost $5
but the fun I had interacting with the sites users kept me entertained at work
all week :) Not everything has to be about money
~~~
pbhjpbhj
You got people to look at a random page on the 'net by advertising it on
social media sites. I imagine it had very little to do with the content of the
page.
~~~
joubee
fair point again.......... but people (at least a few) are engaged enough to
post questions etc so someone is reading the content. Remember the point of
the exercise was some FUN interaction with users
------
joubee
I'm not trying to say this is awesome marketing or anything of the sort. The
point was to get people, I've never meet, to read the listing, hopefully have
a laugh and then ask a question or contribute to the discussion.
Why so serious everyone
------
joubee
1400 hundred now and counting :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pennsylvania Is the Latest State to Tax Streaming Services - 6stringmerc
http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/7469636/pennsylvania-is-the-latest-state-to-tax-streaming-services
======
alexbock
How do they plan to collect this tax? Virtually no-one pays the "use tax" for
online purchases of physical goods from out of state unless the merchant is
forced to collect sales tax. My understanding is that states can only compel
companies to collect taxes up front when they have a physical presence in the
state of the consumer. Amazon has warehouses everywhere, but I wouldn't expect
Netflix, Hulu, etc. to have a physical presence outside of their home states
(well, Netflix might have DVD distribution centers, but that's not something
you would expect from streaming companies in the general case). If this is
going to be self-reported like the current use tax, it won't accomplish very
much unless they plan to step up enforcement of use-tax non-payment.
edit: Looking at the notice published by the state, it appears they're just
going to lump streaming services in with the general use tax.
> Starting August 1, 2016, the sales and use tax specifically extends to items
> delivered to a customer electronically or digitally or by streaming
Does anyone know if Netflix has a physical presence in Pennsylvania and will
actually be collecting sales tax when billing?
~~~
jeffmould
My understanding is that Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc... will be responsible for
charging, collecting, and reporting the tax. So if you live in PA, you will
now pay a 6% tax on your monthly Netflix subscription.
~~~
paulddraper
And what if Netflix fails to change, collect, or report?
Does PA get to drag Netflix into court in a state they've never been to?
------
unfletch
I live in PA and I'm an Apple Music subscriber. Looking at my receipts,
Apple's been charging me 6% tax all along. I wonder why, if this change to the
tax code just went into effect on 8/1.
[http://imgur.com/FvPdJHR](http://imgur.com/FvPdJHR)
~~~
6stringmerc
That is a really interesting question I think. Hedging for the presumed
inevitable? Article mentions that other states had already been assessing such
a fee.
------
allwein
What I'm curious about, is that every article I've read about this change in
Pennsylvania includes the following details: "Magazines, newspapers, and
digital version of the Bible are exempt from the new Pennsylvania tax."
This is correct about magazines and newspapers by subscription, and is also
true about physical subscriptions as well. However, there is nothing in the
new bill (or existing tax laws) about bibles or digital bibles being tax free.
In fact, existing physical bibles and other printed religious material is
already taxed.
So I find it amusing that this article and others keep publicizing this non-
fact.
Here's the full act if anyone is interested
[http://www.legis.state.pa.us/CFDOCS/Legis/PN/Public/btCheck....](http://www.legis.state.pa.us/CFDOCS/Legis/PN/Public/btCheck.cfm?txtType=PDF&sessYr=2015&sessInd=0&billBody=H&billTyp=B&billNbr=1198&pn=3731)
(PDF)
------
6stringmerc
Honestly this was the first article I'd come across even mentioning the
taxation concept of streaming. Makes me kind of feel like a chump for not
knowing about it prior. Got to start somewhere I guess.
If it was my cash going to politicians, I'd make dang sure they understood my
position favors a significant portion of the "streaming audio service" revenue
was earmarked and full-faith pledged to in-state music education programs.
------
fosco
what happened to net neutrality, I know I didn't sleep well last night but I
didnt know this was yet legal?
~~~
michael_h
This is unrelated to net neutrality.
~~~
metaphorm
the conventional definition of net neutrality is with respect to internet
service providers favoring certain traffic over others.
you're correct that taxation of internet streaming content by the government
is not what is conventionally meant by net neutrality.
however, I do think that taxation is highly relevant for issues of economic
fairness. is Pennsylvania subjecting streaming services to a different level
of taxation is their non-streaming competitors? that would be economically
unfair in a similar way that non-neutral network access would be unfair.
~~~
unfletch
> "Is Pennsylvania subjecting streaming services to a different level of
> taxation is their non-streaming competitors?"
The first sentence of the article (emphasis mine): "Pennsylvania has joined
several states in enacting a tax on digital streaming _and download
services_."
Unless you can think of a competitor that offers neither streams nor
downloads, no, they're not.
~~~
metaphorm
the relevant competitors would be cable television, subscription satellite TV
services, and various forms of offline media distributing the same content
(DVDs at Walmart for example).
~~~
unfletch
I'm not sure how offline competition relates to the "net neutrality" topic in
this thread, but any offline competitor necessarily has a physical presence in
the state, so it would have been subject to tax for from the beginning.
~~~
metaphorm
so not DVDs at Walmart then. what about satellite or cable TV?
~~~
HuggableSquare
DVDs at Walmart would be covered by sales tax, as would satellite and cable
TV, unless it's a basic subscription.
From Pa. Code § 9.2. Sales and use tax changes:
(2) Pay television. Pay television except for ‘‘minimum pay television’’ is
taxable. This includes anything charged to a customer for a service other than
minimum pay television service. For example, if a cable television customer
purchases basic service and in addition purchases a ‘‘pay’’ channel, tax is
owed on the price charged for the ‘‘pay’’ channel. Installation and repair
service for pay television with the exception of minimum pay television also
is subject to tax.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
pigz: A parallel implementation of gzip - wooby
http://zlib.net/pigz/
======
taylodl
Funny - my first thought on seeing the name 'pigz' was the parallel
decompression algorithm put 'gzip' in the wrong order!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Blazegraph 2.0 – GPU-accelerated distributed graph database - espeed
https://www.blazegraph.com/product/gpu-accelerated/
======
hmottestad
We've used Blazegraph at work for a project, and we have used a number of
other graph databases.
Blazegraph is a very niche product and requires a lot of time for setting it
up and adjusting it for your workload.
If Blazegraph peaks your interest then you should also look into Yarc platform
by Cray.
Should you want to look more into graphs, but don't want to spend endless
nights just trying to load your data then I would recommend Stardog, which has
just been a pleasure to work with.
~~~
pudo
The promises they make are really tempting. However, when I experimented with
Blazegraph last year, it ended up stuck more often than I could count, whether
during bulk import or in answering some ad-hoc SPARQL queries.
I can imagine that with extensive tuning, BlazeGraph provides a good database.
Just don't expect it to have the polish and convenience of a modern RDBMS or a
shiny NoSQL store :)
~~~
espeed
WikiData selected BlazeGraph to back its new Query Service:
[https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikidata-
tech/2015-Mar...](https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikidata-
tech/2015-March/000740.html)
Here's a spreadsheet showing WikiData's evaluation of each candidate graph
database:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MXikljoSUVP77w7JKf9E...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MXikljoSUVP77w7JKf9EXN40OB-
ZkMqT8Y5b2NYVKbU/edit#gid=0)
~~~
nl
Their selection "process"[1] was.. not what I'd choose to use, especially
since they changed the priorities as they evaluated. But then they abandoned
that process[2] so I wouldn't read too much into the evaluation.
Basically as far as I can see, the main reason BlazeGraph was chosen was this:
_[they] had me out to their office (a house an hour and half from mine)_ [3]
I'm sure BlazeGraph is fine. We were doing a very similar evaluation at the
same time, and the Titan situation screwed us over too. But we took a look at
BlazeGraph after Wikidata chose it, and found it pretty rudimentary at that
time.
[1]
[https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T90101](https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T90101)
[2] "As you can also see we didn't finish filling them all out. But we've
still pretty much settled on BlazeGraph anyway. Let me first explain what
BlazeGraph is and then defend our decision to stop spreadsheet work"
[https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikidata-
tech/2015-Mar...](https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikidata-
tech/2015-March/000740.html)
[3] [https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikidata-
tech/2015-Mar...](https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikidata-
tech/2015-March/000740.html)
------
espeed
MapGraph -- the GPU-accelerated graph engine -- has been rolled into
Blazegraph 2.0, and it looks like this means OLTP and OLAP can be combined
into a blazing-fast, single OLXP system.
From: [https://www.blazegraph.com/product/gpu-
accelerated/](https://www.blazegraph.com/product/gpu-accelerated/)
The original work was funded by DARPA and presented at the
2014 SIGMOD conference in a paper entitled, MapGraph: A
High Level API for Graphs [1]. This work is available in
open source. Later work, in collaboration with the
University of Utah SCI Institute [2] and funded by DARPA,
applied multi-core techniques running on over 750 M cores
on the Titan Supercomputer to extend this to Multi-GPU
traversal with Breadth First Search (BFS). On a cluster of
64 NVIDIA K40 GPUs, it demonstrated a throughput of 32
Billion Traversed Edges Per Second (32 GTEPS), traversing a
scale-free graph of 4.3 billion directed edges in 0.15
seconds, which was featured in a presentation IEEE Bigdata
Conference.
[1] [https://www.blazegraph.com/whitepapers/MapGraph-
SIGMOD-2014....](https://www.blazegraph.com/whitepapers/MapGraph-
SIGMOD-2014.pdf)
[2]
[http://www.sci.utah.edu/publications/Fu2014a/UUSCI-2014-002....](http://www.sci.utah.edu/publications/Fu2014a/UUSCI-2014-002.pdf)
VIDEO: Blazegraph GPU and DASL at Super Computing 2015
([https://vimeo.com/148519808](https://vimeo.com/148519808))
It's GPLv2 and now has support for SPARQL and TinkePop3/Gremlin.
See [https://groups.google.com/d/topic/gremlin-users/8fS_ak-
tWNs/...](https://groups.google.com/d/topic/gremlin-users/8fS_ak-
tWNs/discussion)
------
zzleeper
ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT
~~~
hendler
Meanwhile, check out:
https://github.com/blazegraph/database
Also down:
https://blog.blazegraph.com/?p=977
https://wiki.blazegraph.com/
------
danbee
"Your connection is not secure
The owner of www.blazegraph.com has configured their website improperly. To
protect your information from being stolen, Firefox has not connected to this
website."
~~~
beebs
We've seen cases where the newer Thawte root certs were not included in the
trust chain. That might be the issue.
------
beebs
Got any questions on Blazegraph GPU? Just let us know...
~~~
michaelt
What's the performance like on data sets that are too big for any single GPU's
memory?
Can the GPU be used to accelerate shortest-path queries (e.g. dijkstra's
algorithm) and if so, where can I read more about how that's achieved?
~~~
beebs
The graph does need to fit into GPU ram. We use graph partitioning for multi-
node, Multi-GPU configurations.
Dijkstra's algorithm which, as mentioned by Davidson et al. [1], is a
"sequential algorithm [that] is poorly suited for parallel architectures like
GPUs that require large numbers of parallel threads for efficient execution."
Instead, we have variants of the algebraic formulation of the Bellman-Ford
algorithm as given in Kepner and Gilbert's book [2].
[1] Andrew A. Davidson, Sean Baxter, Michael Garland, and John D. Owens:
"Work-Efficient Parallel GPU Methods for Single-Source Shortest Paths." In
Proceedings of the IEEE 28th International Parallel and Distributed Processing
Symposium (IPDPS), 2014.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/IPDPS.2014.45](http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/IPDPS.2014.45)
[2] Kepner and Gilbert: "Graph Algorithms in the Language of Linear Algebra."
------
BenoitP
> provides a Scala-based language to write graph and big data analytics and is
> complementary to the Spark and Hadoop ecosystems
It'd be awesome to have Blazegraph as a backend for Spark's Pregel queries.
With Tensorflow bindings in place, and the BIDMach/BIDMat libraries, it is
very nice seeing Spark getting some serious GPU attention.
~~~
beebs
We definitely see Spark + Scala + Blazegraph DASL to be a sweet spot for
combining the ease of Spark with the GPU performance. Have a submission in to
the Hadoop Summit in June on it:
[https://hadoopsummit.uservoice.com/forums/344955-data-
scienc...](https://hadoopsummit.uservoice.com/forums/344955-data-science-
analytics-and-spark/suggestions/11664123-the-power-of-spark-the-speed-of-gpus-
for-graph-an)
~~~
rxin
You guys should submit a talk to Spark Summit. Look forward to it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Methane Detectives: On the Trail of a Global Warming Mystery - spzx
https://undark.org/article/methane-global-warming-climate-change-mystery/
======
airbreather
I raised this issue quite few times here and other places when there endless
was banging on about CO2 exclusively, plus the soot/dust issue with the
glacier melt, got called all sorts of things, climate change denier, at the
kindest.
Climate change is is not a one dimensional problem and the science has a long
way to go, based on lack of demonstrable predictions alone.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What are you doing this weekend? - HugThem
======
asicsp
Managed to update couple of my blog posts this week, especially the long
pending one on customizing pandoc to generate pdf/epub from github style
markdown [0]. Have many more blog posts to write, hope to do at least one on
Saturday.
Read first two books from Mage Errant [1] series this week, hope to finish the
third one by Sunday (to finally get started with beta reading fourth book next
week).
[0] [https://learnbyexample.github.io/tutorial/ebook-
generation/c...](https://learnbyexample.github.io/tutorial/ebook-
generation/customizing-pandoc/)
[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42267952-into-the-
labyri...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42267952-into-the-labyrinth)
------
kirubakaran
Working on [https://histre.com/](https://histre.com/)
I just launched the highlights feature:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPBdE8kMYmo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPBdE8kMYmo)
[https://histre.com/features/highlights/](https://histre.com/features/highlights/)
The users I've talked to are excited and have asked for integrations. So I'm
working on that next.
------
Jugurtha
Working on our internal machine learning platform (opened it to some users at
[https://iko.ai](https://iko.ai)). Writing docs, reviewing merge requests,
pruning issues, checking if assumptions holding back features and bug fixes
are still true, reading documentation for some external components we use,
playing with the new real time collaboration on notebooks, testing the
implementation for model deployment, attempting to do one video that goes
through the different things to reveal usability issues, and checking upon a
colleague who's backtesting the platform on projects we delivered in the past
before we buit this (aiming for dividing time to ship by 4 folds at least),
implementing a proof of concept for one integration, and improving one Python
library I started writing for Minio administration ([https://big-mama-
tech.gitlab.io/bmc/](https://big-mama-tech.gitlab.io/bmc/)), as they only have
a Python client which can't configure hosts, start servers, or change
policies, etc.
------
tmaly
Hired a band to play in the front yard for my kids birthdays.
People will park in their cars and listen from the street.
------
croo
Working on an impossible deadline with several other team mates. Same on
previous weekend and same on the next. Things will get better when we hit the
deadline but right now its crazy work hours...
------
non-entity
Probably nothing, If I'm being honest.
------
olvy0
Working on the finishing touches, just before the company-wide rollout of a
project.
It was my side project for about a year before I talked management into
turning it into a proper feature and got a part-time team to work on it with
me.
Phase A, which rolls out next week, will be kind of neutered compared to what
I had in mind a year ago, due to too many edge cases I didn't anticipate in
the simple POC I wrote then. And the realities of having to maintain the many
other parts of our system at the same time. Oh well.
------
darkhorse13
Working on my side project:
[https://www.gethalfmoon.com](https://www.gethalfmoon.com)
~~~
melvinroest
Haha, love the rocket! Too bad there aren't any examples yet. With that said,
I think the website itself is already a pretty cool showcase of what halfmoon
can do!
~~~
darkhorse13
Thank you! Examples are definitely coming soon-ish. Some other people have
brought that up as well.
------
cafard
Both days: running, reading, helping to make dinner.
Saturday: mowing the lawn, if weather permits hosting outdoor meeting of the
neighborhood book club.
Sunday: going to a farmers market, watching Mass on YouTube, phone
conversations with out-of-town family.
One or the other day, maybe writing a reporting procedure for a website used
by a group my wife belongs to.
------
rckoepke
Exploring integration of Mastodon into one tab/section of a broader React-web
and React-native app. Haven't found much in the way of drop-in libraries, just
some standalone clients. I may have to write most of the client-side features
essentially from scratch.
------
karmakaze
Playing (or rather re-learning) Starcraft2. Playing some videogames has been
on my list for a long time. Next stage might be upgrading PC and checking out
more recent games.
Something physical outside, maybe rollerblading or cycling if it's not too
hot/humid.
------
dbish
Working on my two current side projects and playing video games or reading in
between. One project is a simple twitter helper that launched recently
(tweetlights.com) and a new social network project that is coming along.
------
gubsz
Probably play Valorant, slackline in the park, read a book (Pain Free as of
recently), and cook some food for the week.
------
ThangHen
Hanging ten, thanks for asking. I love you dogg. Hugs back at you. Keep safe
dogg. <3 Love this community.
------
jobigoud
Working on my side project that transforms 3D assets and point clouds into
beautiful VR paintings.
------
oldsklgdfth
Going to run and drink beer with some friends and then prepare for the work
week.
------
beckingz
Reviewing a data science coding test that one of our clients want to use.
------
bad_good_guy
playing D&D one night, running D&D another
------
taejo
Driving to Slovenia with three friends
------
dave_sid
Zoo
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Does 10% CPU usage equals 10% (of TDP) power consumption? - ramshanker
While going through stackoverflow architecture[1], I noticed that they try to keep CPU usage very low. Like <5%. Does that mean a 100+ TDP CPU is consuming <5 Watt? If that is the case long term than, it would change all the power budget planning. I mean the popular wisdom of "power costing more than hardware" might change drastically if we run those CPU at very low usage.<p>[1] https://nickcraver.com/blog/2016/02/17/stack-overflow-the-architecture-2016-edition/<p>EDIT: Looking for a home server.
======
Bigrio
Well that depends a lot on the cpu, some have very low power states that can
drop the power used to just a watt or two at idle, these are more common in
laptops. Server cpu's may not drop down as low, or as quickly, in order to
respond quickly to new requests. Before the days of speed stepping, the cpu
would use similar power regardless of utilization. This article from 2008
highlights some info for xeon.
[https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/m/d/4/1/d/8/p...](https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/m/d/4/1/d/8/power_consumption.pdf)
------
Zekio
TDP != Power Consumption
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Data Visualization and D3.js Newsletter - Issue 59 - sebg
https://www.dashingd3js.com/data-visualization-and-d3-newsletter/data-visualization-and-d3-newsletter-issue-59
======
lingben
is there a demo for this one?
[https://github.com/lugolabs/circles](https://github.com/lugolabs/circles)
~~~
sebg
check out [http://www.lugolabs.com/blog/2013/12/24/create-circular-
svg-...](http://www.lugolabs.com/blog/2013/12/24/create-circular-svg-charts-
with-circles) \- when the page loads you can see the circle animations.
~~~
lingben
thanks, I assumed they would be interactive (grab the edge and move it) but
they're not
~~~
sebg
Have not explored Circles enough to know how to do it in that library. That
said, you could build something like that with D3.js.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The decision to apply schedule pressure to a project - raganwald
http://www.mattblodgett.com/2008/07/select-quotes-from-peopleware-part-3.html
======
aasarava
From the article: _Projects on which the boss applied no schedule pressure
whatsoever ("Just wake me up when you're done.") had the highest productivity
of all._
I'd love to meet that team...
In my own experience, development projects that don't have set deadlines (and
someone applying "schedule pressure" as the deadline approaches) always go
much, much longer than originally estimated.
In fact, I'd argue that developers especially are prone to overruns because,
with code, there always seems to be something else that can be done to improve
it. Even if you complete a discrete number of features and they all test fine,
there's always the temptation to go back and refactor.
~~~
Tamerlin
It depends also on how you characterize your deadlines. If you allow slippage
when things take longer than expected, or to adapt to changing requirements,
you can impose deadlines without laying the hammer down.
In the end though, that ends up being more a case of managing scope than of
imposing deadlines.
Give the developers a well-defined scope, and unless they're putzes, they'll
get the job done. Give them a hard deadline, and either they'll slip or
they'll do shoddy work.
Most projects base everything on deadlines. As a result, most of them deliver
shoddy projects, and the company ends up with something that either doesn't
work, or it works barely but that requires far more maintenance than the
project's scope justifies.
~~~
aasarava
Absolutely agree with you about needing a well defined scope and how that can
reduce the chance of an overrun. Likewise, laying the hammer down simply
because an arbitrary deadline is on the calendar isn't good project
management.
But I still argue that a good, reasonable deadline that everyone on the team
has a say in setting acts as a commitment -- the team is saying, "yes, we
agree to deliver a product in this timeframe." Once you've made that
commitment, the deadline then acts as a forcing factor that drives everyone to
prioritize the most important tasks.
~~~
Tamerlin
Agreed -- that's what prevents the endless rounds of re-factoring, and keeps
everyone focused on building a product, rather than drifting off on tangents.
We're saying the same thing, here. :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
24-core CPU and I can’t type an email – part two - MBCook
https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2018/08/22/24-core-cpu-and-i-cant-type-an-email-part-two/
======
ubermonkey
It's tangential here, but, seriously, let me ask:
For those of us here with > 15 years in the business, when's the last time you
really felt a BIG uptick in performance or responsiveness from a new computer
upgrade?
I buy a new laptop every 3-4 years, and I buy a nice one, but generally
speaking I feel like we've been kind of flat in terms of usable power for a
while. 6 or 8 years ago I switched to an SSD, and THAT was a big deal --
easily the most dramatic uptick in performance since I moved from an AT clone
to a 386 in 1991. But since then? Not so much.
My laptop is smaller. It runs longer on the battery, and is generally cooler.
The screen is better. But in terms of how long it takes to boot, or open large
data sets, or whatever? Not so much different than 5 years ago.
~~~
dsr_
Given:
\- gigabit ethernet LAN and a speedy Internet connection
\- doing "desktop" work -- browser, SSH, office docs, media consumption
All my machines feel snappy, ranging from the $250 NUC through the MBP2011
(with 16GB RAM and an SSD) through the midrange Intel desktop (also 16GB RAM
and an SSD).
I don't play any significant games and major computation happens on servers,
not on anything I'm typing directly on.
It's been snappy for a decade, and I don't expect a noticeable improvement the
next time I get something new. I might be pushing more pixels to a screen, but
it will respond at about the same speed.
~~~
sp332
Since everyone mentioned SSDs, I'll second getting a gigabit local network
connection. Now I store everything on the server in another room, and my
laptop, desktop, and consoles can load and share files almost like the hard
drive was connected to each directly.
------
lmilcin
I have on my desk a machine that would be an equivalent of a large datacenter
two decades ago and then sometimes it is barely able to keep up with me
pressing keys on the keyboard.
I think the next major step will be for the humanity to learn make software
more efficient and effective rather than throw more CPU cycles at the problem.
~~~
JensRex
Instead we get Electron, and people use it to make text editors that take up
500 MB of space.
~~~
bluejekyll
Electron gets a lot of hate, but I think people generally are looking at the
wrong thing when focusing on memory usage, ask yourself why it’s so important
to so many organizations.
The number one cost at most companies, is humans. Before electron what did you
have for cross platform development? Java was there, but that never really
took off for embedded UI inside the browser, and the browser became the
primary target for most businesses in the last ten years.
Electron allows small teams to focus their most costly investment on
developing toward one product being developed across many platforms.
I use electron apps that give a consistent experience, on macOS and Linux (not
personally Windows, obviously as well), and then the same web app on Firefox,
Chrome and Safari across those same platforms with the addition of my phone.
Yes, that comes at the cost of running a full browser, but it’s a logical
choice when optimizing for the diverse computing landscape of today.
~~~
boomlinde
"Looking at the wrong thing" is a matter of perspective. As a user, I couldn't
care less that you saved money by writing a bloated web app. I care about the
resources _I_ have, which includes my own time, energy, money, computer,
battery etc. In those terms, there are clear disadvantages to Electron based
software.
~~~
bluejekyll
See my response to a similar sibling comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17826915](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17826915)
My basic point there being that losing a small number of users due to these
concerns is probably worth it.
I don't want to come across as someone who's hyper-defensive of Electron. I
hate the fact that such a bloated piece of software has become the standard
means for supporting cross-platform development. At the same time, I really
don't see other viable options at this point in time.
I'm curious though, is there something you would recommend instead that meets
these requirements with a single codebase (~90% shared code): target all major
platforms (macOS, Windows, Linux) and target all major browsers (Chrome,
Safari, Firefox, Edge, IE), (edit: and how could I forget, all major phone
browsers) with nearly identical UI/UX?
~~~
keldaris
There is no such thing and I would argue there shouldn't be. The notion that
you could use a "nearly identical UI/UX" across a desktop application, a
mobile application and a web page invariably leads to horrible results. The
usecases are just too different. The only reason people pretend otherwise is
laziness and cost cutting - a context in which Electron seems reasonable as
well, to the horror of technically literate users everywhere.
What might be reasonable, at least for applications that aren't performance
sensitive, is asking for a cross platform solution between desktop OSes and a
different one across mobile platforms. Those exist, as you well know.
~~~
sangnoir
> There is no such thing and I would argue there shouldn't be
It's one thing to not want to use Electron app, it's another to say _no one_
should use them. It rubs me the wrong way. There are a lot of things I'd never
use, but they don't rile me to that level.
> The only reason people pretend otherwise is laziness and cost cutting - a
> context in which Electron seems reasonable as well, to the horror of
> technically literate users everywhere.
"Laziness and cost cutting" is just your label for trade-offs you don't agree
with. That would apply to cross-platform Java/Swing apps or Gnome. The
"technically literate" users don't have to worry about business considerations
and engineering tradeoffs - the authors do. If memory usage is such a big
deal, then the market will self-correct, I was told it's a meritocracy.
~~~
keldaris
> It's one thing to not want to use Electron app, it's another to say no one
> should use them. It rubs me the wrong way. There are a lot of things I'd
> never use, but they don't rile me to that level.
The reason this trend riles me so much is that we now have companies like
Slack, which easily have enough resources to do an efficient desktop app on
any platform they choose, releasing utter garbage that, far from merely
wasting memory, takes up ridiculous amounts of CPU time (and therefore battery
time and energy) to do the simplest things (like render emoji, or even a
blinking cursor). The aggregate waste of resources is mind boggling, and we've
gone far past the point where Electron was solely used as a quick solution for
very resource constrained companies or single devs.
> "Laziness and cost cutting" is just your label for trade-offs you don't
> agree with. That would apply to cross-platform Java/Swing apps or Gnome. The
> "technically literate" users don't have to worry about business
> considerations and engineering tradeoffs - the authors do. If memory usage
> is such a big deal, then the market will self-correct, I was told it's a
> meritocracy.
It certainly does apply to Swing apps, Qt, Gnome, etc. I've always considered
all three of those frameworks ludicrously bloated, by the way, but Electron
has far exceeded my worst nightmares in that regard.
I'm not sure who told you the market is a meritocracy or why you believe it,
but I don't see much evidence for that view, personally.
------
snaky
> the lock was being acquired and released ~49,000 times and was held for, on
> average, less than one ms at a time. But for some reason, even though the
> lock was released 49,000 times the Chrome process was never able to acquire
> it.
Well, locking is hard.
> The good news is that even though there is occasional unfairness, there is
> unlikely to be persistent unfairness. In order for a thread to steal the
> lock, it needs to hit the tiny window where the lock is available. In
> practice, a thread is unlikely to be this lucky repeatedly.
[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170705-00/?p=...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170705-00/?p=96535)
> The fact is, any time anybody makes up a new locking mechanism, THEY ALWAYS
> GET IT WRONG. Don't do it. Take heed. You got it wrong. Admit it. Locking is
> _hard_.
[https://yarchive.net/comp/linux/locking.html](https://yarchive.net/comp/linux/locking.html)
~~~
AstralStorm
Actually this is exactly because someone in Windows used the plain old mutex.
I'd call that "your granddad's lock". It's old, crotchety, unfair and
shouldn't be used in situations where any concurrency can be expected.
This despite the kernel having a nice RCU mechanism inside as well as waitfree
queues.
~~~
snaky
If there was a spinlock, the problem stay.
> the rule simply is that you MUST NOT release and immediately re-acquire the
> same spinlock on the same core, because as far as other cores are concerned,
> that's basically the same as never releasing it in the first place.
[https://yarchive.net/comp/linux/spinlocks.html](https://yarchive.net/comp/linux/spinlocks.html)
Other mechanisms do exist of course.
------
snarfybarfy
You should have asked your pointy haired boss. He could have explained the
problem in much simpler terms.
Would you expect 24 employees to write ONE email without 4 team leads and one
department head?
Obviously NO!!
Your processors obviously need more management. I think Intel has the right
offering for you, aka management engine.
~~~
Scarblac
New from Intel: the Scrum processor.
~~~
bluejekyll
You joke, but seriously, this is generally a goal of distributed and/or
parallel computing. Reduce interdependencies, stop constant cross chatter and
try to do as much computing in isolation as possible.
Scrum’s not necessarily a bad anology. Here’s a different thought that this
conversation has me now thinking about, what if we did think about development
teams as CPU cores? We might discover weak points in the architecture of an
organization, and recognize more quickly where we need to address bottlenecks.
The bandwidth of the bus betweeen the cores might be too limited. The pipeline
of work (backlog) might not be deep enough, and has a ton of branch statements
(spikes) that may throw out the entire pipeline...
~~~
nextos
Why not just embracing simplicity?
I have a golden rule for my systems. After booting into X and opening one
terminal with htop and hiding kernel threads, everything should fit very
comfortably in one screen. This constraint forces yourself to have a very
simple setup. A few daemons, a window manager and a terminal. I do the rest of
my computing in Emacs and Firefox.
I have several Arch or NixOS setups that could work on a 128 MB RAM setup,
excluding Firefox. Plus, if something breaks, I know how to fix it.
~~~
bluejekyll
Organizations like to grow, though. Wouldn’t that imply that organizational
structure would have a maximum size?
------
jwilk
Part one:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17780127](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17780127)
------
coldcode
My MBP only has 8 cores but often times during the day it locks up and blows
up a hurricane of fan noise. Why? Idiotic Jamf management software and a virus
checker that never finds anything. Some days you only get 1 core for work when
it gets stuck and have to reboot to get it back. It's not always the computer,
OS or the software you use.
~~~
posixplz
Yep, Jamf and McAfee are both trash-quality software that significantly reduce
the overall security of a system. McAfee is a well-known story: their AV
unpacks and analyses potential malware via a _kernel_ module. Wtf?
Jamf's code quality and security model are abysmal. It blows my mind that
apple recommends the use of Jamf to large Mac shops. Having peeked under the
hood at previous employers, I was extremely disappointed. The product is
insecure by design - not what one wants for device management that's given
root privileges on machines containing corporate crown jewels. I highly doubt
their operational paradigm for Jamf cloud has changed in the last year,
either.
I apologize for going completely off-topic, but these products make my blood
boil. Especially because I now work for a shop that uses both Jamf and McAfee
for Mac "security". On a positive note, I removed the corporate mandated
malware with ease - no boot to single-user required.
~~~
sfink
There was a time that running Windows absolutely required you to use an
antivirus solution. It was crazy not to.
Those days are past. Now you have to be crazy to run one. Even setting
security aside, I think antivirus packages are the number one source of
instability and weird performance problems.
------
raattgift
Could you build on the always-unfair system along these lines? (C11ish, sorry)
void
do_work(the_work_t *w)
{
/* for simplicity here, rather than e.g. w->contenders */
static _Atomic int contenders = 0;
contenders++;
for ( ; work_remaining(w); ) {
take_mutex(w->m);
do_some_work(w);
drop_mutex(w->m);
if (contenders > 1)
reschedule_this_thread();
}
contenders--;
}
This depends on the OS providing a cheap and fast reschedule_this_thread()
mechanism that _effectively_ guarantees that if there is only one other
contending thread with work, that thread will end up holding the mutex. (If
there are multiple such threads, an arbitrary one of them will end up with the
mutex, rather than the thread that just dropped the mutex.)
One could of course only check for other contenders every few times through
the for loop if reschedule_this_thread() is expensive or slow, or if
contenders is especially hot.
contenders is explicitly not a locking mechanism and should not influence the
policy of any code running while the mutex is held. It should also be a per-
mutex counter.
~~~
brucedawson
The trick is how you implement reschedule this thread. What you want in this
specific case is to take it off-core long enough for another thread to wake up
and take the lock. That is far too squishy a goal to be something that you can
implement. If you sleep for some number of nanoseconds then you are wasting
performance and/or not sleeping long enough.
In this particular case the lock was a kernel lock in kernel code so the OS
would have to fix this, by making the locks fair (or occasionally fair).
~~~
raattgift
I've been spoiled by a better OS. :D
How about:
while work:
if (contenders > 1)
{ reduce_priority; pri_reduced = true }
take_lock
if (pri_reduced)
{ unreduce_priority; pri_reduced = false }
do_work_quantum
drop_lock
endwhile
(I mean empirically, although an educated guess would do).
Of course, if reducing priority is too fast, this likely doesn't help;
alternatively it could be too slow and what you get back in system latency is
taken away in lowered throughput. That's probably not OK if you don't need the
system latency to be low.
I wonder if (dramatically, even) reducing the priority of some of the original
workload exposing the problem, not just when racing for a lock but when doing
the actual work quanta, would help. My thought here is that your email-sending
is higher-prirority and will at least push some of the workload out of the way
in reasonable time, giving you back some responsiveness.
I'm surprised if Windows doesn't offer up a high-throughput/latency-tolerant
QOS for threads.
~~~
brucedawson
Priorities don't help. They are only relevant if there are more runnable
threads than CPUs. In my case I had lots of spare CPUs so both threads could
run, regardless of priority.
A QOS does not directly help. The only thing I am aware of that can help is
fair locks, or occasionally fair locks, so that the lock is _given_ directly
to the waiting thread, instead of being made available to all.
I have yet to hear of any other solutions.
------
agumonkey
I wonder how much cpu time has been liberated through the CFG scan patch.
------
fencepost
I'll have to go through with some of the same steps to see if a recent problem
I had is related to this.
In my case it was actually being triggered by a piece of monitor management
software that came with the LG ultrawide monitor that I use. No significant
CPU load, no memory issues, plenty of cores in an older HP workstation with a
Xeon Processor, 48 gig of RAM and a Samsung SSD. When that display management
software was running a text editor couldn't even keep up with displaying text
as it was typed.
Edit: rereading some of the original 2 articles, yeah, I'm not going to be
running the same kinds of tests - even if I did it'd take too long to develop
the knowledge base to be able to interpret my results adequately.
------
atesti
What exactly did his it department do using wmi to query this
Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_ProcessAddressSpace_Costly? I can't find this
in the article
~~~
brucedawson
The actual high-level query is in part one and in the first reply, but I think
your real question is "why did they want to scan the address space of every
process on the system?"
I think that the answer is that they didn't. That was just one of the
bazillion counters that came along for the ride. I believe that that counter
has been removed in the latest OS, thus squishing this bug in another way.
I don't understand WMI, but it sounds really weird. One peculiarity is that
once some program asks for counters "WMI refreshes the list of counters every
2 minutes until the WMI helper process closes due to inactivity."
So that's great. IT asks for some data, they get memory scans that they don't
want, and those scans are repeated every two minutes for a while (ten
minutes?) even though nobody is looking at the results.
------
equalunique
I really enjoyed the first iteration of this article and am happy to see a
part two.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Top-down learning path: machine learning for software engineers - zuzoovn
https://github.com/ZuzooVn/machine-learning-for-software-engineers
======
zuzoovn
Are there any idea about the free machine learning camp? #7
------
zuzoovn
Please, feel free to make any contributions you feel will make it better.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
FPGAs becoming more SoC-like - chclau
http://semiengineering.com/fpgas-becoming-more-soc-like/#.Wxlg0Z4jrWM.facebook
======
lnsru
No. There is a more suitable tools now for every problem. Large volume - ASIC,
and you can also put few ARM cores inside. Something highly integrated - pick
ZynQ. There are dozen different solutions for all the problems starting with
big FPGA with couple softcore processors going to cheap spartan 7 device and
going to tiny and dirt cheap Lattice chip for glue logic or IO expansion.
Tools might be better, but this problem will be solved in the future for sure.
~~~
arghwhat
It wasn't a question.
ASIC isn't the tool for large volume, it's the tool for when you can accept a
several year turnaround time for revisions, vs. a day or two. ASIC > FPGA...
except if your design changes, ever. If anything high-bandwidth or design
intensive is going on, you're definitely going to revise your design many
times.
FPGA's are massively on the rise (although slightly less so than Xilinx would
like), and they _all_ are effectively "SoC like", with DSPs, transceivers,
hard IP's probably being a majority of the chip by now.
Zynq is a cute little chip, but with Intel's coming CPU-embedded FPGA's, thing
will kick off even more.
~~~
codeflo
What's the tooling like for a typical, production-quality FPGA project
nowadays? Last I checked, which is admittedly a couple of years ago (and I
didn't dive in very deeply), it was a horrible mix of badly programmed vendor-
specific Windows-only GUI tools. It seemed a lot like the embedded processor
market where every single vendor has their own lock-in strategy and the whole
ecosystem suffers for it. Has this improved in the meantime?
~~~
aylons
Windows only tools? You must have been using Altera options (I briefly
maintained the page for Quartus compatibility at wine, circa 2004). Even them
have had Linux support for a while, Xilinx has Linux support for as far as I
remember, at least some ten years.
The ecosystem is terrible, I agree with you. However, the lock in is
restricted for the final synthesis part. Simulation is mostly done with (very
expensive) third party tools, such as Mentor Graphics Modelsim, and in
professional settings the build is automated to a point that opening the
vendor's GUI is frowned upon.
There are some quality open sources tools on FPGA build automation, but most
places I had contact with have their own internal tools.
~~~
stochastic_monk
I know someone who’s implemented some string algorithms for FPGA with verilog.
Is writing the code distinct from the tooling you’re referring to, or simply
an open source flavor of deployment? I haven’t done any FPGA work.
~~~
aylons
When he talks about Verilog, he is referring to the language used for
development and implementation. We're talking about a different part of the
chain, something akin to the compiler, make, cmake and alike.
Of course, there's some dynamic between the tool chain and the language
itself. For example, it doesn't matter if the language has the coolest feature
if the compiler does not support it, and the toolchain will help you manage
more complex code safely.
------
oneplane
But isn't it becoming more like "SoCs gaining FPGA cores"? I know traditional
FPGAs got hard CPU cores added, but from the CPU perspective the FPGA core is
the new thing.
~~~
kingosticks
This article mentions that but doesn't give any details. Annoying since that's
the interesting bit.
------
stochastic_monk
What does SoC stand for? I’m assuming not Summer of Code.
~~~
detaro
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_on_a_chip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_on_a_chip)
~~~
stochastic_monk
Thank you! I couldn’t find anything in the article.
~~~
madengr
Yeah, took me several articles until I found out that the SD means Software
Defined. Irks me when articles don’t define acronyms.
------
thesz
Article says "CPU does not fit FPGA synthesis very well and uses almost whole
thing".
People serious about prototyping usually get daughterboards for FPGA and/or
FPGA stacks specifically to prototype big things with CPUs. The buses can go
outside of main FPGA with CPU and into other things. I know at least one big
SoC project which went that way.
I also think that having an ARM core in FPGA is a vendor lock in. For example,
you cannot use AMBA/APB/AXB and other ARM buses with ARM CPU core in your
design without paying ARM for license for these buses. It is not clear to me
whether Zynq users have to pay for these buses and it may be case that they
have to. Finally, ARM core in the prototype naturally extends into ARM core in
the final product.
ARM itself is not very nice design from contemporary point of view. I
expressed my dissatisfaction with ARM ISA many times here and just let me
start with two points: 1) ARM is not RISC (multiregister load/store execute in
several clocks) and 2) too much of initial design of first ARM (which was not
planned for longterm evolution) is visible in ISA.
Basically, they put outdated (even for 2010) core design and used valuable
silicon area so users have to use that instead of much more capable
contemporary designs. Instead of trying to figure out how to change typical
FPGA elements and layouts for CPUs to be more synthesable (which may bring
benefits in other places), they decided to use that ARM thing.
I am deeply disappointed with that path.
~~~
adwn
> _ARM itself is not very nice design from contemporary point of view. [...]
> they decided to use that ARM thing_
ARM CPUs are the de-facto standard in the embedded world (except for simple
8-bit MCUs), so what should Xilinx have done? Design their own, proprietary
CPU architecture and ISA? Choose some other architecture with 2% market share?
Both paths would have led to the immediate death of the whole product line.
> _1) ARM is not RISC (multiregister load /store execute in several clocks)_
So? Who cares?
> _2) too much of initial design of first ARM (which was not planned for
> longterm evolution) is visible in ISA._
Ah, yes, technological purism – the quickest way to practical irrelevance.
~~~
planteen
> ARM CPUs are the de-facto standard in the embedded world (except for simple
> 8-bit MCUs), so what should Xilinx have done? Design their own, proprietary
> CPU architecture and ISA? Choose some other architecture with 2% market
> share? Both paths would have led to the immediate death of the whole product
> line.
Totally agree. IIRC, didn't Xilinx have another hard core CPU+FPGA design
before the Zynq using a PowerPC? PPC is largely irrelevant these days. The
high-performance embedded space is dominated by ARM today with x86 and PPC
taking the rest. There's no way Xilinx would choose x86 with Intel owning
Altera.
Maybe in 5-10 years RISC-V will start to eat some of ARM's share, but that
remains to be seen.
~~~
0xcde4c3db
> didn't Xilinx have another hard core CPU+FPGA design before the Zynq using a
> PowerPC?
Yes; more than one. There were at least the Virtex II Pro, Virtex 4 FX, and
Virtex 5 FX families.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Scientists "may not have the whole periodic table to work with in future" - JacobAldridge
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2010/May/20051001.asp
======
Maciek416
A few years ago Bruce Sterling gave an interesting talk about the future of
materials science, among other things. One of the highlights of the talk is
his discussion of "mining the dumps". These metals won't go away that easily.
In many cases, we are concentrating them into convenient future mining sites
(dumps)
~~~
JacobAldridge
There's an interesting series on Slate at the moment - blogging the periodic
table - where Sam Kean discusses how humans are changing some elements
(particularly phosphorous) away from their usable state. They won't disappear,
but they won't necessarily be re-mined as readily as some metals.
<http://www.slate.com/id/2258112/entry/2258053/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Top 5 Tips for Managing Open Source Developers - calebgilbert
http://blogs.activestate.com/2010/02/top-5-tips-for-managing-open-source-developers-dont-forget-the-beer-fridge/
======
gridspy
Sounds to me like "Tips for working with Hackers" in general.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
HR experts share the skills they say employees will most need in the future - NicoJuicy
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/01/hr-experts-share-the-skills-employees-will-most-need-in-the-future.html
======
chupa-chups
In my experience most of what is mentioned is true.
On the other hand it is also true for HR. In our (quite big, international)
company HR staff gets more and more reduced. Also, more divisions deny
inviting a HR person to job interviews, most of them replacing them by the
manager and members of the respective team. So far I could only notice that
this didn’t cause a decline in quality.
~~~
Mirioron
In my opinion what's mentioned is true, because they didn't really say
anything. Reading the "article" felt like reading a horoscope. They used very
general skills that everybody would like to have (and think they have).
------
imagetic
HR experts...lol
------
westmeal
TL;DR filthy millennials need to get off their phones and talk to people
instead of texting them while in the same room
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017) - sky_nox
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8qbq5x/the-cia-spied-on-people-through-their-smart-tvs-leaked-documents-reveal
======
jmalkin
I've gotten nothing out of my Smart TV that I couldn't have gotten from a
Chromecast, or preferably, a laptop hooked up to a TV.
And I've lost a lot. My TV is slow. When I try to control the volume,
sometimes I have to wait multiple seconds.
And things stop working all the time and require a reboot.
I hate the damn thing. It even comes with bloatware for some reason, games
I'll never play that it insists on updating forever.
And with the privacy concerns on top of all that, I wish I had a dumb TV.
My shit cube TV from the 90s was better!
~~~
test6554
I have resisted the urge to buy a new tv for 11 years. I own the same 48" non-
smart Sony I've always had. I have always felt like the grass would be greener
if I were to buy one of those 65" LG OLED tvs, but thank you for setting me
straight.
This old TV is 5 inches thick, but it turns on in 2 seconds. I hooked an
amazon fire tv into one HDMI port. I also have a sonos "connect" hooked up to
the audio-out so that I can play my TV audio through my ceiling speakers when
I want.
But it's just a display, so I can plug and play the capabilities I want. I can
even tell alexa to open up plex while the TV is off and the fire TV must send
a signal through the hdmi port because the tv turns on and it loads plex.
~~~
osamagirl69
Just wanted to chime in since you specifically mentioned the "65" LG OLED",
which is the same TV I have (specifically the OLED65B6P). When plugged into
the internet it has all of the usual unfeatures (including ads displayed over
hdmi input), however if you leave it unplugged from the internet it works
great and boots up almost instantly to the last input selected without any
fuss. Furthermore, the HDMI CEC commands work as expected (in both directions
--control of the tv from the computer and control of the computer from the TV
with all of the expected buttons on the remote being passed through). The set
is also quite good about supporting legacy S/PDIF (optical) passthrough so I
haven't needed to replace my receiver.
So far the only feature I have been unsatisfied is that for some reason the
set does not auto-shutoff when the hdmi input is not active. For example, I
had it hooked up to a computer which was set to turn the monitor off after 15
minutes and instead of the TV shutting off it displayed an 'input
disconnected' screen. As a stopgap solution I set the computer to have a
'screensaver' that is all black instead of turning the monitor off--which
works pretty OK since the OLED is completely 'off' when displaying a blank
screen. The only downside is that the the electronics in the TV stay running,
so the power consumption in this state is about 20w.
~~~
m_eiman
I have the same experience with my LG. It's perfectly fine as a "dumb" screen.
I have an Apple TV 4K and a surround receiver connected to it, and CEC works
as intended: when I turn on or off the Apple TV, the LG and the receiver do
the same.
I was very weary of buying a "smart" TV, but I wanted a 4K HDR one, and the
public display market didn't seem interested in providing that.
Happily, the LG boots (or resumes, or whatever it does) very quickly and the
only time I have to touch its remote control is if I've had the TV on for so
long without using the remote that it thinks nobody's watching and turns
itself off. I suppose there's a setting somewhere to change this, but it
happens seldom enough that I haven't bothered.
~~~
ashman5
Thanks for this post. I'd like to add that the Vizio PQ65 works the same way
when using an Apple TV. I refuse to update the firmware for fear that Vizio
will force a change that will require an internet connection.
~~~
m_eiman
If you never connect it to the net, there’s never a need for an update - and
no way for them to sneak one in behind your back. It’s a sad world we’ve
built, isn’t it?
------
sky_nox
'Samsung itself is aware of these risks. In its privacy policy, the company
warned customers to be aware that "if your spoken words include personal or
other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured
and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition." The
language reminded some of the George Orwell classic dystopian novel 1984.'
~~~
IshKebab
That quote doesn't show Samsung's thoughts on the risk of hacking at all, and
it shouldn't remind anyone of 1984. It's just a statement of how all voice
recognition currently works.
~~~
serf
>It's just a statement of how all voice recognition currently works.
Amazon has said on numerous occasions that no data transfer occurs without a
trigger word hitting the mic -- a feature that was a main point when
discussing the safety of having an always-on internet-connected mic in the
house.
As for whether or not they're telling the truth, I don't know; but trigger-
words have always been a feature that Amazon loved mentioning from a
security/privacy standpoint.
~~~
penagwin
> As for whether or not they're telling the truth, I don't know;
Luckily it's possible to check [0]! Although it gets a bit more complicated
and can change, my understanding is that currently most people observe it
increase it's network usage after it's trigger phrase, but not at other times
(it uses the network for other stuff too, but audio data is typically rather
large in comparison).
[0] [https://www.iot-tests.org/2017/06/careless-whisper-does-
amaz...](https://www.iot-tests.org/2017/06/careless-whisper-does-amazon-echo-
send-data-in-silent-mode/)
[1] 10.1007/s00779-018-1174-x <\- Might want to use sci-hub
~~~
celim307
The pessimist in me think that a determined actor could simply capture non-
trigger voice data offline, and bundle it with the rest of the traffic
whenever the next trigger word occurs. But I am talking out my ass and have in
no way verified any of this
~~~
astazangasta
This was my thought too; there doesn't seem to be a way to verify this isn't
happening.
~~~
smarkov
If data is being buffered and only sent after the trigger words wouldn't the
data transmitted vary depending on how much was said before the trigger word?
~~~
mulmen
Maybe. All uploads could be padded with the maximum buffer size so you can't
tell the difference. The buffer could flush only small amounts at a time. Some
compression algorithm could be used that becomes more efficient with larger
recordings.
What you should be asking with any "smart" device is "can I prove this device
will do no harm to me".
Honestly I have never understood the value proposition of any smart device.
Why would I want any of that functionality? Never once in my life have I ever
wanted to talk to my TV. I'm beginning to (again) question the wisdom of
carrying a smartphone.
------
stevesimmons
I hate my Samsung Smart TV too. It auto-installed a Rakuten TV app that
several times a week would switch from the only channel we watch (BBC News) to
channel 4000 showing trailers for its video-on-demand pay per view service.
Samsung makes it very hard to uninstall this 'feature' and even kills threads
about it on its web site support forum.
I had to got back to the shop I bought it from and threaten to return the TV
as defective unless they sent instructions for permanently removing it.
Samsung, you should be ashamed of yourself, taking such an obviously anti-
customer stance. My next TV certainly won't be a Samsung.
And hopefully several other people reading this won't buy a Samsung either.
Vote with your wallet, folks!
~~~
imglorp
So did they finally show you how to remove that app? What did that entail?
------
stcredzero
On the Max Headroom TV show, it became illegal for people to turn off their
TVs.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_(TV_series)#Plot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_\(TV_series\)#Plot)
Would it be outlandish for the tech industry to lobby that Smart TVs and
computers be given a 911 style emergency calling system, then for emergency
dispatchers to have access to surveillance information, then for such devices
to be required to be turned on all the time?
~~~
xvector
I mean it's not like your TV ever truly turns "off", is it? A lot of them
power on at least the red/green LED light showing that it's "off" and who
knows what else.
~~~
avionicsguy
A TV set never turns off! It is well known in the industry. Standby usually
just turns of the LCD, backlight and changes LED colour.
Try this: Switch TV to standby then turn on. Time how long this takes. Unplug
TV for 30 seconds plug in and then turn on. It will take a while for the TV to
boot from cold start.
Manufacturers have been doing this since CRTs.
------
ei8htyfi5e
I gave a talk in China 5 years warning about this.
[http://tech.qq.com/a/20140527/035512.htm](http://tech.qq.com/a/20140527/035512.htm)
I asked vendors to make changes to their products, such as planned
obsolescence so if the manufacturer goes out of business and a device doesn't
hear from the mother ship for awhile, all internet connections are killed for
good. Also, to set smart defaults so that even when not configured, it won't
allow this behavior. There should be a list of more in the article but you'll
have to translate to see them.
~~~
discordance
As long as this sort of planned obsolescence only kills the connectivity
feature, and keeps the rest of the device functioning/useable that sounds good
~~~
ggg2
except they will be (very) easy pickings for malware that do their own thing.
e.g. Mirai botnet.
it's very backward to suggest planned obsolescence as a security feature
instead of open software/standards
~~~
justinclift
The open software / standards would need to cover every aspect of a given
product, such that external people / enthusiasts / (etc) would be able to
generate fixed firmware and upload it after the manufacturer ends support.
That might work for _some_ devices with extremely large user bases.
Devices with specialist properties or a low number of users sound like they'd
be very tricky to have that approach work reliably.
That being said, if there's wide adoption of "known good" base level firmware
(eg powering on, init device capabilities) then maybe the specialist stuff
could be add on's or something. eg modularising things might be a way to get
closer to the goal
------
mulmen
I have not been excited about the release of a new consumer product in well
over 5 years. The last real improvement in a consumer device for me was the
iPhone 6s and even then I preferred the older form factor.
I no longer look forward to the release of any new device or expect it to make
my life better in any way. I just assume it will spy on me and/or exploit some
weakness in my subconscious.
When my current TV dies I might just go back to having no TV at all.
~~~
mlang23
I terminated all my TV related subscriptions over the past two years and now
also finally sold my TV. One of my best moves ever. I am not missing anything,
have a lot more useful spare time, and save around 1k a year.
------
dschuetz
I knew a guy who worked on his paper about smart TVs and their potential
exploitation vectors. That was back in 2015. His supervisor wrote that paper
off bluntly as "scientifically not relevant". Oh well.
~~~
ovi256
The supervisor can still be right! Scientific relevance and societal relevance
are at odds all the time. Just look at cosmology or any other field with very
very long term, slim, payoff and huge costs. As much as we curiosity oriented
people dislike it, satifsying our curiosity about the origin of the universe
has very low impact. The most impact probably comes from the theoretical
understanding that results in new engineering capabilities to build new
weapons, industrial machines or energy sources. |But then the question can be
asked "why not fund that research direction directly ?"
------
LinuxBender
And people thought I was weird for dancing by myself in front of my TV. The
poor folks at the CIA will never un-see that.
~~~
mitchty
People think i'm weird for never hooking my smart tv up to the network. It
works, why does it need to be online?
~~~
edejong
You are counting on the WiFi module not to be remote hackable?
~~~
mulmen
While that is possible I would consider this to be a case of outrunning your
friends rather than the bear.
~~~
edejong
So, a neighbor’s compromised wifi router could remotely exploit your smart tv
without even configured settings:
[https://blog.exodusintel.com/2017/07/26/broadpwn/](https://blog.exodusintel.com/2017/07/26/broadpwn/)
------
deehouie
This piece challenges the current narrative you read in the press. China is an
evil surveillance state that spies on its citizens and the rest of the world.
Now we know. The greatest democracy of the world also spies on its citizen
_and_ the rest of the world.
~~~
dsl
This is just extreme whataboutism.
There is a vast difference between China spying on and locking people up for
being the wrong religion, and the CIA secretly recording a conversation about
the planning of a bombing.
~~~
pessimizer
That's true, but there's also a vast difference between the CIA spying on and
locking people up for being the wrong religion, and China secretly recording a
conversation about the planning of a bombing.
Similarities between the two governments are that they would both characterize
their spying on, imprisoning, and torture of religious minorities as
preventing potential bombings, and characterize their counterparts as
oppressive police states. China might have the stronger case, as they have
about a quarter of the prisoners per-capita that the US does.
~~~
pwodhouse
I might prefer 4x detention time if I got to choose a US prison over China.
I'd certainly prefer the freedom of thought and speech in the US.
[https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2014/jun/22/inside-
chin...](https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2014/jun/22/inside-chinese-
prison-americans-perspective/)
------
titzer
It is now completely legitimate to be afraid of every single thing connected
to the internet. Thanks technology!
~~~
mulmen
I remember a time when typing your credit card number into a webpage was
madness.
------
johnhenry
Aside from wanting to protect its citizens from foreign spying; I have to
wonder if another reason for the US's curtailing Huawei is to simply eliminate
the competition?
~~~
sirmoveon
People with technical knowledge at this point shouldn't doubt this perspective
anymore. No evidence of wrong doing was published, and the claim of the
possibility of the Chinese government making Huawei do their bidding at some
point, is no different from what other governments have been doing, including
the U.S. (and getting caught in the wrong doing).
There's no shame in the hypocresy. It's a blatant attempt to damage Huawei.
I have no sympathy for what the Chinese government does to subdue everyone
under their power, but the Americans seem to have been historically better at
playing the victim and getting away with it while still managing to curtail on
others.
~~~
w7
That doesn't make sense to me. Especially given the GHCQ's break down of
Huawei gear finding that Huawei can't even do version control right (they had
revisions of firmware with the same version id for the same hardware with
different build characteristics), and magically reintroducing vulnerabilities
from 2006. Personally I feel that Huawei gear would be ripe for exploitation
and then misdirection.
I don't get why people are so hung up on proof though. There doesn't have to
be proof. No one who I've talked to in the networking industry cares about
proof (this includes myself). Hell China already bans companies at will. The
only thing that matters is enough of a non-zero chance of Huawei releasing
malicious firmware updates to select targets in the future. Judging by their
inability to have firmware revisions that completely match in functionality
who knows if they're already doing so at a smaller scale.
~~~
majia
> I don't get why people are so hung up on proof though.
The reason you look for proof is not that it gives you 100% security. It is
the process of finding proof that helps us understand how secure a product is
and what vulnerabilities need to be addressed. GHCQ's through examination of
Huawei devices found problems with version control, and Huawei promised to fix
those problems. This is how security could improve.
I think you also vastly underestimated how difficult it is to do version
control for hardware due to extremely complex supply chain. If you examine
products from any other brand, the situation is likely to be worse. I'm not
suggesting Huawei's problems are acceptable. However, it is a misguided
approach to decide which products are secure purely based on national origin
rather technical merits.
~~~
rrix2
These also sound like the sort of problems that could be solved without a
global sales ban, people seem to really like the Hand of the Market for stuff
like this when it's not down nationalist lines.
~~~
JamesBarney
This isn't why they were banned. They were banned for conducting corrupt
espionage, violating the Iran sanctions, and lying about it to federal
authorities.
------
java-man
related:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20205131](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20205131)
------
9HZZRfNlpR
CIA is able to spy but Samsung doesn't even get screen mirroring work on my
TV. Thankfully, I disabled the internet connectivity and forget about it, it
turned out to be a good thing maybe.
Where to get modern TVs screen wise but dumb ones? Monitors go up to only
somewhat limited dimension's. Anyone have ideas? Buy the screen from LG and
build yourself?
~~~
nfoz
To find modern dumb TVs, you usually need to look at the "commercial" or
"business" lines (sometimes called "digital signage). Companies make them hard
to find.
I have a 55" 4K LG dumb tv and I'm very happy with it:
[https://www.lg.com/ca_en/commercial-tv/lg-55UX340C-public-
di...](https://www.lg.com/ca_en/commercial-tv/lg-55UX340C-public-display-tvs)
It's just a tv. It turns on and off quick. The remote-control is simple. The
only downside is it only has 2 HDMI inputs, and it doesn't do HDR.
------
narnianal
The question is how much this matters if you already have 2-5 active
microphones listening in when there are two normal people in the room. I bet
if the CIA wants they can get enough data from the audio alone to even say who
looked at whom during a conversation.
------
Iv
Why wouldn't they? In the current legal environment, that would be
unprofessional and even a misconduct for them not to acquire these
capabilities.
------
morpheuskafka
The CIA should be completely abolished. Unlike the FBI, it does not seek to
enforce any laws whatsoever; instead, they operate with absolutely zero
oversight, there only rule being that they're not supposed to be involved in
domestic matters. I wouldn't be surprised if they tag-team with other friendly
agencies like MI6 to spy on each other's domestic targets so as not to violate
that rule.
~~~
myrandomcomment
Yes, because not having an Intelligence agency is a great idea for national
security. You know the LAPD beat a man a few times. We should totally get rid
of them also.
A rational proposal for over-site and control would be a useful comment.
~~~
dgzl
The US spy and intelligence agencies frequently infringe on domestic and
international human rights, and many people would rather they didn't exist.
Some people don't even consider the agencies to be constitutional. Your
sarcastic comments are certainly not useful.
~~~
myrandomcomment
The issue is not the CIA. It has been incredibly successfully in its job since
it was founded as the OSS in WW2. We do not hear of the successes as most of
it is highly classified. There are some great books on older stuff they did in
the Cold War out now that are worth reading.
The reality is we only hear about the screw ups and the illegal things because
that news worthy in the 24/7/365 hype cycle we now live it.
The fact is that we as citizens have failed to provide our voices asking for
proper guidance of the CIA. We the people think that TV shows like 24 are the
reality and torture is okay because it works on TV and only happens to the bad
guys. Society as a whole have allowed things to end up this way.
Tell me what really happened when we the public found out about the tap rooms
at ATT colo or some of the stuff Wikileaks and Snowden showed? Where is the
protest? I do not see the streets full of outrage. Where are the brave
Americas standing up for their rights. We could learn from the people of Hong
Kong at this point.
The fact is that as long as we can order from amazon and Facebook works no one
cares anymore.
We get the government we deserve. Disbanding the CIA just moves the issue to
the next agency.
~~~
baybal2
Yes, USA has 20+ intelligence agencies.
But all you refer to can and should be done by military intelligence.
------
mikorym
Is it still possible to buy HD TVs that are not smart? That's a niche that may
interest HN readers; I prefer smartness through a peripheral...
~~~
KozmoNau7
You can buy monitors made for commercial usage, such as signage. They'll be
simple monitors with no TV tuner or "smart" functionality, and they'll be
built to better resist burn-in.
They'll also cost you at least 2-3 times as much as an equivalent consumer TV.
------
Tistel
I bought a Philips 4k tv which works ok. But, when I plug it into my ethernet
and hit the software update button it says it can't find the host. So I am
guessing they hard coded the wrong IP/URL into the firmware. I am sure are
there is some USB firmware patch I can do, but, I don't want to risk turning
it into a giant doorstop/brick.
------
musicale
Who'd have thought that always-on, internet-connected cameras and microphones
could be used for spying on you?
------
titzer
The Internet of Things is a surveillance entity's wet dream. And we are sleep-
walking right into it.
~~~
mulmen
Everyone is fully aware of the implications here. Even most consumers know the
risks, they just don't care. The sad part isn't that people are stupid, it's
that they are smart and just don't care.
------
bigbluedots
I own a Samsung Smart TV, and I'd be interested in removing or disabling the
microphone. Any ideas?
~~~
thesmok
Image search "mems microphone" to get an idea of how it looks. There is a hole
in the microphone body – fill it with glue. Or just remove the microphone.
------
peter_d_sherman
"In America, you watch television. In Soviet Russia, television watches you!"
<g>
-Comedian Yakov Smirnoff ([http://wiki.c2.com/?InSovietRussia](http://wiki.c2.com/?InSovietRussia))
------
heyflyguy
The tinfoil hat people get more and more correct, being validated at every
turn.
------
hn23
Louis: Really? Inspector: Sure! Louis: Ohh!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4aLThuU008](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4aLThuU008)
------
ChicagoBoy11
Isn't the most obvious fix for this never connecting the TV to the internet in
the first place? If your TV works the day you buy it, why do you need to
connect it so it gets "firmware" updates? in some respect, isn't the user
still capable of making their SmartTV a "dumb" TV?
------
espeed
There's a microphone in the Samsung TV smart remote.
~~~
bilbo0s
In the actual tv's too in some cases.
~~~
pfundstein
I think you mean telescreen
~~~
HeavenBanned
Double-plus-good reference.
------
pinewurst
(2017)
~~~
sctb
Thanks!
------
devoply
Hey wiretap show me my favorite show. Hey wall with ears tell me the weather.
------
sureaboutthis
> to secretly spy on targets
Apparently everyone here thinks so much of themselves that they think they are
important enough to be a target.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lessons Learned the Hard Way: Postgres in Production at GoCardless - Sinjo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu-cf-Jki60
======
Sinjo
Or if you prefer slides: [https://speakerdeck.com/sinjo/lessons-learned-the-
hard-way-p...](https://speakerdeck.com/sinjo/lessons-learned-the-hard-way-
postgres-in-production-at-gocardless)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Testing Different Browsers: It`s a Pain in the Ass - bad_user
http://alexn.org/blog/2011/10/25/testing-different-browsers.html
======
DanBC
Does it matter, so long as you're writing standards compliant code?
Look how much damage was caused by people trying to support the awful IE6 for
years (still doing it too!)? (By damage I mean extra time, buginess, and
bandwidth for extra CSS and javascript kludges).
Why is it not viable to just say "The code is standards complaint, so any
problems are at your end; use a better browser"?
~~~
bad_user
Standards-compliant is what people use, not what we are saying it is a
standard.
Also, the reason for why I wrote the original article for doing CORS cross-
browser is that not even all recent browsers have support for CORS. For
instance the version of Opera that I have (11) does not.
And the reason why I care -- I got complaints from actual programmers that
visited my page and told me that it doesn't work.
I suspect the above mentioned problem is due to an old version of Flash player
(used as a fallback in case the browser doesn't work with CORS), but saying
that "it works on my machine" is not an acceptable answer, not even to your
fellow software developers.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple Sold More Macs and iDevices Than All Windows PCs Sold in Holiday Quarter - uladzislau
http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/2/12/apple-passes-microsoft/?
======
RexRollman
To me, those are two different market segments. Call me back when Apple sells
more Macs than PCs.
~~~
sjwright
Agreed, but that's another statistic for another day. This isn't a story about
market segments, but rather Apple platforms/strategy versus Microsoft
platforms/strategy.
Where I think the analysis falls down is that Microsoft should be awarded XBox
system sales on its side of the ledger -- surely they're at least as much of a
computer as an iPod Touch?
~~~
tsurantino
They're not. I think it's more difficult to make the argument that an XBOX is
used for general computing purposes (and would therefore warrant a great level
of activity, activity which overlaps significantly with what you would do on a
laptop/desktop) than you would for an iDevice.
Though even amongst iDevices you can make distinctions. It's pretty blurry
which is why I think the OP seems to be right (though not at that extreme),
but I don't think including the XBOX would be a good enough offset.
~~~
sjwright
As far as I'm concerned, you can either compare market segments (computers OR
phones) or you can compare product strategies.
Apple's strategy is focusing on small form factor consumer products.
Microsoft's (successful) strategies are focusing on workplace and living room.
Both companies appear to have successful respective strategies, though the big
story is how Apple's new products have stolen share from a huge number of
competitors:
- Sony Walkman, et al
- Nokia, et al
- Nintendo
- Windows computers
And probably others.
~~~
codex
Apple is also selling into the living room. The Apple TV sells 6-7 million of
them a year.
------
rubiquity
Oh yeah?! Well General Electric sold more toasters, conventional ovens,
microwaves, light bulbs, refrigerators, washers, dryers, and ovens than Apple
did Macs and iThingies! So take that! Hah!
~~~
Corrado
Are you sure? It's been ages since I've purchased any of those things, yet I
have 5 iPods, 3 iPhones, 4 iPads, 2 iMacs, and 2 MBPs, sitting within 50' of
me right now. And the light bulbs I've purchased in the past 2 years have not
been from GE. Just sayin'
------
LaSombra
It's interesting how people compare Apple's sales of different categories to
its competitors single category.
~~~
IBM
They're comparing it because people are starting to use mobile devices as
replacements for PCs. Apple wants you to buy an iPhone or iPad over a Mac
because it has higher margins, but the point is that Microsoft has a steadily
decreasing share of the "computing" market which could have been potential
Windows/Windows Phone licenses sold.
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BgTIjxNCUAA-
Dw_.png](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BgTIjxNCUAA-Dw_.png)
~~~
DrStalker
In that case they need to include Android phones and tablets, Windows phones
and tablets and Blackberries.
~~~
gress
Since when did android phones or blackberries run windows?
~~~
scott_karana
I think he was getting at the licensing fees that Android manufacturers and
Google pay to Microsoft on a per-phone basis.
~~~
gress
That's a far-fetched reason to include android devices in the category of
windows pcs.
------
chirau
You couldn't handle being told the silliness of your analysis which is why you
closed your comment thread. You are comparing a single product line from a
company to Apple's whole armory and have the audacity to call it historic.
Shame
~~~
greenyoda
Exactly. "iDevices" include iPods. What exactly is the point of comparing
iPods to PCs? If you're going to do that, you should add in Xbox and Windows
server sales on the Microsoft side.
~~~
benedictevans
If you'd read the post, you'd know that it includes iPod Touches only. And
neither Xboxes nor servers are personal computing devices.
------
datphp
> The comments to this post were entertaining but not very valuable,
> especially since almost all of them made complaints about things that
> weren't actually said. So I've closed comments.
Yeah, might want to close the article for similar reasons.
------
bhauer
I for one enjoy this trend despite being a fan of Microsoft more than Apple. I
can now envision Microsoft as the scrappy underdog fighting the Apple
hegemony. Ah, to become a hipster Microsoft fan.
(I'm only half kidding. I've had friends suggest that their kids see Windows
Phones are more appealing than iPhones because iPhones are for adults. These
are probably oddball kids, but it made me laugh. Microsoft? Hip? Surely you're
mistaken.)
~~~
300bps
I had three iPhones (3G, 4, 4s) and my Windows Phone Lumia 928 is the best
phone I've ever had.
As for iPhone, it really is the grandparents that are buying them now. Between
Android and Windows Phone, there are a lot of great options.
Although I am currently trying to think of a way to get the Lumia Icon while
I'm still under contract.
~~~
bhauer
The sound isolation in the drag-racing video is quite compelling. If I were on
Verizon, I would be doing the same.
I'm on AT&T, so I need to wait for a similar 5" device. No phablets allowed in
my household! I'm hoping they have something fitting right in time for my 920
contract to wrap up.
------
steele
Why would the author count iPhone but have to optionally count Windows Phone?
~~~
iaskwhy
That would require a change to the title of the article so maybe that's why.
------
christoph
Really, why can't somebody make a PC laptop that can compete... Required
things to sell:
1\. Good battery life. (7hrs or more under light use)
2\. Good form factor - this means light weight, metal chassis + decent
smallish lightweight charger, ideally with non-fatal charge connection when
power cord is tripped over by animal/small child/drunk person. I don't want a
2kg laptop if I have to carry around a 1kg charger.
3\. SSD + good GFX + high res panel
4\. Good keyboard + trackpad
The only thing I've seen come close is this:
[http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/08/gigabytes-aurous-dual-
gpu...](http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/08/gigabytes-aurous-dual-gpu-one-
inch/)
And that gets a three hour battery life, which fails on my no. 1 priority
list. Looks like I just need to pay up for a Macbook Pro Retina, which
according to Apple's site, is "New" and it was released in October 2013.
I will happily drop £2k+ for the above.
~~~
lclarkmichalek
I'm sure there will be something that I've overlooked that disqualifies it
from your requirements, but I've been using a Yoga 2 which seems to do what
you want. Graphics aren't great (Intel :/), but it runs DOTA 2, so that's me
covered. Decent battery life (6hr of video playback), excellent form factor
(kinda the point of the machine), 3200x1800 screen, and nice leopard (though
that's subjective I guess)
~~~
pacaro
I do have to say that i love the leopard on the Yoga 2 also. For me the 13"
screen isn't a problem for my 40+ year old eyes, but I do understand why
someone wants a larger form factor. For me the portability and tablet<->laptop
convertibility are way more important.
~~~
christoph
This is one of the more exciting machines on the market. It's about the only
thing that tempts me...
------
gum_ina_package
I'd like to point out that Microsoft has sold more copies of Win8 than Mac has
sold of OS X since it has been released. However, I do like the idea of
Microsoft as being our last hope of fighting the Apple monoculture.
~~~
300bps
Actually, Vista has a higher market share than OS X 10.9:
[http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-
share....](http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-
share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0)
------
sharemywin
except you forgot xboxs and windows servers probably.
------
fleitz
Lets take a step back, fundamentally MS, Google, and Apple are all successful
companies.
They all have different approaches to the market and their numbers of units
shipped, profit per unit, total profit, and total revenue vary wildly.
------
bluedino
Would counting surface devices help?
~~~
DrStalker
Counting Android phones would.
~~~
gress
Android phones don't run windows and are not made by Microsoft.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Non-hackers: how to find a co-founder - oxygenated
http://pashbonk.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-to-find-cofounder.html
======
whacked_new
Let's take a different look at this article. As a thought experiment, say I'm
a non-hacker, enrolled in b-school, looking for a hacker. Now the suggestions:
1\. enroll in an engineering school. oops. 2. study CS, or take relevant
classes. Ok, I can take relevant classes. half-oops. 3. go to all classes to
see the real hackers. Real hackers aren't going to be in "introduction to
programming." oops. 4. hang out with admirable hackers. Icebreakers anyone?
oops.
Your post presumes a lot of favorable conditions which do not apply to many
people your article is addressed to; the problem is left unsolved. It looks
like a rather gaping problem, so why not address it? A matchmaking service!
I was told of an annual entrepreneurship program in Taiwan, where small teams
of all hackers and all business folks apply via separate tracks. The winners
then get matched together. It's quite an intriguing concept and definitely
worth exploring further.
~~~
pashle
Good points, the article was quite narrowly focused. Where would you go to
find cofounders?
~~~
nostrademons
I'd frame it a different way:
"Stay in touch with the potential cofounders you've already found."
I met my cofounder when we lived across from each other in college at the Arts
Theme House. We just didn't know we were cofounders yet. At the time, I was a
physics major - my cofounder knew that I had previously worked at a tech
startup, but he had no idea that I was still into computers (I'm not sure I
was, at the time), or that I'd done several major side projects. I knew him as
a psych major who was a bit of an electronics whiz - I had no idea that he
wanted to go into entrepreneurship or the Internet space. For that matter, I
don't think he did either.
I didn't find out what he was doing until I went over to catch up with him at
Homecoming. I knew that he'd been at a consulting firm (via FaceBook), but
usually consultants go into big business instead of Web2.0 startups. Even
then, I didn't join immediately - he had someone else picked out as a
technical cofounder. It was only after the previous technical cofounder quit
(for visa reasons) that I joined up with him.
Also - there's a common misconception that top-notch hackers spend all their
time hacking. They spend _a lot_ of time hacking, but most have other
interests. For example, Guy Steele sings bass in choir and does swing dancing.
Paul Graham writes essays and paints. One of the top hackers I knew at college
was a CS/Theater double major. IMNSHO, these people often have _better_
technical chops than the single-minded, socially awkward computer geek.
~~~
pashle
Arts Theme House:) Go Duke! Damn good points about hackers with more than just
technical chops. Congrats on finding your cofounder, I'm guessing you've
already got a live startup. If you want to link it, we'd love to check it out.
~~~
nostrademons
Actually, it was at Amherst. There must be multiple colleges with Arts Theme
Houses ;-).
And we're not live yet, but we're close. Damn day job sucks up my time. We may
have something (not our main idea, but potentially useful) up by tomorrow
though, and hopefully our original site idea will follow soon afterwards...
------
waleedka
If you're not a hacker then you'd better be good in marketing and a good
negotiator because these are the skills that most hackers lack. This way
you'll complement each other, and you'll have something to offer the
partnership.
~~~
pashle
For the Jobs: how could he improve his marketing/negotiating skills?
For the Woz: how could he find a Jobs?
------
menloparkbum
I'm not convinced the best hackers are found in a university computer lab.
When I was in college the only people in the computer lab were IRC addicts who
were too broke to afford their own computer! The article mentions "the Woz"
and I'm pretty sure steve jobs did not meet steve wozinak in a computer lab.
~~~
pashle
You're right, Steve met Woz because they lived in the same
neighbourhood/street. I agree that labs might be a long shot. Where else do
you think hackers might hang out?
~~~
timg
Alone in their basements? Seriously.
------
Tichy
I don't think the advice in the article applies anymore. Who would go to a
computer lab these days? I suspect people are more likely to use labtops and
WLAN.
Also, I don't think hackers dislike Java. Judging by the number of Open Source
projects in Java, I'd say it is popular among volunteers, too (not only people
being forced to by their superiors are using it).
I am not sure studying programming is a good idea, either. I would also like
to have a co-founder who is a graphics designer, marketing is good, too,
generally somebody who gets things moving.
~~~
pashle
As with menloparkbum, I agree that labs might be a long shot. I also agree
that cofounders with design and marketing skills would be great to have. Where
would you go to find them?
~~~
Tichy
I am only just starting to look - tough question. Maybe at a cartoon fair?
Conferences? Local "special interest" group meetings? LinkedIn? Craigslist?
Recommendations through friends? Parties at the local arts college?
------
oxygenated
I think a key point from the post is that non-hackers need to make the first
move - because face it, you need them more than they need you, no matter how
unfair you think that is.
~~~
Leonidas
I've thought about this for a bit and I really don't know who needs who more
so I like to think a non-hacker needs a hacker both equally. For example, if a
non-hacker can't find a hacker, he'll go hire one. Hiring one might not be the
best approach but if you have the money to spend, why not? Of course it's
always better to have a hacker as as cofounder. Now, a hacker - can be
business savvy so he wouldn't need a non-hacker.
But lets think about this, you have a hacker who thinks he doesn't need a non-
hacker. Well, most of the applications that hackers most likely build is for
other hackers. When you speak to VCs, how many of them are hackers? Or a bunch
of hacker guys building a 'fashion site'...uh what do guys know about fashion.
In this case, I would go find a non-hacker chick to join the team b/c she'll
know all the avenues and forum girls go to - marketing power.
You can build, but what you build won't always get users. I know there seems
to be a view in Silicon Valley that MBAs are morons but it's wrong to lump
them all into one group. I could easily say that a lot of hackers, while
brilliant, may build something really 'cool' but so entirely 'useless.'
A hacker and non-hacker team is the best combination. You both need each other
equally. There's no "I" in "Team."
~~~
nostrademons
"For example, if a non-hacker can't find a hacker, he'll go hire one."
You can't build a successful tech business with a hired hacker. By choosing to
hire, you'll only be able to attract programmers who are willing to work for
the money you can pay them. The cream of the crop will pass you up in favor of
startups that give them equity. Your first technical person sets a ceiling on
the technical ability of your subsequent hires, because bad programmers are
not able to recognize great ones.
If you're right and you do find a market niche that's extremely profitable,
you'll invite competition. One of those competitors will inevitably have a
top-notch hacker as a cofounder, and then you'll get eaten for lunch as their
small, nimble team of elite hackers copies everything you do and then
innovates way beyond it.
Many companies tried this approach in the dot-com boom, with predictable
results. For example, Altavista/Lycos/Infoseek got eaten by Google, Value
America by Amazon, Friendster and now MySpace by FaceBook.
~~~
Leonidas
"MySpace by FaceBook" -- that's kind of arguable because MySpace was acquired
and I really don't know who's making more money than whom. What about Digg? As
for Google eating those companies you listed up..heck Google eats everyone up.
Having a hacker as a co-founder is always better than hiring which I stated.
The point is, having a team of just solely hackers is not always better than
having a team of a non-hacker and hacker.
------
budu3
Oh my goodness. I'm truly alarmed by this article. The author needs to think
more in terms innovation, and creating value (for him and his co-workers, his
investors and his users) in places that people would not think to look. I
don't think it's about finding a hacker who can code in Ruby and then building
a me too web2.0 app/website. Web 2.0 and pastel coloured websites will come
and go but good innovators will always be around whether they know how to
program in the latest "geek" language or not.
~~~
juwo
I agree - it is reminiscent of the dot-com bubble. Everybody wants 'in' on the
youtube billions.
------
kyro
How about how to find a co-founder if you've sent out flyers, list-serv emails
and talked to professors? :P
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Math Riddle from the 1980’s Finally Solved – Could Be Used to Improve Computers - antoncohen
https://scitechdaily.com/math-riddle-from-the-1980s-finally-solved-could-be-used-to-improve-phones-and-computers/
======
weehoo
Is there a better source? This article is hard to read. It jumps tense and
confuses chronology repeatedly.
~~~
MurMan
The paper was referenced in the article:
[https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.03449](https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.03449)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Coordino - A Question Answer System - datawalke
http://coordino.com
======
kaiserrollz
This is seriously just a copy of stackoverflow.com. It does look a lot less
busy though... And its WAAAAY cheaper to buy
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Radiohead Says No More Albums - jnorthrop
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/08/12/radiohead-says-no-more-albums/?mod=rss_WSJBlog
======
jrschulz
[Disclaimer: I am a big fan of Radiohead and at the same time listen to music
almost exclusively album-for-album. No shuffle play for me, thanks.]
I seriously hope that they at least always release a couple of tracks
together. Whether they call that an "album" doesn't matter to me.
I fail to imagine myself to buy a new song every couple of weeks and listen to
each of them separately. Am I supposed to listen to new music for just four
minutes and then skip to something else?
Complex, good music (which, for me, includes that of Radiohead) deserves
attention. You cannot build up attention in such a short amount of time. An
album is more tan a collection of songs. Every song not only stands for itself
but also serves as a frame for all other songs.
If I had a short attention span, I would listen to the radio. (Ok, I actually
_do_ have a short attention span, but well...)
~~~
pmorici
Many of Charles Dickens's books were originally released one chapter at a time
just because Radiohead releases songs as singletons doesn't mean you can't put
them together to make something greater than the parts.
~~~
jerf
That's not the question; the question is whether those parts will form a
greater whole.
I'm not the original poster, so I speak only for myself. Some of my "albums"
(read: CDs) are just collections of songs, and that's fine. But some of the
albums have coherency, stylistic similarities that don't just come from the
artist (as other albums from the same artist will have different stylistic
similarities in those songs), and other things that make these albums a bit
more than just the sum of their parts. This doesn't just include the "concept
albums", but even things that may sound like "just a collection of songs" at
first but turn out to have a flow and coherency once you think about it.
If nothing else, there's an art to album arrangement. Like good editing, it
might be easier to see if I gave an example of a very degenerate case than if
I try to say what's good: If you release 6 happy songs and 6 sad songs, you
don't want them to show up in that order, as that makes for a terrible break
in the flow (it'll feel like two albums glued together); you want to mix them
together, and even with the same 12 songs, the tone of the album can be
somewhat manipulated just by the order of the songs. (Start and end on happy?
Start and end on sad? etc.)
It's not just a matter of "my choice"; there's a matter of the artist's choice
as well. This is a very fuzzy thing and it is perfectly possible to create a
"mix album" with a bit of work that is itself a bit more than the sum of its
parts, but there's still something to be said for an artist doing this
deliberately.
(Besides, call me old-fashioned but I think that there's still a place for the
concept album. The short form gets mined out easily, especially in the context
of a single artist; giving a bigger canvas to a skilled artist can produce
something genuinely different.)
I hope that people continue to produce albums and not just single, isolated
tracks. (Of course, albums too could be serialized. And maybe that's all you
meant, but I still wanted to point out this could be a problem in this bright
new era. I'm not prone to complaining about new media but this is one place we
could genuinely lose an entire art form, not just be quibbling about the smell
of the book or something else that nobody under the age of 10 will ever miss
in the future (my personal metric of fuddy-duddy-ness when it comes to
complaining about new media).)
------
notirk
I have been thinking for a while that it was only a matter of time until bands
started moving towards recording and publishing a fewer number of songs at a
time due to digital sales. Albums make sense when you have to press a physical
medium and distribute it across the country/world, not so much with a purely
digital distribution.
The making of individual tracks also works well with pop music and its
mentality, actually, it makes tons of sense, cutting costs by only writing and
recording a few songs and spoon feeding it to the radio stations and the
general public. The move away from albums is a total shame from an artistic
view point. You'd never end up with masterpiece albums like "Dark Side of the
Moon" with bands recording a few tracks at a time. I also connect so much of a
band and their era's by albums too. Metallica and their change with the black
album and everything after that. Even when I download new music today, I
acquire full albums to hear everything else the band has made. I'm not looking
forward to the day it's mostly individual tracks!
~~~
mrshoe
Radiohead has proven to be ahead of the curve in the music industry, yet
frankly I'm surprised to see this coming from a "real band" first.
Pop artists generally pay big name producers for 2 to 3 tracks per album,
which they plan on releasing as singles. The rest of the tracks are more or
less filler so they can justify charging $15 for a long play album.
With digital distribution becoming more popular and consumers buying more
singles instead of full albums, I thought pop artists would be the first to
stop releasing full-length albums. I guess this is just another example of the
music industry being unable or unwilling to adapt to the changing landscape.
I really do hope, though, as you mentioned, that real musicians continue to
put in the creativity and hard work it takes to produce full albums. The
result is just far better than a collection of singles.
------
dschobel
The quote three lines in from Yorke is: _“None of us want to go into that
creative hoo-ha of a long-play record again. Not straight off,”_
which doesn't strike me as sharing the finality of the story's title.
~~~
rms
Right, the media always does this. They aren't going to come out with an album
_for the current release cycle_. Next release cycle 5 years from now, sure.
------
sgoranson
That kinda bums me out to hear. I know Radiohead's m.o. lately is
revolutionizing the process of music production, and maybe they think albums
are a relic of the old regime and passe or something. But can you really
imagine if OK Computer was released one iTunes download at a time? yuck.
~~~
SwellJoe
_The Bends_ (which, I've always felt is their best album overall) would work
pretty well in a singles model, though it is even better taken as a whole.
I think it's worth realizing that the "album" concept came about _because_ of
technological changes...and the singles model is coming back, again, because
of technology. I also don't think most songwriters can really deliver an
album, in the grand sense of the word. I think the list of truly great whole
albums is shockingly short. There are only a few people on earth that can
deliver an album of the caliber of _Dark Side of the Moon_ , _Abbey Road_ ,
_Rumors_ , _London Calling_ , etc. Most of even the best selling bands of all
time would have served their customers better by providing a few great singles
at a fair price. Journey, for example. Great bunch of very successful singles
over a long career...but even their best album is at least half filler, and
none of their albums are better appreciated as a whole ( _Don't Stop
Believing_ is not improved by being heard with the surrounding tracks on
_Escape_ ).
Bands that want to make long cohesive concept pieces are more free than ever
to do so; the cost of album production is lower than ever, and the
distribution costs have reached approximately zero. Their customers are also
more free than ever to say, "$12 for 15 songs is too steep. But I'll give you
a buck each for those two really good songs." The casual listener has a chance
to take part and support artists in ways they may not have in the past, while
the artist and dedicated fans can _still_ choose big productions and long-form
recordings (and pay more for that experience).
These are good times for music, both artists and fans. The recording industry,
on the other hand, is approaching a long-deserved reckoning.
------
dzlobin
I've got to come clean, I feel like I'm the only person who never enjoyed
radiohead. I like a grand total of two songs.
~~~
edb
Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, and I have respect for yours. That
being said, the idea of anyone not being able to enjoy radiohead makes me sad.
Give them another try! :)
------
flipbrad
A bit like 'pay what you want' - this is a band that has the prior cred and
prior revenue to experiment pretty much however they damn well please.
Other threads around me point out the cons: albums are cornerstones of
artists' careers, fantastic creative canvases, and so on.
But in a future when we're streaming, not owning, our music, and where the
album is already dead (unpackaged by iTunes), there is arguably a future where
music is released as a steady, no-rush stream of quality tracks that then get
remixed and mashed up by listeners, and placed into the totally unique and
possibly _more_ meaningful context of the user's own playlists ("albums").
Like fanfic circulating around publishing, people will put together and share
suggested album-like playlists anyway, perhaps even giving them their own
'album titles'. Wisdom of the crowd principle suggests these might be even
better ordered and contextualised and thus increase the popularity of the
tracks within to broadened audience, driving 'airplay' and perhaps ownership
------
robryan
Maybe the reason album sales are out of line with singles in growth/ decline
because bands are cutting corners and releasing albums with a couple of good
songs and a load of average stuff just to get to album size.
Given the relative low payoff from making an album these days I think some
bands would be better served making new music bit by bit between tours rather
than trying to push out an album every year. It usually gets to the point with
a good band after about 2 or 3 albums that they don't have time to play
everything you want to hear at a concert anyway so slower production of songs
isn't an issue in that reguard.
------
H__N
Try Gustav Mahler's Symphony No 9 if you like long complex music. 4 parts 30
min 16 min 14 min and the forth at 28 min. The Adagio is good.
------
tamas
Interestingly, they announced this after releasing an album on the Internet.
Nine Inch Nails also announced their farewell tour after doing online
release[s] (1 regular album, and a 4 CD instrumental, collaborative set).
Maybe it's a sign of really getting tired of the "music business" when a well
established band starts doing online releases?
------
joebottherobot
It was really sad to hear this. Radiohead albums tend to be greater than the
sum of their individual tracks.
------
rokhayakebe
Agile Album Development.
------
beamso
Billy Corgan has said the same thing about upcoming Smashing Pumpkins
releases. Only singles and EPs after Zeitgeist (hence American Gothic and
G.L.O.W).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
On Gender in Minecraft - Divinite
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/28188312756/gender-in-minecraft
======
DavidWarden
The fact that this even have to be said is retarded.
~~~
Gigablah
Now someone will have to write a blog post about your usage of "retarded".
------
goldenchrome
This is not HN worthy.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: We just launched our MVP, a new RSS Reader - spxdcz
http://subpug.com/
======
voidfiles
RSS isn't ever going to be a big deal. If you are thinking in terms of market
size it's never going to be really big. Facebook, and Google+ have both taken
the subscription model in a direction that is more consumer friendly.
If you accept that premise, you are building a product for informed, longish-
term computer users, and you are treating them like they are beginners. If my
intrest was piqued by RSS I probably already use an RSS reader, and have a
bunch of feeds I want to use.
You are missing the ability for me to organize my feeds into folders. I have a
lot of feeds, and I need folders to triage my reading into a sliding scale
from important to least important.
After all of this keep it up, because I am, and I think many others are,
willing to pay for an app that does RSS reading well.
~~~
rohitarondekar
Fair point. But if this supported adding and managing feeds of my choice I
would certainly give it a try. I'm guessing that this is a test of their
reader and hence an MVP.
P.S I currently use Google Reader and am looking for alternatives.
~~~
guga31bb
Try newsblur: <http://www.newsblur.com/>
As discussed on HN: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1834305>
It has folders, hotkeys, and I think I like the layout more than Google Reader
(I'm still in the early stages of switching over).
~~~
conesus
Also open-source (<http://github.com/samuelclay>), actively developed, and
social features coming soon (within the next 2 months). And of course, a
history of shipping.
------
wonnage
It's a pretty app that looks like it's taken a lot of design inspiration from
Google Reader. Which is a good thing, I think they nailed it in terms of UI.
That said, I was really hoping you'd have your own sharing mechanism. The
major thing Google Reader lost in the transition was the ability to share and
comment in a unified manner - having to go to Twitter or Facebook to read
comments on something you shared elsewhere is a pain.
Also, doesn't look like there's any tracking of read/unread items.
~~~
MichaelGlass
Google reader user. Agreed: If someone could restore the features google
reader killed, I would start using their product immediately.
Specifically:
sharing, comments, bookmarklet for non-rss content.
Float (float.com) has an interesting idea of removing everything except
content from facebook/twitter/etc, which I like, but they are still missing a
usable webapp and the aforementioned features.
------
gorbachev
Great start.
However, as a heavy RSS user, an MVP isn't gonna cut it for me.
Couple of specific things are going to prevent me from using your product:
1\. Your UI shows way too few feed items on a page. Compared to Google Reader,
for example, you display maybe 30% as much content on a single page. That
makes reading RSS feeds slow on your product.
2\. There is no ability to group RSS feeds in any way. I'm not a single
interest kinda of a person, so my RSS subscriptions contain all kinds of
content. I don't read all that content the same way, and I don't feel like
reading some of the content all the time.
I like the filtering capability you have on the feeds. This is something I've
been missing for some time. I wish you'd expand it from simple keywords to
maybe regular expression based. Look into how killfiles in Usenet clients used
to work for inspiration maybe.
------
webwanderings
You know what I really like my RSS reader to do? Zoom in and out on command.
Show me birds eye view (readable view) of everything, let me scroll fast, but
then let me zoom in to the headlines which I may find interesting and then let
me zoom in more for details without making me click to visit the site. By
zoom-in and zoom-out I mean the way Prezi does it, i.e, the camera zoom in/out
and not the Ctrl+ font increase of browser.
------
DanielRibeiro
Looks really nice, but I'd like to know more about its unique value
proposition (what makes me use it instead of Google Reader, where I have all
my stars and shares, and great search).
It looks really great and it has some quite comprehensive features. Which
actually sends me back to what one of LinkedIn's founder once said[1]: _If
You're Not Embarrassed By The First Version Of Your Product, You’ve Launched
Too Late_
If this is the first MVP of the idea, it might be worthwhile checking out Ash
Maurya's great post[2] on the subject.
[1]
[http://articles.businessinsider.com/2009-11-13/strategy/3006...](http://articles.businessinsider.com/2009-11-13/strategy/30067340_1_pros-
and-cons-philosophy-product)
[2] [http://www.ashmaurya.com/2009/11/from-minimum-viable-
product...](http://www.ashmaurya.com/2009/11/from-minimum-viable-product-to-
landing-pages/)
~~~
cageface
_If You're Not Embarrassed By The First Version Of Your Product, You’ve
Launched Too Late_
Sort of OT, but I'm not sure this is really broadly useful advice. In the
world of iOS apps, for instance, that first impression is often the only one
you'll get before people move on. Hard to say which is the correct approach
for an app like this but sometimes it pays to polish the hell out of 1.0
instead.
~~~
DanielRibeiro
Apple does make iterating your MVP harder. Not impossible, just harder.
But don't forget that MVP is primarily a tool for learning with the least
amount of effort. Not less. So, if you are making something nobody wants, why
make it very polished? You will just waste more time learning this fact. Time
that could be used changing the product/trying something new entirely.
And even on app store: you can iterate with different product names, and
different brands. So you can lunch different iterations, possibly A/B testing
app name, logo and description, without much extra overhead, all at the same
time.
~~~
cageface
I think it has a lot less to do with release delays in the App store than it
does with the attention span of the typical customer. You can iterate all you
want but if they've already formed an opinion of your product based on a first
impression they're unlikely to give it a second look. All the apps I've
released have had a big initial sales spike over the first week or so and
never again climbed back anywhere close to those numbers, despite a large
number of functional and aesthetic improvements.
~~~
DanielRibeiro
You can release multiple products with different names and even different
brands (you use different accounts if needed). It may not be cheap, but it is
possible. This way you will have the huge spike over and over again (you may
change name/logo for different experiments). And please don't use vanity
metrics[1] for measuring the outcome.
[1] <http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/30/vanity-metrics/>
~~~
DanielRibeiro
This interview directly talks about iphone apps and MVPs on its first 5
minutes:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Z...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Zo6JYfLFEVQ)
------
tlack
Looks great, congratulations. Three comments:
1\. On Chrome in Windows, the smaller fonts look a bit scrunched in a way that
makes my eyeballs hurt. Is this configurable?
2\. I notice that you say to bookmark the URL, and I presume my user id is
stored in a cookie. What happens if I want to read from another device or if I
clear my cookies? It would be awesome if you could generate a unique URL for
each user. Bonus points if it's easy to say over the phone or type in by
hand/from memory (I use at 4-5 devices to browse the web daily - 2 x laptops,
Playbook, and my BB).
3\. That Tweet sidebar thing is interesting but feels a little laggy. Is there
a way to turn it off?
------
pauljonas
1\. Formatting is FUBARed when zooming in (Chrome browser).
2\. OPML import? Already have a set of RSS subscriptions, need to be able to
import existing feed list, don't wish to reenter all these in…
/goodluck on the venture.
~~~
voidfiles
In edit subscriptions you can do an OPML import. I had the same first thought.
What is broken though is they don't seem to support folders.
~~~
pauljonas
/thanks, found it! Cannot believe I did not see it there earlier.
Though I do not expect it to work after importing… …I have A LOT of feeds -- I
see the subscription titles showing but it seems to be stuck on "refresh"
right now…
------
jedbrown
1\. It doesn't seem to remember whether I have seen something before. I have
over a hundred items per day in my feeds and I read them erratically, so I
don't want to have to remember myself.
2\. It would be nice to have a more integrated sharing feature. An ideal
method for my group of computational science friends (since migrating off
Google Reader and being dissatisfied with long threads on G+) would be linking
into a (possibly private) reddit. It would be nice to at least see if the item
has been shared yet.
------
sixQuarks
I really like what you guys have done here. Ever since Google Reader switched
over to the Google+ design, I've been looking for a replacement.
This is a great MVP, but for me, there is one feature I would NEED before I
would consider switching.
Google Reader shows you a count of how many posts are unread, and as you read
them, it removes it from the list. That feature is the most important for me.
Any plans on addressing this? Or do you already have this and I'm just not
seeing it?
~~~
dorzey
If you choose the "Blank" starter pack then you can import your OPML file from
Google Reader.
~~~
sixQuarks
Yes, but that doesn't address the feature that I was looking for.
------
garethsprice
Too much whitespace in the list view, if I'm using RSS I want to scroll
through hundreds of articles in rapid succession and cherry-pick the
interesting ones.
Would be nice to be able to import my Google Reader subscription list so I can
instantly compare the two tools.
The Tweets and shared comments is an interesting idea, but took me a while to
find - this is the one thing that would get me to come back and use this over
Google Reader. Nice differentiator.
------
holman
Huge fan of the logo and its secret onclick event.
------
webwanderings
I typed cnn.com, nothing happened. I then typed www.cnn.com and I see that it
recognized. I then clicked the dog icon, it is still thinking....
I like the interface and the fact that you don't need to sign up. Not sure if
I'll remember to come back to this because it really isn't working for me
right now.
------
phasevar
I'm a heavy RSS user but this doesn't really fit my workflow. I may be
different than a lot of other heavy RSS users though.
I'm currently using Google Reader to keep track of things for me. I sync it up
with iReadG on my iPhone and then I scan through headlines on my iPhone and
star the ones I'm interested in reading. I do this while I'm out and about and
need to kill some time while waiting on things in life to happen. Just
scanning headlines from HN, Slashdot and TechCrunch usually fills all my
mobile downtime.
Then when I get back to the computer I go through the star items and read
them, unstarring them as I go.
Your interface would be nice if I could work it into my workflow but it
doesn't look setup for that.
------
tlow
_Subscription packs_ are the best part of your idea _so far_. I suggest you
keep them, but spend some time thinking about who your target user is, how
you'll tell them about how you'll provide them value, and how you'll provide
them value.
Here are some questions I had:
1\. what does a user expect to happen next when they click on a subscription
pack?
2\. why is your landing page dark while your app is light?
3\. why isn't there an action when a user clicks "All your favorite websites
in one place."
4\. why isn't there a clearer call to action?
5\. it seems like you're targeting users who don't currently use RSS at all,
will they even understand what your product does?
------
amitamb
Design is great! Who did it and how can average entrepreneur imitate it.
BTW I thought there will be easy way to import Google reader list but there is
none. (I first selected interesting then blank.)
~~~
dvillase
You can import using OPML. I also would like an easier integration method,
that and also explaining what OPML is. It took me awhile to figure and I have
good knowledge of GR, imagine someone that doesn't.
------
spxdcz
Hi everyone. We've been away from our computers for a few hours but wow,
thanks for the feedback (good and bad). We're going to go through all of your
comments (and those that have been submitted by email and Twitter) and
prioritize our efforts.
We know there are still lots of things that need improving (handling lots of
feeds, how new items are displayed, organizing feeds, etc) - we'll do our best
to get to these asap, but wanted to get this 'out the door' as quickly as
possible to get your feedback.
~~~
bbaker
It's a great start. Keep rocking it.
~~~
spxdcz
Thanks! I'm just going through all the comments again now and importing the
requests/issues into Redmine.
------
geuis
On iOS 5:
The design is nice.
Don't show the entire story when you visit one of the categories. Just show
headlines.
It rendered terribly slowly, scrolling was jerky, and page navigation was
completely unresponsive. Eventually the browser just crashed.
The first category I visited was Science. It showed science stuff.
The next category I visited was Film. It also showed science stuff.
~~~
bluena
about the science/film problem you're talking about: I had the same
impression. What's happening is that your feed is showing science and film
articles, but because there was only recent science articles, you had the
impression that your feed did not include film articles
------
sontek
Would be nice if you didn't remove the session id from the URL. I would like
to bookmark the URL so I don't have to keep the e-mail in my inbox.
Also, frictionless use is cool and all but it would be nice if I could just
create a username and password so I know I'll always have access to my feeds.
------
moustachio
I put together a usablity review of subpug.com using moustach.io. I hope you
find this useful.
[http://moustach.io/welcome/e/reviewed/YDtJ9-Su30Q3VH3VGotGnZ...](http://moustach.io/welcome/e/reviewed/YDtJ9-Su30Q3VH3VGotGnZhI1WUGf20J/kzNiYpDhRIM9MP2gkgz5dw)
Good luck.
------
jamesgeck0
It shows the same ten posts over and over again. This may be a bug. Want my
OPML file?
~~~
jackolas
Same here. It also would be nice to have a selection screen after you do the
OPML import to verify if you still want all that crap :)
------
bbxxnicol
I love the UI. People have already mentioned this; it needs to keep count of
the number of unread articles. Looks very promising though!
I was curious as to what JS Frameworks you've been using besides jQuery.
Underscore.js? Backbone.js?
------
tmcb
As it is advertised, the subscription info is stored locally. How can it be
deleted? I tried to delete the cookies, but it didn't work. Please, don't tell
me you are using those naughty evercookies.
------
dwynings
I'm curious to know why you didn't just create a chrome extension like
<http://reederforchrome.tumblr.com/> or Helvetireader.
------
rhizome
Seeing some weirdness on chrome+ubuntu:
[http://www.zimagez.com/zimage/screenshot-12282011-065319pm.p...](http://www.zimagez.com/zimage/screenshot-12282011-065319pm.php)
------
choxi
sick! the UI looks like it would feel better on a tablet, you should consider
pivoting to be an ipad app since it's oriented for media consumption
~~~
bbaker
good call
------
codedivine
Bug report: I am using Opera 11.60 on Linux (64-bit). When I click on "blank"
pack, Opera hangs and I have to terminate the application.
------
ch0wn
It feels very fast and I really enjoy the color scheme. One thing I noticed:
On small resolutions the top navigation bar wraps.
------
bentlegen
Lose the transparency on the top action bar. It's distracting, and I'm not
realistically going to read text through it.
------
rb2k_
I really, really like the navigation using 'j' and 'k'. Thanks for having
that.
------
netlemurde
Really like the UI with the comments on the side Good job!
------
mike_ivanov
Very interesting. BTW, why there is horizontal scrolling?
------
desireco42
You know, I actually needed something like this, thanks
------
richardburton
RSS is alive again.
------
thiagoc
good job, it's a nice app!
------
nirvana
Love the subscription packs and the friction free signup, but once I'd picked
a pack, I wanted to go back and add another pack to my set of subscriptions...
but couldn't figure out how, probably because this is an MVP.
When looking at my subscriptions I clicked on the pub in the upper left to go
to your homepage (to add a pack to my subscriptions) and what it does is
change the view in some way that's totally not obvious to me. I get a
different top story. Maybe its changing the sort order, but theres' no visual
indication of what has changed, only the story I was reading is replaced. I
click it again and it switches back.
Great MVP, and bonus points for the effortless signup.
~~~
greendestiny
Had the same experience but if you click on the original link from HN again
you can add other packs. Probably just needs a link back to that landing page.
------
drivebyacct2
Very cool. Sadly, scrolling performance Chrome/MBP+Lion is unacceptably
choppy.
~~~
netlemurde
same here. got better after everything was loaded
------
Punishker
What's 'your MVP'? It looks and sounds like an app...
How does your RSS reader beat the competition? Anything of note?
~~~
FuzzyDunlop
I believe it stands for 'minimum viable product'[1]. Basically releasing a
rough v1.0 that does the bare minimum, and then turning it into the real deal
in the next major iteration.
[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product>
------
suking
RSS is dead & google reader works fine.
~~~
dvillase
RSS is still alive and kicking. Seems like no service has been able to make it
gain as much traction as it should.
The recent Google+ integration into Google Reader made the product take a step
backwards. Then you have apps like Reeder (which was my favorite at some
time), Pulse (became my next favorite), and then Flipboard (which has won me
personally).
Except, I feel like something is missing from all of them.
Google Reader has this awesome Sort by Magic feature, but seems to have been
broken recently. If applications could use this sorting method and bring in
social better (the integration is lacking right now) it would be awesome!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
BBC detector vans are back to spy on your home Wi-Fi – if you can believe it - davidbarker
http://theregister.co.uk/2016/08/06/bbc_detector_van_wi_fi_iplayer/
======
lttlrck
With a little 'help' from ISPs they could do IP to street address lookup. No
need for a van.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mobile Optimization? 7 Brutal Reasons People Aren’t Buying on Mobile - michaelguar
http://mobile1st.com/mobile-optimization-7-brutal-reasons-people-arent-buying-on-mobile-and-some-quick-fixes/
======
richkaplan
I always wondered why I stopped midway in my window shopping and migrated ot
my laptop
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Slightly Less Awful Hiring for Engineering Talent - wpietri
http://www.codeforamerica.org/blog/2015/12/11/slightly-less-awful-hiring-for-engineering-talent/
======
ianamartin
One thing I noticed in my most recent job search was that I don't see nearly
as many postings for junior and entry level positions as I seem to remember in
the past. Seems like everyone is looking for a rockstar or a genius or a code
ninja miracle-worker.
I'm curious if anyone else sees that trend, or if I'm just making it up. One
of the reasons is that several friends of mine have been bugging me for a
while to help get them started with code. These are people around my age.
Professional musicians from back in the time of my life when that was what I
did for a living.
There five of them now who have been asking, so I'm finally putting together a
structured curriculum and working with them on a regular basis. When we get
done in six months or so, they will have some abilities with Linux server
administration, databases, Python, C#, web application frameworks,
javascript,front end work, version control, and testing. I'll work in some CS
theory as we hit appropriate points.
Obviously, they will be very green. But they are all incredibly bright,
professional, adults. One of them has a master's in Math she got after her
Doctorate in music just because she was curious, and another has most of a PhD
in Physics. I don't think any of them expect to waltz into a high-powered job
after 6 months of me spewing at them. But I think any of them would thrive in
a junior position with people around them who had the time and the inclination
to do some mentoring.
Are those kinds of jobs disappearing? Am I being unrealistic hoping that this
could be an option for some of them? What do you think?
~~~
stouset
Regardless of what organizations claim to be looking for, virtually everywhere
I've been besides my current position has been staffed to the brim with junior
developers, and been in dire need of at least a few people with seniority.
The irony is when a senior person does come in, all their recommendations are
ignored because they will slow down the pace of development. Which it will,
but in exchange for setting a _sustainable_ pace of development. A senior
developer might (making numbers up here) crank out 100 lines of code per day,
but a junior will crank out 1,000 while solving twice as many business
problems. Unfortunately, bug counts seem to scale linearly with code size, so
most of the problems you're solving are actually just a direct consequence of
the ten-fold increase in bugs in the larger code base. Eventually progress
grinds to a complete halt as it becomes too difficult to add business value,
and the company enters zombie mode where its death is virtually inevitable,
but can still operate for years through additional funding.
Sorry, I may have gotten a little off point there.
~~~
EliRivers
Sweet Jesus, so true.
Every time someone suggests we have proper requirements or decent testing or
put some thought into design or rewrite something that's causing endless
trouble, we're told there's no time for it.
Which is how we're now up to "release candidate" FORTY, four months behind the
original release date. Because tests get done six months after the code was
written, whatever doesn't fail has a fifty-fifty chance of not actually doing
what's needed (so it's a bug), and testers and coders have long conversations
about "what's it even meant to do, anyway?" that are unanswerable because
there is no requirement or design reference.
The cost of running four months over schedule thus far is, well, four man-
months multiplied by the number of employees, basically. So yeah, excellent
savings compared to having spent a couple of days thinking about what we're
trying to build and having testers involved throughout rather than just
dumping six months' worth of untested development on them (and expecting them
not only to be able to test it in a week, but expecting everything to pass).
Wouldn't mind if this was the first time, but EVERY DAMN CYCLE is the same. We
can't possible start doing things properly, look how far behind we are! It's
like there's a mental gap, some kind of inability to see the cause and effect
right in front of their faces.
( Morale is low :p )
~~~
wpietri
> Every time someone suggests we have proper requirements or decent testing or
> put some thought into design or rewrite something that's causing endless
> trouble, we're told there's no time for it.
I should point out that as professionals not only do we have the option of
saying no to bad requests, I think we also have the obligation to do so.
I know there's this culture in software development of "just do whatever the
bosses say", but as far as I can tell it's not a law. I've told executives no
on many occasions and so far I've never been fired for it. At first their
startled, but if you keep saying no to the bad requests and help them
understand what they're supposed to do, they eventually come around. And if
not, this is an excellent time to find another software development job.
> It's like there's a mental gap, some kind of inability to see the cause and
> effect right in front of their faces.
Yes, that definitely happens. Until people experience it the other way, they
often think that's just how software development has to be.
~~~
EliRivers
"I should point out that as professionals not only do we have the option of
saying no to bad requests, I think we also have the obligation to do so."
Indeed. I watched three people say "no" to a significant, new piece of very
important software that replaced completely our legacy data
storage/fetching/processing methods. They said "no" for the reasons you'd
expect; not properly specified, unreasonable expectations of basically magic
on the part of management, very improbable timescale.
In one meeting, when a very skilled programmer (who goes to the C++ committee
meetings and that sort of thing) said "no", the response was "Well then I'll
find someone who can." What they got, of course, was someone who didn't say
"no" (and of course, there's an element of self-selection here; given that
some skilled, competent software engineers said no, the person who said yes
was, harsh as it may sound, an adequate _programmer_ but an incompetent
software engineer). What we got was a total car crash of software, six months
late, that's massively unsuitable, doesn't do what's needed, undocumented,
untested, everything bad that you'd expect. A great deal of the 40 "release
candidates" were desperate fixes to this car crash, that our recently
appointed new software architect is planning to take outside and execute in
the car park as soon as we get a "release". So that was a great use of a year.
Where this is going is that saying "no" didn't actually stop them finding
someone who wouldn't say "no". On the plus side, the person who delivered this
truly atrocious software to us is now actively looking for another job. Not
that he was fired, no no, but he's now got zero credibility and nobody wants
to work on anything he ever touched.
Christ, I wish I'd just gone into mathematics.
~~~
wpietri
I'm not quite understanding. The yes-sayer worked alone on the project and is
now leaving? If so, why's it a problem for you?
~~~
EliRivers
Because he's not taking the godawful software with him. That's staying.
It's also a problem for me because he's done his damage. I want to make high-
quality software, on time, that does what the customers need. I want this out
of both a sense of personal pride, and also because I need the company to keep
making sales so they can keep giving me money.
~~~
wpietri
Sorry, I'm still not understanding. What's stopping you from making high-
quality software on reasonable schedules?
~~~
EliRivers
I don't run the company, and even if I ignored everything I was told to do,
and didn't get fired, and instead followed sensible, professional processes, I
don't write the entire software by myself.
I am bemused that someone of your experience has trouble grasping this. I
thought perhaps you were some kid straight out of school who thinks the whole
world works like the marketing material for agile, but it turns out you've got
a decade of experience. You must, surely, have seen (or at least heard of)
companies that don't look like the marketing material for agile?
~~~
wpietri
Sure. Mostly when I see it, it's people who don't know any better. With a fair
number who do know better but do it anyhow. The former group I understand. But
the latter is a mystery to me.
------
pjungwir
The #1 thing I look for in a job ad is a salary range. I don't see one in the
ad he links to, and I don't see any discussion of salary in the article.
Without that I won't bother to apply.
~~~
agildehaus
Then there are employers that hide entirely behind a recruiting agency. Why
should I apply if I have little idea who you are and what you do?
~~~
sopooneo
Or _are hidden by_ a recruiting agency. A lot of agencies will do anything
they can to make sure you don't go around them.
~~~
prodigal_erik
Or employers who don't actually exist, because the agency is secretly trying
to collect enough résumés to convince employers to engage them.
~~~
sopooneo
Right. As I've heard it discussed, they've borrowed the term "honey-potting"
for this in an almost exact analogue of how it is done on dating sites.
------
afarrell
> Don’t require a particular language
But do indicate language in the nice-to-haves at least. Some programmers find
that they work much better with certain tools than others and it is useful to
know if you are able to use those tools.
~~~
elwell
Also, depending on the language, it _should_ sometimes be a requirement. If
you're hiring for a Haskell developer, and you're a startup, you don't have
time for a top python engineer to spend 2 months getting up to speed in
Haskell.
~~~
wwweston
> If you're hiring for a Haskell developer, and you're a startup, you don't
> have time for a top python engineer to spend 2 months getting up to speed in
> Haskell.
I'm curious. Are there projects/organizations anyone can think of that were in
this position went on to success?
I have a suspicion that by the time an organization gets itself in a position
where it needs a dev with niche skills and the need is so urgent that it can't
spare even two months to get a top generalist developer up to speed... it's
already made some bad decisions that might mean that it's not going to
survive.
Highly specialized knowledge directly in the product domain is one thing.
That's understandable. If what we're talking here is language/stack
preference, that's something else.
~~~
wpietri
Yeah. Especially at a startup I think you should be optimizing for engineering
growth. A company that a) has very specialized language needs, and b) isn't
set up to mentor doesn't sound well set up to grow quickly.
------
krazydad
As someone who is currently job hunting, and freshly familiar with excessively
long & arbitrary "requrements" sections and tedious application forms, THANK
YOU.
------
wpietri
I'm the author, and I'm glad to discuss!
~~~
xigency
I liked most of the decisions you made and how you addressed the problem of
hiring coders. One question, do you think, maybe not in your case but in some
situations, that a process like this might be too drawn out or too selective?
Recently I spent some time interviewing and jumping between jobs, and compared
to the amount of time I spent working at one company, I was spending a lot of
time interviewing, preparing for interviews, and applying to companies.
Basically, my impression from being a high school programmer was walking in
the door, being qualified, and being hired essentially in the same afternoon.
After getting through college, it seems to be way more of a _contest_ to win a
job.
Similarly, I earned an internship at a high-profile company in New York City,
which I didn't actually complete due to extenuating circumstances, but the
impression I had from the interview and from a few days on the job was that
the role was trivially easy and they were somehow scouting the absolutely most
qualified and talented programmers in the country, anyway. This might happen
to work out but something seems broken in this situation, too.
~~~
wpietri
As to being drawn out, I think that I would love to find ways to make it
quicker. At startups, where you're basically always hiring, it's easier
because you can hire on a rolling basis. At my last company if somebody was
eager, they could do all the stages over one or two days and we could quickly
make an offer.
In this case, though, this team had only one position to fill and hadn't hired
together before, so we needed to see a fair number of candidates in a batch so
that we could collectively calibrate. That took more time than I wanted.
I definitely don't think we were too selective, though. Good developers can
quickly improve both a team and a code base. Bad ones can harm both in ways
that are expensive to fix. I think a lot of typical selection criteria are
bunk (e.g., fancy schools, fancy companies on the resume), and I'm not always
looking for amazing technical qualifications. But I definitely think it's
worth time to find people who are great fits for the job.
~~~
xigency
Thanks, those are good points. I enjoyed the article.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What are your go-to blogs and books on building business applications? - PirxThePilot
======
ggregoire
Probably not the reply you are expecting, but as someone who built a b2b SaaS
and failed on the bizdev side, I'd suggest you to build the business before
building the application. In other words, get your first clients before coding
anything. It will save you time and money.
And to answer your question:
[https://www.enterpriseready.io](https://www.enterpriseready.io)
Basically, b2b app = classic app + deep users management with Gmail SSO and/or
CSV import and/or windows UAC integration (depends a lot of your target) +
deep roles/permissions management + integrations with existing apps/saas +
reports and alerting + automatic billing with Stripe or whatever.
Note that you can do most of those manually at the beginning. Send the reports
and the bills by email, add the new companies/users manually…
~~~
nillium
Curious, as someone who is in the early stages of planning a B2B SaaS company
-- can you talk any more to that? How do you get the clients without a product
to show them?
~~~
leesalminen
At Gingr (a B2B SaaS), we approached potential customers before writing a line
of code. The conversation focused on _their_ pain and how software can
alleviate it. After talking about _them_ , we asked if they’d be willing to
beta test what we built as a result of our conversations. About 80% said yes.
We beta tested and iterated for several months without asking for money. Once
everyone loved the product we asked them to pay- everyone was happy to. After
that we hired salespeople and opened up to the world.
~~~
hectormalot
Had almost the same experience. Someone came to us asking if we could build an
app, but wasn’t willing to pay full price. We decided to do it for a minimal
fee, but under the condition that they’d keep paying a monthly fee per user,
and now here we are with a b2b SaaS product and a few more paying customers
(it’s been passive income next to my day job for the last few years, revenue
allows us to buy new laptops every year, not new cars :)
On doing things manually: i send invoices once per year by hand (few hours of
work), do accounting in ledger for 1h once a quarter, and handle uncommon
requests directly in the DB (rails console is amazing for that, this happens
about once a month), but have automated password resets as we were getting too
many emails on those.
------
superqwert
Technical concepts for writing code:
\--------------------------------------
Clean Code (Robert Cecil Martin)
The Art of Unit Testing (Roy Osherove)
Head First Design Patterns (Elisabeth Freeman, Kathy Sierra)
Martin Fowler's blog: [https://martinfowler.com/](https://martinfowler.com/)
.
How to gather requirements and write business-readable code:
\--------------------------------------
Domain-driven design (Eric J. Evans)
Implementing Domain-Driven Design (Vaughn Vernon)
Patterns, Principles, and Practices of Domain-Driven Design (Scott Millett)
.
Remaining agile and managing your work according to your clients' needs:
\--------------------------------------
The art of doing twice the work in half the time (Jeff Sutherland)
The Mythical Man Month (Fred Brooks)
~~~
nlawalker
Implementing Domain-Driven Design by Vernon is fantastic. Extremely practical
application of the Evans book, which gets pretty abstract in places. It's
great for people who actually want to see where the rubber meets the road.
------
seanperkins
I don't know if you are asking for how to actually develop the applications or
how to build the business that includes an application but my go to for
startup advice is Steve Blank
([https://steveblank.com/](https://steveblank.com/)). His stuff is easy to
understand and helps me work through some of the difficult problems of
creating a company from scratch.
------
drewmassey
\- how to start a startup podcast(Altman and co)
\- The lean startup
\- the twenty two immutable laws of marketing.
\- getting to yes
After a couple of books though I would say it really comes down to just
digging in and fighting it out. It is really easy to lose yourself in the
world of business self help literature.
------
bootcode
Meta-answer, but indiehackers has a great podcast series with smaller-scale,
bootstrapped businesses.
The takeaways reflect much of the comments here. #1 is probably sell before
you build. Various refinements are:
\- Do consulting, and build a product once you see a pattern.
\- Do the service manually, and automate away the biggest bottleneck, one at a
time.
\- Do a landing page with signups, do content marketing while building the
stuff, so you have audience by the time you launch.
\- Do get on phone with prospective customers, don't just mail.
It is very very hard not to violate these, since of course our product is the
best.
Also, it's easy to spend more time reading about than actually doing.
------
JustMatthew
Although it isn't a blog in the traditional sense - so forgive me if this
doesn't hit your brief - the Software Engineering Daily Podcast
([https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/category/podcast/](https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/category/podcast/))
is a fantastic resource that offers an immense amount of information for a lot
of different people, including those setting out to build business
applications.
Each episode is accompanied by super detailed show-notes that summarize the
episode nicely, so you can see if the episode has what you think you may be
looking for.
Cheers and good luck.
------
kathrin____
[https://medium.com/@fairpixelsco](https://medium.com/@fairpixelsco) has been
very useful in gaining some insights in the design of business to business UX
and UI.
[https://startupsfortherestofus.com](https://startupsfortherestofus.com) is a
no brainer as well. Some of those podcasts are gems.
------
haney
It might help if you could provide a bit more context. Is there an example
project you're working on? Is there a particular sector / type of business
you're interested in learning more about? Are you interested in the "process"
of business (finance/strategy/etc.)?
~~~
PirxThePilot
Mostly engineering and product management
------
jonhearty
If you're building SaaS, I recommend the following for largely non-technical
content:
1\. SaaStr.com (blog) 2\. Behind the Cloud (book) 3\. Rework (book)
------
kross
\- The goal
\- Running lean
------
parallel_item
Business Intelligence Roadmap by Moss and Atre
------
nealmydataorg
At MyDataOrganizer we provide Low-Code platform to build business applications
as per your workflow requirements. Our blog at
[http://blog.MyDataOrganizer.com](http://blog.MyDataOrganizer.com) has useful
info. on building business applications.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Clinical Trial on a Public Blockchain - jedixit
https://medium.com/@niels.klomp/the-worlds-first-clinical-trial-in-production-on-the-blockchain-has-just-been-announced-by-the-e05b73557dd0
======
lalaland1125
The authors of this article don't seem to understand that "Blockchain
technology" don't prevent people from simply entering fake data. Many of the
things discussed in this article, for example informed consent forms, can be
easily bypassed by simply either fabricating consent forms or entering data
with fake dates.
At the end of the day, the hard part with clinical trial security isn't
securing the data/documents (the FDA as a centralized trusted authority does
quite a good job); the hard part is ensuring that the data entered actually
matches reality. Blockchain technology doesn't help at all with that problem.
Blockchain technology is only really useful when you don't have a centralized
trusted authority like the FDA. However, in most legal scenarios (like
clinical trials), a trusted centralized authority is readily and cheaply
available and thus blockchain technology is worse than useless: it only adds
additional cost and complexity with minimal benefit.
PS: I highly recommend people check out
[https://clinicaltrials.gov/](https://clinicaltrials.gov/) It's the US's
public repository of clinical trials that contains details about many clinical
trials and results. That one website probably contains a good fraction of our
total human knowledge of what drugs/procedures do.
~~~
bjornsing
Published hashes can prevent people from entering fake data _at a later time_
though, which is quite interesting. (It has nothing to do with blockchain
though.)
~~~
lalaland1125
That problem is already solved though by the FDA (and clinicaltrials.gov).
Once you submit your documents to the trusted authority you can't modify them
without it being super obvious.
~~~
J_F
This is only done after all data has been collected an analysed (from multiple
clinical trials!) and when a company is looking for market authorization. So
clearly if anyone wants to alter their data, they would do this prior to
submitting their study dossier to the FDA. This has happened time and time
again....
It is therefore crucial to make sure data cannot be altered AS SOON AS IT IS
COLLECTED. At this point, one would not yet know how to alter the data and if
that would steer results in the 'right' direction (researchers are blinded for
instance).
So I definitely see value in creating a cryptographic hash of a data point,
and immediately registering it in some immutable database (which could be
blockchain, or a different solution I suppose)
------
dgrin91
If you read their academic paper linked at the bottom, they actually undermine
their entire system in a laughably silly way:
> For each user, a pair of private-public keys were provided
> ([https://msdn.microsoft.com/fr-
> fr/library/windows/desktop/aa3...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/fr-
> fr/library/windows/desktop/aa387460\(v=vs.85\).aspx)). These are asymmetric
> cryptographic data that enable authentication on Blockchain. These were
> randomly attached in one-to-one correspondence to the user’s emails. We
> focused on Blockchain’s usage in the time-stamping and archiving logic. We
> did not let users create or use their own Blockchain authentication setup
> (i.e., if a user owned a Bitcoin account, the key and Bitcoin address were
> not allowed to be used). This restriction was related not to the Blockchain
> complexity but rather to maintain a simple and common email-focused
> authentication process. Other ways for authentication include the physical
> devices USB keys or cell phone fingerprints, but this would have been
> outside the focus of our protocol-related problematics.
So basically, we didn't want users to have to bother with this whole private
key thing, so we'll hold on to those private keys for them. In other words,
they have full control of whats written on the blockchain and users just trust
them - which is the exact thing blockchains are trying to get rid of.
[https://f1000research.com/articles/6-66/v5?source=post_page-...](https://f1000research.com/articles/6-66/v5?source=post_page---------------------------)
~~~
verdverm
Except very few want to manage their keys and are more than happy to have a
custodian.
Blockchain doesn't solve human behavior, or much of anything IRL.
~~~
nexuist
>Blockchain doesn't solve human behavior, or much of anything IRL.
Blockchain solves a very select few problems, which are important, but not
_every_ problem.
Imagine if I told you I could turn on your coffee machine with a SQL database.
Why the hell would you care?
When you think blockchain, think database. When you think database, think
Excel. Can your problem be solved with Excel, and your stakeholders made happy
with it? If the answer is yes, YOU DON'T NEED BLOCKCHAIN.
------
drpixie
Why use that tech - "But, but, but, but it's blockchain!" (I don't have a
smiley for beating head against wall.) Sounds like almost all blockchain
projects - doesn't solve any of their problems ... but it's blockchain ...
fashionable amongst the ignorant. The only practical purpose for blockchain is
to gain project funding.
How about [https://blog.smartdec.net/you-do-not-need-blockchain-
eight-p...](https://blog.smartdec.net/you-do-not-need-blockchain-eight-
popular-use-cases-and-why-they-do-not-work-f2ecc6cc2129)
~~~
nklomp
That fact that you can prove to all stakeholders that the data about a triall
is complete, hasn't been altered is very powerful when you have many parties
and many documents, where you still need to provide proofs in the future.
This solution allows you to prove it on an individual document level, all the
way up till dossier or clinical trial level. Meaning you can prove that not a
single document has been added, edited or deleted in ten years time for
instance.
------
trempted
Clinical trials are all about collecting trustworthy data that demonstrate
safety and efficacy. Large trials can collected over a million data points.
I personally see a lot of value in creating cryptographic hashes of these data
points and documents, and registering them in an immutable database. This
would prove that the data/document is not altered at a later time, and
increases its trustworthiness.
However, I see quite a few commenters here who do not see that value. For you
I have the following question:
"How would you prove that a data point or document has not been altered"?
(No, this cannot be done by the FDA or Clinicaltrials.gov)
Please bear in mind that researchers could indeed use fake data in these
cryptographic hashes. But at the moment it is collected, they would have no
idea what they should alter because they are double-blinded. The results and
implications only become clear when analysing the data after de-blinding. So
proving the validity prior to analysis is where the value lays.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Security experts say Chrome 69’s ‘forced login’ feature violates user privacy - sahin-boydas
https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/24/security-experts-say-chrome-69s-forced-login-feature-violates-user-privacy/
======
MaxBarraclough
Good timing Google, now that we have the Google-free Chromium variant.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18053337](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18053337)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
RTC Roulette – like Chat Roulette but uses WebRTC - cmatthieu
http://blog.twelephone.com/post/54269654299/webrtc-chat-roulette
======
moomin
Like ChatRoulette, only you always get connected to someone with an interest
in nascent web standards.
~~~
unimpressive
I would pay money to have a chatroulette/omegle/etc that matched me up with
people I'd actually like to talk to.
~~~
cmatthieu
Stay tuned for an Expert Directory coming soon from Twelephone
([http://twelephone.com](http://twelephone.com))
------
flixic
Just had a chat, so it definitely works! Text chat area is missing, but
otherwise impressive.
Also, right now it's probably 90% HN users, that's a very interesting crowd to
meet randomly.
~~~
idrinkmusic
Yea, missing text chat but I'm glad someone did something like this.
------
cmatthieu
Thanks for your kind words! I wrote this app in approximately 6 hours using
Node.JS while at NodeConf. I do plan to improve upon it and welcome pull
requests. The code is available at
[https://github.com/twelephone/rtcroulette](https://github.com/twelephone/rtcroulette)
~~~
tracker1
Can't wait for the next nodeaz meetup... would be cool to get a demo on the
use of domains...
------
arcameron
Looks pretty cool :)
We recently added WebRTC to echoplexus
[https://chat.echoplex.us/](https://chat.echoplex.us/)
[https://github.com/qq99/echoplexus](https://github.com/qq99/echoplexus)
------
fycth
Similar project on Erlang:
[http://www.webrtcexample.com](http://www.webrtcexample.com)
Source codes:
[https://github.com/fycth/webrtcexample](https://github.com/fycth/webrtcexample)
------
claudod
Similar application (more game oriented) released few weeks ago for the
Jamendo Apps Contest:
[http://developer.jamendo.com/v3.0/app/4](http://developer.jamendo.com/v3.0/app/4)
------
sciurus
It's great to see cool stuff being built on Phono! I'm not a javascript
developer by any means, but when I tried to write a few voice and text chat
demos, Phono made it a piece of cake. I didn't play with the WebRTC support,
but I see it keeps improving at a rapid pace, e.g.
[http://blog.phono.com/2013/02/05/phono-0-6-is-here-with-
webr...](http://blog.phono.com/2013/02/05/phono-0-6-is-here-with-webrtc/) and
[http://blog.phono.com/2013/06/25/phono-now-with-firefox-
and-...](http://blog.phono.com/2013/06/25/phono-now-with-firefox-and-opus/)
(Full disclosure: I used to work for Voxeo Labs)
------
sippndipp
Hehe... It's trending on HN, but no one picks up the phone. Trying it for 3
minutes :-)
------
unimpressive
Has anybody gotten this to work yet? (The comments below imply nobody has.)
EDIT: Yeah it works, just keep pressing "roulette".
FEATURE REQUEST: I would really like a mic testing function. I can't tell if
it's working or not.
~~~
idrinkmusic
Yea, I just talked to someone in Lithuania! It was exciting to see someone
that read hacker news as I know no other person who reads it too.
That was my only successful attempt. Now I keep trying but the call doesn't go
through.
~~~
flixic
Hello, that was me!
~~~
idrinkmusic
Haha, nice! Now you can show me your work :)
------
tocomment
So could something like this replace Skype someday?
~~~
frik
yes. but Microsoft has proposed a different protocol that is based on Skype
technology ideas: [http://html5labs.interoperabilitybridges.com/cu-rtc-
web/cu-r...](http://html5labs.interoperabilitybridges.com/cu-rtc-web/cu-rtc-
web.htm)
Google and Mozilla are pushing the WebRTC:
[http://www.webrtc.org/](http://www.webrtc.org/)
~~~
josh2600
Skype has two things WebRTC lacks:
A directory
And
Signaling
Without those things it's hard to compete with Skype or the PSTN.
~~~
cmatthieu
Twelephone ([http://twelephone.com](http://twelephone.com)) uses Twitter as
its user directory and is almost at feature parity with Skype ;)
~~~
BHSPitMonkey
"Almost at feature parity" is kind of an outrageous claim... I just gave it a
try with a friend, and it was glitchy, our video was stretched out (on both
ends), there's a big "More" button that does nothing, no file transfers, no
screen sharing, not sure if conference calls are even supported, etc. If only
there were an open-source private version of Google Hangouts.
------
brokenparser
Looks neat but it's taking forever for someone else to join.
~~~
mmvvaa
Same here. cmatthieu, what use do you want to give to this?
------
frik
nice.
a bit offtopic: I am searching for a WebRTC server stack for Node.js or PHP
(libevent). I would like to host the STUN, ICE handling on my own server. The
only project I found that supports recent WebRTC API changes is
[https://github.com/priologic/easyrtc](https://github.com/priologic/easyrtc) .
Has someone tried it on a production environment, are there maybe better
alternatives?
~~~
cmatthieu
RTC Roulette was built with Phono v1.1 with WebRTC and SIP support -
[http://blog.phono.com/2013/06/25/phono-now-with-firefox-
and-...](http://blog.phono.com/2013/06/25/phono-now-with-firefox-and-opus/)
~~~
frik
Phono says "Sign Up for an API Key". It's a service, they provide just an SDK.
I am searching for open source alternatives that allow me to install the whole
WebRTC server software part on my own server. (for Node.js or PHP + libevent)
------
reledi
Impressive for a quick hack. Will you be polishing it?
~~~
cmatthieu
Yes, please tweet bug reports and feature ideas to
[http://twitter.com/rtcroulette](http://twitter.com/rtcroulette) or send us
pull requests at
[https://github.com/twelephone/rtcroulette](https://github.com/twelephone/rtcroulette)
------
Kilo-byte
Stuck at "Wait for someone else to join."
------
Caligula
Is it possible to try without twitter login?
~~~
sciurus
RTC Roulette doesn't ask for a twitter login.
------
nickcolley
Any reason why the aspect ratio is off?
~~~
cmatthieu
Yea, I'm stretching the remote video element. We could use a designer's help
to pretty this app up. The code is on GitHub at
[https://github.com/twelephone/rtcroulette](https://github.com/twelephone/rtcroulette)
------
randyrand
Well, now I have to put on a shirt.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The World’s Leading Startup Cities - bjoernlasseh
http://www.citylab.com/tech/2015/07/the-worlds-leading-startup-cities/399623/
======
devy
"One omission of the report: due to language barriers, it was not able to
collect sufficient data to evaluate cities in China, Taiwan, Japan, or South
Korea."
For China, I think Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Guangzhou are big
contenders for the top 25.
For Taiwan, it's mostly in greater Taipei metro. Similarly, it's mostly in
Seoul as 40% of Korea's population lives around capital metro.
For Japan, Tokyo is certainly another mega city as a strong contender. But I
would be interested to learn more about other tech startup hubs.
------
ghc
How on earth do they rank talent? I can't think of any reasonable measure
where the rankings would look remotely like they are. Don't tell me they're
basing talent on something like crunchbase listings.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Quest for Zero Login, Part 1 - drfloob
http://drfloob.com/blurbs/12:the_quest_for_zero_login_part_1
For the TL;DR crowd: my thoughts on how to build a community site without a <i>required</i> login system. How to structure an <i>anonymous</i> community with user-generated content / assets.<p>I've been working on this idea for the past few months, and have only come to a rough solution. I'd like to put the idea out there, see who else is working/has worked on it, and get some feedback.<p>To be frank, I'm working on this for a project I don't intend to monetize, so maybe it's not right for the community, but I think you might find it interesting anyhow.<p>Thanks all, feedback appreciated!
======
Hexstream
How is it possible to have a meaningful implementation of "voting, tagging, or
some reputation-earning scheme for the content itself" without an accompanying
concept of identity?
~~~
drfloob
The content has its own identity. It would gain reputation. You, the creator,
would not.
Problems: It devalues the individual, and an essentially anonymous vote system
would make gaming logic and moderation interesting (but feasible) problems of
their own. If these are solved well, the votes have meaning.
They're significant trade-offs, but every option has them.
~~~
Hexstream
I got that, but it seems to me for there to _be_ reputation, some identifiable
entity must be able to "give" it.
------
mdonahoe
How do zero login sites deal with spam? Fancy javascript?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Stephen Watt discusses how he spent 2 years in prison for writing software - melito
http://player.vimeo.com/video/66742369
======
melito
Sorry about that.
I was able to see it and assumed everyone else would be able to as well
[http://infiltratecon.com/watt.html](http://infiltratecon.com/watt.html)
------
anigbrowl
_Sorry
The creator of this video has not given you permission to embed it on this
domain._
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Formulating Science in Terms of Possible and Impossible Tasks - digisth
http://edge.org/conversation/formulating-science-in-terms-of-possible-and-impossible-tasks
======
Retric
So, a vague idea that might possibly turn into a testable theory someday…
Talk about wasting people’s time.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Ace the Google Interview: Ultimate Guide - samgh
https://www.byte-by-byte.com/google-interview/
======
quarkral
Strange, I have yet to meet a single Google interviewer who was looking for
perfect syntax during the interview. Last year I forgot the syntax for a data
structure, told my interviewer "something like this," and he just said "that's
fine." Got the internship later on. I even had one interviewer who was ok with
me writing out matrix algebra mathematically instead of using np.matmul and
all that.
~~~
jogjayr
As an interviewer, I can confirm that I don't care about syntax or whether the
program compiles if I'm convinced their solution and approach would work. I'm
also OK with candidates using placeholder helper functions or shorthand for
trivial things (e.g. null/undefined check in JS) if they explain to me
verbally what that part is supposed to do.
~~~
jefftk
I also interview software engineering candidates at Google (n=150) and while I
mostly agree, I do think there's some signal in whether a candidate can get
the syntax right. It's not a dealbreaker if they don't, but all things
considered someone who comfortably writes code all day is more likely to be
able to write syntactically correct code than someone who doesn't.
The main things I want to see, though, are: can you communicate well about the
parts of the problem that aren't clear to you? Can you analyze and compare
solutions? Can you figure out something reasonably efficient? Do you
understand your solution well enough to code it?
(Speaking for myself, not my employer.)
~~~
oarabbus_
> I do think there's some signal in whether a candidate can get the syntax
> right.
I know you're talking about software engineers, not data analysts, but:
select from <table> [oops... you're supposed to put an asterisk there]
select <column>, count(field) from <table> [holy shit... I forgot the group
by]
select <column>, case when <condition> then <result> else <other> from <table>
[oh man, case statements need to be terminated with an `END`]
select <columns>, from <table> [oh no... SQL doesn't like that comma before
the from statement]
select <...> from <table1> join <table2> table1.column = table2.column [This
is embarrassing, I forgot the `on` keyword]
select <stuff> from <table1> union <stuff> from <table2> [Jesus... I forgot to
type `select` after the union]
select <column>, sum(column2) over (partition by column3 between unbounded
preceding and current row) as cumulative_sum from <table> [dang, SQL doesn't
know which rows if I don't actually mention `ROWS BETWEEN`]
select <column>, count(case when <condition> then 1 else null end) as count
from <table> order by count desc having count > 1 [ahh that's silly, you can't
put your HAVING clause after the ORDER BY]
with cte_1 as (select <...>), cte_2 as (select <...>) cte_3 as (select <...>)
select <columns and aggregations> from cte_1 join cte_2 on <...> left join
cte_3 on <...> where <condition> group by <many columns> [Oh my goodness, I
forgot a comma after closing cte_2]
Now, perhaps this says more about myself more than anything, but I really do
write code comfortably all day, I'm glad my current employer, or any number of
the clients I've worked for, haven't had this philosophy (even when watching
over my shoulder waiting for results they need at the moment). I'd be
mortified if anyone ever dug up some of the atrocious things I've requested of
the database in the server logs.
~~~
tempguy9999
> > I do think there's some signal in whether a candidate can get the syntax
> right.
> I know you're talking about software engineers, not data analysts, but:
(inserts self-pwn car crash here)
I've done SQL for ~20 years and I'd say I'm good at it. I don't make as many
mistakes as you've described but I know exactly what you mean, and I'd never
hold that against you because I don't give a toss about mistakes that the
language will catch.
I've rarely interviewed others, but when I did I asked high-level stuff
approaches. I wanted to see if they could grasp the solution, not the physical
framework.
Actual example: you're given a large collection of words, which you're allowed
to pre-process - you have plenty of time to do this. Later on you are given
another word, how would you very quickly find all acronymns of that word?
(inerviewee programmer didn't get it, so I tried it on a non-programmer we had
around - she very quickly worked out you ordered the letters and saved them -
she didn't explain it clearly (to repeat, she wasn't a programmer) but in
programmer terms it was a dictionary with keys as the sorted letters and the
values as a set of the words).
In this case, would you employ the supposed programmer who didn't get it, or
the non-programmer who did?
Actual example: Show me how you'd represent an arithmetic expression using
objects, and how you'd evaluate it in an OO style (was after class hierarchy
of (op, leftexpr, rightexpr and .eval method. With plenty of time and pushes
in the right direction, he still didn't get it despite claiming good OO on his
CV)
(True story: to same guy who didn't get the OO expression question, I started
off with an SQL question. His CV said SQL was his strong point, so I gave him
an easy one: "explain to me what a left outer join does". He shook his head in
confusion "Never heard of it". Actually happened! I'm not even exaggerating!)
~~~
oarabbus_
>Actual example: Show me how you'd represent an arithmetic expression using
objects, and how you'd evaluate it in an OO style (was after class hierarchy
of (op, leftexpr, rightexpr and .eval method. With plenty of time and pushes
in the right direction, he still didn't get it despite claiming good OO on his
CV)
As a SQL guy who knows Python, but specifically just pandas/seaborn/numpy
(matrix/set operations rather than the underlying constructs which make
numpy/pandas possible), as opposed to a SWE with OO skills, could you point me
in the right direction to learn how this question should be answered?
>"explain to me what a left outer join does". He shook his head in confusion
"Never heard of it". Actually happened! I'm not even exaggerating!
I... I don't even know what to say here. That's absurd to me he would claim
SQL knowledge and respond with that answer.
My response would be "that is the same as a `left join`" (then I'd explain
what a left join was) and follow up with "I exclusively write 'left join' and
never 'left outer join' as my experiences with the DB/MS I'm most familiar
with (Postgres, Redshift, MySQL, MSSQL and a couple others) accept the `left
join` syntax without specifying `outer`".
~~~
tempguy9999
First up let me apologise for the abrasive and somewhat unpleasant reply I
gave to you. Not my best, sorry.
Ok, couldn't find a sample on the web so here's mine. It's not right for
brevity and because this is the first python code I've done in ~3 years, so
any criticisms welcome. Hopefully can get the formatting right
# super.init omitted for brevity
class Expession: # abstract base class
def eval(): pass
class Literal(Expession):
def __init__(self, val): self.value = val
def eval(self): return self.value
lit1 = Literal(8)
print(lit1.eval()) # prints 8
class UnaryExpr(Expession): pass # base class for unary expressions
class Negate(UnaryExpr):
def __init__(self, expr): self.expression = expr
def eval(self): return - self.expression.eval()
lit2 = Literal(13)
neg = Negate(lit2)
print(neg.eval()) # prints -13
class BinaryExpression: pass # base class for binary expressions
# Note that subclasses Add and Multiply have the same
# __init__ code so I should hoist that into the BinaryExpression
# base class but for clarity I'm leaving it in the subclasses
class Add(BinaryExpression):
def __init__(self, leftExpr, rightExpr):
self.leftExpression = leftExpr
self.rightExpression = rightExpr
def eval(self):
return self.leftExpression.eval() + self.rightExpression.eval()
add2literals = Add(lit1, lit2) # 8 + 13
print(add2literals.eval()) # prints 21
class Multiply(BinaryExpression):
def __init__(self, leftExpr, rightExpr):
self.leftExpression = leftExpr
self.rightExpression = rightExpr
def eval(self): return self.leftExpression.eval() * self.rightExpression.eval()
mult2literals = Multiply(lit1, lit2) # 8 * 13
print(mult2literals.eval()) # prints 104
# now let's make a complex expression, say (7 + 2) * (-4)
# Doing this by hand but a parser would build this from that
# string
expr = Multiply(
Add(Literal(7), Literal(2))
,
Negate(Literal(4)))
print(expr.eval()) # prints -36
Basically it's a tree of objects that you call eval() on the root, and these
recursively call eval down, then when they reach the bottom start returning
their subtree-calculated values.
Make sense?
Re. the left join, I abbreviated it. Full event was that there was 2
interviewers, me + other guy. I said to our interviewee, "what's a left
join?". Cue puzzled expression and headshake. My co-interviewer qualified that
for him: "what's a left outer join?", getting the response "never heard of
it". He claimed 4 years of sql on his CV. No job for you, matey.
This isn't rare either, worked at a recruitment office and overheard a
conversation which recruitment agent used to check applicant wasn't clueless.
Applicant was applying for C++ job. Q: "give me 4 STL containers". Applicant
replied "cin and cout".
If you've done no C++ that's like asking a python guy "give me some python
data structures" and getting back the reply "input() and print()"
Edit: to clarify about the expression eval stuff, I wasn't expecting code,
just an obvious grasp of a tree of objects with relevant subtypes, and eval().
He knew roughly how to do it procedurally, but blatantly had no clue on the OO
style (which, yes, he claimed to have on his CV).
Incidentally, I'm just starting my very first step into Pandas today. Looks
SQL-ish!
------
retiredcoder
I interviewed with Google NYC for Senior Dev position once, prepared well and
thought it went well.
Received the green light and moved to the next phase, where I spoke with
potential teams over the phone, then settled with Google Maps. Met with one of
their Tech Leads, cool. I was really happy and though that all my effort to
prepare for the “Google interview” had payed off.
Then no word back from the recruiter with a final offer. It turns out the VP
of eng saw some red flags in my interview and decided to bail.
I felt really frustrated and while I spoke I spoke with the recruiter he
apologized and even said the hiring manager was on my side and people overall
liked me but there were two engs that were on the fence. Gosh, I think I met
with 7-8 engs, all the seniors seemed to like me. I remember not having the
best conversation with 2 engs who were new to the company and could not relax
nor communicate well.
Bottom line, prepare but also be prepared for some degree of luck and
arbitrary judgements.
Yes, there are great interviewers in google. Engs that are engs in their minds
and hearts, who can see the process is not perfect but work to get it better.
But unfortunately, there are insecure folks who should be better trained for
before interviewing candidates.
That was 5 years ago, not sure I would subject myself to this sort of loop
even again. And strange enough they contact me few months after to reinterview
but this time I could skip the big loop and meet with just 3 engs... I said no
since I was already in a new job.
~~~
segmondy
Sounds like the typical FANG experience.
------
_hardwaregeek
A friend said recently, "people want to be employed without becoming
employable". These guides really exemplify this obsession. Sure, Google has a
nice salary and good perks and whatever. But after you get the job, you have
to do the job. I wonder if the people who read these guides and try to study
just the right topics to get a job, whether they actually _like_ programming.
These guides act as optimizations, shortening the path you need to take to get
the job, shortening the stuff you need to learn, etc. But in the end, the path
is all you get. If you don't like programming and if you don't like learning,
then are you really gonna like Google?
I suppose there's people who genuinely like programming who just need a manual
to teach them how to play the game. Lord knows I've practiced my fair share of
whiteboard problems when I'd rather be reading about compilers. But there's
something wrong about having to play a game to get the job.
~~~
akdas
> If you don't like programming and if you don't like learning, then are you
> really gonna like Google?
There are also many people who are great at programming, wh love it, who are
terrible at interviewing. After all, these are two related, but ultimately
different skills. You talked about it yourself in your last paragraph, ending
with:
> But there's something wrong about having to play a game to get the job.
Sounds like the fault is on the employer that makes you play the game, not on
"people want to be employed without becoming employable".
~~~
_hardwaregeek
Agreed, the fault is with the employer, but the people who are willing to
indulge this game by obsessively learning to play it don't help.
~~~
optimize
I mean, if you want to work at Google and the likes, you need to indulge in
the game right? And working at Google isn't just about the pay and the salary
- thats quite a shallow thing to say. Engineers there handle data of
astronomcial proportions, scale their systems every second to handle the ever-
growing traffic, innovate on solutions that are used by millions of people
around the world. I'd say, if you truly love programming and computer science,
thats a pretty sweet deal.
~~~
_hardwaregeek
The people who spend their days obsessively networking and practicing
interview questions are generally not the people who would find problems about
scaling to handle astronomical proportions of data interesting. The people who
find that interesting tend to spend their days reading about scalability and
performance. I'm not talking about someone putting aside a few weeks to a
month to study up on these questions, I'm talking about people who straight up
neglect their CS education because they want to pass a technical interview.
------
RealDinosaur
The amount of time required to 'learn' the Google interview would be time that
could be spent learning more universally applicable skills.
Is it true that an experienced developer would not be able to pass the
interview without studying using a similar guide? If so, then the interview
process is... fubar.
~~~
CobrastanJorji
A perfect job interview could be defined as an interview for which the best
study technique is to become a better choice for the role. Studying skills
that would not directly contribute to job performance would not change the
result of a perfect job interview in any way.
In that sense, it's probably a good indicator for Google that the interview
advice includes "practice writing code", "make it a habit to validate input",
and "learn about data structures", and it's probably a bad indicator for
Google that the advice includes "practice writing syntactically correct code
on a whiteboard" and "practice solving problems with a 30 minute timer."
~~~
shaftway
I'm in the interviewer pool @ Google.
> practice writing syntactically correct code on a whiteboard
This probably differs from interviewer to interviewer as to how strictly it's
adhered to, but it's not really a hard and fast rule. I'm sure there are some
interviewers that will ding you on a forgotten semicolon, but I suspect that
most would not.
Personally I look for code that isn't so far from syntactically correct that
it's clear you are trying to BS me. I'll even accept pseudocode for the most
part. But I've had candidates that try to make up language features, and that
doesn't fly with me.
> practice solving problems with a 30 minute timer
I only give my candidates 30 minutes. The whole interview is 45, I spend 5
minutes introducing myself and setting up expectations, 30 on the question,
and 10 on answering their questions (after all, they're also interviewing us).
You can tell pretty early whether they're on a solid trajectory, and I'll
offer the occasional hint to keep someone on track, or ask tangential
questions if they're doing well on time. Not finishing isn't a deal killer,
provided you had a solid approach and weren't just running in circles. But a
good candidate will finish in about 25 minutes and we can spend some time
talking about alternate approaches. Sometimes I'll show them the optional
approach and see how that conversation goes.
Nine times out of ten a candidate scores low because they overlooked an
infinite loop or code would crash on boundary conditions and candidate wasn't
able to realize that even with hints.
~~~
CodeMage
> But I've had candidates that try to make up language features, and that
> doesn't fly with me.
This piqued my curiosity. Can you give an example?
~~~
justrudd
I'm still floored by how many candidates I've talked to that assert with great
confidence that the local variables they declare will still be there with the
same values when they call the function recursively.
And most recently, when iterating over a string's characters the underlying
string methods KNOW that the string is being iterated and will pick up at the
current iteration point. For example, you've got the string "5432112345". And
via iteration, you're currently pointing at the first "2" at index 3. The
candidate asserted that if you call "indexOf('2')", it would return 6 because
"indexOf" knows that it is iterating and should start 1 beyond where it is
pointing at.
And my favorite - once had a candidate that misspelled a function name while
coding in Ruby. I didn't ding them for it. But I pointed it out because it
just bugged me. And the candidate then swore to me that Ruby will
automatically call the correct method if there was only 1 candidate based on
the misspelling. You know when you do things like "git inti" and it says "did
you mean init?". The candidate swore that Ruby would just call "init" for you
because it knew what you wanted.
~~~
perturbation
[https://github.com/yuki24/did_you_mean#installation](https://github.com/yuki24/did_you_mean#installation)
:
Ruby 2.3 and later ships with this gem and it will automatically be required when a Ruby process starts up. No special setup is required.
It doesn't call the method for you, but it does do the did-you-mean
automatically if you misspell and it's close enough.
~~~
justrudd
Maybe this what they meant? I dunno. I can see this being helpful in irb/pry.
In the end, we did end up making an offer to this candidate. They did well on
everything we asked them. This was the only "brain fart" they had.
------
matmann2001
This is getting ridiculous. These guides to interviewing at specific companies
are starting to sound like the video game cheat code books of old.
If the process is so nuanced that there's an entire industry around these
types of guides (and Google even highly recommends you buy them!), then the
process is fundamentally flawed.
But we already knew that, and as long as others are still playing the game, we
are forced to play or miss out.
~~~
ChrisCinelli
I completely agree.
Even Google suggest to "practice writing syntactically correct code on a
whiteboard". This is clearly a useless skill as a software engineers except in
getting a job at companies that do whiteboard interviews. Did you try to
refactor code on a whiteboard?
How are they able to find people that are able to efficiently debug problems?
When I interview people I tell them, "Bring your own laptop set up to be able
to code and debug". And I give them "Fix this site" or "build this thing" kind
of problems.
It looks like that it works a lot better to find "hidden gems" and people that
are good at "doing" instead of those that are jsut good at "telling".
~~~
bitL
Elite schools do that in undergrad; e.g. as an initial scored lab exercise,
write this recursive fractal shape using Logo, parallel Delaunay triangulation
with prefix sums , dynamic programming solving oligopoly problem or single-
value Paxos pseudocode on a piece of paper in 10 minutes (I am being serious).
If you can cope with it, it immediately shows up in the interview and you are
considered a member of the club, a person worthy of having conversations with.
~~~
peter_l_downs
Which elite schools? I went to MIT and didn’t have to do any of this.
~~~
chollida1
[https://courses.csail.mit.edu/iap/interview/materials.php](https://courses.csail.mit.edu/iap/interview/materials.php)
~~~
neilv
Just to add context: MIT Interim Activities Period (IAP) is a "winter break"
few weeks in which anyone can lead classes/sessions on any topic:
[http://web.mit.edu/iap/about/index.html](http://web.mit.edu/iap/about/index.html)
MIT CSAIL is the research lab joining of the legendary MIT AI Lab and MIT Lab
for Computer Science. People who work hard and win the lottery to do research
at CSAIL (or other prestigious lab) shouldn't afterwards be looking for entry-
level coding jobs for which a whiteboard code monkey dance interview/hazing
would be appropriate, IMHO.
(For different reasons, people who are in programmer career tracks, with
verifiable industry track records and/or open source involvement, also
shouldn't be put through the entry-level hazing. Claims that the ritual gives
certain companies metrics or somesuch would carry more credibility, had those
companies not been caught brazenly colluding, at the CEO level, to
systematically suppress wages and mobility of their own employees, with
presumed spreading market effects throughout industry.)
------
topicseed
It's also a good marketing milking cow to create paid courses and trainings
for Google interviews — the dream of so many novice devs and other "Intensive
Coding Bootcamp" participants.
Keyword research and trends...
[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=G...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=Google%20job%20interview)
~~~
Frost1x
I'm semi-convinced this is yet another reason for perpetuating this type of
poor interview practice (not just at Google).
When you search modern interview topic and comments/opinions on the current
process, you'll find a few SEs (typically working at places like Google at
some point) on that on the side sell training bootcamps, etc. These people
will swear every direction that it's a reasonable process in comments around
the web referring to their side business. Creating problems they provide
solutions to: gatekeeping 101.
------
str33t_punk
I hate these style of interviews. I give them to prospective engineers every
week for one of these FAANGM companies.
They don't test for good engineers -- they test for people who practice these
style interviews, and for good new graduates.
It makes sense to ask these questions to new grads, but afterwards there is so
much more experience that I feel like is much more important than acing data
structures questions.
I am amazing at whiteboard questions, but that doesn't make me a good
engineer. It's because I found the trick to solving these, and have practiced
them. A lot of it it is practice 'ooo this looks like a graph problem, let me
use a graph', etc.
~~~
koala_man
Have you worked with any great, experienced engineers who would have had no
idea how to traverse a tree?
~~~
hypertext7
Yes, and those same great engineers went ahead and figured it out. You see,
some are hiring parrots, and others are hiring problem solvers.
~~~
koala_man
I'm all for hiring problem solvers, but how do you differentiate them if you
don't ask them to solve problems?
Years of experience is definitely not a guarantee of competence.
~~~
hypertext7
Hypothetical interview question: Write a function that finds the distance
between two words.
Candidate A: Can recite algos and remembers that Levenshtein distance is the
answer.
Candidate B: Has no idea what Levenshtein distance is, writes a brute-force
solution with the understanding that it's not an optimal solution. After the
interview she spends more time learning what she doesn't know, learns about
Levenshtein distance, and sends you an optimal solution via email.
The above is a real-life scenario, so my question to you is - how do you
decide who to hire?
~~~
koala_man
This is not a good interview question and neither candidate seems to have
answered it well, but I would reject B first because I obviously don't know
whether she did any research or whether she just asked Candidate A via
StackOverflow
------
shahbaby
These guides are just people trying to make a quick buck. There's no shortcut
to getting good and perhaps that's why these type of interviews are here to
stay.
~~~
soham
Amen
------
hnaccy
I've been trying to prepare and it makes me want to bang my head against a
wall.
Prepping while working is draining.
------
ssambros
> For the phone interview, it will be on a Google document, and for the onsite
> interview, it will be writing code on a whiteboard.
That part is not completely correct. At onsite can choose to write code in a
Chromebook which will have a lightweight editor with syntax highlighting.
~~~
oksurewhynot
It wasn't really a choice when I interviewed there. All but one interviewer
had me write code in the chromebook, which was my least favorite part of the
interview process. The trackpad didn't respond to my slightly dry erase
covered fingers, the keyboard was weird, and the quasi hangout software it was
running crashed a few times, one of which required a full restart. That might
not sound like a big deal but in a high pressure/time constrained environment
it was a bit of a nightmare. I was told going in that the chromebooks would be
available as an option, but writing a few lines of code only to be told to
stop and switch over to the chromebook (which had either gone to sleep or
frozen), have the interviewer log in and select the correct session, then
select syntax highlighting, then finally being able to start writing code
doesn't seem very conducive to maintaining a train of thought.
~~~
dmoy
Tell your recruiter, interviewers are not supposed to force candidates to use
chromebooks.
~~~
oksurewhynot
I thought about it, but the chromebook hang ups were not the deciding factor
in my performance (I did extremely meh and am fine with that because I'm
entirely self taught and to even get that far was really cool). There were
other larger problems with the process that google should be fixing instead of
dinking around with chromebooks (I'm assuming they were there so code could be
reviewed afterwards, which makes sense).
------
csnewb
Should be titled "How to Ace the Technical Interview in the Bay Area". Even
absolute shithole bottom tier companies or unknown startups are asking these
questions. Write perfect code on the whiteboard or get rejected. You have to
put in A LOT of time into preparation even if you don't want to work at
Google, which is ridiculous.
------
awiesenhofer
Genuine Question: Apart from maybe the money or a nice resume entry, why would
you/do you want to?
~~~
simmanian
I don't work at Google (and I don't agree with some of the things the
company's decided to do) but have many friends who enjoy working there. From
what I hear, Google has an organizational structure that is very favorable for
regular engineers. Once you're hired and you put in around a year of work in a
team, it's almost trivial to find another team. Engineers also directly
evaluate managers and I've heard stories of mid to high level managers crying
in bathrooms because of poor reviews from their reports. These factors combine
to create an environment where teams are actively working to make engineers
happy and content. Compared to many companies where managers make a lot of
decisions in a room with no feedback given to or received from engineers, it's
heck of a lot better.
~~~
6cd6beb
>I've heard stories of mid to high level managers crying in bathrooms because
of poor reviews from their reports. These factors combine to create an
environment where teams are actively working to make engineers happy and
content.
Honestly this sounds like a thought experiment.
Do you have any ethical hangups about entering an environment where falling
out of your favor can leave someone stress-crying in their place of work
and/or about their livelihood.
If so, how much money would it take for you to join the system anyway?
How long would you stay in such a system if you found yourself already in one?
Back in the real world, in a business context, it sounds like an abusive
workplace and an untenable system. Like, that obviously can't last forever.
~~~
simmanian
Perhaps using the crying manager example was a bad idea on my part. What I can
stand behind is having an org structure that encourages managers and execs to
treat their employees well. It sounds like Google has done a better job than
most. I'm sure there are managers and engineers crying in private in every big
company out there. What I'm trying to say is even though a lot of people like
to assume that people work for Google and stay there just for the money,
Google probably does some things very well to keep all the talent despite the
negative press it gets. And I think a major factor is how empowered a
"regular" engineer feels in the company. It sounds like a step up from many
other companies in that regard.
~~~
6cd6beb
There are at least two problems with this:
\- "I'm sure there are managers and engineers crying in private in every big
company out there": You're not excusing google here, just expanding the range
of companies whose apparent behavior is mortifying a couple of people in this
thread.
\- "Google probably does some things very well to keep all the talent despite
the negative press it gets.": probably. They probably do a lot of a/b testing
to dial in the compensation/retention ratio they're looking for, or maybe they
just heap rewards onto engineers because they can afford it. Be that as it
may, some people think that what google's doing is detrimental to society, or
at least the problems are bigger than a salary or even a total compensation
package should make up for.
~~~
simmanian
I don't see any problem because I agree with what you said. Work shouldn't be
so stressful that you cry in private. Google should do more "good" for the
world.
I still think Google stands as an attractive workplace for reasons that are
not just compensation and resume boost, though.
------
hermitdev
They lost me when they got into showing how to make the 'dups' function
faster. The author definitely either doesn't understand big-O notation or
doesn't understand the complexity. Their O(1) implementation is anything but.
Likely O(n×log(n)) at best. Also, their brute force implementation is
unnecessarily verbose. Want dups?
from collections import defaultdict
def dups(seq):
d = defaultdict(int)
for x in seq:
d[x] += 1
return [k for k, v in d.items() if v > 1]
Assuming Python's defaultdict has O(1) lookup/insertion (which I think it
does), this algorithm is a proper O(n) complexity.
~~~
cmurphycode
Hmm. I don't think they claimed to have an O(1) time solution, just O(1) added
space. Which, it is, but only because they're counting on the original array's
underlying type having enough bits for their sign flipping. It would be as if
you used a more compact type for the array elements, and then allocated
another bitmap for the range of numbers.
Of course, once we start optimizing how the original array is stored, we may
have exceeded the limits of this problem as a teaching exercise :)
As for time, it does seem to be O(n) to me; can you clarify why you think it's
nlogn? It may not be particularly fast in practice when compared to other O(n)
approaches like the bitmap, but I don't think the complexity is wrong.
Your solution is nice - it actually gives you more information (how many
appearances, not just T/F >1 appearance), but it does require more additional
space and isn't necessarily faster. I think the bitmap approach would be nicer
if you're ok with using more space; the bitmap is essentially a very easy to
find perfect hash function due to the unique input constraints.
------
pdonis
It would be nice if an article on how to ace a coding interview did not have
incorrect code in it. AFAICT the set-based algorithm for finding duplicates is
wrong; the resulting set will contain items in the list that are not
duplicated.
~~~
LVB
It doesn't work. Not just a coding issue either, as the code matches their
explanation for this "improved" method.
~~~
pdonis
_> It doesn't work._
Yes, I confirmed that by pasting it into the REPL and verifying that it gives
the wrong answer for a one-element list. Apparently the author failed to
follow his own advice to always test code that you write.
------
ArcMex
I wouldn't get an interview from Google even if I wanted to. I'm 29 and live
in Africa. That said this guide was still helpful. A reminder of some of the
skills I should hone for my next interview. I loved reading the comments here
because they give so much perspective from all sorts of people. HN is
extremely critical of everything and it can be sobering. I cannot obviously
speak about the intentions or damage such guides have or can do but honestly,
even if you know how to code, it doesn't hurt to prepare for an interview in a
way a prospective company would want you to.
------
Apocryphon
Question for hiring managers and employers:
In Silicon Valley, tech interviewing has become an arms race between
applicants cramming to pass tech screens and interviews, and employers coming
up with new routines. Sites like Glassdoor and CareerCup are loaded with
interview questions that have appeared in those routines, giving savvy
interviewees the opportunity to see the questions on the exam and prepare
accordingly.
How do you feel about the existence of these sites, and do they affect how
interviews are conducted?
~~~
shaftway
As an interviewer I don't really care. A good candidate doesn't need them, and
a poor candidate isn't helped by them. The only thing that's irritating to me
is that they actually burn interview questions. Once a question is seen on an
external job board it gets banned as an interview question.
~~~
Frost1x
In the current interview structure, I don't think that's inherently a bad
policy. It forces interviewers to develop new unique questions and hopefully,
while doing so, consider the cognative time and complexity the solution took
them before deciding to hand it to an interviewee.
This also discourages overly complex or overly familiarized questions. If the
question is too complex, chances are it will end up posted online soon after,
penalizing the interviewer in time cost. If a new question is recycled
frequently, it will also likely end up online at some point and penalize
interviewers from using questions they're overly familiar/biased in assessment
to based on their own rote learning.
------
PorterDuff
After a long and storied career I mostly just get a kind of vicarious doom-
thrill from reading about interviews I couldn't possibly pass.
------
AzzieElbab
Is it fair to assume "professional google interviewee" is a thing nowadays?
~~~
retiredcoder
Yes, I have a few close friends hopping jobs every 1-2 years. Part of their
secret is be involved with interviews to keep all this crap fresh in their
minds and also be part of this sub-industry of tech interviews.
Good for them financially maybe. Professionally, I didn’t see they go beyond
the average senior dev. But that just me being sour.
------
neduma
Seems like there are lot of sites like this in past few years. Great.
------
yegle
There's an unconscious bias in this post. Google as a company is not only
interviewing engineering roles. Even for engineering roles, there are too many
sub categories and many doesn't follow the typical SWE interview process.
If you just want to know what the interview for your roles would be, the
recruiter from Google will happy to give you an overview.
------
notus
Isn't the interview different depending on the job?
~~~
zhengyi13
My immediate reaction to the title of the article was "... for SWEs and
possibly SREs".
But to answer your question, yes, absolutely.
~~~
coleca
Any ideas what the process would look like for something like Solution
Architect for Google Cloud? I can’t imagine that there would be graphs and
tree coding questions but you never know.
~~~
simmanian
I think it largely depends on the person interviewing you. I know candidates
interviewing for Machine Learning positions get asked with typical algorithm
questions.
------
skookumchuck
I've never seen an interview process that HN (and Reddit and Slashdot and ...)
didn't trash as "deeply flawed", "biased", "unfair", "unreasonable", etc. At
some point, though, a company has to have some sort of process, and by and
large what they use works for them.
~~~
drivebycomment
It's always so much easier to criticize (as nothing is perfect) than actually
come up with a better solution in real life. So anything where there's no
perfect solution, people will endlessly criticize online, even though they
themselves have no better solution, and what they criticize is not terrible by
any means.
------
bitL
You can bypass the whole charade by knowing 2-3 people within Google that can
provide "assurance" you are good enough. Whiteboard testing is for
grunts/unknowns without network. Another way is to be a significant
contributor to some popular open source project.
~~~
seattle_spring
> You can bypass the whole charade by knowing 2-3 people within Google that
> can provide "assurance" you are good enough.
This is not a thing. Everyone goes through the same level-adjusted loop.
> Another way is to be a significant contributor to some popular open source
> project.
LOL no. Google is literally famous for rejecting major open source
contributors for not knowing how to reverse a binary tree.
~~~
tropo
Is there something special about reversing a binary tree?
AFAIK, you could swap the child pointers and do that recursively for the child
nodes. You could also do things O(1) by just changing the comparison function,
perhaps by wrapping it to negate the comparison.
~~~
shaftway
This is a specific, well-known case. Max Howell (the author of Brew) was
rejected by Google. One of his interviewers asked him to invert a binary tree.
[https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en](https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
FSF speaks against patent and DRM provisions at TPP negotiators' meeting - tjr
http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/fsf-speaks-against-tpp
======
ABCD_FUFU
I woder why US negotiators are authorized to put forth any treaty that
infringes the rights of the public greater than current law?
Probably for the same reason that congress doesnt read the laws it passes.
~~~
nickpinkston
In Corporatist America - Treaty Infringes You!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Zipcar parks its iPhone app – finally - ashishk
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/09/28/zipcar-parks-its-iphone-app-%E2%80%93-finally/
======
Avenger42
What annoys me about a headline like this is that the verb "parks" makes me
say "Funny! Car -> parks! Great! But what the heck does it mean?"
In this case, it means "arrives in the App Store", but my initial thought was
"shuts down", which is what I do when I park my car.
Bottom line for me: when I have to read the story to understand the headline,
I count that as a fail.
------
jawad
Okay, Johnson & Johnson, now it's your turn. Where are the LifeScan iPhone
devices & apps?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Early days with app.net - yankcrime
http://henry.to/blog/2012/08/22/early-days-with-app-dot-net/
======
mickdarling
I am on app.net mainly to see how it evolves. My startup
(<http://tomorrowish.com>) relies heavily on twitter and facebook. The network
effect that made those networks chock full of pop culture and marketing hasn't
happened yet with app.net, and if it does, I want to see how that happens.
For instance there was social media heavy marketing conference this week
called Inbound(<http://inboundconference.com>) that was eating up my twitter
feed, but not a single tApp was posted.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Surprising Resilience of the Patent System [by Stanford Prof. Mark Lemley] - dctoedt
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2784456
======
dctoedt
FTA: "... Of the four reasons people litigate patent cases other than to win
on the merits, three (nuisance-value settlements, bullying, and regulatory
gaming) are actively socially harmful. The patent litigation system imposes
substantial costs on third parties, and most of those third parties are
themselves innovators. It may be worth paying those costs if there is evidence
that patent litigation is supporting new invention. But absent that evidence,
the patent litigation system looks more and more like a drag on society. ...
That doesn’t mean we can just get rid of patent litigation. ..." (at p.64-65)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apply HN: Better than Google - jurajpal
Problem: Today, people spend hours searching for sustainable products and services. They end up browsing through apps, blogs and online reviews. Existing services such as Yelp and Google Maps offer little guidance and users end up with information overload.<p>We started Sure to make this process easier. Interviewing our target users validated our key assumption: finding sustainable options should be as easy as finding the closest McDonalds. The market in Europe alone is 56.8M, and with more than 75% willing to pay more for sustainable goods, the need we’re meeting is both prominent and growing.<p>Solution: Sure is a Facebook Messenger chatbot for finding and buying sustainable products and services. Powered by human assisted AI and using data capture and machine learning, Sure provides personalised recommendations for sustainable consumption curated from a crowdsourced database.<p>Why YCF: In March, our MVP had a monthly growth rate of 64% and with F8 earlier this week, we’ve tripled our number of active users and received over 1,500 messages just in 1 day. As The Guardian put it, Sure is one of the earliest chatbots on Messenger that actually manages to achieve the conversational UI but we need to expand to other cities and add product lines fast enough to keep up with the demand.<p>We would love to hear your feedback here and will be happy to answer any questions. Before that, go ahead and try Sure at m.me/besure.io<p><a href="http://besure.io/" rel="nofollow">http://besure.io/</a><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/13/facebook-army-chatbots-messenger-news-sports" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/13/facebook-...</a>
======
ryporter
Why is a chatbot the best medium for your service? When I'm doing product
comparison, I like to browse through products with pictures and to see tables
comparing different products along different dimensions. I understand that you
are trying to prevent information overload, but a curated website can provide
this. Reducing it down to a chatbot strikes me as information underload.
~~~
krumhausen
Conversational commerce is still in its very early days so we're not sure
whether it would work or not. Conversational commerce does, however, have
certain benefits over the traditional web experience. Because of the ongoing
interaction with the user, the service will be able to offer extreme
personalisation, and shorten the purchase flow radically.
Today on the web, we have created a destination mentality, where brands
convince consumers to go to their site and stay there. Conversational or
social commerce is more like the real world were you walk past something, you
do something else and then perhaps you chat about it and even purchase it
later. The real world is more chaotic and conversational commerce havs the
potential to reflect that better than the traditional web.
That being said, we do not believe the future of conversational commerce is a
simple chatbot reflecting the old-school terminal. As you mentioned, pure text
is not great for discoverability and comparisons. We believe the future of
conversational commerce belongs to the hybrid interface, bringing that GUI and
command line paradigms together.
One final note is that as AI gets more and more sophisticated, the need for
browsing through the endless products on Pinterest might disappear, as the
service will be able to offer recommendations that fit exactly to the users’
needs. The service could present three products based on user needs, allowing
the user to make a more informed decision.
More reading: \- [http://www.psfk.com/2016/04/layer-messaging-app-
developers-u...](http://www.psfk.com/2016/04/layer-messaging-app-developers-
user-interfaces.html) \- [https://medium.com/chris-messina/2016-will-be-the-
year-of-co...](https://medium.com/chris-messina/2016-will-be-the-year-of-
conversational-commerce-1586e85e3991#.ptgjj17hd)
------
anthonymonori
How do you plan to maintain the data in Sure? You mentioned that you crowd-
sourced the current data in SF and Copenhagen from local bloggers, but did you
had somebody double check these places? What happens if one of these places do
get shut down or closed? Having a chatbot on Messenger means that people are
placing trust on you - and will be hard to gain back once it's lost or given a
bad choice of place. Will people be able to flag places as closed within the
conversation? What about preferences? E.g. If I don't want to be recommended
the same place again next time I talk to Sure?
All this aside, great job guys! Try to surf the ride and do not fall down!
~~~
jurajpal
Hey Anthony, thanks for your nice words! We indeed make sure all the places
are double checked, we do this also by working with bigger organisations and
travel boards in some cities. We also keep an eye on all the places to make
sure they offer the experience we promise (being open for business is a good
start). We're about quality over quantity.
As for your preferences, Sure is you best friend who doesn't just know all the
great spots in a city but also know you and your preferences. So if you're for
example vegan or always prefer a specific diet, Sure will remember this and
create a profile for you. This happens without the pain of you having to check
boxes. It's all conversational and personal, so that you won't even notice it.
------
hybrid11
Sounds like a good idea, looking forward to seeing the evolution of it!
~~~
jurajpal
Many thanks for your support!
------
Swipes_Team
Well done @jurajpal! I tried breaking it by asking tougher questions but it
figured it out and still made a recommendation. I like this touch!
[https://infinit.io/_/37edMhy](https://infinit.io/_/37edMhy)
~~~
jurajpal
Thanks guys! Means a lot but still a long way to go! :)
------
uptownfunk
How about building out a predictive model to assist you in the sourcing of
sustainable products and services. You already have humans curating the
content, why not use that as your training set and let that inform your
search.
~~~
krumhausen
Yes, that is a good idea. We are building out a list of criteria that we will
use to evaluate sustainable products and services. Using those keywords we
could potentially analyse existing data and use that as a first wave to find
new products and services. A human expert would probably still be needed to
vet the products before adding them to our Sure database.
We just have to be careful which sites or services we would crawl as we don’t
want to infringe on anyones copyrights.
------
tim333
Quite a nice concept though you'll need a larger database of places
~~~
jurajpal
That's a valid point Tim! At the moment, we're only live in Copenhagen and San
Francisco where we have crowdsourced the database mostly from local bloggers.
We need to grow the database faster but want to avoid just copying stuff from
Yelp as the reviews are too abstract in our opinion and we rather want to
curate quality content. Do you have any thoughts here?
~~~
tim333
I'm not sure. I made an app for late drinking and got the data from Google and
Foursquare APIs. But I don't think they'd have sustainability in the database.
If you search Tripadvisor with sustainable as a search term it gives quite
good data and then you could glance at it manually? eg for NY cafes:
[https://www.tripadvisor.com.ph/Search?q=sustainable&geo=6076...](https://www.tripadvisor.com.ph/Search?q=sustainable&geo=60763&pid=3825&typeaheadRedirect=true&redirect=&startTime=1460720553812&uiOrigin=MASTHEAD&returnTo=https%253A__2F____2F__www__2E__tripadvisor__2E__com__2E__ph__2F__Restaurants__2D__g60763__2D__New__5F__York__5F__City__5F__New__5F__York__2E__html&searchSessionId=464CC11AEBD211C5652AF0804AA248D01460724136713ssid)
~~~
krumhausen
Building a chatbot that would search or even crawl through listings on Yelp,
TripAdvisor and Google Maps would probably allow us to build the database
faster - and there are other chatbots out there leveraging existing databases.
However, consumers accustomed to services like Airbnb and Etsy are looking for
authentic connections to local, and social-good businesses.
We believe that one of the key value propositions of our product is to provide
a highly curated list of high quality and more personalised results. While
Google and others are competing on speed and quantity, our key value
propositions is to provide users with high quality and more personalised
results that they normally would spend hours researching online.
Do these assumptions match your learnings from building a similar experience?
~~~
tim333
I didn't progress much further with my bar app but how I would probably
proceed with that or your project is to start with the data out there and then
either curate it manually or try to get feedback from your users as to whether
the places are good.
------
sofisitha
This is really what we need! All the best guys! I'm sure you will make
sustainability the next big thing.
We are super excited to follow your journey.
~~~
jurajpal
Thank you Sofi!
------
rpedela
How do you make money?
~~~
krumhausen
Very good question. We are not monetising right now, but want to explore two
revenue streams:
1\. Commission on transactions made in chat. We might expand this by helping
users find sustainable products and services.
2\. Freemium model where larger businesses and franchises pay for sponsored
content and user feedback
------
mjmashka
Guys I believe in you! Go ahead and make it even better!
~~~
jurajpal
Thank you so much!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Most Valuable Lesson I Learned Pursuing a Finance Major - randfish
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-most-valuable-lesson-i-learned-when-pursuing-a-finance-major
======
pragmatic
Template:
The Most Valuable Lesson I Learned From X
Recall a really great mentor (professor, boss)
Confess your failings (dropped out of school, fired) b/c I was going to (start
a business, go back to school, become a ninja)
Proceed to rationalize your life to show that it was all worth while
~~~
helveticaman
Reminds me of the template for newspaper articles:
Introduction. Anecdote. Quote. Anecdote. Quote. [Good articles use solid stats
instead]. Something is changing faster and faster! [some journalists seem to
unknowingly love the idea of positive second derivatives]
"This is what's going to happen," says expert #1, author of some book you've
never heard of. "This because of this reason."
Summary of other side of the story (only one alternative view presented).
Summary of topic. Mention of scientific debate with oversimplified theories,
poorly presented.
"I think what's actually going to happen is this," says Mr. expert #2. Expert
#2 is the author of this other book, and chair of something or other at the
University of America. "Etcetera."
Hanging question? After all, this irrelevant little topic is crucial to
something intangible that is deep and meaningful. If we don't all do something
quick -- something really bad is going to happen. [a comma would have been
just as good as an m-dash, but an m-dash is more dramatic.]
------
dominik
The most valuable lesson:
"By recognizing the changes in the world around us, we can reason our way into
industries that will be appealing in the long run."
------
antiismist
Is the guy aware that disney stock went down after his so called insight?
------
csl
I really liked this passage:
"The best part of all this is that as web entrepreneurs, we don't need to
invest in a stock portfolio, we can put our shoulder to the grindstone and
actually build it."
------
tyn
It doesn't matter so much which industry will be hot in the next years, it's
what a specific company will do that matters (compare the fate of amazon and
pets.com. for example)
------
snorkel
Here's what I learned:
stock_market = legalize(gambling);
Class dismissed.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Zuckerberg hits users with the hard truth: You agreed to this - popee
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/03/zuckerberg-hits-users-with-the-hard-truth-you-agreed-to-this
======
mikro2nd
I never cared about what Facebook did with the data they collected from their
users because I did NOT consent. I chose to remain off their platform. I am,
however, reliably informed that they nevertheless /persist/ in gathering data
about me -- presumably via friends and family and the FB apps they use, along
with backend pattern and facial recognition and so on.
Any claim of theirs that I "consented" to them building, using and profiting
by my foibles, relationships and habits is false. Not merely disingenuous; an
outright lie.
~~~
candiodari
I think at this point, given that both Android and IOS make giving apps access
to your contact list easy, you are in fact in these sorts of graph databases
in a couple dozen organizations by now, courtesy of people you know. Facebook
is not going to be the worst of them by a looooooooooooooong shot.
Pokemon Go, Skype (now Microsoft), Whatsapp, Snapchat, Line & WeChat if you
live in Asia, Path, Yelp, Twitter, ... all the bigger internet companies [1]
And sadly there's the really cheesy ones like "Fantasy War Tactics" [2]. How
many of your friends play that sort of crap ?
[1] [https://venturebeat.com/2012/02/14/iphone-address-
book/](https://venturebeat.com/2012/02/14/iphone-address-book/)
[2]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidGaming/comments/42ok29/why_w...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidGaming/comments/42ok29/why_would_a_game_need_access_to_contacts_and_phone/)
------
pieter_mj
Yes you consented, but it's not an informed consent. Facebook will do anything
to keep you as uninformed as possible (unreadable legalese, dark UX patterns,
opt-outs, ...)
~~~
austincheney
So many excuses. The story _" Of course I agreed, but its all their fault
because I didn't know what I agreed to"_ gets old.
Everybody has known for years that Facebook uses this data against you to make
money. If it didn't upset you before why would it suddenly upset you now?
~~~
mulletbum
Can someone explain why this is getting downvoted? This is Hacker News not
Reddit, please express your angle with text, not just a downvote.
~~~
cryptoz
Hacker News downvotes on emotion every second of every day. It is far worse
than reddit. Do not complain about downvotes here, that is against the rules.
It is _not_ against the rules here to downvote a comment because you disagree
with it, unlike reddit. That's normal here and how HN is meant to work.
------
falcolas
Dear Zuckerberg,
If we consented to this and were still genuinely surprised, its an indication
that the consent was not sufficiently informed. This is your problem, not
ours. Most of us Average Joes just don't understand the scope of what data
collection is possible when we give you access to our phone's features -
especially when you couch the access request for quite innocuous and even
helpful features.
Worse, we don't really understand what can be done with this data. That you
can take location data and will use it to infer where we live and work - that
you could use it to categorize us according to race and religion - these kinds
of possibilities just never crossed our minds when you asked for our location
to share with nearby friends.
So, no, we did not agree to this - we were not well enough informed to agree
with this. To paraphrase a meme: You might be legally correct, but you're an
asshole.
~~~
liberte82
No, it's literally your problem, if there are things happening with the data
that are causing you problems.
~~~
dlwdlw
The libertarian attitude only works if you assume everyone is equal. Children
are not. And because access to knowledge and wisdom (which includes when and
how to seek out knowledge, usually passed on by educated parents.) huge
portions of people can be left in a semi-childlike state. Tendency to
violence, under-appreciation for exponentials, etc...
The role of parental systems is to mitigate the issues of orphans who become
disenfranchised. Entire races can be orphaned from traditional values of they
were severed from their cultural root. (slaves) the elderly also often become
orphaned and so are a big target for scams.
Excessive and imposed "family" is just a cult but that doesn't mean family
values don't at a role in functioning society. There is a limit to individual
ability.
------
Ajedi32
FYI, Zuckerberg's _not_ referring to the EULA or TOS. He's talking about this
dialog box in the app itself:
[https://i.imgur.com/zGUdifB.png](https://i.imgur.com/zGUdifB.png)
Specifically, the very first sentence of the dialog box, which says:
> Continuously upload info about your contacts like phone numbers and
> nicknames, and your call and text history.
The article's not entirely clear on that point, so I thought I'd mention it
here.
~~~
callahad
Thanks for the screenshot. That's a pretty clear and overt prompt.
...And one I would never agree to, yet my address book is in my Facebook data
export. I wonder what previous iterations of that prompt looked like,
especially around the time of Android 4.0, which must have been about when I
installed the app. Does anyone know if there are old screenshots, or historic
versions of the APK available anywhere to check?
------
mtgx
"And sure, we were as misleading as possible about it and tried our best to
trick you into clicking that Next button, but that doesn't count, right?"
This reminds me of Steve Jobs' "You're holding it wrong." Tone deaf. Platforms
always share the most responsibility. This applies to any UX thing. You can
argue that the users are "idiots" for not doing what you think they're
supposed to do, or you can fix your UX to make it as easy to understand as
possible.
Alternatively, you can design your UX with dark patterns to ensure that users
do a lot of stuff that are not good for them and aren't supposed to do, but
you convince them or trick them into doing anyway, because that's good _for
you_.
I also think that by using this strategy Facebook _may_ win the battle, but
it's going to lose the war. Eventually people will go "Well, then, if it's my
fault, then maybe I shouldn't be accepting all of that stuff Facebook is
pushing into my face in their apps." And then Facebook will slowly but surely
die as people use it less and less as "Facebook intended" them to use it.
------
nobleach
Statements like "you agreed to this" are disingenuous at best. Probably a more
truthful statement would be, "you had to know we were getting SOMETHING out of
this." While yes, the terms and conditions were completely forthright about
what Facebook could do with collected data, they were counting on an a very
small percentage of their users actually reading (or caring) about those
terms. I can agree that no one has the right to be outraged though. The only
sticky part here is that if I violate Facebook's Terms and Services, they'll
terminate my account. They'll most likely still use my data after the
termination of our agreement though.
------
AJRF
"Hey we would like to give you weather reports and the ability to see when
people in your area are selling things
P.s we will sell this on to third parties so they can target you to influence
elections."
The problem here is Facebook doesn't ever word things like this, they up sell
Facebook platform features, even if they are segways into increased
advertising revenue.
I think regulation should have a stance on this. It needs to be easy for users
to see exactly how their data is being used, and in a timely fashion. If the
company can't protect our data, they don't deserve to have it.
What do you say Mark? You agreed to this*
* - [https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180325071038-01-faceb...](https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180325071038-01-facebook-apology-note-exlarge-169.jpg)
------
thisisit
I have a Facebook account on which I have shared as little as possible. When I
downloaded the data off the platform, it was completely empty which was no
surprise.
But, as it turned out my friends were not so lucky. All of them had my number
saved. Some had my birthday. Quite a few had tagged me at my work location
etc.
So, even with efforts on my side to try and not share data, FB still has a
profile on me. I find it hard to believe that there are lot of other platforms
which can build such a cache of information about me, without me giving them
explicit permission.
------
OrganicMSG
That's funny, as I'd say that;
>"Contact uploading is optional. People are expressly asked if they want to
give permission to upload their contacts from their phone – it’s explained
right there in the apps when you get started."
doesn't really cover the complaint from Dylan McKay regarding;
> "metadata about every text message I've ever received or sent"
and;
> "the metadata of every cellular call I've ever made, including time and
> duration"
------
andy_ppp
This discussion was flagged marked as dead and knocked off the front page
within a few minutes, is that normal? It seems strange that it’s no longer
flagged or dead but still off the homepage. I find this to be the most
damaging Facebook story on there so I worry about why it’s been removed when
the discussion on here was interesting.
------
dustingetz
Another prisoner's dilemma stuck at backstab/backstab. No individual company
can offer simple terms, because it's against their short-term interests.
Simple terms only work if everyone else offers simple terms. Legal precedent
and regulatory capture has evolved us to a local maxima.
------
matt_s
Why don't they just come out with a subscription version of Facebook? $40/year
for no ads, no data miners or data sharing and a customizable "news" feed
(e.g. no shared posts from crazy Uncle, prioritize family, etc.)
Some percentage of users will do that. If 1% of 2 billion users choose it,
then they get $800 million per year.
It seems logical if people don't like being the product, let them pay for the
product, right?
~~~
dfxm12
_$40 /year for no ads, no data miners or data sharing..._
As a point of reference, if you're in the US or Canada, Facebook would be
losing money on this model, according to info on their investors' site [0].
0 -
[https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_presentations/FB-Q...](https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_presentations/FB-Q316-Earnings-
Slides.pdf) (search for Average Revenue per User)
~~~
matt_s
Ok those numbers wouldn't work out. I picked $40/yr since it sounded
reasonable.
Maybe this is an opportunity for a startup to create a paid social media
platform?
------
mulletbum
If you've already agreed, then that is too bad, that data is already in their
hands. However, if you would like to make sure to let Facebook know that your
agreement is over, feel free to go here:
[https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account](https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account)
------
908087
I never signed up, yet I know Facebook has data about me anyway. How exactly
did I "agree to this"?
------
lmedinas
To be honest what really worries me is the people who have "agreed to this"
without even realizing anything remotely closer to this. I mean people with
poor education to publish everyday photos and texts into Facebook.
------
JumpCrisscross
Many people use their personal phones for work calls. They may have
inadvertently breached NDAs, and in some cases laws, by not paying attention
to their privacy settings.
~~~
paulie_a
No offense but if you have an NDA that can be broken by using your personal
phone you probably shouldn't use your personal phone to make those
communications.
~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _if you have an NDA that can be broken by using your personal phone_
Almost _every_ NDA, including those standard with employment packages, include
in the definition of confidential information the time, date and duration of
phone calls with customers and sensitive suppliers. Anyone in a customer-
facing role would thus be required to keep those data confidential, _i.e._ not
disclose it without proper authorization to a third party, _e.g._ Facebook.
~~~
paulie_a
Then it's probably not a great idea to use a personal phone to make those
communications then. Whoever wanted the NDA should provide one.
~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Whoever wanted the NDA should provide one_
This might work for an employee defending against their employer. It wouldn’t
work for the employer relative to their customers; or a contractor to their
clients; or any other situation. In any case, my point is Facebook may have
caused many people legal harm.
------
diek00
Mark wants to surpass $100 billion in lost stock, like a champ
------
liberte82
Remember when people laughed off Stallman as an extremist?
------
hashkb
He obviously doesn't watch South Park.
------
Balgair
Anecdote: I was in Australia once and idly flipping through the hotel room's
TV channels. I happened upon the Aussie _Dateline_ , their version a popular
US program on NBC that does some alright in-depth reporting on special issues.
As an aside: one thing to remember about Australia compared to the US is that
the Aussie version of things is like the US version, but in a fun house
mirror. Everything is called the same, and is similar, but is just different
enough as to give you 'category-vertigo'. The Aussie BBQ is a BBQ, but not
really anything like a US BBQ. The Aussie seafood is seafood, but not really
anything like US seafood. Aussie radio is radio, but not really anything like
US radio. ETC.
The Aussie version of _Dateline_ that I stumbled upon was taking an in-depth
look at a rancher in QLD and his issues with an oil/gas company. The rancher
quit school at 16 (generally, a wonderful idea in commonwealth countries that
the US should import) and became a boxer, then a car salesman, then a rodeo
bronco rider, and then a cattle rancher with a wife and 3 young kids. Very
importantly, neither he nor his wife could read. His contracts would be signed
with an 'X' and a handshake. From what I could tell about QLD law, every
contract must be read to a person that cannot read, and a sense of 'good
faith' must exist between both parties.
Well, a US oil/gas company came to him and found the black gold under his
ranch. They set up many pump-jacks and ruined his grazing land. He quickly
went bankrupt as all his cattle died. So he went to court over it. The US
company put their hand to their face and basically went: 'Nee-neer-Nee-Neer-
Nee-neer, you signed the contract! Ha!' The contract was written in a very
favorable way to the company and screwed the rancher. So much was the stress,
that the wife tried to commit suicide. Watching that portion of the interview
was heartbreaking. Here was a tough, sunburnt man, brought to tears over
finding his wife just about to commit the act.
But QLD law was very favorable to the man. The contract was voided as it was
created _in bad faith_ and the US company was made to pay to remove the jacks
and pay the rancher back for the damages. The _Dateline_ piece was mostly
following their attempts in international courts to get the company to pay up,
as they had fled Australia in order to skip out on the payment.
Here's my point: What the Zuck is doing, by saying: 'Nee-neer-Nee-Neer-Nee-
neer, you signed the contract! Ha!', is a very _American_ thing to do; and it
won't stand up in many other countries, or even his own. Just because a
contract was clicked on and agreed to _in bad faith_ , doesn't mean that he
will be able to hide behind that shield forever. Even if you have a piece of
paper that says 'I can be an asshole', and everyone has signed it, doesn't
mean that you can be an asshole forever. People don't like assholes and they
will get lawyers/barristers in to express that feeling.
------
api
This is actually the correct response. A better way of saying it is: Facebook
is not free. You pay by surrendering data about yourself and your friends.
~~~
xboxnolifes
I never cared about Facebook using data collected from their platforms, but
the whole "Collecting phone data because you agreed to the very wide
permission system implemented in Android systems", is a bit sketchy.
~~~
austincheney
Facebook doesn't have to anything you didn't deliberately agree to surrender.
That isn't very sketchy.
~~~
tatersolid
No user, even if they read the TOS, believed they were opting into perpetual
call and SMS logging.
It’s dark UX and the terrible Amdroid permissions system that tricked them
into it.
~~~
austincheney
Its not dark UX merely because you don't like it.
Dark UX suggests a control designed to trick you into making a decision you
would deliberate otherwise not make. I looked at their opt-in control and it
is very clear that you have to opt-in.
In other words, if you didn't want Facebook to have all your call and SMS data
then why would you deliberately agree to give it to Facebook with their very
obvious consent form?
~~~
dictum
> their very obvious consent form
I haven't used FB in a long time and I never used their mobile app, so here's
a genuine request: do you have a screenshot or some example of how they gather
consent for this?
~~~
austincheney
The Vanity Fair article about this featured a screenshot if you scroll down a
little bit: [https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/25/facebook-denies-it-
collect...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/25/facebook-denies-it-collects-
call-and-sms-data-from-phones-without-permission/)
~~~
dictum
Thanks. It confirms my empirical experience that most users (of all
backgrounds) don't read, those who read don't fully comprehend the
information, and those who comprehend it are thrown off by cute illustrations
or the urgency of what they want to accomplish in the moment.
Personally, I'd prefer the message to be split in two parts, like so:
\------
# Text anyone in your phone
This lets friends find each other on Facebook and helps us create a better
experience for everyone.
## Privacy
This will continously upload:
\- Info about your contacts like phone numbers and nicknames
\- Your call and text history.
\------
(I don't think I'd have gotten FB to a half-trillion market cap.)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Quantity or quality when it comes to open source contribution? - shuaib
I think it has been mentioned many times by now, specially with the "reverse job application" threads, that a recruiter would give considerable points to someone contributing to open source in his/her free time. What in your opinion looks better on a resume, a good long list of open source projects one might have had sent a few number of patches to, or a one or two projects with more significant contribution?
======
cperciva
_a good long list of open source projects one might have had sent a few number
of patches to_
Personally I'd completely ignore such a list, unless it included some
indication that the patches had been committed. I've seen far too many people
congratulating themselves for contributing back to the community when their
"contributions" are complete garbage.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Football Genius of F. Scott Fitzgerald - ritchiea
http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-football-genius-of-f-scott-fitzgerald-1414166403
======
kazinator
So what this is saying is that Fitzgerald may have helped to shape the "old
sport".
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Smallest blockchain? - ateesdalejr
Are there any cryptocurrencies that focus on small blockchain size? For example bitcoin's blockchain is more than 100GB this might be a bit too large for someone who only has say a 256GB hard-drive. Are there any cryptocurrencies that focus on having the most space efficient blockchain? Say, maybe a few GB?
======
tromp
The MimbleWimble design [1] allows inputs to be cancelled against the outputs
they spend, with no loss of security. Essentially, the entire blockchain
history may be collapsed to a single mega transaction, with all coinbases as
inputs and the UTXO set as outputs. In his recent talk [2], Andrew Poelstra
discusses the achievable savings relative to the bitcoin blockchain.
[1]
[http://mimblewimble.cash/20160719-OriginalWhitePaper.txt](http://mimblewimble.cash/20160719-OriginalWhitePaper.txt)
[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovCBT1gyk9c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovCBT1gyk9c)
------
wakeywakeywakey
They don't need to 'focus' on that, since there are various strategies to
achieve it without redesigning the blockchain as a whole. For example, there
are light clients [1] you can run which only download part of the blockchain
and still provide some guarantees.
[1]: [https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Light-client-
protocol](https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Light-client-protocol)
~~~
ateesdalejr
The only problem I have with a light client is the fact that it is nigh to the
impossible to do any sort of mining at all.
~~~
useranme
I'm curious, why is it impossible? I don't know much about mining.
------
rhlala
The hole raiblock is 1.7g for 5millions + transactions
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The New .NET Is Coming Fast: 5 Tips to Get You Ready - pakostina
http://www.telerik.com/campaigns/devcraft/new-dotnet-webinar
======
Zekio
I hope, it will be released to YouTube afterwards sounds like an interesting
Session
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A story about Upwork and freelancers - scott_s
https://twitter.com/MattFnWallace/status/1060659941491363841
======
gojomo
While the communication should have been clearer, this may not be a matter of
Upwork wanting to upsell the client, but rather Upwork being under legal
pressure from the IRS or state employment-protection agency (eg: California
EDD) to classify workers as "W-2" employees rather than "1099" contractors –
no matter what the workers or employers prefer as being in their own best
interests.
The government bureaucracies prefer this, and have at different times and in
different jurisdictions cracked down on whatever other sorts of work-matching
arrangements startups have attempted to use, for themselves or as a
clearinghouse for others.
The likely threshold for the "compliance issue" could have been that Wallace
(the tweetstorm author) had few or no other clients, and was billing this
single client full-time hours over a significant period. That full-time
exclusivity is a major factor in the tax/regulatory authorities wanting
someone to be classified as a salary- or wage-employee.
Now, the very reason that the ultimate client prefers to use Upwork, rather
than contract directly, is the headache of complying with these rules. They
figure: we might screw up the 1099s, or cross some fuzzy compliance barrier,
and then be hit with an enforcement action, if we try to handle our own
freelancers. But if we use Upwork, well, they're the experts in ensuring
"compliance", and have such a large roster of capable freelancers that neither
we nor they would be at risk of appearing to be in an exclusive employment
relationship.
Thus: the ultimate villains here are the tax/employment-regulation
authorities. They've made the sort of arrangement that both Wallace and the
client prefer incur extra legal risks. Upwork has just been clumsy in
communicating that, and helping those on its platform navigate the rules.
~~~
stanleydrew
I wouldn't be so quick to call the tax/employment-regulation authorities
villainous. The reason these regulations exist is to prevent employers from
treating people who "should be" employees as contractors where they get fewer
benefits.
The regulatory environment isn't set up to handle a situation where an
employee would rather be a contractor, because that's relatively rare.
Ideally there would be some way to take the worker's preference into account,
but things just aren't set up that way and so the assumption is that
contractors need to be protected from employers who want to screw them.
In any individual case an employer could probably document an employee
preference for a certain classification and be fine. But UpWork and state
employment regulatory bodies are built for handling scale, so processes will
tend towards working for the most common situations.
~~~
milch
Making it possible for the worker to document their “preference” would defeat
the entire purpose of these regulations. Companies would simply fire anyone
who doesn’t have a contractor preference
~~~
stickfigure
So instead we're ram-roding everyone into the wage-slavery model. With health
insurance linked to your employer, it's no wonder people are afraid to leave
their cubicles.
I think "big evil corporations" like this setup just fine.
~~~
geezerjay
> So instead we're ram-roding everyone into the wage-slavery model.
Companies like upwork do absolutely nothing to solve that problem. In fact,
they make it even worse by not even considering the idea of offering any
healthcare service to any if their "contractors".
~~~
stickfigure
That's so naive that it makes me angry.
Companies like upwork provide a place for independents to find clients. I
spent the last 10 years earning most of of my income from consulting. The hard
problem is not getting health insurance (you can buy it, it's just expensive
and paid with after-tax dollars). _THE_ hard part about being a consultant is
finding people to pay you.
These marketplaces might not be perfect, but they're a step in the right
direction. I want exactly one thing from them - the ability to find work and
get paid.
------
hughjd
Is this Upwork trying to avoid falling afoul of tax legislation similar to
IR35 in the UK? As far as I understand, it tries to crack down on people like
OP who (in the view of the tax authorities) are essentially employees at a
company but do the work freelance so both they and the company benefit from
various tax perks.
[https://www.contractorcalculator.co.uk/what_is_ir35.aspx](https://www.contractorcalculator.co.uk/what_is_ir35.aspx)
~~~
zapperdapper
Yes, my feeling it was something along these lines. From what I read on
Twitter the hiring company would only use him through UpWork, which is fine
for one offs and so on, but it sounds like they used him a lot, to the point
where there was a question mark over the legal situation - that's why there
are umbrella companies.
I would possibly blame the hiring company more than UpWork, but there's no
doubt UpWork's communication could have been better. Most of my freelancing
has been done through umbrella companies in the past, but increasingly it
seems a better option to use Ltd. company in the UK due to employer those
massive NI contribs.
~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Ltd companies are expected to also pay NI contributions if IR35-caught,
though?
------
sqrt17
With the raise of all these "platform" companies - basically some inbetween
that solves some QA and paperwork issues, we see that (i) there are "natural"
monopolies/monopsonies developing (e.g. people don't look further than Amazon
marketplace, companies giving out all their work via upwork, people watching
only Youtube videos) and then (ii) that these platform companies start
behaving in abusive and/or arbitrarily damaging ways.
Does anyone else think that this should be an issue for targeted regulation?
No one would accept a company taking over the road network and then randomly
trashing people's cars for incomprehensible reason, yet people seem to be
dreamy-eyed and naive about these new inbetween platform companies and seem to
think that the market will solve itself. (Which is - as may be known - not the
case with monopolies)
~~~
dmos62
I'm always happy when someone brings up regulation in the context of IT. I'm a
big proponent. Everything from closed-source to monopolies and ads. I find it
weird that it's not talked about more often. I wonder why that is. In some
ways it's a relic of the American free-market capitalism, but that can only be
part of the picture.
~~~
dmos62
If someone disagrees or thinks this is an inappropriate comment, I'd prefer an
argument, rather that a downvote. I don't think that what I said has any
negative effect on the discussion.
~~~
plainOldText
You seem to have a very simplistic view of how voting works. Why would you
assume downvoting is a feedback mechanism to signal negative posts only?
People downvote for all sorts of reasons.
I for instance downvoted your comment, for supporting a blanket regulatory
attitude across the IT spectrum. It's tantamount to proposing a single
programming language across the whole stack. That portrays a very narrow view
of the world. Not to mention it can lead to being counterproductive.
Do note, human communication is a complex endeavor. We employ all kinds
signals and techniques for information exchange and a simple downvote in an
online forum is a perfectly valid signal, albeit an ambiguous one.
~~~
dmos62
> blanket regulatory attitude across the IT spectrum
That's jumping to conclusions. I didn't elaborate at all what kind of
regulation I support or how granular. I now feel that my comment wasn't up to
the standard, because it has a bad mix of off-topic and terse "snarkiness".
As to the usage of downvotes, of course you can use it however you like, just
like you can dismiss anyone you like whenever. I'm referring to a common
_regulation_ in communities, that a comment shouldn't be dismissed if you
don't like it, but only if it has a negative effect on the discussion.
What do you hope to achieve by downvoting those you disagree with? Force their
opinions to the bottom of the discussion stack? I.e. silence them? That's what
you're effectively doing, and it's not conducive to a healthy community.
~~~
plainOldText
I rarely downvote those I disagree with. And when I do, my goal is to have
them reconsider and question their position and not at all to silence them.
I fail to see how I jumped to conclusions. You clearly stated that vis-a-vis
regulation:
> I'm a big proponent. Everything from closed-source to monopolies and ads.
If this is not an extreme pro-regulation attitude then I don't know what is.
And just to be clear, comments are clearly superior to downvotes, though we'd
hardly get any work done had we written replies to all comments we disagree
with; thus, occasionally replying via downvotes.
------
rmoriz
Rule #1 when working with/on a platform: Transform customers to your own
platform. Do it in a way that does not violate the AUP of the platform but do
everything you can to „own“ the customer contact. Never become dependent of a
single platform that temporarily may work in your interest.
This rule is somewhat universal and matches all business types and platforms:
Amazon, eBay, AirBnB, Uber, YouTube, App Stores.
~~~
tedeh
Unsurprisingly, Upwork expressly forbids this. "Keep contact with potential
clients inside Upwork [... or risk account termination]".
[https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-
us/articles/211067618-Freel...](https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-
us/articles/211067618-Freelancer-Violations-and-Account-Holds)
I'd say once a good match between a contractor and a client has been
established, both parties should swiftly move away from the Upwork platform,
their rent-seeking "rules" be damned!
~~~
CodeWriter23
> Keep contact with _potential_ clients inside Upwork.
You can email, Skype, phone once on a contract.
~~~
GarrisonPrime
True, but of course Upwork cant help you if a problem then arrises.
Not saying one shouldn't do it, but as Upwork is so flooded with shady
characters I'd be hesitant to move clients off the platform too quickly.
------
sandov
Twitter has such a crappy interface. Takes like 3 seconds to show anything at
all, then half of the time it throws an error and asks me to try again, and
when it works there's an unclosable banner asking me to join twitter.
~~~
paulgb
Here's an alternative UI for this conversation
[https://treeverse.app/view/FFBtBwxG](https://treeverse.app/view/FFBtBwxG)
(disclosure: Treeverse is a free-time project of mine)
~~~
imhoguy
This is really cool! One thing: Firefox content blocking somehow prevents
avatars from loading - I get empty boxes.
~~~
paulgb
Weird, desktop or mobile? They load for me in Firefox on MacOS (it's actually
my main browser, despite Treeverse being a Chrome extension for now)
~~~
imhoguy
Desktop. I know why now. I had "Browser Privacy" > "Content Blocking" > "All
Detected Trackers" set to "Always", the default is "Only in private windows".
And because FF uses Disconnect.me list it means all embedded social networking
load gets cut off.
------
hn17
Upwork is partially automated. They probably use market position to manipulate
users. I had some bad experience and no communication also. When you register
account, Upwork "moderates" your profile and "decides" if you can start to
work with clients. They have some kind of automated moderation with percentage
pass value. It's not working great. If you aren't using in your resume a lot
of words that they think are marketable you will be banned as not being
eligible for working with Upwork. They will send you e-mail with misguiding
information that you aren't good fit for them in nice words and that you can
reapply in the future. Reality is that some bad data processing took place.
For many people reading such type of e-mail that they send can be offending
(if not depressing in cases when they didn't get what happened). In my case I
just added some more keywords and tags because I was almost sure what happened
and resubmitted profile. After a couple of hours my account was Up and Working
;) No sorry or any other information from them - not a nice way of starting
bussiness with a client.
------
ddtaylor
I have seen a similar thing by Upwork happen. The problem also is that by
accepting the first freelance job you agreed to a two year exclusivity
contract on the platform, so not accepting their new terms of payroll means
you cannot work with them anymore.
You might be able to work around it though by creating a new incorporation of
changing juristiction, but that's a bit complicated. It's also not clear if
Upwork's contract is legal or enforceable.
~~~
pvaldes
> by accepting the first freelance job you agreed to a two year exclusivity
> contract on the platform
I think that is only If you want to work for the same client again [Maybe has
being changed in the last years?]. After a few jobs some clients will try to
circumnavigate the platform. In any case I wouldn't be very surprised if some
of this clients were disclosed as upwork employees in the future pushing their
own agendas.
After spending some time in the platform you can see lots of strange patterns
repeating here and there.
------
eganist
Unrolled:
[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1060659941491363841.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1060659941491363841.html)
------
foo101
Why are people still using Upwork? How many of these horror stories do we need
to come across before people learn to ditch Upwork for good? Here was another
horror story that I read sometime back: [https://hackernoon.com/why-you-
should-never-use-upwork-ever-...](https://hackernoon.com/why-you-should-never-
use-upwork-ever-5c62848bdf46) It has been two years since then!
Heck, everyone ditched Digg in a matter of weeks due to a UI redesign. How on
the same earth are people still using Upwork despite issues that are for more
serious where people's livelihoods are affected?
~~~
mrhappyunhappy
Some people don’t have any alternatives to upwork. Even though the platform is
shit it still puts food on the table. I still have an upwork profile but most
of my business is word of mouth. The reason I keep it is because due to how I
phrased my profile, once in a blue moon I get a good lead.
~~~
tnolet
Freelancer here. I understand what you're trying to say. But this is simply
not true. Freelancing existed before Upwork and will exist after.
~~~
alrehn
If you've got a lot of experience and connections, finding freelance work on
your own is easy. The thing that feeds sites like upwork is people with less
of that, people that will work for pennies, often from third world countries.
For me, a few years ago I was in school and wanted some income from
programming. I managed to get some work on a site that has since been bought
by upwork, worked for $10-15 an hour. If not for that site I'd have never
gotten that work, and be much worse off now.
------
praptak
So, why didn't the company contract him directly in the first place? We want
you to work for us but do so via a third party? Sounds fishy.
~~~
mrhappyunhappy
Obviously because they value his work so much.
------
agentPrefect
The amount of colossal horror stories I've heard about that company has made
sure I don't go near it with a 9 foot pole. Their platform is designed to
obscure process in lieu of exploiting workers - all whilst advocating to
"serve the client". Utterly toxic.
------
Hoasi
Adding back the middlemen beats the whole point of freelancing, which is to be
on your own. I understand that sometimes the clients are using the
"freelancers" platform(s). But if you trade independence for a little bit of
convenience, don't be surprised to find you are being used.
~~~
ilaksh
It's not about a little bit of convenience. It's about being able to pay rent.
You have to go where the business is.
The majority of the freelance jobs out there are on Upwork and cannot or will
not afford benefits or competitive US rates.
------
pbhjpbhj
Sounds reasonable to me.
The company can't employ him for full-time work as a freelancer, due to
regulations that protect workers rights. Whilst that might be a problem: it's
like one person doesn't like it and millions need it to protect their
livelihood.
Upwork wouldn't inform him because it's nothing to do with him, he's a
freelancer not an employee (the reason for the whole issue). If he were an
employee obviously payroll (who Upworks represent in this case) would have to
give notice etc..
So, in part he's complaining about not getting the protections that a full-
timer does - notification of change of work, conditions, hours and such -
whilst simultaneously arguing that he should be released from those same
protections.
I mean who wants holiday pay, sick pay, employer pension contributions, job
security, etc. ...
~~~
ilaksh
That company isn't going to hire him full time. It will cost a lot more. What
this does is just take his biggest client away from him. They will just find
another relatively inexpensive contractor.
So if these 'protections' are going to work out then they need to account for
the financial situation of the employers some how and also prevent them from
dropping misclassified employees when they become properly classified.
------
Lazare
Reading between the lines a bit, it seems:
1\. Wallace was on Upwork to freelance.
2\. Wallace was working for one client so much that he was at risk of becoming
an employment relationship, rather than a freelancing one.
3\. At no point was Wallace prevented from freelancing on Upwork; Upwork (as
far as is known) presented all valid opportunities _to freelance_ to Wallace.
4\. Upwork communicated to the client that if they wanted to keep working with
Wallace, they'd need to hire him.
5\. The client refused to hire Wallace, and tried to find ways to circumvent
labour laws.
That seems to me to be a plausible interpretation of the facts from the
twitter thread. In which case, the client seems to be the villain here, Upwork
has done everything right, and Wallace seems to be a bit confused.
In particular: "The marketing company, as confused as I was, pressed @Upwork
further. @Upwork would NOT tell them, refused to tell them what those supposed
compliance issues were. [...] So for the marketing company to continue
assigning me work, they have to enroll in @Upwork's 'payroll service' to do
it."
This doesn't add up to me. Either Upwork is refusing to tell the client why
they can't hire Wallace as a freelancer, __OR __they 're telling the client
they need to hire him as an employee. They can't really both be true! I don't
know who's lying/confused here (maybe the client's HR dept is lying to
Wallace's contact at the client, maybe the client is lying to Wallace, maybe
Wallace is just confused), but it seems pretty clear that Upwork _is_ angling
for the "payroll service" upsell, and was telling the client very clearly that
they need to hire Wallace. (That's not the story they told Wallace, but it
doesn't seem like they really had Wallace's best interests at heart here, as
they had a wide number of options available to them to fix this.)
And: "So @Upwork is insisting the marketing company make me an employee"
Yeah, pretty sure that's a legal requirement there buddy. And yes, I
understand that both you and the client would like to circumvent it, but
that's the point of labour laws; they only apply in cases where people wanted
to do something they ban. Minimum wage laws have no impact on the engineer
making $120k a year; they impact (for good or ill) the immigrant willing to
work for $5/hour. Laws requiring firms to treat people working full time
workers as employees were passed explicitly to cover the people who are happy
to work full time as contractors.
~~~
windowsworkstoo
Upwork wouldnt have visibility into any other customers he may or may not have
had, so it doesn’t seem like their call to make.
In Aus we have something sort of similar for contractors called personal
services income. The rules are somewhat complex but it roughly boils down to
the 80/20 rule - if you derive more than 80% of your income from a single
customer, you have to treat that income as if you were an employee. Note that
the burden here is on the contractor and enforcement is via the tax authority
- as opposed to this case where the employer seems to be on the hook
------
sheeshkebab
This looks to be a typical problem with staffing body shops, especially those
that bench their consultants without pay while having them wait for next gig.
IRS and labor agencies look down on that sort of thing. There are similar more
vague shops too MBOPartners (Randstad) and others, that have similar issues.
Since they control all billing and contracts, they are basically this shady
body shop that really needs to have its ass examined thoroughly and
periodically by government.
Advice to consultants - avoid these places and sign your own contracts direct
with customers, and invoice your customers yourself.
------
kemitchell
PSA: The Supreme Court of California recently published a key decision on
independent contractor versus employee classification, adopting an "ABC" test
akin to the one adopted in Massachusetts.
[http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/archive/S222732.PDF](http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/archive/S222732.PDF)
> [A] worker is properly considered an independent contractor to whom a wage
> order does not apply only if the hiring entity establishes: (A) that the
> worker is free from the control and direction of the hirer in connection
> with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the
> performance of such work and in fact; (B) that the worker performs work that
> is outside the usual course of the hiring entity's business; and (C) that
> the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade,
> occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed for the
> hiring entity.
------
kleopullin
It's a bit in response to a change in California laws. California has always
more strictly enforced employment regulations, especially with regards to
contractor classifications.
[https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2018/09/04/cal...](https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2018/09/04/california-
s-new-contractor-test-will-impact-the.html)
------
jorgemf
In my country is illegal to have someone as a freelance doing the same as a
full time job. So I see the point of upwork. If that company is your only
client and you are working full time with them, they should hire you (at least
in my country). In my country you have more rights if you are full time
employee than if you are a freelance, as for example a monthly pay after they
fire you to help you to find another job
~~~
sfifs
Yup this seems to basically be co-employment risk mitigation. I have seen
situations where there is a hard limit on how long we can hire a contractor
for a task through an agency. I have also seen limitations in what we can
specify, measure, reward and what we cannot.
The issue is basically that for contractors, you generally pay no benefits or
retirement plans. However, if they are effectively employees, you do need to
pay them that (ref. Uber driver cases where they are suing for classification
as employees)
------
dna_polymerase
So Upwork actually recognized that this company is completely screwing him and
he is mad at Upwork. Great.
If the company is hiring him for so many jobs that he is basically a full time
employee there they are the arseholes not Upwork. That marketing firm get
their shit together, hire him and pay him the money (and the extras) he
deserves.
------
vadym909
This is fucked up but not because of a Government regulation which has good
intentions and not because of Upwork who is trying to reduce its client's co-
employment risk. All freelancers come across this situation over time and all
are amazed but it is very reasonable.
The labor laws in place are to safeguard companies from using employees in a
fulltime manner but treating them as freelancers so they dont pay the 10%
employer tax, or sick leave or vacation or minimum wage or overtime. Once you
start hitting over 30 hrs/week, and for more than 3 months workign for the
same company- you are hitting the red warning flags that either the IRS is
going to start asking questions about why they're not getting the employer
tax, if th freelancer claims unemployment they are going to look for the last
employer. and the freelancer might himself decide to sue the client claiming
he was misclassifed as a contractor.
In this case all he has to do is enroll in the payroll service, pay a little
more in taxes and reduce the co-employment risk to his client in exchange for
more regular work. If not diversify your client base.
~~~
hippich
1099 paid freelancers pay self-employment taxes, including the equivalent of
all the social taxes. Why does government care? (there are no sick leave or
vacation minimums in the USA)
------
chiefalchemist
Not to get off topic but if this guy owned his own agency he would have /
should have been well aware of IRS' regs. That said, his agency went under.
Not so sound nasty, but perhaps common sense and detail are not his strong
suit?
~~~
majc2
Sure maybe. I guess my takeaway, is that a growing percentage of the workforce
are locked into platforms for income - and how they are treated by those
platforms can have a massive personal financial impact.
Back in my freelancing days, I made a conscious effort to own the whole
conversation - not to use a platform - but to do my own marketing.
As an aside, I've found it interesting to watch youtube videos made by Uber,
Ubereats, Deliveroo delivery people - by scooter chargers and how they all
discuss how to make more money - or to complain about changes in policies
having a financial impact on them.
~~~
chiefalchemist
IDK, those platforms are not agencies. They are a dating service meets escrow.
They not in the relationship business. If the hiring company __and__ the
freelancer don't know the law - and clearly both of themt should - is that
Upwork's job? To give legal advice? Sounds more like Legal.com to me.
Upwork saw an obvious red flag and covered it's arse. I think they could have
done a bit better, but the Twitter rant is foolish, at best.
------
creaghpatr
What’s the best alternative to upwork at the moment? I almost put a job on
there but they spammed the crap of me and the process was way to much for what
we needed done.
~~~
pluc
mondo.com is recommended in the Twitter thread
~~~
dexterdog
Mondo is just a typical body shop. I did a very short contract through them
once which was a nightmare. They took forever to pay and nobody seemed to
understand the payment schedule so getting an answer as to when I was going to
get paid was a constant punt of responsibility around the company.
Sure it's just one experience, but they are crossed off in my book. I still
get their recruiters emailing me on occasion (often more than one of them for
the same position which is its own kind of mess), but I set the domain to just
go right in the trash
~~~
dylz
Hilariously I've gotten phishing and malware from Mondo domain because their
recruiters keep clicking on malware, compromising their accounts, etc.
------
mkagenius
Is it true that we would never be able to do away with such middle-men like
uber, airbnb, google search and instead use some sort of non profit alternate
of these?
~~~
toofy
I imagine it is only a matter of time before we have alternatives to things
such as Uber or Airbnb which arr driven by open source and cooperatively owned
infrastructure.
It’ll be so frustrating to watch the current leaders in these industries, the
companies who are actively fighting for ways to get around regulation, as they
suddenly begin to fight _for_ regulation to keep cooperative or community
owned infrastructures out of the competition pool.
~~~
ilaksh
I have been saying stuff like this for a few years.
I think it is obvious that P2P distributed platforms will be leveraged to
replace the monopoly company platforms. Things like cryptocurrency payments,
Ethereum smart contracts, IPFS, Swarm framework, dat, WebRTC, etc.
------
k__
I looked into stuff lole Upwork and Fiverr.
I'm not into projects that are under 3 months, so I didn't use these
platforms.
But there are enough alternatives (CodementorX, Toptal, Uplink)
------
gigatexal
Related: this is what I love about Twitter — people posting and getting
support and the ability to shame publicly companies who are being jerks.
Albeit I’m hearing only one side it seems that they’re trying to force
companies who want to use stellar upworkers by putting them behind their own
payroll paywall. How lame.
------
gaius
This was a systematic attempt by all three parties to defraud the Inland
Revenue, Upwork is generally pretty sleazy but they blinked first this time.
------
mrhappyunhappy
I put a job up to code me a web app for $200 and nobody replied. What a shit
platform.
~~~
DonHopkins
Try explaining that you're an "idea guy" looking for a programmer to implement
your great ideas, and that you'll compensate them in equity when you make it
big, because your ideas are worth so much more than anyone's execution.
~~~
mrhappyunhappy
Nice. Sell them on a vision. Of course, why didn’t I think of that!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
California Regulators Vote for Zero Emissions Busses by 2040 - tancik
https://earther.gizmodo.com/california-regulators-vote-to-require-all-transit-agenc-1831135366
======
arnoooooo
22 years, how ambitious !
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mocha's site is down - webnanners
https://mochajs.org/
======
jakejarvis
oof is this susceptible to a takeover? Looks like it's pointing to a deleted
Netlify site...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Y Combinator’s Hacker News Is Flawed - jhuckestein
http://thezukunft.com/2010/02/24/4-fixable-reasons-ycombinators-vc-hacker-news-flawed/
======
cjoh
None of these "flaws" are actually flaws.
That's not to say HN doesn't have flaws. But these aren't the droids you're
looking for.
The droids you're looking for have to do with solving the problem of growing a
community and keeping it intelligent. Inevitably, the tyranny of the majority
will prevail, people will leave HN and go to some place smaller and newer, as
did those who came here from reddit who came here from digg who came here from
slashdot who came here from John Carmack's .plan file.
~~~
Sukotto
I disagree. I found him pretty much dead on with regards to the things I find
annoying about this site.
------
moe
I'm ambivalent about his points. What annoys _me_ are two different, purely
technical flaws:
1\. Comment formatting is too limited. I want multi-level quoting and lists.
2\. Unknown or expired link.
------
IsaacL
1\. It takes only 1 hour for a post to disappear from the “New” page.
Inevitable for a news site.
2\. The Point system sets the wrong incentives Most people seem to be in it
for the points.
This could happen, but I haven't seen many signs of it. Personally, I try to
avoid making comments that might get a negative karma score, but I don't much
care how high a positive score I get. IMO The points system works well; I
especially like the way that negative karma posts are 'named and shamed'.
3\. There is no way to search
This is a reasonable point.
4\. Using HN as a discussion forum doesn’t work.
Ask and Tell HN threads appear frequently, so this doesn't seem to be a
problem. And I find the discussions on HN to be excellent.
5\. There is no way to revive old discussions
IMO, this is a good thing for HN. It prevents it turning into a traditional
web forum - not that web forums are a bad thing, they just tend to be more
insular, and there's more of a split between regulars and newcomers.
~~~
viraptor
5 is also a very nice feature that allows never-ending fights known from
forums to die. There's no way to bring back some old rant by replying "You're
wrong!". Unfortunately that happens on mailing lists and forums quite a lot.
Otherwise I can imagine the front page would consist of "git vs hg", "dvorak
vs qwerty", "python vs ruby", "nosql vs rdbms", "lisp vs everything", ...
------
JayNeely
Voting on features on the HN Feature Requests page is the best way to get
action taken: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363>
For searching HN, <http://searchyc.com> is a fantastic service, much better
than the HN Search linked at the very bottom of HN.
If you're interested in more discussion with startup folks / if you find that
Ask HN posts are usually your favorite, you may also enjoy:
<http://answers.onstartups.com>
~~~
eru
About searching: Interestingly Google loves HN. At least I when I search for
stuff that is mentioned in the comments, I often get the very comment as a
search result.
------
tptacek
I think the fact that conversations go stale quickly is a feature. It keeps
things from becoming too unproductive, and makes "the last word" in a debate
arbitrary.
If you want to continue a discussion that has gone stale, you write a new blog
post about it and post it. Discussion continues.
~~~
jhuckestein
Point taken. But still, as a data-mining person (yes, shame on me), it feels
like a lot of information and opinions that have ben created by some of the
smartest guys around the internet are discarded of.
Maybe a best-of page would help collecting really thoughtful, long and well-
crafted comments on a subject?
~~~
scott_s
<http://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments>
Old comments don't go anywhere. They're still here, and are searchable via
Google or searchyc.
------
synnik
Maybe I just have a different perspective -- I think of HN as online "hallway
discussions". None of his points are flaws under this perspective...
~~~
jhuckestein
That's true, but if you keep meeting smart people in the hall, maybe you would
like to start a more substantial discussion with them. This is currently not
directly achievable (except for writing blog posts back and forth)
------
wakeupthedawn
This site times out more than any other site I visit regularly. I wish they
would fix that first.
~~~
seiji
HN is written in the 100-year programming language Arc using the first
Unlimited Scalability tactic of keeping everything stored as serialized hash
tables. Any performance problems you may experience are due to your lack of
ability to perceive perfection.
~~~
jhuckestein
I think most distributed "unlimited scalability" databases (S3, Google
bigTable) are (essentially) serialized hash tables.
------
mdg
Is this his <http://twittershouldhireme.com> attempt at YC ?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
It's too late Artificial intelligence is already everywhere - eplanit
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/26/disruptive-themes-to-watch-artificial-intelligence-everywhere.html
======
kafkaesq
A weird statement to make, given that the jury is still very much out as to
whether any technology currently on deck (or even reasonably foreseeable)
actually qualifies as artificial "intelligence" in any meaningful sense. By
and large, it's still mostly data mining, automated classification, that kind
of stuff. Like the article itself says:
_Palantir Technologies, which has made the CNBC Disruptor 50 list for three
consecutive years, helps government agencies and Wall Street firms mine data
sets for practical applications — from thwarting terrorism to preventing
financial fraud._
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Don't say "Would You Rather" - abest
http://blog.yourather.com/post/70907897801/dont-say-would-you-rather
======
EdwardDiego
Boo to the editorializing in the submission description. Bullying? For trying
to enforce a trademark? Come now, I know software patents can be absurd in the
US of A, but trademarks are a different kettle of fish, so don't throw the
baby away with the bath water.
To the validity of the claim, I don't know how American trademark
classifications break down, but it seems that "You Rather" is in a similar
class of commercial activity as "Would You Rather...?" if I read this
correctly:
[http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4803:l4gavd...](http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4803:l4gavd.2.7)
In particular, class 41:
> IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: (Based on Use in Commerce) Entertainment
> services, namely, a multimedia program series featuring comedy, action and
> adventure distributed via various platforms across multiple forms of
> transmission media; Production of cable television programs. FIRST USE:
> 20111203. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20111203
IANAL, but my gut feeling is that "You Rather" is pretty close to infringing,
and that their best hope lies in their second claim that "Would You
Rather...?" is a generic term.
------
girvo
Now, I'm unsure of American trademark law, but I understand it's a "use it or
lose it" styled setup. Correct? Well, they took four years to challenge them,
if it went to court, and subpoenaed information shows that they knew about
yourather.com for years, would that work against them?
It seems like they ignored them waited until they were are ripe juicy target
that's worth taking over, and then attacked, which seems contrary to the point
of trademark law. I hate predatory shit like this: if you've got a trademark
and you plan on keeping it (and let's assume that use-it-or-lose-it is a good
idea for sake of argument), then waiting until you've got a monetary gain from
enforcing it seems no better than patent trolls to me.
Also, does iPhone games come under the same trademark category as board games?
An even better question: should it?
~~~
EdwardDiego
> Now, I'm unsure of American trademark law, but I understand it's a "use it
> or lose it" styled setup. Correct? Well, they took four years to challenge
> them, if it went to court, and subpoenaed information shows that they knew
> about yourather.com for years, would that work against them?
It can do. I imagine it'd also affect any damages awarded.
------
oakwhiz
Would you rather comply with a cease-and-desist notice or preemptively
countersue?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Glorious Horror of TECO (2010) - okket
http://goodmath.scientopia.org/2010/11/30/the-glorious-horror-of-teco/
======
cpr
Though the author is confused about Emacs history, talking about Stallman's
and Gosling's Emacs as if they were the same thing.
IIRC (I was around the AI Lab a bit after the fact) Richard Gabriel and Guy
Steele (MIT AI Lab) wrote the original Emacs (editor macros) in TECO under
MIT's ITS, which was a huge superset of the original DEC TECO. RMS took it
over after a while, since RPG and GLS were mostly doing academic stuff. (Mike
McMahon (MMcM) and others ported the ITS version to TOPS-20.)
Meanwhile, Bernie Greenberg wrote an Emacs in Multics Lisp, which was a huge
influence on future Emacs implementations.
Eventually, RMS and others wrote the current Emacs.
Gosling's Emacs (nicknamed Gosmacs, written while he was at CMU, I believe)
was a C-based implementation for Unix, and a poor-man's subset of the real
thing.
~~~
hga
_Stallman 's and Gosling's Emacs as if they were the same thing_
They were, Gnu Emacs is a fork of what was then an old version of Gosling's
Emacs. This was something contemporaneously admitted to by RMS, claiming he
had an email authorizing it, but he, to my memory, never even produced a copy
of it.
To someone intimately familiar with Gosling Emacs, as I was at the time,
working for UniPress, this was totally obvious. Amusingly, this was perhaps
the one time I could have been an expert witness of sorts, but the two owners
of UniPress were menches and knew legal action was a bad idea (they'd had
their own horror story forming the company after the broke from [redacted
because I'm not 100% sure of my memory, but a name you'd recognize from that
era]'s company, which they won when the latter's lawyer was caught
burglarizing their office) and felt sales of their supported, on the then
zillions of available Unix platforms (their unique selling proposition) Emacs
would only be helped by RMS's version, at least for a good long while.
_Eventually, RMS and others wrote the current Emacs._
See above, not at all. Substantially rewritten, but in the legal sense it's a
derivative work. And exhibit number 1 in the list of horrific examples of
RMS's stewardship of GNU/the FSF/etc., he took a chance that if it had gone
badly would have resulted in GNU being stillborn or nearly so, much like
happened to BSD.
The rest of your history is right (I have eyewitness testimony on the genesis
from one of the beta testers, Ed Schwalenberg), except for Gosling Emacs being
"a poor man's substitute", it was industrial strength, including not being an
ersatz Emacs.
That is, it had a "Mocklisp" byte code compiled extension language (where else
have we heard of this sort of thing from James Gosling? :-) in which a fair
amount of functionality was embedded, it just wasn't a real LISP (but of
course neither was TECO), and it diverged a fair amount in default keybindings
etc.
There were also some other EMACS versions written in this in-between period,
including SINE for the predecessor of the Media Lab's Multics like Magic OS,
EINE and I think ZWEI, the latter two the ones for the Lisp Machine.
~~~
cpr
I'm well aware of UniPress (didn't they start out selling Brian Reid's Scribe
commercially?) and Michael Shamus' rather jailhouse-lawyer-ish behavior.
But hearing that GNU Emacs started from Gosmacs is just hard to believe. If
you were there and say so, I'll have to believe. ;-) It was certainly nowhere
near as extensible as GNU Emacs, at least in my years of experience with it.
~~~
hga
I was so there that RMS and I were roommates when he started the GNU Project
^_^ (much early history omitted, we were in the same social circle...).
This of course came a bit later, I started working for a UniPress
subcontractor in December of 1984 on the MS-DOS port, and then a year later
directly for UniPress.
But I absolutely, positively guarantee you they shared a common code base,
something I confirmed for myself towards the end of or after more than a year
of becoming _intimately_ familiar with the UniPress Gosling Emacs C lower
level code base.
And it doesn't take _much_ effort with Google to find confirmation from RMS,
e.g. here's a 2013 Slashdot AMA
([https://features.slashdot.org/story/13/01/06/163248/richard-...](https://features.slashdot.org/story/13/01/06/163248/richard-
stallman-answers-your-questions)):
_Favorite hack
by vlm
Give me your best hack....
RMS: I can't remember all the hacks that I was proud of, so I can't pick the
best. But here's something I remember fondly. The last piece of Gosmacs code
that I replaced was the serial terminal scrolling optimizer, a few pages of
Gosling's code which was proceeded by a comment with a skull and crossbones,
meaning that it was so hard to understand that it was poison. I had to replace
it, but worried that the job would be hard. I found a simpler algorithm and
got it to work in a few hours, producing code that was shorter, faster,
clearer, and more extensible. Then I made it use the terminal commands to
insert or delete multiple lines as a single operation, which made screen
updating far more efficient._
Note that he _might_ be overstating the significance of this, Gosling started
his Emacs in 1981 per Wikipedia at a time CMU's researchers were somehow happy
with running their fixed line terminals at the 1,200 baud default (they were
capable of more, this story told to me by Ted Anderson, who coincidentally was
the author of SINE, which Craig Finseth's list
[http://org.ntnu.no/emacs/implementations.html](http://org.ntnu.no/emacs/implementations.html)
says was actually SINE Is Not EINE and therefore "the first known doubly-
recursive acronym").
In general if you were using a standard terminal of the era, especially with a
modem, you were desperate for cleverness from your redisplay code, it was e.g.
a couple of years before the Ann Arbor Ambassador came out, and maybe longer
before its firmware was up to snuff, VT-100 like, and could run at a flat out
9600 baud with 60 lines of text thanks to a fast microprocessor. And that
_might_ be why the Gosling Emacs redisplay code didn't do those multi-line
operations, maybe they weren't possible on earlier terminals, or didn't buy
you enough.
Michael Shamus? That wasn't the famous figure UniPress broke away from. By the
time I showed up in late 1984/early 1985, their two big things were handling
the distribution and support of a Unix for Apple computers (Lisa? Mcintosh?
Can't remember), and having or having access to one of most every type of
popular Unix system available, so they could port the other software they were
distributing including Gosling Emacs, provide binaries, fix bugs and provide
real support, etc.
~~~
cpr
Great history!
Yes, sorry, Shamus was not associated with UniPress, but his own company
Unilogic, started to commercialize Scribe (Reid's CMU PhD project). My only
excuse is it's been a long time.
Ah, happy memories of terminal multi-line operation optimization in Twenex
Emacs. (We did a lot of that kind of hacking when I was at Columbia in the
very late 70's.)
------
RichardCA
It wasn't all that bad. If you were an average college student in the early
80's you had a time-sharing login to a PDP 11/70 running RSTS. TECO was there
but there was also VTEDIT which was a collection of TECO macros that sent the
correct escape sequences to the VT52 terminal to create a usable screen-
editing environment. And if you wanted to tweek the escape sequences to
customize your function keys that was do-able.
This scene from Wargames shows what an average college computer lab looked
like in the early 80's. The terminals were probably VT52's, VT100's, or
Teleray 10T's which were VT52-compatible.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n31fogbmQTg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n31fogbmQTg)
------
todd8
Around 1975, I loved TECO and totally embraced it strange, compact set of
commands. I even expected my students (second semester CS majors) to develop a
reasonable level of skill with TECO as it was at the time, on our systems, the
most efficient way to write code. I programmed in it keeping my program in my
head as much as I could, because like ed you had to issue a command for it to
print out lines of the file you were working on. It's hard to imagine that it
was possible to write real programs like that.
Before TECO I was punching cards so it seemed like a big improvement. My use
of TECO didn't last long; there was a full screen editor of some kind that I
can't remember running on the KRONOS OS (CDC 6600 mainframe) that replaced
TECO and shortly after that I discovered Emacs. What strange and interesting
days those were to be programming.
------
korethr
And we'll wrap up the article with a BrainFuck interpreter, one that's more
compact than a BrainFuck interpreter written in BrainFuck. That truly _is_ a
glorious horror.
------
okket
The Wikipedia page is also a good first taste resource
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TECO_(text_editor)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TECO_\(text_editor\))
There is also source code on Github
[https://github.com/matthiasr/teco](https://github.com/matthiasr/teco)
------
hga
Ah, how could I forget my finding in my email archives and posting Marvin
Minsky's Universal Turing Machine in TECO at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10161159](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10161159),
"When I wrote the following Universal Turing Machine, which works, I actually
understood it." and some discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10987288](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10987288)
------
gumby
Sad(!) to say I could still read that TECO example. The PDP-10 TECO in which
Emacs was written was amazingly powerful -- you could assemble machine code
into a string and then branch to it.
------
pmoriarty
TECO programming reminds me of ed[1] and also of the sorts of things I type in
to vim (or vi) in normal mode.
[1] -
[http://everything2.com/user/xerces/writeups/ed](http://everything2.com/user/xerces/writeups/ed)
~~~
Esau
I was recently playing with ed[1] and in some ways, it felt like a shell for
text files. In fact, I found myself wishing for Readline integration.
~~~
pmoriarty
Check out rlwrap:
[http://utopia.knoware.nl/~hlub/uck/rlwrap/](http://utopia.knoware.nl/~hlub/uck/rlwrap/)
------
beezle
Back in the day I recall using an editor called Foxe on a 2060. Was easier to
me than TECO for basic editing. But the really cool geeks had already begun
moving on to Emacs. This was a time when punch cards were still being used,
mostly by those on CDC stuff
------
dzdt
(2010) not that it matters much... TECO was long dead much earlier.
~~~
okket
Right, thanks for reminding.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Beyond Silent Spring: An Alternate History of DDT - Hooke
https://www.chemheritage.org/distillations/magazine/beyond-silent-spring-an-alternate-history-of-ddt
======
cjensen
The problem with DDT isn't that it hurt higher animals _directly_. The problem
was that it is a very stable molecule that doesn't decay well over time. It
built up in the food chain and killed birds which eat fish and birds which eat
other birds.
There are plenty of fine pesticides now which work well on mosquitoes. Since
the newer pesticides decay, they don't build up in the food chain. Talk of
bringing back DDT is silly.
~~~
scardine
These are claims from "Silent Spring" but many sources argue that most of it
was entirely made up by Carlson[1], with no scientific basis.
Personally I think those are overly broad claims and demand strong studies and
proofs.
[1]: http://scienceheroes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=309&Itemid=263
~~~
throwaway91111
Yea, but we also have plenty of pesticides that aren't tainted. Why not use
them?
~~~
gumby
Your statement may be true but doesn't refute the post you were replying to.
Rather it is orthogonal.
In addition, if the "taint" is incorrect then DDT could be a wonder.
(Actually I am not DDT fan, but I do know how to make an argument)
~~~
throwaway91111
I mean, I wasn't trying to refute the parent comment; it is true that we
should know more about DDT.
------
grabcocque
I note its molecular structure looks like MC Hammer
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/DD...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/DDT_to_DDD_and_DDE.svg/1326px-
DDT_to_DDD_and_DDE.svg.png)
DDT: you (shouldn't) touch this
~~~
sooheon
This is a beautiful finding, thank you for this.
------
LeifCarrotson
> "Any poison strong enough to kill or damage honey bees is surely strong
> enough to affect people."
This doesn't seem reasonable. For one thing, honey bees are smaller and weaker
than people, and a poison that affected both uniformly should be more damaging
to the weaker species. For another, honey bees are very different from humans,
and there may be poisons that attack the bees without attacking any part of
humans.
I agree and understand that ecological damage is bad, and that many real
poisons do too much incidental damage to people to be considered "safe", but
it seems foolish to base a persuasive argument like this on such faulty
reasoning.
~~~
xkcd-sucks
Would you expect to find a chimpanzee poison that doesn't hurt people? What
about a rat poison that doesn't hurt people? An insect poison? A fungus
poison? A bacteria poison?
Biological machinery is remarkably well-conserved, to the point where we can
use fish, worms, etc. as reasonable approximations of human biology. Finding
fungus poisons that don't have terrible side effects is in practice very
difficult, and even antibiotics that don't hurt people are pretty tricky. So
it's not terribly faulty reasoning.
~~~
larsiusprime
> What about a rat poison that doesn't hurt people?
You mean Coumadin (Warfarin), the popular blood thinner?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfarin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfarin)
It is literally Rat Poison.
~~~
iak8god
Warfarin is also people poison if you take enough. An appropriate clinical
dose is a few milligrams.
~~~
Banthum
Well, anything is people poison if you take enough. Forced consumption of
sufficient water can kill someone.
Toxicity isn't really yes/no, it's always a matter of dosage.
~~~
iak8god
> Well, anything is people poison if you take enough.
Yes, but that's not interesting or really relevant. As someone else pointed
out, Warfarin is people poison _if you take the same amount that 's normally
used to poison rats_.
------
adamsea
The article is a strange one, it's not really about DDT, but uses DDT to look
at how we tell stories to shape our understanding of the past. From the
article:
"But the fears didn’t fade away. In the spring of 1949 headlines across the
country carried the news that DDT had found its way into the nation’s dairy
supply and that the “slow, insidious poison” was building up in human bodies.
The following year, and for the rest of the 1950s, DDT became a focus of
congressional hearings about the safety of the food supply. FDA scientist
Arnold J. Lehman testified that small amounts of DDT were being stored in
human fat and accumulating over time and that, unlike with the older poisons,
no one knew what the consequences would be. Physician Morton Biskind shared
his concern that DDT was behind a new epidemic, so-called virus X (an epidemic
later attributed to chlorinated naphthalene, a chemical in farm machinery
lubricants). Pesticide-eschewing farmers, such as Louis Bromfield, testified
they simply could not meet the demand for spray-free crops from Heinz,
Campbell’s, A&P, and other companies—all of which were themselves trying to
meet the demands of consumers worried about pesticides generally, and
specifically the ubiquitous and well-publicized DDT.
By the time Rachel Carson detailed DDT’s harm to falcons, salmon, eagles, and
other forms of wildlife in Silent Spring, a good number of Americans had been
demanding more information about the insecticide’s ill effects for the better
part of two decades. And yet to this day that’s not how we talk about DDT’s
past. Instead, we tell the story of a chemical whose powers were so awe-
inspiring that no one gave any thought to its downsides—at least not until
they were brought to light by one renegade scientist. It’s a narrative that
gave Americans a hero for the latter part of the 20th century, a female
scientist and writer smart enough and brave enough to take on the
establishment and win. It’s a story about the power of social movements to
remake society for the better. And it’s a story of a nation reformed, able to
set aside hubris for reason."
~~~
HarryHirsch
_It’s a narrative that gave Americans a hero for the latter part of the 20th
century, a female scientist and writer smart enough and brave enough to take
on the establishment and win. It’s a story about the power of social movements
to remake society for the better._
That was an enlightening sentence. I had been asking myself for years just why
DDT would be such a touchstone for the conservative/libertarian faction, even
though it's so well known that the compound bioaccumulates and becomes
concentrated in fatty tissue as it is moved through the food chain. It's not
the action of the compound, it's the fear of citizen action!
~~~
Spooky23
You have to remember that these big moneied interests are 100% self interested
and are often not accountable to anyone, even corporate boards.
Dead birds don't need sanctuaries!
The left wing people do it too. There are plenty of phoney environmental
marches to stop <X> that are really funded by real estate people or others who
stand to lose something.
------
Animats
DDT used to be used in construction, to prevent bedbugs. Sprayed inside walls
before the wallboard went on, it killed bedbugs and other insects for decades.
Modern insecticides are biodegradable and won't work long-term like that.
It's agricultural use that was the problem. That used far larger quantities
and put DDT into agricultural runoff.
~~~
whyenot
Imidclopirid is currently used to control bed bugs and also sprayed on animal
bedding to kill lice and other insect parasites. While it has other problems
(honeybees) it doesn't bioaccumulate like DDT does. Why would we ever want to
go back to DDT, knowing what we know now.
------
bougiefever
My husband remembers seeing puddles with dead birds around if after spraying
DDT in nearby fields. His father died from a serious lung disease, and his
family attributes it to the chemicals he was exposed to while farming. My
husband remembers him mixing up the chemicals with his bare arm immersed
completely in it.
~~~
_sbrk
> His father died from a serious lung disease, and his family attributes it to
> the chemicals he was exposed to while farming.
Was he a smoker? If so, I'm sure that couldn't have been the cause!
Silent Spring has caused the unnecessary deaths of millions due to fear and
banning of DDT.
[https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/15583-d...](https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/15583-ddt-
breeds-death)
~~~
LeifCarrotson
DDT may be unfairly or overly demonized, and could be used carefully in
certain limited situations where the benefit is greater than the risk.
But a careless attitude like sticking your bare arm in vats of industrial
chemicals (or drenching the inside of a house with kerosene and DDT, as the
article describes) should not be encouraged. That sort of exposure will cause
damage from even relatively safe chemicals.
Unfortunately, people are bad at moderation. A binary choice between
"perfectly safe" or "silent spring" seems to be the only public policy which
works.
------
rplst8
I've heard people say that banning DDT caused more human death than all of our
wars throughout history combined.
------
Ericson2314
Hmm, a nagging concern about DDT that doesn't result in changed behavior sure
reminds me of privacy and the internet.
Only crisis defeats convenience.
------
borkborkbork
*Alternative
------
scardine
The 1962 book "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson was instrumental at affecting
public opinion against [DDT][1] and other pesticides culminating on [banning
DDT all over the world][2]. While Carlson has many detractors, ecology
militants would label them as being mercenaries at service of industrial
interests.
From "[Bring Back DDT, and Science With It!][3]" by Marjorie Mazel Hecht:
> The campaign to ban [DDT][6] got its start with the publication of Rachel
> Carson’s book Silent Spring in 1962. Carson’s popular book was a fraud. She
> played on people’s emotions, and to do so, she selected and falsified data
> from scientific studies, as entomologist Dr. J. Gordon Edwards has
> documented in his analysis of the original scientific studies that Carson
> cited.
From "[DDT: A Case Study in Scientific Fraud][5]" by Dr. J. Gordon Edwards:
> The chemical compound that has saved more human lives than any other in
> history, [DDT][6], was banned by order of one man, the head of the U.S.
> [Environmental Protection Agency][7] (EPA). Public pressure was generated by
> one popular book and sustained by faulty or fraudulent research. Widely
> believed claims of carcinogenicity, toxicity to birds, anti-androgenic
> properties, and prolonged environmental persistence are false or grossly
> exaggerated. The worldwide effect of the U.S. ban has been millions of
> preventable deaths..
All my life I was told [DDT][6] (and pesticides in general) accumulates on the
body across the whole food chain with severe consequences to the environment.
But is [DDT][6] really significantly less harmful than the current [EPA][8]
official position?
From [TOXICOLOGICAL PROFILE FOR DDT, DDE, and DDD][9]. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - Public Health Service - Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry
> Numerous studies have been conducted on the effects of DDT and related
> compounds in a variety of animal species, but the human data are somewhat
> limited. Most of the information on health effects in humans comes from
> studies of workers in DDT-manufacturing plants or spray applicators who had
> occupational exposure to DDT over an extended period and also from some
> controlled exposure studies with volunteers. Epidemiological studies of the
> general population are also available. Because of limitations inherent to
> all epidemiological studies, disease causality cannot be determined from
> them; however, epidemiological studies have been conducted that allow the
> evaluation of the potential role of DDT and related compounds in specific
> health outcomes.
My conclusion? There's no doubt that DDT has many negative health effects but
I'm not sure the ban is justified and I would like to see more studies on this
substance - but as often is the case with recreational drugs, nobody wants to
pay the political price for funding studies about "devilish" chemicals.
For example, could DDT prevent the hundreds of microcephaly cases in Brazilian
babies attributed to the recent Zika virus outbreak?
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Restrictions_on_usage
[3]: http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/summ02/DDT.html#The%20Silent%20Spring%20Fraud
[4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
[5]: http://www.jpands.org/vol9no3/edwards.pdf
[6]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
[7]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_Protection_Agency
[8]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_Protection_Agency
[9]: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp35.pdf
~~~
whyenot
> For example, could DDT prevent the hundreds of microcephaly cases in
> Brazilian babies attributed to the recent Zika virus outbreak?
Maybe, but there is no evidence that it would work better than a more targeted
approach. DDT kills a lot of different insects, both the good and the bad.
It's like using a sledgehammer when what you really want is a pair of
tweezers.
~~~
scardine
Seems like it worked for the [USA and Europe][1]:
> Prior to 1950, malaria was common in the southern US, infecting 15,000
> people a year and killing about the same number as scarlet fever.
> Beginning in 1947, 4.6 million houses were sprayed in the United States,
> completely eradicating malaria from the country. Similar sprayings
> eradicated malaria from Europe.
> The Center for Disease Control (CDC) began as an organization to eradicate
> malaria. When malaria was gone, it sought other ways to benefit America.
> That’s why it’s located in Atlanta, GA, in the southern US.
[1]: http://scienceheroes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=309&Itemid=263
~~~
whyenot
These points are unsourced "DDT Trivia" in the position paper (which is being
generous) that you cite.
There is no question that DDT helped with eradicating malaria from the US, but
to give it all the credit to DDT seems a little generous to me. Malaria was
also brought under control in Panama years before DDT was even known to be a
pesticide. Cholorquin and cultural changes were also important.
[https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/](https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/)
~~~
joecool1029
Neat article on eradication of the A. aegypti mosquito in most of South
America. [http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/while-brazil-was-
eradic...](http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/while-brazil-was-eradicating-
zika-mosquitoes-america-made-them-into-weapons)
The awesome effect that DDT had that most other pesticides didn't have is the
excito-repellent effect, recent study on that:
[https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/14...](https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2875-13-131)
------
TempOSfan
Haha, just in the wake of the Monsanto email scandal we get "legalize DDT"
thinkpieces. Complete with intellectual-yet-stupid contrarian ycombinator
comments about how awesome mass spraying non-biodegradable poisons is.
Also:
[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160624150813.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160624150813.htm)
>In light of this evidence, NECSI says the cause of microcephaly in Brazil
should be reconsidered. One possibility that has been raised is the pesticide
pyriproxyfen, which is applied to drinking water in some parts of Brazil to
kill the larvae of the mosquitos that transmit Zika. Pyriproxyfen is an
analogue for insect juvenile hormone which is cross reactive with retinoic
acid, which is known to cause microcephaly. A physicians group in Brazil and
Argentina, the Swedish Toxicology Sciences Research Center, and NECSI have
called for further studies of the potential link between pyriproxyfen and
microcephaly.
------
dvdhnt
Totally thought this was a wrestling article at first glance.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT_(professional_wrestling)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT_\(professional_wrestling\))
Oh, my late 90s childhood, how I miss the.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Inside the Am2901: AMD's 1970s bit-slice processor - matt_d
http://www.righto.com/2020/04/inside-am2901-amds-1970s-bit-slice.html
======
dang
Comments moved to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22909513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22909513).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Python DiskCache – Django Compatible Cache Library - gjenks
http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/diskcache/?utm_source=hn
======
gjenks
Author here. I created this because the filebased cache backend that ships
with Django is really broken for caches with more than 1,000 keys. The design
of DiskCache is based on SQLite and the filesystem which is a pretty solid
combination. Frequent cache reads are stored in shared memory-mapped files
while remaining thread and process safe. That makes lookups faster than
networked options like memcached and redis.
~~~
mdomans
Is your point here to deliver better than dummy/file cache for Django for
development purposes?
Because I can't see how file based cache can replace cache for distributed
server farms.
Another question: what's the impact of extra I/O due to memory mapped files?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A tool to help you write more, focus and edit the clutter - sanesan1
https://shosho.co/
======
sanesan1
Hey, we've been working on this tool to help you write mode and better and
launched recently in Beta. We are looking for feedback on product usability
and usefulness. Also, early testers that could help us understand it better.
Shosho is a web based editor where you can write, edit and share your stories.
It will help you highlight buzzwords, cliches, complex words, redundancy,
passive voice, adverbs, wordiness, etc.
The goal is to create a hub for all your writing, editing and collaboration
------
masonic
You might want to clean up the grammatical errors on your landing page.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Keigen – A Kotlin/Android lib for matrix math using C++ Eigen - params
https://github.com/paramsen/Keigen
======
params
I created this library first and foremost because I couldn't find a simple
arbitrary matrix math implementation for Android to use in a work related
project (well, one fitting my requirements). I kind of drifted along and
expanded the library to support all numeric types in Kotlin - it's quite
simple to extend the supported matrix operations to whatever functionality in
Eigen one wants :)
I'm still learning C++, so comments on the .cpp stuff are appreciated.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Platform to stream and record classes for free? - micouay
Hi! I'm a high school student. Schools in our country have just been closed and I and my classmates (not the whole school, just under 35 people) would like to attend classes online.<p>The only thing we need is a FREE service to stream and record classes (we can store then on Google Drive). It would also be great if it was like a conference call so that we can talk but a live chat is enough.<p>Our school doesn't have a G Suite account and I'm not sure if we can create a throwaway account. Getting our headmaster's approval might take days or weeks as they're not really into tech, so there's might be now way to create an official school account. Every day counts as we have our final exams in May.<p>Which platform would you recommend?
======
tech234a
While I have not had experience with using these products for classes, you do
have a few options that I can think of that are available for free.
\- Discord Go Live streams were just increased from 10 to 50 participants. I
don’t know if there is any way to record those.
\- Twitch. One-way streams with chat. Note that stream recording must be
turned on in your account settings, and I believe that recordings are only
kept for seven days in most cases, but can be exported to a YouTube channel.
\- Skype. These can be recorded.
\- YouTube live streams may also be useful for one-way streaming with chat.
Streams can easily be hosted from the YouTube mobile app (phone number
verification might be required).
Good luck with your classes!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
We've always been at war with Eastasia - jessaustin
http://blog.erratasec.com/2016/02/weve-always-been-at-war-with-eastasia.html
======
dudul
Good post. "1984" is most often mentioned when talking about privacy, with the
reference to the "webcam" installed in everybody's apartment. Personally, what
frightened me the most after reading this book was the Newspeak and the
Ministry of Truth.
Most likely, there is not even any war going on between Oceania, Eurasia, and
Eastasia. This is just mass manipulation to keep people afraid and assembled
around their fearless leader :)
~~~
jessaustin
It has been a _long_ time since we in USA had a _real_ war. By that, I mean a
war the _outcome_ of which actually affected the lives of average USA
citizens, rather than the wealth of TPTB. (Of course, dying in war is a giant
effect for a soldier and his family, but in recent memory that hasn't been
related to whether the war was "won" or "lost".) Instructively, the last real
war was also the last war declared by Congress in lawful fashion.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Glowing plasma created by a high speed jet of water [video] - yincrash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vTq8oGpqwM&
======
ohiovr
Very interesting experiment. I was wondering if you had tried a sapphire or
diamond crystal target for the stream. The surfaces that you used look smooth,
could it be that as the surface is erroded by the stream it gets rougher and
this roughness impededs the effect? Could the beam be intense enough to marr
diamond or even sapphire?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is ProtonMail lying about their encryption? [video] - octosphere
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhdJzjC7Leo
======
mimixco
When this scandal first came out, I poked around in their documentation. While
they claim that even they don't have your private keys and can't read your
email, a little investigation will show that they can reset your password. Now
I ask you, if you can't read someone's keys, how can you reset their password?
That's an obvious backdoor.
Compare this with Tresorit (Swiss private cloud storage) whose documentation
clearly says that if you lose your password, they can't help you.
The original video is absolutely correct that ProtonMail reduces your exposure
to third party and advertising-based spying. He's also right that a desktop or
mobile app is theoretically safer than JS running in the browser. It's
interesting to note here that it was leaked that the NSA can and does force
providers to push you your own, individually-hacked versions of apps if they
want them to. In other words, you could very well be running a different web
page or app than the other users without you knowing it. Australia's new
surveillance laws list that exact behavior as an explicit requirement that
must be supported if the gumment asks a provider to do it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
80x25 - paulgerhardt
http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2019/10/23/80x25/
======
PixyMisa
80 characters was the number of characters a 10-pitch typewriter could fit on
a line on standard letter-size paper. 24/25 characters came from the vertical
resolution of CRTs and what you could fit into 2KB of RAM.
The point size argument is clearly wrong, as this sample from the early 19th
century shows:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/A_Specim...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/A_Specimen_by_William_Caslon.jpg)
~~~
zeckalpha
That appears to be typeset, not typewritten.
~~~
gok
But they didn't used typewriters to make punchcards; they used a press.
------
Animats
80, yes. 25 lines, though, had nothing to do with punched cards.
And yes, physical card quality was a big deal. The early feeding mechanisms
relied too much on the card thickness and card edge properties. That lasted
into the 1970s.
Then, near the end of the punched card era, Documation nailed it.[1] They
discovered that if you squirt air into the base of a card stack just right,
you can make the cards separate themselves slightly. Then a vacuum picker can
reliably pick them off one at a time. A neat little piece of machinery, far
simpler than most earlier card readers.
[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu55b0GpgE8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu55b0GpgE8)
~~~
saalweachter
The 25 lines comes from the 2 Kb display RAM of the VT52/VT100, plus the
desire for 80-character lines.
~~~
C1sc0cat
the Vt100 had a 132 character mode as well.
They also had shockingly bad protection on the serial port from induced
surges, eventually we brought the full service manual so our in house
electronics shop should could fix ours.
------
bbanyc
I expect the standard would be something like 80x25 regardless, given the size
and resolution of early terminal monitors and how small you could make text
before it's unreadable. Whether a different sized greenback ends up making a
70 or 90 column punched card, it's not that big of a difference from what we
got. The 4:3 aspect ratio is probably the bigger influence.
It's like how rack mounts are 19 inches wide because the Bell System made that
the standard for its telephone relay racks 100 years ago. In the long run it's
more important that there is a standard than what it is.
~~~
flohofwoe
Video memory addressing could have become quite a bit simpler and faster if
the width would be nice round 2^N number (e.g. 32, 64 or 128 characters on a
line), especially on limited 8-bit machines of the 70s and 80s. So 40 or 80 is
indeed a somewhat strange choice (at least those numbers aren't completely odd
though, with 40=(2^5)+(2^3) and 80=(2^6)+(2^4).
~~~
thelazydogsback
TRS-80... 64 chars (or 32 double-width) by 16 lines
------
dperfect
As others have pointed out, the claimed link between banknotes and terminal
dimensions is unclear, if not flat out wrong. The article's own logic is
missing a crucial connection right here:
> At one point sales of punchcards and related tooling constituted a
> completely bonkers 30% of IBM’s annual profit margin, so you can understand
> that IBM had a lot invested in getting that consistently, precisely correct.
> At around this time John Logie Baird invented the first “mechanical
> television”; like punchcards, the first television cameras were hand-cranked
> devices...
It goes on to argue that the television standards influenced terminal
dimensions, but there is no link (unless I missed something) between the
banknote/punchcard discussion and that of the television - other than the fact
that they used hand-cranked devices. No mention as to the punchcard's
size/dimensions being carried over to television (and by extension, terminals)
other than what appears to be a coincidence in the number of characters
fitting on a line of a punchcard.
Looking at the origins of the television standards (at least for the number of
terminal lines, since the number of characters per line seems to have been
influenced by typewriters), one could trace it back to William Kennedy Dickson
(created the 35mm standard by cutting 70mm roll film in half), or previously
to Peter & David Houston and George Eastman for their creation/marketing of
early roll film cameras.
~~~
masswerk
The link is probably as follows: Bank notes -> Hollerith card (80 x 12) ->
Datapoint 2200 terminal (80 x 12, facilitated by 1K Intel linear shift
register for display memory) -> 2K display buffer & 4:3 display dimensions of
silent film (as opposed to the later academy format) as generally used for
television as the major source of demand for readymade raster cathode ray
tubes => two punch cards + 1 extra status line.
The Datapoint 2200, evolving from an original idea about some data editing
device to replace the IBM 029 keypunch, is missing in this account, though.
Announced in 1970 (and shipping in 1971), it predates any of the terminals
mentioned in the article. (BTW, the Datapoint 2200, which was also the
ancestor of the Intel 8008 MPU and by this the ancestor of the modern PC, was
an enormously influential device and is generally underrated for historical
aspects.)
The link between columns on a punch card and typewriters is probably found in
the need for some correspondence between typed tables and information punched
on cards. The aspect ratio of silent film is probably more for esthetic
reasons, since the technical aspect of the width of a frame could have been
addressed by any kind of gearing. However, there's a link between the speed of
the film moving through the camera, the number of exposures per second, the
width of the image, the optical quality of the lens, the shutter construction
and the sensitivity of the film, putting some constrains on the aspect ratio
of choice. (Obviously, if the film is moving too fast and exposure becomes too
short for the chosen material, the resulting image will be dim. The choice of
film sensisitivity, on the other hand, is related to image contrast.)
------
masswerk
Something I missed in this great writeup was the Datapoint 2200 terminal (the
ancestor of the 8008 MPU), announced in 1970 and introduced in 1971. It
originated from an idea about a replacement for the 029 key punch (intended to
replicate the prior success of CTC's Datapoint 3300 terminal as a drop-in
replacement for the ASR 33 TeleType.) From this initial idea the Datapoint
2200 directly inherited the 80 x 12 layout of the Hollerith punch card. (That
this fitted quite perfectly into 1K, certainly didn't hurt and may have been
an incentive for keeping the dimensions of the initial project. Reportedly,
the narrow built height resulting from the narrow 12-lines screen was
generally liked by users.)
Compare: Wood, Lamont. Datapoint: The Lost Story of the Texans Who Invented
the Personal Computer. Hugo House Publishers, 2013.
See also,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datapoint_2200](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datapoint_2200)
~~~
masswerk
What may be interesting, as well, is that the earlier Datapoint 3300 terminal
(announced in 1967, shipped 1959) already featured a 25 lines display, but at
72 characters per line, just like the ASR 33 it was meant to replace. There
seems to be no hard evidence on how CTC arrived at 25 lines per screen,
though.
Regarding the Datapoint 2260, there's prior art in form of the IBM 2260 Model
3 terminal (1964), featuring 80 characters in 12 rows as well, in direct
correspondence to a punched card. (The Model 1 displayed 40 characters at 6
lines, while the Model 2 managed 40 characters at 12 lines, with only the top
model of the family featuring this relation to punchcards, though. Bonus fact:
the 2260s used a portrait raster tube turned on its side, resulting in
vertical scan lines.)
------
calamityjake
Yup! Python folks don’t seem to think it’s funny when I call the PEP-8
standard, with its 80-column line limit, “punchcard compliant,” though.
~~~
tyingq
I'm one of those that sticks with 80x25 because I had decades of it influence
me.
I do understand, though, that it's dumb, and wouldn't force it on others.
~~~
yoloClin
When I started conforming to it, my code became a lot more concise.
I'd advocate every developer conforms to PEP-8 rules (80-char, nesting limits,
etc), at least for a 3-12 month period. They'll be a better developer for it.
~~~
rlayton2
That's a great idea. Have an opinion about the standard from experience, not
gut feel.
------
yardshop
I remember back in the DOS days being able to type a tiny program into
DEBUG.COM that would set the screen to 80 x 50 mode! It was one of the first
things I would do on a machine if I didn't have my floppy disk of favorite
tools with me. It was just a couple instructions, like MOV AX this and INT 10h
that. Now I have to go find it!
~~~
tenebrisalietum
I thought the MODE command could do this.
~~~
Jaruzel
MODE CON LINES=50
Indelibly burnt into my long term memory. You needed an EGA or higher graphics
card though.
~~~
lproven
There was also LINES=43 for EGA (640×350, rather than VGA's 640×480).
MODE CO80 was for 80-column colour. ``MODE MONO'' switched to MDA/monochrome
VGA mode (if you hadn't used &b700-b7ff for a UMB.)
MODE CO40 for the 40-column mode intended for the original IBM PC when used
with an analogue TV set as its display.
~~~
Jaruzel
Didn't 'MODE MONO' need a Hercules graphics card though?
------
wil421
Pretty good quote at the end. I’ll have to remember it next time I think I
know something.
>As a personal aside, my two great frustrations with doing any kind of
historical CS research remain the incalculable damage that academic paywalls
have done to the historical record, and the relentless insistence this
industry has on justifying rather than interrogating the status quo. This is
how you end up on Stack Overflow spouting unresearched nonsense about how “4
pixel wide fonts are untidy-looking”. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it
again: whatever we think about ourselves as programmers and these towering
logic-engines we’ve erected, we’re a lot more superstitious than we realize,
and by telling and retelling these unsourced, inaccurate just-so stories
without ever doing the work of finding the real truth, we’re betraying
ourselves, our history and our future. But it’s pretty goddamned difficult to
convince people that they should actually look things up instead of making up
nonsense when actually looking things up, even for a seemingly simple question
like this one, can cost somebody on the outside edge of an academic paywall
hundreds or thousands of dollars.
~~~
mikestew
The example the author uses reminds me of some wackadoodle numerology BS
proving that the ancient Egyptians predicted the Federal Reserve. "...which
gives us 675, which is close enough to 640, and therefore there had to be a
second shooter". Hey, wait, what? And the comments! "Yeah, that makes sense."
Umm, might I posit that it most certainly does not make a fucking _lick_ of
sense? Yeesh, round off enough numbers, and I've got yer String Theory proof
right here.
------
rootbear
Most early terminals were actually 80x24. I know the DEC VT series were. I
remember being surprised when the IBM PC came out with an 80x25 display.
~~~
kps
_Early_ video terminals had a variety of sizes. The 1964 GE Data Editing
Display (earliest I can find a manual¹ for) had 46×26. The 1967 Datapoint 3300
had 72×25. The 1967 Sanders 720 had (up to) 40×50 or 64×32, depending which
orientation you got the monitor.
But the IBM 2260, their first character display, had 40 or 80 columns by 6 or
12 lines, depending on how much you spent on the controller, which stored a
cluster of terminals' displays on acoustic delay lines.
¹
[https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_geterminalayDec64_1626...](https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_geterminalayDec64_1626712)
------
gok
The leap between IBM punchcards and VT100 makes no sense. Teletypewriters used
72 characters per line. IBM mainframe line printers used 132 characters per
line. DEC and IBM probably just happened to pick 80 character columns for
unrelated reasons (1970s CRT resolution and 1920s printing technology,
respectively)
~~~
Taniwha
It makes lots of sense - as we moved from batch systems to working from
terminals (mid to late 70s) some people were editing cards on card punches,
while others were editing card images on terminals
~~~
gok
So DEC thought of this as a way to edit IBM cards but IBM didn't?
The implicit claim is that somehow the machines for manufacturing punch cards
were reused for computer output and that is what terminals were trying to
emulate. But surely there were more displays and non-card-sized printers?
~~~
Taniwha
Actually I was using Burroughs systems (in pre-VT52 days)
There certainly were non card size printers - but they scaled linearly with
technology
But no we didn't repurpose card punches to be terminals, but we did need
terminals to edit card images (fortran was 72 characters plus 8 digits of
sequence numbers)
------
ncmncm
Apparently the author is not aware that delivering a box of microfiche cards
instead of a fat paper printout was a common practice back then. It had
nothing to do with spooks.
You find that mentioned in Brooks's Mythical Man-month book: everyone working
on OS/360 got a box of microfiche representing the current state of the OS,
each morning. Without a terminal, how else would you look up what a system
call actually did? Printing one copy of all the source, and then optically
reproducing it to more acetate, was obviously more efficient than printing it
hundreds of times.
The old listings would be burnt to recover the silver.
~~~
mikestew
One not need to have even worked on old computer systems. I'm not even retired
yet, and I've gone to the library to look stuff up in old newspapers that were
on microfiche. When I was a mechanic back in the day, parts listings were on
"fish", too.
I think the author read "microfilm" and instead of hearing a synonym for the
thing car parts are listed on, I'd bet the immediate thought was little micro
spy cameras to put your microfilm in.
------
cryptonector
Where TFA goes from talking about punch cards to 35mm film with audio track to
4:3 film and CRT aspect ratios, there's a disconnect: there's nothing to tie
film/TV aspect ratios to punch cards. TFA then tries to construct a tie from:
> Fascinatingly, the early versions of the ECMA-48 standard specify that this
> standard isn’t solely meant for displays, specifying that “examples of
> devices conforming to this concept are: an alpha-numeric display device, a
> printer or a microfilm output device.”
TFA should know that terminals evolved to be a keyboard + printer before they
evolved to be a keyboard + CRT. I'm not sure that there's any link between
paper size and CRT size. Most likely the only connection would be number of
columns (of fixed-width text), but not lines.
My guess is that in the end there's no connection between punch cards and
terminals being 80x25, much less between Civil War Demand Notes and terminals
being 80x25. 80x25 was just convenient for all the independent reasons TFA
lists. Any similarity to punch cards was almost certainly coincidental, and
perhaps convenient.
~~~
Doxin
> I'm not sure that there's any link between paper size and CRT size. Most
> likely the only connection would be number of columns (of fixed-width text),
> but not lines
I haven't got a solid answer here, but I do know from experience that your
average typewriter does about 80 characters across a page once you account for
margins.
Now clearly that'd not be much of an argument if margins are arbitrary but I
don't think they are. On a typewriter your can more or less freely choose the
top, left, and right margin. The bottom margin is however limited by the
mechanism: by the time the bottom of the page is under the striking area the
paper is flopping in the breeze since the roller isn't holding it anymore. If
you set the left and the right margins (and the top margin) to the same size
as the minimum workable bottom margin you end up with roughly 80 characters
across the page.
Seems as likely a link as any: typing out tabular data from a punch card would
be limited to the same width as common on typewriters.
~~~
cryptonector
Sure, but all these links (like the 2KB link) seem a bit coincidental. Of
course, 2KB would fit other combinations of columns and lines, and typewrites
(I think? I don't have one at hand!) probably do manage to fit more than 25
lines of single-spaced text with normal margins... My _guess_ is that matching
typewriter (and/or punchcard) width was more important than matching length,
so with 1KB and 2KB, terminal manufacturers used as many lines as they could
fit while using 80 column lines. Display width is probably more important than
display length for us humans.
------
manicdee
Is this another variant of space shuttle SRBs being the width of two horses
arses?
------
WalterBright
I designed and built an ASCII terminal as a college project. The 25 lines was
set by the number of lines a standard monitor could display, given a certain
number of scan lines needed to make the font legible.
As monitors that could display more scan lines became available, people
instantly used them to display more rows.
------
thangalin
A related post about software development, history, surveillance, knowledge,
weaving looms, terminal sizes, and more:
[https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2019/06/06/web-of-
knowledge/](https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2019/06/06/web-of-knowledge/)
------
Mountain_Skies
Hugged already? Archive:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20191024002534/http://exple.tive...](https://web.archive.org/web/20191024002534/http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2019/10/23/80x25/)
------
sevensor
While I greatly enjoyed the article and its effort at historical synthesis,
the author cites a fact that's not _exactly_ true:
> Then in 1983 the Apple IIe was introduced, the first Apple computer to
> natively support an 80×24 text display, doubling the 40×24 default of their
> earlier hardware.
My family had an Apple IIe in 1984. It only showed 40 columns until my fater
went out and bought an "80 column card" to upgrade it. He also sprang for a
second floppy drive. So "natively" is a bit of a stretch there.
------
yodon
I can't get the page to open but the title of the HN submission is nonsense.
Terminal is 80x25 because that's how big terminals were back in the day (for
very long ago values of back in the day and for purely bandwidth driven
reasons).
Pre-Mac (technically pre-Lisa) Black and White CRT displays which were made
using then-current CRT TV technology which had just enough analog bandwidth to
show 80 columns of 5 pixel by 7 pixel characters, with one pixel separation
(480 pixels horizontally [edit added: those are US numbers, European TV's had
slightly higher bandwidth but that's a different topic]) and most could only
show 24 such characters vertically due to the 4x3 aspect ratio used in
essentially all CRTs of the day. 24x80 was the industry standard for a screen
of text for purely CRT bandwidth reasons. So why 25 lines? Because a few super
cool terminals allowed you one extra line for showing status below a
conventional 24x80 layout, hence 25x80 (vertical squeeze didn't pose bandwidth
or pixel separation problems on black and white displays of that era).
Terminal naturally went with the cool kid size of 25x80. No civil war bank
notes involved, just the bandwidth of then-current generation TV display
technology and a fortuitous coincidence that punch cards had 80 columns.
[edit added] Apple][ and other similar era devices had even lower character
counts because they hooked up to color TV's which had roughly similar
bandwidth but needed to spread that bandwidth across three phosphors per pixel
so far fewer pixels available on screen.
~~~
IIAOPSW
Your being downvoted but you have a valid point. People should look up the
NTSC/PAL standard for how analog TV screens worked. There were only ~560 scan
lines in the raster pattern (vertical and horizontal blanking intervals
notwithstanding). With a character height of 7 pixels/scan lines + one for
spacing that gets you 70 lines of text on screen. Even if the punch card
machines gave you more memory, actually using it would have required buying a
special purpose TV. Eventually we did get CRT monitors which were specific for
computers instead of television, but that wouldn't be economically viable at
the time.
~~~
tyingq
The downvoting is likely because 80x24/25 happened well before home PCs that
displayed via NTSC/PAL. And many of those early terminals also supported a 132
column mode.
~~~
IIAOPSW
What were the earlier non-home computers displaying on?
~~~
tyingq
CRT, but not via RF modulators, NTSC, PAL, etc.
~~~
IIAOPSW
That's very odd. Why did they invent a new CRT format and spend the cost of
the hardware to implement it instead of using an off the shelf TV?
~~~
tyingq
Because TVs didn't have high quality video inputs. Old Apples, C64s, etc, came
with a "tiny tv broadcaster" (RF modulator) that broadcast the signal on
channel 3. In shit NTSC or PAL quality, which is lower resolution than what
the CRT can display.
~~~
IIAOPSW
I understood that. I'm old enough to remember VCR's / game consoles required
you to turn to channel 3 or 4. But what were the older, non-personal terminals
using? Was there some sort of RF modulated raster pattern optimized for
displaying text? Were they drawing everything as vectors? Did they use off the
shelf CRT's?
~~~
tyingq
Direct manipulation of the beam with analog voltage to a CRT driver for the x
and y axis. Same as what the TV does inside.
------
evacchi
from the same author, why arrays are zero-based
[http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2013/10/22/citation-
needed/](http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2013/10/22/citation-needed/)
------
droithomme
This article is complete nonsense.
------
fortran77
I thought this aside about how Wikipedia has been taken over by extremists was
even more interesting:
> _It’s difficult to research anything about the early days of American
> currency on Wikipedia these days; that space has been thoroughly colonized
> by the goldbug /sovcit cranks. You wouldn’t notice it from a casual
> examination, which is of course the plan; that festering rathole is tucked
> away down in the references, where articles will fold a seemingly innocuous
> line somewhere into the middle, tagged with an exceptionally dodgy
> reference. You’ll learn that “the shift from demand notes to treasury notes
> meant they could no longer be redeemed for gold coins[1]” – which is
> strictly true! – but if you chase down that footnote you wind up somewhere
> with a name like “Lincoln’s Treason – Fiat Currency, Maritime Law And The
> U.S. Treasury’s Conspiracy To Enslave America”, which I promise I am only
> barely exaggerating about._
~~~
biggestdecision
For obscure conspiracy topics, the only people who care enough to edit the
pages are the true believers. Today arguments about which occult order is
descended from which happen on Wikipedia talk pages.
Look at this nonsense:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:A%E2%88%B4A%E2%88%B4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:A%E2%88%B4A%E2%88%B4)
> _I am an initiate of the A. '.A.'. and the Golden Dawn. If anyone would like
> to challenge the factual basis of my claim that the System of the A.'.A.'.
> is based on the Merkabah Seven Palaces rather than the Kabbalistic Tree of
> Life, then please provide your reasons for doing so before demanding book
> citations be produced for initiated and previously secret knowledge. Prove
> the A.'.A.'. is based on the Tree of Life or be Silent._
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Hermetic_Order_of_the_Gol...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Hermetic_Order_of_the_Golden_Dawn/Archive_5)
> _The registered trademark should remain on the Hermetic Order of the Golden
> Dawn, the outer order of the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega entry in
> the contemporary orders section, as they own the HOGD trademark in Europe
> and Canada. Recently the HOG /A+O settled litigation victoriously preserving
> their perpetual and irrevocable right to use the name of their outer order,
> the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, without interference in the USA. The
> registered trademark rightly and properly distinguishes the HOG/A+O from the
> exorbitant number of -unlicensed Golden Dawn based study groups and should
> NOT be removed. The registered trademark is a distinguishing character
> integral to the association of, and a privilege entitled by law reserved
> exclusively for the HOGD/A+O as the owners of the Hermetic Order of the
> Golden Dawn in the European Union and Canada as aforementioned. It is
> certainly improper and somewhat unlawful to deprive the HOGD/A+O of using
> that privilege of the registered trademark they reserve the right to fully
> represent themselves therewith. Please do not remove the trademarks from the
> HOGD/A+O entry again._
> _Furthermore, as the A+O’s outer order is named the Hermetic Order of the
> Golden Dawn and they reserve all rights to that mark in the European Union
> and Canada. It should be correctly stated in the contemporary orders section
> that the HOGD /A+O is: “a modern order headquartered in the European Union
> using the same name being also the outer order of the Rosicrucian Order of
> Alpha et Omega®. This is paramount, as it distinguishes the HOGD/A+O as a
> completely separate entity from the independent organisation which is the
> HOGD, Inc. who are a modern independent order of the same name._
~~~
chrisshroba
"The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude
bigger than to produce it." \- Alberto Brandolini
------
xellisx
I couldn't finish reading it, but something about a printing press,
typewriters, paper size and the max characters that can fit with a 20 pt font.
------
thrower123
> It’s not entirely clear if this is a deliberate exercise in coordinated
> crank-wank or just years of accumulated flotsam from the usual debate-club
> dead-enders hanging off the starboard side of the Overton window. There’s
> plenty of idiots out there that aren’t quite useful enough to work the
> k-cups at the Heritage Institute, and I guess they’re doing something with
> their time, but the whole thing has a certain sinister elegance to it that
> the Randroid crowd can’t usually muster. I’ve got my doubts either way, and
> I honestly don’t care to dive deep enough into that sewer to settle them.
> Either way, it’s always good to be reminded that the goldbug/randroid/sovcit
> crank spectrum shares a common ideological klancestor.
Is this the kind of tinfoil hattery that is acceptable now?
~~~
ncmncm
It is off topic, but worth mention.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Silicon Valley pastor decries hypocrisy of area's rich liberals - bambataa
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/22/silicon-valley-pastor-gregory-stevens-wealth-liberals
======
bluetomcat
Large SV companies have nowadays become cash-making media machines of a
gargantuan scale, acquiring that cash from all over the world for a service of
questionable value, and investing it back in a relatively small area while
providing only a few tens of thousands of jobs there. This distribution of
capital creates a huge imbalance, no matter how "liberal" the stakeholders
are.
~~~
coleifer
My sense from reading was that he was upset by what he perceived to be
hypocrisy on the part of the wealthy. In that they talked the talk about
charity and making the world better, but their actions spoke differently. So
liberal words, liberal values being expressed, but pure greed when it
mattered.
~~~
JumpCrisscross
I commute between New York and the Bay Area, and am consistently struck by how
plutocratic of a city San Francisco has become. Most social functions are held
in private venues and heavily segregated by race and class. Leaving a charity
event, a millionaire will casually step over a homeless person en route to
their apartment. They will talk about poverty in Africa and then vote in
NIMBYist politicians. A total gutting of humanity, and I’m saying this as a
New Yorker.
~~~
maxxxxx
It's a dangerous trend that people with money less and less interact with
people with less money. Private schools, super expensive neighborhoods, super
expensive gyms, bars and restaurants. These people have the power to influence
political decisions but they have no idea how most people live.
~~~
kikoreis
You have articulated brilliantly something which as a Brazilian disturbs me to
no end. I despair seeing cities change their structure to accommodate the
desire for segregation.
~~~
maxxxxx
Speaking of Brazil reminds me of a documentary about Ayrton Senna I watched
years ago. He flew his beautiful helicopter to his beautiful skyscraper in Sao
Paolo, then to his beautiful beach house and then taking out his beautiful
boat. All that with dirty, poor kids and the slums in Sao Paolo in the
background. It was a really jarring experience.
------
deweller
Pastors deal with so much frustration every day. Working with people in any
job is messy and can be very draining. In the context of a church, working
with people is significantly messier and more draining.
Pastors burn out all the time. But it is still sad to see.
If you attend a church or know a pastor, just know that they are probably
dealing with a lot of stuff you don't know about.
~~~
rectang
Apparently the pastor has had difficulty growing his congregation. I wonder
how many people there are in Palo Alto who partake in charitable activities
but not when they're affiliated with organized religion.
------
myrandomcomment
My wife and I moved out of PA / Menlo partly because of this. Shallow people,
spoiled children and the rude entitled behavior of almost everyone.
Each year at my kids school they had a gift tree with cards with things the
kids on the other side of the 101 (East PA) wanted. 99% of it was shoes. They
just wanted a shoes. Every year we would take a few cards and wait for others
to do the same. Every year at the end there where still cards on the tree and
my wife and I would take every last one. How f'ing hard is it for someone to
do this? Why the hell would there be anything left?!? I never understood that
until I realized it would take time out of their schedule to have to do this.
Sure people gave money, but god forbid they had to do any work.
------
psychometry
It's easy to resolve this discrepancy when you realize these people are not
actually liberal or progressive.
~~~
vowelless
No True Scotsman fallacy?
I personally give the respect to people to refer them as they would like to be
identified. If a Muslim jihadi says he is a jihadi, I respect his self
identification and call him that. Similarly, I respect these people's self
identification as liberal or progressive.
~~~
simonsarris
Claiming someone's actions don't line up with their words is not a no-true-
Scotsman scenario.
I think he's simply alleging that their revealed preferences do not line up
with their stated preferences.
~~~
vowelless
I think what you describe is pretty much exactly the no true Scotsman fallacy.
[Delete rest of comment, not relevant]
~~~
vertex-four
It is not fallacious to have defined criteria for membership of a group - the
fallacy is to create new criteria on a whim in response to criticism.
------
coleifer
I'm saddened that he felt compelled to resign. The Gospel advocates poverty,
whether you take that in the literal sense or whether you take it to mean
humility, I imagine the stark divide visible in SV would probably be pretty
hard to understand.
~~~
HarryHirsch
You'd rather say the Church advocates the responsible use of wealth.
~~~
coleifer
Not quite. I don't know what the church is nor can I speak about it's
motivation. I'm speaking about the gospel. Matthew 19:23 specifically:
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man
shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.
It's a rare thing for Jesus to make a pronouncement like that in the text.
Which leads me to believe it's an important part of his teaching.
~~~
drdeca
I think that 19:23-26 may be more clear than 23 by itself?
Also, out of curiosity, what translation is that?
~~~
otoburb
>> _Also, out of curiosity, what translation is that?_
First returned Google result in Firefox private mode[1] indicates this wording
is specific to the King James Version (KJV).
[1]
[http://biblehub.com/kjv/matthew/19-23.htm](http://biblehub.com/kjv/matthew/19-23.htm)
------
cobookman
"The city had also made it hard for the church to provide meals for the
homeless by requiring costly permits, he said."
Is that true?
~~~
dpeck
I don't know SV municipalities specifically, but I'd guess its probably true
[http://www.newsweek.com/illegal-feed-criminalizing-
homeless-...](http://www.newsweek.com/illegal-feed-criminalizing-homeless-
america-782861)
Its been enforced haphazardly in Atlanta over the last couple of years.
~~~
peterwwillis
Yep.
In Tampa, Food Not Bombs was arrested for not getting a permit for "having an
event on public land". [http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-
world/national/article1253...](http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-
world/national/article125306029.html) even though they've been feeding the
homeless there for 10 years. The real cause for the crackdown appears to be
when there's some event going on in the city, like football championships,
where visibility on the city's homeless problem could be problematic for
politicians.
In Orlando, Food Not Bombs also gets arrested for feeding the homeless.
[http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/crime/os-homeless-
feedin...](http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/crime/os-homeless-feedings-
arrests-20110601-story.html)
It was illegal in Fort Lauderdale, until the police arrested a 90 year old man
for feeding the homeless. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
nation/wp/2014/12/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
nation/wp/2014/12/03/after-90-year-old-is-arrested-florida-judge-halts-law-
that-restricts-feeding-the-homeless/?utm_term=.29b78183eadc) It's probably
still illegal, though.
------
neaden
His critiques, while vulgar seem pretty fair and I hope he finds a new
position somewhere.
------
Balgair
A lot of commenters are saying that Pastor Stevens is right, and that more
should be done. I encourage all people to volunteer and to try to make our
world a better place, not just through donations, but through labor as well.
The joys and rewards of volunteering and helping others are innumerable and
ever growing; even _The Economist_ of all magazines thinks so too
[[https://www.economist.com/node/8023307](https://www.economist.com/node/8023307)].
If you see that your world is not what you want it to be, please consider
volunteering. Here are some organizations I have worked with and can vouch
for:
[http://www.bacbsa.org/contact/48588](http://www.bacbsa.org/contact/48588)
[https://www.bgcp.org/](https://www.bgcp.org/)
If you know of other organizations in need of volunteers, please reply for
others to see too.
------
cmurf
Recently I was in a late 1800's home in Denver. From the outside it doesn't
look mansion-like huge, but it was huge. It had over a dozen rooms, and long
since renovated "servant's quarters".
Hindsight isn't really 20/20, is it? I look back on that era and think how
blatantly racist and classist it was. But in contrast to today's segregation
based on race and class, all we've done is move the servants out of the homes
they serve, put them on public transit, and make them live 50 miles away. It's
just feudalism vs a kind of neo-feudalism.
And meritocracy in practice is different than meritocracy as an ideal. Perhaps
Vulcans have the extreme discipline required to actually adhere to a strict
system of merit. But humans do not. Anyone in a meritocratic environment
lowers the ladder to friends and family, people they like, which immediately
corrupts the meritocracy. Meritocracy in practice corrupts itself, the very
thing the ideal proclaims to avoid. And even the ideal version pretty much
pre-supposes that those without merit, without wealth, don't really deserve
anything other than what they have (or don't have), there isn't anything to do
about it, and it might even be immoral to intervene.
The book of Job, and numerous stories of Christ in the New Testament are very
critical of wealth and merit. And that's probably why the message doesn't go
over very well anywhere with institutional power and wealth, be it the
Pharisees, or Silicon Valley's wealthy (and regardless of whether they're
liberal or conservative).
------
mudil
This hypocritical behavior goes all the way to the top. AL Gore, for example,
routinely flies on a private jet to various functions throughout the world.
Compare this to Mahatma Gandhi who was barefoot and not in the Rolls Royce.
------
lawlessone
He's not wrong.
------
watwut
"Jesus was a homeless Jew who said it was harder for a rich man to enter the
Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to get through the eye of a needle"
Ok, I agree, but that seem to be unusual take for American nominations. At
least my impression was that they did not tend to preach help to poor, rather
the opposite.
Did I had wrong impression or is this take really the minority one?
~~~
mattnewport
I think you have the wrong impression. Studies repeatedly find that religious
Americans give significantly more to charity than non religious Americans,
e.g. [https://www.philanthropy.com/article/Religious-Americans-
Giv...](https://www.philanthropy.com/article/Religious-Americans-Give-
More/153973)
~~~
jnwatson
Sorry, if you remove donations to their own churches, the unchurched do
better.
[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/11/28/are-...](http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/11/28/are-
religious-people-really-more-generous-than-atheists-a-new-study-puts-that-
myth-to-rest/)
~~~
dragonwriter
> Sorry, if you remove donations to their own churches, the unchurched do
> better.
That result is both unsurprising and meaningless.
------
RSZC
[https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/65...](https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/65063)
The posts in question
~~~
forgottenpass
>Gregory Stevens has a public Twitter account. I thought some of his troubling
recent tweets should come to the attention of Palo Alto city leaders and the
residents of Palo Alto. []
>Should this type of person and the organization he represents oversee a Palo
Alto Community Center?
Haha, wow. Can you get more stereotypical Silicon Valley than running to the
nearest authority figure because you don't like someone's opinions and choice
of (not even that) strong language?
------
kraig911
Why did he resign though? Because he felt bad about he tweeted?
~~~
metalliqaz
Sounds like he was forced out, because of his "offensive" comments.
------
sctb
Previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17112771](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17112771).
------
m0llusk
Now gamify this so people can get quick gratification and level up and that
might actually work.
------
VikingCoder
Has anyone else read "The Golden Age" by John C. Wright?
I'm really fascinated by the idea of the College of Hortation.
I think Wright actually sees it as sinister, but I thought it was a good idea.
Rough idea:
Make all laws extremely libertarian, and then have a voluntary group people
join that does things liberals say they want (free healthcare with progressive
membership dues, etc.)
Except in his book, if you weren't a member, no one would do business with you
- because it was against the terms of membership, and almost everyone was a
member. So then those people who rejected society could, but they couldn't
trade with almost anyone.
------
jnbiche
He may have been a bit profane, but he's not wrong. Rich and upper-middle
class liberals, particularly in places like the Bay area, need to take a
serious look inward.
------
Karishma1234
People complaining about how other people should be spending their money. Huh.
~~~
almost_usual
Less about how someone spends their money and more about their ideals. These
people are fake and only value wealth. Their values are weak and mold to where
the money is. The same people would be racists or bigots a 100-150+ years ago
because they would be wealthier with those values. It's socially damaging to
be those things today and actually impedes wealth so of course they believe
they are "socially liberal".
Including blue collar workers in their community or network of friends does
not grow their wealth. They provide no benefit to these people's social worth
in their eyes so they are exiled from the community.
~~~
Karishma1234
The entire Christianity and Catholic church has been the biggest examples of
bigotry, racial, hatred and unimaginable violence. A Pastor should not engage
in this type of virtue signalling.
When you create wealth you are already helping poor people and blue collar
workers. Who do you think mows Mark Zuck's lawn ?
~~~
almost_usual
"The entire Christianity and Catholic church has been the biggest examples of
bigotry, racial, hatred and unimaginable violence."
True but why? Most of this was rooted in power and wealth. The Catholic Church
is one of the most wealthy empires ever to have existed. Why do you think they
became bigots, and racially radicalized? They wanted power, exclusiveness, and
wealth. Legitimizing servitude and slavery through religion made them
incredibly powerful.
"A Pastor should not engage in this type of virtue signalling.""
Like everything else religion is evolving, this Church is LGBT friendly. As
someone who has a gay family member who attends an LGBT church these things do
exist.
"When you create wealth you are already helping poor people and blue collar
workers. Who do you think mows Mark Zuck's lawn ?"
That's fine, as long as you pay them enough to live near where they work in a
house that isn't a shanty or ghetto. We don't need modern age indentured
servants in the United States.
I'm assuming you identify with the Republican party? My only interest is if
you identified as being "Liberal" because you definitely aren't.
------
justherefortart
While I'm not a religious person, this is a man whose convictions I can
respect.
Keep fighting the good fight Gregory, this evil atheist is on your side :-)
~~~
lawlessone
He seems like the kind of religious person i wish i seen more of in the world.
~~~
justaman
He is more common than you think.
~~~
justherefortart
I live in the Bible Belt, so not very common here.
Reminds me of "liberal" SF/Bay Area. Everyone talks the talk, but no one walks
the walk. It's quite sad really.
~~~
jnbiche
If you live near any urban area in the Bible Belt, it is more common than you
think. Granted, if you're in a small town or rural area, you're absolutely
right.
------
dapf73
People should just move out of the area and find a better for themselves.
Whining has never solved anything for anyone, and, when successful, end up in
"socialist" revolutions that turn the country into a shithole. (Venezuelan
here, and I don't like Trump, by the way)
~~~
olavk
It is the homeless people who should stop whining and move away? Or the priest
who wanted to help them?
------
kizer
Good for him. Thankfully I'll be living in placid Seattle where the kind
liberals are, surrounded by beautiful nature and a society grounded in a
cannabis induced peace.
~~~
metalliqaz
wat
------
Spooky23
The world is a little upside down at the moment.
Most of the "liberal" folks today are really old-style chamber of commerce
republicans with a different flavor of conformity. More accepting of old
social taboos, and we've replace suits with khaki.
Religion is defined in the popular consciousness as regressive right-wing fire
and brimstone types, with a helping of swarmy prosperity ministry. The success
of the political parties of polarizing folks on wedge issues like abortion is
incredible and dangerous. The catholic church I grew up in, for all its
faults, was basically the backbone of the social services sector in my region.
Now many of the holy-roller types are so aggressive about pro-life activity
they are supporting GOP candidates. That's leading to more political rally
nonsense, less service like food pantries, helping the aging & sick, etc.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Boolean short circuiting is not guaranteed in SQL - pplonski86
http://morningcoffee.io/boolean-short-circuiting-is-not-guaranteed-in-sql.html
======
karmakaze
It's much better to think of SQL like math, as in sets and commutative
operations than as a procedural language. And always use EXPLAIN to spot check
performance assumptions, realizing that even then that can vary with data or
usage.
I usually find the opposite surprising, when I write an expression and the
query planner _hasn 't_ re-arranged what I wrote into whatever it thought was
best based on available indexes and gathered statistics.
------
throwaway5250
Indeed, SQL is a declarative language. It'd be quite shocking if short
circuiting were happening.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Demographics of Tech Entrepreneurship - michael_nielsen
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1127248
======
michael_nielsen
An interesting quote from the abstract: "But, even though Bill Gates and Steve
Jobs founded two of the world‘s most successful companies, they are not
representative of technology and engineering company founders. Indeed, a
larger proportion of tech founders are middle-aged, well-educated in business
or technical disciplines, with degrees from a wide assortment of schools.
Twice as many U.S.-born tech entrepreneurs start ventures in their fifties as
do those in their early twenties, as this paper will show."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tell HN: Today I try to make a living from my side project - MattBearman
I've been running BugMuncher[0] as a side project for about 4 years now.
It's been going well and steadily growing, with practically no marketing effort.<p>Today I start my mission to make BugMuncher my only source of income. I'm giving up my freelancing, and have at least 8 months of runway saved up.<p>I'm mainly going to be focusing on marketing, so if anyone can point me to some good marketing resources to help me on my path it would be much appreciated.<p>Wish me luck!<p>[0] http://bugmuncher.com
======
kohanz
Congrats! This is a big accomplishment in and of itself.
To throw in my 2 cents, without any expert knowledge or experience, I think
your corporate price is too low by about an order of magnitude.
~~~
MattBearman
Thanks for the feedback. Do you mind elaborating? I've been thinking that
maybe $199 / month would be a better price point, but with more included.
What would you expect to receive at a $1000 / month price point?
~~~
kohanz
I may have exaggerated, but I feel like patio11 would recommend something
similar. Perhaps you offer unlimited (instead of 5) profiles at the very high
price point. This comes from the assumption that for very large enterprises, a
price tag of low 5 figures per year vs. low 4 figures per year is not a
difference worth thinking about.
Of course, you know best what size of enterprises are using your product.
------
tixocloud
Congratulations and good luck!
Inbound.org has been a great marketing resource for me. Another source that's
been useful is Andrew Warner's Mixergy podcasts. There's bits and pieces of
advice on how to grow businesses that will help you.
Also, I'd love to help in any way I can so feel free to drop me an email - I'm
in Customer Strategy and work extensively with Marketing and Advertising.
That said, I love your product's idea and it's definitely something that could
be useful to us as a startup down the road. My personal opinion would be that
the branding of the product could better reflect your headline "Feedback Tool
with Automatic Screenshots". You'll have to think through who your target
customers are and use their language.
------
jason_slack
In your "See what others are saying.." section, one of the quotes is:
"Horrible name for a site"
When I read that I could not tell if it was a joke...
I like the idea, BTW. I am going to see how it fits into my workflow.
~~~
MattBearman
It's a genuine tweet I found, so decided to put it in there as a bit of a
joke. Someone else once said to me they assumed the tweets were being
automatically harvested and a bad one slipped in, so maybe I should take that
one out?
------
thomasrossi
Congrats! Good luck, the product is interesting indeed. I am not a marketing
expert though. Maybe you can try to work a deal with some automated website
builder? So they can add the bug-reporting tool to their offering, 1 deal
would mean lots of users (but their websites are probably fairly simple?).
~~~
MattBearman
Excellent idea! I hadn't thought of this approach, I'll definitely try to get
some partnerships in this area.
------
luxpir
Inspiring. Someone actually doing it, and the way I hope to in a year or few.
Keep talking it up and maybe even journal the process. I'd be keen to stay in
the loop.
May you have more luck than you know what to do with.
~~~
MattBearman
Thanks for the kind words. I've thought about blogging my progress, but I have
an irrational fear that people will be less likely try BugMuncher if they know
of my mission, as they may think BugMuncher will shut down if I'm unable to
earn a living from it by the time my runway runs out. Which of course isn't
the case I'd just pick up some more freelance work again.
Maybe I'll set up a personal blog to write about my progress.
------
brickmort
If you aren't already, I highly recommend frequenting /r/entrepreneur and
/r/startups on reddit. Best of luck!!
~~~
MattBearman
I am indeed following these subreddits, although I've not yet tried submitting
BugMuncher. I don't spend anywhere near as much time on Reddit as I do on
Hacker News, do you have any tips for submitting BugMuncher?
------
ffumarola
I work in marketing/advertising, feel free to ping me via email/gchat (in my
profile) for some ideas.
~~~
MattBearman
Thanks for the offer, I can't see any contact details in your HN profile,
what's the best way to reach you? Alternatively email me [email protected]
------
quantisan
Looks useful. Best of luck!
Do you mind if I ask, why the move now?
~~~
MattBearman
Thanks! I don't mind at all, it's something I've always wanted to do, but
always wanted to be bootstrapped, so I've had to save up enough runway money
to make a good go at it.
~~~
ghosh
good luck!!
------
alex_g
looks like a great product! I think some design upgrades would really help you
out though.
~~~
MattBearman
Thanks, I'm currently working on some design tweaks in an effort to improve
signups - currently around 2%
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
We’re building a product and sharing everything we learn - rizzke
https://medium.com/@tamas_19368/behind-the-scenes-this-is-how-were-building-a-product-%EF%B8%8F-e95511c17381
======
rizzke
The link might be broken, here is the working one:
[https://medium.com/@torok_tomi/behind-the-scenes-this-is-
how...](https://medium.com/@torok_tomi/behind-the-scenes-this-is-how-were-
building-a-product-%EF%B8%8F-cbf841cb440d)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Startup Quote: Michael Lopp, Blogger, Rands In Repose - raychancc
http://startupquote.com/post/5672304574
======
raychancc
Your work speaks for you.
\- Michael Lopp (@rands)
<http://startupquote.com/post/5672304574>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
ARM multiprocessor support - fcambus
http://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/working_arm_multiprocessor_support
======
fidotron
While welcoming this, it's amazing this kind of thing is news. That so many
communities failed to acknowledge the inevitable rise of SMP systems still
amazes me. This blind spot basically killed OCaml, which has fantastic single
thread performance, and it remains a serious problem for things like Python.
The same thing is now happening with the rise of GPGPUs.
~~~
4ad
> That so many communities failed to acknowledge the inevitable rise of SMP
> systems still amazes me.
What? NetBSD most certainly didn't fail to acknowledge the inevitable rise of
SMP systems. These boards lacked SMP support because SMP support is a lot of
work, _every chip is different_ (unlike x64), very few people know how to work
on this, there are very few people working on the NetBSD kernel, and _most
chips don 't have open documentation_.
You make it sound like these people were like "SMP... shit, who needs this?".
------
na85
I would love to run a *BSD as my daily driver on my X220, but battery life is
important to me and everything I've read suggests that most BSDs don't perform
as well as Linux + TLP,
~~~
bch
I run Net on my t420, and I like it. I feel like I get ~3 hours (I don't keep
hard time) using it, and it'd be fair to say typical use is development, w/
web (ie: running X, vi, clang, and various text-processing tools, Firefox, and
disk/network intensive things like syncing code-repositories).
I've got a 9-cell battery.
I'm running -current. Now that -current is also offloading rendering to my
integrated i915 gfx, I'll be curious to see how screen-intensive work will
impact battery.
The joy I get from NetBSD has outweighed various temptations from other OSes.
I've dabbled w/ Ubuntu and others, but they're not compelling enough to
switch.
If you've got any questions, I'm happy to try to answer.
~~~
cowabunga
Your 9 cell is probably knackered. I get about 7 hours out of mine and its two
years old.
~~~
bch
What OS/power-management are you running ?
~~~
cowabunga
FreeBSD 10 r10 stable with some ACPI frigs and dpms set up (I didn't write
them down)
Windows 8.1 Pro with Lenovo power manager installed via windows update.
Dual boot.
~~~
bch
New battery en route --- I'll be able to tell first-hand what the differences
are in a week or so :)
~~~
cowabunga
Good for you :)
I would check the Lenovo recall page (google it) before paying for one. That's
where I got my new one from - they replaced it free of charge ;-)
------
diyorgasms
I am disappointed not to see any of the Beagle* boards on the list of
supported devices, as it is another ARMv7 device with completely open
hardware. Still, this is a pretty cool consolidation effort.
~~~
markatto
The beagle{bone,board} use single-core OMAP3 derivatives; they don't require
multiprocessor support and were already supported.
~~~
Alupis
Other boards will undoubtedly get support over time.
Every single board requires a different setup, often times dtb, special boot
loaders or u-boot, special kernels, etc. Give it time.
Wandboard will be exciting once they support that.
[http://www.wandboard.org/index.php/details](http://www.wandboard.org/index.php/details)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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