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Fastsocket – A highly scalable socket for Linux - nicolast
https://github.com/fastos/fastsocket
======
bscanlan
The performance data looks interesting, but this is work based on a pretty old
kernel (originally released in 2010 or so). There have been many changes and
improvements added to the 3.x kernel that may overlap with this work.
Publishing the code and details on github is great, but working with the
kernel community and merging into the mainstream kernel is the only way for
work like this to have a long-term meaningful existence - Google in particular
have been doing a great job getting networking improvements in.
That said, it's interesting to have this kind of thing come out of large-scale
production web environments in China.
~~~
sillysaurus3
Is it possible that by using an old kernel like this one, you'd expose
yourself to security vulnerabilities?
I'm new to kernel programming. Is this submission suggesting that you
downgrade your kernel to a 2010-era release in order to take advantage of the
performance improvements, or is the submission showing some kind of modular
component which you can integrate into your current kernel?
If it's the former, then wouldn't you be pinning yourself to the old version
of the kernel, so you'll have to integrate all updates by hand rather than
receive them automatically during the normal update process?
~~~
greglindahl
This kernel is what Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 is currently using. Red Hat
maintains it, and writes patches for security vulnerabilities. It's no
surprise that Sina developed, tested, and deployed this patch against what
they were running in production.
~~~
sillysaurus3
By using this kernel, will you be able to automatically receive security
upgrades in the future? Or will you have to apply them manually and then
recompile and install the kernel yourself?
Is "developers have to apply security patches manually, then recompile and
reinstall the kernel themselves rather than automatically" not a big deal in
practice?
~~~
snus
All distro vendors backport critical fixes for the lifetime of the operating
system. RHEL6 is supported at least until 2020.
2.6.32 is also supported by kernel.org still.
------
edsiper2
Looks like its based on 2.6.32 series. I would hope they start working with
the upstream Kernel otherwise this project will stay stuck in Limbo as
previous initiatives to improve TCP handling at kernel level (e.g: Megapipe).
This version do not support TCP_FASTOPEN, SO_REUSEPORT, TCP_AUTOCORKING, etc.
~~~
peterwwillis
It's RedHat's 2.6.32 kernel, which is not the vanilla Linux 2.6.32 kernel.
It's been getting backported fixes since the tree began. RedHat does not
release what patches they include in their kernels, but luckily for us, Oracle
maintains a project called RedPatch which publicly documents the patches going
into the RHEL kernels.
As an example of how this kernel is not the 2.6 tree: On April 14, 2014, in
RedHat's 2.6.32-431.23.3.el6 kernel tree [1] , there was recently a patch
included [2] that affects the ipv4 subsystem. You can find that same patch [3]
was originally applied to the Linux kernel on April 14, 2014. This is common
practice, and so RedHat kernels more closely resemble modern kernels like 3.12
than anything else.
[1]
[https://oss.oracle.com/git/?p=redpatch.git;a=shortlog;h=rhel...](https://oss.oracle.com/git/?p=redpatch.git;a=shortlog;h=rhel-2.6.32-431.23.3.el6)
[2]
[https://oss.oracle.com/git/?p=redpatch.git;a=commitdiff;h=c0...](https://oss.oracle.com/git/?p=redpatch.git;a=commitdiff;h=c01663823d746852b7632199c57ad77a84907540)
[3]
[http://www.serverphorums.com/read.php?12,912195](http://www.serverphorums.com/read.php?12,912195)
~~~
desdiv
RedHat does not release what patches they include in their kernels
Stupid question here: aren't kernel patches considered derivative works? If
so, then isn't RedHat legally obligated to released them under GPL?
~~~
logic
They provide the complete source, as required by the GPL. However, they do not
provide patch sets neatly broken out like they used to; that's what the parent
is referring to.
------
crazydoggers
Why would the evaluation charts look the way they do?
[https://github.com/fastos/fastsocket#online-
evaluation](https://github.com/fastos/fastsocket#online-evaluation)
The "before and after" CPU series have nearly the same exact fit. If the data
was from separate 24 hour periods, wouldn't you expect the graphs to look
different? I recognize that with a large service, you'd get repetitive load
patterns, but the similarity here look a little extreme.
~~~
teraflop
I find the first graph peculiar on its own. Supposedly, each line is the load
on one of 8 cores on the same machine. Why would some cores experience heavier
load than others, very consistently, over the course of a day? I've never seen
a workload exhibit that kind of long-term, core-level affinity on Linux.
~~~
yxhuvud
Well, the obvious reason for such a graph is that the network load balancing
between several waiting worker processes isn't symmetrical.
~~~
teraflop
Even if that was the case, there isn't normally a stable mapping between
processes and physical cores. There would have to be something within the
kernel itself that gives higher priority to some cores than others.
Not saying that's impossible, but I've worked on machines with more than 8
cores and never seen it happen.
------
Sir_Cmpwn
Is this being considered for merging upstream? What's the tech behind it, what
makes it faster?
~~~
corbet
The developers have not posted it to the relevant mailing lists or asked that
it be merged, so, no, it is not being considered.
~~~
harry8
Maybe it's up to the more sensible in the kernel "community", to reach out to
the developers of code known to be interesting to discuss what's in it for
them to do the work required to get it merged, the probability of doing a ton
of work, and then being ignored etc etc.
There's a sense in the above of "They haven't submitted us so we don't care."
It might not be the best way to make the kernel as good as it can be, if that
is the goal of anyone active in the kernel "community." (And maybe it is).
I have a lot of sympathy for someone publishing their code and their results
and then saying "I won't play stupid kernel politics, your move." I don't know
if that's what is happening here or it's cultural differences or something I
haven't thought of. Nor do I know if this particular development is worthwhile
merging, but hey, neither does the kernel "community" right?
------
sandGorgon
does this occupy the same functional space as zeromq or nanomsg ? are there
any comparisons?
~~~
Twirrim
This is much lower level than those. This is all about the TCP stack.
This is the OSI model, from the top down:
7) Application 6) Presentation 5) Session 4) Transport 3) Network 2) Data link
1) Physical
ZeroMQ fits in neatly at the top, layer 7 (arguably it is the presentation
layer too because it uses its own protocol).
What this is talking about relates to network sockets which is around layers 4
and 5 (you can find lots of debate around the subject). Any speed improvements
at lower levels in the stack would be seen by stuff on layers above it.
------
theyoungestgun
Better yet - avoid the kernel altogether!
Onload + Solarflare is a wonderful thing.
------
haosdent
Great job!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mapping Anything with BSicons - zetter
https://chriszetter.com/blog/2020/06/25/mapping-anything-with-bsicons/
======
shakna
As every BSicon has a specific purpose, especially some of the rarer ones, I
wonder how difficult it would be to encode that information into a simulation?
There's a couple of train simulators I enjoy playing with on my downtime, and
this seems like it might be an easier path towards making a highly complicated
engine for something like that.
~~~
l9k8j7h6
The BSicons are similar to the network tiles used in SimCity 4. The main work
of transit modders there (Network Addon Mod) is to create additional tiles for
different types of transit intersections.
It would be very interesting to see one of the OSS city builders pick up
BSicons as a subset of their schema.
------
ape4
The code doesn't look so pretty. I was hoping for something more semantic.
First layout the tracks, then the location of the stations (on the track),
then characteristics of each station, etc.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Truth: how great a virtue is it in business? - transburgh
http://foundread.com/2007/10/23/truth-how-great-a-virtue-is-it-business/
======
gibsonf1
The article is based on analyzing a birthdate lie on a public forum. I
actually always "lie" about my age on public forums where that information can
be seen to avoid identity theft. A birthday is a key piece of information for
identity thieves.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Can a modern website design improve credibility? - gvidon
https://ottofeller.com/blog/can-a-modern-website-design-improve-credibility
======
onreact
This is a rhetorical question, isn't it? Otherwise the answer is: of course!
People judge a website in milliseconds just by looking at the design. When
it's cluttered etc. they leave instantly.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What's a good book on breaking apart monoliths? - monolithbook
I'm working with a company right now that's struggling to maintain a huge monolith that lives on what's basically a mainframe. <i>Everything</i> is tightly coupled, to the point that our database tables haven't been modified in <i>fifteen years</i> -- every modification requires a new table and a JOIN.<p>Some people are starting to recognize that something smells. I'm struggling to explain alternate philosophies like "cattle not pets" and phrases like "tightly coupled".<p>One of our less-technical managers mentioned he feels like he needs to read a book on databases, but I think what he really needs to read is something that explains how we can (and should) separate systems via things like webservices, how paradigms have shifted over the past 20 years, and how we can make our systems more adaptable to change.<p>I'm reading <i>Working Effectively with Legacy Code</i>, but that's too deep in the nitty-gritty technical side of things.<p>Are there any good books that give more of a 10,000 foot architectural view of how to dig yourself out of a legacy monolith?
======
itamarst
Maybe "Building Microservices", by Sam Newman. It's an architect-y point of
view, but it's definitely got some examples of coupling-via-database and how
to deal with it.
It may be that a monolith is just fine, nothing inherently wrong with
monoliths in many cases. Not being able to change anything... less so.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Make your terminal look more fancy - stevemao
https://github.com/stevemao/prompt-so-fancy
======
brudgers
For feedback, this might make a good "Show HN".
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
7 Things You Must Be Doing with Docker - agonzalezro
http://blog.getcrane.com/7-things-must-docker
======
collyw
"Over the next eighteen months, your enterprise will need to adopt container
technology at pace. And that will put pressure on you to assess the role
containers can play and adapt your infrastructure to support them"
Technology adoption for the sake of it? I managed 12 years so far without
Docker, why do I suddenly need it now? I Already know how to use virtualenv
with Python, or a full virtual machine. Why do I suddenly need another level?
Fad driven development.
~~~
landmark2
Whilst the article is written a bit like a sales pitch I believe docker makes
the difference when having infrustructures requiring several machines/roles
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What's wrong or missing in your favorite OS? - jayphelps
Whether you're a Windows, Linux, or Mac person, most hackers are very opinionated about their preferred OS.<p>My question is what "feature" (or lack thereof) do you secretly hate about it? You know, that thing you won't admit in _____ vs. _____ arguments?
======
Staydecent
I really think neither OS X nor Windows has the upper hand on the other, so
I'll offer my top gripe for each.
OSX: Window/File Management. I've been told it's the "mac way" to open a
program to create a file. I'm reliant on the OS/Finder to do this. Also, just
basic window management is confusing to me. Perhaps Lion is addressing this.
Windows: No terminal.
------
roadnottaken
Mac OS X: lack of a remote-desktop solution.
(Able to connect TO a Mac, from any other computer via RDP).
I can go from Windows to Linux, Linux to Windows, and Mac to Windows/Linux...
but no way to connect TO my OSX box except from another Mac. Why?
~~~
konad
OSX comes with remote desktop, it's in System preferences, sharing .., remote
desktop (I think). I don't have osx available to get the exact words.
It's just VNC. It also has an SSH server in the same section so you can tunnel
through securely.
~~~
roadnottaken
Wow, thanks. I can't believe I didn't know that. I've only had a Mac for a few
months.... Thanks!!!
~~~
roadnottaken
FWIW, after trying VNC on OSX (via Linux and Win7) I have to give Microsoft
credit for their RDP implementation. It kick's VNC's ass for speed and
usability -- no contest.
Still, it's nice to know how to do this on Macs.
~~~
konad
The VNC implementation on OSX is particularly poor. It crashes and I have to
manually restart it.
On Linux the VNC is an X client so one can have multiple instances running
each exposing with their own graphical shell.
Does Windows RDP do that ? (I don't know).
TightVNC works the best with low speed networks, it uses JPEG encoding too.
BTW. is is also against the Windows EULA to use VNC server on it !
------
spooneybarger
Mac OS X: lack of a tiling window manager. at least 50% of my complaints would
be solved by that one addition. 40% of my other issues would have to gut the
Finder.
~~~
jayphelps
You and me both brother. Some things I just don't get in OS X. Like the "zoom"
button's inconsistent functionality. Hilarious that OS X Lion is going to
change this button to go literally fullscreen now (without toolbars, desktop,
etc) which might be pretty annoying too but I guess we'll see.
~~~
spooneybarger
i like the zoom to max size for content much more than zoom to whole screen
but i'm someone who never uses it anyway. i have divvy which makes my life a
little more manageable.
~~~
jayphelps
+1 for Divvy
------
kgo
OSX: Only one global menubar really sucks for multi-monitor setups.
------
konad
Plan9 - no modern web browser or media player.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Planet Earth time lapse photos from the International Space Station - evo_9
http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/14/cosmic-bal/
======
xbryanx
Here are the original photographs and video if you want to see the astronauts'
work in context with explanations:
<http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/Videos/CrewEarthObservationsVideos/>
------
hop
Gorgeous. Music was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Muted and played
Tchaikovsky - Serenade for Strings in the bg for better experience.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsGRglp6tvs>
~~~
splicer
That Tchaikovsky recording was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. I'm
okay with the composition itself, but the recording was horribly distorted. I
much prefer the electronic music, or this:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQQGi4gN6gI>
------
tokenadult
Previous HN submission with lots of comments:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3232435>
------
artursapek
_This new time-lapse video from Michael König shot aboard the International
Space Station gives you a view of Earth that was only available to a select
handful of astronauts until now._
I'm pretty sure the astronauts themselves don't see the neon-green glowing and
other details that way do they? It was shot with a low-light camera.
~~~
adaml_623
The human eye is capable of seeing very faint glows. We need an astronaut to
answer this one.
~~~
extension
There's no way it looks like that to the naked eye. This is probably a long
exposure camera with a very high dynamic range, and we're seeing the dark side
of the planet.
If you have a camera with a long exposure feature, try taking a 10-15 second
shot of a nearly pitch black room. That will give you a sense of how this is
made.
------
JeffL
It's amazing how it looks so digitally enhanced, but I guess it isn't. It
would be cool if more sci-fi movies and space games showed planets looking
like that.
------
justsomedood
This video is pretty incredible. It's so amazing to see how visible the storms
and city lights are from around (I think) 250 miles away! The northern lights
look surreal as well.
It's cool that there is so much to see by a change in perspective.
------
run4yourlives
It's very beautiful, but damn it slow down!
Running this at half speed is so much more impressive.
------
splicer
I had no idea lightning occurs so frequently!
~~~
extension
It's probably a long exposure camera. Each frame could be exposed for many
seconds or even minutes. Any lightning that strikes during that time appears
in the frame.
------
DanBC
San Francisco to Reno == 190 miles
Earth to ISS == 220 miles
------
maeon3
We have to get off this rock asap before the next planet killer asteroid hits
earth which is due soon.
~~~
Retric
Random events... still random.
~~~
ericd
Haha yeah... We should still try to get some of our eggs out of the basket,
though.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why developers are afraid of user testing - subpixel
http://ryandeussing.com/blog/2012/03/14/why-developers-are-afraid-of-user-testing/
======
Boumbles
Isn't the reason they've released it for free before retail so that they can
find out stuff like this and adapt the UI to how users react?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Green tea compound may halt molecular cause of often-fatal condition - upen
http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/10091.html
======
baldfat
I always find it funny how they test Green, Black, White or Oolong Teas
separately. All teas (Not herbal infusions) are all from the same plant,
Camellia sinensis. The only difference is when they are picked and for black
tea they are oxidized.
The only thing chemistry I have found is caffeine levels. The old belief was
the highest Black and the lowest was White. This has proven to be untrue.
Pill form would equal KIDNEY STONES if they contained the leaf. Tea leafs are
one of the highest in oxalates (Causes most kidney stones) but tea is
low/moderate in oxalates.
~~~
problems
I drink a fairly high amount of black tea (about 1.5L/day) and I had read
about this before a bit, but couldn't find any clear answers - what's the risk
of developing kidney stones and will I have fair warning signs before
permanent damage?
~~~
baldfat
I drink about 1L/day I use to get kidney stones all the time. Told to stop
drinking tea and dark sodas. After researching it for 10 minutes my Urologist
didn't know what he was talking about.
Contents of Oxalate:
black tea 15 grams for 1 liter equals 15 * 5.11 = 76.65 milligrams of soluble
oxalates
Spinach has 645 milligrams of soluble oxalates per serving size!
Cola sodas has 0 as in ZERO soluble oxalates per serving size.
My doctor told me that was all new to him. I stopped going to him as a doctor.
I ate spinach everyday. I stopped eat spinach I stopped having kidney stones.
~~~
gech
Exactly what kind of tea do you drink? Is it iced tea, a brand?
------
ucaetano
Keep in mind that you'd need to drink about 1 gallon of green tea every day
(which would cause nausea and pain) to have an increase in the EGCG levels in
your blood of less than 60%.
[http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/9/9/3312.long](http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/9/9/3312.long)
So it seems unlikely that drinking green tea would be a viable treatment.
~~~
X86BSD
Actually your statement is false. I drank a gallon of green tea for years
before switching to a gallon of white tea every day. I've never been nauseated
or had pain from that. Ever. I pee every 20 minutes but it's never made me
sick.
~~~
marricks
Is this serious? If so, any particular reason why you did?
~~~
X86BSD
I started this well over a decade ago, perhaps 20 years? The average person
does not get NEARLY enough water per day. That was one reason, but the main
reason was I knew about the anti-cancer affects of green tea as well as other
healthy effects. And over the years I had nurses and medical doctors in my
family tell me white tea was healthier for you that green tea. Lower caffeine,
more of the same compounds and benefits green tea had. So I switched over to
white tea. I am still drinking a gallon each day. Will I still get cancer?
Maybe. But it won't be from a lack of doing everything I can to prevent it.
~~~
DanBC
> But it won't be from a lack of doing everything I can to prevent it.
You eat a large quantity of red meat and processed red meat.
That increases your risk of cancer.
~~~
jessaustin
Wat? How do you know OP's protein preferences?
[EDIT:] ...wow. Just, wow. Do you use a spreadsheet to track the dietary
preferences of various HN commentators, or do you have a frighteningly
effective memory?
~~~
DanBC
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11947340#11948143](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11947340#11948143)
> Ive been an atkins follower for... 20 years. I eat mostly meat.
------
stiGGG
In my opinion tea is the most underrated hacker drink, at least in Germany. In
all companies everybody drinks coffee all day long. If u drink tea, you are an
alien. Especially if u prefer loose leaf tea over the the dust in bags from
the supermarket, you are a little weird. I hoped the big Club Mate hype could
bring some people into the tea camp, but omg even the most of the few people
who drink tea doesn't know why chamomile tea isn't actually a tea...
~~~
scorpioxy
Never heard of the "club mate hype" before. Would that be yerba mate drinks?
Edit: Just dug a bit more. Yes it is, carbonated and mixed with some sugar.
Yuck. I prefer my yerba mate the traditional way, thank you very much. Also,
what's with everybody's obsession with caffeine and productivity? Why not just
inject adrenaline right into your heart? Come on, people should use some "more
common sense" and not overuse these substances.
------
jaboutboul
can we update the title to reflect what the condition actually is?
Green tea compound may halt molecular cause of often-fatal multiple myeloma
~~~
jdnier
No, it affects protein folding in light chain amyloidosis, which often
accompanies MM, but is a disease in itself.
“The ECGC pulled the light chain into a different type of aggregate that
wasn’t toxic and didn’t form fibril structures,” as happens to organs affected
by amyloidosis.
------
jdnier
AL (light chain) amyloidosis is a protein folding disease that causes an
accumulation of amyloid protein in the organs, and is usually fatal. This
green tea compound, EGCG, seems to transform light chain amyloid, "preventing
the misshapen form from replicating and accumulating dangerously". More
information on the disease here:
[http://www.amyloidosis.org/facts/al/](http://www.amyloidosis.org/facts/al/)
~~~
jdnier
Film actor Michael York has become a spokesman of sorts for people with the
disease.
[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/20/michael...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/20/michael-
york-battle-with-amyloidosis)
------
bhouston
[http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/episodes/2015-2016/green-
tea](http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/episodes/2015-2016/green-tea)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mistakes in silicon chips could help boost computer power - yanw
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10134655.stm
======
coderdude
So software (or another part of the CPU) will handle the errors so that the
programmer doesn't have to check that every single operation worked correctly.
This reminds me of how Hadoop handles failures such as a hard drive dying. If
we're abstracted from the failures we really don't have to pay attention to
them (except with a distributed filesystem you would need to replace dead
hardware).
This is a very interesting concept. Although it mentions decreased power
consumption, would this also entail more performance for chips? It mentions
that Moore's Law is being hampered by our "need for perfection."
~~~
forgottenpaswrd
When you use a hard drive you are already using a "stable" CPU, you are sure
that the checking operations(CRC...) you do are well done.
How are you going to check something is well done without doing it if you
don't know the solution?.Whatever you do you are going to add a ton of new
logic(more consumption, and complexity and HORRIBLE BUGS on hardware level).
I meet people that had to manage hardware bugs when CPUs where not as reliable
as today(automatic testing in VHDL and Verilog has helped a lot), like the
people that worked in the first Cray computers. It made their lives miserable,
boring, repetitive and painfully slow work.
The worst bug in existence for a programmer is the one that appears and
disappears randomly and when you had invested months of work trying to find it
on your code, you find is a hardware bug!!
~~~
reitzensteinm
I always imagined that this would work by doubling up the hardware, requiring
two logic units to agree, if they didn't then computation work would be
redone, much like a branch prediction failing.
This would obviously not help power consumption at all, but freqeuncy could
probably be scaled up quite a bit.
It also assumes that if an error happens it's unlikely to repeat in the same
way in the second logic unit. But that may not be a reasonable assumption.
~~~
gdickie
At the lowest level, you don't need to double-up, you can use an error
correcting code. If the memories and registers on a chip use a multiple-error
correcting code, then the underlying error rate could be quite high without
making any difference in the user-visible error rate.
Similarly you could use noisy-network protocols for on-chip wires, so that
each signal path doesn't need to be perfect. Again you don't need to double-
up. Instead you lose a small percent to overhead, and a delay in order to
encode / decode.
~~~
reitzensteinm
How would the error correcting code work for something like a floating point
multiplication? Correcting errors in storage is simple, but correcting errors
in computation seems like a significantly harder problem.
------
maushu
So now, not only do we have to worry about our own mistakes, we have to worry
that 1 + 1 might be 3, while programming? Great.
------
wlievens
This probably applies best to specific needs. For instance, I can imagine that
a lot of people would accept small errors in images rendered by their GPU in
exchange for greater performance.
------
forgottenpaswrd
oh, brilliant, so we need to make our software systems exponentially more
complicated(when anything is possible, you need to add complexity) to gain a
30% power reduction in hardware?.
And add the possibility for the computer to fail at random(statistical
atypicals that are not "filtered").
I think this is not a good idea.
~~~
someone_here
Keep in mind that currently, about 100 bits of memory in your computer are
flipped every year just because of cosmic rays.
~~~
nudded
[citation needed] (for real, I would love to know if this is true)
~~~
Retric
ECC really does help. For home use non ECC memory is probably acceptable as
most errors are going to be in graphics data etc. But, for a few $ more you
can significantly increase your computers stability.
"Recent tests give widely varying error rates with over 7 orders of magnitude
difference, ranging from 10−10−10−17 error/bit•h, roughly one bit error, per
hour, per gigabyte of memory to one bit error, per century, per gigabyte of
memory.[7][11][12]"
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_random_access_memory>
------
Daniel_Newby
A 1% error rate in pointer writes would be ... interesting.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Will 2-D tin be the next super material? - hythloday
http://m.phys.org/news/2013-11-d-tin-super-material.html
======
tokenadult
The Physical Review Letters abstract[1] (kindly included as a link in the
recycled press release[2] kindly submitted here) may lead to more information
about this preliminary finding.
Research lab press releases are a known part of the Science News Cycle[3] and
are at best just a teaser to get actual working scientists to read the peer-
reviewed journal publications to see how much those really say.
There is such a visceral reaction to PhysOrg as a press-release recycling
service here on Hacker News that I will, not meaning to put down the kind
person who submitted this link, post some previous Hacker News comments about
PhysOrg as a source below the references for this comment. It will be
interesting to see what comes of this preliminary research report.
[1]
[http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v111/i13/e136804](http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v111/i13/e136804)
[2] [http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/04/is-
it-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/04/is-it-
journalism-or-just-a-repackaged-press-release-heres-a-tool-to-help-you-find-
out/275206/)
[3]
[http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174](http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174)
SOMEWHAT LONG FAQ ON PhysOrg AS A SOURCE:
PhysOrg appears to have been banned as a site to submit from by Reddit. I
learned from other participants here on HN that there are better sites to
submit from.
Comments about PhysOrg:
[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3077869](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3077869)
"Yes Physorg definitely has some of the worst articles on the internet."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3149824](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3149824)
"I viscerally distrust anything from physorg.com. Anyone have a better
option?"
[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3198249](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3198249)
"Straight from the European Space Agency, cutting out the physorg blogspam:
[http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1116/](http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1116/)
(press release),
[http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic1116a/](http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic1116a/)
(video),
[http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/releases/scien...](http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/releases/science_papers/heic1116.pdf)
(paper).
"PhysOrg: just say no."
[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3611888](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3611888)
"The physorg article summary is wrong, I think."
[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108857](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108857)
"Phys.org is vacuous and often flat wrong."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4890900](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4890900)
"And note that the gravity lamp was announced on physorg.com, famous for how
wrong it is about science topics."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5106145](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5106145)
"I try and debunk/explain [shady] biological science news wherever possible
here. In fact, it's typically my only contribution, but one I feel is highly
important.
"Your perpetual (and totally correct) crusade against PhysOrg reminds me there
are others doing the same, and for that I thank you."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5276327](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5276327)
"Physorg? Ugh.
"Didn't even bother click, came here to read comments instead.
"Can HN please ban Physorg like everyone else?"
------
TeMPOraL
Could this material be used for "heavy" stuff, like power transmission or
lifting trains, and not only electronics?
~~~
Sharlin
The square-cube law would probably end up being a problem - there's only _so_
much current that can flow through a one- or two-dimensional conductor even
with zero resistance.
~~~
benjamincburns
By ohm's law, zero resistance means infinite current. I don't know anything
about super conductors, but I thought that was the appeal? If not, what
replaces ohms law in a superconductor? Or, put differently, how is the current
limit defined?
~~~
XorNot
The critical current does. Superconductivity is eventually destroyed by
magnetic fields, so all superconductors can only carry so much current before
they quench and become regular conductors.
But this isn't a superconductor - it's a ballistic conductor. The idea is that
it'll ballistically transport electrons with certain energy levels, which is
functionally superconductivity (they don't lose energy to the conductor
itself). But, since only electrons with a certain energy can enter in the
first place, and since the energy levels are defined as a Boltzmann
distribution, they still have a resistance which is proportional to the band
of electron energies which cannot enter.
So at RT it's _great_ for a CPU, where the problem is you don't want heat
being created on the die itself. But it doesn't allow you to do long-distance
transmission like we'd like to with regular superconductors (since it would
still have a resistance), and the mono-monolecular nature implies it wouldn't
scale anyway.
~~~
hythloday
Thanks so much for this comment - when reading the article I noticed it
carefully circumlocuted "superconductivity", and was curious what the
difference was. This perfectly explains it (and goes into further interesting
detail), which is exactly what I wanted.
------
deletes
That is all nice, but still theoretical. Good luck constructing material made
with flourine in a very specific way.
~~~
moocowduckquack
We can push single atoms around in the lab, so I don't think there will be too
many problems in testing this experimentally.
~~~
Someone
Maybe, but that 'fluorine' part is cause for concern
([http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/02/23/things_i_won...](http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/02/23/things_i_wont_work_with_dioxygen_difluoride.php):
_" The latest addition to the long list of chemicals that I never hope to
encounter takes us back to the wonderful world of fluorine chemistry. I'm
always struck by how much work has taken place in that field, how long ago
some of it was first done, and how many violently hideous compounds have been
carefully studied."_)
There may be a perfectly harmless way to make this at industrial scale, but I
would not bet on it.
~~~
moocowduckquack
Toothpaste manufacture must be nearly impossible then.
~~~
sp332
That's sodium hexafluorosilicate (Na2SiF6). It's much less reactive than
elemental fluorine.
~~~
moocowduckquack
Tin fluoride is also commonly used in toothpaste under the name of stannous
fluoride.
~~~
orware
Hehe, I read "stannous" and immediately thought of Stannis Baratheon.
------
SeanLuke
Headline is misleading.
The magic phrase in the article is "could be".
------
leeoniya
No. [1] (pardon the snark)
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)
------
pistle
As freely as cars on a freeway? I want better for my electrons.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Add bytecode cache to Ruby - ksec
https://github.com/github/ruby/pull/27
======
3JPLW
What's the relationship between github/ruby and ruby/ruby? It looks like
they've diverged quite a far ways away from each other, but that might just be
an artifact of which branches GitHub uses when comparing the two.
~~~
randall
Seems like this is Github's (the company's) fork of Ruby. ruby/ruby seems like
the official ruby.
~~~
YorickPeterse
Correct, Github uses their own fork to apply changes for their own needs.
~~~
3JPLW
Do you know how much they try to push their own changes back upstream?
~~~
sams99
Yes, Aman and Koichi work very closely, the main point of difference at the
moment is the method cache patches, Koichi is working on getting something
similar implemented in MRI
~~~
ksec
Why something similar but not the same?
~~~
claudiug
That is a very good question, and I also I'm curious to find out
~~~
ksec
As if the Ruby Community has more then enough resources to improve on TWO
Compiler / Interpreter at the same time. Isn't it better to work together then
to reinvent the wheel?
Speaking of compiler, the JIT for Ruby development has been very quiet for
months.
------
haberman
I wrote a benchmark that measures the speed of various VM parsers and the
speedup that precompiling brings. I found that precompiling was a huge speed
benefit: [http://blog.reverberate.org/2014/10/the-speed-of-python-
ruby...](http://blog.reverberate.org/2014/10/the-speed-of-python-ruby-and-
luas.html)
------
daurnimator
Interesting...
The Lua community has found that bytecode is actually _slower_ to load than it
is to generate from source: The extra latency of loading the (larger) bytecode
from disk/ssd/flash, exceeds the cpu time to lex/parse.
~~~
ploxiln
On the other hand, Lua syntax is much simpler
(slightly out of date: [http://programmingisterrible.com/post/42432568185/how-
to-par...](http://programmingisterrible.com/post/42432568185/how-to-parse-
ruby))
~~~
daurnimator
> slightly out of date:
> [http://programmingisterrible.com/post/42432568185/how-to-
> par...](http://programmingisterrible.com/post/42432568185/how-to-parse-ruby)
Ouch.... Perhaps a lesson in making your language's grammar too complex: if
you do, you'll eventually have to pre-compile.
~~~
TheLoneWolfling
So has Ruby joined the ranks of languages that formally cannot be parsed due
to the halting problem?
I know Perl is in that category.
~~~
vidarh
I don't think so. There are a few things that looks distinctly iffy in that
respect on the surface, but they are resolved.
e.g. is "foo" a method call or an instance variable? You can't know in
isolation, but it doesn't matter at parse time, as if it's part of a larger
construct that is only valid as a method call, such as if there's an argument
list after "foo", it is parsed as a method call. E.g:
foo = 1
foo(42)
will result in:
test.rb:4:in `<main>': undefined method `foo' for main:Object (NoMethodError)
I think all of the potential cases that might have otherwise made Ruby
impossible to formally parse are resolved in similar ways.
Now, there are certainly layering violations. The aforementioned example of
"foo" by itself can only be resolved by determining whether or not "foo" is in
scope as a local variable at the point it is referenced, for example, but you
can opt to defer the decision until after parsing.
------
Arnor
How significant is the performance impact on a mid-large Ruby on Rails
application?
~~~
fizx
It's mostly annoying in development when your mid-large Rails app takes 30s-2m
to start-up and/or reload after an edit.
~~~
vidarh
Most of the time that is likely due to bundler/rubygems stuffing your load
path full and causing thousands of unnecessary stat calls.
The actual time spent loading/parsing files is in most cases a tiny fraction
of the startup time of any large project using rubygems and bundler.
I counted several hundred thousand unnecessary stat calls on the biggest app I
have, and ended up with a ugly hack where we trimmed the load path around each
set of require's to only paths needed by that specific gem.
~~~
foz
Or, as I've seen a few times, you have circular references in your rails asset
includes.
------
JulianWasTaken
Hah. .pyc files are one of the worst part of Python for developers.
export PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=true is the first thing anyone should be doing.
I guess it figures that we copy each others' mistakes.
~~~
michaelmior
I've been coding in Python for many years and I can count on one hand the
number of times that this has actually caused me any problems.
~~~
JulianWasTaken
What is the total amount of time you spent during those few times, although
including the amount of time to learn what happened, and how many thousands of
times larger is that amount than the sum total of the time saved by caching
bytecode compilation every single time you loaded a pyc for every file you
ever wrote?
~~~
michaelmior
Probably a few minutes spent. I'm not sure how to quantify the overhead of
caching compiled bytecode, but I'm guessing it beats that.
~~~
JulianWasTaken
It doesn't, which was my point :)
The overhead is _tiny_ , less than milliseconds for sane modules. It's a
useless optimization, especially when it can be done at install time only,
say, as opposed to for every module import, but even that is somewhat silly.
~~~
michaelmior
Without seeing any numbers, it doesn't mean much to me. I'm assuming someone
much smarter than me has identified the benefit of bytecode caching and unless
it really gets in my way, I see no need to do away with it.
------
aaronbrethorst
Does anyone know, offhand (or have a good educated guess), on what the largest
monolithic Ruby codebase in existence is? Is it GitHub?
~~~
ksec
Cookpad from Japan?
[https://speakerdeck.com/a_matsuda/the-recipe-for-the-
worlds-...](https://speakerdeck.com/a_matsuda/the-recipe-for-the-worlds-
largest-rails-monolith)
50 million unique user / month 15,000 Req/Sec
I posted this awhile ago but didn't pulled much attention
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9161220](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9161220)
------
claudiug
what is the advantages of adding bytecode cache?
~~~
nnq
speculating: it allows you to still be fine with a slower parser. and this
means you can theoretically make the parser smarter (like make it do some
inference and catch some bugs at parse-time?) without worrying that much about
performance. but then again, I can't imagine what kind of bugs could a parser
catch for such a dynamic language like Ruby, so they're probably just doing it
to shave some milliseconds from program-start-up time...
~~~
btown
With huge libraries (like SpreeCommerce, for instance), startup time can be
seconds or more even on recent hardware, and the vast majority of that code
isn't changing between runs. So if every gem was cached, they could see
radically faster times to load their test suites across their entire
organization. It's well worth it even without a smarter parser.
------
Mojah
This is the equivalent of APC or OpCache in PHP's world?
~~~
Freaky
PHP needs an opcache because its standard behaviour is to discard all state
after each request - including all compiled bytecode - kind of emulating the
CGI model.
Ruby web apps on the other hand tend to be run in a loop - the script never
exits after a request, it just goes back to the top of the loop to accept the
next request to serve.
e.g.
[https://github.com/rack/rack/blob/master/lib/rack/handler/fa...](https://github.com/rack/rack/blob/master/lib/rack/handler/fastcgi.rb#L27)
FCGI.each { |request|
serve request, app
}
It's nice because it completely decouples your app's startup time from request
processing time, so you can do expensive setup stuff up-front without slowing
down each request. The disadvantage to that is there's not much pressure to
keep startup time low, since it's only happening once.
~~~
juliangregorian
Yeah man, PHP makes scaling easy, it's shared nothing by default, do you even
web scale bro? /s
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple's A12Z Under Rosetta Outperforms Microsoft's Native Arm-Based Surface ProX - wwelch
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/29/apple-rosetta-2-a12z-beats-surface-pro-x/
======
melling
“and though forbidden, the first thing some developers did was benchmark the
machine."
That’s why Apple is saving the new chips for the new Macs.
~~~
olliej
surprising absolutely no one :D
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lifetimes of cryptographic hash functions - tswicegood
http://valerieaurora.org/hash.html
======
ReidZB
I think SHA-2 should be "minor weakness discovered" (if not outright
"unbroken"), not "weakened".
At the onset of the SHA-3 competition, everyone was nervous about SHA-2: it
appeared as though a good attack was inevitable, what with the cryptanalytic
attacks on SHA-1.
But as the competition went on, things got calmer. The attacks against SHA-2
that were so expected simply weren't coming[1]. And so now the status quo is
that SHA-2 seems pretty darn safe, and the real focus of the SHA-3 competition
shifted towards not necessarily having a direct replacement for SHA-2, in the
sense of performance, but instead having a design that was sufficiently
different to not allow SHA-2 attacks to apply to it. And Keccak is just that:
quite different.
Anyway, my point is that SHA-2 is mislabeled. Honestly, I think cryptographers
recommend it the most out of any of the hash functions currently; SHA-3's
software performance is rather... lacking.
[1] Some may argue that this is because cryptographers were focused on the
SHA-3 candidates, but I'm not so sure
~~~
thirsteh
BLAKE2 is a very good alternative if you want software performance:
[https://blake2.net/](https://blake2.net/).
Just stop what you're doing and look at scrypt, bcrypt or even PBKDF2-HMAC-
SHA512 if you're thinking something that involves the words "passwords" and
"fast hash function." ([http://throwingfire.com/storing-passwords-
securely/#notpassw...](http://throwingfire.com/storing-passwords-
securely/#notpasswordhashes))
~~~
moondowner
+1 for bcrypt and related solutions.
[http://yorickpeterse.com/articles/use-bcrypt-
fool/](http://yorickpeterse.com/articles/use-bcrypt-fool/)
[http://codahale.com/how-to-safely-store-a-password/](http://codahale.com/how-
to-safely-store-a-password/)
------
pbsd
Why is SHA-2 orange? As far as I know, besides length-extension, there's no
known weakness on the full hash function.
~~~
chacham15
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_cryptographic_ha...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_cryptographic_hash_functions)
or more specifically:
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38348-9_16](http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38348-9_16)
and [http://eprint.iacr.org/2010/016.pdf](http://eprint.iacr.org/2010/016.pdf)
~~~
harshreality
The attacks are on reduced-round versions of SHA-256 and SHA-512. Those do not
describe any attacks faster than (dumb) brute force against SHA-256 or
SHA-512.
I think labeling SHA-256 as orange is highly misleading. The SHA-2 family of
hashes is going nowhere unless the partial-round attacks get a lot closer to
the full-round versions. They're still about 20+ rounds away.
------
josephagoss
If the SHA-2 family have weaknesses, and SHA-2 is used for generating Bitcoin
blocks, whoever breaks this first will be an overnight millionaire, just make
sure you break them slowly (about 20 a day max) to avoid suspicion that the
hashing is compromised. Sell as much as possible and then release your paper.
~~~
qnr
Indeed, bitcoin is like a cryptography competition with ridiculously huge
prize.
1\. Break SHA2 -> control bitcoin generation ($2500 each generated block at
current prices)
2\. Break ECDSA -> unlock any addresses that have ever sent money on the
blockchain
3\. Break ECDSA+SHA2+RIPEMD160 -> break ALL addresses, even those that have
never sent money.
Incidentally, the difference between 2 and 3 is why it is not recommended to
reuse bitcoin addresses.
~~~
eterm
Break any and the value of bitcoins will crash hard.
You can't take millions out of a system which doesn't actually have millions
worth of liquidity backing it. The total worth of all bitcoins is actually far
smaller than the market capitalization of all bitcoins because the trade of
them is based off an assumption that many if not most coins are dead coins.
~~~
qnr
Well, MtGox monthly volume is over 1 million BTC [1] or $100 million at
current prices. I think you should be able to take out at least a few million
without raising suspicion
In case of SHA2 compromise in particular, generating, say 20% of daily blocks
would hardly be noticed (and can be easily explained as a new shipment of
ASICs). This is about 720 BTC or $72000 daily.
[1]
[http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxUSD.html](http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxUSD.html)
------
ceautery
The "slashdotter reaction" column is priceless!
------
Scaevolus
Use of SHA-1 for digital signature generation has been deprecated by NIST
since 2011. It's disallowed after 2013-- which is important for software
aiming for government use.
[http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-131A/sp800-13...](http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-131A/sp800-131A.pdf)
------
mistercow
>[1] Note that 128-bit hashes are at best 2^64 complexity to break; using a
128-bit hash is irresponsible based on sheer digest length.
Can a short hash which has not been weakened be lengthened by taking two
hashes and concatenating?
fixedSalt = "blah"
longerHash = (salt, input) ->
hash(salt + input) + hash(salt + fixedSalt + input)
Edit: Never mind. Obviously an attacker would only have to break the first
half of the resulting hash.
But is there any valid way to lengthen a too-short hash? Not that it's of
practical importance; I'm just curious academically.
~~~
sdevlin
This is actually a pretty interesting question. The answer, at least for
Merkle-Damgard hash functions (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-2, etc) is that concatenating
(or "cascading") hash functions doesn't really improve the strength of the
resulting construction.
Merkle-Damgard hash functions look like this:
function MD(M, H, C):
for M[i] in pad(M):
H := C(M[i], H)
return H
For message M, initial state H, and compression function C. In other words,
pad the message, break it into blocks, and use the compression function to
"mix" each block into the hash function's state. The final state is the
result.
Antoine Joux showed that for any MD hash function, generating many collisions
is not much more difficult than generating one. Here's how:
1. Take the initial state H[0].
2. Find two single-block messages that collide under C with H[0] as the input state. Call the result H[1].
3. Now find another pair of single-block messages that collide under C with H[1] as the input state. Call the result H[2].
4. Iterate as needed.
Here's the trick: each single-block collision you find is actually doubling
your set of colliding messages. This is because for each block of the message,
you can select either of two candidate blocks. So if the effort required to
find a collision in a b-bit hash function is 2^(b/2), the effort to find 2^n
such collisions is only n * 2^(b/2).
What does this mean for cascaded hash functions? Well, consider a hypothetical
construction that simply concatenates a 128-bit hash function with a 160-bit
function. A plan of attack might look like this:
1. Find 2^80 colliding messages under the 128-bit function. This should take roughly 80 * 2^64 ~= 2^70.3 units of "effort".
2. Evaluate each message under the 160-bit function. There's probably a collision in there somewhere. This will take around 2^80 work, dwarfing what we did in the first step.
The effort to find a collision under both functions is thus only about what it
takes to find a collision under the stronger of the two.
Shameless plug: we will have a few problems exploring the consequences of Joux
collisions in set seven of the Matasano crypto challenges.
~~~
mistercow
Ah, so in fact the naive concatenating solution I gave, in addition to being
just as easy because the attacker only has to break half of it, is actually
even _easier_ because the attacker has two targets to collide with.
What about non-concatenative methods? For example, could you do something like
"shift and xor". For example, say you have a 4-byte hash function, so that:
hash(salt + input) : 0x3AF9
hash(salt + fixedSalt + input) : 0x8034
then you shift one by a byte and xor like so
3AF90
xor 08034
= 32FA4
And then you could iterate that to extend to as many bytes as you want? And
then maybe you'd want to xor the first and last byte together so that nothing
from the first hash remains - although now I'm thinking intuitively which
generally seems to be a bad idea with crytpography.
~~~
sdevlin
> Ah, so in fact the naive concatenating solution I gave, in addition to being
> just as easy because the attacker only has to break half of it, is actually
> even easier because the attacker has two targets to collide with.
I wouldn't say it's easier. Remember that we need to find a single message
that generates a collision under _both_ hash functions. So our strategy is to
generate a massive number of collisions for the shorter function and hope that
there's one pair of messages in there that collide under the longer function.
> What about non-concatenative methods?
I think this will again boil down to finding a single message that generates a
collision under both hash functions. It won't matter too much whether you XOR
the hashes or concatenate them.
~~~
mistercow
Hmm. It still seems to me that the simple concatenative method could still be
broken at least slightly more quickly, since each function can be collision
tested separately, but my brain is vaguely gesturing at comprehension about
why xoring is still weak.
I feel like we should be teaching the principles of crypto to young children
so that we end up with some humans that can grok it as easily as the rest of
us do algebra. But there are a great many things I would want young children
to be taught if I were made the Benevolent Dictator of All School Boards.
------
jgale
I guess 2004 was a crazy year for cryptography.
~~~
pbsd
Indeed it was. Wang's breakthrough work [1,2] broke most of the common hash
functions at the time, and later also SHA-1 [3]. The SHA-3 competition was
motivated by this streak of new successful attacks.
[1] [http://eprint.iacr.org/2004/199](http://eprint.iacr.org/2004/199)
[2]
[http://www.iacr.org/cryptodb/archive/2005/EUROCRYPT/2868/286...](http://www.iacr.org/cryptodb/archive/2005/EUROCRYPT/2868/2868.pdf)
[3]
[http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F11535218_2](http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F11535218_2)
------
liamzebedee
Sorry, why is RIPEMD-160 deprecated? I've been unable to find any supporting
information as to why.
~~~
rgbrenner
it appeared after sha1, receives less attention than sha1, and is slower than
sha1... so why use it at all?
~~~
thirsteh
Many use it because it wasn't developed by the NSA. It is a default in
TrueCrypt, for example.
~~~
nly
It's used in Bitcoin as well (after SHA-2) to shorten up addresses. Come to
think of it, I think Tor uses it for .onion addresses... which they shorten to
80 bits (of preimage resistance!)
------
tudorconstantin
Confession time: i still have some apps with salted md5 hashed passwords
~~~
thirsteh
You shouldn't be using any of the functions on that page directly, anyway:
[http://throwingfire.com/storing-passwords-
securely/#notpassw...](http://throwingfire.com/storing-passwords-
securely/#notpasswordhashes)
~~~
zanny
But it does matter, because if you can exploit a weakness in the hash function
you can figure out the salt, strip it, and then use your precomputed
dictionary.
~~~
thirsteh
That's not really how it works. Either way, you shouldn't be using just a
regular "hash function" anyway. Even basic constructions like PBKDF2 use HMAC
constructions where SHA1 and even MD5 are still pretty safe to use (although
not very computationally expensive.)
------
dkokelley
For more information on the 'weakened' state of SHA-2, see
[http://eprint.iacr.org/2004/207](http://eprint.iacr.org/2004/207)
(Full text PDF:
[http://eprint.iacr.org/2004/207.pdf](http://eprint.iacr.org/2004/207.pdf))
------
lmm
It'd be nice to have whirlpool in the list - I remember when it was seen as
the great new hope for a good hash, but I haven't heard anything about it in
recent years.
------
wldlyinaccurate
The Expert/Programmer/Non-expert reactions at the bottom are priceless.
------
Ricapar
The "reactions" table at the bottom made my morning.
------
islon
2004 was a bad year for cryptographic hash functions...
------
rorrr2
It's missing the most important ones: Scrypt, PBKDF2, Bcrypt.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrypt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrypt)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bcrypt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bcrypt)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBKDF2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBKDF2)
Scrypt being an absolute nightmare to bruteforce, even for short passwords.
[http://i.stack.imgur.com/sOMvu.png](http://i.stack.imgur.com/sOMvu.png)
~~~
ReidZB
These aren't cryptographic hash functions _exactly_ , though, at least not in
the sense that a cryptographer would think. I mean, they _will_ fit just about
any definition of a cryptographic hash function you can think of, but really
it's not that useful to label them as such. Instead, they're usually called
key derivation functions.
On top of that, even if we were to include these in a hash function list,
they're decidedly not the most important ones. Most important for password
storage and other key derivation, perhaps, but the applications of hash
functions are far more general. The preimage resistance of scrypt is reliant
on SHA256, for instance.
~~~
16s
Cryptographic hash functions must be efficient to compute. Those examples
(scrypt, bcrypt, etc) were designed to be difficult to compute. Those are
password hash functions, not cryptogrpahic hash functions. Two totally
different things with different purposes.
~~~
ReidZB
Well, in complexity theory (which theoretical cryptography uses heavily), an
efficiently computable function is one that has a polynomial-time algorithm to
compute it.
I mean, wouldn't you say that scrypt is efficient to compute? For instance, is
5 seconds not a relatively quick function evaluation? Compare that to super-
polynomial-time attacks, some of which wouldn't succeed before our Sun burned
out and Earth died. And if you ramp up the security parameters to an insane
degree, the user can no longer compute the function themselves. That's the
reason for the "efficient to compute" clause in most definitions.
So, while you're right that the fact that KDFs are designed to be much slower
than hashes is what really separates them, that doesn't disqualify KDFs from (
_technically_ ) being cryptographic hash functions. At least, not if you view
the definition in a theoretical sense, which is the appropriate way to do so.
Still, I agree with your premise; in a practical sense, KDFs shouldn't feel
like they are cryptographic hashes, since their purpose is markedly different.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (February 2014) - whoishiring
Please lead with either SEEKING WORK or SEEKING FREELANCER, your location and whether remote work is a possibility.
======
dylandrop
SEEKING FREELANCER - Remote / NYC - ControlShift Labs -
[http://www.controlshiftlabs.com/](http://www.controlshiftlabs.com/)
We are an organization devoted to building web tools for progressive activists
and nonprofits worldwide. Right now we have two main products that we've been
working on -- an online petitioning and campaigning tool, and a donations
platform is in the works. Our clients include 350.org, Greenpeace India, and
38 Degrees. To get a sense for what we do, you can view the petitions platform
in action here: [http://campaigns.350.org/](http://campaigns.350.org/)
We're looking for part-time and possibly full-time web developers. We're
located in both NYC and Buenos Aires -- a small and remote Rails company. We
generally prefer those who work in the same time zone, but we still would like
to talk to those who might live in different time zones.
Experience with Rails is preferred, but not necessary. Drop us a line at talk
- at - controlshiftlabs.com
------
antoviaque
SEEKING FREELANCER -- REMOTE OK. OpenEdX Consultancy (Canada/France)
Consultancy specialized on the edX project, and hiring to handle increasing
demand. edX is a free software project, used by various universities and
companies to run online courses. See edx.org, class.stanford.edu, france-
universite-numerique-mooc.fr or codecoalition.com for examples of edX
instances.
It's a large Python/Django codebase, with good code standards and architecture
(a lot of the edX engineers come from MIT). You would work on different
clients contracts using the platform. The clients list/references include
Harvard, edX themselves, the French government, and various startups &
universities currently running their own instances, or looking to create one.
Tasks are varied, from developing custom features for specific courses
(XBlocks), customizing instances, developing generic platform features,
deploying instances, working on both client/server sides, etc.
Most of your work would be published as free software (edX is released under
the AGPL license, which requires clients to release modifications under the
same license), and you would also contribute to the free software project,
pushing some of your developments upstream through pull requests, contributing
features, documentation or help on mailing-lists.
You would be able to work remotely from where you want, as long as you have a
good internet connexion. : )
Stack: Python/Django, Ansible, AWS, Debian/Ubuntu, JS, HTML/CSS, MySQL,
MongoDB
Applying: Email [email protected] with: your github account, a short
explanation of why you're interested and a list of links to free software
contributions you have made, if any.
------
yllus
SEEKING FREELANCER - Rogers Media (Toronto, Canada)
Located in the downtown Toronto campus of Rogers Communications, Rogers Media
is actively seeking a freelance web developer with strong PHP / WordPress
knowledge and exceptional front-end (JavaScript / jQuery / CSS3) skills for an
initial three-month contract, with the opportunity to turn that into much
more.
Our technology stack is split between WordPress (PHP/MySQL, hosted within the
company) and Ruby On Rails. Our mission is to architect, create and assist the
growth of brands of the likes of Sportsnet, Maclean's, Citytv, 680 News and
Chatelaine, plus literally nearly a hundred others.
Despite a couple of tough years for the media industry, Rogers Media remains
committed to making a name for itself for having the best digital division in
the Canadian media landscape. We're steadily growing our web and mobile
development teams, and like in any time of uncertainty and change, there's
enormous opportunity to do amazing new things. I think 2014 is going to be a
great year for us.
Shoot me an e-mail at [email protected] and we'll talk.
~~~
csomar
Is this a local gig only? or are you open for remote freelancers?
------
yegg
SEEKING FREELANCERS: DuckDuckGo (remote or local in Paoli, PA)
If you're an avid DuckDuckGo user who is excited about what we're trying to
accomplish check out our hiring page
[https://dukgo.com/help/en_US/company/hiring](https://dukgo.com/help/en_US/company/hiring)
Right now we're in need of some freelancing help in two areas: 1) devops
(using Chef); 2) our community platform at duck.co (using modern Perl).
------
helloshow-
SEEKING FREELANCER
Front End Developer - AngularJS (Ft. Lauderdale, FL or Remote)
Hello Show is modernizing a key workflow for real estate agents. The current
market for real estate technology is vastly underserved and Hello Show is
building the tools agents need and deserve. With our product in development,
we already have beta customers who have fallen in love and are anxious to sign
up now! We are a results and data driven team, and use Agile/SCRUM processes
to build.
Skills & Requirements:
\- Javascript expert
\- Expert with Angular.js and Node.js
\- Expert interfacing with APIs
\- Expert HTML 5 and CSS skills
\- Focus on test driven development
\- Appreciation for Web Accessibility and how that should translate to code.
\- Insane attention to detail
\- Desire and ability to continuously learn and implement new technologies
\- Effective communication with team members, focusing on project
requirements, capabilities, and schedule
\- Love of building products that people love
You are welcome to work remotely.
Application Instructions:
To apply, send an email to [email protected]. Be sure to reference the job
posting and where you came across it. Please provide any information that will
help us in our decision process (resume, portfolio, github, etc…). If you seem
like a good fit, we will want you to come by for a face-to-face interview or
chat on Skype. We are looking forward to hearing from you.
~~~
TJNevis
To Whom It May Concern:
My name is TJ Nevis and I feel I'm a good fit for this position. I recently
left my full time job to pursue my business full time and I've been connecting
with companies just like yours to take on outsourced/overbooked projects.
I am very familiar with responsive web design and all the websites I work on
are responsive. I have worked with MongoDB for over 2 years and AngularJS for
about a year and a half. I've read up on books and taken online courses on
both topics. I've built REST services with PHP and consumed them with
AngularJS. I've also consumed social REST APIs in my applications. I know
JavaScript, jQuery, and AngularJS extensively.
I have used LESS and SASS and have used HTML5 and CSS3 (also animating with
Angular). I use Github and Bitbucket (Git) for versioning.
My business website is currently under construction, but you can take a look
at my portfolio website to see projects that I have done in my spare time in
the last year. I am finishing up 3 websites now that I still need to add to my
portfolio.
I'm very familiar with using CDN's for speed (S3 and Rackspace, mainly), using
Grunt to minify CSS, HTML and JavaScript.
I think we could work well together and I look forward to hearing from you
soon.
My personal portfolio: [http://TJNevis.com](http://TJNevis.com).
------
mvanveen
SEEKING WORK: Remote or Bay Area
http://mvanveen.net
http://github.com/mvanveen
[email protected]
Some technologies I've used lately include:
Python, C
HTML5/CSS/JS
GAE datastore, DynamoDB, S3, SQL, MySQL, Redis, Mongo
AWS, Google App Engine, Heroku
Bottle, Django
Bootstrap, jQuery, D3, processing.js
Mustache/Pystache, jinja2
Python requests, ScraPy
Full stack web engineer specializing in Python. Heavy Google App Engine
experience. Also versed in Django, Bottle. Heavy html5/css/js experience
building responsive web sites, including with frameworks e.g. bootstrap,
jQuery. More of an implementer than a designer.
Past projects include the God of War website (godofwar.com), various web
crawlers and data importers for various clients, and a social voting app for
Google and Sunlight Foundation. I have I also have previous startup experience
at Getaround, a bay area p2p car sharing marketplace.
I love hacking together MVPs, building out features, building web crawlers and
data importers, static analysis. Would love to hear from you and learn about
your project!
------
ashkang
SEEKING WORK - Remote | Tehran, Iran
C/C++ on GNU/Linux with relevant tools and technologies.
Resume:
[http://tehlug.org/~ashkan/files/resume.pdf](http://tehlug.org/~ashkan/files/resume.pdf)
||
[http://tehlug.org/~ashkan/files/resume.tex](http://tehlug.org/~ashkan/files/resume.tex)
email: ghassemi AT ftml DOT net Ashkan Ghassemi
------
ritchiea
SEEKING WORK - New York City/Brooklyn or Remote
I am a fullstack web developer who typically writes Ruby and
Javascript/Coffeescript. I have been working with Rails for the last three
years and working on the front end (markup and styling) since I was in high
school (ten years ago). My recent projects include an XBRL parser to extract
balance sheets, work on a Rails app for Bookandtable.com (checkout their
staging url at
[http://staging.bookandtable.com](http://staging.bookandtable.com), they're
about to launch), and a JS/frontend heavy web app to endorse candidates in the
NYC mayoral primary.
I am looking for part time/half time work as I have one other client at the
moment. I am teaching him the Rails framework as we work together re-writing
his production Drupal app in Rails.
[http://github.com/ritchiea](http://github.com/ritchiea)
[http://andrewritchie.info](http://andrewritchie.info)
------
mvid
SEEKING WORK - San Francisco - Remote - Travel Possible Experienced pair of
software developers with a history in startups. Proficient in:
* Python ['django', 'bottle', 'google.app.engine']
* Ruby [:rails => 'heroku']
* Javascript ['angular','backbone','node'];
* Clojure '(Compojure)
* Haskell, Go (and other esoterics)
We've helped entrepreneurs develop their MVP, as well as large companies
develop core features. We provide services such as feature development,
product management, and software auditing. Previous engagements include
Getaround, Codecademy, Factset, Wakemate, drip.fm, and Swiftstack, among
others.
For more info see our page at [http://turbines.io](http://turbines.io), or
talk to us at [email protected]
------
JoeCortopassi
\------------------
SEEKING WORK - Based in Southern California
(Looking for remote)
\------------------
Joe Cortopassi
Email: joe[at]joecortopassi[dot]com
Skype: joe.cortopassi
\------------------
iOS developer
Full stack web developer
\------------------
Technologies: (not just the language, but also the appropriate frameworks and
libraries)
• Objective-C
• iPhone/iOS
• PHP
• MySQL
• Javascript
• HTML
• CSS
\------------------
Specialties:
• Business Analytics
• Api integration and development
• Persistent Data Management
\------------------
[http://joecortopassi.com](http://joecortopassi.com)
[http://linkedin.com/in/joecortopassi](http://linkedin.com/in/joecortopassi)
[https://github.com/JoeCortopassi](https://github.com/JoeCortopassi)
[https://twitter.com/JoeCortopassi](https://twitter.com/JoeCortopassi)
\------------------
About Me:
I started off in web development, doing mid-large size lead generation web
sites. As a big part of dealing with lead generation, I became proficient in
RESTful API integration and development, along with complex javascript web
applications used for analytics. I then began working on iPhone and iPad
applications over the years, working on apps for Cie Studios, BuySellAds, and
their respective clients. My ability to understand complex api's, also helped
me build connection management and caching systems for iOS apps that assured
the user that their information would always be posted to the server,
regardless of their data connection.
\------------------
~~~
livestyle
+1 for Joe.. great team member!
------
weeksie
NYC based consultant. Full stack developer (Rails since 2005). Coffee
Script/Javascript. ReactJS. Backbone. More languages than you can throw a
stick at. Etc. . . .
_Available in April_
Either for remote or on-site consulting, particularly around getting teams set
up with good development workflows. I'm great to have for a project kickoff.
Lots of startup and small biz experience (ex CTO, VP Engineering, etc. . .).
I'm picky. Very happy with the company that I'm consulting with now, but will
be doing some heavy traveling this summer (based in Berlin for June and July).
Looking for short gigs.
scott weeks at gmail. Mention HN.
------
cool-RR
SEEKING WORK - Remote only. (Based in Tel-Aviv.)
My name is Ram Rachum, and I’m a freelance software developer. I help
businesses solve their problems using software, mostly by developing web-based
applications. I work mainly in Python and Django.
On the technical level, it’s my responsibility to have high problem-solving
skills; to design a good architecture for each project I work on; to implement
that architecture quickly and effectively; and to be experienced with the
languages and frameworks that I’m using, so when a problem comes up, I don’t
have to spend 2 hours to research and solve it but rather just 5 minutes,
because I’ve seen that problem dozen of times before.
On the project-management level, it’s my responsibility to communicate clearly
and honestly with the client and my collaborators on the project; to
understand exactly what the client wants to build as we plan together how to
build it; to always keep the client updated about progress; to have an owner
mentality and make decisions with the best interest of the client in mind; to
own up to mistakes when they happen; and to always get feedback as early as
possible from the client and from the users, so we know we’re not wasting time
going into blind alleys, and we’re spending time only on features that the
users are happy with. My email is [email protected] . Send me an email and say
hello.
More details about me: [http://ram.rachum.com/cv/](http://ram.rachum.com/cv/)
------
ammmir
SEEKING WORK - San Francisco Bay Area, CA or REMOTE, TRAVEL OK
I build apps, websites, APIs, and turnkey solutions that solve critical
business problems. Here are some recent projects (more at
[https://www.pilvy.com/](https://www.pilvy.com/)):
* An iOS VPN client for a major VPN service provider that uses iOS's built-in configuration profiles.
* IVPN Client for Windows: Developed for IVPN ([https://www.ivpn.net/](https://www.ivpn.net/)), who had some unique security & privacy requirements. Based on OpenVPN.
* VMware End User Computing Demo Portal ([https://www.vmwdemo.com/](https://www.vmwdemo.com/)): Allows VMware's sales and marketing teams to easily demonstrate the Horizon product suite to potential customers. Eliminated a ton of time-consuming work by automating Active Directory/LDAP account provisioning, expiry, and integration with Horizon Workspace.
I'm looking for short-term (near-full time) and long-term (part-time)
projects. Available from mid-February.
tech: node.js, JavaScript, Objective-C/Cocoa/iOS, Ruby on Rails, C#/.NET,
Python, Elixir/Erlang
[https://www.pilvy.com](https://www.pilvy.com) |
[https://github.com/ammmir](https://github.com/ammmir) | amir at pilvy dot com
------
akbarnama
SEEKING WORK - remote only, from Mumbai-India
Recently helped a couple of clients with next version of their web projects -
implemented search using haystack for organicinputs.ca, integration with
payment gateways like PaypalExpress, PX Fusion for next version of
[http://architecturemedia.com/](http://architecturemedia.com/)
[https://www.book-pay.com](https://www.book-pay.com) went live in June 2013 -
developed from scratch in Django and Postgres,a site for booking seat for
cycling tours offered by www.londonbicycle.com - so far 530+ users with 400+
seats booked
Helped in launching [http://www.foodfan.com](http://www.foodfan.com) \-
Django,Postgres, S3 for photos, Sphinx for search, Jquery
8+ years of software development experience in dotnet and Django, open to
working on other technologies.
Have worked with clients from US, UK and Syria
A blog post - [http://www.vishalsodani.com/programming/experience-report-
fr...](http://www.vishalsodani.com/programming/experience-report-fr...).
[https://www.github.com/vishalsodani/](https://www.github.com/vishalsodani/)
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/vishalsodani](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vishalsodani)
Contact: [email protected]
------
piratebroadcast
Why are there so many devs seeking work? Scary.
~~~
almost
If you're a freelancer you're always "seeking work", even when you have a good
amount of work currently it never hurts to have more :)
------
superplussed
SEEKING WORK - remote / Berlin
I'm a front-leaning, full-stack developer that is splitting time between
Brooklyn and Berlin, and I am currently in Berlin. I am American, and know
just a little bit of German (but am learning).
I have experience with every aspect of creating an application, from mockups
and UX design, to graphic design, to the full-stack implementation, to
deployment. I've successfully built and sold a past start-up of mine, and have
a great deal of insight with product development. Because of this, I'm
probably of most value the earlier a project is in its life cycle.
Backend stack: Ruby on Rails, with DBs/data stores such as MySQL, Postgres,
Mongo, and Redis. I've also worked a bunch with Elastic Search. I can also use
Node.js or PHP for the right project, but lately I've been doubling down on
being a backend mono-glot.
Frontend stack: my preference is Angular.js, and I've also worked Backbone and
Meteor. I am very well-versed in current best practices, can build responsive
mobile-friendly websites, and code pixel perfect CSS and HTML5. I have a great
deal of graphic design experience and can help there as well.
Portfolio: [http://eatingthe.com](http://eatingthe.com)
Email: [email protected]
------
mamcx
SEEKING WORK - Remote | Colombia | Part-time US 40
[http://careers.stackoverflow.com/cv/employer/20796](http://careers.stackoverflow.com/cv/employer/20796)
[http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mario-alejandro-montoya-
cort%C3%...](http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mario-alejandro-montoya-
cort%C3%A9s/6b/212/680)
[https://www.odesk.com/users/~014afa40823bde9c3b](https://www.odesk.com/users/~014afa40823bde9c3b)
17+ years of experience creating software in use for more than +2000 users in
my country and around the world. Made software for government, business and
consumers. Experience: \- Python /Django (like !) - Delphi - .NET -
Objective-C - iOS development (like !) - RemObjects - Sql Server - Postgres
(like !) - HTML5 / JS / Bootstrap/ Zurb Foundation
Better at backend but work with front-end with no problem. Check my website
for my apps [http://www.elmalabarista.com](http://www.elmalabarista.com).
I work with scrum/mercurial for my own apps. Have contributed small fixes to
Django (update the Sql Server support, later forked as a independent project
by other people).
Moderator in a latin-america forum for developers (www.clubdelphi.com).
Have provide training in advanced use of databases for several companies in
the SENA (main government institution for work and advance in tech & startups
in Colombia).
Not hate Database/CRUD work! A lot of experience in integration of different
tech stacks and upgrading tech on several past developments.
------
hiddentao
SEEKING WORK: Remote - $100/hr
[email protected] |
[https://github.com/hiddentao](https://github.com/hiddentao) |
[http://uk.linkedin.com/in/hiddentao](http://uk.linkedin.com/in/hiddentao)
I am a full-stack web developer with 8+ years experience backed by a Computer
Science degree.
Primary specialities:
* Javascript - Node.js, Backbone, Ember, Angular
* Page speed optimisation and mobile rendering
* Continuous integration (I love setting up a build :)
Examples:
* https://showca.se
* http://www.syfy.co.uk
* http://squeljs.org
In the past I've also developed extensively in PHP, Python and and Java and
can work with them as and when needed. Going back even further I developed in
C++ for the Symbian OS. I am able to quickly ramp up on new technologies and
hit the ground running. I have worked with numerous clients in various
industry sectors, ranging from a two-person climate change start-up all the
way to a global media corporation. I can work with your team, lead your team
or go solo depending on project requirements.
Originally from the UK, I am currently travelling around.
------
munimkazia
Freelancer - SEEKING WORK - Mumbai, India - Remote
I have just completed my ongoing projects and I am back here for more. I have
been doing freelance work from reddit and HN successfully for the past year or
so.
I am a software engineer working in one of the country's largest e-commerce
websites.
I love learning and working on new technologies and platforms, but currently,
my main experience is in Node.js and PHP. I also have some experience in
working with Ruby and Sinatra. I work on linux, and I have deployed and
managed web, database and application servers on CentOS and Ubuntu. I am
familiar with bash scripting. I am also familiar with some basic Python and
Go, but I have never really got a chance to work on it.
One of my previous jobs involved working with a large WordPress application,
so I am quite adept with WordPress too. Most of my freelance work from reddit
has been on the wordpress front: Customizing and working on various plugins. I
have worked with various data stores too: Mysql, mongodb, redis are the
primary ones.
On the front end side, I have worked on big JavaScript projects working with
various html5 APIs. I dig semantic clean HTML markup and know my way around
CSS.
I have worked on AWS on an earlier job, though my current organization has its
own servers in a data center. I like working on big problems, "architecting"
solutions which scale out and working on them, and tackling and
troubleshooting live issues. I usually try to work on git whenever possible.
I am looking for medium to long term projects, and I love working remotely.
Let me know if you have anything interesting and we can chat. Email me at
[email protected].
------
Imagenuity
SEEKING WORK -- remote (or L.A./Orange County)
Just want a banana, and end up getting the gorilla and jungle too? My
experience will help you define your business needs, and come up with the
right solution to fit your requirements.
Full-Stack Developer. Front end development in Responsive HTML5, CSS3 and
JavaScript (jQuery, jQuery mobile, JSON), and RESTful APIs built with PHP or
Node.js on the server. Emphasis on a strong design to build projects that are
simple and attractive.
Specializing in iOS and Android apps built with Cordova/PhoneGap that work
beautifully on different screen sizes and devices.
20+ years professional software developer, 15+ years freelance
app website: [http://imagenuity.com](http://imagenuity.com)
[http://github.com/jimbergman](http://github.com/jimbergman)
[http://stackoverflow.com/users/1678813/jim-
bergman](http://stackoverflow.com/users/1678813/jim-bergman)
more examples of work [http://jimbergman.net](http://jimbergman.net)
Lets discuss your project - contact: jim at jimbergman.net or
[http://jimbergman.net/contact/](http://jimbergman.net/contact/)
------
HorizonXP
SEEKING FREELANCER - Toronto, ON - Remote possible
Looking for a designer, with an immediate need for web UI/UX work.
We're working on an exciting project with tremendous potential in an unsexy,
but niche space. We have paying customers in the pipeline, and now we need to
deliver.
We need a designer to help with the overall look and feel of a web-based
dashboard. The goal is to take lots of technical data, information, analytics,
and controls and whittle them down into a well-presented dashboard.
There is potential for continuing work on this project, and others, branching
into mobile app development as well.
I'm being intentionally vague, as I don't want to give out too many details
publicly. Suffice it to say, it's exciting enough that I left a very well-
known startup in the Bay Area to move to Toronto for this.
I'm looking for an A-level designer here that we could work with for the
foreseeable future, so my standards are pretty high. Send me links to your
past projects, portfolio, and Dribbble to xpatel [at] pulsecode [dot] ca.
P.S. Our current website is a poor signal for the kind of quality we're
looking for, so don't hold that against us. It also will not help you figure
out what the project is.
~~~
antonsten
Hi,
My name is Anton Sten and I'm a UI/UX designer with 15 years of experience.
I'm no stranger to work in unsexy spaces (have experience from working with
pension plans to anti depressives).
I have a portfolio at www.lepetitgarcon.com but would really like to discuss
this opportunity with you in order to better understand how I can be of
service.
Looking forward to hearing back from you - feel free to email me
([email protected]) and we can setup a Skype call. I'm based in Sweden
but do a lot of work for US-based companies.
Thanks Anton
------
rwhitman
SEEKING FREELANCERS - Remote
I'm a web dev / design consultant with an increasingly demanding workload and
I'm looking to bring in some help. I'm based out of NYC / LA (yes both,
kinda). I need folks in 2 areas -
1) Frontend / full stack web dev (HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP). I need someone
with very solid frontend web dev skills... and are comfortable and happy
working with Wordpress. Some of my client projects are big demanding
challenges, some of them are just CMS sites. You should be cool with either.
2) Systems work and IT referrals. I'm increasingly encountering clients that
require complicated environments - multiple nodes, load balancers etc and I'm
relatively useless in this area. Skills in AWS, CDNs like Akamai etc. Might be
just referrals, might hire you onto the occasional project depending on the
budget / scope.
If you're interested, email me at [email protected]
Also - I've posted in this thread on HN before for a client and we got a _lot_
of responses last time. Please please _please_ include skills, links to your
work, profiles on Github or Linkedin or a resume and some background info
about you. Thanks!
~~~
stevelack
I'd love to discuss your front end needs with you. I am strong in
HTML/CSS/JS/PHP development and have been doing a lot of Wordpress sites at
various levels of complication. You can learn more about me at
[http://genlack.com](http://genlack.com) and connect with me on LinkedIn at
[http://linkedin.com/in/stevelack](http://linkedin.com/in/stevelack) .
------
ashraful
SEEKING WORK - Remote Web+Mobile UI designer and front-end developer.
4+ years of experience with designing usable interfaces with a focus on
increasing user conversions.
Designed patio11's site which increased his conversion rate and profits:
[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/04/19/ab-testing-is-
frustratin...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/04/19/ab-testing-is-frustrating/)
[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/08/06/stripe-and-ab-testing-
ma...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/08/06/stripe-and-ab-testing-made-me-a-
small-fortune/)
Also designed the VideoLAN website and the interface for VLC Media Player for
Windows 8:
[http://www.videolan.org](http://www.videolan.org)
[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1061646928/vlc-for-
the-n...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1061646928/vlc-for-the-new-
windows-8-user-experience-metro/posts/372063)
Experience with Photoshop, Illustrator, HTML5, CSS3, Javascript/Jquery.
Knowledge of Ruby, Rails, BackboneJS, Git and Heroku.
Portfolio: [http://ashraful.me/work](http://ashraful.me/work)
Pricing: $55/hour
Email: [email protected]
------
rglover
SEEKING WORK - Remote/Chicago
Designer/developer. Proficient in front-end development, Meteor development,
and WordPress development.
Best suited helping startups get a nice marketing site/materials together for
their product (website, blog, email templates). I've worked with companies big
and small designing, developing, and deploying WordPress sites that focus on
promoting products or services.
I offer a total package for WordPress starting at $7k: landing page, two
custom page templates, blog, UI kit, assets/backups to Amazon S3, and
deployment workflow (this is huge for startups).
Some examples:
[http://summit.co](http://summit.co)
[https://properapp.com](https://properapp.com) <\-- My own product.
[http://2013freelancetools.com](http://2013freelancetools.com) (not WordPress,
but shows off my latest design style)
[http://menlocoaching.com](http://menlocoaching.com)
[http://dribbble.com/rglover](http://dribbble.com/rglover)
Laid back guy, but serious about quality. Make sure you come with a real
intention to get work done :)
Interested? Get in touch: [email protected].
------
Jasber
SEEKING WORK - REMOTE
I build beautiful iOS and Mac apps (among other things). Here's my latest:
[http://www.heyfocus.com/](http://www.heyfocus.com/)
I open sourced it at
[https://github.com/bradjasper/focus](https://github.com/bradjasper/focus)
I wrote a case study on it at
[http://bradjasper.com/focus.html](http://bradjasper.com/focus.html)
Another recent open-source project I made was a way to find patterns from
SubtlePatterns that did really well here on HN: [http://bradjasper.com/subtle-
patterns-bookmarklet/](http://bradjasper.com/subtle-patterns-bookmarklet/)
Here are some common questions I get about consulting:
[http://bradjasper.com/hire.html](http://bradjasper.com/hire.html)
I really love working with smart & creative people—if you care a lot about
building good products, services and experiences, I'd love to talk to you.
GitHub: [https://github.com/bradjasper/](https://github.com/bradjasper/)
Email: [email protected]
------
delinka
SEEKING WORK - Atlanta area (Georgia, US) Prefer remote
Languages/Tech: C, C#/.NET, SQL, Java, JavaScript, Node.js, HTML, CSS,
Objective-C (OS X & iOS)
Other Skills: Database design & admin, server admin
About: I am an adaptive problem solver. I learn new technologies and
techniques quickly. I am a “full stack” developer and administrator. Security
is not an afterthought. I believe in “make it work, make it right, make it
fast.”
------
bennyg
SEEKING WORK - Remote - iOS
I am an iOS software engineer with experience shipping apps (8 personal, and a
bunch more for various enterprise clients the past couple years) and writing
scalable, maintainable code. I'm atypical in the sense that I also have an art
degree and can design the UI/UX of an app and then go ahead and program it
too. I like working fast and want to take on short to medium-term projects
that won't have varying levels of bureaucracy and maddening back-and-forth. If
this sounds like the kind of project you need accomplished for iPhone or iPad,
read further.
\----------
Quick Portfolio:
Onions for iOS - www.onions.io
News/YC - [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/news-
yc/id592893508?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/news-yc/id592893508?mt=8)
Red Cup - [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/red-
cup/id477350446?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/red-
cup/id477350446?mt=8)
\----------
You can find me on GitHub as well:
[https://github.com/bennyguitar](https://github.com/bennyguitar)
\----------
If you want to talk further, email me:
brgordon [at] ua . edu
------
tjbiddle
SEEKING WORK - remote, (Traveling abroad)
Currently lead DevOps at my full time employment (Inflection). My experience
is in helping to find bottlenecks from development to deployment and to create
a more efficient workflow. I work daily to manage a multitude of servers, all
Puppet modules, packaging and deployment. I am the go-to guy when something
breaks and no one else has a clue where to start looking.
I'm also available for development work.
Technologies: Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Linux, Puppet, Git, AWS (EC2, Route53, S3,
etc.)
I'm extremely comfortable picking up new technologies and languages - the
above listed are what I work with daily; however I can work with with whatever
toolset is required.
Feel free to reach me at: biddle [dot] thomas [at] google's email service
[dot] com
Github: [https://github.com/thomasbiddle/](https://github.com/thomasbiddle/)
Personal site: [http://thomasbiddle.com/](http://thomasbiddle.com/)
LinkedIn:
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasbiddle](http://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasbiddle)
------
cynicalkane
SEEKING WORK -- Remote or local. I'm based out of nowhere in particular, and
like to travel to interesting places.
Full stack software engineer with 5+ years experience and a math background.
Mostly I do heavy lifting in Java and Clojure. I've worked on complicated
cloud pipelines, full-stack web apps, and in a past life, high volume, near
real-time distributed trade processing applications for a Big Finance Company.
I've also done work with parsing, domain specific languages, full-stack web
development, custom high-speed message queues, and security and encryption. I
like to solve hard problems.
Github: [https://github.com/mthvedt/](https://github.com/mthvedt/)
Linkedin: [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mike-
thvedt/11/5b4/9bb](http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mike-thvedt/11/5b4/9bb)
Contact: [email protected]
The buzzword list: Java, JEE, JMS, Hibernate, Spring, jUnit, Clojure,
Ring/Compojure, Javascript, jQuery, Mocha, Haskell, Oracle and Postgres SQL,
ElasticSearch, Redis, Mongo, AWS.
------
dpmehta02
SEEKING WORK - SF Bay Area - Remote or Local
Software Developer specializing in Web and Data Engineering, freelancing while
I build my startup. I spent three years as a Data Analyst, then quit and
taught myself to code. I've only been freelancing for six months, so I'm
willing to work at a discount while I build up my portfolio. I'm also open to
bartering.
Skills: Ruby/Rails, TDD, SQL, Redis, ElasticSearch, Python, R, Machine
Learning, Project Management, Git, Linux/Unix, AWS, Heroku
Production experience: Everything associated with large Rails projects, web
crawling, data pipelines, APIs, data analysis, product management
Side projects: I've built some apps in Node (Express, Meteor), and I compete
in Kaggle Data Science competitions when I have time
([http://www.kaggle.com/users/30845/dpmehta02](http://www.kaggle.com/users/30845/dpmehta02)).
I am particularly interested in NLP.
dpmehta02[at]gmail[dot]com
[https://github.com/dpmehta02](https://github.com/dpmehta02)
------
random42
SEEKING WORK - Remote
_Django /Python developer_
(Major) Skills: Python, Django, ML/NLP/Analytics, Hadoop, Cassandra, Postgres/MySQL, EC2, S3, Bootstrap, jQuery
I specialize in, Backend/Python development — POCs, rapid prototypes, load/performance testing etc.
Server side/DB performance optimizations & design to scale.
Big Data consulting — Hadoop Ecosystem + Cassandra. Have evaluated Mongo, Couchbase, Riak, DynamoDB, EMR and redshift as well for client requirements.
NLP/ML/Data Science Consulting — Sentiment Analysis, NER, Classification,Clustering,Statistical modelling
Find out more at
Linkedin:
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/mohitranka](http://www.linkedin.com/in/mohitranka)
Github: [http://www.github.com/mohitranka](http://www.github.com/mohitranka)
Portfolio: [http://mohitranka.com/work/](http://mohitranka.com/work/)
or
Email: [email protected] :)
------
donaldguy
SEEKING WORK - Remote or NYC
Donald Guy
Graduated MIT in CS 2012
\-- Tech:
Mostly been working for last few years as full-stack web developer:
HTML5/CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, Ruby, Rails. (less preferably) Java, PHP
Interested in DevOps and sys-admin stuff as well. Some experience with Chef.
older experience in app, systems, embedded, and OS-level work: C++, C, x86
Assembly, 8051 Assembly, Perl, Python, bash, Scheme
Would love excuses to need to learn Go, Scala, maybe Clojure; or play with
Docker. Prepared to learn AngularJS, Meteor, EmberJS, probably other
frameworks as needed.
\-- Personal:
Interested in music, fitness, social-good, social networking, education,
(foreign) languages, and working with local small businesses. Have decent
knowledge of craft beer.
Not particularly interested in anything finance-specific, nor probably
marketing/advertising-specific.
Would consider full-time positions if sufficiently interesting.
\-- Contact
E: [email protected]
[https://github.com/donaldguy](https://github.com/donaldguy)
[https://www.elance.com/s/donaldbguy/](https://www.elance.com/s/donaldbguy/)
------
transmit101
SEEKING FREELANCER - local
Android engineer - London - Mixlr [http://dev.mixlr.com](http://dev.mixlr.com)
-
Mixlr is a fast-growing platform for social live audio with millions of users
across the world.
We would like an experienced engineer help our small, passionate team bring
the Mixlr experience to the Android world.
The app will include live audio streaming, chat, discovery and all the key
features that mobile users already enjoy in our successful iOS app.
You will have experience of building at least one non-trivial native Android
app. The following attributes would also be advantageous:
* dedication to designing and building fantastic user interfaces
* knowledge of live streaming protocols, especially on mobile
* passion for music apps and/or audio programming
* experience working with JSON and RESTful APIs
* broad knowledge of different Android devices
* experience with test-driven development
* proficiency of at least one other language apart from Java, especially: C, C++, Ruby or JavaScript
For more information please see our dev portal:
[http://dev.mixlr.com](http://dev.mixlr.com)
------
dylanrw
SEEKING WORK - SF Bay Area / Remote - Long or Short Term Consultation
I am a Product Designer (Interaction Design/UI/UX). I have experience relevant
to products from iOS & Android to Large Web Platforms. I typically consult on
or perform the following:
* Product management - strategy, best practices, team building, implementation.
* Product design - strategy, best practices, team building, process, interaction design, ui design, iconography.
* Front end dev - I tend to build most things I spec at the very least to a minimum in which there is no chance of fidelity loss from prototype to final product. I've also setup processes for growing teams and established best practices for new hires.
[email protected] | [http://bvrgroup.us](http://bvrgroup.us) |
[http://dribbble.com/dylanrw](http://dribbble.com/dylanrw)
------
ryanjanvier
SEEKING WORK - Remote - Based in Canada
Experienced (13 years) Front end developer available for short and long term
remote contracts. I enjoy building amazing websites and user interfaces, with
an emphasis on usability and experience. I have experience working with remote
teams, managing outsourced contractors, startups (I am the co-founder of a
bootstrapped startup).
I have experience working with the following technologies:
\- HTML/CSS
\- Javascript
\- Ruby on Rails
\- PHP/mySQL
and have also dabbled in Objective-c, Python, and Ruby.
I work well with:
\- Remote teams
\- Outsourced contractors
\- Startups and agencies
\- Awesome people
I am not afraid of:
\- Learning new technologies
\- Working remotely
\- Hacking. If I don't know it, I'll figure it out.
Linkedin:
[http://ca.linkedin.com/in/ryanjanvier](http://ca.linkedin.com/in/ryanjanvier)
Dribbble:
[http://www.dribbble.com/ryanjanvier](http://www.dribbble.com/ryanjanvier)
Twitter:
[http://www.twitter.com/ryanjanvier](http://www.twitter.com/ryanjanvier)
Email: [email protected]
Portfolio: [http://thinktipi.com](http://thinktipi.com)
------
nigma
SEEKING WORK - Remote or on-site (Europe/US)
Backend and frontend development, mobile APIs, devops.
I usually do Python, Django, mobile backends, PostgreSQL/*DB, JS, Angular,
Scala, Go, system architecture, database design, automation, devops (Ansible,
Salt) and whatever it takes to get the job done.
I'm capable of executing all stages of projects, starting from a customer idea
and ending with a ready, deployed product. I have a broad technical and
domain-specific knowledge (medical, financial, automotive, location-based
services, machine-learning, analytics, wavelets) and several years of
experience working for startups, business customers and open-source.
I deliver several projects a year. Here's some of my work:
[http://en.ig.ma/projects](http://en.ig.ma/projects)
[http://github.com/nigma](http://github.com/nigma)
Drop me an email at [email protected]
PS. I'm open to cooperation with other freelancers (design, mobile, web,
etc.).
------
mryan
SEEKING WORK - Remote, Amsterdam, London
Syadmin as a Service
Do you want to improve your scaling, resilience and reliability, but don't
have a full-time Ops person on the team? Why not rent one?
I work with startups and online businesses to help them spend less time
worrying about technical problems, and more time growing their business.
How can I help you?
\- Expert sysadmin services, on tap \- Continuous Integration for your
infrastructure \- Infrastructure design and implementation \- Server
maintenance and optimisation (performance and cost) \- Quickly get up and
running with tools like Puppet
About Me
I'm writing a book on AWS System Administration that will be published by
O'Reilly early this year.
Here's an AWS case study for an infrastructure I built:
[http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-
studies/fashiolista/](http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-
studies/fashiolista/)
If you think these services could help your business grow, let's talk.
[email protected]
------
timrogers
SEEKING WORK - Remote, based in London, UK
I'm a Ruby developer based in London, looking for contract work to go
alongside my part-time work at a successful YC startup and my undergraduate
studies.
I love working in Rails, and have particularly outstanding experience building
Twilio applications, from whole-company phone systems to small SMS services. I
spoke about a cloud-based phone system I built at Twilio's European conference
in 2013.
Apart from that, I have plenty of general Ruby experience, working with
clients from charities to web hosting companies. I'm not afraid to work in
Javascript, HTML5 and CSS3, and am happy to negotiate on price to find an
arrangement that works for you.
[https://github.com/timrogers](https://github.com/timrogers)
[http://timrogers.co.uk/portfolio](http://timrogers.co.uk/portfolio)
Think I can help? Drop me a line at [email protected].
------
jfc
SEEKING WORK - remote, based in Connecticut
Developer and designer (4+ years), work out of my own shop, Heta
([http://heta.co](http://heta.co)). Primarily develop, design, and customize
WordPress themes, or convert PSD designs or HTML/CSS/jQuery to WordPress. I'm
also building an app and run my own server as a hobby.
I've worked on complex sites for digital agnecies (30+ templates, 25+
plugins), as well as on smaller sites for small businesses/individuals (10
templates, 10 plugins).
Technologies I use: PHP, HTML, CSS/LESS/SASS, jQuery, CodeIgniter, WordPress,
mySQL, ZURB Foundation (3/4/5), Bootstrap, SVN or Git for version control,
Fogbugz or Sifter for issue tracking, HipChat to stay in touch. Self-taught
and resourceful.
Reach out to me at: hn [at] heta [dot] co (not com). I can send you links to
live sites I've developed, sites I've converted to WP, etc.
------
rmundo
SEEKING WORK - REMOTE | TAIPEI
Hi, iOS developer for 3+ years here, before that I was writing satellite
software and firmware in C/C++ for Taiwan's space agency.
I have a couple of personal apps in the app store; the most recent one
scratches a personal itch: it uses facial recognition to help you tie a tie in
the easiest way possible. [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/face-
tie/id570542131](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/face-tie/id570542131)
I was iOS team lead for one of the major navigation apps in Taiwan, and have
since created medium sized apps (over two dozen viewcontrollers) for multiple
clients. I also have experience with Python, HTML/CSS, javascript, git/svn. I
love working with people who are dedicated to designing the best user
experience possible.
You can find me at ray.tsaihong at gmail if interested in discussing work
opportunities. Thanks!
------
nnnnnn
SEEKING WORK - Remote (based in LA)
Where I've worked/studied: thoughtbot, ZURB, Coveo, Atlassian, Harvey Mudd
College, Claremont McKenna College
Things I do: Back end dev, front end dev, full stack dev, design (I have a
partner who designs), code auditing, TDD, long term or short term projects
My usual stack includes: Ruby on Rails, HTML, HAML, CSS, SASS, Heroku,
Angular.js, Javascript, jQuery, Postgres, Photoshop, git, Ruby, ZURB
Foundation, Responsive design
I can also do: Backbone.js, PSD to HTML, Bootstrap, PHP, MySQL
I've worked with over 25 clients in 4 countries and am on the look out for
interesting new projects. I won't belabor an explanation of my philosophy and
experience on this thread, but please visit
[http://nealke.mp](http://nealke.mp) or email me if you are interested in
learning more. You can contact me at me( at )nealke( . )mp
------
andreasilenzi
SEEKING FREELANCER - NYC/NJ/Remote - Free Music Archive freemusicarchive.org
WE ARE:
The Free Music Archive is an interactive library of high-quality, legal MP3
downloads directed by WFMU, the most renowned freeform radio station in
America. We're one of the largest repositories of Creative Commons music on
the web, and our curated approach means it's not just free music, it's good
music. We're based out of WFMU's magic factory in Jersey City, NJ.
YOU ARE:
A skilled backend engineer, with solid background in modern languages and
techniques. We're looking ideally some overlap with our stack which happens to
be PHP/SQL, and for someone who doesn't mind working with legacy code. You'll
have the chance to make valued, long-term strategic contributions to the
project.
For more info, send a note to andrea -at- freemusicarchive.org
------
jonnathanson
SEEKING WORK -- Remote, Bay Area, or SoCal
I'm a writer. I'm a pretty good one, too. (Feel free to look at my HN history
and vehemently disagree, however.) I've been published in Slate, Priceonomics,
Harvard Business Review, and other blogs and mags. I've been on NPR a few
times, which was pretty darned fun.
By day I'm a marketer and growth optimizer. But recently I've signed a book
deal, and I would love to take more time to focus on it. So I'm looking for
remote and freelance opportunities. The sort of work that's interesting and
pays the bills, or if you're feeling unusually generous, the sort that keeps
me in Teslas and Tom Ford.
I do: content, web and app copy, analysis, market research, customer lifecycle
communications, voice, PR strategy, etc.
You need: copy that converts.
Please email me if interested: jonfnathanson @ gmail.com
------
hmd
SEEKING WORK - Remote only
I am a full stack web developer with 4 years of experience, My technical
skills:
Programming:
• Languages: C# , JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Python, Google Go, C++
• Tools: Visual Studio IDE (2008, 2010, 2012, 2013), Eclipse IDE, Code Vision
IDE,IIS, Apache http server
• Frameworks & Libraries: .net Framework (3.5, 4, 4.5), Asp.net MVC Framework,
Nhibernate ,Entity Framework ,Ninject, AngularJs, jQuery ,Underscorejs,
twitter Bootstrap, D3js, RequireJs ,HighCharts,
• Concept: SOLID design principle, MVC design pattern, single page web
application, Service Oriented Architecture, Restful Architecture
Data manipulation & Analysis:
• Languages: TSQL, PL/SQL, MDX
• Tools: SQL Server (SSAS,SSIS,BIDS, SQL server Profiler), Oracle Database, PL
SQL Developer, Power designer, MongoDB , MySQL
• Concepts: OLAP & Data warehousing, Business Intelligence
Also I’m willing to work with other technologies and frameworks as well
(Node.js, AWS, Java …)
Email me at hmd.ai.h At gmail.com
------
martey
SEEKING WORK - Washington DC or remote
I love Django/Python development, although I also have experience with PHP,
Perl, and a variety of other languages. I can write HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
by hand, configure and secure your Linux server, and optimize Apache or nginx
to help your website scale. I write technical specifications, use comments in
my code, and am adept at Git.
Members of this community have been some of my favorite clients. I have
created MVPs, debugged troubling technical issues, and provided advice. I love
hearing about other people's projects and helping to make the Internet better.
Portfolio:
[https://marteydodoo.com/portfolio/](https://marteydodoo.com/portfolio/)
Contact: [https://marteydodoo.com/contact/](https://marteydodoo.com/contact/)
------
Udo
SEEKING WORK - Mannheim, Germany - Remote or onsite
I'm an experienced software developer with a strong full-stack web background.
I don't just build your app/site, I'll also help you put the concept together
if need be, and I'm good at filling the blanks with underspecified projects.
Server-side (PHP, Ruby on Rails, Node.js), client-side (HTML5/CSS/JS), also
C/C++, ObjectiveC (iOS and OS X development), Java, Ruby, Delphi and many
other languages and technologies.
I offer scalability consulting for high-throughput web apps and can make MVPs
very quickly.
My background is in working with advertising agencies and scientific
companies, and I have a biosciences education as well.
[email protected]
[http://udos.name/](http://udos.name/)
By the way, I would _love_ to do a project with or for a fellow HNer one
day...
~~~
livestyle
Looks like your site is down.
Did you have MVP packages before?
------
cgag
SEEKING WORK - Remote or Bay Area
http://curtis.io
https://github.com/cgag
[email protected]
I do full stack web dev, with either Clojure or Ruby/Rails. I did Rails work
full time for about the last year, and have been working in Clojure for my
side projects for the last few years. I like writing clean, testable,
composable, pure functions where possible in whatever language I happen to be
working in. I can build a basic responsive UI with bootstrap, but I'm not much
of a designer, and I'm decent at Javascript (and Clojurescript), but prefer
backend work.
Buzzword bingo:
Ruby, Rails, TDD
Clojure, Clojurescript, Ring, Compojure, Datomic
HTML/CSS/Javascript/CoffeeScript
Postgres, SQL
AWS, Heroku
------
rk0567
SEEKING WORK - Remote
I'm a full-stack web developer.
Skills:
HTML5, CSS3/Sass, jQuery/CoffeeScript, Bootstrap/Foundation
Ruby, Sinatra, Rails, VPS/S3/Ubuntu
Inbound Marketing/SEO
Recent projects/experiments:
http://railyo.com (400+ users)
http://assembleyourpc.net (10k+ monthly users)
http://scrabblewordfinder.org/
http://html5portfoliotemplate.com
Checkout my blog ([http://blog.sudobits.com](http://blog.sudobits.com),
[http://rameshjha.com](http://rameshjha.com)) and github profile
[https://github.com/rkjha](https://github.com/rkjha)
You can contact me here: ramesh at rameshjha.com.
------
akg_67
SEEKING WORK - SEATTLE WA | REMOTE
Work focus: DevOps. System Integration. Infrastructure solution design,
evaluation, implementation, deployment, and administration. Performance
troubleshooting and management.
Infrastructure focus: Data Storage (SAN, NAS, Object), Public and Private
Cloud, Virtual Servers, Backup/Recovery/Archive
10+ years experience with system integration and professional services for
data storage networking and associated infrastructure.
Experience: All major storage array, storage network, and storage software
vendors, OpenStack, Python, VMware, PHP, LAMP, MySQL, R, Tableau, jQuery,
Bootstrap
Familiarity: Big Data, Hadoop, MapReduce, Data Analytics, Backend Web
Infrastructure, Web Development
Currently managing a data analytics web service. Involved with a crowd-lending
startup as technical co-founder.
Email: sproutat+hn [AT] gmail
------
chatmasta
SEEKING FREELANCERS - Remote
My partner and I are working on an interesting VPN company. I am a Yale
senior, CS major. My partner is ten years out of Wharton. We are applying to
YC for summer batch.
Please email me if you are talented in any of the following areas:
\- Python, especially Flask
\- Backbone, angular, or ember
\- Apiary
\- API design
We are following an API centric development process. Over the next couple
weeks, this will involve us completing the following tasks:
\- Write an API blueprint in form of www.apiary.io
\- Use apiary.io to provide API mock server
\- Frontend and backend developers work in parallel
\- Backend developer responsible for implementing API according to blueprint
\- Frontend developer responsible for client side of website
\- Client side of website interacts with API, can test with apiary mock server
We want to get started as soon as possible. Please reach out. As I am a CS
major and engineer, I will make this a very smooth process for all involved.
Thanks.
EMAIL: [email protected]
------
marcomassaro
SEEKING WORK - REMOTE
[http://masswerks.com](http://masswerks.com)
We're a small team that builds websites and apps for startups and growing
companies.
_Our past clients include Buddymedia, Crazyegg, Chitika, RE /MAX, Moovweb and
more._
\------------------------------------------------------
User experience
\------------------------------------------------------
• Usability audits & testing
• Sitemaps & Information architecture
• Sketches & wireframing
• Onboarding users & conversion optimization
• Product strategy
• Content strategy
\------------------------------------------------------
Web & UI Design
\------------------------------------------------------
• Landing pages
• Marketing websites
• Applications (admin, backend, interfaces, etc.)
• Redesigns (taking a product and redesigning it from the ground up)
\------------------------------------------------------
Front-end development
\------------------------------------------------------
• HTML
• CSS
• Javascript
• Responsive (for tablets and mobile devices)
\------------------------------------------------------
Email [email protected] and I'll reply within minutes
------
ccarpenterg
SEEKING WORK - Remote/On site
I've worked for 3 startups so far doing web development. I'm also a Community
TA for the Startup Engineering class and for the Machine Learning class at
Coursera (Stanford).
Python/Django/Tornado/GAE Framework:
[https://github.com/ccarpenterg/todolist](https://github.com/ccarpenterg/todolist)
[https://github.com/ccarpenterg/djangotodos](https://github.com/ccarpenterg/djangotodos)
[https://github.com/ccarpenterg/tornadotodos](https://github.com/ccarpenterg/tornadotodos)
node.js, express.js, ejs, Sequelize, Bookshelf:
[https://github.com/ccarpenterg/bitstarter](https://github.com/ccarpenterg/bitstarter)
Frontend, jQuery, D3.js, Backbone.js, AngularJS, Bootstrap:
[https://github.com/ccarpenterg/todolist/wiki](https://github.com/ccarpenterg/todolist/wiki)
[http://ccarpenterg.github.io/blog/us-census-visualization-
wi...](http://ccarpenterg.github.io/blog/us-census-visualization-with-d3js/)
[http://ccarpenterg.github.io/blog/calendar-layout-
visualisin...](http://ccarpenterg.github.io/blog/calendar-layout-visualising-
market-data/)
IAAS/PASS: Linode, Heroku, Google App Engine, AWS
Databases: Postgresql, MongoDB, Redis, mysql
Tools: vim, git, Chrome Dev tools, virtualenv, foreman, vagrant, screen,
emacs, dotfiles
Machine Learning/Data Science: Octave, R, numpy, sci-kit-learn, pandas.
[https://github.com/ccarpenterg/ML](https://github.com/ccarpenterg/ML)
Visualization: D3.js, matplotlib
Github: [https://github.com/ccarpenterg](https://github.com/ccarpenterg)
Drop me a line: [email protected]
------
lukestevens
SEEKING FREELANCER - Remote (Anywhere)
I'm a designer looking for a Django or Rails developer to build v1.0 of an
Analytics-based web app I've designed, documented, and built HTML templates
for that are ready to go.
Budget for the whole project is _low_ five figures, i.e. small, so I'm open to
anyone, anywhere, with good availability over the next few months.
There's a smaller, more challenging component of the app that I'd also like
help with, _especially_ if you have experience with the Google Analytics API.
If this is you, I would LOVE to talk to you :)
I have plenty of info explaining the app, so if you're interested just ask and
I'll elaborate further :) Drop me (Luke) a line at [email protected].
Thanks!
~~~
lukestevens
Thanks for the response guys - I've found someone to take this on :)
------
philipmorg
SEEKING WORK- Remote or Bay Area
Every website and marketing push involves content. But is your content
effectively supporting your business goals? Is it performing as well as you
want it to?
Chances are, if you hired a writer, or if you did it yourself, your content
could do more to achieve your business goals. The missing ingredient is
usually a careful combination of information/UX design, content, and ongoing
testing.
I CAN HELP
If your content is not performing as well as you'd like, or you need new
content for your marketing efforts, let me know and I'll gladly take some time
to chat with you about potential solutions. If I'm the right fit for your
needs, I'll share work samples and work up a proposal.
CONTACT [email protected]
------
phildionne
SEEKING WORK - Quebec, Canada - Remote
Philippe Dionne - Experienced Ruby and Ruby On Rails developer
\- [http://github.com/phildionne](http://github.com/phildionne)
\-
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/phildionne](http://www.linkedin.com/in/phildionne)
About me:
\- Experience building a multitenant application, maintaining and improving a
medium-sized legacy codebase and building a modern and bleeding edge Rails 4.1
application
\- Strive for maintainability, scalability and performance
\- Adopt Ruby's community best practices
\- Actively contribute to opensource
Tools of choice:
\- Git workflow
\- PostgreSQL, MySQL
\- HTML5 & CSS3
\- Bootstrap 2.0, 3.0
\- Ruby On Rails, Sinatra, Padrino
\- Deploying using Heroku and Capistrano
\- TDD using RSpec and Capybara
\- Continuous integration using Travis CI and CircleCI
\- Experience with Spree Rails' based e-commerce solution
\- Consume web APIs, such as Github, Twitter, Last.fm and Soundcloud
------
kleinsch
SEEKING WORK - SF Bay Area - Remote or Local - Long or Short Term Projects
I'm an expert at creating APIs and building client applications (browser-based
and mobile apps) powered by APIs.
API Development - I've designed, built, and scaled APIs for many different
application profiles, from large complex data models, event subscription
architecture, high transaction volume (25K requests/second), to simple REST
APIs. I have a lot of experience analyzing data models and use cases to
determine API structure, architecture, and recommended implementation. I know
the ins and outs of REST vs RPC, JSON vs XML, and hypermedia vs traditional.
I've implemented APIs using Rails, Node.js, and Java platforms. Bottom line -
if you need an API developed, I can take you through the process from start to
finish.
Single-Page JS App Development - I've led development on multiple single-page
JavaScript apps in both desktop and mobile environments. I have significant
JavaScript experience and have built full applications from scratch using
Backbone.js, Ember.js, and AngularJS. Recently I worked with Balanced Payments
to build a web interface for their payments platform using Ember.js. The whole
project is open source - check it out! [https://github.com/balanced/balanced-
dashboard](https://github.com/balanced/balanced-dashboard)
Mobile App Development - I've deployed multiple apps across iOS and Android
platforms for phones and tablets. I'm experienced in both native (iOS,
Android) and mobile cross-platform HTML (Sencha Touch, JQuery Mobile)
development.
Traditional Web Development - While I've spent most of my time lately working
on APIs and API-driven apps, I also have ten years of experience doing
traditional server-side web development. If you need a Rails or Java
generalist to build a product, augment your team or maintain existing code,
get in touch!
[email protected]
[http://www.rasslingcats.com](http://www.rasslingcats.com)
[http://www.kleinsch.com](http://www.kleinsch.com)
------
flippyhead
SEEKING FREELANCERS : Pathable ([http://pathable.com](http://pathable.com)) -
Seattle or REMOTE Pathable is hiring expert javascript engineers and UI
designers. We're innovating how single-page applications are built and we need
your help. Our industry leading social networking application is focused on
conferences and events. It's 75% JavaScript and 25% Ruby. We support several
open source projects including Backbone and QuiltJS. We've embraced remote
working to a degree you won't find anywhere else. Learn more:
[http://www.pathable.com/](http://www.pathable.com/)
~~~
namanyayg
Let's talk! mail [at] namanyayg [dot] com.
------
candiru
SEEKING WORK - Based in Budapest, Hungary - Remote only
Back-end Java and Android developer.
Over 9 years of experience in Java. I specialize in the following stack:
Wicket, Spring Core, JPA/Hibernate with MySQL, and Jetty; but I'm happy to
work with anything else. I think I can help you the best if what you need is
an internal or client-facing web app with a fairly complex UI, but this is by
no means a requirement. I can also help fixing a previous project for you.
Android developer as well for around 3 years.
I don't do design or front-end myself. I'm happy to work with other developers
of your choice, or I can recommend you the ones I've been working closely with
over the past few years.
Email on my profile.
------
lucaspiller
SEEKING FREELANCER - Devon, UK or remote
Seeking an experienced developer fluent in HTML/CSS and JS to work on an
upcoming project developing a mobile application. Responsive design and Ember
(or similar) knowledge is a must. .NET/C# experience is a bonus, as that is
what the backend system is running on.
This will initially be a three month project, however if it goes well there
will be further work. We are looking for someone to form an ongoing
relationship with, if you are local there will be the option of permanent
employment.
To apply please email [email protected]. Make sure to include links to
your work / profiles, GitHub, LinkedIn / resume and some background info.
------
karlshea
SEEKING WORK ---- Remote only
I'm a full-stack web developer from Milwaukee, WI looking for Drupal or
backend web service projects, or to be a development partner for a designer or
agency.
Current focus:
* Drupal 7 (Usually using Zen with Zen Grids for frontend,
Panels/Views/Features/etc for backend)
* PHP MVC Frameworks (Kohana, CodeIgniter)
* Backbone.js
* Sencha Touch
* Compass/Sass
Previously I've worked with a large range of technologies including five years
of .NET and almost a decade of Linux server administration.
Check out my work here: [http://weilstreet.com](http://weilstreet.com)
Contact: [email protected]
------
gmcwhirter
SEEKING WORK - Toronto / Montreal / Travel is fine
Are you looking to take an existing application to the next level or build one
from scratch? Thinking about rolling out an API? Maybe you're concerned about
application security...
We should talk, I'm a full stack engineer with 8+ years experience building
secure, distributed applications using Ruby/Rails, Python/Django,
JS/Backbone/Meteor, HTML/CSS, MySQL, ... and I'd love to hear from you. It has
been my experience that these opportunities tend to be mutually beneficial!
Of late, I've been doing a fair bit of sysadmin work so we could also talk
about that if it is of interest.
Until then, [email protected]
------
takatin
SEEKING WORK - Remote (Coimbatore, India)
\---
I have over 6 years of experience designing logos and building websites for a
wide range of clients from across the globe. Thanks to this, I have built up a
solid foundation in branding fundamentals and front-end development which I'll
be putting to good use when working with you on your projects.
I'm also excited about web apps and the backend which has led me to become
quite familiar with the workings of Nginx, Node.js and MongoDB. I'm keenly
interested in gaining more experience in this area so please get in touch if
you're building on this stack.
My design portfolio is up at dffrnt.com and you can reach me on my email,
vijay at dffrnt.com
------
jaegerpicker
SEEKING WORK
Portland Maine, Remote work preferred
Full Stack Web Developer/iOS Developer
Python - Django, Flask, Tornado Groovy - Grails Ruby - Rails JS - node.js and
express on the backend, backbone - ember on the front end ASP.NET MVC - C#
MySql, Oracle, SQL Server, MongoDB, redis
I have the most experience with python but I've been working on web
applications for 15 years and I have deployed them in several different
stacks. I've contributed major parts of 4 iOS and built two completely end to
end myself. I'm looking for a part time contract that I can work in the
evenings and weekends (15-25 hours a week). Please feel free to shoot me any
questions at shawn -at- codeartgames -dot- com . Thanks!
------
facebiff
SEEKING WORK - Remote/On-site
Based in Boston, MA / Providence, RI.
I'm a software engineer with wide experience in dynamic programming languages.
\- Expert in Ruby, Python and JavaScript
\- Broad understanding of full-stack web development, operations and
deployment
\- Lots of experience with distributed systems, real-time apps, and software
integration projects
\- Wealth of experience putting together technical teams, capturing
requirements, and mentoring developers
\- Background in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
Resume/portfolio:
[http://mikeleone.com](http://mikeleone.com)
[http://github.com/mleone](http://github.com/mleone)
Buzzwords: ruby, python, javascript, rails, django, node.js, linux, open
source, meteor.js, backbone.js
------
FiddlerClamp
SEEKING WORK - Toronto or Remote
Experienced technical writer and marketing writer. Online/Web help, print/PDF
documentation, press releases, Web site copy, FAQs, white papers.
[http://www.hiretechnicalwritertoronto.com](http://www.hiretechnicalwritertoronto.com)
for more details, or [email protected] / jonathanacohen @ Twitter,
[http://tinyurl.com/ly8g2sw](http://tinyurl.com/ly8g2sw) on LinkedIn.
Disclosure: I am looking for full-time local/remote work, but seeking contract
work in the meantime. Would rather work with you on larger/longer-term
products than one-off short pieces.
------
mmmilo
SEEKING WORK -- Toronto, Canada -- Remote
[https://github.com/mmmilo](https://github.com/mmmilo)
[http://www.pocoapps.com](http://www.pocoapps.com)
\-------------------------------------------
Michael Lo - iOS developer (mainly)
\-------------------------------------------
Objective-C (iOS)
PHP (Laravel, Drupal)
Front-end (AngularJS, JQuery, Bootstrap, Phonegap/Trigger.io)
Tools (Git, SVN, Grunt, Composer)
\-------------------------------------------
Experienced mobile developer. I can work on projects of all sizes, build APIs,
help develop architecture and conceptualize ideas. I've been involved from
beginning (requirements, analyst) to end (deployment). I love problem solving
and building elegant, clean and modern solutions.
Looking to get things done!
------
thirdtruck
SEEKING WORK - New York or Remote
Full-stack web developer who specializes in the front-end, loves vim and
TDD/BDD, and who wants to help make your fledging idea a digital reality.
GitHub profile: [https://github.com/thirdtruck](https://github.com/thirdtruck)
Personal project: [http://rubyai.org](http://rubyai.org)
Experienced foremost in:
JavaScript/CoffeeScript (Backbone.js, node.js) HTML/CSS/Sass (Bootstrap) Ruby
Also experienced in: Python Perl Java MySQL
You can reach me at freelance at thirdtruck.org.
\---
Are you a fellow freelancer here in New York? I'm new to the city and would
welcome the opportunity to meet a cohort in coding over coffee or tea.
------
badhairday
Seeking Part-Time or Contract Work
Philadelphia, PA or Remote
I'm a motivated student with a passion for front-end Android development and
full stack web development. I've worked on Android applications and devices
used by millions of people around the world, I've built websites for small
businesses in South Jersey, and I've hacked together projects to test run new
technologies.
* Email: mike [AT] mhenry [DOT] io
* Website: http://mhenry.io
* GitHub: http://github.com/mhenry
* LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mahenry
Don't hesitate to contact me. Thanks!
------
lucaspiller
SEEKING WORK - Remote, UK based
I'm an experienced full-stack software engineer. I primarily use Ruby on
Rails, but am equally comfortable with JavaScript (frontend & Node) and
Erlang.
Recently I've been focusing on building MVPs for startups. A recent client has
received funding from the UK government due to the work I did building their
platform.
I'm looking to continue working with startups to help them realise their
ideas. If this is you, get in touch!
\--
Portfolio: [http://lucaspiller.com/](http://lucaspiller.com/)
GitHub: [https://github.com/lucaspiller/](https://github.com/lucaspiller/)
Email: [email protected]
------
Oculus
SEEKING WORK - Toronto/Kitchener or Remote
I'm a full stack web developer based in Toronto/Kitchener.
Skills: AngularJS, Node.js, Express.js, Android, D3.js, jQuery, pure
Javascript, Photoshop, PostgreSQL, Nginx
Experience: I've written RESTful APIs, survey Widgets, web applications, and
Android apps. I also have experience with Arduino (maze solving car), 8085
Assembler, and C (both at a basic level). I'm always open to learning anything
that gets the job done.
Portfolio: [http://stolarsky.com](http://stolarsky.com)
Github: [https://github.com/EmilS](https://github.com/EmilS)
Email: [email protected]
------
jamiesyke
SEEKING WORK - REMOTE - Manchester, UK
Visual & UI Designer specialising in working with startups, looking for some
great new clients from mid February.
I have experience working with startups, both before and after funding, UX,
leading design and front end teams alongside high level design skills in web &
mobile.
You can see some examples of my work on
[http://www.syke.co/](http://www.syke.co/) or
[http://dribbble.com/Jamiesyke](http://dribbble.com/Jamiesyke) and can get in
touch with me if you'd like to discuss your project more at
[email protected]
------
neillyons
SEEKING WORK - Belfast, UK - Remote ok.
Full stack web developer specialising in Django and AngularJS. Looking for
opportunities to work with interesting companies doing web app development and
improving business processes (eg simplification of existing processes,
automation of repetitive tasks etc.)
I am also interested in any opportunity to use Go professionally.
In the past I've worked on high traffic sites, large enterprise sites with
multiple developers, and for startup companies.
Please email me if you would like to see my CV and maybe we can work together
in the future.
NO RECRUITERS PLEASE.
Neil Lyons [email protected] neillyons.io github.com/nwjlyons
twitter.com/nwjlyons
------
croissantio
SEEKING WORK
Croissant is a creative digital design and web application development shop.
Our forte lies in creating beautifully (clicheeeee) designed minimum viable
products, websites, landing pages and first iteration/version 1 applications.
We will work closely with you, and converse about your ideas and vision from
day one. You will be actively involved throughout the whole creation process.
We currently have openings in our schedule for new clients. Get in touch with
us and let's see if we're both a good fit for each other.
[email protected] [http://www.croissant.io](http://www.croissant.io)
Hope to hear from you soon!
------
mitchellbryson
SEEKING WORK - Remote
I'm a UI designer and a front-end developer. Here's some examples of my work…
[http://mitchbryson.com](http://mitchbryson.com)
Here's what I do best: \- Planning: wireframes, on paper or in Balsamiq \-
Concepts: Photoshop mock-ups of pages and flows \- Build: HTML, CSS and JS. I
prefer HAML, SASS and CoffeeScript \- Integration: I can integrate into any
app or framework.
I've been a designer/developer since 2002. For the last 3 years, I've been
focused on helping start-ups design and build their products.
Get in touch via my portfolio or [email protected]. Thanks!
~~~
iaskwhy
I usually check portfolios just so I keep my own list of good designers, I'm
not really seeking to hire any for now but might do so in the future. I
checked your website and your works looks very interesting. I did however
found two issues.
\- I usually like to check sites which are part of the portfolio but I
couldn't find any link to the projects which you worked on. I'd say you should
consider adding it.
\- The type you have chosen doesn't look that good in Windows. If you can't
understand why I'm saying this you can reach me and I'll send you some
screenshots.
Keep up the good work!
------
samk9080
SEEKING WORK - Chicago, Il. or Remote
I'm a front-end UI web developer based in Chicago, Il.
Skills: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, AngularJS, JSON, Adobe CS, Ruby on
Rails, Twitter Bootstrap, SASS and AJAX
Experience: I have 5+ years of experience (Fortune 500 companies, digital
agencies and tech. startups). Feel free to drop me an email if you'd like to
chat about your project (there is no pressure whatsoever to work with me!)
Availability: In approximately 2 weeks I'll be rapping up my current project.
Github: [https://github.com/ShanSM](https://github.com/ShanSM)
Email: samk9080/ _at_ /gmail (Mention HN please)
------
hemangshah
SEEKING WORK in computer vision, machine learning. Remote or local to
Bangalore, India.
8+ years experience, ex-cofounder of tech startup. Freelancing for more than a
year.
Topics I've worked on: image binary segmentation, human body pose estimation,
face tracking using AAM and warping, color blending, projective geometry,
augmented reality, face authentication, change detection, OCR pre-processing,
object detection, tracking and recognition, general classifications, etc.
Feel free to connect with me at: linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/link2hemangshah
email: hemang.j.shah at 'google's popular email service'
\- Hemang Shah
------
lmbloomfield
SEEKING WORK: Remote, Based in Australia.
I focus on generating more revenue for your business, so that you get a big
return on your investment.
______DIGITAL DESIGN
Digital design is my passion and I specialise in Branding Identities and
Website Design. I create timeless pieces that drive traffic, increase brand
recognition and word-of-mouth referrals for my clients.
______WEB DEVELOPMENT
I develop mobile-friendly websites that allow users to purchase anywhere, at
any time. I design with the intention to specifically elicit a response (eg.
purchasing my client's products) from viewers.
______CONTACT
Luchia Bloomfield - [email protected] Portfolio - www.luchia.com.au Skype -
lucybloomfield92
------
buf
SEEKING FREELANCER - London/SF/Remote - Eat In My Seat eatinmyseat.com
WE ARE:
We are early employees of Eventbrite and Uber who have broken off to start Eat
In My Seat. EIMS creates a direct communication channel between venues and
consumers.
The premise is simple: Imagine you're at a basketball game and it's half time.
You really want a beer and a burger, but _everyone_ is queuing up at the
concession. Wouldn't it be better to pull out your iPhone, order from the
comfort of your seat, and have the food delivered to you?
YOU ARE:
A Rails or iOS engineer with an eye for usability. Please email buford at
eatinmyseat dot com
------
Androsynth
SEEKING WORK - remote
I have spent the past 5 years as a web developer working with PHP and
javascript. The past 3 years I have worked at the senior/principal level. I
have experience working remotely.
I have learned a number of languages in my free time, but I wish to branch out
professionally and I am willing to learn whatever language and framework you
use to build your products.
I am flexible in my work arrangements (eg time availability, contract vs
employee, full time vs part time, etc). I am more interested in the
engineering challenges.
email me if you would like to see my resume and chat [email protected]
------
psycr
SEEKING WORK - Remote or Toronto
Seeking short term contracts to supplement existing employment.
I am a human/machine interface designer && developer. My work consists of
"from scratch" UX and interface design, from the napkin to nginx. I have
considerable experience with Ruby and Javascript, years of experience with
Rails, and extensive knowledge of client-side MVC.
I've made contributions to Ember.js, and have written multiple 10k+ LOC apps -
starting with 0.9 up to the latest 1.0 (one was recently featured on Venture
Beat: [http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/22/uniiverse-releases-
direct-...](http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/22/uniiverse-releases-direct-
payments-so-anyone-can-sell-tickets-to-anything/)). I am acutely aware of the
challenges/strategies associated with migrating server side architecture into
the browser, leaning down views, and fattening up controllers.
I am the author of an open source project called Quant
([https://github.com/jdjkelly/quant](https://github.com/jdjkelly/quant)) - a
Rails API + Angular.js app to track "quantified self" data from every
manufacturer willing to give it up. My work here was featured on The Verge
alongside a similar project by the founder of Foursquare
([http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/4/4392996/fitness-tracker-
dat...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/4/4392996/fitness-tracker-data-
platforms-launch-giving-users-control))
Recently, I also contributed to the development of an iOS app, which is now in
the app store: [https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/ticket-manager-by-
uniiverse/...](https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/ticket-manager-by-
uniiverse/id654814249?mt=8). I was responsible for integrating a credit card
device reader with an existing checkout API, testing, and delivering a final
build to the app store.
Skills: Ruby, Rails, Mongo, Postgres, Sinatra, Node.js, Objective-C,
Javascript, Coffeescript, Sass, Ember.js, Backbone.js, Angular.js, jQuery,
HTML5, CSS3
Other tools in the box: Git, Zsh, pencils, pens, paper, Photoshop
Contact is in my profile.
------
yen223
SEEKING WORK: Remote preferred. Based in Malaysia.
Backend software engineer, specializing in Python/Django development. If you
have the design, I can turn it into a working website. Looking for part-time
gigs (10 hours/week, I currently hold a full-time job). Willing to offer
discount to build my portfolio.
Contact details in my profile.
\---------------------------------------------
Server-side: Python - Django.
Database: Postgresql
OS: Ubuntu, OSX
Infrastructure: AWS, Linode, Vagrant, Git.
Devops: Ansible
Others: I have experience building reporting systems, web crawlers and APIs.
Front-end: Basic HTML/CSS/Javascript/jQuery - I don't do much design work.
------
trwired
SEEKING WORK - Remote or Warsaw/Poland
I am a full stack web developer located in Warsaw, Poland. I am especially
well versed in the following technologies:
Python
* Django
* Flask
Web Frontend
* AngularJS
* HTML5
* CSS3
* JavaScript
* Bootstrap, Foundation, SASS, Compass
* chances are I have at least a passing familiarity with any web related technology that the industry is currently buzzing about
Also
* PHP, PostreSQL, Photoshop
In the past I have worked for corporate clients, small businesses, start-ups
and individuals. I feel right at home in any kind of project, be it just an
idea that needs to take form or a legacy application with tons of dependencies
and scarce documentation.
Contact me at igor.kalat * gmail.com or using following phone number: +48
501-414-062
------
ndcrandall
SEEKING WORK - San Fransisco Bay Area or Remote
I'm a Rails developer with several years of experience and a CS degree. My
area of expertise is building APIs and integrating with external services. I
will build out your MVP quickly or help engineer an existing product. Lets
talk in person, hangout, or skype.
Skills
Ruby on Rails
3rd party APIs (Twilio, Facebook, Google, etc.)
HTML / CSS / Javascript
Contact
[http://nicholascrandall.com](http://nicholascrandall.com)
ncrandall at gmail
------
brandonhsiao
SEEKING WORK - CA - remote
Full-stack Python web developer. I build full sites from scratch using
Python/web.py and HTML/CoffeeScript/SASS. If you have an idea, I can build an
MVP for you.
I work at a fixed price with a fixed deadline. For projects under $2k, no need
to pay me until I'm done.
last personal project: [http://robotgame.org](http://robotgame.org)
github: [http://github.com/brandonhsiao](http://github.com/brandonhsiao)
email: [email protected]
------
nwienert
Vegas based consultant (sometimes in LA/SF). Full stack developer. Experienced
in Frontend, Rails & Node based apps. Glut of other language experience as
well (CS Degree).
_Available in April_
Javascript architecture and advanced dev (backbone, single page apps, ember,
react, game dev). Also experienced with ux/ui design.
Available for remote or on-site consulting. I'm happy traveling on site for
the start of a project and then continuing remote. Would prefer 1-2 month
gigs.
nate wienert at gmail.
------
juskrey
SEEKING WORK - Small remote team from Ukraine is about Clojure, web/data
development.
[http://immute.co](http://immute.co)
We are experienced generalists (13 and 10 years in IT dev for me and my
brother - partner). Were working with C and Asm and to C# and Java in our
careers.
Recently trying to give a shot with Clojure consulting, as we are really
experiencing all the benefits of rapid and robust development with it.
Already had some projects from US, seeking for more.
------
rrbrambley
SEEKING WORK - San Francisco, CA – Prefer local (not necessarily in your
office), remote negotiable
Mobile engineer with experience shipping Android and iOS apps. Preferably
short-medium term projects. My most recent work included porting an iOS app to
Android from scratch.
Preferred work: Java/Android, iOS/Obj-C
email: rob /at/ alwaysallthetime.com
Actively working on some stuff over here:
[http://github.com/rrbrambley](http://github.com/rrbrambley)
------
atox
SEEKING WORK: REMOTE Location: Belgium
PHP dev with 7+ years experience
I've done lots of projects as a freelance consultant in Zend Framework,
CodeIgniter, CakePhp and tend to be up to speed in a new project in almost no
time at all. Am finishing my first Yii project right now.
Early in my career I also ran my own psd to html conversion service, so I know
a thing or two about front-end as well.
Contact me on [http://lnkd.in/pxbvVs](http://lnkd.in/pxbvVs)
------
moron4hire
SEEKING WORK - remote-only (Eastern Daylight Savings time)
We are a small group of developers specializing in relational database-driven
applications. We have a lot of experience with digging into other people's
old, broken code and fixing it, quickly. Cleaning up and consolidating legacy
databases is our bread and butter. No hairy ball of spaghetti code is too big
for us. We do the work your own developers are too afraid to tackle.
Find my email in my profile.
------
kyasui
SEEKING WORK - Brooklyn/NYC or Remote
I'm a designer and developer who can swiss army knife a lot of different
tasks. I do front-end/back-end (wordpress/drupal/node.js), graphic design,
interface design, branding, UI/UX etc. I'm more of a front-end guy/designer
than an engineer but I believe I'm pretty good at ramping up on most things.
[http://www.keiyasui.com](http://www.keiyasui.com)
------
cleverbaker
SEEKING WORK : Remote || SF Bay Area || SoCal I will travel to meet you in
person and work onsite.
\----------
Front-end Engineer and Interactive Designer
\-----
My specialties are:
• Mobile web development with progressive enhancement
• JavaScript and CSS animations
• Data visualization
• PSD to responsive web development conversions
• Interaction design and user experience design
\-----
My focuses are:
• Reliable and constant communication
• Fast turnaround times
• Honesty and transparency
• Integrity
• Delivering stellar production-ready code
\-----
I have good experience with:
• Working with agencies and startups
• Producing large web apps
• Multivariate testing
• Co-working with teams
\-----
Check out [http://mibake.co](http://mibake.co) to learn more about me, my
skills, and the value that I bring to your projects.
------
kingofspain
SEEKING WORK - Remote
Web & mobile design/dev. A bit of an all-rounder.
Past things I done: Ecommerce, API's, apps for iOS and Android, intranets,
medical compliance systems, CMS, CRM, surveying, events/ticketing, blah de
blah. I can build your MVP or help further along the path!
General skillz...
Web:
* HTML 5, CSS, Javascript
* PHP (Codeigniter, Laravel, more...)
* Responsive-ness, bootstrap, zurb or hand-coded...
Mobile / Apps (iOS or Android):
* Titanium
* Phonegap
Happy with git or mercurial, some general server admin, AWS etc.
I'm UK based and happy to supply links and examples of previous work!
------
k-mcgrady
SEEKING WORK - Remote
Skills: iOS development (also experience with Ruby, Rails, Javascript,
Android/Java)
Contact: kieran[at]hotrodsoftware[dot]com
About: I've been developing iOS apps professionally for 5 years. Worked on a
large variety of projects and enjoy taking on new challenges and working with
the latest technologies. I've had my own and clients apps reach top positions
on the App Store. I'm currently seeking new clients for remote work.
------
sdegutis
SEEKING WORK - Remote (or Chicago)
\----------
My name is Steven Degutis.
I'm a full-stack polyglot multi-platform Engineer with UX experience.
I’ve done apps for web, desktop, and mobile, but my heart is in desktop apps.
My workflow is doing short (1-week) iterations that add business value, where
the product is fully usable at the end of each iteration.
I’m looking for part-time work (10-hours per week).
\----
Proficient with:
* Clojure, Ring, Compojure, Hiccup, GardenCSS
* ClojureScript
* Datomic
* iOS, AppKit
* Cocoa, Objective-C
* Rails, Sinatra
* Web (full-stack)
* User Experience (UX) Design
* Ruby, Go, C
* SQL (using a native ORM)
* User Interface (UI) Design for Desktop
\----
Some experience with:
* Java, Swing
* Windows: WinForms, WPF, XAML
* Windows 8 apps
* Python, Django
\----
My weaknesses:
* Responsive Design
* The JavaScript language (I usually use ClojureScript instead)
* User Interface (UI) Design for Web
* Java, Android
* Chef, designing infrastructures from scratch
\----
Portfolio:
* cleancoders.com: a web app written in Clojure, ClojureScript, Datomic, Ring, Compojure, and Hiccup. I wrote both the front-end and back-end, designed the architecture, and have been the sole developer.
* Bahamut: a lightweight music player for Mac OS X, written in native Cocoa and Objective-C. Source code on github: [https://github.com/sdegutis/bahamut](https://github.com/sdegutis/bahamut)
\----
Contact:
* Email: sbdegutis gmail com
* I use Skype for most communication, which is usually fastest and most convenient for both of us
* If you’re local (Chicago-land area), I can meet in person once a week
\----
------
adrianmoses
SEEKING WORK - Based in Los Angeles - Remote
Full Stack Web developer and iOS/OSX developer.
Technologies I am proficient with:
\- Python
\- Node.js
\- Go
\- Clojure
\- Objective-C
\- Javascript
Specialize in data-driven applications, which involve:
\- Data Visualizations
\- API integration and custom web services
\- Data mining and complex data workflows
Email: [email protected]
[http://adrianmoses.com](http://adrianmoses.com)
[http://linkedin.com/in/adrianmoses](http://linkedin.com/in/adrianmoses)
[http://github.com/ammoses89](http://github.com/ammoses89)
------
chuinard
SEEKING WORK - Chicago - Remote
I'm an experienced Android developer with several published apps, both for
myself and for clients. I'm looking to take on 1, maybe 2 mid-sized projects
within the next month. I have an Android designer who can work with me. All my
apps follow Google's design guidelines and can be tablet-optimized as well.
Please reach out at [email protected] if you'd like to chat more.
------
grimtrigger
SEEKING WORK - New York City (NYC) or remote
Full-stack web developer with focus on front-end (javascript/jquery/backbone)
and phonegap/cordova. Experienced with php, mySQL, html5, css3, AJAX, JSON,
and photoshop.
Currently working on personal projects, but looking for freelance/contract
work.
Background and contact info listed at
[http://aakilfernandes.com](http://aakilfernandes.com)
------
gk1
SEEKING WORK - NYC & Remote
Get more users: Understand and optimize your acquisition funnel.
I help start-ups measure and visualize their user acquisition funnels. Then I
optimize steps of the funnel to get more qualified traffic into one end and
more users/customers/leads out the other.
Currently working with several fantastic startups, but always happy to chat
with new ones to see if I can help.
greg at gkogan dot co
(keywords: marketing, growth, conversion)
------
alanclimer
SEEKING WORK | Remote
Freelancer in Florida
\- Responsive Design \- HTML 5 / CSS 3 \- PHP \- JS \- Skeleton / Bootstrap /
WP \- SEO on page / PageSpeed \- CAD & customization \- AutoLISP \- Logo
Design \- Content Writer
Contact:
[http://alanclimer.com/contact.htm](http://alanclimer.com/contact.htm)
Sample: [http://orlandovibe.com/](http://orlandovibe.com/)
------
bglenn09
SEEKING WORK - Remote, NY
I'm looking for rich-client HTML5 projects, particularly mobile (with or
without PhoneGap) and enterprise / line-of-business projects.
I'm a full-stack developer and consultant with 15+ years experience. I focus
on the following technologies: Sencha Touch, ExtJS, Backbone.js, Ruby on Rails
and Node.js.
Enterprises or start-ups, please email me at barry[at]barrypeerless[dot]com.
Thanks!
------
yownie
SEEKING WORK - Remote, Iceland.
Sysadmin with deep understanding and knowledge of best practices regarding:
Privacy / Anonymization technologies and practices
Server Co-location / Web-hosting
Operational Security
Open Source Crypto tools
I can provide hosting reccomendations here in Iceland as well as Remote Hands
work. Also deeply interested in knowledge about Icelandic law regarding
technologies like Tor, Bitcoin and Internet Infrastructure.
[email protected] gpg keyid EB9A5142
------
amarraja
SEEKING FREELANCER - Remote OK after the first month. London UK (Marylebone)
Seeking a developer fluent with HTML/CSS and JS to work on the front end of a
suite of e-commerce websites and the accompanying tooling.
Responsive design experience is a must. SASS and ASP.NET MVC experience is
beneficial.
Initially looking for a three month contract, possibility to extend.
Shoot me a mail if you want more info: [email protected]
------
hypr_geek
SEEKING WORK - Remote
~5.5 years of work experience
* Java (Android ~3.5 years)
* HTML5, CSS3, Javascript
* Node.js
* PHP (Magento)
* Requirements and Architecture Design
* Project Management
* Open to learn new tech as and when required
Based in India. Link to CV in my profile.
\--- Feel free to contact me for any help on open source projects as well ---
(hypr DOT geek AT gmail DOT com)
------
jf22
SEEKING FREELANCER - Remote Ok
I've co-founded startup called movidhep.com which is coded in C# Asp.net MVC
and uses RavenDB as a backend.
We've got a couple of projects that we need some help with.
One of the projects is very ravendb centric so if you have experience there
definitely shoot me an email.
Another project involves recording a video from a mobile app and uploading it
to vimeo and/or elsewhere.
~~~
crypted
Ready to help you on c# , asp.net mvc part. arjuns(dot)sapkota(at)gmail.com
------
adpfr
SEEKING WORK - remote
Hi, I'm a freelance software developer in Duisburg, Germany. I build web and
desktop applications, with an extra focus on business, ecommerce, and
operations research.
Main technologies: C++, Python + Django, JavaScript + web front-end
Portfolio and contact details: [http://www.dopfer-
software.de/](http://www.dopfer-software.de/)
------
RomanPushkin
SEEKING WORK
We're small agency located in Eastern Europe. We do both design and coding,
building projects from the ground up.
Latest apps:
[http://taskthemall.com/](http://taskthemall.com/) (on the way)
[http://geekjob.ru/](http://geekjob.ru/) 10K+ users
Our stack:
(ASP.NET MVC, C#) || (Node.Js, JavaScript)
Best money for value!
Write to my email: [email protected]
------
sidmitra
SEEKING WORK - Remote/Freelance Python/Django/jQuery, with extensive
experience building e-commerce marketplaces. I have a research background,
data analysis, playing around with NLP right now. I run a django dev shop,
currently taking gigs for it. Here's my portfolio:
* [http://www.cloudshuffle.com/](http://www.cloudshuffle.com/)
* [http://www.sidmitra.com/portfolio.html](http://www.sidmitra.com/portfolio.html)
Contact details in my profile or the link above. Here're some examples from my
portfolio:
* [http://turbotaxcpaselect.intuit.com](http://turbotaxcpaselect.intuit.com) \- Turbotax CPA Select, to help select accountants.
* [http://www.ecomarket.com](http://www.ecomarket.com) \- An online marketplace for ethical and eco friendly products.
* [http://www.teaspiller.com](http://www.teaspiller.com) \- An online marketplace for tax experts. [Recently acquired by Intuit]
* [http://www.knowyourbank.com](http://www.knowyourbank.com)
* [http://www.hypedsound.com/](http://www.hypedsound.com/) \- a music sharing platform, working on V2.
* [http://www.garnishbar.com](http://www.garnishbar.com) \- social network, to share mixed drink recipes * [http://www.fratmusic.com](http://www.fratmusic.com) \- an online radio streaming app serving over 1.3 million uniques a month.
* [http://loudfarm.com](http://loudfarm.com) \- A music event site.
* Wisekangaroo: [https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xpnngdyfgkgz8y2/1OnDFiIkiV](https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xpnngdyfgkgz8y2/1OnDFiIkiV) \- Find a tutor. Working on relaunch in a new avatar
* [http://fertilityplanit.net/](http://fertilityplanit.net/) \- A niche social network for women to privately and securely discuss fertility issues.
Github: [http://github.com/sidmitra](http://github.com/sidmitra)
Homepage: [http://www.sidmitra.com](http://www.sidmitra.com)
------
nclx
SEEKING FREELANCER - Remote / Milano, Italy - Yolo Apps
We are a young, agile and international team that has previously worked with
the top companies all over the world, such as Apple, Toyota and Redbull.
We're looking for freelancers to design and code iPhone and Android apps.
How to apply: email nicolas,yoloapps,us with your portfolio and a list of
skills.
------
logn
SEEKING WORK - remote
Expert in Java, web scraping, web crawling, big data, webapps.
[email protected]
[https://machinepublishers.com/portfolio](https://machinepublishers.com/portfolio)
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/danhollingsworth/](http://www.linkedin.com/in/danhollingsworth/)
$100/hr or flat-pricing
------
12bit
SEEKING WORK: Remote or San Francisco Bay Area
Ruby [+ Rails], Clojure [+ Om Pedestal], JavaScript [+ Backbone.js Ember.js
React], CoffeeScript, Python, C developer seeking short-term or long-term
gigs.
Some sample projects here:
[http://projectdeck.herokuapp.com/](http://projectdeck.herokuapp.com/)
------
skyriser
SEEKING WORK - On-site (Montreal, Canada) / Remote
iOS Developer Freelance (Objective-C, iPhone/iPad)
Web: [http://skyriser.com/](http://skyriser.com/)
Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn:
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/christiancomeau](http://www.linkedin.com/in/christiancomeau)
------
bcroesch
SEEKING FREELANCER - Chicago, IL - remote possible
Federis Group We're a small software consultancy looking for front end and
full stack engineers. Rails and/or mobile experience a plus, but not strictly
required. Our team is based in Chicago, but we're open to remote as well.
Contact: [email protected]
------
lsiunsuex
SEEKING WORK
Full Stack PHP Web Developer seeking freelance work (or full time employment).
Recent completed work:
[http://ignitedds.com](http://ignitedds.com)
[https://www.p22.com](https://www.p22.com)
Portfolio: [http://giamban.co](http://giamban.co)
No project is to big or to small.
------
grimmdude
SEEKING WORK - Remote - Based in NYC
Been creating websites and web applications for 10 years.
Experienced in:
\- PHP, MySQL, HTML(5)/CSS(3), JavaScript, Python
[http://www.grimmdude.com](http://www.grimmdude.com)
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/ggrimm](http://www.linkedin.com/in/ggrimm)
------
dbotha
SEEKING FREELANCER - London, UK
Android developer is needed to create a small native app from scratch
(Targeting Android 4.0+). Work to ideally commence on Monday February 10. On
site developer is preferred but I will consider remote -- we're based 5
minutes from Oxford Circus tube station.
~~~
lucaspiller
Contact details? Your email address isn't shown in your profile.
------
albedo
SEEKING FREELANCERS - NYC area
Lambda is a talent agency for freelance developers and designers. We help you
find clients, negotiate for higher rates, and take care of the business side
of freelancing.
- Exceptional talent only: $100/hr minimum rate.
- No recruiters or spam. We're developers too and we only match consultants with projects that fit their expertise and interest.
- Serious clients only: Wanna hear about a disruptive social network for cats that "just needs a coder"? Neither do we.
- Freelancers with side projects or startups are especially welcome!
If that's appealing, you can read more and sign up at:
[http://getlambda.com/](http://getlambda.com/)
We've posted about this on HN a few times and have been amazed by the
response. I apologize in advance if it takes a while for us to get back to you
-- we interview everyone personally and are still ramping up the process.
Right now, we're particularly looking for NYC Rails, Django, and iOS devs.
------
mekishizufu
SEEKING WORK - Remote
We are a small team of Ruby and JavaScript developers available for hire. We
can help you design, develop and maintain your next application. From the
initial idea to a running website.
Find out more at [http://sensible.io](http://sensible.io)
------
dmn001
SEEKING WORK - UK, remote preferred
Hi, I am looking for web scraping projects.
Languages: Perl, Python
Databases: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MySQL
Other Skills: data parsing, regular expressions, multi-threaded scraping,
Linux, AWS S3/EC2, Heroku, Git, Rails, parsing html/xml/json, statistics and
machine learning.
Email: dmn001 at gmail.com
------
webjay
SEEKING WORK / FREELANCER - Remote
I am based in NYC and am a fullstack developer. Skills: JavaScript,
CoffeeScript, Node, Backbone, Grunt, Redis, Neo4j, MongoDB, MySQL, Python,
Linux, Ubuntu.
[https://github.com/webjay](https://github.com/webjay)
------
andys627
SEEKING WORK - Remote / SF
Hi. I'm a full stack engineer looking for short or long term contracts. I've
been working lately in client side MVC apps (Angular) and Node.
Portfolio: www.andrewsamuelsen.com Github: www.github.com/andypandy
Thanks.
Andrew [email protected]
------
moubarak
SEEKING WORK - Remote, Middle East Based
\- iOS/Android camera apps and computer vision libraries
\- Published Android app doing 10k downloads per month
([http://radc.am](http://radc.am))
\- 2 iOS apps in beta
Reach me out at mohd [dot] moubarak [at] gmail
------
mantas
SEEKING WORK: REMOTE Location: Lithuania
\- iOS/Mac (native objective-C) 3+ years experience \- Ruby on Rails 4+ years
experience \- Javascript 5+ years experience, including one-page web apps back
in IE6 days
\- self-proclaimed UI/UX expert :)
Email: mantas at idev.lt
------
ha8o8le
SEEKING WORK - Remote or Los Angeles \-------- I am a freelance UI/UX designer
specializing in apps. Check out some of my work at
[http://sandersUI.com](http://sandersUI.com)
------
christiangenco
SEEKING FELLOW FREELANCER - Remote or Dallas area
I'd like to pair with someone to learn Ember with/from on a healthcare startup
site (privately funded). An affinity for Rails is a plus. Can trade with work
or bitcoins.
~~~
llmfei
I'm also learning embers and use it in a interesting open source project. I
like rails and use it in my several projects. We can work together.
------
sepokroce
SEEKING WORK - Skopje, Macedonia - Remote - WordPress, Front-end Development,
Visual Design.
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/gocemitevski](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gocemitevski)
------
zura
SEEKING WORK - Remote or periodical onsite. Based in Georgia, Europe.
Experienced C++ engineer with a diverse background, including systems
programming and rich cross-platform software development.
E-mail: zura.jobs 'at gmail.com
------
rjspotter
SEEKING Work - Remote only - SF Based
Learned Ruby in 2002 and started working with Rails professionally in 2006.
[http://www.intentionally-blank.com/](http://www.intentionally-blank.com/)
------
jamespollack
SEEKING WORK - San Francisco or remote
[http://linkedin.com/in/jamespollack](http://linkedin.com/in/jamespollack)
Full-stack Javascript Engineer
------
ericthegoodking
SEEKING WORK - Remote
I am a fullstack Ruby/Javascript developer. I have been working with
ruby/rails framework for the past 4 years . Below are the
Technologies/frameworks that i use most of the time.
-Ruby
-Rails
-Javascript
-Angular Js
-HTML5
Other Interests
-Natural Language Processing
-Machine Learning
-Learning new things
Email [ericthegoodking]@[gmail.com]
------
chrisohara
SEEKING WORK
Full-stack developer from Sydney, Australia. I'm a Javascript (Node.js),
Python and C expert.
[http://github.com/chriso](http://github.com/chriso)
cohara87 (at) gmail.com
------
apineda
SEEKING WORK - Ontario, Canada - Remote
Designer / Developer with a large range of experience. Mostly focused on web
(js) and Android lately.
www.alexpineda77.com @alexpineda77
I'm eager to hear from you
------
colinbartlett
SEEKING WORK - Remote. Rails developer since 2006.
[http://www.colinabartlett.com/](http://www.colinabartlett.com/)
------
dalien26
SEEKING WORK - MONTREAL or remote - Android - WEB
Technologies :
-Android
-HTML/CSS
-Javascript ( angular js )
-common sense of UX & UI
* i like working with designer, other developer, startups, agengies.
contact : damiendamien1]at[gmail]dot[com
or
ca.linkedin.com/in/galandamien/
------
ujal
SEEKING WORK -- Cologne, Germany or REMOTE -- preferably part-time
Developer & Designer
[http://mygnu.com](http://mygnu.com)
------
jbeard4
SEEKING FREELANCER - Remote
Seeking an expert PhoneGap developer to help take our innovative app to the
next level. Contact me at [email protected]
------
d0m
App is ListRunner, a collaborative tool for teams of doctors.
Listrunnerapp.com
Happy to answer questions and share more information by email: phzbox at
gmail.
------
csomar
Seeking Work - Remote/Willing to Travel
Front-end (HTML5/JavaScript)
Back-end (PHP/WordPress)
$80/hour. Email on my profile.
------
d0m
Seeking freelancer:
Looking for a great ios developer. Remote or Montreal.
~~~
mkim1030
Hey, I'm an iOS developer based in Seattle. How do we reach out to you?
------
emacsnw
SEEKING WORK -- REMOTE OK (NYC)
\- Python
\- Pylons, Pyramid, Django, Flask
\- Javascript
\- Sqlalchemy
\- Postgresql
Contact: [email protected]
------
vram22
SEEKING WORK - REMOTE - India.
Creator of xtopdf, a PDF creation toolkit for Python (used by Packt
Publishing, the Software Freedom Law Center, ESRI.nl and others.) xtopdf can
create both business reports and ebooks, and currently has support for the
following input formats: text, DBF, CSV, TSV/TDV, XLS, XLSX, DOCX, ODBC,
SQLAlchemy, MongoDB, XML, Microsoft Access, SQLite, Berkeley DB, and standard
input. xtopdf runs on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. It includes both a library
you can call from your apps, and command-line tools, GUI tools (in wxPython),
and web-based tools (Flask, Bottle and CherryPy).
xtopdf links:
[http://slid.es/vasudevram/xtopdf](http://slid.es/vasudevram/xtopdf)
[http://jugad2.blogspot.com/search/label/xtopdf](http://jugad2.blogspot.com/search/label/xtopdf)
[https://bitbucket.org/vasudevram/xtopdf](https://bitbucket.org/vasudevram/xtopdf)
[http://www.packtpub.com/article/Using_xtopdf](http://www.packtpub.com/article/Using_xtopdf)
[http://google.com/search?q=xtopdf](http://google.com/search?q=xtopdf)
Independent developer for the last several years, with many years of
experience in many tech areas. Contracted/consulted to multiple startups based
in USA and India. Earlier worked for large well-known US and Indian software
companies.
Skills: Good - Python, C, Linux, UNIX, many open source technologies,
databases, XML-RPC, PDF programming, file and data format conversion, data
munging, command-line utility development. Some: Flask, MongoDB, Bottle,
various others.
Worked on Ruby, Rails and Java some time earlier. Server lead / senior
engineer for two commercial Rails-based dot-com products earlier, by US
companies.
Databases worked on: Oracle, Sybase, Informix, MySQL, SQLite, HSQLDB, MS-
Access, Postgres.
Worked on a best-selling retail banking product (earlier, in C with
proprietary DB and UI libs). Was team leader for a database middleware product
widely used in client projects by a top software company.
Relevant links:
Biz site: [http://www.dancingbison.com](http://www.dancingbison.com) (see
Home, Products, Services, About pages there)
[http://www.binpress.com/profile/vasudev-
ram/3425](http://www.binpress.com/profile/vasudev-ram/3425)
Posts about Python:
[http://jugad2.blogspot.com/search/label/python](http://jugad2.blogspot.com/search/label/python)
Posts about xtopdf:
[http://jugad2.blogspot.com/search/label/xtopdf](http://jugad2.blogspot.com/search/label/xtopdf)
Blog: [http://jugad2.blogspot.com](http://jugad2.blogspot.com)
Article by me about "Developing a Linux command-line utility" (in C) was
published on IBM developerWorks and translated by IBM into Chinese and
Japanese for those versions of their site. Some organizations have developed
production command line tools using that article as a guide.
Contact info:
[http://dancingbison.com/contact.html](http://dancingbison.com/contact.html)
(email, Skype). Twitter: @vasudevram
------
muminoff
SEEKING WORK - Based in Seoul, Korea - Remote
\------------------
Sardor Muminov
Email: smuminov[at]gmail[dot]com
Skype: sardor.muminov
Github: github.com/muminoff
\------------------
Full stack web developer
\------------------
Technologies:
• Django
• Flask/SQLAlchemy
• Tornado
• MySQL
• PostgreSQL
• Redis
• Node.js (express.js, socket.io)
• HTML
• CSS
\------------------
Environments:
• Unix
• Linux
• SVN, Git
• tmux
\------------------
------
J_Darnley
SEEKING WORK - Remote; Belgium; UK, Manchester area
I speak English and Dutch near fluently. I am experienced with C and Make
based builds. I have some familiarity with Win32 and x86 assembly, mainly SIMD
usage.
Contact info and examples on my profile page:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=J_Darnley](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=J_Darnley)
------
notastartup
SEEKING WORK - remote (or Vancouver, BC)
LAMP/jQuery/Android developer looking for contract work. I can send you my CV,
github account, please click on my username for contact information.
------
satjot
SEEKING FREELANCER - I created this meetup group earlier this year for iOS and
Android freelancers: [http://www.meetup.com/ios-android-
freelancers/](http://www.meetup.com/ios-android-freelancers/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
13 reasons for UML’s descent into darkness - nickb
http://littletutorials.com/2008/05/15/13-reasons-for-umls-descent-into-darkness/
======
mike_organon
If found #7 to be the most interesting, even beyond UML. "Pictures prove to be
good at sharing ideas and allowing people to visualize concepts. But in the
end words are better at describing the fine details." The same applies to many
"visual programming" tools. If the text-based language is expressive enough,
and doesn't need excessive boilerplate, that would be more effective and
accurate than visual programming.
------
edw519
UML's sole purpose is to make people who do not know what they are doing
appear as if they do.
How else could pay someone $50,000 per year and bill them out at $150 per hour
without them actually doing anything?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
US whistleblower dropped from speaking at Melbourne cybersecurity conference - peterkelly
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-10-08/us-whistleblower-speech-cancelled-at-cybersecurity-conference/11581986
======
NotSammyHagar
so can someone provide an explanation about why this happened? this seems to
have nothing to do with australia's "we can force devs to rootkit their
software" thing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Queen City Brunch – A web app for brunch discovery - tedmiston
http://blog.tedmiston.com/queen-city-brunch/
======
tedmiston
Co-creator here. The #1 reason we made QCBrunch is: we really love breakfast
food, and every time we talk about getting it, we end up google brunch hours
for each place. Many don't publish this online, and no existing POI database
tracks the very specific "brunch start time and end time". Hopefully this will
save some googling.
Direct link - [http://qcbrunch.com](http://qcbrunch.com)
------
throwaway2016a
Off topic but interesting: Queen City is also uses to refer to Manchester New
Hampshire. I was curious so I found a Wikipedia entry that lists all the
cities with that name:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_City](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_City)
Maybe save some people some Googling.
~~~
tedmiston
I had no idea there were more than a couple :o. I'll have to add Cincinnati,
Ohio on the page somewhere. Thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Build a Robot That Will Feed You Breakfast - traxmaxx
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-to-build-a-robot-that-will-feed-you-breakfast
======
DrScump
already posted yesterday. exact same story, same title.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10509355](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10509355)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
It takes 48 seconds to view an Oracle blog post - jonny_eh
https://twitter.com/peterc/status/1040723744963080192
======
Findeton
Mixing laws and big companies gets you this. Other sites will load faster but
it's the government forcing you to get that popup.
~~~
Nadya
The popup freezes at 99% when you click "No, you may not use cookies" but
instantly completes when you click "Yes, you may track me with cookies."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is OOP “anti-modular”? - kilimchoi
http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/70831/is-objected-oriented-programming-paradigm-outdated-since-it-is-anti-modular-and
======
dragonwriter
OOP suffers from a distinct lack of clear, universally accepted, definition
that allows such questions to be answered well, but certainly a key component
of many understandings of OOP involves centrality of mutable state and
particular ways of modifying it which is at least arguably "anti-parallel",
and many popular forms of OOP (particularly static, class-based OO) is prone
to encourage coupling which makes really independent modularity difficult to
achieve, though OOP is based on a kind of modularity which is consistent with
this kind of coupling.
So, on balance, maybe, kinda, depending on what kind of modularity and what
kind of OOP you are talking about.
------
bobajeff
It sounds to me that it's frameworks that are anti-modular.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
German intelligence claims to be able to decrypt PGP - xcallmejudasx
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.golem.de%2Fnews%2Fbundesregierung-deutsche-geheimdienste-koennen-pgp-entschluesseln-1205-92031.html&act=url
======
bhuga
The translation is not amazing. The original German reveals responses that are
rather dodging the question, but which very flatly state that they are able to
'generally decrypt, at least partially, communications via SSH or PGP'.
It's not clear if they mean 'parts of all communications' or 'a part of all
communications', and specific attack vectors are not even touched on.
------
stordoff
> "Yes, the technology used is basically able to do so, depending on the type
> and quality of the encryption."
From that, I'd _guess_ that they are just breaking weak keys or known buggy
implementations. I'd be very surprised if they have totally broken PGP.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Help me fix photo sharing - Cheeese
One the one side you have flickr who has the most amazing community but a product that has stagnated. On the other you have instagram who has had explosive growth using new social mechanics like follow. I think there is an opportunity to build a community aimed squarely at flickr, but using new mechanics. Something like twitter for images. For a taste of what it looks like this is one of the screens - http://jasonstrachan.com/clients/shoebox/SB_05.jpg<p>I am a photographer who has been photo blogging for pretty close to ten years (http://www.gosu.co.za) and could never find the right place to share and interact with other photographers, so I though I would scratch my own itch.<p>Who are we? We are a team of two who have build stuff in the past (http://listgorilla.com) I am a designer/user experience guy and my co-founder is a Java developer with great experience building rock solid applications.<p>Who are we looking for? We are looking for someone who loves to build stuff and has a strong background in Javascript. We are offering a meaningful portion of equity and chance to work on a team who is motivated and committed to building great experiences. If you happen to be a photographer even better.<p>If that sounds like you please email me ([email protected]) with some background and I'll take you through the idea.<p>Thanks, Jason
======
Cheeese
Link:
<http://jasonstrachan.com/clients/shoebox/SB_05.jpg>
------
Andrenid
I can't offer coding help but if/when you need beta testers sign me up for
sure.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Dozenal Society of America - adius
http://www.dozenal.org/
======
nwatson
An uncle who designed jet engines at General Electric said one advantage GE
had over European counterparts was the greater diversity in sheet metal
gauges/thicknesses used to build the engines; they could maintain required
strength throughout an engine while paring down engine weight. He attributed
the better mix to the English system encouraging divisibility by 2/3/4/6
rather than 2/2.5/5/10 at various scales.
~~~
jacobolus
Ideally this kind of thing should be roughly on a log scale, along the lines
of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_number),
e.g.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renard_series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renard_series)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-series_of_preferred_numbers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-series_of_preferred_numbers)
You can pick a coarser or finer scale depending on the particular need.
For a base twelve world, I would recommend using binary logarithms written in
base twelve (“dublogs”) whenever possible; 0.1 on such a scale matches one
semitone in a 12-note-per-octave equal-tempered musical scale.
~~~
eadmund
I'm honestly not sure what you're saying, but it _sounds_ compelling!
~~~
jacobolus
I'm saying that if redesigned today for our current society (either metric or
imperial) sheet metal gauges should probably use something like preferred
numbers for widths.
In a hypothetical base twelve world, they could instead use a log scale (think
decibels) explicitly, and one nice option is to use binary logarithms, since
then twelfths correspond approximately to nice duodecimal fractions. This is
the basis of the Western musical scale.
------
nonbel
The most interesting argument I've heard from the dozenal society is that the
decimal system is inherently selfish. There is a reason that cases of beer
come in packs of 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 instead of 5, 10, 15, etc. It is much more
likely you will be able to divide them equally amongst a group of arbitrary
size.
~~~
vole
Isn't that their entire argument?
~~~
Avshalom
Well it isn't usually couched in terms of morality.
------
suddensleep
Only marginally related, but I spent one of my summers at PROMYS[1] doing
research into which complex numbers could be successfully used as bases. As
different as the various common integer bases "feel" in terms of hand-
computation, there's nothing like cranking out conversions of fractions to
base 1+i to make you realize that there's a whole wacky universe of number
representations out there. I thought it was a really cool field of study, and
I remember wishing there were more readily apparent applications. Anyone?
[1] [https://www.promys.org/](https://www.promys.org/)
~~~
espeed
Similarly, see Pavel Grinfeld's argument [2] advocating the vector basis L =
{1, x, x²-1/3} w.r.t. Legendre polynomials.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Grinfeld](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Grinfeld)
[2] MathTheBeautiful: _Why {1,x,x²} Is a Terrible Basis_ [video]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYoGYQOXqTk&index=14&list=PL...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYoGYQOXqTk&index=14&list=PL..).
[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legendre_polynomials](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legendre_polynomials)
------
ceautery
I stumbled onto these guys a few years back when I was going nuts about base
18 (which you can do on a standard 5x2 abacus!). I think they have their own
symbols for digits > 9 instead of using 'a' and 'b' in the hexadecimal
fashion.
Non-standard radixes are pretty fun, and it makes you think about nebulous
questions like "what does ten mean", and if you happen to carry that train of
thought way past the station, "what does it mean to be a number?"
~~~
kw71
I learned base 12 arithmetic in gradeschool and the textbook used T and E for
10, 11.
I'm pretty sure this was before people started using hex notation for
computing and logic.
------
kabdib
For a fictional treatment of converting a society to base 12, Leo Frankowski's
_High Tech Knight_ series is a lighthearted and fun read (starts with _The
Crosstime Engineer_ ).
[I didn't like the books past the original 4, YMMV]
------
nixpulvis
I wonder how they feel about base e?
------
pc2g4d
I can't tell if this was meant as a joke or not
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Beginner Web Design Mistakes - nickpettit
http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/beginner-web-design-mistakes-avoid
======
nhebb
> _Modals and Pop-Ups - You’ve seen this before. You click on a link to a news
> article or a blog post, and a gigantic modal pop-up window covers the
> content. This makes absolutely no sense._
The first thing that popped into my head was Twitter, when you click on
@someone and get a popup instead of just going to their full feed.
~~~
jeffmould
I actually kind of like that feature (if you can call it that). There are
times when I am scanning through the feed and I see something interesting
retweeted. I don't want to lose my place, but I am curious to see quickly who
the person is that initially made the tweet. The popup is a quick way to do
that without having to open another window or lose your place.
~~~
adamtj
That's what the back button is for. I will take you back to where you were
before you clicked a link, including scroll down the page to the correct
position.
~~~
Jare
Unfortunately, it doesn't work with infinite scroll pages or other stateful
types of sites.
~~~
csense
Infinite scrolling is another thing that should be avoided.
------
onion2k
A 'sign up for our newsletter' modal pop-up when the user first arrives on a
website is not a 'beginner web design mistake' for one simple reason that even
websites made by beginners can't ignore: _They really work._ People sign up in
droves. Many people have tested it. It's annoying as hell, but the fact is
beginner website designers should learn to make effective websites that work
for businesses, not just pretty ones.
~~~
Turing_Machine
They work on clueless and naive people.
If that's the audience you're after, cool.
~~~
Iftheshoefits
That audience is some huge percentage of the internet userbase, because some
huge percentage of people are "clueless and naive." So people who want to just
make money off a widely read website would do well to do what works. Just like
how in the mobile gaming space irritating pay-to-play/in-app-purchase driven
"games" are the money makers, and people who make games in order to make a lot
of money should probably make a game like that.
~~~
Turing_Machine
Well, everyone has to make their own ethical choices.
Personally, I don't need the karma of annoying the customers, regardless of
how much it may seem to work in the short term. I mean, you might as well be
Zynga if you're going to do that.
No company survives in the long term by annoying and/or abusing their
customers.
~~~
PagingCraig
Don't be a drama queen. Just because you "think" something doesn't work
doesn't mean it doesn't at all.
~~~
Turing_Machine
I know it doesn't work with me.
Also, whether it "works" or not is completely orthogonal to whether it is
ethical. Reading: it matters.
------
theschnabler
This article is a good example of content created only for the sake of SEO.
~~~
scottmagdalein
Not really. Treehouse is a learn-to-code training tool for beginners. A blog
post about typical beginner mistakes is pretty relevant to the Treehouse
audience.
------
atacrawl
Definitely +1 for both "Thinking Too Far Outside the Box" and "Mysterious and
Complex Navigation." I experience way too much of each on a regular basis. A
message I try to drill home is "people don't come to websites to be wowed,
they come to either learn about something or buy something."
~~~
hfsktr
Just out of curiosity are there more options than that? I don't think I'd lump
Imgur or Tumblr into either of those categories.
Edit: entertainment. Thought of it on my own...
------
gldalmaso
Web Design Mistake: maybe don't use a 794,03 KB image on the top of your
article?
~~~
Sprint
Web Design Mistake: Display no more than 9 lines of text to your visitors
because you managed to fill the rest of the screen with a persistent bar at
the top, a persistent SOSOCIAL bar on the side and your clickbait links on the
other side: [http://i.imgur.com/ruiBvN3.png](http://i.imgur.com/ruiBvN3.png)
~~~
benaiah
Yeah, cause a 480px vertical on a desktop design is completely relevant to
modern web development. /s
Protip: you don't _have_ to snark _every. single. article._ Lay off it
already.
------
sutterbomb
Two of the five "mistakes" aren't always mistakes. Popups often work really
well, as pointed out in another comment by onion2k. Long-form sales pages
(i.e. walls of text) also really work in many contexts. Sure you want to
execute both of them well, but the basic ideas aren't necessarily mistakes.
Two others strike me as not really an issue or too vague to know whether it
was an issue. Do beginner web designers really never use any padding and just
cram everything next to each other, pixel by pixel? Can't say I've seen it.
And are they really thinking too far outside the box? What would this even
entail?
I'll give them navigation issue, but I can't say they offered much insight for
beginners to actually work from and improve their navigation.
------
zachrose
If the page is for something I want to read, then a wall of text is perfect.
If the page is not something I want to read, then there should be less
writing, but also why are we having a disagreement about what's on your
webpage if I don't want to read your content in the first place?
------
johnpark
If you're looking for a well-rounded education along these lines, two books
I'd recommend checking out are "Don't Make Me Think" and "The Non-Designer's
Design Book."
------
at-fates-hands
"Every beginner web designer and developer has done this one (myself
included). They feel compelled to fill the page with interesting information
and stuff for people to look at and click on."
Great point.
When you design a site, you should already have a solid idea of where you're
trying to get a user to go and then use strategies to lead them there.
Overdoing the front page with buttons and modals and shiny things that move
doesn't help in that regard.
Probably the first and most valuable lesson in design.
~~~
ereckers
This works fine if you don't have a marketing team to answer to or a CEO who's
sister has just got 3/4 of the way through her JQuery class at JC and "has
some ideas".
Also, this blog post comes from the perspective of a single use website.
Treehouse, build a website. AirBNB, rent a pad, etc.. There are corporate
websites out there with multiples of sub-companies and 100s of different
product offerings all competing for space.
Putting up a full screen image and a button that says "Get Started!" is the
easy stuff and isn't what I would consider the definitive example of good web
design.
------
pasbesoin
Interaction is no substitute for information.
\-- Me
~~~
buckbova
I agree. The fullscreen background image, 10 words, and call to action button
don't make me want to sign up for your product. If I can't find details about
your product within a few seconds, I'm gone.
------
nollidge
I'll add "menu navigation that relies on mouseover".
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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What Would a VC Sponsored Coworking Location Look Like? - transburgh
http://www.centernetworks.com/vc-coworking
======
dawie
They wouldn't, People are supposed to work at home and basically sleep where
they work
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
IT Startup – The Card Game - zola
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kupilasmedia/it-startup-the-card-game
======
zola
Not affiliated with the creator. I played it once (polish version) with work
colleagues - we split into three teams and were brainstorming moves and how to
hurt competitors the most. It was fun.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Let's Encrypt ACMEv2 and Wildcard Launch Delay - cm2187
https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/acmev2-and-wildcard-launch-delay/53654
======
sdrinf
While HTTPS is being burned into the architecture of the Web, I have a humble
question to ask: what is the dear HN community's next-best-option in a
scenario if letsencrypt dies/gets sued/goes under/servers not accessible
anymore?
I ponder on this question seeing how Google is planning to increasingly
depreciate HTTP. While in general, I welcome the security upgrade, the lack of
next-best-free-options makes me vary of this config change locking us into a
$$$paid-only web publishing system.
~~~
kemitche
ACME is a protocol - I imagine most of us are hoping that, should LE fade off,
one or more others take the reins and implement it.
~~~
badrabbit
With PKI,a good protocol isn't the problem but rather making the cost of
infrastructure keep-up worthwhile. Anyways, non-pki protocols are in the
works.
~~~
sdrinf
> non-pki protocols are in the works.
Could you kindly link to relevant threads / RFCs / orgs / undertakings
currently working on that, please?
~~~
aeden
DANE might provide a solution. See specifically the section
[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6698#section-2.1.1](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6698#section-2.1.1),
certificate usage 3:
3 -- Certificate usage 3 is used to specify a certificate, or the public key
of such a certificate, that MUST match the end entity certificate given by the
server in TLS. This certificate usage is sometimes referred to as "domain-
issued certificate" because it allows for a domain name administrator to issue
certificates for a domain without involving a third-party CA.
~~~
tscs37
This would need DNS to be secured though and DNSSEC is still a bit of a mess
last I checked and not enabled for a majority of DNS traffic.
~~~
aeden
DNSSEC support is increasing each year, but that's just one issue. DANE would
also need to be implemented by browsers for full adoption, not just as a
plugin to specific browsers.
Then again, I was responding to the question about an RFC or other standard,
not whether it was feasible today. ;-)
~~~
tscs37
It would be feasible if DNSSEC wasn't a total mess, tbh. The support for it is
still abysmal and a lot of resolvers (including the one in my router) can't
handle DNSSEC responses _at all_.
I think using DNS over HTTPS in conjunction with signing the response is going
to be more viable since you don't have 200 ways a middle box will break it.
------
ocdtrekkie
It's hard to complain about a slight deadline miss from an incredible project
offering free stuff.
~~~
nodesocket
Precisely the problem. Real companies mostly prefer to use paid solutions
because they have comfort and confidence in knowing there is a business and
backing behind it. At least I know I do. I never got the whole developer
complex wanting and even expecting everything for free. Seems hypocritical and
counter-entrepreneur.
Also for what's worth, I've been deploying Let's Encrypt into production
recently using Caddy and (on-demand) TLS and while it works, the rate limits
being reset weekly is really scary and VERY VERY easy to hit. I know myself
and my clients would be willing to pay for Let's Encrypt Pro (higher rate
limits, etc). Take our money.
~~~
ocdtrekkie
That's not Let's Encrypt's role to play though. As a user, I'd be much more
skeptical of an LE cert'd site than a Verisign cert'd site. That's not a knock
on LE, that's just recognizing a higher barrier to entry. Let's Encrypt's goal
is to get everyone encrypted, not necessarily to ensure everyone is who they
say they are.
And as a fellow person who does real business at times, I often prefer paid
products because I know I can get support from the company backing it. I don't
think Let's Encrypt will replace the entire CA industry, and I don't think it
should. (As tyingq says, monocultures are bad.)
~~~
BrandoElFollito
> not necessarily to ensure everyone is who they say they are
How does Verizon (to take your example) ensures this? They have the same zero
verification process for the non-EV cert.
~~~
ocdtrekkie
At bare minimum, getting a cert almost anywhere else requires a credit card.
~~~
BrandoElFollito
This is not something which helps to decide whether the target website is what
they claim to be.
I can use my CC to buy faccebook.com, and I will get it (again, outside of
EV).
I may then be tracked by Interpol for fraud, but to the end user this does not
change anything: Verizon has issued a certificate for my faccebook.com
~~~
ams6110
IYAM, any major web property such as google, facebook, credit card issuers,
etc. should buy up all the most likely typo-ed versions of their domains so
that this doesn't happen.
The average user is going to blame Facebook anyway if they get duped into
logging in at faccebook.com, and it goes to protecting their brand (trademarks
are weakened if the owner doesn't defend them).
~~~
BrandoElFollito
They do, and if they don't, they end up like the White House a few years ago
when whitehouse.<I forgot the TLD> was bought and an almost exact replica was
created, according to Rule 34.
My point is that you can buy any site from a CA and no verification is done,
exactly as with Let's Encrypt.
Even with an EV there is no guarantee that the requester is genuine ("best
effort" to check)
~~~
tialaramex
With EV the checks basically care about:
1\. Does this entity exist, e.g. it's in an official government business
directory and the address details match what was specified 2\. Use a third
party directory (e.g. Dunn & Bradstreet) to look up this entity, and phone
them. Ask to talk to some specific role at the company e.g. "Head of the IT
department" and then confirm the details with that person.
This involves actual humans, albeit basically call centre employees, looking
at paperwork, making telephone calls, that sort of thing. I guess you could
label it "best effort" but to me that signifies much less.
For Americans a surprise problem with EV is that your country doesn't _have_ a
central business directory. Each State runs its own directory, most businesses
are registered in Delaware, regardless of their actual home state.
[https://stripe.ian.sh/](https://stripe.ian.sh/) has a completely genuine
Stripe, Inc. EV certificate, issued to a Stripe, Inc. just not the one that's
famous.
------
MertsA
Am I the only one who thinks the way we deal with certificates is just
completely backwards? Why should there even be a CA at all for DV certs? We
already have to trust the registrar as ultimately they can get whatever DV
certs they want so why not just limit our trust to them instead of adding
hundreds of additional organizations that can compromise our security? And we
pay them for the privilege of doing this??
I get CAs for EV and OV certs, of course you need an additional trusted party
there, but the vast majority of websites out there do not use EV or OV certs
and to be fair users by and large don't even notice the difference between a
DV and an EV certificate in the first place.
We already have DNS, we already trust DNS to issue certificates to people, why
don't we just cut out the middle man since they serve no additional purpose?
~~~
technion
The thing is that "control of the DNS" can mean different things.
I have control of the DNS on my network, and at the local coffee shop. I can
use that to attack users, but I cannot use that to obtain a certificate.
I still agree with you in a sense, an alternate solution would be great. But
we that middleman is the best we have right now.
~~~
josteink
> The thing is that "control of the DNS" can mean different things.
In every way this discussion is related, "control of the DNS" should mean
control of _the one authoritative DNS source_ , in a way which means that if a
service across the internet requests a DNS record, it won't be affected by
whatever DNS-trick your neighbourhood cafe's wifi may apply.
Trying to muddle the discussion of a fairly straight-forward, reliable
scenario with consumer-space DNS resolution is IMO not very productive.
~~~
icebraining
But that's the point - the CA is needed to make a reliable verification of the
data coming from the authoritative DNS source, since the consumer can't make
that check themselves in an untrusted network.
------
nickjj
I've been using LE from the start and it's been awesome (especially with
clients like acme-tiny), but wildcards changes everything.
How many of you are really going to set up a custom DNS updating script?
Maybe I misread something but I remember hearing wildcard certs will only work
with DNS based challenges.
Wouldn't that mean the verification tool would need to support every single
registrar's / DNS provider's API?
For example, I host my domains (and DNS) with namesilo.com. Is a challenge
script really going to know how to interface with their API to add / remove
the TXT records?
What about the 50 other popular DNS providers?
~~~
piracykills
Yes, but there's already scripts handling many of the most popular.
Check out acme.sh and remember, changing your DNS provider or hosting it
yourself really isn't that bad.
[https://github.com/Neilpang/acme.sh](https://github.com/Neilpang/acme.sh)
~~~
nickjj
Nice, it looks like they support namesilo and ~40 others.
So my suspicion seems accurate. The script will need to know how to interface
with each provider and you (as an end user) will also need to be responsible
for setting up your own API keys for whatever provider you use.
~~~
moviuro
If you're up for the task, I've wanted to write a script (POSIX /bin/sh
certainly) for interaction with DNS providers. Basically lower the entry
barrier, and avoid the web interface:
$ foo mydomain.org --init ovh
$ foo mydomain.org my.sub A 1.2.3.4
$ foo mydomain.org my.sub AAAA 1234::abcd
$ foo mydomain.org --remove my.sub A [1.2.3.4]
etc.
I have yet to find anything that handles any DNS changes in a simple, stupid
way. Most API clients I've seen only handle one kind of request: acme.sh only
does TXT challenges. DynDNS endpoint only does A records. Etc.
~~~
piracykills
It'd be cool to have and it's relatively straightforward from a software
engineering perspective, but it's so much boring grunt work that finding
someone who wants to implement it might be challenging.
If this is something you need to do a regular basis, you might consider
hosting your own DNS and using BIND's nsupdate tool.
~~~
moviuro
> hosting your own DNS
meh. There are some things that I'd gladly host, but DNS clerly isn't among
them. Too many ways to screw up, probable breakage ahead (only 1 dedicated @
OVH), so many rate-limits to implement; DNS servers a re filled with RCEs...
(bind being the worst).
Clearly, nope. Not doing this ;)
------
berbec
Crap. I had certs set to expire on 2/28! I was going G to be saved by
wildcard. Off to make a bunch of DNS entries....
~~~
schoen
Does your ACME client already support ACMEv2 and wildcards? I think only
acme.sh has so far claimed to (happy to be corrected if another client has
finished its implementation).
~~~
berbec
I use certbot. I'm not sure as I was just planning on figuring it out for the
night of expiration.
~~~
schoen
I'm part of the Certbot team and I can tell you that the ACMEv2 support is
still being implemented by my colleagues now; even if it had been included in
a release this week or next, you would have been cutting it pretty close! Many
of our users don't have the most current release because distribution
packagers don't ship it right away (or even for months or years, depending on
circumstances).
Certbot's own autorenewals (which I originally implemented and which I hope
are currently working for you -- I'm happy to try to find a way to get them to
work in your deployment if they're not!) try by default to renew certificates
30 days before expiry in order to give people a lot of time to notice and
intervene if something goes wrong. Consistent with that, I'd encourage all of
our users not to rely on anything happening less than 30 days before expiry as
part of their plan for keeping certificates current on their sites.
~~~
berbec
Thank you for all your work. My renewal went through fine. I had commented it
out of crontab, but went fine once I ran it. I was pleasantly surprised when
tls-sni worked flawlessly.
~~~
schoen
Great!
One thing to know about the TLS-SNI situation is that TLS-SNI-01 has been
disabled for new issuance and only works for renewals. The selection of
authentication methods is pretty transparent because the ACME protocol allows
the CA to state which methods it will accept for a particular domain
authorization (so for the renewals it can state that TLS-SNI-01 is permitted,
while for new issuance it can state that it's not, and a client can respond
accordingly).
Apparently the ACME WG is working on a TLS-SNI-03 method that will be safer
and that might be supported by Let's Encrypt (and ACME clients) at some point.
But it's also possible that TLS-SNI-01 could be disabled in the future, even
for renewals, even before TLS-SNI-03. So, if you happen to have anything in
your setup that prevents the use of HTTP-01 on port 80 for authentication, you
should be aware that renewals could potentially stop working at some point
(although this isn't imminent), and that you might also have difficulty adding
new domain names to your certificates.
[https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/important-what-you-
need-...](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/important-what-you-need-to-know-
about-tls-sni-validation-issues/50811)
This unfortunate situation is a nice showcase of the ACME protocol's
flexibility, because the CA has a way to tell the client very specifically
what authentication methods to attempt or not to attempt for each domain (and
if new methods are specified in the future, they can be rolled out
incrementally without breaking compatibility).
~~~
tialaramex
One thing that'd be good here for outside observers is for Let's Encrypt to
bake a list of the Blessed Methods used into certificates as OIDs in the
Policy section.
Right now a researcher with 5 million Let's Encrypt certificates can see which
ones use public keys with unusual patterns, how many are for names in the
French .fr TLD, how many have longer key lengths, and so on, but they can't
see whether the validation was done with Method 10 (which had this unexpected
flaw) or some other method.
Another CA (can't remember which one) was looking at doing this, and it seems
like it'd be nice for Let's Encrypt too.
~~~
schoen
I like this kind of thing in principle, but certificates are already getting
kind of large and there are a number of other things that one might put in
them via OIDs. But I realize ASN.1 is pretty concise; do you know about how
much this proposal would increase the size of a certificate by?
Another concern might be that users might not want this to be disclosed
because it might give attackers suggestions about how to attack their renewal
processes (although of course CAs have been willing to publish information,
like issued certs, that some users wouldn't prefer to make public).
------
technion
It's not mentioned, but I'm assuming this feature with the same original
schedule:
Embed SCT receipts in certificates
Is also delayed? I think this has been quite underrated.
~~~
discreditable
I've been following progress in their GitHub issue for it:
[https://github.com/letsencrypt/boulder/issues/2244](https://github.com/letsencrypt/boulder/issues/2244)
Most recent comment:
> We're working hard on it, but will probably not land this in production
> before the end of February. Still, we are very much aware of the upcoming
> deadline and committed to meeting it. Thanks for the enthusiasm everyone!
> :-)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Saying Hi to Allo and Duo: new apps for smart messaging and video calling - shayannafisi
https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2016/05/allo-duo-apps-messaging-video.html
======
BinaryIdiot
So here's what I don't understand. Hangouts has been the main message app from
Google that supports text and video chat. One of the biggest complaints about
hangouts was not being able to use a phone number with it so you could
essentially replace SMS with another app that's closer to an iMessage
competitor.
Now we have two apps, Allo and Duo. Allo somehow addresses the phone number
piece...but is broken out into a separate app and is only available on Mobile
(so no web or desktop clients). Duo is basically the video portion of
Hangouts.
Am I missing something? I mean the assistant stuff in Allo is neat and all but
integration has been the key for a while to providing better usability and
this just not only ignores that but introduces two new apps that somewhat
sorta compete with Hangouts, its own product.
Why isn't this just one, single, awesome thing?
~~~
vthallam
I guess, they didn't go with Hangouts because it was basically built as
extension of the web. May be they wanted to build a mobile focused messaging
app from ground up which can compete with apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. It
would have been if they integrated Allo and Duo into a single app though.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: I'm building a service to help people schedule tasks - s-stude
http://scheduleworkers.com
======
ColinWright
Another gorgeous looking website that is clearly intended to explain what the
service is, and I still haven't got a clue exactly what it does, how it works,
how I'd use it, or what value I'd get from it.
Does anyone else understand what it _really_ does?
~~~
s-stude
I can explain what the service does: basically you submit a URL which returns
any kind of data. Then you set up a schedule for a worker to go to that URL
and to load a data on a scheduled basis. Every time a data is loaded it is
send to you via email.
So it's sort of alerting / scheduling mechanism.
------
warewolf
Shoot me an email, its in My bio. I'm a UX & UI designer working on something
in the same space would love to connect.
~~~
s-stude
Done!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How did organized crime attempt to ransack PayPal in the early years? - mg1313
http://www.quora.com/How-did-organized-crime-attempt-to-ransack-PayPal-in-the-early-years
======
frankel0
It is interesting to hear that eBay originally was against the use of PayPal.
Did they at one time have a competing system that they were trying to push? It
seems to me that anything that would allow users to simplify their payment
would be a good thing. I am guessing that PayPal originally wanted to take
credit cards directly (?).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AWS stops some EC2 servers without warning - iProject
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/20/aws_ec2_servers_retired_with_little_warning/
======
kelnos
Not really news...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tensorflow 0.11rc1 Supports Cuda 8.0 Officially - wagonhelm
As you can see here TensorFlow now supports Cuda 8.0<p>https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/releases<p>I also have this tutorial on how to install it from sources.<p>http://wp.me/p7GvOc-2H
======
TuringNYC
Thanks very much for sharing your recipe. Several quick questions -- 1\. I'm
assuming this was Ubuntu server and not desktop, is that right (judging from
you not dealing with nouveau driver silliness...) 2\. Did you consider RHEL
for p2p GPU support (or did you find p2p GPU support to not be worth the added
cost of RHEL)
~~~
wagonhelm
Ubuntu desktop, It serves my needs. I don't have time for other distros.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Developing Service Oriented Architectures - hachiya
http://lethain.com/lessons-from-developing-software-oriented-architectures/
======
JeffJenkins
If you're considering switching your monolithic application into a SOA you
should consider the testing and debugging implications seriously.
If your call graph goes more than one level deep then doing
integration/functional testing becomes much more complicated. You have to
bring up all of the services downstream in order to test functionality which
crosses that boundary. You also have to worry a lot more about different
versions of services talking to each other and how to test/manage that. The
flip side is that the services will be much smaller, so leaf nodes in the call
graph can reach a level of test coverage higher than a monolithic service.
Debugging and performance testing becomes more complicated because when
something is wrong you now have to look at multiple services (upstream and
downstream) in order to figure out where the cause of some bug or performance
issue is. You also run into the versioning issue from above where you have a
new class of bug caused by mismatched versions which either have tweaked
interfaces or underlying assumptions that have changed in one but not the
other (because the other hasn't been deployed and those assumptions are in
shared code). The bright side for debugging and performance is that once you
know which service _is_ causing the issue it's way easier to find what inside
the service is causing the issue. There's a lot less going on, so it's easier
to reason about the state of servers.
~~~
CarlHoerberg
It depends how you do SOA. We try to publish "events" rather than to "call"
another service and expect responses. We try to decide as much as possible in
the service that publishes an event, so that information doesn't have to be
returned. Other services act on that information.
Your kind of SOA sounds more like distributed RPC, which indeed is
complicated.
~~~
JeffJenkins
Yeah, if you can get away with that model things are simpler. The best first
step into SOA to take is offloading work that doesn't need a user response to
a pool of workers (often by publishing to a message bus, as mentioned
elsewhere in the thread). I've implemented systems like that using Rabbit and
Redis and it worked fairly well.
However, some kinds of requests are fundamentally about integrating the
results of a bunch of different services into a response to send to the user.
In that case you somehow need to gather the results of your rpcs/events in one
place to integrate them. An example is Google search where the normal results,
ads, and various specialized results/knowledge graph data need to be
integrated to present to the user.
Another consideration is how much you want to be able to isolate services. If
you have a user/auth service as in the article which completely encapsulates
the database and other resources needed for data about users then you'll end
up with a lot of calls into that service. It's a disadvantage because of all
the reasons in my original comment, but it's great from the perspective of
being able to isolate failures and build resilient systems
~~~
CarlHoerberg
Ok, yes, in the case where you have to have all information on one page.
Another way is of course to get that information in a ajax call, or open a
SSE/Websocket connection to listen for events from the event bus. But there
are of course cases where that's not feasible.
And in the case of auth systems what we typically do is to have a separate app
for logins/authentication, then do simple SSO or domain cookie sharing and let
each sub system handle the authorization.
My point is that not all SOA has to be as complicated as the article's. But if
you go that way, yes, then all your points apply.
------
noelwelsh
Jay Kreps epic blog post on the Log should be required reading:
[http://engineering.linkedin.com/distributed-systems/log-
what...](http://engineering.linkedin.com/distributed-systems/log-what-every-
software-engineer-should-know-about-real-time-datas-unifying)
We do things very differently to that discussed in the OP (and are heavily
influenced by the Krepian school of SOA.) I'd write more, but I'm on a train
with flaky internet.
~~~
tom_b
Awesome link. Epic is the right descriptor. You could do much, much worse if
you were looking to understand data integration in practice.
The links section at the bottom alone are a tremendous resource. I've stumbled
across most of these over a period of years and if you started with just
skimming over this article and the links, you would save yourself many hard
lessons.
------
adrianhoward
For a slightly different slant on SOA's I'd thoroughly recommend watching Fred
George's talk on the technical side of implementing micro-service
architectures from Oredev last year
[https://vimeo.com/79866979](https://vimeo.com/79866979)
along with his talk on Programmer Anarchy which is more about the resulting
team / working patterns
[https://vimeo.com/79866978](https://vimeo.com/79866978)
It's moved playing with much finer-grained service architectures _way_ up my
to to list.
~~~
alecthomas
That first video is really interesting. It seems very reminiscent of a
distributed tuple space architecture [1].
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuple_space](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuple_space)
------
contingencies
Other big benefits you get from well defined interfaces include security - you
can do application level firewalling, statistics, anomaly detection really
easily - and testing (play back known traffic, literally generate every
possible message and see what happens, etc.)
Also, HTTP can be a poor choice in security terms for its complexity baggage
(cookies, headers, methods, DNS baggage, SSL baggage, etc.). Alternatives such
as MQs can be useful to consider, especially at later points in growth, since
they can handle complex topologies with ease.
I believe the author could benefit from making a distinction between stateful
and stateless in his description of dumb and smart API clients, since state is
the main factor resulting from assumptions here.
------
ndcrandall
So after going back and forth with our startup on SOA or not, I have felt like
separating these services out of (in our case) a monolithic Rails application
has made sense. I would like to use Sinatra for one service, rails for the web
interface, and possibly Python for the last service. I understand this adds a
lot of overhead by creating an interface and authentication for each service.
For me the logical division of services seems to make sense especially when
using 'the right tool for the right job'
I may be over optimizing, but I think it will pay off at a later date with
more developers and the need to scale each service separately. Maybe someone
can point out issues with this thinking (besides those addressed in the blog
post).
~~~
dasil003
To me the crux of the issue is the interface. If you can define a very clean
interface without having to do a lot of contortions to get the data you want
where you need it, then extracting a service can be relatively low overhead.
But what often happens is at the 30,000-foot view it looks like a service
makes sense, but then when you get into the details you realize the separation
can not be as clean as you first envisioned.
~~~
jaegerpicker
I'd disagree with this. In my experience everytime it has seemed like the
interface was too complex too support services correctly, it's been because
the break for the services was at the wrong level of abstraction. SOA tends to
work best when you define discreet chunks of functionality and each service is
only responsible for that chunk. Just like developing testable code, you want
to make those chunks as small as possible, without losing your mind at the
shear number of services. For example having an order service and shipping
service as opposed to a just an order service that handles everything is more
likely to make sense IMO.
~~~
dasil003
Your argument doesn't seem to address my point. You're saying if the interface
isn't good you're at the wrong level of abstraction. Okay. How does that
contradict the idea that the interface is everything for creating a successful
SOA?
~~~
jaegerpicker
I'm saying that it's rare that SOA isn't a proper fit for a web application
and if it seems like a poor fit you likely haven't abstracted your interfaces
to the right level. Your monolithic app is going to suffer from poor design
just as much as an SOA based one. Your point seemed to be that certain
applications could be well designed and still not a proper fit for a SOA. I
think if an app is well designed it will by default be a proper fit for SOA.
If you were not implying that I apologize. I guess my position is that nearly
any complex web application would benefit from SOA.
~~~
dasil003
My point was really nothing to do with whether an application is a fit for
SOA. It's more about _how_ to design an SOA. Your point about a poorly
designed SOA being an equally poorly designed app is well taken, but I think
it's more work to design a good SOA than a good monolithic app. And this is
where the effort of designing the interface comes in.
In a monolithic app interfaces can be more fluid because you can have
automated tests and static analysis and compile time checks verifying that a
given change works. That means you can prototype and iterate faster while the
business requirements may still be churning considerably. To realize the
benefits of an SOA you need a much more stable interface and some way to
handle validation and correctness of the wire protocol. If you do it right and
come up with a stable interface, you gain the benefits of decoupling system
administration, scalability, and even development to a great extent. But if
you do it wrong you end up a lot more work for an equivalent business logic
architecture, and if you don't have any scaling issues than the cost-benefit
is likely not to be there.
My rule of thumb about whether an SOA is a good idea to pursue at a given
point in time is much more related to the team size than the nature of the
app.
------
hartror
#2 is exactly how I pitched a migration to a micro-service architecture to my
CEO yesterday. Feeling rather pleased with myself right now.
------
zimpenfish
Last job wanted SOA but wouldn't deploy Rabbit (or any other message bus)
because "it's another thing to look after". Ended up as a simple REST-alike
webservice. Which I guess includes "service" in the description...
~~~
mattmanser
What's wrong with that? No need to overcomplicate stuff. That's a perfectly
good solution depending on what reliability you want.
~~~
zimpenfish
Oh, I have no objection to simple RESTian APIs. But they're very much not SOA.
------
nl
So.. SOA.
Is anyone doing SOA+ESB in a non-Enterprise environment?
Is an ESB actually useful beyond the idea that it is supposed to let "non
skilled" people "develop services" (which I'm somewhat cynical about)?
~~~
noelwelsh
How will you manage communication between services in a SOA? If you
exclusively use point-to-point welcome to spaghetti code.
Our philosophy is to use point-to-point when you absolutely need another
service's input to complete your task. Otherwise put a message into the bus.
See the Jay Kreps blog post I linked in below.
~~~
lmm
It's not spaghetti as long as your interfaces are well-defined, is it?
I can see the value in a service locator/registry, but that doesn't seem like
a substantial piece of the ESB pitch.
When do you have a fire-and-forget case like you seem to be talking about? I
can guess a few secondary concerns like logging, but most of the time if
you're calling another service it's because you need a response from that
service. At least for the apps I'm used to writing.
~~~
arethuza
I would say "spaghettiness" is pretty much topology - not whether those
interfaces are well defined or not, which is pretty much an orthogonal
property.
i.e. You can have a poorly defined ESB and a big pile of spaghetti with well
defined interfaces. Unfortunately I have seen both!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Strange google results - voodoochilo
i am from germany. recently i found a strange phenomenon. when i search for the digits 1 through 9 on google with english as results language i get:<p>1 14.25<p>2 11.45<p>3 10.00<p>4 9.39<p>5 8.55<p>6 25.31 (??)<p>7 7.08<p>8 6.89<p>9 6.46<p>has anybody an idea why digit 6 is so overrepresented?
======
RiderOfGiraffes
No idea why 6 is over-represented, but the rest of the distribution is
probably explained by Benford's Law:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benfords_law>
~~~
voodoochilo
ACK
------
acqq
A glitch. I'm also googling from Europe now on US English google.com and I'm
seeing 7.72 billion for 6.
~~~
voodoochilo
still get 25 bln
------
voodoochilo
the counts are in bln hits
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lyft Seizes on Uber's Struggles as Bookings and Ridership Soar, Losses Shrink - rayuela
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-27/lyft-bookings-and-ridership-soar-while-losses-shrink
======
throwaway90125
Absent numbers showing a decline in Uber numbers, there is absolutely nothing
here that suggests that Lyft's growth here is anything but organic growth.
Are there any market share figures that show what the title claims?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
We are not sheep - yummyfajitas
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1029#more-1029
======
SamAtt
Let me rephrase his strategy here: If someone comes to you with an emotional
argument antagonize them and eventually they'll start acting rational.
I'm sorry but not only do I think this is a bad idea I'm hereby calling
b#llsh#t on the author. There's no way he made sheep noises at a guy who is
emotional about gun control and from that changed the guy's mind.
~~~
caffeine
You're right, Sam. I am struck by the fact that the guntoter did much the
opposite of what this entry's title suggests.
Essentially, it's a post about trollishly winning an argument on IRC by
bleeting like a sheep.
A cautionary tale: people utterly convinced of their ideas will stoop to the
level of beasts to avoid sensibly answering criticism.
------
knowtheory
The problem with this, is that ESR may have cowed the guy into submission, but
i now think that ESR is an asshole, _and_ that he's not right.
I remain entirely unconvinced as to the correctness of his position. In fact,
i am unclear what the full scope and description of his argument is, because
he spends so much time trying to convince us that people who disagree with him
are not rational.
Way to fail at argument.
In some cases it may be fine/appropriate to needle your interlocutors with
non-logical appeals, but doing so does not win your argument. It shuts down
the argument.
ESRs interaction there is particularly frustrating, since his actual argument
contains no content. Going to a gun club is not a rebuttal to an argument,
it's an attempt to indoctrinate others through means other than logic.
Firing a gun, and learning about gun safety isn't going to change my mind that
an populace armed with firearms is a solution for... anything really. Besides,
if we really wanted to start an armed resistance, or a guerrilla movement, we
don't need guns. Al Qaeda didn't cause 9/11 with handguns, and Timothy McVey
didn't blow up the Oklahoma City building with bullets.
~~~
ellyagg
> Firing a gun, and learning about gun safety isn't going to change my mind
> that an populace armed with firearms is a solution for... anything really.
You mean aside from the scads of strong evidence such as the frequent mass
shootings by terrorists in Israel until citizens were allowed to carry
concealed weapons?
~~~
knowtheory
I don't seem to recall the end to the intifada. :P
Arming everyone doesn't solve problems. It just guarantees someone is going to
die. You can say "better them than me", but again, that's not a solution.
Carrying a gun may make you feel safer, but that's all it does. Some people
tried to make the claim that the Virginia Tech massacre could have been
avoided if students were armed on campus. Except that the shooter, who clearly
did not value his own survival, caught everyone off guard.
Unless you are always armed, and always vigilant someone is going to get the
drop on you. Fire arms are not going to make you safer. There are always
random acts of violence.
Also, don't forget that the "good guys" with guns aren't infallible. They
accidentally shoot bystanders or even other good guys by accident too (see the
NY plainclothes policeman who was killed last week).
~~~
knowtheory
Hmm, looks like the intifada did technically peter out[1], but that hasn't
stopped palestinian violent resistance.
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Intifada#End_of_the_Inti...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Intifada#End_of_the_Intifada)
------
pohl
From my reading, the author's epiphany was to shift the debate away from
substance towards a contest along the linear social dominance hierarchy by
trying to out-alpha his opponent, making him his beta bitch. How shocking that
this came from the gun-fetish demographic.
(And I say that as a supporter of the 2nd amendment.)
I feel that this technique is orthogonal to the topic of the debate. A more
dominant and rhetorically skilled opponent might have similarly stopped the
debate in its tracks by insisting that the author loved guns because he was a
chicken.
Then, regardless of the response, reply with "Bock bock bock b'cak!"
This is the author's moment of enlightenment? I don't want people like this on
my side of the gun debate.
------
robotrout
Logos Ethos Pathos
It's not all about the logos, folks. Not knowing that is going to bite you for
the rest of your life.
If somebody is venting to you about gun control, abortion, global warming,
wolf reintroduction, or whether size matters, they are not going to respond to
logic. A minute or two of conversation will tell you if they can be reached
that way. Figure that out, and save yourself an ulcer.
This fact is actually one that even a hacker should be able to grasp, as it
rests purely in your realm.
------
tptacek
My favorite part of his technique is that he starts from the premise that
arguments like "criminals will use your guns against you" and "the weapons
available to citizens are insufficient to repel the police" are "factually and
historically ignorant babble". It's a good thing we had people like him
"short-stopping communist counter-coups in the Baltic states".
------
anigbrowl
Actually, my impression after reading the piece, is that his response is 'we
are sheep with guns'.
I've met two types of gun enthusiasts: the ones that like hunting o other
sport shooting and are basically nerds who like throwing around statistics and
how-to tips, and the ones that believe a Mad Max dystopia is coming _any day
now_ , or are possibly convinced it's already here, who strike me as a bunch
of paranoid lunatics.
A gun is a perfectly valid home defense option, but the dystopian crowd always
seem to be waiting for some kind of reverse rapture in which they'll finally
get to show how well-prepared they are. They remind me of the martial-arts
types that talk endlessly about what would happen if they were ever to get
into a fight, but don't feel comfortable riding public transport.
------
prodigal_erik
"Oh, you wanted an argument? That's next door. This is abuse."
I have to admit the title did not promise a way to _use logic_ to reply to
emotional arguments, as most of us were apparently hoping.
------
yummyfajitas
In the interest of gathering more data points, has anyone attempted to use
this technique computing debates?
I'm thinking of discussions concerning sexps and significant whitespace in
particular.
~~~
swombat
You mean, heavy use of ad hominem attacks followed by a return to the topic?
Yes, I'm sure we've all done that.
And I'm sure we all have plenty of experience showing that insulting your
interlocutor is not a successful means to convince them of anything
whatsoever.
~~~
yummyfajitas
Exactly what I mean. While it certainly is not useful in a rational debate, it
could be useful (under some circumstances) to short circuit an irrational one.
I'm interested, since many debates are (unfortunately) irrational.
------
Confusion
There isn't an 'emotional argument masquerading as logic' anywhere in the
article or the comments. Unless the suggestion is that every argument is an
attempt at logic, in which case 'logical argument' is a tautology.
From the article: _I think, now, that gun owners need to be replying more
often to hoplophobes simply by echoing their “Baaa! Baaa! Baaaa!” back at
them. Because only that reaches the actual fundamentals of the thinly-
rationalized anti-firearms prejudice we so often encounter._
Yeah, because your assumption that those with an anti-firearms stance are by
definition 'hoplophobe' and 'prejudiced' isn't a close-minded, arrogant,
_emotional_ position at all. The 'fear' argument is easily turned around: you
only think you need a gun, because you are afraid of what could happend if you
didn't have one.
The proper response to the presented 'arguments' are:
Q: _“Why do you guys think you need firearms?”_
A: That's not an argument
Q: _“Criminals will just take them from you and use them against you.”_
A: Criminals have their own guns and don't need ours. There is no evidence
that the risk you name outweighs the benefits of owning a gun.
Q: _“They’re useless for anything but killing.”_
A: Umm, that's the point: they can be used to kill people before they kill
you.
Q: _“You can’t seriously think they’re a deterrent against overreaching
governments, the cops will just come for you you first.”_
A: If almost everyone has a gun, the cops can't come for 'you' first.
Not only does he present stupid arguments, he is also incapable of defusing
these stupid arguments and has to resort to imitating sheep. And this is
supposed to be a hacker guru, someone worth imitating. God help us all...
~~~
sofal
For all we know, he may have given all of the same answers you did. Have you
ever tried to give intelligent responses to someone who has already decided
you are wrong? This is what is meant by an "emotional argument masquerading as
logic". Somebody asks seemingly logical questions with the sole intent to bait
and knock down the responses no matter how logical and well thought-out they
are. The author of the article eventually recognized that this was just a
pissing match and tried a different approach which worked better in that
particular isolated case. From your "proper response" I have to believe that
you would have fallen for the bait.
~~~
Confusion
If the guy was baiting, then I concur with SamAtt:
_There's no way he made sheep noises at a guy who is emotional about gun
control and from that changed the guy's mind._
------
sho
The problem with this technique is that everyone thinks they're right. You
would be amazed and appalled to learn how opponents of, say, evolution think
that they are the knowledgable few and you are the "sheep" who has been
brainwashed by the scientific "man".
There is little to be gained from this kind of _mano-a-mano_ debate, IMO, and
much to be lost in terms of time and emotional energy. The intelligent person
of programmatic means would be wise to consider how better he might make use
of his time, for example in constructing appropriate systems to enable larger
scale, and more effective, destruction and undermining of the ignorance in the
world.
~~~
yummyfajitas
I'd amend your statement. There is little _information_ to be gained from this
kind of debate. You can, however, gain position, status or resources from this
kind of debate.
In the real world, it is often necessary to deal with irrational actors. I
don't think it is a bad idea to learn how to hack people's irrationality for
your own ends. It is evil to short circuit _rational_ debate, but if the
debate is already irrational, why not learn how to win it?
~~~
staticshock
I agree. And, in subtle ways, even rational arguments are often won with
appeals to emotion. Learning how to use emotion in an argument is a very
powerful tool.
~~~
yummyfajitas
I think that by definition, a rational argument cannot be won with appeals to
emotion.
The only exception I can think of is revealing to a person that their
perceived utility function is different from their actual utility function.
(E.g., how happy does owning diamond necklace actually make you?) But in that
case, appealing to emotion is more about revealing new information (about
emotions) than overriding rational thought.
------
ahoyhere
Baa baa baa.
I mean:
This guy needs to grow the hell up and read a book on rhetoric.
Appalling.
EDIT: Oh, it's ESR! That explains a lot.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tesla Autopilot tricked into accelerating from 35 to 85 mph with modified sign - harambae
https://electrek.co/2020/02/19/tesla-autopilot-tricked-accelerate-speed-limit-sign/
======
dmitrygr
Further proving that "self driving" is approximately as hard as AGI, and is
_nowhere_ near as "close" as everyone thinks to think it is. A human would
have _context_ and _common sense_ and thus know that a residential street will
simply not _ever_ have an 85 mph speed limit.
And _yes_ , you could special case _this_ case in the code, but there are
hundreds of cases where "common sense" is used in driving, and you will never
teach your NNs all of it.
Prediction: no actual "self driving" (to a point where driver can legally be
asleep) on public streets till > 10 years from now
~~~
joshvm
I don't see why you need special cases in the code. Sat nav units have had
speed limits built in for years. Why not just look it up in a database? (the
car knows where it is after all, and requiring a GPS fix could be mandatory -
most drones won't arm without it, for example)
~~~
rypskar
How much can you trust that data? My car tell me what the speed limit is by
using a database and reading signs. On my commute to work there is a part
where it tell me the speed limit is 5km/h when it actually is 80km/h and
another place where it for a short bit shows the limit as 80km/h where the
correct is 30km/h
~~~
joshvm
Neither is ideal. But you should use what information you have. There is still
no excuse for making a decision like 85 in a 35. Worst case this should be a
disengage or the car could defer to you - eg visual warning on the dash "speed
limit unclear, override?"
In the UK smart motorways can vary from 30mph to 70mph according to traffic.
This can change within minutes and obviously cannot be in databases. So this
is a good case for sign recognition. In theory though, there is some network
that's updating the speed limits and there's no technical reason why that
couldn't be a public information service (maybe it already is).
Then you have the sibling comments - speed limits which are time based. I
would imagine this is country specific and is, mostly, a matter of public
record. But would you trust CV to recognise text on a sign with specific
hours? I don't know how complex the signage is, but trying to use ML for this
seems absurdly wasteful of resources.
Finally you have other information - how fast are the cars around you
travelling? Have you detected an obstruction on the road (eg cones)? Is the
weather inclement and therefore you should drive more slowly, etc.
I would imaging that if self driving cars become ubiquitous there will
eventually be a system for real time speed limit determination, whether that's
some kind of wireless beacon at regular intervals or an online database that's
kept up to date I don't know.
~~~
rypskar
How is the accuracy of sign recognition on the LED signs stating the current
speed limit? My experience is that it is not so good, maybe other cars are
better at reading LED signs.
For the car to react according to how other cars drive, you need to have other
cars on the road at the same time. I have a narrow gravel road where the limit
is 30km/h but safe driving is between 10 and 20, but my car tell the limit is
50km/h. It can be weeks without me seeing other cars on that road at the same
time as me. Some mornings during the winter I can drive because I know where
the road is, not because all of it is visible. Good luck having an autopilot
doing that
~~~
joshvm
Well, quite. But again this is all supplementary information. The car should
have a basic idea of the speed limit from a database and it should adjust as
appropriate.
Similarly the car should be able to identify road surface conditions and also
how much power it's needing to put in to achieve a set speed. If it's
identified that traction is being lost over gravel, then it should reduce
power.
Equally the autopilot should consider visibility. There are plenty of roads
that are national speed limit and you'd be insane to drive at 60 on them due
to blind or extremely tight corners.
But with LEDs this seems like massively over-engineering the problem. Why use
computer vision when you can potentially broker a deal with the highways
agency to get live speed limits on a particular stretch of highway?
------
rootusrootus
They had to use older Teslas to make this work, because newer models don't use
sign-reading to determine speed limit.
Abstractly, it's interesting, if only because it probably wouldn't trick a
human -- everyone would see the 85mph as BS regardless of the defaced sign.
Has anyone hacked into openstreetmaps yet and fiddled with speed limits?
~~~
gizmo385
What do the newer models use? I tried to Google for it, but just kept
stumbling on news articles about the OP.
~~~
bdcravens
"Front-facing cameras detect speed limit signs on AP1 vehicles and display the
current limit on the dashboard or center display. Limits are compared against
GPS data if no signs are present or if vehicle is HW2 or HW2.5"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Autopilot#Speed_assist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Autopilot#Speed_assist)
From what I've gathered elsewhere, the GPS data is OSM.
------
Robotbeat
This already happens occasionally with regular drivers:
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-
transp...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-
transport/11138390/Drivers-tricked-by-fake-40mph-speed-limit-signs.html)
"Pranksters blamed for speeding offences after drivers caught out by 40mph
signs in 30mph zone"
Ironically, current Teslas are largely immune to this as they use a database
of speed limits.
------
wpietri
Ah, that's especially good. They just changed the 3 in "35 MPH" speed limit
sign to look more like an 8, and the Teslas dutifully sped up. A mistake no
human driver would make.
Rodney Brooks points out that if we ever get AGI [1], we'll have solved the
autonomous vehicle problem. But it's far from clear to me that we'll truly
solve the problem much before then, as cars and roadways are built with GI
expectations in mind.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligenc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence)
~~~
koboll
>A mistake no human driver would make.
And probably prosecutable as felony manslaughter, the same way removing a stop
sign would be, because you're acting in a way you know will get people killed.
------
elcomet
So basically they modified a 35MHP street sign to make it look like a 85MPH. I
looked at it from a distance, and it was hard to tell between 35 and 85.
So if it is hard for a human, then it seems obvious that a tesla would also
fail to recognize a 35.
Maybe the difference is that a human might not be certain and slow down just
in case, whereas a deep neural network might be certain in its errors.
~~~
tmpz22
A human has the basic intuition to assume the sign itself might be wrong or
misleading, the programmers of the car automation failed to realize that in a
way that might've gotten someone killed.
~~~
russfink
Good thing, too, that nobody stepped out in front of their car, like a kid
chasing a ball, as they did their ad hoc experiment.
~~~
frosted-flakes
They didn't allow the car to reach 85 m/h, for obvious reasons.
------
loser777
This is as good of a demonstration of the big "common sense" gap that end-to-
end computer vision approaches have as it is of adversarial examples. Even
with an occluded speed limit sign, humans have strong priors on what a
sensible speed limit would be based on a more general understanding of the
environment (width of lanes, curvature of roads, visibility, road quality,
frequency of law enforcement vehicles ;), etc.).
~~~
castratikron
Wonder if the neural net could be trained to know the speed limit? "This scene
doesn't look like the usual 85 mph zone..."
~~~
fyfy18
Many cars now come with a database of speed limits and display it on the
dashboard. Although this shouldn't be relied on for self driving, it could be
used to double check. OSM data for types of roads and areas is pretty accurate
too, so you could use that ('an 85mph speed limit for a single lane within a
residential area doesn't sound correct'). This doesn't need AI, it just needs
someone with common sense to come up with a few basic rules about speed
limits. If there is some doubt you could prompt the driver to confirm the
speed limit change, and use that to build up a database of real world data.
It sounds like the Tesla is just using what the camera sees - which is bad if
true. Admittedly this was tested on a race track, so maybe there is no data
saying otherwise (or even the opposite).
------
aero142
If the point is that autonomous cars are succeptable to deliberate malicious
actors, I've got bad news about the rest of the world. Human drivers are
incredibly succeptable to me throwing a $2 brick throught the front windshield
as well. It sounds like the issue is already resolved in this case.
~~~
capableweb
I guess the difference here is the scope of how many you can impact.
In order to get all Teslas who go past a sign on the highway, you just have to
modify the sign slightly and everyone is affected (in theory).
In order to affect the same amount of people with your "brick through the
windshield" strategy, you'll need a lot more manpower than just a sticker on a
sign.
~~~
throwanem
That depends on the size of wreck you manage to cause, don't you think? In any
case, it takes no more people to drop a brick than it does to sticker a sign.
To be clear, I find this entire concept of unsupervised robot vehicles both
dangerous and absurd - even more so than the already dangerous and absurd
baseline of a society so intimately bound up with automotive travel as ours.
Exceeding such a high baseline as that is in its way impressive, and certainly
demonstrates the astonishing overconfidence rampant in some segments of our
very young and rather careless industry, but let's not get distracted from
that essential point and waste our efforts on inconsequential arguments over
whether a sticker is more dangerous than a brick.
~~~
capableweb
> That depends on the size of wreck you manage to cause, don't you think?
No, I think it's the scope of affecting many after another without doing
something more. Throwing bricks requires continues action while a sticker is a
thing you do once and then it "does it for you".
See it as working every day and getting paid for that, versus a savings
account where you get returns without really doing anything.
And sorry, I didn't really join the conversations to argue against "concept of
unsupervised robot vehicles [is] both dangerous and absurd " so I agree with
the rest of your message.
------
valine
Putting aside the fact that this was found on an old Tesla with autopilot 1.0,
this is not even a technically hard problem to solve. The current version of
autopilot uses a database and gps to determine the speed limit. In the future
if Tesla wants to return to a vision based speed limit system they can sanity
check the vision readings against their database and throw out results like
85mph.
------
oyebenny
I live in Atlanta and there's a digital speed limit sign on 75. Sometimes the
light is out and when it means to say the speed limit is "55" it just says
"5". Come to think of it I've always noticed traffic slowing down nearing that
sign. I wonder if any Tesla's have any contribution to that.
~~~
emiliobumachar
I would slow down to a speed limit of 5, even if I was sure it was a defective
display. It's effectively an unknown speed limit. Maybe not if I'm _very_
familiar with the road, but not everyone is.
Yes, I'm sure the courts should throw out the ticket, but sometimes they mess
up, and often you lose time and money to pursue your case.
------
consp
Nice for them use Tesla but I'm pretty sure you can do it with every sign
reading auto throttle system. There are plenty of cruise control systems which
employ similar technologies.
~~~
shiftpgdn
Or a person who misreads the sign. Though the whole point is that a Tesla
doesn't have the context to know that a residential zone with an 85mph speed
limit sign is obviously some sort of error.
~~~
toast0
You don't need residential context. You just need US context. I have never
seen an 85 MPH speed limit sign in the US, ever. Up to 65 is common, with 70
or 75 sometimes on well maintained roads between urban areas. I can't recall
seeing an 80, but I feel like maybe once or twice.
~~~
drunken-serval
There’s an 85mph in one place in Texas.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_S...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_States)
------
sebringj
What I like about Tesla is they have over the air updates using a fleet of
network data to quickly address issues or exploits that may arise... but this
article is quite funny exposing the gap between AI and basic human intuition.
I do believe human intuition may just be another model to train from in some
sense in the end.
------
asdff
Some sick people get their kicks tossing rocks off of overpasses. Imagine the
games people are going to play with cardboard cutouts of whatever or false
signage. I predict an arms race.
~~~
Robotbeat
People could already cause crashes by making fake signs or repainting lines. I
think this XKCD summarizes the issue nicely:
[https://m.xkcd.com/1958/](https://m.xkcd.com/1958/)
------
JMTQp8lwXL
If a human drove at 85 mph because a bad actor maliciously modified the speed
limit sign, would they be liable?
~~~
binarymax
Co-reference resolution error: who is 'they' in your sentence? The human or
the bad actor?
No matter what, the answer is probably both. You can't modify street signs now
anyway. You also can't drive 85 in residential/city areas.
~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
The human operating the vehicle who reads a maliciously edited sign. It seems
unquestionable to me anybody modifying street signs would be held liable for
the modifications.
------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
>The safety of Tesla's autopilot features has come under close scrutiny, but
CEO Elon Musk has predicted the company will have "feature-complete full self-
driving" this year.
I think that is a real possibility if we are referring to years on Jupiter
(which has an orbital period of 12 Earth years).
------
whyaduck
So cars are using OCR on speed limit signs?
Next step: sql injection.
[https://hackaday.com/2014/04/04/sql-injection-fools-speed-
tr...](https://hackaday.com/2014/04/04/sql-injection-fools-speed-traps-and-
clears-your-record/)
~~~
masklinn
That's pretty common IME though the ones I've driven didn't make decisions
based on that.
Last few cars I've rented had a speed limit sign _generally_ matching the
speed limit on the dash, and on the one I rented this christmas passing a
speed limit sign (or an other sign triggering a speed limit change) while on
limiter or cruise control would flash a message suggesting pressing a button
twice to change the configured speed to that (rather than manually adjust
using the +/\- buttons).
They were mediums (C-segment) and compact MPV not large or luxury, which I
expect is why the sign reading was mostly to purely indicative.
------
Sohcahtoa82
While scary, it's not exactly relevant to any Tesla made after they broke off
from MobilEye (Which I think was 2016?).
Current Teslas don't read speed limit signs, they access an online database.
Vandalize the speed limit signs all you want, as modern Teslas aren't even
reading them.
------
luxuryballs
Shouldn’t it know that 85 is beyond the speed limit? You’d think it would know
the laws based on where the GPS is, like in some states above 80 is reckless
driving. Seems trivial to make this data available.
------
posix_compliant
I'm not what you'd call a self-driving car "skeptic" since I do think that we
will eventually be able to iron out these types of rules, but I think it will
be another 30-50 years before I feel comfortable truly trusting one.
~~~
emiliobumachar
How much do you "truly trust" human drivers?
------
m0zg
Sounds like an easy fix in most cases. Residential road or road work? Can't be
85, period. There are relatively few roads in the US where 85 is the actual
speed limit.
------
threatofrain
Don't cities have easily accessible and authoritative records on locations of
important traffic controls? If so, that would make this problem a little bit
easier.
------
vardump
Another discussion on same topic:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22370346](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22370346)
------
tjoff
Even if it was a legitimate 85 mph sign a human would realize that the road
isn't safe at 85 mph speeds.
You must react to the environment as well...
------
NicoJuicy
I'm a self-driving skeptic, but this test is not fair.
It's also illegal to do this, so it's not a valid edge-case.
~~~
dtho
Why would the legality make this test invalid or unfair? Illegal things still
happen. I have seen countless street signs with graffiti on them. I could see
rebellious teenagers doing this on purpose without fully understanding or
caring about the consequences. Search google images for 'street sign graffiti'
and you will see thousands of examples.
~~~
lostlogin
There has been an outbreak of modified stop signs near me. Some are quite
professionally done with stickers championing pet projects. Stop animal
farming, stop eating meat etc. If they weren’t at the end of a street, they
would definitely look like a marketing campaign (which I suppose is exactly
what they are).
------
ebg13
I keep seeing throughout this thread statements similar to "a human would
never do this", and the only thing running through my head is awe at how
little otherwise smart people understand their fellow humans.
Like...y'all have lost your goddamn minds. OF COURSE many humans would do it!
Humans fucking drive straight into lakes because the map told them to. Humans
do not have some kind of magical ward against fucking up or against being
tricked. Quite the opposite.
But you know what the difference is? As soon as the computer system has
programmed in a record of local contextual defaults, this problem won't happen
again. Say the same about humans, I dare you.
~~~
sharkmerry
>> Humans fucking drive straight into lakes because the map told them to.
I had to check if this was real or just a bit from the office that imprinted.
Googling "humans drive into lake" only finds one incident. Which occured at
midnight.[1]
and if you look at the research, they didnt convert it into an 8, they simply
extended the middle part of the 3 a little bit [2]
[1][https://fox8.com/news/a-little-embarrassed-woman-follows-
car...](https://fox8.com/news/a-little-embarrassed-woman-follows-cars-gps-
straight-into-lake-huron/)
[2][https://cdn0.tnwcdn.com/wp-
content/blogs.dir/1/files/2020/02...](https://cdn0.tnwcdn.com/wp-
content/blogs.dir/1/files/2020/02/Screenshot-2020-02-19-at-11.59.56.png)
~~~
ebg13
> _Googling "humans drive into lake" only finds one incident._
You'd find more examples if you tried _slightly_ harder ("lake" isn't the
important part!):
[https://kfgo.com/2020/02/10/man-drives-into-mississippi-
rive...](https://kfgo.com/2020/02/10/man-drives-into-mississippi-river-while-
following-google-maps/983425/)
[https://www.cnet.com/news/man-drives-into-river-gps-
china/](https://www.cnet.com/news/man-drives-into-river-gps-china/)
[https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/man-watches-wife-
bu...](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/man-watches-wife-burn-
alive-5435575)
[https://abc13.com/587100/](https://abc13.com/587100/)
[https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/03/gps-
tracking-...](https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/03/gps-tracking-
disaster-japanese-tourists-drive-straight-into-the-pacific/)
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/bradford/7962212....](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/bradford/7962212.stm)
[https://www.boston25news.com/news/man-drives-into-pond-
while...](https://www.boston25news.com/news/man-drives-into-pond-while-
following-gps-directions/538872511/)
[https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/gps-leads-nj-
motorist-...](https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/gps-leads-nj-motorist-
into-house/2123304/)
[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1164705/BMW-left-
te...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1164705/BMW-left-
teetering-100ft-cliff-edge-sat-nav-directs-driver-steep-footpath.html)
[https://www.westsiderag.com/2013/05/01/gps-brain-fail-
driver...](https://www.westsiderag.com/2013/05/01/gps-brain-fail-driver-car-
ends-up-stuck-on-riverside-park-stairs)
[https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/driver-
follows-g...](https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/driver-follows-gps-
into-sand/news-story/081ea557f486757a0cdd2722892727bb)
[https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/01/waze-app-directs-
dri...](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/01/waze-app-directs-driver-to-
drive-car-into-lake-champlain.html)
[https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/2-drivers-stuck-on-train-
tr...](https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/2-drivers-stuck-on-train-tracks-in-
duluth-after-gps-error-1-car-hit)
[https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2013/06/19/mbta-train-
ac...](https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2013/06/19/mbta-train-accident-car-
tracks/)
[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-01/car-being-hit-by-
trai...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-01/car-being-hit-by-train-after-
gps-sends-onto-tracks/6818564)
[https://abc7chicago.com/395218/](https://abc7chicago.com/395218/)
People act like humans are immune from making idiotic decisions or from
ignoring their surroundings or something. That's...super naive.
~~~
sharkmerry
But in these examples, would AI driving not fail there too? Heres an example
of AI driving into a river [https://electrek.co/2019/03/10/tesla-crash-river-
claim-unint...](https://electrek.co/2019/03/10/tesla-crash-river-claim-
unintended-accelerated/) so it happens as well.
would you be fooled by the attached image in my previous comment? If you were
fooled, would your default action be to accelerate by 50mph, when no other
drivers are?
~~~
ebg13
> _would AI driving not fail there too?_
It might if it were relying solely on a GPS and nothing else, but, of course,
none of them do that. The biggest difference is that navigation software can
improve and sensors don't stop paying attention. You can't say either of those
things about people who screw up in exactly the same circumstances.
> _Heres an example of AI driving into a
> river[https://electrek.co/2019/03/10/tesla-crash-river-claim-
> unint...](https://electrek.co/2019/03/10/tesla-crash-river-claim-unint..).
> so it happens as well._
Let's note that the article is skeptical that the problem was actually the
car:
"I want to give the driver the benefit of the doubt, but every time we have
seen similar circumstances, the logs always pointed to a user mistake."
But even giving the driver the benefit of the doubt and asserting as a premise
that the AI caused the accident, we're still left with the fact that people
unintentionally accelerate their vehicles all the damn time. If a machine does
it once in a while, that's not a regression, that's the baseline.
~~~
sharkmerry
>> we're still left with the fact that people unintentionally accelerate their
vehicles all the goddamn time.
Again, do they do this by 50+mph ALL THE GODDAMN TIME?
>> If a machine does it once in a while, that's not a regression, that's the
baseline.
If all the machines do it at once though? The impact of self-driving failing
is a lot more than 1 person, typically.
Also, we dont know the rate of error. There are 1.2 Billion drivers in the
world. 3.5 Billions smartphone users. Its safe to say 50% of drivers use GPS.
So 600 Millions Drivers using GPS? There arent even 1 million Tesla's on the
road yet and they are already having incidents.
~~~
ebg13
> _Again, do they do this by 50+mph ALL THE GODDAMN TIME?_
No. Usually they crash into something first. I can tell you one personal
anecdote, though, where in 1995 the gas pedal in my truck actually got
physically stuck in the down position and I had to hold the brake pedal down
with one foot while wedging my other foot underneath the gas pedal to loosen
it. Of course I could only do this after the several (5 or 6?) seconds it took
for me to understand what was happening and then react. 6 seconds is a long
time to react to a catastrophic event. Humans aren't great at it. We almost
always do the wrong thing. We turn the wrong way. We push the wrong pedal. We
don't understand our surroundings. We ignore our surroundings.
Anyway. Please note I'm not saying that this isn't a failure of the nav
system. It is. I'm saying that anyone claiming that humans are magically
immune is wrong because humans are very dumb and make dumb mistakes all of the
time.
~~~
reidjs
Why not just pop it into neutral?
~~~
ebg13
Panic and adrenaline? I think you must have missed the part where I said
"humans are very dumb and make dumb mistakes all of the time".
------
kwhitefoot
Very misleading. The car will only accellerate to the speed already chosen by
the driver. It doesn't seem odd for itself to accellerate up to speed limits
------
skymt
XKCD on tricking self-driving cars:
[https://xkcd.com/1958/](https://xkcd.com/1958/)
I wanted to link that not because of the "there's an XKCD for everything" meme
but because it makes an interesting point: sabotaging roads isn't difficult
now, with human drivers. There's no reason to assume it would suddenly become
a substantial threat when autonomous cars are commonly adopted. An issue worth
considering and accounting for, but not worth public worry.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
NASA hands space enthusiasts the keys to a 1970s-era spacecraft - ghosh
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/05/nasa-hands-space-enthusiasts-the-keys-to-a-1970s-era-spacecraft/
======
ColinWright
Significant discussion on an earlier discussion of a different article on the
same question:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7772405](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7772405)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AlphaFold: Using AI for Scientific Discovery - panabee
https://deepmind.com/blog/article/AlphaFold-Using-AI-for-scientific-discovery
======
lucidrains
For those interested, it appears as though David Baker (who dedicated his life
to protein folding) has also turned to deep learning. His lab recently
published
[https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/846279v1](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/846279v1),
which seems to outperform Alphafold with a very concise architecture. Code and
model is at
[https://github.com/gjoni/trRosetta](https://github.com/gjoni/trRosetta)
~~~
faitswulff
Do you know if he turned to deep learning after AlphaFold's stunning
performance at CASP13 in 2018? I haven't heard anything from that particular
niche since the "AlphaFold @ CASP13: “What just happened?”" blog post:
[https://moalquraishi.wordpress.com/2018/12/09/alphafold-
casp...](https://moalquraishi.wordpress.com/2018/12/09/alphafold-casp13-what-
just-happened/)
~~~
lucidrains
The author of the article you linked also has this repo, to welcome the public
to start training
[https://github.com/aqlaboratory/proteinnet](https://github.com/aqlaboratory/proteinnet)
, following in the same veins as Imagenet
------
aabhay
A colleague of mine in chemistry gave his thoughts on AI for protein folding
recently: “things keep getting better, but they’re nowhere close to being
good”.
I think part of the issue at play here is the cost of confirming success, not
simply the cost of generating a plausible solution. In most domains of AI that
have shown success, the cost of confirmation is trivial (look at the image and
check the label) whereas the cost of generating a plausible solution was high.
Like many AI fields, I believe that the real breakthrough will not be a direct
approach, but an approach the solves the most pressing barrier to using AI in
the first place.
~~~
bobosha
> but an approach the solves the most pressing barrier to using AI in the
> first place.
what do you think is the "most pressing barrier to using AI"?
~~~
ethanbond
From my perspective, in the life-sciences space, it’s certainly the lack of
high quality data. To be more specific, there’s tons of data, but it’s sloppy,
lossy, and non standardized.
Many of those discussing the promise of near future AI are either academics or
new to the field. The real data landscape is so much worse than they would
imagine it is.
------
rutherf0rd
The best take on AlphaFold:
[https://moalquraishi.wordpress.com/2018/12/09/alphafold-
casp...](https://moalquraishi.wordpress.com/2018/12/09/alphafold-casp13-what-
just-happened/)
------
sanxiyn
Eagerly waiting for CASP14 in 2020. CASP is a biennial competition. AlphaFold
participated in CASP13 in 2018.
------
elil17
A bit off topic, but what the hell does the word "Alpha" mean in their
marketing? Are they just going to call every AI they create from now on
"Alpha_"
~~~
woadwarrior01
It probably has something to do with the parent company being named Alpha_Bet.
~~~
elil17
Damn you're right
------
emmelaich
Amazing. The difference between their number one position and the the second
is a greater difference than any other two consecutive positions.
Not an especially important metric, but impressive nonetheless.
------
xvilka
I hope, it will help other folding research projects too, like
Folding@Home[1], Rosetta@Home[2].
[1] [https://foldingathome.org/](https://foldingathome.org/)
[2] [https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/](https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Has the modern university become just another corporation? - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/magazine/30wwln-lede-t.html?ex=1348804800&en=89c1bfa23c3175ea&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
======
Goladus
This is a pointless argument until everyone agrees on the definitions of
"Corporation" versus "University." The article is careless on that point, and
vague about what we should do if they are really the same. He highlights a few
exceptional cases, which may be representative problems but are probably not.
In particular, he doesn't seem to have thought at all about the consequences
of levying taxes on Universities. That seems to be the central injustice he's
concerned about, but does he really think the money would be better off in
government hands? He doesn't seem to have considered those implications.
Personally, I think there is a ton of value in the idea of a University, in
spite of the possibility for corruption and definitely in spite of anyone's
attempt to abstract away random differences until corporations and
universities look the same in some meaningless description. The culture of any
decent university campus encourages learning in a way that you almost never
see at a large company. You might compare Harvard to Google, or Xerox PARC,
but start comparing second tier colleges to second tier companies and
companies don't even come close.
------
karzeem
"How are college students treated in this brave new academic world? Not very
well, at least not if this year's spate of bad news articles is any
indication."
I don't know that this year's spate of bad news articles _is_ any indication.
College admissions are perennially weighted towards the already-advantaged,
but once you're in, I have a hard time believing that motivated students were
better off 30 years ago. The number of programs and opportunities for people
willing to go for them is growing constantly.
Robg, your headline asks that question like it's a bad thing. There are
certainly pitfalls, but it seems that if universities compete with each other
more, students can only win.
~~~
robg
The headline was the subtitle in the Magazine TOC and more informative than
the actual headline ("Academic Business").
~~~
karzeem
It definitely summarizes the article better, so you were right to use it. I
blame the Magazine, not you, for its tone.
------
aswanson
For the most part, yes.
~~~
pixcavator
Really? Do I need to list the differences?
~~~
aswanson
Proceed, if you would.
------
jharper
That would be awesome. I wish our schools were run like businesses.
There would probably be less porn stars coming to speak for "diversity" week
...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists - ingve
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2016/05/09/how-to-read-and-understand-a-scientific-paper-a-guide-for-non-scientists/
======
neutronicus
I have a little "hack" that I find _extremely_ helpful for getting a sense of
specific research fields.
Journal articles, even review papers, are cramped for space and so tend to be
very dense. The author suggests methods for doing battle with this density,
but I suggest that, before doing that, you search for a class of document
that's allowed to be as expansive as the author desires, and whose authors
have recently struggled to learn and understand their content, and so tend to
_be_ expansive:
PhD Theses
Find out what research group published the research, find out which graduate
students have recently graduated from that group, and _read their theses_ (if
the author's command of the language of publication isn't what you'd prefer
... find another graduate student). I guarantee you it will function much
better as an introduction to what the group does than trying to parse any of
their journal publications. In particular, the "draw the experiment" step will
often be solved for you, with photographs, at least in the fields where I've
done this.
~~~
FredrikMeyer
This is _very_ good advice. I am a PhD student in mathematics, and every time
I try to learn a new area of math, I'm grateful when I stumble upon PhD theses
about that topic. They actually include their calculations.
~~~
neutronicus
Yeah, and if you _are_ actually in the field and trying to learn it (as you
are and this article's intended audience is not), a nice little bonus is that
PhD theses are usually formatted in a way that's very friendly to markin' 'em
up as you come to grips with the material.
------
startupdiscuss
This is a good guide, but I will tell you a trick that is faster, easier, and
more effective:
read 2 or 3 papers.
All that effort you would put into doing these steps? Instead, read 1 or 2
other papers that the author refers to in the beginning.
Science is a conversation. When you read the other papers, even if you don't
understand them at first, you will get a sense of the conversation.
Also, some writers are abysmal, and others are amazingly lucid. Hopefully one
of the 3 papers you read will be the lucid one that will help you understand
the other 2.
~~~
ouid
There is a huge variety in the quality of writing in scientific papers, but
most of it is bad, or at least totally opaque, so I'm not sure that 3 papers
will give you a sense of what is good, or even have a high probability of
containing a paper that you can use as an entry point, although I think your
premise is correct.
Probably the best evidence that a paper is a good entry point is whether or
not the author cared about the abstract. A lot of scientists treat it as a
chore, picking some key points from the premise, methodology, and conclusion
sections, and haphazardly pasting them together into a miniature version of
the paper. An abstract is a sketch of your argument. It's supposed to be how
the author thinks about the work they are doing, in terms of how it relates to
the work everyone else is doing. Look for an abstract which presents an
argument in plain english and isn't afraid to give a little background or
motivation. It might take dozens to find one though.
~~~
jacobolus
Personally I find abstracts close to useless, and just skip them entirely.
I’ve never found a particularly close correlation between what an abstract
said and how interesting/informative/well written the rest of the paper was.
YMMV.
------
closed
I love how simple and clear this post is.
As a kind of weird aside, if anyone ever emailed me about any of my journal
articles, I would 100% respond to them (assuming they weren't a machine). I
think most of my colleagues would do the same (except for articles featured in
a newspaper, which might garner a lot of weird emails).
~~~
kkylin
Me too, most especially if the email is from a student. I imagine the same
goes for many of us who write research papers.
------
lumisota
Keshav's "How to Read a Paper" [1] is a good guide, though perhaps less in the
"for non-scientists" camp.
[1]
[http://ccr.sigcomm.org/online/files/p83-keshavA.pdf](http://ccr.sigcomm.org/online/files/p83-keshavA.pdf)
------
choxi
> As you read, write down every single word that you don’t understand. You’re
> going to have to look them all up (yes, every one. I know it’s a total pain.
> But you won’t understand the paper if you don’t understand the vocabulary.
> Scientific words have extremely precise meanings).
That's a great tip. I've found that a lot of papers aren't necessarily
complicated, but the vocabulary is unfamiliar (but you experience the same
sense of confusion with both). It's interesting that we often conflate
complexity with unfamiliarity, my reading comprehension abilities improved
quite a bit by understanding the difference between the two.
------
glup
I don't understand the opposition to abstracts: dense means high information
content, so if you know the field you can learn a whole lot (like whether you
should read this paper or another one).
~~~
PeterisP
Abstracts often are misleading.
They're useful to decide whether you should read this paper or another one,
but they're often _not_ useful to get a summary of what exactly the paper
actually achieves. Often the abstract will imply a more interesting result by
leaving out key aspects and limitations (which are detailed in the paper and
its conclusions) that significantly change the impact of the paper, the
abstract often is more like an advertisement for the paper than an effective
summary. I mean, it _may_ be, but if I'd read just the abstract and go away
thinking, "oh, so now there's a way to do X", I'd often be wrong.
~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I recently read a paper whose abstract seemed to imply to me that its content
was much more technical and specific than it actually turned out to be, which
was disappointing. It was more useful in telling you the particular area of
research than summarising its content.
------
ChuckMcM
Oh this is awesome, well presented and clear.
A couple of notes, generally if you email the author of a paper they will send
you a copy. Scholar.google.com can be used to evaluate the other papers
referenced, highly cited ones will be 'core' to the question, less highly
cited ones will address some particular aspect of the research.
For any given paper, if it cites one or two seminal papers in the field, you
can build a citation cloud to create what is best described as the 'current
best thinking on this big question'. You do that by following up the citations
and their citations for two or three hops. (kind of like a web crawler).
With something like sci-hub and some work on PDF translation, it should be
possible to feed two or three 'seed' papers to an algorithm and have it
produce a syllabus for the topic.
------
deorder
I usually first start reading or glance over papers (and non-story books) from
the end to the beginning before I read it the other way around. This has the
following benefits for me:
\- By knowing about the conclusion first I will better understand the
motivation and why certain steps are being taken.
\- I find out sooner if the paper (or book) is something I am looking for.
I like to read papers unrelated to my field to learn new thing to apply. To be
honest, some papers still take me a long time to understand because they
usually assume you already are researching the topic (for ex. certain terms,
symbols and/or variables that are not being defined).
------
nonbel
There is a difference between reading and studying a paper. Many papers I just
check the abstract for claims of A causes/correlates B (ie it is a "headline"
claim), and look for a scatter plot of A vs B (it is missing).
Then I do ctrl-F "blind" (can't find it), ctrl-F "significance" (see p-value
with nearby text indicating it has been misinterpreted). Boom, paper done in
under a minute. There is really no reason to study such papers unless they
have some very specific information you are searching for (like division rate
of a certain cell line or something).
~~~
Denvercoder9
This only works for a very small subset of studies in a subset of scientific
fields.
~~~
nonbel
Agreed, the OP was about medical research though, where it does apply.
------
olsgaard
About identifying "The Big Question", I have a story from my days as a
graduate student, where I failed to do so.
I was asked to help on a project that needed to identify humans in an audio
stream. During my literature review, I came across the field of "Voice
Activity Detection" or VAD, which concerns itself with identifying where in an
audiosignal a human voice / speech is present (as opposed to _what_ the speech
is).
I implemented several algorithms from the literature and tested it on the
primary tests sets referenced in papers and spend a few months on this until I
finally asked myself "What would happen if I gave my algorithm an audiostream
of a dog barking?"
The barking was identified as "voice".
As it turns out, the "Big Question" in Voice Activity Detection is not to find
human voices (or any voices), but to figure out when to pass on high-fidelity
signals from phone calls. So the algorithms tend to only care about audio
segments that are background noise and segments that are not background noise.
------
sn9
>I want to help people become more scientifically literate, so I wrote this
guide for how a layperson can approach reading and understanding a scientific
research paper. It’s appropriate for someone who has no background whatsoever
in science or medicine, and based on the assumption that he or she is doing
this for the purpose of getting a basic understanding of a paper and deciding
whether or not it’s a reputable study.
Better advice intended to make _layman with zero background in science_ become
more scientifically literate would be to tell them to read some textbooks.
Later on in the article, she tells people to write down each and every thing
you don't understand in an article and look them up later. And this is
excellent advice for people with a background equivalent to an advanced
undergraduate or higher, but for people with zero background it would be
better to read some textbooks and get yourself a foundation.
Honestly, even when I was in grad school in neuroscience, I asked around for
advice on reading papers and the surprisingly universal response from other
grad students was that it took 2 years to become reliably able to read and
evaluate a research paper well. And this is 2 years in a research environment
with often weekly reading groups where PIs, postdocs, grad students, and some
undergrads got together to dissect some paper. These reading groups provided
an environment in which you had regular feedback on your own ability to read
papers by seeing all the things those more experienced than you saw and that
you missed. A paper that took me 3+ hours of intense study would take a
postdoc a good half hour to get more information out of.
I feel like this article makes reading articles well seem a lighter
undertaking than it really is. It's really no wonder we see studies
misinterpreted so often on the internet, where people Google for 5 minutes and
skim an abstract.
~~~
yskmt
> it took 2 years to become reliably able to read and evaluate a research
> paper well
This completely coincides with my experience. When I started grad school, it
took me a few hours to read one paper, and I probably understood only 50% of
the materials even though I had some foundations in the research area from my
undergrad studies.
Reading textbooks is a great advice. Then one can start reading some review
papers in the area to get some more depth in his/her knowledge. I think the
difficulty is that it is hard to find good textbooks and review papers for the
subject that one is interested in, especially when the subject is in a niche
field.
------
kronos29296
As a student who needs to read research articles for my project, this article
gave some new ideas on how to approach those long boring and cryptic pieces of
text that just take days to understand. Thanks to the person who posted it.
------
luminati
A couple things I try to do when reading research papers, inspired by these
two amazing [b|v]logs.
[1][https://blog.acolyer.org/](https://blog.acolyer.org/)
[2][https://www.youtube.com/user/keeroyz](https://www.youtube.com/user/keeroyz)
I try to paraphrase the paper into a Acolyer like 'morning paper' blog post on
evernote while mentally I am directing a 'two minute paper' video on the paper
:)
------
DomreiRoam
I would like to have a digest or an overview written for a IT practitioner. I
did go SC/IT conference and enjoyed the talks and I noticed 2 things: 1/ You
learn new things and new approach that can bring value to our job 2/ It seems
that the research sector discover stuff that are already known in the
industry.
I think it would be great to have a journal/blog that would construct a bridge
between the industry and the university.
------
yamaneko
This suggestion by Michael Nielsen is also very good:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=666615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=666615)
------
pitt1980
What's odd to me, is that lots of professors have blogs in which they write
quite a bit in plain language that doesn't require an instruction manual in
order to be read
------
syphilis2
Why don't the authors do these 11 steps for us?
~~~
danielalmeida
Because they are not writing for non-scientists.
~~~
pitt1980
all scientist were non-scientists first though, correct?
Look, I get that there's some natural professional context and lingo that goes
into these things, but for all the angst that goes into what esteem that
population at large holds up the science community
making their work more accessible to both novices and interested outsiders
would be a nice step in the right direction
~~~
danielalmeida
I agree with you. To put it simply, papers are optimized for the scientific
community and making them "more accessible" to outsiders has a cost. I'd
settle for better writing and presentations within the scientific community
for now. If you ever find researchers that blog about their research in simple
terms, I think it's safe to assume they're using their personal time to do
that (I know of very few; Andy Ko [1] comes to mind).
[1] [https://medium.com/bits-and-behavior](https://medium.com/bits-and-
behavior)
------
amelius
I'd like an answer to: how/where to ask the relevant community a question
about a scientific paper.
------
minademian
this is a great guide. i wish more writing on the Internet has this blend of
substance, message, tone, and grit.
------
apo
Sensible advice overall, but I completely disagree with these:
> Before you begin reading, take note of the authors and their institutional
> affiliations.
and
> Beware of questionable journals.
Institutional affiliation and journal imprimatur should have no bearing in
science. These are shortcuts for the lazy, and they introduce bias into
evaluation of the paper's contents.
Even more than that, dispensing advice along these lines perpetuates the myth
that scientific fact is dispensed from on high. If that's the case, just let
the experts do the thinking for you and don't bother your pretty little head
trying to read scientific papers.
If the author's approach to reading a paper only works by checking for stamps
of approval, maybe the approach should be reconsidered.
~~~
burkaman
They aren't shortcuts for the lazy, they're shortcuts for non-scientists who
aren't capable of fully evaluating the science alone. If you're capable of
objectively peer reviewing a paper, you're not the audience of this article.
~~~
apo
> They aren't shortcuts for the lazy, they're shortcuts for non-scientists who
> aren't capable of fully evaluating the science alone.
It's a shortcut fraught with potential for deception, as even a casual glance
through a site like Retraction Watch will demonstrate:
[http://retractionwatch.com/](http://retractionwatch.com/)
I'm not sure what you mean by "evaluating the science." A scientific paper
should present a hypothesis, the author's best attempt to disprove the
hypothesis, and an interpretation of the evidence gathered in the processes of
testing the hypothesis. There's going to be a back-story, and it's likely to
be quite involved.
The article does a good job of presenting a method for navigating a paper on
this basis. I don't see what checking credentials adds to the process. On the
contrary, it may do harm.
~~~
semi-extrinsic
While we may find the high profile cases featured on Retraction Watch mainly
in high impact journals, that's precisely because unscrupulous people deem
these journals _worth it to cheat to get into_. Nobody cheats to get their
paper into the International Journal of Architecture, Engineering and Nursing
Science - because it and it's ilk are utter pieces of crap that will accept
anything, up to and including randomly-generated text and pro-Sri-Lanka-
highly-racist-UFO-conspiracies (real example). Teaching laypeople to avoid
these is a very good idea.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN/Google: should Google link to hotel sites instead of aggregator sites? - petervandijck
You can expand this question to generalize: should Google link to, say, a tripadvisor hotel page first, or to the hotel website first? Whenever I search for a hotel or something, I always get a long list of aggregators, which I don't particularly enjoy. Hotel sites (however bad) would be better.<p>And more in general: should Google generally link to business sites (however bad) first, or link to aggregator sites (including their own) first?<p>I'm sure they could figure it out algorythmically.
======
Udo
It has been my experience that more often than not, aggregator sites don't
provide any value whatsoever because their only mission is to display ads and
drive traffic by spamming Google's index. At least travel adviser sites offer
_some_ benefit if they host real reviews (instead of just showing scraped
content like the hotel's address and some images).
This is one symptom of a larger problem where I feel Google search is falling
flat and the quality of search results is getting progressively worse. It's
not the fault of the aggregator sites themselves, either (though some of them
employ very shady SEO tricks) - instead I believe the problem is that Google
search increasingly ignores specific user input to serve up "what I most
likely meant as opposed to what I actually typed in". I would welcome a return
to stricter search phrases and maybe a few options regarding what search mode
I would like to use. For example, it would be nice to be able to explicitly
include or exclude aggregator sites in search results. By now, Google
certainly knows enough about the nature of the URLs it indexes, they should
pass this knowledge on and empower their users to make more specific queries.
~~~
paganel
> aggregator sites don't provide any value whatsoever because their only
> mission is to display ads and drive traffic by spamming Google's index
Tripadvisor has been really helpful to me and my wife, as in we don't go to
any new hotel without first checking its ratings and comments on tripadvisor.
You cannot have that on a hotel's website, objective reviews I mean, nor can
you have actual non-photoshopped pictures taken inside said hotels.
------
webwright
Seems like "drake hotel" ought to get you to the Drake Hotel web site. "drake
hotel reviews" ought to get you to an aggregator. "drake hotel reservations"
ought to get you to whichever has the better prices.
Google's emphasis on domain name helps a lot here, though a lot of hotels are
owned by holding companies and have domain names like:
<http://holdingco.com/hotelname> (hard to differentiate between that and an
aggregator URL).
It comes down to inbound links-- and the aggregators have armies of people
doing link-building SEO work. I don't envy Google. Short of human editors, how
would you fix it?
------
cletus
Hotels online are a bit of a mess.
Personally I'll go straight to Tripadvisor to find a hotel in an unfamiliar
area. I may book there but I will also _call_ the hotel in question,
particularly when my company has a corporate rate. Not because the corporate
rate is betteer but because when the website tells you the hotel is full for
the requested dates a person at the hotel will tell you what dates are the
problem and possibly bump you up to a higher room class to make your stay
possible.
As an aside to people who develop hotel aggregates:
1\. Never make me register;
2\. When I search a date range show me, for each day, the rate, availability
and include all room classes. This way I can easily see if a single day is the
problem and adjust accordingly.
In fact I'd like to combine the hotel and flight so one _one page_ I can see
flight costs on my requested dates (+/- 2 days) and the matrix of per day
rates and availabilities.
All sites I've seen have these as too many separate steps. What's worse,
refining the search can be problematic.
As for Google search results, this is one area where there is simply too much
noise. Hotel affiliate programs combined with cheap hosting mean thee are
234245556345 aggregators, almost all of them useless and hotel sites, except
for the largest chains generally, tend to be useless.
------
dageshi
Depends if the aggregator has reviews from previous customers or not, if they
do then I would say it's a better source of information than the hotel website
itself. Google probably thinks your more likely to be searching for reputation
information on a particular hotel than stuff like "address" e.t.c.
------
gyardley
Interesting, because I prefer the aggregator sites.
The aggregator sites usually contain some user reviews as well as a
standardized UI - one I'm already familiar with - for booking a room. On the
larger aggregators, I've also already got an account with some of my booking
information saved. I also believe (perhaps irrationally) that buying through a
large aggregator is more secure than buying through some random hotel site's
booking solution.
If Google were to bump TripAdvisor in favor of direct links to hotel sites,
Google would become less useful for me.
The same is true, as an aside, for restaurant websites vs. Yelp.
~~~
petervandijck
The problem with the aggregator sites is that they tend to hide links to the
original site, email addresses and phone numbers, in order to get you to book
a room through their system.
~~~
gyardley
Of course, and that's how it should be. They've added the value, so they
should make the money.
------
rst
This one's debatable. I actually look at tripadvisor before the hotel's own
web site for the reviews, and information on other nearby properties. (Hotels'
own web sites are often... aspirational: <http://www.oyster.com/hotels/photo-
fakeouts/>) That said, I do look at the hotel's own site too, but I've never
personally seen a case where it wasn't on Google's first page.
------
tgflynn
Does Google capture and use data on which of its search links people actually
click on ? It seems like that information would be a very useful adjunct to
PageRank for ranking search results.
They could then determine an optimal ranking by maximizing the likelihood that
the user will click on the top result presented.
~~~
petervandijck
In fact, I believe they even capture how many users click a result and then
quickly come back (back button), which indicates a result that looks good in
the search results list, but that is disappointing when users actually view
the page.
------
JamesDB
Aggregators provide a lot of use.
Gives an instant overview of the hotels prices and ratings. It would take a
long time to research just that basic information for say 10 hotels in an
area.
------
decasoft
Another question: Would it be unfair for Google to redirect to a page where
it's making money (via affiliate link)?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Beyond Social: Read/Write in The Era of Internet of Things - seancron
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/beyond_social_web_internet_of_things.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+readwriteweb+%28ReadWriteWeb%29
======
seancron
From the article:
If I was an entrepreneur or developer, I wouldn't be thinking about social
anymore. I'd be thinking: How can I use all of this data and build on top of
it?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Native HTML quadplay fantasy console - Tepix
https://github.com/morgan3d/quadplay
======
Tepix
Here's an amazing 64x64 space dogfighting game for this fantasy console:
[https://twitter.com/CasualEffects/status/1167565673435926529](https://twitter.com/CasualEffects/status/1167565673435926529)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
No word for sex - Muzza
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001979.html
======
RiderOfGiraffes
I remember reading a science fiction novel in which a story was recounted by
one character to another of a "first contact" expedition to a world. The
members of the expedition had been assured that the inhabitants were peaceful
because they had no word for war.
When they landed, they were slaughtered.
True, the inhabitants had no word for "war" - that's not sufficiently refined.
They had words for
* war because of land conflict
* war because of water rights
* war because of ancient insult
* genocide as retribution
_and so on._
But no word for "war".
I can't remember the novel - perhaps some of you can. If not, I just might
have to re-read my collection to find it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Everyone Loves Google, Until It’s Too Big - peter123
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/business/22digi.html
======
mcarlin
I think a much bigger problem is Wikipedia. It's a much quieter but much
stronger monopoly, and the people who run it are known to be prone to cliques,
drama and manipulation. Google is professional, and for the time being, not
dangerous. Wikipedia is still somewhat unprofessional, and is rapidly becoming
the world's source for encyclopedic knowledge.
~~~
herval
everybody I know always says wikipedia is a non-trustworthy source of
encyclopedic information (unless verifiable in some other source). And plus
there are several wikipedias out there, it is open source - and it doesn't
even make 1/1000 of the money GOOG does! in what sense is it a monopoly?
------
scorpioxy
I don't know how useful it is to worry about this. Isn't this what happened to
Yahoo in the late-90s, early 2k?
The market will always respond to correct abnormalities. As in, when Google
stops innovating, somebody else will.
------
vaksel
we need viable alternatives, simply for the fact that without competition
Google would have no reason to innovate.
~~~
patio11
I think it is a bit more pressing than that. They haven't stopped innovating,
but their pricing for AdWords is _maddeningly_ non-transparent (its an
auction, except when Google decides its not an auction) and only constrained
by the availability of other viable contextual ad platforms. Of which there
are, essentially, none.
Anyone who disagrees with this assessment of Microsoft and Yahoo's offerings
should be sentenced to actually using the things. The interfaces are garbage,
the traffic is low-quality, and most damning of all there just isn't enough of
it to make dealing with the other headaches a viable use of your time. Google
can routinely find $600 worth of inventory for me in a month, Microsoft
struggles to find $30 -- and I'm in about the most non-technical niche you
could imagine using a search engine.
~~~
dotcoma
agree. but I'm not sure that merging Yahoo! Search and Live Search would be
much of an improvement...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The truth about pirates of Somalia - hoffcoder
http://www.africaontheblog.com/the-truth-about-somali-pirates/
======
muyuu
They forgot the part where they repeatedly rape female crew, and where they
murder crew for petty reasons.
Some people will feel good about "supporting the poor guy" though.
~~~
Spooky23
I think the original author's view of piracy was irrevocably tainted by
watching "Jake and the Neverland Pirates". Academic sympathy for highwaymen or
pirates is easy when they aren't trying to rob, ransom, or kill you.
They also forgot the part where the able seamen manning those ships aren't
exactly living the high lives themselves. Those sailors help captive or hurt
are supporting families back at home, and sacrifice alot to do so.
------
etherael
Yeah, this is stupid.
They kidnap and murder pleasure cruising civilians on small yachts as well as
raid, rape and murder in beach side resorts in bordering countries. You'll
excuse me if I have zero sympathy.
------
enko
> during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami when broken hazardous waste containers
> eventually found their way onto Somali shores leaving a large majority of
> the population suffering from various illnesses, such as radiation sickness
This sounds extremely doubtful. Tsunami-borne hazardous waste containers
breaking up in Somalia en masse? _Radioactive_ waste!? And a "large majority"
of Somalians were poisoned by this?
I don't usually like to play the wiki-pedant but a very big [citation needed]
on that.
~~~
eaurouge
The dumping of hazardous waste on third world countries isn't exactly news.
The given example may (or may not) be inaccurate but this is something that's
been going on for decades.
------
icegreentea
I think its key to keep in mind a couple view points here, that all try to
minimize going to black and white.
a) Consider that in general, treating the cause is more effective than
treating the symptom, even if you find that kind of unsavoury. No doubt the
pirates have done some bad things that are (and should be!) crimes. But just
piling on the warships and spec-ops to interdict/kill all of them isn't
exactly the best way to solve it, as it appears to leave one of the root
causes of the phenomenon untouched anyways. We can draw parallels to American
street gangs. Yes, they do totally crappy stuff. But now that we bothered
studying them, we can see part of the reason of their existence is that they
fill a hole in the lives of many young people in certain situations. This by
no ways truly justifies theirs actions, but helps explains them, and
ultimately if we want to resolve the problem in a real way (beyond just
killing them all), we need to listen.
b) Worthy causes can be linked to unworthy actions. People struggle with this
all the time. Some people have trouble allowing any blemishes on the
characters that lead their cause. Other people relish in the blemishes, and
use them to discredit the entire movement. Typical examples are the slave
owning Founding Fathers, and the plagiarizing Dr Martin Luthur King.
~~~
memracom
Who knew that people would be human, and so imperfect?
------
spingsprong
John steals Simon's fish.
Therefore it's okay for Simon to rob Andrew?
~~~
eaurouge
It may not be okay, but Simon may have no choice but to steal.
Some of the things we do (in the US and other developed nations) have far-
reaching global consequences, in certain cases destroying lives and
livelihoods. But we're always outraged when these affected people react in
ways we find uncomfortable.
~~~
stronglikedan
> Simon may have no choice but to steal
There's always a choice. Thievery is despicable.
~~~
ozy123
You can't envisage a single scenario where you would steal? Or where it was
the lesser evil?
------
bausson
Wow, I was quite taken aback, expecting to read about al-quaida, got robin
hood instead.
Still, it is only one source, but having this version of this story of those
so-called pirate is definitely a plus.
~~~
stefs
i've read that while the pirates were fishermen in the beginning (who really
didn't have much choice), when people realised how profitable it was the trade
was taken over by soldiers/mercenaries. the soldier-pirates are a lot worse
than the fisherman-pirates and don't give back to the community quite as much.
------
cup
On a side note, Somalia now has a semi-autonomaus transitional federal
government and is actually doing a relatively good job. Not only have they
implemented a .so domain but they're starting to organise and regulate the
booming telecommunications industry.
------
ozh
"However, an eye for an eye will make the world blind"
Heh. True.
------
CmonDev
Love the black strip on the top. You don't even notice it until you need it.
~~~
johnchristopher
You mean that black bar ? [http://imgur.com/KdwcTRD](http://imgur.com/KdwcTRD)
~~~
durzagott
This is what I see: [http://imgur.com/aI79G4g](http://imgur.com/aI79G4g)
Chrome, Ubuntu 13.10
------
cratermoon
Libertarian Paradise!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Work Remotely and Live to Tell the Tale - sugarenia
http://blog.sugarenia.com/archives/life/how-to-work-remotely-and-live-to-tell-the-tale
======
marfilip
Very well written and inspiring for us dreaming of working from home but don't
even dare to try.
------
ruimiguelforte
Incredibly insightful and honest.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Suggestions for workout app - tmaly
I just got back to the gym, and I did the free consult with the personal trainer. I have used a trainer a decade ago, but todays prices are too high. I do have a gym partner. Are there any apps out there that can be used in place of a trainer to show proper exercise form, plan a schedule based on goals, and keep a log?
======
dennybritz
I like Fitocracy.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: ReactJS Checkmark component with CSS animated transition - mjunaidi
https://codepen.io/mjunaidi/pen/dyoNJRv
======
leshokunin
Seems cool but I didn’t notice the animation. I tried on Safari mobile, and
the transition is just instant. Is that a bug or am I thinking about the
functionality wrong?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask YC: NewsCred looking for interns. Any tips where to find em? - shafqat
Hi all - we're looking for one or two interns. Ideally, people in college who want to work in a startup part time and earn a little cash.<p>How have other startups on HN gone about finding good interns? University job boards? Word of mouth?<p>Any suggestions on the experience? We want to make it as fulfilling (and fun) for both sides as possible, so always looking to see what worked for other people. Thanks!
======
leftnode
Go speak to professors directly, or find out if local colleges have an IPP (my
college, for example <http://ecs.utdallas.edu/ipp/>) program where you can
register your company so they can help you out.
Each professor (especially ones who teach juniors and seniors) know the
talented kids in their classes and they can help you out.
If the intern position doesn't require college experience, try high school
computer science teachers. They usually know their star students better and
the kids would much rather work doing some programming than working at Subway.
------
rishi
I used Craigslist. In my experience part time student programmers are a waste
of time. But you never know you could get lucky.
~~~
shafqat
Hmm, interesting. Why was it a waste of time?
We're have a bunch of different roles we could fulfill - techie, but also more
general community manager/sales/"help everyone on the team with everything"
type role.
Looking back at my college days, I'd much rather do this than some of the crap
jobs I used to have.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Today's rich families in Florence were rich 700 years ago - elberto34
http://www.vox.com/2016/5/18/11691818/barone-mocetti-florence
======
SmellTheGlove
I'm not entirely surprised. In Florence, and probably in lots of other places
too, wealth was amassed in land holdings and gold (florins being the
currency). Land holdings over a 700 year horizon seems like a far better
stability bet than equities, since the land itself has intrinsic value even if
the occasional war or natural disaster gets rid of whatever is happening on
it. Back in the 1400's, the merchant class absolutely made a great living -
upper class even. But the old blue bloods (many families of which even went
broke, in terms of liquidity) and nobility had land. They used that land to
build business and bring in rents, and build business relationships with other
upper class families, but even as the businesses faded the land remained. I
mentioned some of the old Florentine nobility going broke - many of them
preferred hardship to selling their land holdings. Some of them would
eventually marry off a daughter to a family that desired the blue blood
relationship and some land would go as dowry, thus restoring the fortune in
that family (through the wealth of the inlaws). One good example is Lisa
Gherardini's marriage into the del Giocondo family - she was of an old
nobility fallen on harder times, while the Giocondo family were new money
merchants. Some land and a few florins went with her, the Gherardini family
were restored a bit and the Giocondo family remained wealthy for a long time.
I'm not a historian, but I've taken a bit of an interest in Florentine history
as an adult, so take this for what it's worth. A real historian would probably
know better.
~~~
brador
Seems land taxation + basic income would be a great combo to spread wealth
around.
~~~
onetimeusename
It makes more sense to try to grow the GDP and tax income instead. Taxing land
in order to specifically target people with inherited land holdings has all
sorts of unintended (or maybe intended) consequences because these people
often do not have sufficient liquid holdings to pay the taxes. They end up
having to sell off land in parcels which is an arduous and incredibly
inefficient way for a government to raise revenues to 'spread wealth' and land
in these cases often isn't easily parceled. Should a family sell their estate,
the farmland that produces revenue that sustains the estate, or the useless
swamp to cover the taxes? This isn't the sort of situation governments should
be encouraging. If you have no mercy for that family, consider people whose
parents buy a small plot of land that unexpectedly becomes very valuable and
then the children are forced to sell the house on the death of their parents.
Or the same family who finds their tax rate going up but their income staying
the same because their land is suddenly in a trendy area. Taxing income to me
seems like the most fair way to raise revenue because it targets liquid means.
~~~
pyoung
So exempt primary residences from large tax hikes. The original promise of
Prop 13 was to protect grandma from having to sell her home due to rising
property values. But there have been some pretty bad side effects and a lot of
the benefits are going to the commercial property owners and wealthy
individuals and landlords.
~~~
tostitos1979
This could have been solved by square footage or price floors. If grandma
lives in a mansion, maybe she should be paying her share :)
------
cs702
Fascinating: income mobility in one generation (PARENT -> CHILD) cannot be
extrapolated to multiple generations (PARENT -> CHILD -> CHILD ...), because
_socioeconomic status_ persists across generations even if income fluctuates
from one generation to the next.
The example given in the OP is telling: _" It's not unusual for the child of
an economically successful professional to attend an elite educational
institution and then move into an artistic or academic or nonprofit career or
political career that might still involve traveling in elite circles but at a
much lower salary level than his father's. If the professional's grandson then
also attended an elite college and moved into a high-paying career in business
and law, statistics would show a great deal of economic mobility while common
sense would indicate three generations' worth of a high-status family."_
And it's not just Florence. The article mentions another study in Sweden that
reached similar conclusions.
I wonder how the US compares to European cities/countries.
~~~
dionidium
Yglesias has written about this before. Class is about a lot more than your
income in any given year.
[http://www.vox.com/2015/5/12/8592689/income-
class](http://www.vox.com/2015/5/12/8592689/income-class)
~~~
antisthenes
Probably the most succinct illustration of the difference between human
capital, capital (traditionally known as wealth), and income that the vast
majority of the American public confuse all the time and like to use
interchangeably.
------
seizethecheese
Ugh. If you look at the sourced article[1] the effect is actually very small:
"When regressing the pseudo-descendant’s earnings on pseudo-ancestor’s
earnings, the results are surprising: the long-run earnings elasticity is
positive, statistically significant, and equals about 0.04. Stated
differently, being the descendants of the Bernardi family (at the 90th
percentile of earnings distribution in 1427) instead of the Grasso family
(10th percentile of the same distribution) would entail a 5% increase in
earnings among current taxpayers (after adjusting for age and gender)"
[http://voxeu.org/article/what-s-your-surname-
intergeneration...](http://voxeu.org/article/what-s-your-surname-
intergenerational-mobility-over-six-centuries)
~~~
jerf
This strikes me as proving an awfully small result too concretely. Across the
several thousand ancestors you have going back 600-700 years (if not millions
of ancestors; a rather conservative "one generation every 25 years" for 600
years yields 2^24-ish possible ancestors, ~16 million, though most people's
family trees do not actually branch that much in the less mobile times of the
past), the one from which your patrilineal name comes from is even 5% relevant
to your life today? Is this one of those cases where hard science and math
prove something very counterintuitive, or one of those cases where soft
science and math gets popular because it was poked and prodded until it yields
a counter-intuitive result that would get into the news?
~~~
panglott
My thought was similar: how long ago was the most recent common ancestor of
Florentines (barring immigration)?
------
flubert
>Today's rich Florentines had rich ancestors
Doesn't everybody alive today have rich ancestors? Like pretty much everyone
is related to Charlemagne or Genghis Khan?
[https://www.google.com/#q=related+to+charlemagne](https://www.google.com/#q=related+to+charlemagne)
[http://www.nature.com/news/genghis-khan-s-genetic-legacy-
has...](http://www.nature.com/news/genghis-khan-s-genetic-legacy-has-
competition-1.16767)
~~~
tropo
Indeed, because the lower classes tended to die.
~~~
ptaipale
Not necessarily; just that classes mix and have always mixed (partly out of
wedlock of course).
When you go back, say, twelve generations, almost everyone has a few upper
class ancestors among the 8190 (part of them are anyway overlapping
duplicates).
(FWIW, I have an ancestor 12 generations ago who was almost a nobleman,
plundering Germany in 30 Years War and getting in return an estate that was
tax-free for some generations, as long as the owner promised to send in a
cavalryman to the Swedish king's service. But most of my ancestors were dirt-
poor peasants like almost everyone was.)
------
enoch_r
I found this quite interesting:
> We also find two further interesting pieces of evidence. First, we show that
> intergenerational mobility in the 15th century was much lower than at
> present – the intergenerational earnings elasticity between two successive
> generations was estimated to be between 0.8 and 0.9, thus depicting a quasi-
> immobile society in 1427. It is plausible, though we do not have direct
> evidence for this, that earning elasticity was close to 1 until the 20th
> century (before the Italian industrial revolution and mass schooling) and
> lower in the subsequent period. This may explain why we still find some
> degree of inheritance of socioeconomic status after six centuries.
So Yglesias, playing the "debunked!" card[0], says "look--here is proof that
our estimates of intergenerational income mobility are TOTALLY WRONG!" In
fact, there's a good chance that current studies (showing high mobility) are
perfectly consistent with this paper, since it found that moblity rose
dramatically since the beginning of the studied period.
[0] [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/13/debunked-and-well-
refut...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/13/debunked-and-well-refuted/)
~~~
strictnein
Yglesias consistently strikes me as someone who was told they were very clever
far more than was actually warranted.
------
theandrewbailey
> A lot has changed in the Italian city of Florence in the roughly 700 years
> since the 1427 census
The author must have been using some _really_ bad floating point math, there.
~~~
Luc
1\. 15th century (1427)
2\. 16th
3\. 17th
4\. 18th
5\. 19th
6\. 20th
7\. 21st (now)
~~~
theandrewbailey
That makes about as much sense as counting the 4 months of November to
February as 2 years because it exists in 2 calendar years.
~~~
maxerickson
It can be an explanation of the error without being a defense of it.
------
btilly
If you're going to add theories about why, let's add some more.
1) Last names matter. If you have a name associated with success, you get more
chances, which results in more opportunities and a better chance of success.
2) Genetics matter. A person whose parents were unsuccessful but whose
background includes genetics for intelligence and beauty will tend to have an
innate advantage.
3) Family stories matter. People who know their ancestors did amazing things
sometimes try to live up to the family reputation with good results.
------
mrow84
You can get a large inequality effect just from differences in inheritance
between children. If we call the child who gets the bulk of the inheritance
the "first child", then the first child of the first child, etc., will end up
being very wealthy.
You can see it in a very simple model:
1\. start with a fixed size population, each starting with the same amount of
wealth
2\. pair the members of the population randomly to form two "parents"
3\. combine the wealth of the two "parents"
4\. split the wealth into two unequal parts with some fixed ratio (say 3:1)
5\. assign the two parts to two "children" of the "parents", resulting in a
population of the same size as the original
If you repeat the above procedure (from step 2) for only 5 or 6 generations
then you get a distribution that is positively skewed, to a degree depending
on the ratio (3:1 gives quite a large skew). It is a simple model, and I have
only evaluated it numerically, but it shows how strong an effect you can get
from only a single process (differential inheritance in this case). I am
fairly certain that things like assortative mating would produce similar
(compounding) effects.
~~~
mrow84
So I just did an experiment with simple assortative mating, where the
population is drawn into an ordered list, with the probability of selection
being proportional to wealth, and then paired off according to their order in
the resulting list (so the wealthy are more likely to mate with each other).
The results surprised me somewhat, though as with most things are somewhat
obvious in retrospect.
If you take a (model) world with unbiased inheritance (a 1:1 split between the
two children), then no "mating strategy" is able to increase wealth inequality
- at worst it can keep it the same as it was. This can be seen by noting that
neither of the children of the two wealthiest members of the population can
have more than the wealthiest of their two parents. Over many generations,
unless the mating selection is _extremely_ carefully chosen, the wealth
distribution will collapse to perfect equality, for any mating strategy.
Assortative mating therefore can at worst exert a drag on the (natural)
restoration to equality. In a (model) world with biased inheritance this leads
to greater amounts of wealth inequality, because the expansion of inequality
through the unequal inheritance is "resisted" less by the reduction in
inequality caused by mating.
In conclusion: try and treat your kids the same if you want a more equal
world!
------
mfoy_
>relatively low 0.2 percent elasticity of income in the Nordic countries and a
relatively high 0.5 percent elasticity of income in places like the UK, the
US, and Italy. An elasticity of 1 would mean that income status is perfectly
inherited between father and son, whereas an elasticity of 0 would mean no
inheritance.
I assume the author means 20% and 50%, respectively? If "1 percent" is all of
it and "0 percent" is none of it then I assume he confused percentages with
probabilities.
~~~
tokai
Wouldn't you say that 50/100 = 0.5?
~~~
mfoy_
I would!
However, a "probability of 0.5" and "0.5 percent" are different things by _two
orders of magnitude_. "0.5 percent" is "0.5%" which is 0.5/100, not 50/100.
~~~
thechao
Verizon ... statistics?
------
forkandwait
The discussion of Becker reinforces my belief that the discipline of Economics
exists primarily to justify pre existing power structures by using assumptions
which are convenient but empirically unfounded.
~~~
enoch_r
A paper by two economists finds evidence that intergenerational wealth effects
have persisted over very long periods of time. They note that their results
are "new and remarkable" in the context of a large existing body of empirical
work studying and estimating historical intergenerational mobility.
If the above reinforces your belief that "economics exists primarily to
justify pre existing power structures by using assumptions which are
convenient but empirically unfounded," then what exactly would weaken your
position?
------
leroy_masochist
I am skeptical of any study that uses Italian tax records as an empirically
sound data source.
Additionally, Yglesias' writeup of the study is short on specifics. What was
the number of people with a given surname in 1427, and in 2011? In other
words, is it possible that "Family A" was a big, wealthy and powerful family
in the 1400's, but today there are only four people with that last name in
Firenze and three of them happen to be in high-wage jobs?
Are income figures median, or mean? Neither Valentino nor Vasco Rossi lives in
Firenze, but if they did, they'd be skewing the mean income score for the
Rossi name.
Are we sure the people today with a given surname are the actual descendants
of people in 1427? And, if they are, what do we know about whether the family
has stayed wealthy in the years between then and now?
All in all, this article seems more clickbait-y than insightful.
------
jerryhuang100
I guess this eco-mobiilty all depends on the social structures and political
environments. There is a Chinese proverb "富不過三代", or, fortune won't last three
generations. The Chinese genealogy is relatively complete and you can actually
trace Confucius' offspring to this date. But you'll be surprised to find big
names today rarely also have some big name ancestors 500 years ago. One reason
is that the Chinese social and political are constantly changing. In China the
longest dynasty Ching lasted 268 yrs. Basically every 70-150 years there is a
game-of-thrones type of revolutions going on, and the entire soc-pol systems
flopped. Another reason is that a common used punishment by the emperor in the
past is collective punishment, i.e. if someone is sentenced to death, all
his/her relatives up to three upstream and three downstream, sometimes even
all cousins, are also sentenced to death. If someone did escaped they would
just change their surnames (and Chinese people change surnames relatively more
frequently than we would think.) That's probably why a big-shot in the history
book might have no offspring to be found nowadays.
------
jkot
> _The truth, however, is that we don 't really know what's going on._
Over 14 generations you will get ~ 50k relatives who live today. I bet some of
them are not rich.
~~~
civilian
You're not taking cousin marriage into account--- a lot of those 50k people
are the same people. And I'm using the loose definition of "cousin"\-- any
non-immediate, however distant, family relative.
------
phantom_oracle
Anybody curious to know how wealth can be preserved in perpetuity should read
up on what John D. Rockerfeller said about it.
Taxation on income is a pittance to where wealthy individuals source majority
of their income.
A rich guys 3 kids could virtually pay zero income-tax their whole lives but
live princely lives with capital gains, trusts, etc.
------
lifeisstillgood
This looks like brand longevity - the nobility has great brand name awareness,
and as they come under financial threat there are plenty of investors willing
to marry in to the name and provide new liquidity.
I doubt all the rich families of 1300 survived but I also doubt that the
winners never took outside investment
~~~
internaut
Yes, families of the past were a lot more like corporations today. House this
or Clan that. It was basically GOT.
The modern family must look weird from a historical perspective. Also in Japan
men are often adopted into families to continue that line for the corporation.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_adult_adoption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_adult_adoption)
------
Kinnard
Would love to see an analysis predating the Renaissance and the Black Death I
imagine these had a big impact but analyses of China and England have shown
even revolutions fail to displace entrenched power blocs:
[http://qz.com/314720/heres-the-surprising-social-trait-
that-...](http://qz.com/314720/heres-the-surprising-social-trait-that-the-
english-and-chinese-have-in-common/)
[https://medium.com/@blackbitcoiners/bitcoin-has-failed-
cdad9...](https://medium.com/@blackbitcoiners/bitcoin-has-failed-cdad9ea3bf55)
[http://www.lse.ac.uk/economicHistory/workingPapers/2013/WP18...](http://www.lse.ac.uk/economicHistory/workingPapers/2013/WP181.pdf)
I'd love for pg to way in too as a former florentine, an expert of the
Renaissance, a promulgator of a contemporary renaissance(through YC
[hackers==painters]), and thereby, a wealth transfer/creation expert.
------
jhallenworld
The wealth certainly does not always last, one example is the Vanderbilts:
[http://www.nytimes.com/1989/09/24/books/more-money-than-
anyo...](http://www.nytimes.com/1989/09/24/books/more-money-than-anyone-
else.html)
------
lormayna
Florentine here. The owner of my company is one of them, he is from a very
ancient and important family.
------
pattisapu
> As Gary Becker and Nigel Tomes concluded back in 1986, "Almost all the
> earnings advantages or disadvantages of ancestors are wiped out in three
> generations."
Ibn Khaldun said something similar too.
~~~
buckbova
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/clogs_to_clogs_in_three_gener...](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/clogs_to_clogs_in_three_generations)
I've heard it "sandals to sandals in three generations" as well.
~~~
cmdrfred
I like the Italian "from stables to stars to stables"
------
otempomores
Todays rich familys tell todays peasants that hard work will get them there?
------
mcv
700 years since 1427? What century are we in again?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
UNIX Text Formatting Using the -ms Macros (1984) - tlcu
https://www.hactrn.net/ietf/rfcgen/textms.html
======
uranium235
I just found a brand new PAGER for man: konqueror (man:/)
[https://imgur.com/a/F3o4VIu](https://imgur.com/a/F3o4VIu)
~~~
znpy
Konqueror is a marvel. Too bad that KDE is now pushing that brain-damaged
piece of code, Dolphin.
~~~
emilsedgh
Dolphin is actually pretty much aligned with Konqueror.
Konqueror can open up anything using KDE's KParts. Applications and libraries
provide different KParts and Konqueror is just a shell that can open them all.
Dolphin is Konqueror's KPart provider for file browsing.
So basically Konqueror's file browsing capability is provided by Dolphin.
------
fanf2
I used troff to typeset a few papers, because it was relatively familiar from
writing man pages and more light weight than LaTeX. And groff is installed on
practically every Linux or BSD box.
But I switched to LaTeX because it it more mainstream for this kind of
document production workflow, so for instance we have a LaTeX template for
official-looking University letters, which would be hard to reproduce using
troff. And I also switched from magicpoint
[http://member.wide.ad.jp/wg/mgp/](http://member.wide.ad.jp/wg/mgp/) to Beamer
[https://www.overleaf.com/learn/latex/Beamer](https://www.overleaf.com/learn/latex/Beamer)
for presentation slides.
For man pages there is now the OpenBSD mandoc processor
[https://mandoc.bsd.lv/](https://mandoc.bsd.lv/) which can turn semantic
markup in -mdoc format in to fairly nice html and other formats. And though
-mdoc is a bit weird it is easy to use, well documented, and powerful. It is
so much nicer than the old -man macros!
------
tyingq
Perl's POD ecosystem is worth looking at if you have similar needs today. Even
if you don't use (or like) Perl.
It's very easy to use, and supports a lot of different output formats. So, one
source doc can create troff man pages, html, markdown, PDF, etc.
[https://perldoc.perl.org/perlpod.html](https://perldoc.perl.org/perlpod.html)
~~~
cstross
Can confirm. I wrote (for publication) about six novels using POD format plus
some basic command line tools and a makefile, treating RTF as a final output
format, back in the day.
(I was forced to adopt Microsoft Word for checking copy-edits only when my
publishers insisted on moving to a Word/InDesign based workflow and ditching
paper edits -- this was around 2008. Which in turn forced me to stop using vim
as my main creative tool. If I had discretion to go back to chewing on text
files today, I'd probably go with Markdown or a superset thereof.)
------
uranium235
[https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/390724/how-to-
create...](https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/390724/how-to-create-pdf-
from-linux-man-pages-so-that-style-is-presereved)
~~~
uranium235
if you want to convert to pdf some of the steps involving postscript can be
skipped using something like xelatex
~~~
uranium235
sorry I forgot the purpose of the link was to provide nostalgia but here I go
with all of the format and conversion paths... sorry :(
------
uranium235
[http://man7.org/linux/man-
pages/man1/roff2html.1.html](http://man7.org/linux/man-
pages/man1/roff2html.1.html)
------
geertj
There’s also the playfully named ‘an’ macro to format a man page:
nroff -man ls.1 | less
------
donaldihunter
Ha ha. Some of my University submissions were generated directly from project
code using troff -ms macros. Nostalgia.
------
jhoechtl
Is there a PS or PDF version around somewhere? The HTML-output doesn't cover
what is possible with the ms-macros.
~~~
uranium235
heres a more recent groff implementation of it the macros:
[https://linux.die.net/man/7/groff_ms](https://linux.die.net/man/7/groff_ms)
prob not what you're looking for, you prob want to get ahold of the orig
nroff/troff files
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Let’s Build a Simple Interpreter. Part 6 - rspivak
http://ruslanspivak.com/lsbasi-part6/
======
kevin_thibedeau
The shunting yard or precedence climbing algorithms are better approaches to
expression parsing. They make it trivial to add operators and change
precedence levels without the convolutions of a recursive grammar. They also
clear the way for user defined operators since the machinery is controlled
with a table that can change dynamically.
~~~
userbinator
I think shunting yard is a bit more complex since it requires a separate
stack, but precedence climbing is definitely better than pure recursive-
descent and follows quite straightforwardly if you try to refactor an RD
parser by noticing that most of the functions are very similar, of this form:
while(token in tokens[level])
consume token
result = result operator[level] func[level+1]()
Then you realise that you don't need to climb up each level of precedence with
a function call, and instead can go right to the level of the token and
consume everything "above" that level... so it's really more like "precedence
jumping". This also means the call stack doesn't get deeper in proportion to
the number of levels, unlike with a pure RD parser. There could be 10 or 1000
levels in the table and the running time will still be the same - linear in
the number of tokens in the input. This is especially good for languages with
many precedence levels like C, or more complex applications with dynamically
defined operators as you mention. A more detailed explanation of this
derivation is here:
[https://www.engr.mun.ca/~theo/Misc/exp_parsing.htm#climbing](https://www.engr.mun.ca/~theo/Misc/exp_parsing.htm#climbing)
------
marktangotango
A less verbose, in loc and exposition, example can be found here:
[http://www.jroller.com/languages/entry/python_writing_a_comp...](http://www.jroller.com/languages/entry/python_writing_a_compiler_and)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Go 1.4 will have Android Support - StandardFuture
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sYiPs2KWhNkygrmj-kJuQ1X1uYQF4aKiMZU9WR0Nw_U/edit
======
melling
It's mainly for OpenGL games or other places where you would use the NDK.
Wonder if it's possible to turn into a more general purpose tool for app
element with enough outside help?
------
hipsterrific
Finally. I'm glad Google's giving Java the boot. I had a feeling they were
heading that direction after the lawsuit and the subsequent change to AOT
compilation in Android 5.0.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Lonely Life of a Yacht Influencer - microtherion
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/the-lonely-life-of-a-yacht-influencer
======
giarc
I'm reminded of an old colleague of mine. She worked as a food safety
inspector for Cara Foods that service many airlines around the world. They
have kitchens in airports and prepare the food for airlines. She would travel
the world inspecting the kitchens. She would always travel business class and
had an IATA pass/badge and had the ability to bump business class passenger
and hold the plane. She wasn't paid well but was young, single and loved the
idea of travelling the world in swank business class. She quickly learned two
things, her company wasn't willing to give her time to take day trips into the
city (so her sightseeing was airport hotels and the underbelly of
international airports), and more importantly, flying economy feels really bad
once you've spent time on business class flights.
So for this influencer, I imagine it's tough to live a regular life once he is
forced to. If he wants to vacation with his friends, they are renting a 20ft
boat rather than a 200ft boat.
~~~
goostavos
That echos my experience really closely. I spent almost 4 years traveling
twice per month with each trip lasting between 3-6 days, and each day, due to
work schedules, being 12+ hours long. At the end of those 4 years, I couldn't
tell you anything about the actual cities I visited, but I can still describe
the intricate details of the hotel/conference centers in which I basically
lived.
~~~
Scoundreller
But how many million tax-free hôtel and airline points did you accumulate?
~~~
ac29
A million miles is a lot. If you flew roundtrip from New York to London twice
a month, it would take over 6 years to have flown a million miles:
[http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=JFK-LON](http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=JFK-LON)
~~~
CydeWeys
You don't need to fly close to a million miles to get a million
"miles"/points. Miles are based on spend now, not on distance traveled, so
it's easy to rack up a million when you're flying business or first class.
As an example, let's say you're a regular business traveler flying a $5k
business class round-trip from NYC to London on American Airlines. You have
the highest status level which gives you a 120% bonus on miles earned. Each
dollar spent on the flight thus earns you 11 miles, so that one round-trip is
worth 55k miles. Source: [https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-
program/miles/aadvantage-...](https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-
program/miles/aadvantage-currency.jsp)
But wait, there's more. Of course you also bought the $5k flight on your AA
credit card, which gives another 2 miles per dollar spent, which puts the
total up to 65k miles earned for one 7k mile round-trip flight. Or maybe you
put it on your Chase Sapphire Reserve card, which gives you 3X Chase Ultimate
Rewards points for travel spending, so 55k AA miles + 15k UR points. Now
imagine that you're doing this trip several times per month and the
miles/points add up very quickly; you can get to a million in no time.
~~~
skellera
What airlines include card miles in your million miles count? Having a million
miles is different from the million miles status which seems to be based on
the first kind of miles you mentioned.
~~~
CydeWeys
That wasn't the asked question though. And getting a million flown miles isn't
all it's cracked up to be; you get a lower level of status guaranteed for
life, but given that you're still actively traveling frequently for business
you're gonna have a much better level of status anyway. And it all depends on
the airline anyway.
American Airlines, for example, only gives you gold status (the lowest level)
for life at 1M miles.
~~~
heelix
Delta did lifetime silver for 1M miles, which was their lowest level. They did
give a nice Tumi suitcase at the 1M (or was it 2M?) actual miles mark, but I
don't think it does much outside of a normal high status... probably zone one
boarding, or something like that. Once you hit diamond status, upgrades
domestically were pretty common. International... not so much. The flexibility
was the really nice thing - they always would go out of their way to get you
on the route you wanted if possible.
With status multipliers (but flying meat space), the most I ever hit was 623k
miles in a year. I suspect it was close to 300k 'real' miles. Our travel
person was booking 'round the world' tickets to save money at that point.
------
stcredzero
_He now made a “comfortable middle-class living,” but sitting there with me in
the cabin, fretted that it could go away at any time. “This is me working a
little network I’ve built using someone else’s social media platform,” he
said. “If Instagram changes its algorithm slightly, there goes a bit of my
business. If Instagram disconnects some of the tools I use to build and
monitor my account, there goes a bit of my business. And if Instagram goes
away and is replaced by something newer and better, I need to get there first,
just like I did with this account. If I don’t, I’m done. I’m totally dependent
on a platform that’s completely out-of-control.”_
I think this man is a bit of a canary in the coalmine for the rest of us. Even
for those of us who do not depend on social media for our income, enough of
human communication is wrapped up in social media to affect our lives in a
significant way, whether we want it to or not.
~~~
Waterluvian
Can you elaborate? The only social media I do is here and I'm not seeing the
connection.
~~~
stcredzero
_The only social media I do is here and I 'm not seeing the connection._
To me, HN is a refuge!
------
abainbridge
This made my day. I am now totally sure I don't want a super yacht. If I did
have one, I'd want the toilets to be clean and the dining room to serve good
dinner.
On the picture that asks if I want the yacht, the classic car or the private
jet, I found myself thinking that I'd like to build a replica of the classic
car. That'd be way more fun than owning any of the three and would save about
99% of the budget. I guess I missed the point.
~~~
stackola
I'll take a hotwheels version of the car, and the rest in cash.
Who spends $50 million on a car?
~~~
whatshisface
> _Who spends $50 million on a car?_
Someone who has so much money that $50M feels the same to them as the price of
the hotwheels feels to you. (Also, people without that much money who are
impulsive).
~~~
C1sc0cat
I don't think there are $50 million cars even one of the GT40's and Ferraris
that raced at Lemmans a lot less than that.
~~~
stackola
Yea, the car displayed (250 GTO) sold for $48 million at auction in 2018
~~~
C1sc0cat
Ah I sit corrected - I seem to recall one of the Lemans Ferraris was $16 Mil
------
jonnycomputer
Edited:
In my preferred world, no single person would be able to afford a large yacht.
However, I have no problem with yachts per se. Yacht enthusiasts could join
cooperatives, for example. Just like I think its silly that individuals can be
so wealthy that they can afford massive private golf courses, but think that
people who want to play golf should be able to join a golf club.
“But for the guy who owns the Eclipse [Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch],
that’s not the point. He’s not chartering that thing out. It has a submarine
and a missile detection system. See, the power of owning a magnificent yacht
like that is in how you’re telling the world that you’re beyond buying and
selling. You have more money than there is money to have. You’ve transcended.
There are no frontiers left for you on dry land. I mean, true peace is only at
sea.”
~~~
protomyth
And that attitude got us a luxury sales tax in the 90's that destroyed a lot
of highly paid workers building luxury yachts. A lot of craftsman-style jobs
rely on rich folks. A lot of manufacturing jobs rely on rich folks. Private
golf courses need people.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1993/07/16/h...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1993/07/16/how-
to-sink-an-industry-and-not-soak-the-
rich/08ea5310-4a4b-4674-ab88-fad8c42cf55b/?utm_term=.6cbe1c746431)
~~~
justin66
This was quite a popular media thing among conservatives who were torqued
about the evils of the 10% luxury tax in the early nineties. It was always
about the yachts and yacht industry, too. It was the _opposite_ of persuasive
because in reference to the luxury tax, they were _always_ going on about the
freaking yachts. I imagine in the end, it did little more than make most
normal people conscious of how little they cared about the yacht industry.
The way the repeated messaging was effective in getting everybody talking
about the same (ridiculous) thing was an early taste of what was to come in
right-wing media.
_The yacht costs $2,995,000, but, thanks to the current luxury tax that kicks
in at $100,000, you have to fork over another $289,500. Rich people aren 't
happy about paying this extra money. Even if they can afford it, they think
it's unfair. And in some cases, they're refusing to pay it -- simply by
refusing to buy new boats and planes._
Funny stuff.
~~~
CharlesColeman
> This was quite a popular media thing among conservatives who were torqued
> about the evils of the 10% luxury tax in the early nineties. It was always
> about the yachts and yacht industry, too. It was the opposite of persuasive
> because in reference to the luxury tax, they were always going on about the
> freaking yachts.
>> The yacht costs $2,995,000, but, thanks to the current luxury tax that
kicks in at $100,000, you have to fork over another $289,500. Rich people
aren't happy about paying this extra money. Even if they can afford it, they
think it's unfair. And in some cases, they're refusing to pay it -- simply by
refusing to buy new boats and planes.
> Funny stuff.
Hilarious, and so transparently selfish and self-serving. Something tells me
that if you can afford to spend $3 million on a conspicuous-consumption item
like a yacht, _you 'll still find $3.3 million affordable_. They just don't
like paying taxes. I'd bet they'd have to raise the luxury tax to a level
quite a bit higher than 10% to negatively affect the yacht industry.
Even the tax did hurt the yacht industry, the important question is: _what did
people spend their money on instead?_ If a tax kills the yacht industry, but
strengthens industries more beneficial to the common good, I think that's a
positive result.
~~~
pradn
The incredible depreciation of yachts is a much bigger part of the cost of
owning a yacht. A million-dollar yacht will go down to like 200k if that after
10 years.
~~~
noir_lord
Boats are holes in the water into which you throw money.
------
TrackerFF
The cross-posting and multiple accounts strategy is rampant on IG. I have two
major hobbies (very unrelated), and very much the same there.
It's kind of annoying, because in the end, there's no stylistic difference. So
my IG feed gets bombarded with content from the same handful of people. Gets
old real quick.
~~~
RankingMember
I have to think that what basically amounts to spam will bring about a quality
vs quantity tipping point for the platform and ultimately cause people to
abandon it if not mitigated.
~~~
taude
I've been pretty aggressively unfollowing accounts in Instagram. I kind-of
wish they'd create a "list" feature, but I'm OK with just cutting it down to
my core group of friends. When I want to see the stuff of the influencers,
other things I only need in small doses, I go to the search and look at
hashtags or "videos I might like".
Ideally, to me, my social network would be a small group of people I know and
love.
------
janlaureys
So this guy has 800k followers, but most pictures only get 5k likes? I feel
like I know where he got most of his following. I also don't get who he's
trying to influence. Which millionaire is going to decide to buy a specific
yacht because they saw an Instagram picture of it ?
~~~
gambiting
So I don't know a thing about yachts, but I know a thing or two about really
expensive cars. And the interesting thing is that 90% of buyers for cars
$200k+ don't even try them out before buying. There are plenty of buyers who
literally phone the dealership(or their assistant does) and they just make a
phone order, wire the money, and they maybe come over to pick up the car
unless it's delivered to them directly. The guess in the industry is that
those people literally see an article or an ad for a new Lambo(or whatever)
and they just buy one on an impulse. If they don't like it they'll just buy
something else, doesn't matter. I can only imagine that it's somewhat similar
with Yachts - you see something cool on instagram, you want it.
~~~
iguy
I can't find the source, but I read somewhere that the average length of
ownership of yachts over 60ft is only 9 months. Or something, maybe it's 100ft
& 18 months. But astonishingly short.
Which points to these not being well-considered deeply researched purchases.
So I can see instagram playing a pretty big role.
~~~
michelb
I work for a client that designs and builds these 100MM+ yachts. They just
can't build them fast enough to keep up with demand. Some of their clients buy
a yacht, and sell it within a year for a hefty profit, then buy a new one,
repeat. There is quite a business in selling 'used' yachts simply because it
takes 2-4 years to build a new one.
~~~
iguy
Do you have any estimate of how many buyers actually want to sail around /
host parties, and for how many it's some kind of tax evasion / money
laundering scheme?
I don't know any details but always wonder about this... an easy-to-move
super-expensive asset, physically in Cannes but legally in the Bahamas...
there must be many schemes.
~~~
michelb
That kind of information is not something I'm privy to, but I'd say it's about
50/50\. It's definitely a laundering scheme for many. They deal with brokers
obviously, and those just want a cut, never mind where it came from. But they
deliver to a lot of Russian oligarchs. I bet there are tons of schemes.
------
patorjk
I wonder how much he makes, and how long he thinks this gig will last. He
wants to own a Yacht, but unless he's making a ton, I'm not sure how that
would be possible. Also, I'm not sure it's fair to say "lonely life", the
article mentioned that he has a family. If anything, he just seems like a
workaholic.
~~~
Casseres
I think it's very fair to say he lives a lonely life. He doesn't seem to have
much if any time away from the boats. I've sailed with many men that were so
loney, a good number of them had been married and divorced 4 or 5 times.
Others that had kids, rarely got to see them. That's one of the reasons why I
quit being a Merchant Mariner.
------
Animats
There's a step beyond owning a yacht and an airliner sized private plane -
having your own airport for your own private planes. The Google founders have
that. They lease 1000 acres of Moffett Field.
Brin was rumored to be building a giant dirigible at Moffett, but not much has
been heard since 2017.
------
tnorthcutt
_I’m always on the clock, always tracking my time on these expensive
wristwatches with the big clock faces. And so, I’m sure to never set foot on
dry land when I’m working.”_
This ending struck me as not how someone would actually speak in real life.
Too poetic to be an actual quote.
------
RickJWagner
Interesting hustle. I hope this article doesn't spoil his gig with his
clients.
~~~
notacoward
I hope it does. Don't get me wrong, I don't wish the guy ill. I hope he
expects that and was ready to get out anyway. But I also don't care much for
the "Instagram influencer" thing. It's a lot like political astroturf,
appealing to people's preference for real-person authenticity when there's
really none involved. The harder it becomes for people to make money at it,
the better off we'll all be.
~~~
puranjay
I mean if you're going to hustle someone, better to hustle the rich.
~~~
stronglikedan
> better to hustle the rich.
How so?
~~~
tom_
They've got more money.
~~~
stronglikedan
I still don't understand how that makes it _better_.
~~~
CharlesColeman
If you hustle someone who's poor, maybe they won't be able to make rent on
their primary residence next month.
If you hustle someone who's rich, they're probably still going to be rich next
month.
~~~
stronglikedan
"Maybe" and "probably" are a lot of assumptions. Hustling is a shitty activity
that isn't made _better_ by the status of the victim.
~~~
notacoward
Putting people in prison is a shitty thing too, but it's still better to do it
to people who are actually a menace to society. Something doesn't have to be
good in an absolute sense to be better (than an alternative) in a regular one.
Even if we're just dealing with statistical probabilities, hustling the rich
seems less egregious than hustling the poor. Would you have reacted so
strongly if the same sentiment had been expressed as "preying on the poor is
especially bad"?
~~~
stronglikedan
> Would you have reacted so strongly if the same sentiment had been expressed
> as "preying on the poor is especially bad"?
Nope. Preying on anyone is bad. A rich person could lose everything in a
hustle the same as a poor person. It's only the extent of the hustle that
makes it better or worse. E.g., hustling someone for a fraction of their
assets is better than taking all of their assets. The value of the assets is
not relevant.
~~~
notacoward
Do you seriously think taking half of a poor person's assets is the same as
taking half of a rich person's? I suggest a little reading on the concept of
marginal utility before making more simplistic moral statements.
------
WhompingWindows
Tangentially related but wow, these yachts are a pure expression of the
excesses of fossil fuel capitalism. These personal boats are extremely
inefficient, far more luxurious than 99.9% of human's domiciles, and they are
only utilized some small fraction of the year by their ultra-wealthy owners.
It's truly a shame that so much money is poured into such utterly wasteful
possessions, rather than scientific research, philanthropy, or mitigating
climate change.
~~~
bigpicture
> It's truly a shame that so much money is poured into such utterly wasteful
> possessions
When the yachts are idle, which is the majority of the time, they are
typically plugged into shore power and are thus just consuming electricity
from the grid. The electrical systems of these things are typically far more
efficient than your home because they must generate their own electricity when
at sea.
As for the wasting of money, you'll note that most of the cost of building a
yacht is labor because they are mostly one-off builds and can't take advantage
of automation. The article mentions that they cost 10% of the purchase price
per month in upkeep. The vast majority of those costs are labor.
These things are among the most efficient devices for transferring wealth from
the rich to the middle class. I wouldn't discourage their use at all.
~~~
iguy
This all is true.
I also wonder how much of the yacht business is really about money laundering
or tax-evasion. Like the art collecting world. If your company buys the boat
in one country, reflags it to Panama, sells it in Monaco the next tax year...
I don't know any details but I'm sure there's substantial room here to massage
what numbers you present to various tax collectors.
~~~
ehnto
Given how short the ownership tends to last (~9 months according to an
anecdote in this thread), I suspect moving or protecting money is probably
part of it somewhere. I also imagine a lot of it really is just wealthy people
spending for fun rather than profit.
~~~
iguy
Heh, my anecdote is famous already :)
Indeed, it's pretty hard to tell. Both seem entirely plausible and I just have
no way to guess how such buyers think.
------
kilon
I will take the money for the Yacht and buy a submarine. Enjoy the depth
before we completely ruin them via climate change and pollution.
------
Antonio123123
So basically the guy has ~1m followers on instagram, is helicoptered from
yacht to yacht and gets paid to hang out with rich people and wear expensive
watches, in the most beautiful places.
He also seems like a nice person.
In contrast author looks like a douchebag, portraying him in a bad light, as a
lanky lonely person, whose financial security is at the mercy of instagram.
To me author looks like a petty jealous person who wants to gain by
undermining others that are successful.
~~~
lawlessone
i didn't get that from the author at all. They both seemed pleasant.
~~~
brootstrap
I didnt get those vibes either. Wasnt it the yacht guy himself talking about
his dependence on instagram? Anyways, props to instagram guy for getting his
$$$ when he can. Dude is right, only a matter of time before instagram sucks
and there is some new hotness.
This whole social media influencer thing is kind of funny. Of course I think
it is trash and that likely some large percentage of followers are bots.
However, it does have some degree of power in certain circles. Just yesterday
on sports radio these talk show hosts (been working for 20+ years in
journalism) are quoting people on facebook/twitter etc because they have 70k
followers. The host literally said, I dont know who this guy is but he has 70k
followers and knows Manny Machado's dad.
~~~
Antonio123123
I got the feeling from: >lonely life >he’s kinda lost at sea >next to a lanky
guy >I began to wonder, “How could anyone spend their whole life doing this?”
and details, like him having a tiny cabin (you're on a boat).
And of course the fact that he published what seems to me a candid
conversation in such a light.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Marketing methods for startups - jolenzy
I would like to know, which marketing methods are the best for startups?<p>For example, my small startup http://besthi.re will be ready soon. Which marketing methods I should use?<p>Should I invest in press release distribution?<p>Maybe to try to get review at Mashable, TechCrunch, etc. How to get an article about your startup on this kind of popular websites?<p>Is there any book/blog you recommend on this topic?
======
t0
There probably isn't one best marketing method, and there's no way to know.
Try a small run of all of them and see which work.
As far as getting press coverage, you're better off writing a guest post about
something valuable and interesting, then tying your site in at the end. For
example, you might write about "10 best ways to get hired", then have the last
paragraph be about you and your site.
Source: I asked a guy how he got on Venturebeat.
[http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/05/getting-a-good-deal-on-
seo...](http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/05/getting-a-good-deal-on-seo-think-
again/#comment-729442617)
~~~
jolenzy
Thanks. I think that's a good idea.
I also thought about writing a longer and high quality blog posts which offer
a lot of value for job seekers, and then promote the blog post via Facebook
Ads.
------
Kanbab
You ought to try out adwords. You can reach millions of people looking for a
job. Test out dozens of catchy phrases. And see what keywords are driving a
positive ROI. You might want to also do some display advertising to drive
traffic; the clicks are cheaper, but the conversion rates can be lower.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What I Hate About Git - gammarator
https://steveko.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/10-things-i-hate-about-git/
======
dasil003
I found the #1 reason to be incredibly ironic:
> _The information model is complicated – and you need to know all of it. As a
> point of reference, consider Subversion: you have files, a working
> directory, a repository, versions, branches, and tags. That’s pretty much
> everything you need to know._
SVN's model is both simpler than stated here, but also much more complex to
reason about. First of all, svn doesn't have branches or tags, it just has
directories with cheap copy—tags and branches are just directories. The
repository itself is also watered down pretty severely because the actual
project directory is just nested in there somewhere with no formal locus. This
idea of "everything is a directory" sounds simple, but in practice it's a
architectural dead-end. The most obvious implication is that merging in svn
will always be fraught with peril because a branch isn't a first-class
citizen.
I used svn (and cvs before it) for much longer than git, and yet I never felt
I had any clue what svn was doing under the hood, and the experiences I had
over time instilled a fear of attempting to stray off the well-worn path of
the most basic commands.
Although the learning curve was steep, and the CLI quite confusing, the git
information model is actually much easier to grok because the primitives make
more sense. After 6 months using git, I had a firmer grasp of the internals
than I did after 10 years of cvs and svn. The idiosyncrasies of the UI don't
really bother me because they are just superficial flaws that are easily
memorized or looked up. The fact that I have the confidence to slice and dice
commits to any history I can envision, with or without a network connection
and remote repo, and do so with the reasonable confidence that I will never
lose anything (reflog) make git the best VCS I can imagine.
~~~
perlgeek
I fully agree. SVN traditionally had some things that simply didn't work,
often related to file renames.
I remember trying to rename a file after 'svn add' but before 'svn commit',
and it simply didn't work. Maybe that's fixed now, don't know. Or merging
stuff when a file was renamed in one branch and changed in the other.
During my several years of SVN usage I have regularly driven SVN checkouts
against a wall, where I didn't manage to recover them into a usable state, not
any combinations of revert, update or other commands. This has never happened
to me with git.
------
klodolph
Number 1-5 are mostly "I don't want to learn new things", so I'll ignore them.
Do you remember when you learned source control for the first time? I don't,
it was too long ago. Just like you have to learn SVN if you've never used
source control before, you have to learn Git if you've never used distributed
source control before.
* "Unsafe version control", and then gives examples using -f or +<refspec>, both of which advertise their destructive nature. Yes, you can also go in with SVN and obliterate history too, using svnadmin dump and svnadmin load. Git's reflog will have your back when you make mistakes, as long as the mistakes don't get too old.
* "Power for the maintainer, at the expense of the contributor" Yes, most people write code on one branch for a long period of time. Git does this just fine.
* "Burden of VCS maintainance pushed to contributors" First of all, nobody says that contributors have to merge. That is a decision that each project makes. Plenty of projects have the lead developers merging in everyone else's work. Second, the reason this is even an issue is because merging is such a pain in SVN that most people don't want to do it.
* "Git history is a bunch of lies" Again, this is up to the individual project. Some developers like to work on six different things at the same time, and then they go back and rewrite history so that their six changes end up as six commits. The difference with SVN, is that these same developers would simply avoid committing until they're done with all six changes. Some projects expect rebased patches, some prefer proper merges. Worse, the author says that "filtering" should solve this problem, but doesn't propose how such a filter would work.
* Complexity of simple tasks: Let's try not to artificially inflate the complexity of the Git tasks. For example, the Git examples assume no commit access, whereas the SVN examples assume direct commit access. If you don't have commit access to an SVN project, how do you do it? You either use git-svn and mail them a patch, or you use svn and mail them a patch.
A recurring complaint seems to be that "git add" is not the same as "svn add".
I don't see why it would be. It's not the same as "ssh-add" or "useradd"
either.
~~~
ender7
Like others, I think telling people to RTFM is unhelpful.
The OP already pointed out that the official Git documentation is bad, bad
_bad._ So, already it's not just "RTFM" but "Google around for a decent Git
tutorial and hope you pick the right one." Great.
Add to this the fact that the Git commands are simply _poorly designed._ Yes,
it is possible to understand what they do after expending a significant amount
of time simply learning to think like Linus, but _why should we have to do
that?_ I refer you to the gitref.org entry for 'git reset':
_git reset is probably the most confusing command written by humans. I've
been using Git for years, even wrote a book on it and I still get confused by
what it is going to do at times._ [0]
This is not a problem of people not wanting to learn DVCS concepts. This is
simply people who don't want to jump through a set of arbitrary, confusing,
and completely unnecessary mental hoops in order to get to the DVCS concepts
they wanted to use.
[0] <http://gitref.org/basic/#reset> (gitref.org is maintained by GitHub)
~~~
encoderer
> The OP already pointed out that the official Git documentation is bad, bad
> bad. So, already it's not just "RTFM" but "Google around for a decent Git
> tutorial and hope you pick the right one." Great.
I have a hard time believing that there are scores of software developers out
there who have learned their craft enough to want source control but are
somehow overwhelmed by the basic task of finding a good Git tutorial.
The real impediment that I've observed is developers that certainly _could_
learn Git but don't because they don't see it as a good investment. That's
where they're so, so wrong. Git is like power tools for your code. If you
embrace and learn it, you'll be much better off for it. Yes, SVN is easier.
It's also a lot less powerful.
And there's always Mercurial, which is very similar to Git and addresses some
of the confusing-API criticism.
~~~
CJefferson
The problem with git isn't following a tutorial, the problems I have had are
nasty corner cases. I have to keep looking up strange a-symmetries, like why
does 'git push' push just the current branch, and 'git pull' pull all
branches? Then I have to look up how to make 'git pull' pull just the current
branch.
Also, due to inconsistencies in how commands take branches, I sometimes
realise I have a branch called 'origin/stuff', when I meant to do something
with stuff on origin. It's also hard to find which branches are tracking what.
Of course, you can find the options to do all these things. But there are just
so many little things to learnt.
The fundamental question is, does the complexity of git come from the power it
offers over svn, or does it come from the most terrible UI I think I have ever
seen on a command line tool? I think it is the second.
I still use git every day, but I think it is putting usability by less
computer-savvy users back years.
~~~
EdiX
> like why does 'git push' push just the current branch, and 'git pull' pull
> all branches?
It's the opposite, "git push" pushes all branches and "git pull" only pulls
the current branch. I think it's because push will only do fast-forward merges
while pull will do any merge, and that could require a working directory to
exist (but why not make push just push the current branch?)
~~~
CJefferson
Sorry yes, I got the asymmetry the wrong way around :)
The problem this causes (for me) is that if I have commits in other branches,
'git push' will fail (as other branches can't be fast-forwarded), but 'git
pull' won't fix it. Of course, I can get around it, but it's annoying.
~~~
ben_h
You can configure `git push` to push just the current branch to its configured
remote, by setting 'push.default' to 'upstream'.
`git config --global push.default upstream`
The relevant docs (droplr'd, since you can't anchor-link into the online
manpages): <http://d.pr/Rlqn>
------
monkeypizza
Have people done hallway usability testing on git?
i.e. just take a smart undergrad CS major and record their screen (& audio)
while they try to figure out how to use it. I think this would definitely turn
up some tasks within it that are way harder than they need to be. Do people
really feel confident that learning git is a smooth process, not involving a
lot of swearing?
The answer you mostly hear when complaining about programming tools is that
you need to toughen up - yet startups are founded on the idea of not doing
this to their clients. Making processes super easy for clients is a good
thing, and we should gather information, find the common problem spots, and
fix them for our own tools! We shouldn't just keep insisting that the customer
(programmers) needs to toughen up and learn (as the default answer, anyway;
some things really are hard)
Why isn't there user feedback tool for man pages, where it asks "Was this
information helpful to you?" every time you use a man page? I bet the success
rate would be pretty low.
In general why isn't there any information about which man pages are good and
which are terrible? They just seem frozen in time. Compared to the analytics
startups get about their customers, info about man pages is nonexistent. Yet
there are probably ones out there which would be rated "useless" 99% of the
time, and have been for 10+ years with no change.
~~~
DeepDuh
I think you bring up some good points of open source projects vs. commercial
ones. In open source projects, most of the time when seeing critical feedback
by users you see those "it's open source, just change it the way you want"
comments. No one makes money, therefore no one depends on users being happy
about the software. That's why B2B is so attractive: Your users actually WANT
to pay you such that you are dependent on their happiness.
Maybe we should invent a new model that combines open source with paid
incentives for user desired changes. Let's say User A uses Gimp, sees
something that could be simplified or added. He can't program it himself but
what he can do is describing the feature he wants, possibly with screenshots
or even an interface prototype. He then auctions this on a marketplace
website. Other users can upvote or even chip in to A's auction such that the
probability of a good developer implementing it rises. Developers have their
profile with reputation, possibly linked with their stackoverflow reputation.
The change gets implemented within a branch of gimp, installable by anyone
using a modified package manager. If the maintainers of gimp like the change,
they can merge it in such that everyone profits - the number of user downloads
being a good indicator that the change is desired.
------
crazygringo
Amen! I've felt like this for so long.
Ignoring the unnecessary parts about GitHub, he hits the nail right on the
head with:
> _Git doesn’t so much have a leaky abstraction as no abstraction. There is
> essentially no distinction between implementation detail and user interface.
> ...Its weakness is the complexity of simple tasks._
I swear, someone needs to invent a Git-wizard program. Interactive with a
wizard-like interface, it will walk you through all the common kinds of tasks,
even if they're fairly advanced, explaining all the ramifications along the
way.
I haven't seen any programs like this -- all the GUI interfaces to git
basically just translate to command-line commands, instead of trying to help
you intelligently manage your workflow.
I don't think it would be easy to write a wizard interface like this -- it's a
UI designer's worst nightmare -- but it would certainly help.
~~~
peeters
> I swear, someone needs to invent a Git-wizard program. Interactive with a
> wizard-like interface, it will walk you through all the common kinds of
> tasks, even if they're fairly advanced, explaining all the ramifications
> along the way.
Sounds like a great idea for making _one type of workflow_ easy. The great
part about Git not having an abstraction is that it supports almost any
workflow. You can choose what flow is right for your project.
Which is, by the way, why the documentation is not task-oriented, it's data-
model oriented. The same command might be used for two completely different
tasks in two different processes.
Other tools that aim to make the basics for committing easy do so at the
expense of implicitly supporting only certain workflows. Think of something
like Perforce. You don't _enforce_ your process with Perforce, you _choose_
your process so that it will work with Perforce.
~~~
crazygringo
That's why I said it's a UI designer's worst nightmare.
Because there are a lot of different kinds of workflows, and I don't even know
how you'd begin to organize them. I mean, maybe it's not even possible.
It would just be nice if it were more possible to "ease into" Git, rather than
feel like you have to go through the equivalent of a college semester learning
it.
~~~
saraid216
> That's why I said it's a UI designer's worst nightmare.
This is the point where I think it's appropriate to link another front page
article: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4338845>
I've learned Git about the same way I've learned *nix systems and programming
languages in general: piecemeal, a step at a time, on a largely need-to-know
basis. It's been 4 years now and I feel like a complete novice, but I rarely
need to do anything other than (1) synching local with remote repo, (2)
committing a change, and (3) using a feature branch.
------
zobzu
Git is far from perfect. But, there's roughly half bullshit, half "yes but is
it really an issue?" things here to me.
Things like detailing the _github_ process and blaming _git_ just does not
work for example.
Blaming additional git features that svn simply does not have.. is also
nonsense to me.
Finally, you CAN rewrite history in svn, its just extremely painful. In git
it's not and.. its a good thing. I prefer USEABLE history than trashy commits.
And don't tell me its about having proper devs making commits. As pointed out,
you get external commits in git. You can't control them without refusing them
and then what? In svn you don't _even_ have the possibility to refuse them.
Don't get me started on how svn is way more about the maintainer due to
this...
~~~
dasil003
> _I prefer USEABLE history than trashy commits._
Yeah the other day I got into an extended debate about rebasing with another
dev who just didn't get this. He maintained that it should not be possible to
modify history because it all may be relevant later. I rebutted with a
question: do you want a commit every time you type a character in your text
editor? Version control is just another tool for code craftsmanship. You
should strive to make your commits as atomic and well-described as humanly
possible. git-add -i and git-rebase -i are tools that allow you to approach a
more perfect history.
~~~
Animus7
> I rebutted with a question: do you want a commit every time you type a
> character in your text editor?
I don't get it. I want a commit every time I say I want a commit, not upon
arbitrary criteria the software decides for me. And I want that commit to be
irrevocably and permanently immutable, because I said I wanted it and because
it might be relevant later. What am I missing?
~~~
laughinghan
When you want a commit, you tell git to commit and it will commit.
When you don't want to revoke or mutate a commit ("irrevocably and permanently
immutable"), you don't tell git to revoke or mutate the commit and it won't
revoke or mutate the commit.
When you fucked up history and you want to change it, there are some simple
git commands to do this and some very, very tedious svnadmin commands to do
this.
Some of us fuck up history and want to change it. Some of us don't. Git serves
both of us well. Subversion only serves one of us well. A lot of the time we
have to use the same version control system, because we want to collaborate.
~~~
klodolph
Additionally, if I have admin access to the SVN repository and rewrite
history, how would you ever find out unless I told you about it?
In that sense Git has stronger support for immutable commits, since rewriting
published history will actually cause everyone downstream to stand up and
notice.
------
mrich
Excellent article, this reflects much of my personal experience working with
git in the last year.
Our whole department (>100 people) switched as part of a move towards
decoupled development/continuous integration, we used perforce before. Luckily
there were three people with excellent git knowledge who could answer all
questions so this helped a lot.
However, I find myself relying on stackoverflow/google for some not-so-common
small use cases where a glance at the manual just doesn't help (find all
changes in local branch not in upstream branch x?). Also, the git commands and
their options are sometimes not very logical as the article mentions (i.e. git
show vs. git blame, the first needs the syntax "branch:file", the second
"branch file", why? Small things like that take away from the beauty)
git is powerful and I prefer it to perforce for it's possibilities, but I
think tools like mercurial are a better DVCS which just didn't have enough
hype at the right time.
------
Kronopath
This generally sums up why I prefer Mercurial. It provides all the benefits of
a distributed VCS, but with less of the complexity, at the expense of some
(usually unneeded, at least for me) flexibility.
~~~
ajross
Given that "everyone" knows git, and essentially no one uses hg, I think
saying it involves "less complexity" is very much missing the forest for the
trees.
~~~
teilo
No one except for the entire Python development team. And me.
~~~
cpeterso
And all of Mozilla. And Oracle's Java dev team.
Windows support was a big deciding factor.
~~~
retrogradeorbit
And Adium and pypy and Sphinx and gevent and almost every project on
bitbucket. But _apart_ from them, "essentially no one" uses mercurial! :P
------
cheald
"If the power of Git is sophisticated branching and merging, then its weakness
is the complexity of simple tasks."
The power of Git is its distributed nature and the fact that you can maintain
local commits. When you have a single remote repository that everyone commits
to, then sure, it's really easy to do things (have fun maintaining the ACL and
merging any changes contributed by anyone outside the committer list via
patch). If you think "it's really easy to branch" is the primary reason to use
Git, you're using it wrong.
~~~
zalew
> The power of Git is its distributed nature and the fact that you can
> maintain local commits.
that's actually the power of any DVCS.
~~~
cheald
Yes, that was my point. He's comparing a VCS with a DVCS and then complaining
that the "D" adds overhead.
------
pydave
I think the biggest problem I have with git is that I don't understand how
people can't get it. (That's assuming they understand DVCS, but don't get git.
Not understanding DVCS is unsurprising.) It's like when my nonprogrammer
friends who took CS101 didn't understand for loops. What?! It's just applying
a concept you already understand.
It's unfortunate that git re-uses some verbs from cvs/svn with different
meanings, but is that really such a big hurdle?
And I'm always surprised to hear complaints about git's user interface. I find
the command-line interface far friendlier than others: auto-paging, colorized
output, text hints of what I should do next, and fantastic tools (like bisect)
in the same package.
And looking through my bash history, most of my commands don't use any options
(the biggest exception is git commit). Possibly this is because I do most of
my git interaction through vim-fugitive (and I have aliases for commonly-used
complex commands). But I think it makes more sense to have a smaller set of
commands that are logically organized (rebase mangles your history, reset re-
aligns based on your history, ...) than a single command for every function.
------
aneth4
Defenses of git sound remarkably like defenses of C++ syntax and feature
design. In fact, I'd argue they are similarly written by people who are overly
proud that they are smart enough to figure out some convoluted and arbitrary
complexity, but not wise enough to realize that level complexity is
unnecessary.
~~~
borplk
Your comment sums the issue amazingly well. Well you look at the user
interface it is clearly evident that these guys had forgotten that not
everyone is a kernel hacker. And it seems as if they tried their best to make
everyone else feel like an idiot because they don't have the time or want to
understand the arbitrary decisions they made or are simply not smart enough to
understand it.
------
MBlume
I'm all for trying to find ways to improve Git's learning curve, especially
for non-technical users.
That said, if you're calling yourself an engineer, you've worked at a Git shop
for over a month, and you're still complaining about how "hard" it is? I have
absolutely zero sympathy. You're being paid twice the national average to do a
job that's supposed to be mentally difficult. You use version control every
day. Stop whining, learn to use your tools correctly, and stop subjecting the
rest of us to your crappy, disorganized commits.
------
simplesimple
Ever try to commpile git statically?
Git makes you believe it's lots of small little utilities that work together.
Far from it. Git relies on Perl or another scripting language, not to mention
it's reliance on curl.
You cannot run Git without these other sizeable programs.
I can make static binaries of RCS, CVS and SVN no problem. CVS uses SSH. No
silly SSL and the certificate mess. I value the simplicity.
Mercurial (which seems to be a favourite among connoisseurs of versioning
systems) relies on a Python intepreter, but it's reasonably contained to a
single Python script; no installation required. You point Python at hg and it
works.
Of course, it's been said that most of the time people who ramble on and on
about these systems and their esoteric features do not need the advanced
features. They rarely use them, except as points in a debate over which
versioning system is "the best".
~~~
jlgreco
This is, by far, the strangest git complaint that I have ever heard. What are
you trying to do, ship embedded devices with git on them?
~~~
develop7
"avoid holding it that way"?
~~~
jlgreco
Honestly? Yes. Sometimes that is just the only reasonable response.
~~~
develop7
is there a complete list of ways I should avoid to hold git?
------
sigil
I love git and prefer it to svn, but he's right. It succeeds in power and
usefulness, but utterly fails in the complexity department. Someday, someone
who understands the virtue of simplicity and can control their "how dare you
insult my favorite tool" response will take this criticism to heart and rework
git (or at least, re-porcelain it).
~~~
klodolph
I think the re-porcelain option is really the most viable option here, for
those who complain about git's arcane invocation. So many Git commands
actually do two or three different things depending on invocation.
------
drucken
Sounds like someone's just discovered how different DVCS are to centralized
VCS.
Still, tools like Tower, Smartgit and Github for Windows, especially Tower,
make interface to Git less painful.
With time, the interfaces to Git workflows can only improve, whereas what can
you do with SVN?
That said, he may have a point about (branch &) merge message management in
Git. Perhaps this can be improved closer to git with git extensions, e.g.
implementing some sort of ranking and filtration system. Related to that is
users should not really have to change the structure of the VCS itself just to
filter messages.
------
markkat
I have to admit, it confuses the heck out of me. I am always in fear of
destroying code because the documentation part is spot-on. I read and reread,
and still feel like I am working on a best guess interpretation.
~~~
chris_wot
Using man files and in-built help is probably always going to only give you
half the story. Have you considered reading the Pro Git book? <http://git-
scm.com/book>
------
pka
I can't count the number of times I've googled for simple commands like "how
do I revert an uncommited file to its original state"?
hg revert bla.txt
git ???
... and I would still have to google for it (it's something with HEAD iirc).
Its usability is atrociously bad and I don't want to spend time learning some
badly designed cli interface when I can focus on more important things and use
tools that make my life easier, not harder.
~~~
greghinch
git checkout bla.txt ? I'm not sure how I get how that's harder. I'll throw
one back, how do I do the equivalent of git stash and git cherry-pick in hg?
~~~
pka
Ah, good to know. Everytime I've googled this it was something about reset
--hard (or --soft) and HEAD or ^HEAD or whatever else.
git stash is hg shelve. Don't know about cherry picking (I've never needed
it).
Anyways, the argument I'm making is not "which tool is more powerful" but
"which one is easier to use while being powerful _enough_ ". For me that is
Mercurial, hands down.
~~~
greghinch
cherry-picking is amazing for the "oops I did that fix on master instead of
the 2.x branch". git cherry-pick <hash>. done.
~~~
pka
Just for the record, the transplant extension [1] seems to be how you do
cherry picking in Mercurial.
[1] <http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/TransplantExtension>
~~~
retrogradeorbit
Transplant is a great extension and very useful in a pickle.
------
eli_gottlieb
I can say this: I've used both Mercurial and Git professionally, and for
distributed version control, I found Mercurial _much_ simpler to use.
------
rogerbinns
My issue with git is the defaults. Generally the defaults and behaviour are
geared towards large projects. It is absolutely correct in that sense - you
don't want hundreds or thousands of contributors messing things up. An
additional simple example is that push doesn't send tags.
But generally you want the opposite defaults for small projects/number of
users. For example you do want tags pushed by default so every sees them. This
places a large learning curve on the small scale projects and users. Remember
that most users will be perpetual intermediates.
My analogy is that git is like a sharp knife. In the hands of an expert it can
produce art, but in the hands of others we get blood. Some of the responses
here are marvelling at the sharpness and what can be done with it, but are
missing the point that others end up bloody!
~~~
dasil003
Aren't you more likely to cut yourself with a dull knife though?</strained-
analogy>
~~~
tharax
I think you're more likely to feel pain with a dull edge, but a sharp edge
cuts easier.
~~~
dasil003
The point is it slips off the tomato and cuts your finger.
------
dcosson
I find his complaint about git's lack of abstraction strange. Yes, git's
syntax could definitely be more consistent, but I can't think of how you could
abstract away very much of git without quickly losing power.
On the other hand, one of the things I hated most about svn is that it doesn't
abstract away the remote repository details at all. To do something as simple
as check out a branch you have to type in the full absolute url to your
repository, since a branch is basically a different folder higher up in the
hierarchy. Talk about a leaky abstraction.
The abstraction between version control tools and the remote server(s) you
back everything up on and the power of git's underlying model are both such
big wins that I really can't get too worked up about the syntax.
------
InclinedPlane
Yet another anti-git rant which will merely bounce off the deflector shields
of the git faithful. I doubt anything will change in terms of git usability
and misfeatures until someone proves that there's a better way to do it by
building an alternative that's all around better than git. But that raises the
question of why one would continue to use git at that point.
~~~
ern
Using Mercurial daily, I don't understand why it isn't widely viewed as the
alternative to git that you mention. It seems to avoid some of the pain-points
the OP lists.
The idea that there are "git faithful" is a sign of how immature (in every
sense) the software development field is. Masochism and complexity-worship
seem to blight our field(not necessarily referring to git, which I'm not
qualified to comment on)
------
tux1968
Git is _awesome_. Once you "Get it", there really is no big problem. Sure you
may have to look up some syntax occasionally and make an alias or two for your
common uses, but really, it's no big deal.
And the benefits are compelling. Enjoy the amazing power of committing early,
and committing often. Being able to revert to "10 minutes ago" is so freeing
when trying out a refactoring idea. And being able to "uncommit" the last X
commits to recommit them in a different order and with cleaned up messages and
structure before sharing with colleagues... amazing.
All the quibbles about syntax really miss the point and the power of Git.
------
akkartik
He mentions three ways to irrevocably lose data. Is that really accurate? I
would think old refs are still present in the repo and accessible from
.git/logs, but I don't have any experience actually collaborating with git.
~~~
ben_straub
Rebasing isn't really destructive. Try it: open `gitk --all`, do a rebase -i
and squash all the commits together, then switch back to gitk and refresh.
You'll see all the old commits still in the database, but the HEAD and master
branches point at the new commits. Totally not destructive, but it does take a
bit of knowledge to undo the change.
Git maintains what's called a "reflog" to help with this. It's a record of
every place that every ref has ever pointed in your repository. Try it: `git
reflog master`. You can even see when you did pulls, and what they merged in.
The only truly destructive thing you can do to your git database is `git gc`.
~~~
aneth4
> The only truly destructive thing you can do to your git database is `git
> gc`.
And of course we should expect garbage collection to be destructive of
information that is not garbage?
Didn't know that? Just read the man page. Whoops, it doesn't actually mention
that, but it does mention that it may happen automatically at times.
So only clever people like you know archaic undocumented side effects of git's
inscrutable design, except nobody ever really knows the full story because
there is so much unnecessary crud to learn in addition. Clearly more can be
destructive than gc if gc can be executed by other commands and triggers by
repository state.
~~~
jeltz
git gc be default does only prune things older than 2 weeks so to lose your
recently lost commits you would have to explicitly give a prune which is
today.
I do not think one can do this accidentally:
git gc --prune=2012-08-05
------
Karunamon
Allow me to add one to the list:
11\. Completely different concepts for the same commands as other SCM systems.
Case in point: Checkout. In every other system prior to git, going as far back
as CVS in 1986, checkout meant grab a remote repo and copy it locally.
In git, it suddenly means to switch branches in a repo you already have. The
real "checkout" was renamed to "clone".
Why not use something like "switch" instead?
That's nearly 20 years of muscle memory everyone needed to relearn because..
why?
Git add and SVN add do completely different things as well.
Was it simply not thought of that people who use git would be switching from
another system at the time, very likely to be either svn or hg?
~~~
chris_wot
Yeah, but you could also argue that it doesn't make as much sense in git to
call cloning a repository "checkout". Because you are cloning the repository
to your very own _local_ repository, then you make your changes from that
repository and then you push back to the original repository, which is a
_remote_ repository.
Essentially, a checkout in git is to checkout files from a particular branch
into the current working directory. And that branch is actually in the index,
which I would really call the repository - so actually you are indeed
"checking out" files from the repository. Once you make your changes, you
commit them right back into the index.
------
ecoffey
Dear OP,
If you're still using git from time to time and get frustrated please feel
free to ping @gitdoctor on twitter. It's an account I run to try and help
people use git right when they need that help.
Thanks and good luck!
------
patrickaljord
You don't need github to make pull requests:
[http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-
request-...](http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-request-
pull.html)
~~~
alexanderh
You dont need github for anything, period. So its very strange that it is
mentioned at all when comparing it to other version control systems.
~~~
lotyrin
Let me translate:
3 things I hate about (the culture surrounding) git(hub):
1,3,4,5 - I'm expected to understand the information model.
2 - The CLI is inconsistent.
6,7,8,9,10 - I'm expected to work harder so that life is easier for the
maintainer.
------
cypherpnks
Having used both git and hg, I very strongly agree. I learned hg first. Hg
took less time to master than git took learn the basics of. The syntax of git
is incredibly cumbersome in comparison -- I type a lot more. It's the
standard, but relative to hg, not a very good standard.
------
mattspitz
git is only complicated because it lets you do everything you may possibly
want to do, often a superset of what you actually want to do.
If you want svn-like commands, you can borrow someone's scripts or use a shiny
GUI. I don't want svn-like commands because centralized version control is
obnoxious.
Don't complain because it's hard. Programming is hard, math is hard, and if
you know how languages, data structures, and algorithms work, git is actually
pretty easy in comparison.
~~~
retrogradeorbit
I disagree. git is complicated because it does not have defaults, command line
intelligence and does not have a consistent user interface. It forces you to
constantly be repeating yourself and to learn a lot of detailed incantations
(Like mentioning HEAD and origin and master over and over.)
I say to you, don't complain that people are complaining. People are
complaining for a reason.
Have you tried some of the other DVCSes? Mercurial, or Darcs, or bazaar? Gits
problem is not the problem domain, nor the backend. It's the user interface.
That's the hard bit.
------
bendmorris
Git doesn't seem to have been developed with ease of use in mind. I've found
that it's very powerful, and that most things that you want to do with it are
possible, but not always as easy as it could be.
I'm working on a collaborative project with several inexperienced developers
using various editors and operating systems, and dealing with line endings has
been a serious time sink. The first step was "* text=auto" in a .gitattributes
file to override everyone's local settings, as some had used custom settings
when they installed Git.
Apparently the developers of Git decided to not support \r as a line ending,
which ended up causing headaches for us because some legacy programs still use
it. Several times, someone committed changes to a file where \r\n line endings
had been replaced with just \r, for whatever reason. To Git, they had just
deleted the entire file and replaced it with one long line. This frequently
resulted in edit conflicts where it was very difficult to tell what had
actually been changed.
The solution ended up being a filter:
clean = LC_CTYPE=C awk '{printf(\"%s\\n\", $0)}' | LC_CTYPE=C tr '\\r' '\\n'
...which everyone now has to duplicate in each of their local .git/config on
every copy of the repository they use. Coming up with that little bit of
command-line wizardry, and getting everyone to install it (and making sure it
worked on Windows/OS X) ended up wasting the better part of a day to
accomplish what seems like a relatively simple task.
So, in the end it was possible, but the process could've been much friendlier.
I will say, though, that git bash is absolutely amazing and blows Cygwin out
of the water for ease of use.
~~~
keenerd
> ...which everyone now has to duplicate in each of their local .git/config on
> every copy of the repository they use.
You can use git in your .git. Add those hooks to the repository. Every dev
will get them automatically on checkout. No one should have to install
anything. (Well, aside from Awk.)
~~~
bendmorris
That never occurred to me. Thanks for the suggestion.
------
pbiggar
I'm going to be contrarian and say that he's mostly right for all of them. SVN
was simpler, git is more complex. SVN did some things well that git does not
so well.
But this all misses the point. Git is many many times more powerful than SVN.
And that complexity is really useful, even for relatively small projects. You
can learn Git's complexity, removing many of SVN's advantages. But you can
never get Git's power into SVN.
------
greghinch
I've been using git for several years on multiple projects with teams of
various sizes (admittedly none larger than 10, though I avoid projects of that
size for a multitude of reasons) and have loved it a lot. Especially compared
to the merge headaches of svn. Or cvs. And mercurial just gets in my way more
often than not. git stash I awesome
------
why-el
> The fundamental promise of any version control system is this: “Once you put
> your precious source code in here, it’s safe. You can make any changes you
> like, and you can always get it back. Git breaks this promise”.
Right there. I don't know who made this promise, but it's not what Git is
supposed to preserve. Git is distributable is it not?
------
paulhodge
Number 10 is a total apples-to-oranges comparison. For an apples-to-apples
comparison, the question is, do you want to give your contributors write
access to your master repo? (and deal with the consequences)
If contributors have write access, then Git is almost as easy. There's just
one more command ("git push") compared to SVN.
If contributors don't have write access, then there's no easy way to do this
with SVN. Most places that I've seen will either have users submit .patch
files via email, or put their changes in SVN branches (ugh). Or, they convince
themselves that they'd rather just give contributors write access. Either way,
Git has many handy ways to solve this problem (Github pull requests are just
one of those ways), and it definitely wins on this front.
------
rbanffy
I tend to summarize it like this:
Git is built by people smarter than you for people smarter than you. Deal with
it.
Now, seriously, Git is a) immensely flexible and b) born out of the needs of
Linux kernel developers (or, more specifically, Linus' needs). I would expect
it to be optimized for that case.
~~~
recursive
There sure is a lot of evangelizing for it if it's only intended for the 1%
elite developer.
~~~
j-kidd
That's exactly the problem, i.e. those people who endlessly promoting git so
that they can be seen as elite developer. Their favorite past time is to share
their "get it" stories with the rest of the world.
Not unlike the "Are You There God? It's Me, Jesus" episode of South Park.
~~~
rbanffy
Git is a tool. You use it if it solves your problem. You can certainly use it
the same way you'd use Subversion and it's not any harder - it'll just behave
as a version control system that can buffer commits offline with two "levels"
of commit - local and remote.
If you want to use the more complicated stuff, then there is no way to avoid
learning the more complicated ideas.
There is a lot I don't understand about Git, but, as far as my usage patterns
have gone, I'm very satisfied.
~~~
j-kidd
> You can certainly use it the same way you'd use Subversion and it's not any
> harder - it'll just behave as a version control system that can buffer
> commits offline with two "levels" of commit - local and remote.
That's hg. With git, you got the index / staging area, which is unique to git
(no idea if bitkeeper has it). In other tools such as svn or hg, there is no
need for flags such as "commit -a", "diff --cached", and "add -N".
> If you want to use the more complicated stuff, then there is no way to avoid
> learning the more complicated ideas.
And this is what we hate about git. Version control shouldn't be complicated
for 99.9% of projects. I have used svn for 3 years and hg for 2, they get the
job done just fine without cryptic commands and flags.
------
jimmyhchan
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/115983/how-do-i-add-an-
em...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/115983/how-do-i-add-an-empty-
directory-to-a-git-repository)
Git questions on SO with more than 300 upvotes should be considered bugs.
------
methodin
There are plenty of abstractions on top of git - most UI implementations
abstract away the hard details, at the cost of not being able to understand
what happens when something bad occurs because you never had to learn its
intricacies prior. Seeing the consequences of such things it makes me
appreciate git is left as raw interactions. Git is not for people that do not
want to understand it. To me, it's similar to vim - its basic implementation
is bare essentials and complicated concepts, but once mastered, far outweigh
competitors who roll those concepts up into simpler ones and leave you with
workflows on their terms.
~~~
anshumans
I completely agree with you here. Having used Visual Studio as my primary
editor for a long time, I finally decided to give vim a try last year given
how all my hacker friends raved about it. It definitely took a few days of
understanding the basic concepts and going over the steep learning curve, but
now I'm way more efficient with my coding than before.
It's been the same experience with git. It definitely has a steeper learning
curve, especially coming from a centralized source control system like TFS and
Perforce (for me at least), but having worked through that curve, I feel git
has been much more useful to my workflows than what TFS or Perforce (or insert
any central source control system) has ever been.
------
philwelch
> Power for the maintainer, at the expense of the contributor
Interestingly, SVN and Perforce are about power for the maintainer, _with no
benefit at all_ for the contributor. You can't even version control your own
work with those tools.
------
thangalin
Issue #10.
alias commit='git add && git commit && git push'
~~~
pydave
I know what you're going for, but for anyone following along at home: "To
avoid confusion and troubles with script usage, aliases that hide existing git
commands are ignored." (from git help config)
~~~
davvid
This is true, namely that _git aliases_ in ~/.gitconfig cannot override git
built-ins.
That said, the parent post showed what looked like a bash alias, not a git
alias.
~~~
thangalin
The bash alias is correct. The issue was "too many commands", which is a non-
issue. You type in the commands _once_ , make it an alias, and be done with
it. When switching to another repository system, change the "commit" alias,
not what your fingers have to remember.
------
krosaen
git::mercurial vhs::betamax
I'll also say that tech folks don't like not being able to understand
something, and enjoy understanding arcane things others don't (and once
understood, no matter how hard it was to learn, it is suddenly "trivial"),
further strengthening git's hold. I'm happy to see the author seems to
understand git well enough to say, yes, I get it, and I still don't like it. I
just wish he had talked about mercurial as the plausible user friendly
alternative instead of svn, since svn is not distributed and therefor
unsuitable for the use cases where git thrives.
------
Fando
Whoever designed Git was both a skilled programmer and a crappy designer.
------
zaphar
I started dvcs with Darcs but it was too slow despite having a really really
good CLI. Then I switched to Git because it was fast and within a week ran
into so many sharp corners I had metaphorical blood all over my codebase.
After a while I learned the useful subset of Git commands and life got easier
with only an occasional sharp corner intruding every few months or so.
Then I discovered Mercurial. The speed was acceptable. The UI was
intelligible. And I didn't hit any sharp corners. Life has been way way better
ever since.
------
rjzzleep
i had to work on a big corp job once they were using VSS5 in 2007. made me
appreciate even CVS.
if you want to have a really simple way of working with git get the github for
mac client. at the same time insanely inflexible.
but hey you know what in theory vss5 is quite "simple" as well. i mean how
complex can a program be where distributed work is essentially happening by
locking files.
I had hoped op would've said something interesting that might've led into 3rd
generation DVCS, but this is definitely far from.
------
parasubvert
This sort of article sounds like s/unix/git/g of rants against UNIX/Linux
command line & filesystem concepts that were common in the late 90's, as it
was becoming clear that UNIX wasn't actually going to be killed by Windows NT,
but rather was resurgent. Examples included:
\- "Yuck, why such different terminology from DOS?" \- "Commands are
inconsistent and there are too many, where's my One Command or (better yet)
One GUI that does everything they way I think about it?" \- "Yuck, scripts
that make things easier for my particular workflow, why didn't they just build
it right the first time?"
Fundamentally it comes down to people who believe version control is a simple
problem, and git confuses that for no good reason, or those who believe
version control is an inherently complicated problem, and tends to require
some study to understand the concepts. Git doesn't hand-hold, it exposes the
core concepts at the _data level_ , thus supporting any workflow for any size
of team or work style. If you prefer a dictated workflow and task structure,
there are plenty of wrappers that will help you - just don't be surprised if
not every team agrees with your preferred workflow.
~~~
pwang
> it exposes the core concepts at the data level
But it exposes them _poorly_ , from a user interface standpoint. The beauty of
UNIX, actually, is that it provided a few simplifying abstractions (block
files, character devices, pipes), and everything used that. Imagine if catting
the contents of something from /dev was different than piping the contents of
a tarball. That's the sort of UI/UX frustrations that TFA (and others) rant
about.
This is not a "DVCS vs. SVN/CVS" issue. This is about git's usability.
------
hawleyal
OP might have just professed "I am not technically advanced, Git has powerful
features I'd never use, it should cater to me."
In general, there are too many of these articles on HN about "I don't know how
to use it, so it's terrible."
What OP fails to grasp is the purposeful difference between Git and other
revision/version control systems. Git attempts to cover anything you would
ever want to do. Git is the Photoshop to SVN's Instagram.
You can use Git as if it were SVN, no problem. You can do Git commit-push-pull
all day long as if you were SVN commit-update, and be none the wiser.
The one thing Photoshop has (as a similarly complex piece of software) that
Git doesn't have is a single user interface. I don't see this as a problem.
There are a bagillion Git GUI clients if you don't like the command line. Some
are good, some aren't.
As far as having a good strategy for using Git on a real project. I think OP
needs to spend some more time on Google. Here's a good article describing the
most common workflow:
<http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/>
------
countzeroasl
As a new DVCS user, I today just started playing with both using tutorials and
books freely available on the web. I am using Mint 13 and the CLI. Of the two,
the feel I get is that Mercurial is easier (more straightforward) of the two
to use and Git is the more micromanage-able of the two. JMHO, but as a
newcomer, it's my impression.
------
mncolinlee
I especially liked the first comment about Subversion "anybody can write a
simple VCS if they don’t have to make it distributed." It reminds me of my
days working on a parallel compiler team. We always used to say, "we can get
you answers very, very quickly if you don't mind whether they're correct or
not."
Just as a parallel compiler developer must worry about recurrences and data
dependencies breaking parallel programs, distributed version control adds a
huge level of complexity which you cannot safely hide. However, I agree with
the poster that the next major version of Git should clear up several
inconsistencies.
(As a side note, some binaries labeled as ASCII in our Subversion repository
back then caused massive corruption and shut down all development for days.
Having too many assumptions made by your VCS and too few options specified by
developers is bad simplicity!)
------
shredfvz
Subgit and Subhg are interesting.
[http://rustyklophaus.com/articles/20100124-SubmodulesAndSubr...](http://rustyklophaus.com/articles/20100124-SubmodulesAndSubreposDoneRight.html)
Just use Mercurial for random private commits, send the Git people your
changesets every so often:
$ git init && git add . && git commit -m "Initial commit" && git remote add origin [email protected]:acct/repo.git && git push -u origin master
$ subgit setup
$ hg init
hginit.com <\-- great resource
<http://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/DVCSAnalysis>
In Google's own words: "In terms of implementation effort, Mercurial has a
clear advantage due to its efficient HTTP transport protocol.
In terms of features, Git is more powerful, but this tends to be offset by it
being more complicated to use."
------
chousuke
I really can't agree with point #1. Most of the things he lists as being part
of the complex information model are _equivalent_ and make perfect sense once
you take a couple hours to understand how git works internally.
And no, that's not too much to ask for a tool that you will be using nearly
every day. Once you understand git's data model and "patch-oriented"
behaviour, you won't have to wonder about namespaces, the index, rebasing,
cherry picking or fast-forward merges.
Point 5, or the fact that Git doesn't even try to hide its internal workings
is actually why I prefer it over everything else. The UI can be weird at times
since it evolved from just a collection of tools to operate on an on-disk,
persistent and immutable data structure, but as far as being good at what it
does, it's hard to beat Git.
------
loeschg
_Translation: “It’s easy, Granny. Just rev to 6000, dump the clutch, and use
wheel spin to get round the first corner. Up to third, then trail brake onto
the freeway, late apexing but watch the marbles on the inside. Hard up to
fifth, then handbrake turn to make the exit.”_
Haha!
------
chaostheory
I felt the article had some fair complaints. The problem is that the author
felt that going back SVN was the resolution to those complaints which I found
ridiculous.
My question is how does mercurial compare to git on all of the author's
points?
~~~
zalew
As someone who jumped from svn to hg a long time ago, I can answer simply: the
transition was smooth like butter, <http://hginit.com/> explains everything on
the concept, while hg's ui provides abstraction and is very svnuser-friendly,
so - everything just works. <http://hgtip.com/> is also very useful.
IMO it's easier to embrace git after mercurial, because the part where you
understand how a DVCS works is already behind you, and you jump into the
syntax and specific differences.
------
nicholassmith
The issue with git is that's got all this cruft built around it, but for the
most part it's very rare you need to jump into it in that level. I've been
using git for about 2 years and only needed to rebase for the first time very
recently.
There are issues, and flaming the author saying he needs to read more is
disrespectful (and ignorant of the issues), but git is a community, open
source project. Not happy with the existing docs? Rewrite them, call it git
for humans and off you go. I've seen projects doing work to 'nice' the command
structure, so there's other people attempting it.
But we can all agree git reset is _weird_.
------
snambi
I have used subversion heavily. So many things are not at possible with SVN.
But, it can be done in Git easily. Of-course, it requires learning and a bit
of change in the mind-set. But, it is worth it.
------
smoyer
I hate blogs that put pop-ups over part of the content with no way to close
them (I'm not subscribing to your mail list or following you).
I don't hate Git but I do agree with many of your points. There's ccomplexity
that should be hidden (or more hidden) and there's inconsistencies that still
catch me occasionally. I've never actually lost code on Git though it's taken
me a while to find my code.
It's also not fair to confuse Github's "Pull request", "Fork" and "Merge" with
Git. These are still just branches and merges.
------
chris_wot
1\. Not sure his issue here - I count 9 things you need to know for Github
(one of which I have _never_ needed to know - treeishes), and 7 things for
SVN. It's really not that complex.
2\. The command line syntax:
_But the shortcut for “git branch” combined with “git checkout”? “git
checkout -b”_
Indeed. You can branch your code, but not check out the files from the index
into the working tree.
Perhaps the confusion here is because the author is coming from an SVN
background, where checkout means something different.
As for git am being obscure - sure, seems a little, but then there are two
things: 1. don't use it if you don't need it, and 2. for kernel development,
this is remarkably useful!
3\. Documentation: completely invalid. The man pages might seem a little
terse, but then if you are looking up a command and you don't understand the
terminology, then you should probably consider typing in
man gittutorial
Which, incidentally, can be found here:
[http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gittutorial....](http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gittutorial.html)
Alternatively, if you are trying to understand how to use git (and it might be
worthwhile for the author to follow this advise) then try reading the git
user's manual, which can be found here:
[http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-
manual....](http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-manual.html)
Hint:
git rebase is explained here:
[http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-
manual....](http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-
manual.html#using-git-rebase)
To understand how git checkout works, read here:
[http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-
manual....](http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-
manual.html#how-to-check-out)
4\. Information sprawl: actually, I consider myself to be a git newbie (mainly
use github!) and frankly I've not needed to learn that much about git so far.
However, whenever I've come up against something new, I've checked the
documentation and after about 5-10 minutes I've understood the concept needed
to get me going. I don't consider myself to be an expert in git in any way.
However, as someone who has to program, I tend to find that for any system
with enough power, I have to learn new things regularly. git is one of those
things. Learn to love it :-)
5\. Leaky abstraction: first, don't make the title "leaky abstraction" if you
don't believe that there is any abstraction in the first place.
Secondly, it looks to me like they are trying to take your branch and insert
it into another repository? Can't quite tell what is required here...
certainly I'd love to see the way that this would be done in SVN!
6\. Power for the maintainer, not the user...
??? I'm sorry, but the author is complaining that git is powerful, and works
really well in highly distributed systems where you have a lot of parallel
commits? Well, uh... duh?
The complaint here is that it's not usable for "ordinary" repository users. I
would consider myself a fairly ordinary user, and I can honestly say that I
don't consider that git is that hard to use.
7\. Unsafe version control
DON'T DO THOSE THINGS!
8\. _In the traditional open source project, only one person had to deal with
the complexities of branches and merges: the maintainer. Everyone else only
had to update, commit, update, commit, update, commit…_
Which meant a massive bottleneck when doing branching and merging. That's the
whole point of git - it's version control done large. Or otherwise known as
"distributed version control". I'd recommend the author read up on some of the
advantages here: <http://git-scm.com/about>
9\. I don't really have much of an opinion on this.
10\. Github != git. For the record, I love github and I really don't find it
that hard to use, or anything so complex that I can't do it fairly quickly.
~~~
einhverfr
_Documentation: completely invalid. The man pages might seem a little terse,
but then if you are looking up a command and you don't understand the
terminology, then you should probably consider typing in..._
I think a cardinal virtue of documentation is to but info where people expect
to find it. Saying "Oh, you read the MANUAL. When I said RTFM, I mean the
MANUAL for the TUTORIAL" isn't much of a help. If the documentation isn't
where novices expect to find it, it doesn't exist.
_Unsafe version control
DON'T DO THOSE THINGS!_
How many can be done by accident? Are you using revision control at least in
part for the ability to recover from a stupid accident? The fact that it isn't
safe means you can't count on it being safe. You can't use it as essentially a
way to have real point in time recovery for your repo, and it also means you
can't count on it being an audit trail because at a minimum it could bet wiped
out. That's fine, but it's worth stating up front that this is something Git
doesn't do very well. Fine. Understand it is a tradeoff.
~~~
chousuke
Doing those "unsafe" things in git by accident in a way that is unrecoverable
pretty much requires you to be so drunk that you wake up the next day not
remembering what you have done.
forcefully pushing things to remote repositories can be denied with hooks, so
if you really do not trust the people with push access you can use that. For
anything else, it's pretty much always possible to undo any damage by using
the reflog.
In my experience, git is the least unsafe VCS I've used. if I commit a file, I
know it's safe from accidental removals (as long as I don't touch .git). If I
push the commit to a remote (private or public. Could even be on the same
machine), it's safe from _anything_ I do locally. So if I am going to do a
complicated merge or a rebase, I first make a temporary commit to save the
state of the repository and ensure that I can always undo any mistakes. You
can't always do that in svn, since commits are immediately public.
~~~
einhverfr
_Doing those "unsafe" things in git by accident in a way that is unrecoverable
pretty much requires you to be so drunk that you wake up the next day not
remembering what you have done._
Or more likely not knowing what you are doing, getting disoriented and
combining the wrong options.
I haven't been using git for that long but I could totally see myself getting
confused and typing something like that in by accident.
~~~
andrewaylett
Even then, you can get back to something sane by using the reflog:
master@{yesterday} refers to the master branch as it was 24 hours ago, and you
can view the different things you've done to HEAD by just running `git
reflog`. It's really _really_ hard to blow away the reflog without meaning to
-- you're much more likely to just `rm -r` the whole repository by mistake.
------
jey
This is a pretty decent criticism of git's _current UI_. The good news is that
the core primitive operations underlying git are fine, and all that needs to
be done is to create a better UI out of them. There's definitely room to build
a great, user-friendly (commandline) user interface for git. I'd bet that the
existing high-level operations like "push" and "pop" were relatively late
additions.
------
y4m4
Yet another "i hate <this>" article :-)
~~~
chris_wot
Indeed. It seems to be a "I hate git, because I don't understand what it is
trying to achieve, and I haven't bothered to learn the concepts".
Unfortunately, this tends to invalidate many of the points he is making. The
author is assuming that git should work exactly the same way as subversion,
except that it has a fundamentally different way of viewing version control
and uses it's own terminology which can sometimes get in the way of those who
know subversion.
~~~
borplk
I think you are missing the point. The author is talking about unnecessary
complications. Git is unnecessarily difficult to work with and understand. He
is debating whether and how much of any of these is necessary. Sure we can
spend time and learn it, but why should it require this much learning in the
first place?
~~~
chris_wot
What part, exactly, is so hard to understand? All the examples he gives aren't
particularly hard to understand.
For example, he complains that git pull is actually git fetch and git merge...
well, that's pretty obvious. First you have to fetch the changes, then you
have to merge in those changes. What is particularly illogical about that?
Another example: he complains that _git branch_ combined with _git checkout_
is _git checkout -b_ (he forgets to note that you specify a branch name...).
What's so non-obvious or "insane" about that? First you create a branch with
_git branch newbranch_ , then you checkout files from a branch with _git
checkout <branch>_. The obvious shortcut is _git checkout -b newbranch
<branch>_: when you want to create a new branch, then you have to checkout the
files from a branch, and the -b creates a new branch for you before you do
that.
The only real thing that is a little tricky to understand is the concept of
refs, but even that's not really that hard to understand. Every commit has a
SHA-1 reference to it, and a branch is merely a reference to a particular
commit that is the head of a line of work.
Remote refs are about the only other type of ref that you need to know about -
all they are is a reference that points to a remote repository that you can
push to or fetch from.
Once you know what a ref is, most of the man pages make sense. Thus when the
man page for git-push says:
git-push – Update remote refs along with associated objects
... you can see that it means that it will update the remote refs (remote
repositories you are pointing to). Which is what he says in his article, but
all he has to really do is understand what a ref is and he wouldn't be so
confused.
When you think about refs, they make logical sense - all they are is like a
"remote branch" of your repository.
As for complexity in the concepts, let's look at what he's complaining about:
_...you have files, a working tree, an index, a local repository, a remote
repository, remotes (pointers to remote repositories), commits, treeishes
(pointers to commits), branches, a stash_
1\. Files - obvious
2\. A working tree - you do your work in the working tree
3\. An index - once you have made your changes in the working tree, you commit
your changes to the index
4\. A local repository/a remote repository - this isn't a particularly hard
concept to understand. You do you work in your own local repository. You might
get that repository from someone else. You make your changes in your own
repository, then you push those changes to a remote repository.
Not entirely sure what is so difficult about that concept...
5\. Remotes - again, not a particularly hard concept really, as he says these
are just references to remote repositories
6\. Commits - You work away on your code in the working repository (whatever
directory structure you so desire). Then you commit it to the index. Which is
not really any different to SVN, where you checkout a file from the SVN
repository, then you make your changes, then you _commit_ your change back to
the repository.
Explain to me again what is so hard about this concept?
7\. Tree-ish - This is an extremely advanced part of git that most users may
never encounter. You most certainly don't _need_ do know about this, though of
course it is always good to do so.
8\. Branches - we _are_ talking about source control? If so, what is the issue
here? Branches are not really any different in git than any other source
control system.
9\. Stashes - an extremely useful feature. If you are in the middle of working
on something and you want to switch branches, you normally don't want to
commit those changes. So what you do is "stash" the changes onto a stack. You
can reapply them later. Some excellent info can be found here: <http://git-
scm.com/book/en/Git-Tools-Stashing>
There... none of that was so hard, was it?
~~~
jebblue
>> All the examples he gives aren't particularly hard to understand. For
example, he complains that git pull is actually git fetch and git merge...
well, that's pretty obvious.
No, it isn't since the words fetch and pull mean pretty much the same thing to
most people.
>> What part, exactly, is so hard to understand?
Looking at the length of your comment...apparently a lot, for most people.
I've tried to like git, I want to like git, I don't get git. So ... in Eclipse
at least I use EGit to help me make git usable. Even with that tool to make
git easier to understand I still find it confusing (or confounding).
~~~
chris_wot
_No, it isn't since the words fetch and pull mean pretty much the same thing
to most people._
All I can say is that there are valid design decisions for seperating the two.
That's why they created the shortcut - to make it easier to do what folks
intend to do. When people do a pull, then they get what they want. That is the
common nomenclature of git, pretty much everywhere.
And to be clear, the man page for git-merge can't be any clearer:
git-pull - Fetch from and merge with another repository or a local branch
_Looking at the length of your comment...apparently a lot, for most people._
Which I would argue is because they are coming from SVN, and apply their
experience with SVN to git. That's not really a problem for git, IMO, but more
an issue for those who believe that SVN is the only way to go about doing
source control.
------
swdunlop
While I agree with the article in many of its finer points, the hyperbole
ruins its effectiveness. For example, I don't find it frequently necessary to
"log on to github and issue a pull request" to commit changes. Additionally,
github != git, blaming one for the sins of the other just muddles things
further.
------
salem
Point 10 is not a fair comparison, since the svn example does not cover
passing around patch files and trying to keep multiple svn repos in sync.
How can this article complain about syntax and documentation, but leave out a
discussion of submodules. As much as I like git, that's really the worst part.
------
tbatterii
What I hate about git is the religious fervor surrounding it. It's a tool. And
energy spent debating the good or bad of any tool could be better spent
building something amazing.
------
kapuzineralex
There's a lot of unfair or simply untrue comparisons in that post.
------
azat_co
Interesting point of view but it please try to learn your tools better next
time you write an article :) And try not be a hater, it only harms you and not
doing any good.
------
jnazario
thanks for a nice list. i also dislike git for many of the same reasons. i
think it's crap based on those reasons, and i'm saddened it's taken off.
------
chromejs10
I like GIT. If the man pages were improved to be more human readable then I
think a majority of all these "i hate git" articles will go away.
------
bitwize
This is why the big boys still use Perforce.
------
briandear
Another crybaby blog post by someone that wishes it were still 1997.
If git syntax is that hard, then programming might not be the correct
vocation.
------
BaseBand
Back to SVN via email, and flash drives! I'm so glad my last day is Monday.
------
hasenj
It would only take a week to properly learn git. Most people spend a lot more
time to learn a programming language or an operating system.
I consider git to be almost like a programming language.
The information model is not complex, it's actually quite simple if you really
understand it.
* blob: roughly a file (without a name)
* tree: roughly a dir (maps names to blobs and trees)
* commit: tree + parent commit(s) + meta data (author, commit msg, etc).
If you grok this core data model, a lot of things will make much more sense.
<http://git-scm.com/book/en/Git-Internals-Git-Objects>
I don't know if anyone shares my experience, but I actually found svn rather
mysterious and difficult to understand. I never actually saw the point to it
at all, so I never bothered using it (unless it was mandated by some
authority).
It's only when I understood git that I really understood what version control
is supposed to be about.
So, I think people who try to "dumb it down" by giving tutorials that ignore
the data model and focus only on the usage are not doing anyone a favor.
Git should be treated like a new programming language or a new operating
system. Spend a few days reading (or watching youtube videos) about how it
works and why it was designed this way.
Yes, you really have to understand how it works. But it's precisely the fact
that you _can_ do so, that make git the best version control system out there
in my opinion.
~~~
crazygringo
Taking a week to learn a computer utility seems insane to me, I think that's
one of the problems.
People just want some version control, they don't _want_ to learn a whole
programming language to have to do it.
Imagine if I had to spend a week learning how to configure my screensaver, set
up hard drive backups, or install Dropbox? Forget about it.
Now if git were only popular among super-power-hard-core programmers, then I
don't think there would be any criticism. But it's the fact that it seems like
pretty much everyone has switched to git now, because its advantages are
fantastic, but it takes 100x longer to learn than any other tool I've ever
used.
~~~
MBlume
Oh come on.
Your language, your editor, and your source control. Three things worth
knowing backwards and forwards if you're going to call yourself a developer.
Three things _easily_ worth spending a week grokking, if necessary.
~~~
aneth4
And then there's the thousands of libraries, debuggers, versions, deployment
choices, design strategies, etc etc. Development is an endless path of
learning, and git is barely learnable.
And editors don't take a week to learn because you don't have to learn
everything to use them. Even vi works quite well with just a few commands, and
you will never NEED anything other than those, only optimize your usage.
~~~
chris_wot
"git is barely learnable" - hardly!
~~~
aneth4
The fact that even experts admit they don't understand the array of options
and implications for commands like reset and rebase would tend to support me
here.
And there is always dispute about the best way to do something as simple as
back out a commit or clean large old files from a repository (very difficult
with a large team). The series of incantations to do such things is always
ridiculously obtuse, with non-intuitive flags and symbols.
Sure the basics are learnable, and google can often reveal solutions (though
rarely definitively), but I know no one with a comprehensive understanding of
the majority of git fundamentals.
~~~
chris_wot
I wouldn't be calling someone an expert if they don't understand what a rebase
is.
~~~
retrogradeorbit
"git reset is probably the most confusing command written by humans. I've been
using Git for years, even wrote a book on it and I still get confused by what
it is going to do at times." -- <http://gitref.org/basic/#reset>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why engineers don't like Twitter - sruffell
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/pop-blog/4199325/Engineers-dont-like-Twitter
======
rcfox
Old people don't like Twitter, young people do. Surprise!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
RDF meets NoSQL - bensummers
http://decentralyze.com/2010/03/09/rdf-meets-nosql/
======
mark_l_watson
That is a useful writeup. The Semantic Web as a technology has faced an uphill
battle for acceptance but that is hopefully changing. BTW, here is a PDF link
to my new SW book: <http://www.markwatson.com/opencontent/book_java.pdf>
The book is just about done, so you can ignore the work in progress warning on
the cover page. This is the Java/Clojure/Scala/JRuby edition. The Common Lisp
edition will be delayed a while because I just accepted an AI gig that is
going to require all of my focus.
~~~
mark_l_watson
BTW, my book covers the use of Sesame and AllegroGraph version 4. AG 4 is not
quite out yet so you will have to use Sesame for now to play with the example
programs.
------
arto
I also wrote some thoughts on this subject recently at:
<http://blog.datagraph.org/2010/04/rdf-nosql-diff>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Mathematical Model for the Determination of Total Area Under Curves - mhb
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/17/2/152.abstract
======
gus_massa
The article is from 1993. Is this different from the usual graphical
integration methods? Was this a interesting idea in 1993??
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: I made a tool that makes me faster listing AWS resources - jckuester
https://github.com/jckuester/awsls
======
verdverm
If you like code gen, check out [https://github.com/hofstadter-
io/hof](https://github.com/hofstadter-io/hof)
There is something like this in the works, to make the clouds feel like
Kubernetes, although in the case of cloud / TF, you don't need code gen at
all, just cue and http
~~~
jckuester
Interesting, thanks for the hint. Not sure if understand yet what you mean by
"in the case of TF, you don't need code gen at all, just cue and http"... Can
you explain a little bit further?
~~~
verdverm
You can break a yaml like definition of your infra, like TF, into multiple
"types" files, and packages. You can then combine them (like TF under the
hood) but with much more sophistication and validation. Cue's main goal here
is to verify what you have written is correct.
You would then craft the body for API calls in Cue from your more abstract
infra config, and then could use the scripting layer to make these requests.
Granted, you won't have the state file, but that's a bad idea anyway. You'll
have to add calls to see what's there. We are putting this kind of capability
right in our tool so you can just do k8s like things where you use TF today.
There are a few people around Cue already looking to skin TF or replace it,
basically because Cue gives you these super powers for config, which is pretty
much the majority of software.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
My 3 Essential Podcasts - danielrm26
https://danielmiessler.com/blog/3-essential-podcasts/
======
xs
Hey thanks for the list. Have you tried the Darknet Diaries podcast? Wondering
what you think of it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way” - sahin-boydas
https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/09/waymo-to-customers-completely-driverless-waymo-cars-are-on-the-way/
======
Judgmentality
This sounds familiar. Here's an article from 2 years ago saying the same
thing:
[https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/7/16615290/waymo-self-
drivi...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/7/16615290/waymo-self-driving-
safety-driver-chandler-autonomous)
Hopefully this time it's the real deal. I remain skeptical.
~~~
anoncareer0212
The difference here is that now the "public paying customers" and "full self-
driving" customer groups are merged - so this means there's genuinely a paid
full self-driving service launched as of today! A miracle
~~~
Judgmentality
Calling this service public is misleading, especially since Waymo created the
bifurcation between Waymo One (no NDA) and Early Riders (NDA). Both of these
programs you have to apply for and be accepted, so neither is public. And
Waymo has made no claim of merging these. The upcoming driverless rides Waymo
refers to in this article could very well be for the Early Riders still under
an NDA - which theoretically could already be happening based on their past
announcements (although the abundance of cell phones strongly suggests this is
not the case).
This announcement is just a repeat of what they've said before. If they
actually do it this time then that's great, but they haven't actually said
anything new here.
~~~
tigershark
Wait, what? Waymo does also some rides hailed via lyft, or are you saying that
you have to apply also in lyft? If this is not a public service with paying
customers then I don’t know one...
[https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2019/06/27/way...](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2019/06/27/waymo-
starts-self-driving-pick-ups-for-lyft-riders/amp/)
~~~
Judgmentality
I am unaware of anyone getting picked up in a self-driving car using Lyft
(outside of Aptiv in Las Vegas and other testing that has nothing to do with
Waymo). Although honestly I wouldn't be surprised if I was wrong on this one,
and there have been people that got picked up in a Waymo using Lyft, but a
quick search on twitter and google shows up nothing (but I spent less than a
minute searching just now and welcome being proven wrong).
This just reinforces my point. Waymo can announce anything with vague
terminology of things happening "soon" but we still don't have any
verification of anything happening.
~~~
whyaduck
Lyft has been dispatching Waymo self-driving vans (with safety drivers) in
Chandler AZ for a while now. I've opted out of Waymo for my occasional rides
with Lyft, so I can't say how frequently they show up. But I can say there are
lots of the vans running in the service area.
~~~
xxxtentachyon
Why did you opt out?
~~~
whyaduck
All I can say is NDAs are a hell of a thing.
~~~
Judgmentality
Wait, the Waymo Lyft drives - the ones that are supposedly public - are under
NDA?! Well I guess that explains why I've never heard of it happening.
~~~
whyaduck
Not that I know of.
Waymo is still Waymo whether they're running rides on their own behalf, or
under the Lyft name. Someone who's ridden Waymo in an early adopter program
may make their decision on whether to ride Waymo under Lyft based on that
experience.
Get it?
------
harry8
How to predict:
1) Say what but don't say when.
2) Say when but don't say what.
Never, ever, ever bet tempted to say something specific will happen in a
bounded time range.
Flying cars are on the way! That disease you hate, a cure is coming! Next year
will be a big year for other breakthroughs not mentioned here.
~~~
p1necone
This is the golden rule of software dev too - promise features or promise a
release date, but _never_ both.
~~~
avip
Be conservative in _what_ will be delivered, and liberal with _when_ it'll be
delivered.
~~~
rightbyte
Does 'a liberal' overestimate or underestimate the time needed here?
~~~
amyassin
I think the liberty meant here is not estimating anything :)
------
just42
(throwaway account to protect friends at Waymo) data points of 2: 1\. took a
ride, at one point a sudden violent sewering and breaking for no apparent
reason - explanation from the backup driver - the truck in the next lane was
too close. Then it couldn't take a left turn into the parking lot in front of
Waymo HQ and was just stuck even though the maneuver was simplest to anyone.
remote driver couldn't do it anything and backup driver had to do the 'normal
driving'. 2: spoke to someone (again a waymo employee and her friend) just
after the ride and the friend was visibly shaken and verbatim expression
"worst ride of my life". This is all around the MV campus and in the last
couple of months. So Waymo's claim seems way off unless they are talking about
absolutely fixed paths, much like a public transit and maybe, just even then,
a big maybe.
------
jonplackett
I have very mixed feelings about autonomous cars. One side of me is so excited
about the prospect and finds it all amazing and futuristic. I love reading
about how Tesla and Waymo approach it differently.
The other side of me is absolutely not ready to trust my life to a machine -
even though I know I do that all the time in other ways in modern life.
I think it will be people's emotional evaluation that will matter more than
anything else and it will be a bumpy road to acceptance.
Driverless cara will probably be safer statistically but they’ll
simultaneously make errors a human wouldn’t, so some people are going to die
in what will seem like really dumb ways. This will be hard to accept even
though that already happens with human drivers. Probably because their
mistakes will be easier to identify with and explain.
~~~
2bitencryption
every now and then I do something while driving that, IMO, requires "human
cognition". Not just image recognition, obstacle avoidance, rule following,
etc.
Like, I'm cruising along at 45mph and a plastic bag is blown in front of my
car. Yes, I see an obstacle and need to make a decision about what to do - but
I do this as a human who _knows_ what a plastic bag is, and how it is far
safer to drive right over it than slam on the brakes. I know a plastic bag is
not, say, a Pomeranian.
Another example: I'm driving, and from beyond my plane of vision, a basketball
bounces onto the road up ahead. I can't see past a building, but I know I'm
near a park where kids frequently play, and I know it's possible a kid comes
running into the road to grab the ball. I proactively slow down. I guess you
could say a leavel-5 autonomous car would see the ball and slow down anyway,
but there's still that lack of cognition that concerns me.
We like to think of driving as a purely rule-based game that is simple enough
to model and train against. And I believe in 99% of situations, it is. But in
that 1%... the plastic bags and all that...
~~~
jonplackett
I think that sums it up really well. In those kind of edge cases like the
basket ball, if an AI driver didn’t slow down and then killed a kid, we’d all
be up in arms about It saying how obvious it was that a kid would run out, and
we’d have stopped, and we’d be right.
But at the same time that AI driver will have stopped in time when 10 other
kids jumped out without any warning because it has much, much better reflexes.
But it’ll be the first instance that will get all the airtime.
~~~
rubicon33
Nearly 1.25 million people die in road crashes each year.
Think about that.
Self driving cars aren't just a solution to nuisance of driving. They're a
solution to one of the leading causes of DEATH and INJURY in the country.
Sure there are going to be edge cases where we as humans will be able to point
at the car and say "damnit, we could have prevented that"!
But I sure hope when we do that, the car points right back at us and asks "And
for the other 1.20 million lives I've saved this year? You would have killed
them"
~~~
rayiner
> Sure there are going to be edge cases where we as humans will be able to
> point at the car and say "damnit, we could have prevented that"!
This is a meaningless assertion unless you account for how often "edge cases"
arise. If unpredictable pedestrians, unplanned road construction, etc., is an
"edge case" the car basically won't work in DC or New York.
~~~
smt88
It doesn't need to work in every place to be useful or worthwhile.
Sleepy truck drivers are a major safety issue by themselves, and highways are
easier for SDCs to drive on.
------
colorincorrect
I know this is a big task, but could someone give/link me an overview of the
state of self-driving cars and the issues they currently face? I know its a
hard problem but very bright minds have been doing this for a while, so I'd
like to know what is the issue, since we've been told for a very long time
that the technology is right on the horizon.
------
pjdemers
This afternoon I was driving up Alma in Palo Alto, near the Embarcadero
underpass. There was a Waymo test van behind me, and another two cars in front
of me. My thought was: "look at me, actually driving my car, like a sucker".
~~~
masonic
If you then proceeded to Castro and made a right, you can see the Waymos
misread that intersection _every damn time_.
I've also seen Waymos make panicked Lane changes near the JCC many times,
_willing to come to a dead stop_ in the right lane and wait indefinitely for a
break, even though it's an easy go-down-another-block-and-Uturn
------
persistent
Waymo is so far ahead in this game. Tesla has the biggest online cheerleading
section and an "autopilot" that behaves as a low-budget adaptive cruise
control with lane keeping that sometimes works, and a pretty big body count.
Uber has a dead pedestrian and a major lawsuit. Cruise has a lot of people on
staff but virtually nothing to show for it. Lyft exists. Waymo is in
production revenue service.
~~~
grecy
> _Tesla has the biggest online cheerleading section and an "autopilot" that
> behaves as a low-budget adaptive cruise control with lane keeping that
> sometimes works, and a pretty big body count_
I don't think you're being very accurate there. There are lots of videos of
people commuting 50+ miles to and from work every day without touching
anything while on the interstates, including interchanges. It's doing _a lot_
more than just lane keeping.
~~~
mdorazio
I disagree. It’s completely fair. Handling basic tasks on nice freeways is
exactly what adaptive cruise control + lane keeping is for. Last I checked,
autopilot couldn’t even stop for a stop sign unless you count “shadow mode”
claims.
~~~
xvector
I have never seen another TACC implementation that doesn’t ping from side to
side.
Which cars have you drive with a superior cruise control implementation?
~~~
persistent
Tesla will "ping" you straight into a concrete wall at full speed.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z8v9he74po](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z8v9he74po)
~~~
shiftpgdn
It's trying to center in an extremely large lane. An easy fix would be to not
have a huge concrete wall jutting into the middle of the freeway without lane
markers.
I feel like people forget human drivers hit those same barriers with alarming
frequency.
~~~
gundmc
The lane markings looked pretty clear in this instance.
That being said, Tesla's cruise control capabilities are best in class, but
it's misleading marketing-speak to call it true self-driving.
------
gfodor
So sounds like we'll get level 4 autonomy in 2020. Once that happens the
discussion around the nature of the approach to level 5 (which is probably
asymptotic) will be a welcome change vs today where people are questioning if
we'll ever have a consumer successfully use an autonomous vehicle.
~~~
dev_dull
the 80/20 principle says it's going to be a long, long time before level 5
autonomy is reached. That's 100% in all conditions. In fact, I would say it's
more theory than attainable.
There's a reason they're testing in Phoenix. It has almost no Inclement
weather. Throw a little snow, mud, or sleet in there and it gets hairy fast.
Level 2 is basically the 20% of effort in 80/20\. It's exponential effort from
then on out.
~~~
panarky
We shouldn't set a dramatically higher safety standard for autonomous drivers
than human drivers.
When autonomous drivers have the same or fewer injuries per billion miles
driven as human drivers, then for all practical purposes it doesn't matter if
it's level 4 or level 5.
~~~
ipython
So it’s ok to have 1+ million dead per year? [0]
If so why go through all this trouble to creat autonomous vehicles? I, for
one, am glad this was not the prevailing attitude when commercial airliner
regulatory bodies were set up.
[0] [https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-
facts/](https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/)
~~~
triceratops
Yes, even if autonomous vehicles are on average exactly as safe as human
drivers, they're still worth the effort. Here are some reasons:
1\. They're cheaper. This sounds crude, until you realize that this makes
things like buses and shared rides far more viable. Meaning millions of people
have a better commute and collectively save many lifetimes worth of time. It
can also mean less air pollution, due to less traffic congestion (this only
applies if congestion pricing is done), which will also save lives.
2\. They can always get better over time. Humans can't.
3\. Fewer parking lots are needed, which makes cities far more pleasant to
live in.
4\. Disabled, elderly people and children have better mobility, and aren't
dependent on others to drive them everywhere.
~~~
majormajor
> 1\. They're cheaper. This sounds crude, until you realize that this makes
> things like buses and shared rides far more viable. Meaning millions of
> people have a better commute and collectively save many lifetimes worth of
> time. It can also mean less air pollution, due to less traffic congestion
> (this only applies if congestion pricing is done), which will also save
> lives.
IMO autonomous vehicles are just going to further push public transit into
something just for the poor. All the convenience and comfort and privacy of
sitting in your own vehicle, but now you don't have to drive yourself! Why
would you choose anything else?
~~~
anchpop
Sure, but but buses would be cheaper to run if they didn't need a driver. My
university runs a bus that you have to call and it drives directly to you and
picks you up, I could imagine something like that being more common (for
public transit)
~~~
masonic
buses would be cheaper to run if they didn't need a driver
But those drivers will be paid regardless, given the strength of public sector
unions. So, no savings.
~~~
jodrellblank
But the buses wouldn't need windscreens or wipers or chairs or steering wheels
or pedals or payment/coin handling, and the drivers wouldn't need uniforms or
eye tests or retraining on routes or overtime or time and a half for holidays.
Bus companies won't have to insure the busses for human drivers.
So, yes savings. Nyah on your "unions defending humans against exploitation
are the worst thing ever" narrative.
------
mikelyons
Just a reminder that they're on their way. We have no idea when they'll get
here, but they just wanted to say that they haven't forgotten that we were
promised driverless cars. Just to remind us in case we forgot. Just wanted to
make sure that we don't forget about waymo!
------
stubish
Driverless, but they didn't say autonomous (yet). I think this means the
safety driver will be remote, teleoperating. It is the obvious next step, and
if things go well they can start lowering the ratio of operator:car in the way
that drone operations already do.
------
Causality1
Nowadays I hope it takes a very long time. As Elon Musk pointed out, once cars
can independently generate income as autonomous taxis, there's no reason to
sell them to the public at all. Self-driving cars isn't the death of personal
driving because they'll be too convenient; it's the death of personal driving
because we won't be able to buy a car at a reasonable margin over
manufacturing costs.
~~~
esoterica
Why would companies not sell autonomous cars if customers exist who are
willing to pay a reasonable margin over manufacturing costs? The fact that
autonomous taxis are viable doesn’t preclude personal car ownership.
~~~
Causality1
Because they would make far more money adding the car to their own fleet. Why
sell a car for $40,000 when it could generate $300,000 in revenue over a
decade? Tesla has already said they'll stop selling to the public after they
have autonomous driving completely safe and working.
~~~
repsilat
> _...when it could generate $300,000 in revenue over a decade?_
If markets are competitive the profits will be lower. If markets are not
competitive (not many companies can make or license self-driving AI) the rest
will sell cars with steering wheels.
The variable that is _actually_ important is demand. If lots of people want
their own car, or want to drive their car, the market will provide those
things. If most people are content to rent, ownership might become an unusual
luxury.
------
yourapostasy
I wonder when rental car buses at airports will adopt autonomous driving. On
the surface it might seem ideal because it is repeatedly the same route, but
the density, diversity and loose rules of vehicular and pedestrian traffic
would make it a very challenging environment for machine learning, and I
speculate whether or not that might accelerate building the "dense urban
environment" corpus.
------
hinkley
"Driverless cars are on the way" is going to be the catchphrase of a dystopian
horror movie at some point. I just don't know when.
~~~
beerandt
But will they get here before fusion power? Which I hear is about 30 years
out.
~~~
hinkley
I'm still a little amazed that the AI hype train is still running. That's been
the fusion power of CS for almost as long as fusion power has been 30 years
out.
------
undefined3840
I want to see the terms of service agreement. Does anyone know if you can sue
for wrongful injury or death? Or do you waive your rights away to Google?
------
choppaface
Will they be the current cars, or cars with the new next-gen hardware that are
substantially safer? The cars that end up driving could signal a lot to the
industry.
New lidar was spotted a few months ago and more recently on the Jaguar cars
and the CEO said it’s an order of magnitude better:
[https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2019/04/21/new-
waymo-...](https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2019/04/21/new-waymo-lidar-
spotted/) [https://medium.com/waymo/waymo-iaa-
frankfurt-2019-b3cca36d84...](https://medium.com/waymo/waymo-iaa-
frankfurt-2019-b3cca36d8479)
One would imagine this early announcement comes in reaction to their recent
“valuation” cut: [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/27/waymo-valuation-
cut-40percen...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/27/waymo-valuation-
cut-40percent-by-morgan-stanley-to-105-billion.html)
If Waymo starts driving without safety drivers en-masse, even on small fixed
routes, it will signal certain takeover metrics have been hit. It will be
interesting to see if Waymo uses existing cars (the ML and planners just got
better) or if they use new hardware and signal a certain lidar improvement is
necessary for achieving a viable takeover rate.
The signal won’t be clear but should be there. And then it’s up to the rest of
the industry to show how fast they can react to the change.
------
an4rchy
Good to see this finally happening. I wonder how they're going to scale this
out though -- AVs are still pretty expensive to build/operate
(COGS/TeleOps/Maintenance etc)
Haven't seen a recent study/article around cost/ROI (not sure if these have
gone down significantly) -- any recommendations?
------
c3534l
I'm starting to think driverless cars are this decade's big vaporware.
~~~
bgilroy26
What was last decade's big vqporware?
~~~
c3534l
Ethanol fuel as a green alternative to gasoline, maybe.
------
mikerg87
This is cool. One thing that always bothers me me with these announcements,
you never hear of them testing in the rain or fog in London or Boston in
February or string winds in Kabaaa.
------
macspoofing
If you don't put a launch date on it, it's not real.
------
baron816
I just need it to take me to the bar and back. Is that really so hard?
------
eli
It’s gonna be a few years off for another ten years, at least
------
m3kw9
Hmm no mention of level 4 or 5.
~~~
jedberg
Given that it is geo-fenced and they'll have staff nearby if not in the car
(just not behind the wheel) I'm gonna say it's probably level 4.
------
Pxtl
Relevant xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/678/](https://xkcd.com/678/)
------
seibelj
I guess they are fundraising right now? Not sure why they would keep promoting
something that won’t happen for a decade.
~~~
Gustomaximus
1) A decade? It's happening right now.
2) Check Alphabets/Googles bank balance. They have a few bucks they can invest
for now.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
French constitutional council rejects law forcing platforms to delete content - csnover
https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/19/french-constitutional-authority-rejects-law-forcing-online-platforms-to-delete-hate-speech-content/
======
ThePowerOfFuet
Cookie wall. No thanks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
NASA's Planetary Science Division Funding and Number of Missions 2004 – 2020 - Amorymeltzer
http://planetary.org/multimedia/space-images/charts/historical-levels-of-planetary-exploration-funding-fy2003-fy2019.html
======
Amorymeltzer
Raw data:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AkGPD4pnAnuwdHE...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AkGPD4pnAnuwdHE1bVNRZ0ZFZmxVSTFlNTFQODIzTHc&gid=0)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: An API to extract texts from images and PDF files - smougel
http://www.stamplin.com
======
zdw
What's the benefit to using this over `pdftotext` and/or `pdfimages | convert
| tesseract`?
~~~
jingo
The benefit is stamplin.com gets insight on what people are viewing and
reading. They get to see what the user sees. They can compile a database and
use or sell that information to be used for marketing purposes.
Also, it's an "API" (looks more like a url poiting to a CGI program to me, but
whatever). API's are "cool" and "fun", while running local programs that you
have control over is old and boring and not the future of computing.
~~~
trez
our API is quite new and we understand it doesn't give an outstanding value
for everybody as it target easy of use for the moment but next release is
going to add more advanced things.
About us using your data, our privacy policy will clarify that.
------
taf2
[http://www.stamplin.com/api/](http://www.stamplin.com/api/) returns 403 when
clicking on the API docs after confirming an account via email link
~~~
trez
sorry, the correct url is
[http://www.stamplin.com/api/docs/](http://www.stamplin.com/api/docs/)
------
angersock
I come bearing gifts, if anyone would like to host some of this themselves.
This follows the API documented by Stampin (minus the throttling errors)--it
does not currently do the OCR, but as mentioned elsewhere by zdw you can
probably get tesseract to get you like 80% of the way there. If you wanted to
use that, you'd likely just replace the hacky `pdftotext` callout with your
preferred toolchain.
You'll need Ruby, Sinatra, and the Xpdf tools, I believe.
Dual-licensed under the AGPL, BSD, and WTFPL licenses. idklol.
The code:
require 'sinatra'
require 'json'
use Rack::Logger
post '/extracttext' do
begin
status 204 and return unless params["file"] != nil
type = params["type"] || "text"
lang = params["lang"] || "en"
tmpfilename = params["file"][:tempfile].path
`pdftotext #{tmpfilename}`
File.delete(tmpfilename)
convfile = File.open("#{tmpfilename}.txt","r")
lines = convfile.read.split("\n")
convfile.close
File.delete(convfile.path)
content_type "application/json"
{"text"=>lines}.to_json
rescue
status 500 and return
end
end
EDIT:
For God's sake run this in a jail and only on an internal network!
------
rpedela
I like the concept and it is a good start. Pulling text from PDFs is
especially painful. I think the output format needs improvement. It is just a
large array of strings. It seems like the strings are sometimes a single line,
and sometimes not. My particular use case is extracting raw data from a PDF. I
would like to see more structure to the output. For example, knowing where new
lines, tabs, etc are located would be very helpful for parsing raw data.
Here is the PDF I used to test:
[https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...](https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/211934/sanctionsconlist.pdf)
Is there a technical reason for the 1-2MB limit or is it arbitrary?
~~~
trez
Thanks for your comment!
That's something we can provide pretty easily and we would try to provide that
in our next release. If you want us to help you with your specific problem,
please send us an email at [email protected].
The limit has been set to prevent our server from crashing as we do not have,
for the moment, the financial capability to support a massive server farm.
Again, if this limit prevent you from using our API, we might move the limit
up if you ask it by email.
------
mappum
The OCR is really useless. I tested it with some reddit "advice animal" memes
(because there is a need for transcriptions). You would think that text is
pretty simple and easy, but the output I got was like:
/\n\nnmrs wn\ufb02qyi mm mm\nTlIIEI\ufb02|\ufb02llllM\u2018l co
~~~
trez
Sorry that didn't work properly for you. We are working on improving our OCR
results quality. Could you please send us at [email protected] the file you
used to get this useless result?
------
gkoberger
The upgrade button doesn't work, and nobody is going to hover long enough to
see the "Not Available Yet" title. And the current 10 requests isn't even
enough to test with.
I'm excited to try this.. so figure out a way to take my money soon.
------
gnosis
This looks nice except for having to depend on your servers as a middle man.
Any chance you could release the code as Free or open source so that its users
can use it standalone on their own machines?
~~~
trez
That's not planned at the moment but if we wouldn't find a way to monetize it,
we would do it for sure.
------
RivieraKid
Why would someone want to use an API instead of a library?
~~~
trez
some langages might not have an appropriate library, some might want to not
have heavy processes on their device (mobiles). We also think that's easier to
use as there is nothing to install. That mainly depends on your case.
~~~
RivieraKid
I agree that there might situations where it can be useful, but:
1) Mobiles have pretty good CPUs. I think uploading and waiting for response
would be slower and less reliable.
2) If the mobile user doesn't have an internet connection, the app won't work.
3) As a developer, I would be dependant on an external service, that could
stop working someday.
------
rpedela
Can I assume API keys are on the roadmap? I don't particularly like using my
username and password.
~~~
trez
Yes, we'd like to increase security on each releases. It should be available
in one of the next release.
~~~
rpedela
Great!
------
antrover
Nice. Are you using the Tessaract OCR lib at the core of the extraction?
~~~
trez
yes we do
------
it_learnses
Any custom requests? Let us *know.
~~~
trez
thx, I am gonna fix that
~~~
trez
fixed
------
smougel
Any Feedback Welcomed
~~~
sebg
Looks good - does it do data tables? That's a big issue and something I've
heard about (run into) many times...
~~~
trez
Thanks for your comment! We would really appreciate if you could explain us in
more details problems you faced. I am sending you an email if that's ok for
you to discuss that.
~~~
sebg
responded to your email. good luck.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
So you're thinking about investing in Bitcoin? Don't - charlysl
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/15/should-i-invest-bitcoin-dont-mr-money-moustache
======
freddealmeida
Almost everything in this article is wrong. This is someone that does not
understand bitcoin or crytpo. In many ways, the market is overvalued but not
in every way. There is too much here to try to clear but its clear that mr.
mustache has no real understanding of this.
This is not tulips or finger nail clippings. this is something new. something
wonderful. but yes with its own problems.
~~~
sharemywin
for one tulips and nail clippings are psychical and can't be transferred
around the world near instantly.
------
ddnb
"Even if you win money through dumb luck, you have lost time and energy, which
means you have lost."
Winning money while losing time and energy is what happens to most when
working a job, should we just give up on working as well then?
The story about the cancerpill also isn't comparable to cryptocurrencies.
"You could make the same argument about my fingernail clippings: they may have
no intrinsic value, but they’re in limited supply so let’s use them as the new
world currency."
If everybody can agree on this then you have a new currency, no? Isn't that
the same as our current currency? We just agree on pieces of paper to
represent a monetary value.
~~~
gnfurlong
How do you get everyone to agree when the barrier to creating yet another
crypto currency is so exceptionally low?
~~~
freddealmeida
Maybe explain why you think its low? I think it may actually be very hard to
build one of any value. 90% of crypto is worthless. But so is 90% of fiat
currency. Unless you think your Haitian currency is worth something.
~~~
sharemywin
creating a crypto currency easy. creating one that lots of people will trade
and use quite another.
Then even if you were to get a lot of paper wealth as a founder, sell large
quantities of it without disrupting the market price.
------
wozz
Who the hell is writing these articles? The author sounds like the kind of
person who loves his 20 second reads on Slate. I didn't expect much better
coming from The Guardian. It makes me wonder, are they just pushing out these
articles to force weak hands to fold or never enter in the first place?
So you're thinking about writing an article about Bitcoin? Don't
------
sharemywin
You could make the case for momentum investing as well. The underlying asset
has value but not at the premium you paid for it. or any stock that doesn't
pay a dividend it has no intrinsic cash flow.
------
sharemywin
To me one of the neat early ICO projects is shared wifi access. outside of the
coin that can only be traded space. which is were the true potential of crypto
currencies can shine.
------
kevinios
(...) we need to separate the usefulness of the underlying technology called
“blockchain” from the mania of people turning bitcoin into a big dumb lottery.
Blockchain is simply a nifty software invention (which is open-source and free
for anyone to use), whereas bitcoin is just one well-known way to use it.
(...)
Will just comment on this sentence: careful here, blockchain is just one of
the technologies that Bitcoin uses. But there are other important elements to
Bitcoin, such as the concept of decentralization. A company or a bank can use
blockchain in a centralized manner. This video by Andreas Antonopoulos
(bitcoin advocate) helps make the distinction: Bitcoin vs. blockchain
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHbtp7pOftU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHbtp7pOftU)).
From the video description: "Blockchains are only one of the foundational
technologies. In an attempt to co-opt the interest around Bitcoin, companies
and governments are trying to circle the square by creating centralised and
permissioned versions while entirely missing the point: decentralization."
PS: That being said, Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency using blockchain
and decentralization.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Nobody really knows why the London Tube is getting less and less crowded - ljf
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/tfl-finances-transport-for-london-deficit-passenger-numbers
======
gbtw
There might be a few reasons.
The population is aging. People less opportunity to work for wage that can
support the price especially if its anything like the Netherlands, paying to
much to go from a place you don't want to be to a place you don't want to be
either sucks. Even with traffic jams public transport can't compete unless you
like torture.
Might just be the people who were key riders just aged or fell out of income
bracket that can use it.
I ride a motorcycle year round instead of using 2 different public transport
vehicles and walking that makes my journey 55 minutes instead 20 at a good
time of day.
Costs me nearly nothing in fuel, no parking cost while the public transport is
up to 10 euros a day.
~~~
ljf
Indeed when we lived in London I could earlier walk, then get a bus and then
get a tube and that would take about an hour to get to work. Or I could cycle
for 35.mins sure I had to have a shower when I got there, but I would anyway
at home and was great to get some air before work and clear my head. Even if
it was fume filled air.
------
ljf
Added London to the title to make clearer for international reader.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Getting started with Queue Classic - fredsters_s
https://blog.rainforestqa.com/2014-04-17-getting-started-with-queue-classic/
======
ukd1
We've been loving Queue Classic; we switched from Resque because of the
awesomeness of only enqueuing jobs after a transaction is committed! If you're
wondering about QC's origin, it was developed by Ryan Smith and used a lot at
Heroku.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
4 Things Startups should Learn from Moneyball - skelneko
http://idea-stack.blogspot.com/2012/02/5-things-startups-should-learn-from.html
======
siberianjelly
i watched the firm once and have similar thoughts regarding the context. it's
an excellent movie, and great post in pointing these out!
~~~
skelneko
thanks glad that someone is enjoying it. :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
iOS7 marks the best time to get started in app development - mikeyanderson
https://www.codefellows.org/blogs/5-reasons-ios7-marks-the-best-time-to-get-started-in-app-development
======
RealCasually
I would assert this is the _worst_ time in history to get started in app
development. I have been building apps since 2008, and things have been going
downhill for indie developers. Back in 2008, many large companies didn't
understand the space, and indie devs were able to carve out very lucrative
niches. Now, with the abundance of simple toolsets, tutorials and classes,
there is an app for seemingly everything. Worse still is the price for apps
has been pushed down to effectively $0. Without creative marketing or a
sizable marketing budget, creating an app in today's market is brutally
challenging. Sure, you can hack up a quick utility now, but the chance it pays
your rent for a month is approaching zero, quickly.
~~~
mikeyanderson
If you're experienced I'll bet you could get a great job at a dozen companies.
------
maxjg
Worth noting that Letterpress is _not_ implemented in UIKit, it's pure OpenGL
([http://www.imore.com/loren-brichter-talks-opengl-tweetie-
let...](http://www.imore.com/loren-brichter-talks-opengl-tweetie-letterpress-
and-future-interface)).
~~~
meghagulati
Will this make easier to make games like Letterpress?
~~~
hijk
It sounds like UIKit Dynamics will make things like flicking tiles around a
lot easier to implement, without creating a physics engine from scratch... And
UIKit is generally more friendly to flat designs... And the whole game engine
thing is built in now.
But the real value of the best games comes from game-play dynamics, and not
just how well the app simulates physics. Hopefully these changes in iOS will
allow game-builders to focus more on the things that really matter, rather
than redoing the work every game needs to do.
------
crazygringo
Who on earth puts the body text in 25px?!?!
I've been noticing a lot of blog fonts getting annoyingly bigger, where I keep
having to zoom-out a couple of times in my browser for good legibility, but
this is just flat-out INSANE.
~~~
mikeyanderson
What size monitor do you have? I've written about big type on blogs here:
[http://mikeyanderson.com/optimal_characters_per_line](http://mikeyanderson.com/optimal_characters_per_line)
~~~
aes
Here's a data point for you:
For me, the text on that article felt way too big when viewed in a full screen
browser on a 1280x800 display. Frankly, it's about as bad as if the font-size
were 12px or 13px.
Resizing the browser window to only take half of the screen width makes it
better on my eyes (it appears to be 17px). Still, after that, I felt the need
to go to developer console and change line-height to 1.4.
I chuckled a bit when, after these adjustments, I arrived at the sentence:
> The fact you’ve read to this paragraph is proof that there is something to
> my argument.
I'm on a 13" Macbook Pro, and lying on a couch, so my viewing distance may be
a bit closer than if I were sitting on a desk. I'm 33 years old, with
relatively ok eyesight (no glasses), and totally buy your other arguments (I'm
a fan of Bringhurst myself).
It's just that anything more than 18px on a laptop display just feels too big.
------
mikeyanderson
Any other reasons you can add?
~~~
AdrianRossouw
i think there might be a small case for the more aesthetically inclined people
being in the market for replacement apps that are more in-line with the new
IOS design language.
this MIGHT lead to opportunities for a very well written new app in a
currently well populated niche to gain an advantage over existing entrants.
Provided the competitors don't release a newer re-designed version post-haste.
------
devanti
probably true on the development side. but on the business side, there are
just so many apps popping out left and right for every niche market you can
think of.
~~~
hijk
...which means everyone agrees it's a good time to be making apps?
------
dennycd
iOS 7 SDK stuff is still under developer preview NDA, shouldn't be discussed
in the light i think....
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why I like Vim so much [video] - LightMachine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6omymj1JZI&feature=youtu.be
======
podiki
While I don't want to start a debate over VIM versus Emacs (I think they can
both be used very effectively once learned), I can't help but share a video
[1] on Emacs that made me go "wow!" (The video is somewhat similar, but uses
multiple-cursors to do editing all at once, while also recording a macro to
repeat it.) I think the real point for Vim or Emacs is that a powerful text
editor, combined with the ability to extend it, is an extremely powerful tool.
[1] [http://emacsrocks.com/e13.html](http://emacsrocks.com/e13.html)
~~~
hackuser
That video is great. The multiple cursors GUI is a brilliant way to visualize
a repetitive operation (i.e., one that often would be recorded and executed by
macro). I was going to ask if anyone else implements it, but I thought I'd
search first. Does anyone know more about it? Its origins? More functionality?
* Vim
[https://github.com/terryma/vim-multiple-
cursors](https://github.com/terryma/vim-multiple-cursors)
* Atom (I'm not sure if it's the same functionality)
[https://atom.io/packages/multi-cursor](https://atom.io/packages/multi-cursor)
[https://www.lynda.com/Web-Development-
tutorials/Selections-m...](https://www.lynda.com/Web-Development-
tutorials/Selections-multiple-cursors/468147/486974-4.html)
* Sublime
[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14963775/multiple-
cursor...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14963775/multiple-cursors-in-
sublime-text-2-windows)
EDIT: Well it seems like Sublime has had this feature since at least 2012. I
suppose I should have considered text editors besides Vim, and I might have
known sooner. I'll leave this post in case there are others as narrow-minded
as I am ...
~~~
chillee
Sublime Text was actually the text editor that innovated this functionality.
If you look at the github for the vim plugin, they clearly say "True Sublime
Text style multiple selections for Vim".
Although I've stopped using sublime text since, sublime text really drove
forward the gui text editor market.
~~~
johncoltrane
No. JEdit had that feature long before Sublime Text.
~~~
chillee
You seem to be right. I always though Sublime Text introduced it (lots of
people seem to believe this: [https://medium.com/@schtoeffel/you-don-t-need-
more-than-one-...](https://medium.com/@schtoeffel/you-don-t-need-more-than-
one-cursor-in-vim-2c44117d51db)), but sublime text introduced multiple cursors
with its release date in 2008, while JEdit appears to have had multiple
cursors at least since 2003?
------
hasenj
After years of using vim, I switched to visual studio code because it feels
like a plain text editor but has all the features of IDEs that matter to me:
intellisence.
~~~
nlawalker
In my years of pretty much working only in Visual Studio/C#, I've occasionally
poked around in vim for a few things and always immediately turned back. It
was just _weird_. I didn't see the benefit of giving up all of the features
and familiarity.
Recently, I've found occasion to work in other languages, and after dabbling
in vim for a little while, I switched to VS Code. After gaining a little bit
of enlightenment about what a comfortable developer workflow looks and feels
like outside of the C# ecosystem, I've had three key insights:
\- I actually appreciate the transparency and flexibility of delegating so
many tasks to command line tools that can be run via scripts and task runners.
Thing still aren't quite as discoverable as they are in VS, but I have enough
general dev experience that I know what to Google for.
\- I still don't care for vim. Maybe someday, when I want to invest time in
becoming a keyboard Jedi.
\- Most importantly: it turns out the only feature I really, _really_ missed
leaving Visual Studio was IntelliSense. Not just semi-intelligent word
completion, but real IntelliSense, with inline documentation, snippets and
parameter info. I don't know why anyone who has ever taken advantage of it
would go without it if given the option - it is a bicycle for the programmer's
mind at every skill level, from early discovery of a language's syntax and
standard libraries to extreme proficiency.
~~~
WillPostForFood
When you brought up the bicycle metaphor, the first thing that came to mind
was training wheels. Training wheels aren't bad when you start, but training
wheels quickly get in the way of really mastering riding a bike.
~~~
nlawalker
I've heard this before, and I've also seen IntelliSense labelled as a crutch.
I don't understand this - how does IntelliSense prevent mastery of a language?
Does it make a difference if someone's mastery of a language involves them
using IntelliSense?
------
grogenaut
It'd be great if he actually explained any of that. One of the problems I've
had with vim and emacs is the average user is so far into it they forget all
of the base stuff that new users have issues with, so most guides skip all of
that. It's gotten better with both of them with the package managers. However
because they're so flexible I find that most users customize the key bindings
in one way or another. And so when they show off how to do things it doesn't
translate as all of the keys are different and I not only have to map the new
feature of the new editor I have to also go through a key translation map. It
is a very high barrier to entry. Same thing goes with all of the plugins
people install. Emacs and vim are so far from stock on most people's machines
it's impossible for me to learn by following.
I took a emacs class at a very good tech conference and I was 1 minute late
and missed the key bindings changes the instructor had made as the first step.
I was unable to follow anything for the next 30 minutes and walked out and got
my money back. (This is much more an issue with the instructor than the
editor).
I do like both of them and try and learn them every few years but I also try
and be flexible across as many editors as I can be so I can help as many of my
junior engineers out as possible. But jumping on someone's vim or emacs is
like switching to dvorak. It's also pretty toxic for pairing unless everyone
has agreed on setup.
------
teddyh
And if you learn Emacs instead, you can skip the VIM stage completely.
~~~
pmoriarty
It's better to learn both, to have more tools in your toolbox and use the
right tool for the job. Both emacs and vim have their strengths and
weaknesses, and it's great to have the option to use either when you need it.
~~~
podiki
Or you can use things like evil [1] to have your vi-style modal editing and
eat your Emacs cake too.
[1] [https://github.com/emacs-evil/evil](https://github.com/emacs-evil/evil)
~~~
pmoriarty
That's mostly what I use, but there are still times that I use vim because
even emacs with evil doesn't do what I need (or do it easily, or as well).
------
sshine
I used vi/vim for 15 years, and still do when changing configuration locally
and remotely, before learning emacs for university work. At work I use Visual
Studio, and for personal scribbling I use Sublime Text. I never understood the
editor wars.
~~~
Torwald
editor wars are like snowball fights. it only hurts if you take the wrong
things too serious.
------
helthanatos
Considering I go between Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, and Android
Studio, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be using VIM or Emacs. Just a Windows
centric person.
~~~
c0achmcguirk
Funny, I use Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code a lot. The first extensions
I install are VsVim for Visual Studio and Vim in Code.
After being productive in Vim, I can't go back to using the arrow keys and the
mouse. It feels like I lost a hand.
~~~
joshjje
Admittedly im not a hardcore vim/ _nix user, but I am pretty proficient in_
nix and CLIs in general. Are you saying you dont use the arrow keys? :D
~~~
c0achmcguirk
Ha! Sometimes. But getting around in the editor is so easy with the Vim keys
that the arrow keys seem archaic.
But I still push the arrow keys from time to time, you know, to make sure they
still work.
~~~
joshjje
Lol, it was half joke im sure you gathered. There isnt really much of a
possible shortcut to doing "move the cursor 1 character to the left".
~~~
pritambaral
The optimization isn't in "move the cursor 1 character to the left", it's in
"move the cursor 1 character to the left _without moving your arm_ ".
------
JackMorgan
One of my favorite features of Vim is the built-in history of copy/pastes with
history registers. You can learn about them here:
[https://github.com/steveshogren/10-minute-vim-
exercises/blob...](https://github.com/steveshogren/10-minute-vim-
exercises/blob/master/book_sample_history_registers.md)
------
diegoprzl
I would say that an important number never go back from the keybindings/modal
editing. I use them everywhere I can, from Chromium to Emacs.
------
IE6
I use IDEs when it makes sense but do often times find myself wishing their
text editor behaved like VIM.
~~~
beached_whale
There are plugins for many to add a vim mode. At least for Intelij based
ones(Pycharm, IntelliJ, Clion) and Visual Studio
~~~
jcrben
[https://github.com/lunixbochs/ActualVim](https://github.com/lunixbochs/ActualVim)
gives you neovim inside Sublime Text, altho I haven't tried it.
I couldn't stand IdeaVim, the one for the Jetbrains IntelliJ platform - felt
very buggy. Such as when you open a modal and it remains in Normal mode so you
can't enter text.
Currently using
[https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim](https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim) when
using VSCode which is better but still got some rough edges.
Despite a fair bit of use and study - mostly using neovim - I feel that I
haven't got as much from vim as I'd expected or hoped. Switching from Normal
to Insert mode - even when you get good at the one-time Normal mode commands -
doesn't always elegant.
There's all sorts of configurations and plugins that try to plug the gaps, but
it's such a huge effort to assemble them all. For example, just installed
[https://github.com/terryma/vim-multiple-
cursors](https://github.com/terryma/vim-multiple-cursors) today to attempt get
the elegant multiple selection of modern text editors.
~~~
chillee
I've been contributing to VSCodeVim quite a bit recently, so I'd love to hear
if you have any suggestions for us to improve on.
------
Torwald
I agree with the video: it feels amazing. That's what it is about. I can only
speak as an ex-Emacs user, never used VIM, but I guess with vi-style editors
the feeling is even more intense.
I think this is a real valueable thing, this feeling. I wouldn't have to
justify using one of those editors with any of the usual reasonings that get
pulled by the adherents of these editors. The feeling and it's side effects
are awesome enough.
Only reason I use another editor which doesn't suck instead is that I value
"macness" even more.
------
kstenerud
I used vi for years when I needed to edit things or write code on remote
machines. And every time I was able to work locally, I'd use an IDE and
breathe a sigh of relief.
It all depends on your style of development, and mine most definitely is NOT
conducive to vi (or emacs).
------
throwaway7645
Not a power user, but I've used vim for a few years in linux and really like
it. It blows my mind how inefficient it is to just open a file in windows,
edit it, and save it just using CMD without downloading gvim.
~~~
mynameishere
notepad [filename]
type stuff
ctrl+s
Yeah, notepad isn't good, but it fits your specifications.
~~~
throwaway7645
The word of what I said technically, but not the spirit. Yes, I've done that
before, but it stinks. Notepad is just far too limited for anything outside
the absolute basics. Heck, I'd be happy if Windows even had Nano included. I
know Win10 has some kind of native bash support, but most of my company still
runs Win7 locally and will for some time.
------
jstewartmobile
My biggest complaint about Vim is that I can't use the same navigational
keybindings in every other program I deal with.
I'll be surfing the web, type _gg_ , then pause for a second after that
doesn't work.
~~~
camel_Snake
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vimium/dbepggeogba...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vimium/dbepggeogbaibhgnhhndojpepiihcmeb?hl=en)
What I use.
~~~
mercer
There's also cVim. I don't know if either one is better, but mostly I can't
believe I've been able to browse without vim keybindings for so long!
------
Arkaad
What about the learning curve, though?
~~~
j605
I would say don't install plugins when you start using vim. Only install them
if you cannot find something in the docs to do it easily. I found that it
makes for a good learning experience after I uninstalled all the random
plugins I had.
As far as learning curve, do vimtutor but use the arrow keys. They don't use
arrow keys because the computer didn't have one then. It doesn't make sense
not to use it now.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Italy Has Broken Up a Multi-Million-Dollar Olive Oil Scheme - clumsysmurf
http://munchies.vice.com/articles/italy-just-broke-up-a-multi-million-dollar-olive-oil-scheme
======
johansch
So only 10k other similar schemes to go, then? Italy is corrupt from the
bottom up. :/
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Launching a new site next week, what do you suggest to promote it? - iuguy
Hi,<p>I'm launching a site this Tuesday and was wondering if there was anyone from the HN crowd who'd like to share their experiences and advice. I followed some of the advice on the balsamiq blog (http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/?p=198). My projected ramp up is as follows:<p>1. Set up a beta test with about 30 users. This has started to die off a little so I'm going to try to get users motivated with number 3.
2. Contacted bloggers in the niche I'm targeting (Information Security) and the people hosting the platform I'm using to promote the site on launch.
3. Set up a competition for beta testers with £100 for the first to reach 100 posts/comments.<p>Is there anything else others would recommend? Have any HN users had any similar experiences, if so what would you do?
======
emmett
Just launch. Don't promote at first, except to those 30 users. When you stop
getting useful complaints from the 30, start expanding it. Eventually you'll
have to think about promotion, but not yet.
~~~
iuguy
That's an interesting approach, similar to the soft/hollywood launch
discussion earlier (sorry can't find the link).
Have you got any examples of startups that have launched successfully in this
manner?
~~~
emmett
Google comes to mind. The traffic you get from bloggers/early adopters is
rarely useful anyway, unless your service is particularly targeted at them.
Before you spend resources on marketing, make sure you have your product where
you want it. Unless you have a vast budget, the only way to do that is
iteratively.
------
ScottWhigham
* Start running AdWords even if for no other reason to start learning how to run it successfully 2-4 months from now (there is a learning curve)
* Set up a Google Sitemap.
* Crete your blog, post useful content, and get it indexed
* Make great products
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I've improved myself hard for 10 years and feel lonely now – what should I do? - garlic-fiction
Ten years ago, i was very shy, naive and could not focus on a thing for more than 10 minutes. Somehow i got annoyed by being a looser and started to improve my self as fast as possible. i have read lots of books about efficiency, health, intelligence and life. Spent a lot time in the gym and took care about my nutrition. Now, i have a decent salary, a beautiful wife and probably everything that someone would describe as a pretty nice life. I can focus for 2 hours without a problem, burn 1000 calories in the gym within an hour and my life is pretty much optimized in terms of efficiency.<p>When i compare myself to what i was 10 year ago, i am pretty much ashamed of how much i was behind. And i wish that everyone could have such an improvement. If i could choose between 10 million dollars but being how i was 10 years ago and staying how i am today, i would always choose the version of today without a thought.<p>The problem that i have now, is that i get annoyed by all the inefficiencies others have. And when i try to help someone to get more efficient, i always see that they are too lazy to sacrifice a little of their comfort zone. Even my wife is lazy. She witnesses day by day how easily i go through life and how little issues i have. But she is not willing to improve or change herself much. I guess they are satisfied with their plateau. Most of my friends are nice and funny, but i can not have much interesting discussions with them. Event with the ones that hold PhD's.<p>Does anyone has a similar experience? And what did you do to not have the feeling that meeting friends or going to a party is a waste of time?
======
SavageBeast
Credit to you for asking a very original question. I don't know anymore than I
just read mind you but consider taking up a physical hobby of some sort.
Preferably the kind that makes you feel like a little kid inside. Biking, rock
climbing, martial arts etc (whatever it is for you). There is a thing we
forget to do when we become successful, busy grown-ups and its called Play.
And whatever you do, do not measure your time or progress in any way when
you're playing.
For me at least, the impact of truly having a great time at something all by
myself at least once a week makes me a far more intersting person. Also worthy
of mention, going to parties is a total waste of time - and thats the point.
Unstructured social time with a drink in the hand etc. Tell a few stories,
have a few laughs and take a little play time.
------
liobio1
I think you still need to improve and stop being annoyed by inefficiencies
others have. You expect much from the people and this makes you unhappy.
I also though that spending time with people that do not bring direct value is
not very efficient, but now I would say that best relationships are with
people that are independent and do not want to get some value from you and are
honest/happy where they are now.
Make a choice to be happy no matter if friends don't meet your expectations.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0kQTk6FJgs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0kQTk6FJgs)
------
barbe
If you are as intelligent as you say you are, volunteer to work for a group
you can help with your skills.
~~~
garlic-fiction
I would describe myself rather as efficient than intelligent. Because i also
make lots of mistakes and struggle sometimes with easy things.
The question is, aren't there already enough blogs and services out there that
help you to improve yourself?
All i can add is that it works and it is true that when you constantly work on
yourself, you have a much easier life. 95% of the people i talk to only change
themselves when there is no other way around it. Unless someone can bring up
the intrinsic motivation to change him-/herself, it is hard to convince them.
Probably an important reason is also, most people do not want to see the
truth. This would mean they constantly observe their mistakes and realize that
they are not as good as they thought.
------
testerofjava
Can you go more in detail how you improved your self?
~~~
garlic-fiction
I just see everything as a challenge to get better. How can i fill the dish
washer differently to get a better result? How can i schedule my day to get
everything done? How can i refill my energy as fast as possible? How can i
best memorize things that i use daily (for example my credit card number)?
In short, your brain is a muscle. If you train it every day, it gets better
and better. Like doing push ups every day. First it is hard, but it gets
easier and you can do more and more.
After a while you are able to absorb and process much more details. For
example when you talk to another person you not only hear the words, you also
start to notice the facial expressions and how the voice changes. Also your
brain automatically processes more and more if you do not distract it.
The way i see it is, we are a bag of experiences. The more experiences we
make, the more we can link and adapt. Therefore, reading lots of books
certainly helps much. Because you get lots of new ideas that you can try out
and experiment with.
The key is to question everything. I not only read it but also experiment with
the new knowledge and see for myself what works best.
------
barbe
Volunteer for a group you can help with your skills.
------
sammaeliam
You still haven't learned to spell "loser", and you have yet to learn
patience. You've still got a long way to go.
~~~
garlic-fiction
I am fully aware that I still have lots of room for improvement. I realise
that every December when I reflect on myself and see how much I have improved
throughout the year.
To avoid annoying you too much, I will now use a spell checker, since English
is not my mother tongue. But enough about me.
It looks like you are going through a rough time right now. Do you want to
talk about it?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
33 Unbelievable Places To Visit Before You Die - xtraclass
http://distractify.com/culture/32-surreal-places-that-actually-exist-on-earth-i-cant-believe-this-isnt-photoshopped/
======
scope
missed one: Dallol, Ethiopia
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallol,_Ethiopia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallol,_Ethiopia)
[http://landscape-
photos.org/modules/photoblogmodule/content/...](http://landscape-
photos.org/modules/photoblogmodule/content/images/photos/1301.jpg)
------
jmpe
A lot of these places will hopefully not become tourist attractions, they
exist because of - not despite of - lack of human activity.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
When Persuasion Turns Deadly - douche
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/147247313346/when-persuasion-turns-deadly#_=_
======
pstuart
> But the police shootings and the recent uptick in domestic racial violence
> are mostly Clinton’s doings to win the election.
What. The. Fuck. ???
~~~
themartorana
I love Dilbert. Then this.
Feels like that time I stumbled upon Orson Scott Card's blog.
~~~
sushid
I grew up reading and rereading his books in middle school. What does Orson
Scott Card write about in his blogs that's so distasteful?
~~~
yolesaber
[https://www.salon.com/2013/05/07/sci_fi_icon_orson_scott_car...](https://www.salon.com/2013/05/07/sci_fi_icon_orson_scott_card_hates_fan_fiction_the_homosexual_agenda_partner/)
He wrote some pretty hateful thing about queer people and gay marriage in
general. But I think the worst was this, which wasn't on his blog (in the same
vein, tho):
> In 2008, Card published his most controversial anti-gay screed yet, in the
> Mormon Times, where he argued that gay marriage “marks the end of democracy
> in America,” that homosexuality was a “tragic genetic mixup,” and that
> allowing courts to redefine marriage was a slippery slope towards total
> homosexual political rule and the classifying of anyone who disagreed as
> “mentally ill"
------
yolesaber
I'm no fan of Clinton but the way people frame inane conspiracies around her
is astounding. They paint her as somehow everywhere and nefarious yet at the
same time totally inept and unfit to lead this country.
~~~
PhantomGremlin
_the way people frame inane conspiracies around her is astounding_
She herself sees plenty of conspiracies around her. Here's her direct
quote[1]:
_" This is — the great story here for anybody willing to find it and write
about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been
conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president."_
[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vast_right-
wing_conspiracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vast_right-wing_conspiracy)
------
glimps9
> (Trump has never mentioned race in a negative way)
This is my absolute favorite casual-oh-by-the-way-in-parentheses-at-the-end-
of-a-paragraph statement. Ever.
~~~
lukas099
Has he mentioned race in a negative way? I don't remember him doing so.
~~~
drewrv
He has retweeted white supremacist propaganda on numerous occasions.
[http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/45291_We_Found_Where...](http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/45291_We_Found_Where_Donald_Trumps_Black_Crimes_Graphic_Came_From)
[http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/article/2016/jul/05/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/article/2016/jul/05/donald-trumps-star-david-tweet-recap/)
------
xrikt
So he endorses clinton to stop getting harassed.
Then he posts afterward that he only did it to stop getting harassed while
simultaneously promoting trump. I'm sure that'll work out well for him.
~~~
drewrv
He's pretty open about how he's into studying the art of "persuasion" and I
think this is one of the dumb tricks. By pretending to be threatened by
Clinton supporters it makes her and her supporters look bad, or at least as
bad as trump supporters.
------
perseusprime11
He is saying Clinton will win in one paragraph and then he is saying Trump
will win in a landslide in another paragraph. Which one is it? I read some
other blog posts of this guy and now I am losing respect for the guy who came
up with Dilbert.
~~~
PhantomGremlin
_Which one is it?_
Bear with me on this one ...
I loved the movie Pulp Fiction. In it, Jules and Vincent are stone cold
killers. They do their job with cool nonchalance. But when something goes
wrong they fall apart; they can't cope with changed circumstances. They're
utterly helpless until Winston Wolfe rescues them. In summary, the domain over
which they can be considered "experts" is very limited.
Another example is Charles Barkley, a great basketball player of the not-too-
distant past. When someone questioned him about his off-court behavior, he
said: _" I'm not a role model... Just because I dunk a basketball doesn't mean
I should raise your kids."_
Same with Scott Adams. I like him as a cynical observer of the contemporary
American workplace. As for who he thinks will win the election, I couldn't
care less. And I surely don't won't let him influence who I vote for.
You can enjoy Dilbert without knowing anything about Scott Adams.
~~~
perseusprime11
Good explanation but still can't get him out of my head Everytime I look at
Dilbert.
------
JohnMunsch
This isn't funny, this looks like mental illness. He needs some help.
------
Mikhail_Edoshin
Just remember: The "other side" is not dumb [1][2]
[1] [https://medium.com/@SeanBlanda/the-other-side-is-not-
dumb-26...](https://medium.com/@SeanBlanda/the-other-side-is-not-
dumb-2670c1294063)
[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10872926](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10872926)
------
ljw1001
Just, sad. There's nothing the pointy-haired boss could do to top Scott Adams
in real life.
------
WaltPurvis
Somebody has hacked Scott Adams' account (and by "account" I mean brain).
~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
I guess those v-necked sweaters finally got to him.
------
burnitdown
We need a reboot.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Attorneys say Elizabeth Holmes isn’t paying them - ilamont
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/10/03/theranos-disgraced-founder-elizabeth-holmes-cant-pay-lawyers-lawyers-claim/
======
hkmurakami
"Holmes — who dropped out of Stanford University at 19 to found Theranos — and
Balwani face maximum penalties of 20 years in prison and a $2.75 million fine,
plus possible restitution, the Department of Justice has said.
Members of her legal team in the criminal case did not respond to questions
about whether Holmes has been paying them."
Civil case lawyers not being paid. Criminal lawyers may be getting paid.
Priorities.
~~~
travisjungroth
You can’t get blood from a stone, but you can lock it up.
------
DoreenMichele
_The lawyers are seeking approval from the court to stop representing Holmes._
Because they haven't been paid in a year and don't expect to ever see a dime,
given the state of her finances.
~~~
paxys
What law firm agrees to work for a _year_ without payment? Every one we have
ever worked with would have cut us off after like a week, or max a month.
Although I guess Elizabeth Holmes has swindled smarter people.
~~~
newguy1234
Its a resume builder to say the least to show that you've worked serious
cases.
------
_iyig
What happens if the attorneys quit, and Holmes can't afford more private
lawyers? Would a public defender represent her? That'd be quite the case to
pull, I'd imagine. On cases where full teams of lawyers and paralegals are
needed, practically speaking, I'd be curious what sort of resources a public
defender might be afforded.
~~~
nradov
Public defenders don't represent defendants in civil cases. If Ms. Holmes can
no longer afford an attorney then she'll have to appear pro se (or find pro
bono representation).
------
hliyan
Perhaps it is time that we permanently retire the misguided Silicon Valley
maxim "fake it till you make it". And along with that, maybe revisit the
wisdom of others such as "fail fast".
~~~
np_tedious
What's wrong with "fail fast"? An honest Theranos that failed far sooner
would've done little harm. "Fail fast" is about trying new things quickly and,
here's the key, getting out when they start looking bad.
~~~
hliyan
Nothing inherently. Except that most great discoveries/inventions were made by
people who were convinced about the fundamental validity of their idea and
persevered over many iterations (rather than pivoting). Consider how many
years the incandescent light bulb would have been delayed had Edison (or Swan
or whoever you want to credit) had failed fast with the filaments. To me,
fail-fast is a very VC-centric philosophy. It's perfectly valid if your end
goal is return on investment. But if your goal is to "build something",
perseverance is generally a better strategy.
~~~
np_tedious
> Consider how many years the incandescent light bulb would have been delayed
> had Edison (or Swan or whoever you want to credit) had failed fast with the
> filaments.
But he did try a lot of different filament materials. It would've been really
dumb to think he was going to somehow get cotton or whatever wrong material
correct if he just stuck with it. Instead he had procedures and a framework to
try a lot of candidates and iterate quickly.
I get this argument might not be exactly fair because I can twist it to nearly
anything. But that's how maxims like "fail fast" or "haste makes waste" or "a
stitch in time..." works. They still have value
------
louwrentius
Please read the book "Bad Blood" about Theranos if you haven't already.
It's just unbelievable what happend with Theranos and how a person like
Elizabeth Holmes could do what she did.
------
throwaway2048
If you stop paying your lawyers you are really screwed, because nobody is
going to bother representing you in the future.
~~~
ghego1
So true
------
ymolodtsov
She probably swore on blood she’d pay.
------
Simulacra
I'm curious how much this is costing to defend her and the whole house of
cards.
------
breck
The true disgrace is this mercurynews website:
[https://share.icloud.com/photos/0d2m26gTecPfCus98HJoN9LyA](https://share.icloud.com/photos/0d2m26gTecPfCus98HJoN9LyA)
~~~
alephnan
What's the disgrace?
~~~
breck
Check the screenshot. That’s the user experience when I clicked this link.
But beyond the UX, and the stupidity of saying “private browsing is reserved
for our logged in users”, think of the hypocrisy here: they want us to support
freedom of the press and anonymous sources but don’t allow us to read
anonymously.
~~~
zxexz
The New York Times does the same thing now, too. A scary dark pattern. I wish
Incognito mode was less detectable, though I’m not exactly sure how that would
work.
~~~
lokedhs
Qubes OS and running the browser in a disposable VM works.
It should be possible to set up a lighter container with a browser whose data
is completely wiped after the session competes for people who don't need or
don't want to go all the way to use Qubes OS as their primate system.
Surely someone must have built this already? If not, it would be an
interesting project.
~~~
zxexz
Qubes OS is excellent for things like that, but not really something most
people are willing to use. I love Qubes OS; especially being able to have a
disposable Windows 7 template VM I can game with that has a PCI passthrough
for my spare graphics card. Though, it's a bit heavy for my daily driver
laptop.
Also, re: your browser idea - checkout the sibling comment to yours on using
Chrome with a temporary data directory.
------
Porthos9K
Scumbags never change. Did her attorneys honestly think Holmes would balk at
stiffing them when she already proved willing and able to shaft Theranos'
investors and employees?
~~~
tomhoward
I'm sure she'd willingly pay them whatever it would take minimise her
penalties, if she could.
Occam's razor compels us to presume she's just broke.
~~~
Porthos9K
Funny. Knowing her history, my razor pointed toward a proven lack of scruples.
~~~
tomhoward
The outcome is what matters in this case, far more than scruples. Presuming
she wants to minimise her penalty, she will pay whatever it costs to make that
happen.
If she's not paying, it must surely be because she's broke, rather than out of
some perverse thrill of screwing people over and also getting a more severe
penalty.
~~~
nordsieck
> If she's not paying, it must surely be because she's broke, rather than out
> of some perverse thrill of screwing people over and also getting a more
> severe penalty.
Precisely. The "rational" time to screw the lawyers is once the trial is over,
not before.
* Not actually rational because life is a multi-round game.
------
aleister_777
Well, yeah. Frankly seems like they were a bit slow on the uptake. Most
companies operate at a net-30, net-90 with terms.
------
justinator
I'm simply shocked.
------
Fjolsvith
In related news, Michael Avenatti sues Stormy Daniels for legal fees, also.
[1]
1\. [https://www.thedailybeast.com/michael-avenatti-suing-
stormy-...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/michael-avenatti-suing-stormy-
daniels-for-millions-in-legal-backpay)
~~~
dang
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News and stop
using this site for political and ideological battle? You've unfortunately
done quite a bit of both, and we ban accounts that do them repeatedly. The
reason is that they both go against intellectual curiosity, which is the
purpose of this site.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
~~~
kyleblarson
Meantime the number 3 article on the home page is a NYT Op Ed using charts
with non linear axes to make charts look scary to push their predetermined
left leaning narrative.
~~~
iamasoftwaredev
> push their predetermined left leaning narrative.
The NYT Op Ed department is largely despised by leftists.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The real world is mutable – consequences for system design - ash
https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/tech/RealWorldIsMutable
======
TeMPOraL
No, it isn't.
> _The reality of life is that the real world is not immutable. I mean that at
> two levels. The first is that sometimes people make mistakes and publish
> things that they very strongly wish and need to change or retract.
> Pretending that they do not is ignoring reality. Beyond that, things in the
> real world are almost always mutable and removable because lawyers can show
> up on your doorstep with a court order to make them so_
That's not about what the world is. That's what some people think it should
be, and systems (e.g. legal systems) have been created on top of real world to
feature this mutability.
Real world is immutable with respect to time. What happened, happened; you
can't change it without a time machine. You can't just unpublish something,
you have to actively work to destroy all practically accesible traces of it
(and fight the people with interest in preserving these traces).
So a better, more accurate way of phrasing GP's point would be: _systems
designed by humans_ are mutable _by design_. Physical reality is immutable
with respect to time and causality.
~~~
seanmcdirmid
> Real world is immutable with respect to time. What happened, happened; you
> can't change it without a time machine. You can't just unpublish something,
> you have to actively work to destroy all practically accesible traces of it
> (and fight the people with interest in preserving these traces).
That definition doesn't make any sense. Mutability necessarily requires time
to drive a change - no time passing, no mutation. Also, you are claiming that
immutability is equivalent to irreversibility and the arrow of time, which I
also think is a bit wonky.
~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Mutability necessarily requires time to drive a change - no time passing,
> no mutation._
The time that's required for mutability is the real time, the time outside of
the system considered. You can mutate events recorded within a system. You
can't unhappen events themselves.
> _Also, you are claiming that immutability is equivalent to irreversibility
> and the arrow of time, which I also think is a bit wonky._
Actually, immutability is even more evident without the arrow of time; if
world(t+1) = f(world(t)), then world(t) = f^-1(world(t+1)); f and f^-1 are
themselves immutable.
------
__MatrixMan__
I don't think that the exciting part about immutability in large scale
distributed systems is immutability itself, but rather referential integrity--
particularly from names to arbitrary data (usually seen as cryptographic
hashes that function as pointers).
If that reference is mutable then there needs be some authority that handles
which names resolve to which data at which times. This makes it difficult to
determine at time t if the bits you received at time t-1 were the right ones
for some name.
In immutable designs the complexity of deciding "which version?" Is moved up
in the stack (where the answer is typically mutable). In many cases, pushing
this complexity out to the user is indeed the right thing to do.
Sure, the ability to resist a government's desire for censorship _might_ be a
design goal, but there are other reasons to prefer immutability.
~~~
dathinab
I can only agree,
E.g. IPFS can be seen as a mostly immutable distributed system (due to content
hash based addressing). But it can fully comply with thinks like copy right or
privacy related take down notices. Mainly because it only guarantees
immutability of existing data, but not that the data will stay existing. (At
the same time it provides a re-sharing framework which can make it really hard
for lawmakers to effectively enforce such polices if people want thinks to
stay online).
------
Barrin92
I prefer to adopt Daniel Dennett's model of 'useful fictions' when trying to
talk about what the world 'is'. The question for developers isn't if the world
is immutable or mutable, it's if mutability or immutability are _useful
concepts_.
To ask if the world is mutable is like asking if money is real or if the
colour red is real. Does it make more sense to talk about RGB values or
colours? The only reasonable answer is 'it depends'.
It depends on what aspect or properties one is interested in and what lens is
best suited to solve problems or which one personally finds most insightful.
The world can be modelled as an immutable sequence of state transitions or as
a place full of stateful objects, there isn't any clear answer and programmers
shouldn't be too literal about what they perceive the problem to look like but
rather think about what toolbox is most useful.
~~~
xchaotic
I agree with that and therefore think immutable is not a useful abstraction as
it does not approximate how things appear to be in what we perceive as real.
~~~
Barrin92
There are many domains where immutability makes intuitive sense. Accounting
and bookkeeping for example, which is a huge domain within software
development. A Git history is essentially a model of the world as a history of
immutable states, and what we care about is the transition from one state to
the next and its difference, as well as an accurate representation of each
past state. But one name or ID is only ever associated with one state.
It would be really horrible practise if accountants or version control systems
would mutate state and overwrite history. Another domain where immutability is
useful for this reason is concurrency, where it avoids a lot of conflict.
------
dustingetz
Or is it, because physics!
you can model mutation on top of values and in fact immutable systems do this
~~~
Geee
The world (space-time state) is immutable. World space state is a pure
function of time. If you call World(time) you always get the same answer.
~~~
tachyonbeam
Except that there is no such thing as World(time). We don't live in a
Newtonian world, we live in a relativistic universe. Time doesn't elapse at
the same rate in every location, it depends on gravity and the speed you're
moving at. I'd argue that since time is a local phenomena, the mutable
universe interpretation makes a lot more sense.
~~~
bollu
Just because the universe is relativistic doesn't mean that we can't model it.
Mathematics is inherently immutable --- this is why describing programming
language semantics requires the introduction of something "extra" (a state
monad, hiding the mutability inside the operational / denotational semantics,
whatever).
We _do_ have a mathematical model of the universe --- the differential
equations that govern space-time evolution describe the universe in a pure
fashion: universe(t+1) = f(universe(t)).
~~~
dnautics
No, you're missing the point. There is no such thing as world(time), but there
is world(location, time). If you don't respect that, you'll wind up with
unsustainable system designs like using atomic clocks to guarantee
consistency.
~~~
k__
I think the problem here is the definition of "time".
You are talking about a relativistic time and they are talking about an
absolute global time.
I don't know if it makes sense in some kind of way to talk about something
abstract as a global time in any way.
If the global absolute time goes on for 1 second, some peoples relativistic
time went on more or less than a second. Can we measure this abstract concept
of time? Even if it made some kind of philosophical sense?
~~~
dnautics
Relativistic time is a real thing in distributed systems, even without
worrying about einsteinian relativity; the premise of physics relativity is
that perfect synchronization is impossible and that is highly analogous to the
impossibility to perfectly synchronize nodes in a distributed system.
~~~
senderista
There is a nice analogy between causal relations in special relativity and in
asynchronous distributed systems, but it is no more than an analogy.
Synchronized clocks are a physically feasible possibility in every realistic
distributed system I’ve seen. The difficulties are merely of a technical
nature.
~~~
dnautics
Sure, you can get sufficiently close, and at what cost in terms of developer
effort and physical infrastructure? Not everyone is Google, and in most cases
if you explicitly have code that doesn't assume synchronicity you will avoid
footguns that inexperienced devs will make.
------
virgilp
> The first is that sometimes people make mistakes and publish things that
> they very strongly wish and need to change or retract. Pretending that they
> do not is ignoring reality.
Really? I'd say regardless what their wishes might be, pretending that they
can is ignoring reality (at least in some cases). You change or retract things
as you do in accounting - by issuing amendments. Not by pretending you never
published something, but by updating what you published (i.e. publishing a new
version).
> Beyond that, things in the real world are almost always mutable and
> removable because lawyers can show up on your doorstep with a court order to
> make them so, [...] If the court says 'stop serving that', you had better do
> so.
How does that have anything to do with immutability? Immutability is not "The
president is Obama", it is "At 01 Feb 2020 my belief was that at 01 Feb 2016
the president was Obama". You can trivially say that "At 01 Feb 2020 my belief
was that at 01 Feb 2020 the president was Trump" without contradicting the
previous statement. You can even forget what your belief was at 01 Feb 2020.
And if the ministry of truth knocks on the door, you might end up to believe,
at 01 Feb 2025, that at 01 Feb 2016 the president was Trump. This way, you
satisfy the ministry's desires, without violating immutability in any way.
~~~
tristanstcyr
That's an idealistic argument. Sometimes you just need to delete things and
there's no negotiation possible.
Whether that makes sense to you or not as an engineer or scientist doesn't
matter much. There are tons of things that humans want that "don't make sense"
but that you need to conform to regardless. A great example of this is
typically the law.
~~~
virgilp
"Immutable" does not preclude deletion, that's what I'm saying. Indeed, to
delete something can simply mean to publish a new version with no content. If
there's no reference to the old version, it will get 'garbage-collected'/
'forgotten' by the system.
------
dnautics
This video talks about good programming practice regarding immutability and
the mutable world:
[https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/boundaries](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/boundaries)
------
opvasger
provocative blanket statements like "the real world is immutable" (or
otherwise) aren't correct, nor healthy.
Some problems are more easily dealt with using tools like immutability, or
mutation for that matter.
as with all things in software - it depends.
------
dathinab
Looking at immutability wrt. immutable data in the database/at rest then yes
that a problem. Same if you build a system which can't be updated.
I just don't see how many other cases of immutability have anything to do with
it (like general purpose immutable data structures, statically fixed data
structures, or static linking). I mean you can always change your code to
comply with changes, and I would be very irritated if people believe they can
put put code out into the world and never need to update it (but _not_ modify
it, updating means replacing it with a mostly similar new system while
carrying over all data).
Through as a side not: GDPR deletion request basically have the effect that
any event sourcing system which doesn't has (perma-) deletion features is
unlawful to use (if you process any personal data). It also means that soft
deletion is not always lawful wrt. personal data.
Now for some event sourcing systems that is quite a problem. Some might cope
with it through snapshots which "compact" the state and as such can have perma
deletion effects if the events before the snapshot are deleted, but that only
works if you can do so every week or so or you will not be able to keep with
deadlines. Given that some systems want to keep logs longer than that this
_is_ a problem which can lead to major additional cost if you ran into it.
~~~
zxcmx
Couple of techniques;
Per-record keys where the key can be deleted (this is a hard delete as your
system can no longer access the data).
Keep "sensitive" info out of messages (credit card stuff, PII, secrets?,
whatever), events have pointers to a store just for this. All code that
accesses sensitive data has to have guards in case the lookup fails.
Deletion is really interesting and forces its way into your domain. For
example you might be in a position where you have to delete all info about
someone _except_ their payments because AML forces you to keep those for X
years.
------
diminish
Interesting enough several quantum interpretations assume an immutable reality
------
fnord77
I've written a lot of software. Using both mutable patterns and immutable
patterns.
I keep coming back to the immutable MODEL of things because it mostly works
and it is easier to get right and maintain.
I think the author misses the point of MODELLING your systems as immutable
------
danielovichdk
A philosopher would say 'we don't know yet'.
In the world we live in, based on the human accomplishments so far in history,
we can say the world i immutable. But over time, we can't be certain.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Longest Lines of Sight on Earth - pilom
https://beyondhorizons.eu/lines-of-sight/
======
btilly
You can actually work out roughly how far away the horizon should be
surprisingly easily. Just use the fact that if R is the radius of the Earth
and you are at height h, then from you to the horizon to the center of the
Earth back to you is a right angled triangle with one side of length R and the
hypotenuse of length R+h. Therefore the distance to the horizon is
sqrt(2Rh+h^2) which is roughly sqrt(2Rh).
The Earth is roughly 6370 km which is not far from 6400, so if your eyes are
2m = 0.002 km up then the horizon is about sqrt(2 _6400_ 0.002) = sqrt(25.8)
km away, which is roughly 5 km or a bit over 3 miles.
If you apply this to a 6 km tall mountain, the horizon is about sqrt(2 _6370_
6) km away which is about 276.5 km. So something of the same height at the
opposite end of the horizon would be 553 km away. So the top distance of 538
km is pretty close to the maximum that we would expect.
What about an airplane? An airplane flies about 11 km up. So it can see around
375 km. If you work it out, that puts the horizon about 3.37 degrees below
horizontal. This isn't much, but if you take a plumb line and a right angle on
an commercial flight, it is enough to actually see that the horizon is below
horizontal.
~~~
kovek
I had this question worded differently asked to me when I interviewed to do an
undergrad at Cambridge. If you have a rope that is wrapped around earth and
you lift it off the ground as much as possible, and you see that it is 10km
above the ground, then how long is the rope?
I was not able to answer that question right away, and their hint to draw it
helped a lot. I did not end up getting accepted.
~~~
seanmcdirmid
It seems like one of those stupid brain teasers tech companies used to ask
that are not very correlated with success but act as arbitrary filters.
~~~
anyfoo
In this case the "arbitrary filter" was filtering applicants to a university
for very basic math knowledge, so I think assuming that it's correlated with
success at that university is not very far fetched.
~~~
BurningFrog
Sure, but it also filters for people like me, who have seen this problem at
least a dozen times.
~~~
pm215
When I did my university entrance interview (for maths, at Cambridge) the
interviewers were clear that they expected that some subset of candidates
would have seen the problem before, and some wouldn't -- for those in the
first set they'd get them to quickly go through the problem and move onto the
later parts which would be new to them; for those in the second set they'd
provide sufficient guidance to let the candidate walk through the problem. The
point was to get any particular candidate to a point in the problem sequence
where this was something new to them, and then see how they tackled things.
The idea that some applicants (usually from public schools) would have been
very highly prepped for interview and others (usually from state schools)
would not was clearly something they were well aware of and setting their
interview design up to handle.
~~~
erispoe
But how do you know it's a new problem? You can always fake a little struggle
and thinking your way to the solution for a problem that you know the answer
already.
------
yread
The link in the "done" column doesn't work - it should point to
[https://beyondhorizons.eu/2016/08/03/pic-de-finestrelles-
pic...](https://beyondhorizons.eu/2016/08/03/pic-de-finestrelles-pic-gaspard-
ecrins-443-km/)
It's a report how they made an actual photograph of a sunrise over 443km far.
Quite amazing!
BTW if you ever get the chance to go up Mt. Canigou, go for it. Since it's the
first big mountain in Pyrenees from the east you have really spectacular views
and it's not that difficult to hike up there. Plus they brew great beer (from
iceberg water they say) in the refuge just under it.
~~~
KozmoNau7
There's something utterly awe-inspiring about huge distances, especially if
you're simply not used to viewing objects at those scales.
I live in a country where the highest point above sea level is ~171m. Walking
in the Scottish highlands was a transcendental experience for me.
~~~
codfrantic
You must be Danish, I though us Dutch had it bad (320 max) I guess we do go
below sea level more which also makes this calculation more difficult :)
I do agree on the utter amazement of visiting less flat places :)
------
kbenson
_Mt. McKinley (6.194 m.)_
What country uses '.' as the thousands separator but speaks English? Or is
this someone mixing their native language thousands separator with English? Or
is there some weird interaction between country and language that makes this
the preferred, or at minimum an acceptable standard form? I'm actually hoping
it's one of the latter options, that would be something new to me.
~~~
burkaman
.eu suggests this website was not created by native English speakers.
~~~
dwightgunning
Since when does the TLD imply the native language of the website creator?
Also the .eu TLD, which is a country-TLD for the European Union, consider that
the UK (still in the EU), along with Ireland and Malta have English as an
official language [1].
1\.
[http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/european_languages.htm](http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/european_languages.htm)
~~~
pimlottc
I think it's quite reasonable; the tld suggests the location/nationality,
which suggests the language. It's not ironclad, but it's implied.
Those three english-speaking countries (UK, Ireland and Malta) make up roughly
13.7% of the total population of the EU; when the UK leaves, it will drop down
to around 1.1%.
------
xxxxxxxx
This is very cool. I'm told you can see Mt Fuji from Tokyo on a clear day, but
I never managed to see it. I did manage to see Mont Blanc from my Kitchen in
Lausanne, Switzerland a few times - such a beautiful sight.
~~~
nandemo
Mt Fuji is only about 100km away from Tokyo. Main problem is there are tons of
buildings blocking your view, but if you're at a high enough floor you can see
the it even when it's a bit cloudy. For example, see the last pic here:
[http://traveljapanblog.com/wordpress/tag/mt-
fuji/page/3/](http://traveljapanblog.com/wordpress/tag/mt-fuji/page/3/)
------
11thEarlOfMar
I can't resist... Reminds me of the Beacons of Minas Tirith from Return of the
King, probably my favorite sequence in the entire trilogy:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWz51CiG2nA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWz51CiG2nA)
------
newman8r
very cool - I'd never even given this concept a second thought. I'd like to
graph these and see how they overlap - would be cool to implement networks via
something like
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudolite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudolite)
I'd also be curious to see how this would look if you could include manmade
structures like towers or skyscrapers
~~~
moxious
If you included skyscrapers I bet you'd have the same list no changes. Most of
these mountains are > 2km tall.
~~~
newman8r
you'd still probably have one of those coordinates (of the tall mountain)
remain the same, then find a tower that goes even further than the second
point - although I never assume my logic is correct in geodesy/astronomy,
especially when I'm tired
edit* - in practice you're probably right
~~~
jdironman
Laser powered ISPs anyone?
I kid, but is this a possibility?
~~~
URSpider94
This exists already, from some pretty serious telecom companies, for distances
of a few miles. The problem is that, in optical wavelengths, there's too much
absorption and scattering in the atmosphere - fog, rain, storms, smog, smoke -
that can disrupt the signal.
But, in radio frequencies, this is how the microwave tower communications
network works -- it's line-of-sight from tower to tower.
[https://www.wired.com/2015/03/spencer-harding-the-long-
lines...](https://www.wired.com/2015/03/spencer-harding-the-long-lines/)
~~~
kbart
Microwave LoS is still widely used to connect cell towers for example. Look at
these circular dishes in this picture[1].
1\. [https://ssl.c.photoshelter.com/img-
get2/I0000JUzapOxgCs0/fit...](https://ssl.c.photoshelter.com/img-
get2/I0000JUzapOxgCs0/fit=1000x750/1127D-cellular-microwave-communications-
tower-antenna-array.jpg)
~~~
URSpider94
The microwave network is being resurrected between Chicago and NYC as a way to
shorten the communications time for high frequency traders. Even after
successively purchasing straighter and straighter rights of way for fiber, the
microwave path is still shorter.
------
my_first_acct
According to the local paper [1], from the top of Mount Diablo (east of SF
Bay) it is possible to see Mount Lassen (approx 260 km away). "Although you
can’t see Mount Shasta directly, you might be able to see part of the peak,
refracted by the atmosphere." (That would be 380 km).
[1] [http://www.mercurynews.com/2015/11/24/bay-area-facts-what-
ca...](http://www.mercurynews.com/2015/11/24/bay-area-facts-what-can-you-see-
from-the-top-of-mount-diablo/)
------
marceldegraaf
Vsauce had a video about this recently:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxhxL1LzKww](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxhxL1LzKww)
------
prawn
K2 incorrectly listed as being in New Zealand?
~~~
knz
Looks like it. Aoraki is ~3,700m and this website lists "K2" in NZ as 8,611m
(same altitude as the real K2 on Wikipedia -
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/K2](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/K2)).
The Southern Alps _are_ growing rapidly but not that fast!
------
jmcqk6
There are places in oregon where you can look North and see Mount Adams in
washington, and look south and see Mount Shasta in california. So basically
the entire heigth of oregon. I've personally done this on Paulina Peak on
several occasions.
------
kovrik
Does this mean that there is no known place (point) on Earth from which you
can see some other point that is more than 538km away?
~~~
tristanj
Under certain atmospheric conditions it may be possible to see further
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage#Superior_mirage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage#Superior_mirage)
~~~
Nition
I wonder what the maximum you can ever see is due to atmosphereic fog. I
suspect it's less than 538km.
The site has photos listed for up to 381km, although the link for that one is
broken.
~~~
KozmoNau7
This one is the longest: [https://beyondhorizons.eu/2016/08/03/pic-de-
finestrelles-pic...](https://beyondhorizons.eu/2016/08/03/pic-de-finestrelles-
pic-gaspard-ecrins-443-km/)
Fog is definitely a factor.
------
a12jun
Surely the longest distance would be, from the top of the highest point on
Earth (top of Everest), to the horizon?
~~~
kazagistar
A mountain might be past the "natural" horizon but emerge from beyond it.
Thus, two mountains at the right distance and line of sight could easily have
a longer horizion distance.
~~~
tzs
And this is indeed the case for the ones at the top of the list. The longest
possible distance to horizon is a little over 330 km, but almost 40 of the
items on the list have longer line of site.
In fact, it looks like every item on the list is between two points that are
each farther away than the other's horizon.
That raises the question of among all places on Earth where the longest line
of sight is to the horizon, which has the longest line of sight?
~~~
jameshart
Hawaii would be where I'd start looking for that.
~~~
jcranmer
Mauna Kea is 4,207m above sea level and can definitely see the oceanic
horizon. Mount Wilhelm (4509m) and Puncak Jaya (4884m) are the highest peaks
in the central mountain range on the island of New Guinea, which makes the
ocean horizon probably visible from those peaks.
Western peaks in the Andes are perhaps 150-200km from the sea. A tall peak in
that portion could probably see the ocean. Chimborazo (6263m) is ~215km from
the sea as the crow flies, although there is a large valley ~100m above sea
level in the way.
I don't think Hawaii is the best bet.
------
vmarsy
Interesting, I'm not sure how the list was created, it seems to be missing
entries such as the one mentioned in that March 2015 comment at the end of the
post.
------
zeristor
So are there pictures of what a distant mountain actually looks like over
500km across the Earth; that is the point after all?
Or is there already a YouTube video of this?
~~~
newman8r
looks like someone posted this pic from the same site
[https://beyondhorizons.eu/2016/08/03/pic-de-finestrelles-
pic...](https://beyondhorizons.eu/2016/08/03/pic-de-finestrelles-pic-gaspard-
ecrins-443-km/)
------
amacbride
The Mount Hamilton to Half Dome in Yosemite (168 miles) is the view that blew
my mind when I first saw it.
[http://astronomy.snjr.net/blog/?p=416](http://astronomy.snjr.net/blog/?p=416)
------
amacbride
The Mount Hamilton to Yosemite view (168 miles), is the one that blew my mind
when I first saw it:
[http://astronomy.snjr.net/blog/?p=416](http://astronomy.snjr.net/blog/?p=416)
~~~
hodgesrm
Another good one is Mt. Diablo to Mt. Lassen, which is around 180 miles.
That's the longest one I have seen in California. Tom Stienstra claimed it's
180 miles, which is a long way. [1] Other sources claim somewhat shorter
distances.
[1] [http://www.sfgate.com/outdoors/article/Clear-viewing-from-
Mo...](http://www.sfgate.com/outdoors/article/Clear-viewing-from-Mount-
Diablo-5988343.php)
(Oops somebody already pointed it out!)
~~~
jackfoxy
Mt. Lassen, ha. If the atmospheric conditions are good enough you can see Mt.
Shasta from Mt.Diablo. I know, I have seen it. That has to be around 250 miles
(I don't have the exact figure). That would be 402 kilometers and worth a
mention on this list.
------
js8
OT: Is there an application that can generate panoramic view from some point
of Earth based on map and altitude data (e.g. OpenStreetMaps)?
~~~
rmc
FYI OSM doesn't (really) store elevation data. Individual mountain peaks are
often mapped, and tagged with the elevation. But OSM doesn't store land
contours like that.
There are some free, open, datasources for that, like SRTM[1], ASTER[2] (and
maybe OpenDEM[3], but I don't know what that's like)
[1]
[https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/SRTM](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/SRTM)
[2]
[https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/ASTER](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/ASTER)
[3] [http://www.opendem.info/](http://www.opendem.info/)
~~~
4ad
So how are these contour lines being generated?
My hike of a few months ago:
[https://www.gaiagps.com/datasummary/route/67dcc2001bea9e9e39...](https://www.gaiagps.com/datasummary/route/67dcc2001bea9e9e394fa45ca935ff9f/?layer=openhikingmapHD)
Also, if OSM doesn't store elevation data, then why do you need a GPS tracker
with a barometric sensor in order to map for OSM?
~~~
rmc
> So how are these contour lines being generated?
It depends on the people make the map.
That map uses Thunderforest's Outdoor style[1]. The person running that
company is a long time OSM contributor, but that isn't "from the OpenStreetMap
project". I suspect they are using SRTM data to generate countour lines _in
addition to_ OSM to create the map
> why do you need a GPS tracker with a barometric sensor in order to map for
> OSM?
You don't? You can map for OSM without needed a GPS tracker. You can just
trace things from the aerial imagery, or add local features from memory
("There's a post office at that road junction", "the speed limit of this road
is 40 kmph").
[1]
[https://www.thunderforest.com/maps/outdoors/](https://www.thunderforest.com/maps/outdoors/)
------
utoku
Reminds me of a habit I have which made me end up on tops of mountains
occasionally. I guess the algorithm can be called "observable ascent":
1\. Look around 2\. Find a relatively close high spot that is visible 3\. Plan
and climb on top of it 4\. From the peak, find the next highest spot visible
5\. Repeat
Also works for other topologies.
~~~
Scarblac
This fails in countries that are simply too flat (the Netherlands).
------
nprecup
You can see the sisters from Mt Adams, which is ~230 km away. I'm guessing
there are several more of these that the site didn't catch. You can probably
easily see Mt Rainier from 300 km+ standing at the right place. How were these
determined? It would cool to see a write up on how it was done.
~~~
jmcqk6
I know you can see Mount Rainier from Mary's Peak outside of Corvalais, which
is 295km away. And I mentioned it in another comment here, but standing on
paulina peak on a clear day, you can see both Mount Adams and Mount Shasta,
more than the entire height of Oregon.
------
analog31
I wonder if this is computable from a contour map of the earth, assuming
optimal atmospheric conditions.
~~~
dmurray
I think that's what the site is doing already.
------
dzdt
There are many more such pictures at [http://theviewshed.com/views-
list/](http://theviewshed.com/views-list/) including some that boast greater
distances than the original post.
------
mrb
And I thought seeing Mont Blanc from my town Le Creusot, France (a 216 km line
of sight) was very long... not! Apparently it would only rank 6th from the
bottom of this list!
~~~
runarberg
That is very nice. Here from Reykjavík, Iceland, you can see Snæfellsjökull on
a clear day (about 118 km away; featured in Jules Vernes’ “Journey to the
Center of the Earth”), and it seems very far away indeed. I can only imagine
216, or let alone 500+ km distances.
~~~
mrb
It was the silouhette (before sunrise) that I saw. It looked very much like
this: [https://beyondhorizons.eu/2016/08/03/pic-de-finestrelles-
pic...](https://beyondhorizons.eu/2016/08/03/pic-de-finestrelles-pic-gaspard-
ecrins-443-km/)
Edit: this is awesome, I managed to use
[http://www.udeuschle.selfhost.pro](http://www.udeuschle.selfhost.pro) to
simulate the view of Mont Blanc from my city: its exactly 215.2 km away:
[http://www.udeuschle.selfhost.pro/panoramas/panqueryfull.asp...](http://www.udeuschle.selfhost.pro/panoramas/panqueryfull.aspx?mode=newstandard&data=lon%3A4.44706%24%24%24lat%3A46.81081%24%24%24alt%3Aauto%24%24%24altcam%3A10%24%24%24hialt%3Afalse%24%24%24resolution%3A200%24%24%24azimut%3A119%24%24%24sweep%3A4%24%24%24leftbound%3A117%24%24%24rightbound%3A121%24%24%24split%3A6%24%24%24splitnr%3A1%24%24%24tilt%3Aauto%24%24%24tiltsplit%3Afalse%24%24%24elexagg%3A1.2%24%24%24range%3A300%24%24%24colorcoding%3Afalse%24%24%24colorcodinglimit%3A221%24%24%24title%3AZugspitze%24%24%24description%3A%24%24%24email%3A%24%24%24language%3Age%24%24%24screenwidth%3A1920%24%24%24screenheight%3A1080)
And as it turns out this is not the max line of sight, there is the
hypothetically visible Grandes Jorasses slightly to the left (221.5 km away).
You have to use the 10x zoom to see it:
[http://www.udeuschle.selfhost.pro/panoramas/panqueryfull.asp...](http://www.udeuschle.selfhost.pro/panoramas/panqueryfull.aspx?mode=newstandard&data=lon%3A4.44706%24%24%24lat%3A46.81081%24%24%24alt%3Aauto%24%24%24altcam%3A10%24%24%24hialt%3Afalse%24%24%24resolution%3A1600%24%24%24azimut%3A119.5%24%24%24sweep%3A5%24%24%24leftbound%3A116.99375%24%24%24rightbound%3A117.74375%24%24%24split%3A7.5%24%24%24splitnr%3A1%24%24%24tilt%3A0.13697916666666665%24%24%24tiltsplit%3Afalse%24%24%24elexagg%3A1.2%24%24%24range%3A300%24%24%24colorcoding%3Afalse%24%24%24colorcodinglimit%3A221%24%24%24title%3AZugspitze%20%5BFernglas%5D%24%24%24description%3A%24%24%24email%3A%24%24%24language%3Age%24%24%24screenwidth%3A1920%24%24%24screenheight%3A1080)
------
tomxor
And it's only from 5.971 m high... why people use decimals to indicate 3
orders of magnitude I will never understand... either that or they got the
wrong SI unit.
~~~
mauvehaus
Possibly because they're not (natively?) English-speaking Europeans:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_mark#Digit_grouping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_mark#Digit_grouping)
------
foota
I'll make a tableau public viz with these when I get home
------
gwbas1c
I clicked on three pictures. Two are dead links.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The State of European Tech 2016 - mxschumacher
http://www.atomico.com/state-of-european-tech/2016
======
kriro
Regarding salary. I think 45-50k Euro is a pretty decent entry level salary in
Germany if you're coming out of university (debt free) depending on the
region. That may look shocking compared to the SV numbers but you can live a
good life off 50k and a lot of the stuff will be taken care of (education of
your children, healthcare) which reduces the stress level quite a bit.
If you want to start a company, you'll face some social issues (failure is
considered failure) but the infrastructure is decent enough. The social issues
have changed a lot in recent years though. Anecdotally I feel like recruiting
good devs right out of universities is a lot easier if you're a typical
startup because many of the good developers will have fought the standard
curriculum of the java-bot and be rather happy to work in a more agile setting
(but still want to stay in their home country).
~~~
superuser2
Healthcare is absolutely taken care of for American six-figure tech workers.
My premium is $2.50/mo and all my care is free or for a nominal fee, like $20.
US healthcare _is_ systemically broken, but not for people who command high
wages.
Having kids in college is at _least_ 30 years out. Knowing that an expense 30
years away will be taken care of is better than the alternative, but would do
nothing for my stress level in the next ~20.
I don't buy that either of these things make any actual difference for an
early-career programmer.
Probably the most important thing is rent. I suspect most European cities can
offer a 1-bedroom apartment within 30 minutes of work by foot/public transit
for a much lower proportion of a developer's salary than SF can, even when
developer salaries are much lower. And in places not SF, $50k USD is not
particularly low for a developer salary.
~~~
hocuspocus
Peace of mind with healthcare isn't so much about one-off costs when you catch
a nasty flu. What happens if you're unable to work for months/years due to a
health issue? Will you be able to pay your expensive rent and other expenses
without worries?
Also you're a bit naive if you think raising kids will cost you only once they
go to college. If you compare direct (daycare, preschool) and indirect (like
moving to a good neighborhood) costs in the Bay area vs. a big European city,
the difference is easily 5 figures year. And then there are things like
parental leave.
But of course, as a 20-something you might not need these things.
~~~
superuser2
Then those (like rent, as I mentioned) are the much more compelling arguments.
If I'm unable to work for months, I'll have to draw down my emergency fund
(probably move somewhere cheap to slow the burn rate). If in Europe I don't
have to save for this, and can freely spend all of my paycheck, then that's a
huge benefit. Ditto with retirement, which takes ~15% off the top of American
salaries (unless you are irresponsible or in crisis so not saving for it).
Preschool is a valid point; moving to a good neighborhood is captured in rent.
I'm just saying healthcare and education aren't the interesting arguments.
Housing costs and socialized savings plans are.
------
lucaspiller
Direct link to PDF:
[http://www.atomico.com/downloads/state-of-european-
tech/atom...](http://www.atomico.com/downloads/state-of-european-tech/atomico-
state-of-european-tech-2016-full-report.pdf)
The slideshow won't go full screen for me, so it's next to useless.
------
swampthinker
Would be great if this was legible on mobile... Does anyone have a good
summary?
~~~
deepnotderp
First sentence is a great summary...
~~~
TeMPOraL
> _We’re excited to share the second edition of The State of European Tech
> report with you._
Ah, so they are excited.
~~~
deepnotderp
I meant the first sentence of OP's comment lol. "not visible on mobile"
------
freekh
Yeah, so this is a pr stunt. However there are many really good startup scenes
here in Europe in my experience. Stockholm is one of them: "everything" in the
heart and kids departments taken care of. Lots of ambition and talent.
Comparatively low vagues so less burn. Lacking VCs, but the startups that have
made it invest a lot here (time and money and mentoring). Compared to the
craze in sf, i would say this is the perfect place to start a small and
successful business. In particular in the b2b domain. So, if you can live with
being well off and not insanely rich, and looking to move out of the us - you
should give Stockholm a chance.
~~~
expertentipp
Sweet, how's the apartment rental market in Stockholm?
------
nec4b
You can ask yourself how many big companies that came into existance for
example in last 20 years are from the USA or from the EU. That tells you a lot
how vibrat the industry is on either side of the atlantic.
------
PunchTornado
why the need for bs like this in a study:
I see no limits to the ambition of young Europeans. We've broken the glass
ceiling etc.
Looks dumb to me. Just show me the data compared to American tech.
~~~
throwthisawayt
Wait...there was a glass ceiling preventing Europeans from creating companies
?
~~~
kuschku
Well, there were actual problems preventing people from creating companies.
Such as the 10'000€ minimum assets that were required for an Ltd. in Germany
until a few years ago. (The problem was basically: How do you handle a company
going bankrupt? The legislators said that any company should always have
enough assets to cover its liabilities. Obviously not compatible with the
snowball-scheme based startup scene).
~~~
matt_o
It's actually 25000 euros. This was somewhat fixed with the introduction of
the mini-GmbH (GmbH - something like Ltd.), but a mini-GmbH comes with some
extra strings attached, so it's still very far from a UK Ltd. or a US LLC in
terms of ease of setting up.
This is indeed an obstacle to creating a company, but there are quite a few
more, all having to do with just plain ol' bureaucracy (handling monthly tax
reporting, interacting with the tax authorities, handling insurance, etc.) The
previous issue of The Economist made a case that these bureaucratic problems
are even bigger in Italy.
I've recently been kicking around the idea that it's kind of weird that some
hard-hit places in the EU like Spain or Greece sport up to 50% unemployed
young folks (18-35) - these people are highly educated, just out of college,
eager to build/work and yet they are economically inactive. My theory is that
this is because it's hard to set up any sort of business activity due to the
bureaucracy. It's also socially discouraged because it's risky.
~~~
matt4077
There have always been options to start without capital requirements, usually
at the price of personal liability. The idea is that you need a bit of "skin
in the game" to protect vendors.
If you're in something like software and have no immediate plans for employees
or large investments you can get the bureaucracy done in 30 min. It's
literally a one-page form with address, name, purpose.
~~~
matt_o
Well, my "self-employement" form was actually 8 pages long and it featured a
lot more items than address, name, purpose and processing it took about 4
weeks. To be fair, I could start my business as soon as I sent that out, but I
could not invoice clients until I got the reply, which included my new tax
number. This is how it works in Germany. Add on top of that the mandatory
monthly VAT tax reporting.
That is a significantly higher cost of entry when compared with an Ltd/LLC,
not to mention a sole proprietorship.
~~~
matt4077
Here's the sole proprietorship form, it's actually one page:
[http://www.hamburg.de/Dibis/form/pdf/Formular-
Gewerbeanmeldu...](http://www.hamburg.de/Dibis/form/pdf/Formular-
Gewerbeanmeldung.pdf) – but obviously it depends a lot on the individual
circumstances (like the tax ID you need for cross-border transactions). VAT is
annoying, but it's only monthly if you're above 120000 Euro or so. We've
started only filling in our revenue (which I can get within a few seconds) and
file the tax we paid to suppliers with the yearly declaration. It's much
faster to do it all in one go.
~~~
matt_o
I had to fill out this form: "Fragebogen zur steuerlichen Erfassung" and I
have to report my VAT using the Elster system monthly, even though my VAT is
always 0 (my clients are all outside of the EU).
I went this way after consulting some other folks in Berlin and a tax
consultant that I found myself. I'm kind of surprised that there's a
different, easier way to go. Thanks for sharing the information.
------
wrong_variable
(cough cringe PR cough)
You could create similar optimistic charts for US, China, India, etc.
The EU ( 550 million ) tech industry is dwarfed by the US ( 350 million )
Looking from a higher abstract plane, EU produces the least new entrepreneurs
and innovative companies compared to the beast that is US and Asia.
The EU also has the most unstable political and financial system globally with
entire countries on the verge of defaulting on their sovereign debt.
The reason why every European developer migrates to London is to escape the
craziness of the continent.
Every European developer's final 'dream' is to work in the US tech industry -
London is the second best thing to reach.
(.. Money Talks .. )
You can see how much value that tech is given in europe by just looking at the
salaries in europe vs N.A - so much for valuing hard tech.
Seeing that both the US and Europe have similar numbers of developers (~ 3
mil) - how is european tech industry 1/8 the size of the US ??
Oversupply of developers due to better engineering school ? ( my sides )
More like MBAs from Cambridge are not as smart as their counterparts
graduating from Sloan in creating value out of tech.
\-- Not an American --- Direct experience with London and Berlin tech scene
---
~~~
jfaucett
Completely agree. I live in Europe, am a part of the tech scene, and am
sitting in the contitental craziness you speak of in Germany. This report is
largely nonsense.
It talks about "top research institutions" are in Europe, neglecting the
#1,#2,#4,#5, and #6 in the world are in the USA. [1]
Honestly, I have no idea why an investor would want to try to tackle this
nightmare of 30+ target markets, especially when you have huge homogeneous
markets in the USA and Asia.
1\. [http://www.topuniversities.com/university-
rankings/universit...](http://www.topuniversities.com/university-
rankings/university-subject-rankings/2016/computer-science-information-
systems)
~~~
cyberpunk
Hmm. I'd really like to hear more about how you see things if you've got the
time..
I'm about to exit london for .de simply because of quality of life concerns;
the 1000ft view I'm holding though is I'm pretty sure I'll be able to build a
crew there which will have fun working on difficult problems, and hopefully
even find a reasonable amount of 'stuff' to do (surely with internet access
and some good staff picks that could be applied almost anywhere in the world?)
-- while you're probably right in that the vast floods of VC cash won't be so
available there (I don't think the situ in london is much diff anyway) or that
things are more complex w/r/t markets; I'm not sure that I really care too
much about "30+" target markets when we're talking B2B hardcore geekery stuff.
We make an API to solve -some-random-hackernews_capable_consumer-problem- then
I'm not sure having a few diff VAT rules around .eu is anything more than some
extra time billed by my accountant..
What I'm more concerned about is the work/company culture differences there
which will probably at a minimum will prevent me whoring myself out for some
quick cash to fund my devs, should things get tight, and at a max make it much
harder to sell to Gmbh's there...
Are you in Germany? Ever worked with a German company or tried to integrate
your product with theirs? The vogons have a quicker moving bureaucracy, I was
really shocked. The crazy adherence to working hours, clocking in/out for
breaks and such even for senior technical staff creates a really strange
dynamic especially if you're used to letting your teams do whatever the hell
they want as long as you're delivering. This kind of free attitude to work
seems largely to only exist in London, at least to me -- and once you've
walked on the wild side it's hard to accept a master.. _shrug_
Germany may have excellent technical prowess in manufacturing and such; from
our side of the perspective though, so far to me at de $bigcorp it seems like
SAP, 2 week change windows, hour long discussions on what FTP client the
customer uses, J2EE, Oracle, monitored lunch breaks and some very
overqualified staff (call me 'dr') who aren't even interesting in moving
faster...
I guess there are a lot of startups there which follow a model more like what
we're used to, but after so long you're not going to be able to avoid working
with the vogons if you're selling them software they want to integrate with..
I'm not sure the majority view of big german businesses really even understood
what agile was pushing for.. Hopefully I'm wrong, I'll find out soon anyhow,
but things seem really fucking backwards compared to how we've been living
even in the relative backwater that's London....
What's your view?
~~~
passiveincomelg
I'm curious what this wild side is like. "letting your teams do whatever the
hell they want as long as you're delivering" sounds like working remotely from
a beach is common. Yet almost all job postings I see from companies in London
are on site. Or does it mean I can leave work after six hours on very
productive days?
~~~
cyberpunk
Well, as it goes, as often as I'm able to (sometimes it takes a while to
change the culture/gain enough trust to be left alone) I don't put _any_
requirements at all on attendance/appearence/sanity/whatever as long as
everything is being done and the team is performing. Nailed all the work for
the day before 12:00 and want to hit up the pub -- how could any sane person
stop you? Working remote makes you more productive and no one else on the team
feels you're just slacking, then go for it.
It's not some intentional psychological ploy or anything, but I've found that
people generally don't take the absolute piss if you let them manage
themselves totally (we are all adults, after all, and who the hell am I to
tell anyone how to handle themselves professionally as long as our obligations
are being met)
Sure, everyone has to get together sometimes, but being onsite and having a
normal lifestyle doesn't work for everyone, especially some of the 'top tier'
engineers I've had who tend to be a bit wild.. Pushing 'school rules' on
people just leads to them exiting, and it's no use kidding yourself that they
need you more than you need them.
One of the best engineers I ever had had some sort of really insane
drink/drugs lifestyle, he would drop commits in between 2-7am and they'd be
brilliant, then he'd vanish for a few days, and repeat. Did I depend on this
person completely for the whole project? No. But why should I care as long as
no one else is annoyed by this behaviour on the team, and the work was solid?
I've never had someone actually emigrate during a role, but often people would
go away for a few weeks and it wasn't a problem, again, as long as work is
being done.
I'm not really sure why this isn't the case everywhere, but as long as my
staff act like adults then they'll be treated as such. Onsite requirements are
usually a symptom of a lack of trust or an insecure lead.
~~~
passiveincomelg
That's when you are running a team, right? But it's not the norm to walk into
any corp in London as a devops/dev/whatever contractor and work like this.
There is no reason why you couldn't run a team that way in Berlin or anywhere
else in the world.
~~~
cyberpunk
Depends on your attitude really.
If you rock up to a client and immediately let them set any kind of
requirements on your life instead of having a "this is our goal, make it so!"
relationship then a subtle kind of power relationship has been created, where
they'll think it's acceptible to mandate employee rules on you like this.
If you're a contractor, then the corp you're whoring out to is _NOT_ your
employer and you must not let them act as such (this makes it worse for all of
us, not just you).
They're paying your buisness to do something for theirs, how you do that is
your business and yours alone. There's no need to be a total weirdo about the
whole thing and go off on one because they want you at a meeting at 10 some
day or whatever -- you have to be diplomatic and be mindful of the way you're
being percieved by the perm staff -- but generally I will not tolerate
requests from clients w/r/t anything like attendance outside of meetings,
dress code, general sobriety or whatever else which isn't impacting the
deliberables we're providing, and wouldn't attempt to push them on my staff
either (contract or not).
I've walked away from several really lucrative contracts because of this sort
of client behaviour and I don't regret that at all. Your clients aren't, and
never will be in control of you, you're there because they need you and they
should treat you with the respect an engineer with your day rate has earned..
_shrug_
Generally, this sort of attitude has been accepted in every contract I've had
in london in the last 5 years or so..
The secret is to get this point across very soon after, or even before,
starting the gig. Absolute confidence is probably rq too tho...
edit: butterfingers
~~~
passiveincomelg
Makes perfect sense, thanks. I think the situation here is very similar.
Telling a contractor when and where to work can get the client in legal
trouble ("Scheinselbstständigkeit", one of those lovely german words ;). How
that works out in practice probably depends on the company. If you work a gig
at Siemens it might be different than at a startup (that is funded well enough
to afford freelancers).
I only have experience with two big corps so far (keep coming back to the
second one ;), but I've seen quite a few contractors at both and some of them
were just plain flaky. That of course makes it worse for all of us as well,
wrt to clients tolerance for things like remote work, etc.
~~~
cyberpunk
Hmm.
I'll be in Berlin next week (I missed Nikolaus and I have some belated shoes
to fill; failing that though definately again around silvester)
If you're up for a beer or sixteen on me, I'd really find the insider scoop
useful on a more personal medium; I'm sure we could probably both get
something from it, at least the worst would be a lot of free beer!
You can find me on freenode as 'cyb3rpunk' (inside a shiny new irssi in some
tmux somewhere so might take me a while to respond) if you're up for it --
otherwise, prost!
~~~
passiveincomelg
Totally up for it! Will ping you on irc.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
All MS Windows Control Panels from 1985 to Today (Windows 1.0 to 10) - tech-historian
https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/all-windows-control-panels
======
BitwiseFool
I still find myself snapping to where the 'Add Remove Programs' icon would be
whenever I have to uninstall something. I know it's under Programs and
Features now, but it's so surprising to me that I haven't unlearned that
habit.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Windows 10 – Toddler Deletes Everything with 6 Clicks - scolfax
OK, it's a click-bait title, but check this out: You're only 6 clicks away from wiping out your Windows 10 installation.<p>Starting from the Desktop, click on:
Start / Settings / Update & Security / Recovery / Get Started (Reset this PC) / Remove Everything<p>You are never asked to enter a password, or type in "Remove Everything" as a fail-safe.
======
stevep98
> You are never asked to enter a password, or type in "Remove Everything" as a
> fail-safe.
Some people will still do that and be surprised at the result.
My dad once reformatted his memory card on his camera, losing all his pictures
from his vacation. He wanted to 'Change the Format' of the image (why? who
knows), but instead he reformatted the card. "Are you Sure? Yes!"
I once copied an empty partition over a full partition instead of vice versa.
I knew I only had one copy of this important data, and was trying to back it
up. Are you sure? double-check.. YUP!
~~~
MartijnHoutman
Well, I had that once on my old Canon DSLR. I really wanted to change the
picture format from JPEG to RAW (CR2), so I chose the 'format' option. I got
into the format card menu, so I wanted to get out. There were only two
options: OK and Cancel, but the interface was so bad I had no idea which
button was active and which was not (the colors would invert on scrolling). A
50-50% chance, and I chose the wrong option ;) Luckily it was a quick format,
so a raw scan saved my photos :)
------
venomsnake
Well just ask the advertisers and they will give you all your files back. If
they refuse - there is always a copy in the NSA worry not.
------
brudgers
Let's assume that there are only ten options at each level of clicking.
Thus a probability of 1 in (10^6 * the chance of your toddler getting
unsupervised access while the computer is on and in an accepting state).
------
jjgreen
You should never have given him/her the root password.
~~~
scolfax
True, but... you obviously don't have kids! ;)
~~~
nadams
> you obviously don't have kids
"kids" should never have administrative privileges on the system (up to the
point they can burn a CD - then they can have admin privileges because with
enough googling they can do it themselves). And you might want to install a
sandbox type program - [http://alternativeto.net/software/deep-
freeze/?license=free](http://alternativeto.net/software/deep-
freeze/?license=free)
~~~
scolfax
Windows is a consumer operating system. You and I may know the "right" way to
use it, but mother-in-laws don't like passwords, kids like Minecraft, and kids
= chaos.
------
bwackwat
I LOL'D.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Problem with Prototypes (in Perl5 subroutines) - draegtun
http://www.modernperlbooks.com/mt/2009/08/the-problem-with-prototypes.html
======
draegtun
See related HN post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=770072>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A brief update - rbinv
https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/heading-to-usds/
======
SwellJoe
The phrasing of this makes it sound like he wants to paint it as though he's
doing community service or something. But...Defense Digital Service? At the
Pentagon? That's not exactly curing cancer or solving poverty.
~~~
Matt_Cutts
At the risk of wading into a fraught discussion, here's an example from
yesterday: [http://www.defense.gov/News-Article-
View/Article/802828/cart...](http://www.defense.gov/News-Article-
View/Article/802828/carter-announces-hack-the-pentagon-program-results) . Bug
bounty programs have proven very effective in private industry (e.g. when
Chrome pays security researchers who find vulnerabilities). The Defense
Digital Service just completed one of the first bug bounty programs for the
federal government. This is my personal opinion, but if bug bounty programs
become more common in the government, that would mean that lots more people
would be protected from hacks or identity theft.
To give another example that's under the umbrella of the US Digital Service,
[https://www.vets.gov/playbook/](https://www.vets.gov/playbook/) is an attempt
to bring resources for veterans into a single website. Right now, veterans may
have to navigate 1000+ websites, 956 different 1-800 numbers, and just deal
with more hassle than they should.
I interviewed at the US Digital Service but ended up at the Defense Digital
Service because that's where I thought I could help the most. There's some
good info about the sort of projects that people at the USDS/DDS work on at
[https://www.usds.gov/work](https://www.usds.gov/work) if anyone is
interested. 18F at [https://18f.gsa.gov/](https://18f.gsa.gov/) is also doing
great work, with the extra benefit that people can work for the 18F remotely.
18F has also been a proponent for more open source in the government:
[https://fcw.com/articles/2016/03/25/noble-open-
code.aspx](https://fcw.com/articles/2016/03/25/noble-open-code.aspx)
~~~
hodgesrm
Hi Matt! Good on you for doing this. The US Govt needs more smart citizens
stepping up and getting involved instead of just criticizing.
And for the anti-military types out there, ask yourself if the world is a
better place if decent citizens _don 't_ get involved with the US military.
~~~
uola
There's already plenty of smart decent people in the military and even more at
defense companies. It's a structural, not a people, problem. What the US
military does (both offline and online) mostly has widespread support among
politicians and the US population. These policies are not a mistake to be
corrected or something that will go away, it's a difference in opinion. If you
don't support them you probably shouldn't be involved. There are many other
ways to help your country with e.g. digital security. The "anti-military
types" is just a cheap shot. Pretty much everyone I know who has been or are
involved in a military (or government) has reservations about it (including
myself).
------
f_allwein
Matt is one of the nicest, most ethical people I have worked with, so I have
no doubt his work in Washington will be for the benefit of society. Also, he's
an expert on fighting abuse, so should be able to make some interesting
contributions.
------
lifeisstillgood
Digital Government is one of the great challenges of the next decades, and I
am worried that we still see software as a "rockstar" can solve it profession.
Conways law means that changing software to meet our needs now means hanging
the whole organisation. And changing government is a whole order of challenge
greater than in private sector.
But I see daily the problems of scrum sprints forcing poor architectural
decisions that need strong coders to push back on - and while is suspect Matt
would be one of those pushing back, really the system of digitisation of
government should be more - sympathetic to the challenge.
I am amazed and impressed by the XDS approach (gov.uk is a leader in this) but
I remain under convinced and unable to express this coherently - I will sleep
on it
~~~
mmahemoff
I share your concern, but how else does radical change on this level happen
without a wave of rockstars (as seen with UK's GDS)? One or two isolated
rockstars, or even a team of a-bit-above-average engineers, have a negligible
impact when faced with a bureaucracy. Their efforts are hampered and their
results can easily be dismissed as noise.
Is a team of rockstars alone sufficient? No. It still needs the kind of
empathetic engineers who want genuine improvement and will work to permeate
their efforts through the organisation. Rockstars by definition are
outstanding technically, but their mindsets can vary widely. Rockstars of the
precocious, arrogant, variety aren't suited for this, but others (like Matt
Cutts imo) are.
~~~
lifeisstillgood
How Else is a very good question - and I fear that dropping in a "wave" of
anyone is just going to end up wits one wet beach - GDS is having
inspirational effect but as a private contractor who is making every effort to
break into (for want of better term "let me get paid for developing open
source solutions to the 2000 government needs - see
[http://www.oss4gov.org](http://www.oss4gov.org)) it is clear that they are
not breaking down every barrier - there is a lot to do.
I am not saying I know of a better way - but rock stars don't change
organisations. Meaningful change is really hard and conways law is a two way
sword. If you can't change the organisation good luck having the software
change it for you.
Here is a longer thought :
Let's look at UK schools and the department for education. The essential jobs
of the department are 1) school standards and inspection (ofsted) and 2)
paying the schools and so forth.
Fundamentally we don't need a whole department to funnel money from treasury
to headmasters.
There are many pieces of software that Matt Cutts could work on there, a whole
career. But we could remove the need for that department and hence that OSS
software by political action.
This is the point I think I am making. Software literacy is soooo vital to
making sure that organisations make the right choices in their software, and
software is now and will be soooo deep in all organisations (they effectively
become programmable corporations) that we need software "rock stars" at the
highest levels of government making the highest levels of architectural
decisions
But when we talk about architectural decisions at government we basically are
talking ministerial level policy making.
And that implies that companies are going to need to have their it
architecture decided by their internal political structures - which will have
to become more democratic
So - yeah still not making a good point. But when we want people to come in
and transform digital in government, they will quickly ask political
questions. And they need political answers. Even though the leverage and
driving power lies in what software can offer.
~~~
spangry
_"...software is now and will be soooo deep in all organisations (they
effectively become programmable corporations) that we need software "rock
stars" at the highest levels of government making the highest levels of
architectural decisions"_
This is the key issue. Having spent years working on 'IT in government', at
both the cabinet policy advisory level and at the IT coalface level, I've
formed the view that when it comes to IT policy, 99% of the policy outcome is
determined by implementation detail. I think this makes government IT policy
quite unique, and it's something policy people (like myself) can't wrap their
heads around.
Perfect example: the Australian 'Standard Business Reporting' programme
([http://www.sbr.gov.au/](http://www.sbr.gov.au/)). It's hard to fault the
policy position: open up APIs for reporting to government. But they fucked up
the technical implementation so badly that they are now 5 years in, $1bn in
the hole, and have around 1% voluntary take-up. The relevant senior decision
makers were completely IT illiterate and went with the "can't go wrong with
IBM" route. Consequently, any developer that values their sanity won't come
near it with a 10 foot barge pole.
~~~
lifeisstillgood
But what I am saying is that just as code is the design, code is the policy
The policy decisions were not "open an API" but also "use JSON" and "use fog
keys for signing" and "implement the VAT submissions first"
The fact those policy decisions were not made is the whole point we both seem
to be making
------
danso
Reminds me of when Craig Newmark did a stint with Veterans Affairs, becoming a
real evangelist for the agency and getting into the nitty gritty of office IT:
[http://craigconnects.org/2009/11/why-craigslist-founder-
join...](http://craigconnects.org/2009/11/why-craigslist-founder-joins-va-
innovation-search-panel.html)
[http://craigconnects.org/2013/04/veterans-disability-
claims-...](http://craigconnects.org/2013/04/veterans-disability-claims-
backlog-setting-the-record-straight.html)
------
tangled_zans
Can people rename this to something that makes sense? Seeing a post on the
front page saying "A brief update" is so vague. An update by whom? About what?
There's literally not enough information to gauge whether or not I should
pursue this further without clicking on it.
------
Yhippa
Anybody have experience working for the USDS? What was it like? I'm curious to
know if people in industry on the East Coast recognize the program.
------
dahdum
I'm surprised to see so much negativity in the thread. It's fantastic for
government to add more people like Cutts, especially in a division with
innovation as a goal. He brings excellent public communication skills, I'm
excited to see what he'll be working on and hope they'll report broadly.
------
rambos
Please help make changes in the most efficient way possible. I've seen it
before when these digital agencies filled with "innovators" come only to
reinvent the wheel; spending ridiculous amounts of tax payer dollars and man
hours to create things that could otherwise be brought in from the private
sector.
Good luck, do what's right with the tax payer dollars.
------
wnevets
Wow good for you for matt, hope it goes well!
------
bane
Absolutely awesome. Thanks for setting an example of civil service.
I'm in the D.C. area, feel free to drop me a line (email in my profile).
------
sidcool
Expected and got the negative comments here. He's taking paycut and making a
difference in Governance. Not Bill Gates level, but something at least. If
nothing, it's better than people making condescending armchair comments here.
~~~
barryaustin
It's a common part of human nature. Assigning bad moral character on the basis
of group identity, rather than on individual actions, is the essence of
tribalism and bigotry.
Sure, the DoD has an outsized impact on people's lives and a highly
controversial history including both major evil and major good.
It seems to me a positive thing that someone of good character and strong
capabilities would go to make things better, vs allowing bad actors to
accumulate and do what bad actors do.
~~~
uola
Why do think covert operations, black sites, secret courts and hidden budgets
exist? Or chain of command, court martials and censorship? It's not a
democratic organisation of individual actions.
It's easy to say that he's of "good character" trying to make things better,
but in reality he is lending his credibility to bad actors and he has little
power to make things better. Keith Alexander doesn't go to defcon in jeans and
a t-shirt to take input, but to sell a different image of the military.
If it's anything that is human nature it's to despite evidence to the contrary
justify how bad things are not your responsibility. NSA compromised google
users data and here is one of the most famous googlers acting head recruiter
for the military.
------
coldtea
> _For example I worked on software that helped soldiers_
Soldiers deployed in the other side of the world where they have no business
to be in the first place? Securing cheap oil resources and/or control of
strategic interests?
~~~
BinaryIdiot
Seriously, on Hacker News you're going to make a political comment that has
zero to do with anything I commented on? A DoD software contractor has no
control over congressional level politics. The reality is that they were there
/ still there so while you work to campaign for changing the reality are you
suggesting we should NOT make things better for our soldiers to stay safer?
Get off your high horse and make your political, off topic statements on
reddit instead.
~~~
Kristine1975
_> A DoD software contractor has no control over congressional level
politics._
Then just say no when the DoD asks you to work for them.
_> are you suggesting we should NOT make things better for our soldiers to
stay safer?_
I certainly am. The safer "our" soldiers are the more people they can murder.
~~~
dominotw
we should've just Gaddafi enslave thousands of women in his harem \s. You
should read the book 'Gaddafi's Harem: The Story of a Young Woman and the
Abuses of Power in Libya' before going around spreading hate and supporting
cruel, inhuman dictators.
~~~
coldtea
Actually it shouldn't be your concern what he did in his own country.
Like it's not anyone's concern that say the US puts the largest number of its
citizens in jail (25% of the worlds inmates for a country with 4% of the
world's population) and of which the predominant number are black.
I mean it should concern people all over the world, and they should ask and
lend support and diplomatic pressure to change that, but they should in no way
interfere with internal politics, invade or attack the US for that. And that's
something that hurts far more people (millions) compared to "some thousand".
Besides, what have you accomplished now? A hell hole of a country, an ex-
country, with fractions fighting from several competitive sides, millions
flying and hundreds of thousands dead. Yay for getting rid of the dictator,
sure turned out well. And the place is a paradise now for the sex and slave
trade.
Not to mention the hypocrisy of it all. Those decisions to support the rebels
in official capacity wasn't because anybody really cared for the regime's
victims. After all they always did and continue to do great business and have
cordial relations with Saudi Arabia (how do local women fare there legally? Or
search about what happens to thousands of immigrant women coming to work there
as house servants etc.).
It pays to think about such events beyond what the mainstream media and the
official government announcements say. Read some books, and not just
celebrated books that maintain the official party line of one's government,
try to find the other side's story too. And historical books, for such
regions, to get perspective.
------
bhartzer
I seem to recall that he used to work for cia or? Can't remember exactly.
~~~
Baghard
He interned at the DoD when he was a college student. Maybe you are thinking
of the NSA? Though the NSA is part of DoD, I don't think it was ever confirmed
that Matt worked for the NSA.
------
angry-hacker
U.S needs the separation of state and corporation.
------
djrobstep
It's not only not curing cancer or solving poverty, it's killing people.
~~~
BinaryIdiot
While your former is true your latter is just horribly false. I worked in the
DoD space for many years and the overwhelming amount of work you're most
likely to do doesn't involve killing people even indirectly. More likely
you're working on systems to go keep our people safe.
For example I worked on software that helped soldiers look at patterns of IED
placements to hopefully help them figure out where others were. I wouldn't
consider what I worked on even indirectly supporting any type of killing but
helping out people stay safer.
~~~
waterphone
Ultimately, though, aren't you helping soldiers stay safer so they can
continue to kill others? I'm not saying that in a judgmental way, but that is
the reality of war and military-related work.
~~~
BinaryIdiot
This is incredibly tone deaf. I'm not sure why every thread about the DoD on
Hacker News always ends up with the most extreme comments that lead to: "even
if you're sending cards to the soldiers you're lifting their spirits to kill
more people therefore you should feel bad about yourself".
I get it. You hate war. Most people hate war, even the soldiers in our army
hate it. You want change? Vote and get outside and protest. Don't shit on a
DoD contractor while sitting there doing nothing.
Real change requires real effort.
~~~
geofft
I mean, I'm doing something. I have a job that doesn't involve working for the
DoD.
I understand the need for people to have jobs. I'm not unhappy about
individual soldiers, individual cops, individual TSA workers deciding that's
how they want to get employment. (I'm sort of unhappy at society-as-a-whole
for making the military such a good career decision for many people, but the
fact remains that it _is_ a good career decision, and I won't begrudge that.)
I'm not unhappy about you, because I have no idea what your job is or what
your life is like. But this article is about a person who had an extremely
good job at Google deciding that he wasn't doing enough for the world and that
he could make the world a better place by working for the DoD. He could have
stayed at Google; he could have even worked for the USDS for any of the non-
war functions of government, if he really wanted to. I think that's fair to
criticize.
~~~
robbiep
How Ayn Rand do you want to go? By the same logic working for a company that
pays taxes that supports the military is also helping things along. Best to
withdraw entirely the efforts of your labour from the machine?
~~~
merraksh
How taxes support the military is decided by lawmakers. We vote candidates
based on their programs. If a candidate promised to lower contributions to
defense, (s)he'd have my vote. You can have labour that doesn't feed the
military.
------
programmarchy
> "nice ... Pentagon ... interesting contributions"
Reminds me of the study:
> People with more agreeable, conscientious personalities are more likely to
> make harmful choices. [1]
[1] [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-green-
mind/201406/a...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-green-
mind/201406/are-polite-people-more-violent-and-destructive)
~~~
dang
That's probably a fascinating study in general, but if you bring it up in the
context of one specific agreeable, conscientious person, it's a personal
attack, and those are not allowed here.
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11927709](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11927709)
and marked it off-topic.
------
marco_salvatori
I generally advise nice, ethical people who want to benefit society to avoid
working for morally ambiguous organizations, as it can have a degradating
effect on their character. Still, some people find their principles in
unexpected places. And for someone who is an expert on fighting abuse, there
is an rare opportunity for outstanding service to their country and the
principles that made it great by applying such skills to the situation at
Guantanamo.
~~~
dang
We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11927709](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11927709)
and marked it off-topic.
------
legulere
Making a difference in the branch of government that is about destroying lives
in other countries.
~~~
nnutter
To be a little more fair it's also about defense.
~~~
qmr
The US is surrounded by two friendly nations and two big fuckoff oceans.
I question the need for 'defense'.
~~~
joshmanders
9/11, Boston, Orlando, San Bernardino, nah we don't need defense, nobody can
get to us.
~~~
wnoise
He didn't say we didn't need police.
~~~
joshmanders
Oh yeah, spray the fire extinguisher at the top of the fire instead of the
base, that'll surely put it out!
~~~
TeMPOraL
No, just stop "extinguishing" the fire by burning other peoples' houses down.
(It's as absurd as it sounds, and yet that's essentially the US strategy for
defending from terrorist attacks)
~~~
Tiksi
Granted, this is basically how wildfires are extinguished, though more
trees/brush than houses.
~~~
TeMPOraL
True, but the context was about household fires :).
------
ocdtrekkie
Note that Matt here claims he's taking a "leave from Google" to join the
Defense Digital Service at the Pentagon. This is in addition to the recent
announcement three months ago that Eric Schmidt would also be taking on a job
at the Pentagon... also while he still works for Google.
Google's partnership with our current administration has me increasingly
uncomfortable. Before this year, it was generally limited to former Googlers
in DC, or former government employees at Google, but this year, we have two
major, very high level Google employees working directly for the Department of
Defense.
~~~
Jerry2
Google and USG are joined at the hip. If you haven't seen this article, give
it a read and check out those charts:
[https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-
close...](https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close-
relationship-with-the-obama-white-house-in-two-charts/)
~~~
madeofpalk
Completely off topic sidenote: even when completely muted, my MacBook Pro
(Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) makes a sound when hovering over the names in
the first chart, and a different (deeper and quieter) sound when hovering over
the second one. The sound appears to come from below the F2/F3/2/3 keys. I
tried to record it, but its too quiet and there's too much background noise
here to hear it on the video.
Anyone have an idea what this would be? I presume it's the CPU/GPU underneath,
but I've never heard this before. Does this happen to anyone else?
~~~
mschuster91
With my Fall 2011 MBP, it's the wall wart that produces a wide variety of
sounds depending on the CPU load.
Desktop motherboards are known for high-frequency sounds in response to
varying load - the source are the low-voltage regulators for the different CPU
domains.
------
Tannic
Another turn in the swinging door between douchle and big gov
~~~
dang
We've banned this account for violating the HN guidelines. If you don't want
it to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected]. We're happy to
unban people when there's reason to believe that they'll only post civil and
substantive comments (and particularly avoid personal attacks) in the future.
------
mtgx
A lot of back and forth between Google and the U.S. government lately. Even
Eric Schmidt joined the Pentagon. I think if Google would've kept the robot
division, it would've inevitably become a defense contractor (even though they
promised they wouldn't). Fortunately, it's going to sell it, but there's still
time to become that with DeepMind, etc.
~~~
ams6110
That's because Google is Skynet, of course.
------
ebbv
This is really cool Matt, but here's hoping your appointment ends before
January 2017 just in case the orangutan wins.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Starting points for data driven graphics from the FT - mgalka
http://ft-interactive.github.io/visual-vocabulary/
======
mgalka
Associated repo [https://github.com/ft-interactive/visual-
vocabulary](https://github.com/ft-interactive/visual-vocabulary)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Program against your FPGA cluster like it's a single pool of accelerators - inaccel
https://docs.inaccel.com/latest/tutorial/orientation
======
inaccel
A product for you to build, ship and run FPGA accelerated applications
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Education hackathon is giving away a school bus - jslampe
http://blog.dwolla.com/hack-to-school/
======
arghbleargh
Wow, a schoolbus! I've been wanting to get one for years, just gotta get first
place now!
Seriously though, I like the idea of bringing these different types of people
together (students, developers, teachers). Too often people think they know
how to "fix education" without seeing the perspectives of everyone involved.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How We Support 1,650 Customers with One Representative - duaneb
http://blog.statuspage.io/2-300-000-to-one-or-supporting-1650-customers-with-just-one-rep
======
huhtenberg
Whether or not this number is notable depends squarely on the nature of the
product/service. One-man shareware shops routinely have tens of thousands
customers and handle all of the support _in addition_ to doing everything
else. And hardly anyone ever brags about this.
~~~
odonnellryan
I worked for several years as corporate IT support back in the day. Each
employee represented around 2K user's nation wide.
It was very busy and we didn't do a good job (understaffed) but we did
everything. Supported ALL the applications. All hard ware. PC upgrades. You
name it. You handled your 50 calls a day. It sucked, that's why we all left,
but 2K+ for one person for one application stack... not that crazy.
------
itsdevlin
This doesn't seem unreasonable. As a data point, we're just shy of 10k
customers with one full-time support person (and two part-time). In my
experience, it was the process of setting up the KB and process by which you'd
answer tickets that was the most arduous. 0-10 users, easy. 10->100 OMFG
EVERYTHING'S ON FIRE. 100->n becomes just an optimization problem.
------
sandworm101
1650:1? What's Microsoft's ratio?
MS claims "1.5 billion people use Windows every day."
1500000000 / 1650 = 909091
Does MS have 900,000 call center people? I'm betting not. It may an apples and
oranges comparison (app v. OS) but 1650:1 remains nothing special in the world
of customer support. I would much rather then brag about how quickly customer
concerns are dealt with or how few are routed to voicemail.
~~~
anhedonisticguy
I think you'd have to include a large majority of IT personnel in this figure,
as they are the likely first line of support for many windows installs.
That number is probably much higher than 1 million.
Apples to oranges, of course. The interesting part is that MS scaled their
support to include people paid by their customers directly because their
software was so business critical.
~~~
odonnellryan
Even high-tier MS support isn't great. You may rely on it and `need` the
support, but you don't really need it.
~~~
nostalgiac
What? I'm guessing you've never actually paid for an MS Support Call?
They will work through your issue no matter what until a resolution is
reached.
~~~
odonnellryan
I'm sure I don't have experience with every tier of their support, but I've
dealt with both Microsoft Partner support and paid support contracts for both
Windows Server and SQL Server.
They will definitely help you, eventually, and the problem will eventually get
fixed. However, eventually (in my experience) has been usually several days.
------
gscott
I ran a groupware platform that had over 1,000 daily users on it myself with
about 30 new organizations signing up to use it every day.
The key thing was to create help videos and help hover icons everywhere
possible. Eventually it was self-supporting no one ever had questions because
the answers were all right there.
------
acconrad
I'd be asking for a raise if I were that rep.
~~~
jo909
They rotate support duty, every engineer and even the founders do it for a
week each.
~~~
odonnellryan
This is the most important part of the email! I almost got fired once for very
modestly bringing up the idea at a previous role ;)
------
myohan
I think the challenge is not in the numbers but in the quality of support and
these guys are doing it well and substantiating how they did it with solid
evidence.
------
FajitaNachos
Their call to action signup is pretty slick. Full page on page load, then no
longer accessible once you scroll down or refresh. First time I've seen
something like that in the wild.
------
philip1209
Weird, the HTTPS Anywhere chrome extensions seems to be redirecting me to
status-page-blog.herokuapp.com
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How do we build encryption backdoors? - michael_fine
http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2015/04/how-do-we-build-encryption-backdors.html
======
cyphar
> A final, and salient feature on the key distribution approach is that it
> allows only prospective eavesdropping -- that is, law enforcement must first
> target a particular user, and only then can they eavesdrop on her
> connections. There's no way to look backwards in time.
Actually, its even weaker of an attack than that. Signal (for example) stores
a copy of the keys locally on the other person's device after a conversation
has been initiated (and notifies users if they've changed). You could augment
this with TUF or some other updating system to make additions of new devices
(or removal of old ones) also secure. So really the distribution attack only
works for _first connection_. And this is why PGP key signing parties are a
thing (and why I ask for two forms of government ID before signing their
keys).
~~~
titanomachy
The author said exactly this, in the paragraph right before the one you
quoted:
> Some communication systems, like Signal, allow users to compare key
> fingerprints in order to verify that each received the right public key.
~~~
cyphar
That's not what I said. Signal stores the key that you've already verified. So
changing the key in the keyserver doesn't do anything to a device, since you
haven't verified the new key from the keyserver (and it shows a warning).
~~~
sievebrain
You think. Remember that you don't know what binary you were delivered, unless
you personally reverse engineered it yourself.
~~~
cyphar
Or compiled and side-loaded it yourself.
------
Animats
He's missed the real approach - "work reduction". This is giving the
cryptosystem or the random number generator some hidden property which reduces
the amount of work required to break the key. We've seen this repeatedly in
cryptosystems deployed with bad random number generators.[1][2]
[1]
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/02/lousy_random_...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/02/lousy_random_nu.html)
[2] [https://umaine.edu/scis/files/2014/10/The-Sad-History-of-
Ran...](https://umaine.edu/scis/files/2014/10/The-Sad-History-of-Random-
Bits.pdf)
~~~
tptacek
I doubt he missed it, since he's one of the academic researchers working on
the purported BULLRUN disclosures; his name is, for instance, on the Juniper
Dual EC paper.
Rather, I think you've misconstrued the post. I think? this is the blog
version of a talk he did last year at Black Hat, in which he and Jim Denaro
investigated ways that a government could plausibly create an _above-board_
cryptographic back door.
Further: simply crippling a system's RNG doesn't create a workable backdoor,
because that's not a "NOBUS" flaw: anyone who knows the RNG is busted can
break the resulting cryptosystem. Dual EC isn't like that; instead, it
cleverly enlists the RNG as a key escrow scheme: Dual EC's outputs can only be
decrypted back to RNG state if you hold the ECC private key corresponding to
the generator.
Key escrow is discussed in this post.
------
reppard
I believe the master key sharding he mentions based on this
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_Secret_Sharing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_Secret_Sharing)
and has actually been implemented(though I'm not sure if it is at the scale he
implies) here
[https://www.vaultproject.io/docs/concepts/seal.html](https://www.vaultproject.io/docs/concepts/seal.html)
~~~
titanomachy
Shamir's secret-sharing is one of my favourite algorithms, and it would be
certainly be useful in an escrow system. But it actually doesn't address the
problem brought up by the author, which is the insecurity of having the whole
key present in a single location at the moment of encryption. I think it's a
fairly minor issue, since the vast majority of users would never have warrants
issued for their data and their keys would never be reconstructed (assuming
that a critical number of the escrow agencies follows the law).
Far more troubling is the idea that I could be arrested or fined or whatever
just for using strong encryption... although I don't think there is an
appetite for such unenforceable laws in my country.
EDIT: (from article)
> Threshold crypto refers to a set of techniques for storing secret keys
> across multiple locations so that decryption can be done in place without
> recombining the key shares.
Does Shamir's algorithm meet this requirement? My understanding was that the
fragments must still be brought together in one place and the key
reconstructed, although if there is a way to implement the algorithm without
doing this I'd love to know about it.
~~~
Canada
> the vast majority of users would never have warrants issued for their data
> and their keys would never be reconstructed (assuming that a critical number
> of the escrow agencies follows the law).
That would require a unique backdoor key for every device. Somehow these keys
would need to be generated, split into parts, and those parts securely
distributed to the independent escrow agencies.
There's no safe way to do that.
------
mike_hearn
That's good timing, given the discussion yesterday on a similar topic:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12254960
There are a couple of things in the article I'm not sure Matt got quite right.
WhatsApp does let you compare key fingerprints, believe it or not. At least
you can scan QR codes to check. I don't know if doing that triggers a key
change warning in future.
End-to-end encryption doesn't seem to impact whether law enforcement can look
backwards in time or not. Simply not logging message content is sufficient to
prevent this. WhatsApp couldn't provide law enforcement with message content
prior to a tap being requested even before they integrated the Signal protocol
because they didn't log message content at all (or so they say). Introducing
E2E crypto in the style of WhatsApp solves only one specific threat model as
far as I can tell - if someone is capable of hacking your datacenter to the
extent that they can siphon off and log messages by themselves without you
noticing, but they aren't also capable of doing a key switcheroo. This would
be a strange but possible kind of hack. Note that this assumes the users
aren't storing their device keys and comparing them by hand and that the
hacker can't influence the code that gets shipped.
He assumes the user can detect key mismatches. Even if users can compare keys,
this assumes that their client does what they think it does. It's noted in
another comment here but all it takes to undo this assumption is getting
Google or Apple to push a dummy binary to the specific devices of interest
that claims things are encrypted even when they aren't.
You wouldn't need to deploy threshold crypto 'at scale' for the proposed
scheme to work. Some schemes like Shoup threshold RSA result in a normal
public key:
http://www.shoup.net/papers/thsig.pdf
So the only part that's non standard is the software for working with the
shares to decrypt, which only has to work and exist between the various
agencies.
But I'm not actually even sure you need special threshold crypto schemes. I
guess you could also take the session key(s) and encrypt them with key 1, then
encrypting that value with key 2, etc, to build up an onion of encryptions.
The various participants then have to pass around the value in the same order
hard-coded into the software to get it back. The advantage of this approach is
you can use ordinary HSMs to protect the keys, i.e. the hardware itself
enforces that the private key may never leave the hardware unless it's being
cloned to another HSM.
But these are all minor details. The point Matt makes is well made, which is
that you can build backdoors into cryptographic systems, and the reasons
people don't want to do this are primarily political rather than technical. I
continue to be concerned that the tech community may be about to burn its
credibility with the mainstream population for no reason by claiming this
stuff is impossible to do or is completely unthinkable, when it's actually
not. Opinion polling showed that there was no general consensus behind Apple's
refusal to unlock the phone in the FBI case: many people don't support the
tech industries absolutist position here (perhaps because they don't
understand the potential mass surveillance has).
Moreover, governments will generally not accept an answer of "you are
imperfect thus should not have the law enforcement capability you want".
Lawmakers understand and accept that civil servants will make mistakes or be
openly abusive and only generally want to control the levels of error/abuse,
not eliminate it. Certainly the sorts of positions the Obama administration is
looking for would accommodate key revocation procedures if the government
agencies in question somehow did screw up and their private key leaked out of
their HSMs. I suspect they'd happily agree to temporarily losing their
capability to restore system integrity if there was a procedure for restoring
their access once a neutral third party had re-audited the relevant offices.
This sort of detail isn't where lawmakers are at: they think in broad strokes
rather than the details of procedures.
~~~
cyphar
> End-to-end encryption doesn't seem to impact whether law enforcement can
> look backwards in time or not.
I think he was referring to the fact that the Signal protocol has perfect
forward secrecy -- if you break the key today, all previous communications are
still secure because they used different keys (the key is updated using the
Axolotl ratchet).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fallback from CDN to local jQuery - shawndumas
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/CDNsFailButYourScriptsDontHaveToFallbackFromCDNToLocalJQuery.aspx
======
romaniv
I still find the idea of CDNS repugnant. No matter how you slice it, you rely
on an external resource for important parts of your application. "What it it
goes down?" is one question. But you also should be asking yourself about what
will happen if it gets hacked. There are also user privacy issues, which get
completely overlooked in the chase for shaving off several milliseconds off
request time.
A much better architecture would be to serve JavaScript from your server by
default, but allow for distributed content-based caching. For example, your
script tag could look like this
<script src="some.js" hash="ha3ee938h8eh38a9h49ha094h" />
The hash would be calculated based on the content of the file. The browser
then could fetch it from whatever source it wants. Users could cache stuff
locally (across websites), without needing to dial into a CDN every time. You
could even use a torrent-like network for distributed delivery of popular
script libraries.
~~~
olegp
It's not just a few milliseconds though. For example at <https://starthq.com>,
we are based in Finland, but host on Amazon in US East. A round trip to the US
is 200ms+ whereas with CloudFront it's 8ms. Before we used a CDN our page took
a few seconds to load - now it takes around 200ms.
I should also mention that all this happens only on first load. We embed etags
in the URLs and use far off cache control expires dates, so subsequent page
loads get the JS and CSS from the browser's cache.
~~~
bsimpson
I think there's confusion here about the use of the term CDN. There are
_public_ CDNs, like Google AJAX APIs, that allow a shared copy of an open-
source library to be downloaded from a known-good location. This enables users
to reuse the same copy their browser has already cached across multiple pages,
but like romaniv and the OP have pointed out, you are then trusting Google to
be good stewards of that resource.
Conversely, you control what shows up on your own _private_ CDN, like
CloudFront. Sure, there may be downside outside of your control, but nobody is
going to be able to alter the resources there without your permission.
~~~
jmillikin
> Conversely, you control what shows up on your own
> private CDN, like CloudFront. Sure, there may be
> downside outside of your control, but nobody is going
> to be able to alter the resources there without your
> permission.
Well, CloudFront could, since they control the machines that your users are
connecting to.
~~~
pyre
One could say the same of any host.
~~~
jmillikin
That's the point; it's silly to say that <https://some-
cdn.com/jquery-1.9.1.min.js> is inherently less secure than <https://my-
cloudfront-proxied-site.com/jquery-1.9.1.min.js>
~~~
pyre
Well, it also depends on your level of trust for Google vs. CloudFront.
------
wyuenho
This only works if the CDN actually returns 4xx or 5xx codes. This still won't
work if the CDN is getting DDOS'ed, as in taking forever to return anything.
~~~
gavinpc
Along the same lines, Chrome (maybe just webkit generally) does not fire
DOMContentLoaded until external script requests have resolved _or timed out_ ,
even if they are _async_.
Also, I don't understand why people feel so strongly about reposting this
"document.write" method everywhere, which I found in some cases made my page
disappear at load time. You can do the same thing using regular DOM methods,
and you get more control over the process.
~~~
youngtaff
I believe the blocking of DCL is expected behaviour for scripts with async
attribute [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-
work/multipage/...](http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-
work/multipage/scripting-1.html#attr-script-async)
If you insert the script using a script it's execution is delayed until after
DCL
------
isalmon
I personally decided to use a local file after all.
Pros:
\+ I can cache it for a very long time, so all my returning visitors don't
have re-download it. I was very surprised to see that CDN's jquery had a very
short 'Expire' headers
\+ If my server is up and users can open a web page - there's a very high
chance that the .js file will load as well.
\+ I can combine different jquery libraries/plugins into one file, so my page
can load MUCH faster
Cons:
\- It might load a little more slowly, because it's not on CDN.
Am I missing something?
~~~
Encosia
The Google CDN serves jQuery with a 365 day max-age as long as you reference a
specific version (which you should be doing anyway). It only uses the shorter
cache expiration, necessarily, if you want a "latest version" reference. More
info here: [http://encosia.com/the-crucial-0-in-google-cdn-references-
to...](http://encosia.com/the-crucial-0-in-google-cdn-references-to-
jquery-1-x-0/)
------
MatthewPhillips
It saddens me that ES6 modules don't have fallbacks built in. You do:
import 'http://developer.yahoo.com/modules/yui3.js' as YUI;
wish it was:
import ['http://developer.yahoo.com/modules/yui3.js', '/libs/yui3'] as YUI;
~~~
SoftwareMaven
I think the notion of "fallbacks" (and the sibling comment's "timeouts") are
extremely specific to the web. However, there is some prior art on this
subject in the python world:
try:
import simplejson as json
except ImportError:
import json
So it might be worth contacting the committee and expressing that.
------
sleepyhead
Fallback to a CDN has been blogged about for a while, don't understand why it
is being upvoted now. However, do note the issues presented by Steve Souders
though: [http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2013/03/18/http-archive-
jqu...](http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2013/03/18/http-archive-jquery/)
One thing is that only about 1% have the specified version you use on your
site.
------
mrharrison
If you guys take a look at html5 boilerplate <http://html5boilerplate.com/> .
It has redundancy built in, so if the cdn fails, it will load your local copy.
~~~
mrharrison
Also, you shouldn't be serving your content from a cdn anyway. All of your js
files should be compressed into one file, browser cached, and gzipped.
~~~
dangrossman
Making the file smaller doesn't reduce latency. The point of a CDN is local
distribution, not just load balancing. You also get to share a cache with
other sites; if you point to jQuery on Google's CDN, and the visitor has been
to any other site using that CDN, they already have the file cached.
~~~
nilliams
>> Making the file smaller doesn't reduce latency
No, but I think the parent was making the case for combining everything into a
single file (jQuery + app) which has benefits in reducing number of HTTP
requests, especially important on mobile for example.
>> The point of a CDN is local distribution, not just load balancing.
Personally, I build web-apps for UK customers, and host in the UK, so this is
a non-issue. I suspect the same is true for a lot of people building complex
web-apps (i.e. apps complex enough that you should care about your build
process).
>> You also get to share a cache with other sites; if you point to jQuery on
Google's CDN, and the visitor has been to any other site using that CDN, they
already have the file cached.
Not really true, they have to have hit another site that has uses that _exact
version of jQuery_ in order to have it cached. There was a study done recently
that illustrated this was very unlikely. I wish I could link to it, but all I
can tell you is Alex Sexton referenced it on the Shoptalk podcast [1].
Edit: Another commenter has now referenced the survey in question [2].
[1] <http://shoptalkshow.com/episodes/061-with-alex-sexton/>
[2] [http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2013/03/18/http-archive-
jqu...](http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2013/03/18/http-archive-jquery/)
------
3825
Will we see (a few very) popular frameworks like jQuery built into web
browsers with the server just declaring what version to use? (I have a feeling
that, although I have good intentions, this is a bad idea.) Thoughts?
~~~
emehrkay
I hope not. Especially at the pace that these things change (just about every
jQuery release is followed up by a point update a day later)
~~~
3825
I'd like to believe Chrome* users are usually up to date on version numbers.
We could update the library cache on a different schedule from browser
updates. Finally, we could fall back to a CDN (with further fall back to your
own server?) if the server requests jQuery 2.0.1 and the browser says sorry,
best I can do is 2.0.0.
My fear was more on the server-side. Can we accomplish this without further
butchering the head from the standard? I can't see all browsers adopting this
or it becoming a standard without a major sponsor. And like someone else
mentioned, we can get about the same benefits from aggressive caching. I agree
for the most part.
Don't get me wrong. I love Google. I love what they do to make the web faster
with their hosted libraries[1]. Correct me if I am wrong but caching the
libraries from Google only helps if the the server specifies they want that
particular file from Google (I'd imagine it would be a gaping security hole
any other way). My thought is whether it is possible to just declare something
like 1.9.1.min.jQuery.com and have the browser just recognize it and say "Oh
yes I have that. No need for a server round trip. You're welcome." or "No, I
don't understand what you're talking about. Give me an address so I can fetch
it."
Is it even worth it? jQuery 1.9.1 minified is ~90 kB, so we're probably just
trying to shave off tens of milliseconds at the most. I bet we all have fruits
hanging lower than this to worry about it. Another thing is that it will
probably have to be a vendor-specific meta tag (as I don't see everyone
getting aboard this, if anyone) in the header which I don't know is a good
thing.
[1] <https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries/>
*I believe Mozilla Firefox has also started silent updates. It'd be nice to see how quickly users update when a new build gets pushed out.
~~~
maggit
You could do something like:
<script
src="my-copy-of-jquery.1.9.2.js.min"
cannonical-uri="https://jquery.com/jquery.1.9.2.js.min"
hash="SHA1-blablabla"
></script>
With this setup:
1\. Old browsers could work as before
2\. New browsers could download your resource and cache it with the
cannonical-uri and calculated (not declared!) hash as cache key (no dependency
on third party CDNs)
3\. New browsers could serve this resource from cache if it had downloaded it
before with matching cannonical-uri AND hash, disregarding src and host
The hash would make sure that the jquery the user downloaded from whereever
would indeed be the same jquery you are serving up.
\----
Going back to your original idea, browsers could absolutely come with
prepopulated caches for such resources, but they might as well fill these
caches on demand.
The important thing in both cases would be to allow shared caching between
sites without forcing everybody to agree on which CDN is the most pleasing.
Notice that the cannonical-uri is only a name, it is not supposed to be
dereferenced.
~~~
3825
That looks beautiful. So the hash basically says "I trust this source"?
>>The important thing in both cases would be to allow shared caching between
sites without forcing everybody to agree on which CDN is the most pleasing.
Notice that the cannonical-uri is only a name, it is not supposed to be
dereferenced.
Yes, you put it much better than I could have. Thank you!
~~~
gertef
No, the hash is how you verify that the source (or the transmission) hasn't
corrupted the content.
~~~
3825
It is a fingerprint of the file then, right?
------
jrochkind1
The document.write method makes it impossible to do async script loading, that
you ordinarily could do here to improve perceived page load time. No?
I mean, for instance, you couldn't load that FIRST CDN jquery as async,
because you need the browser to block on it so your NEXT script tag (which
also can't be loaded async, naturally, cause it has a document.write in it)
can check to see if it was loaded.
~~~
xkcdfanboy
Yes, that first method is hideous. Async is a necessary speedup and the `if
(jQuery) ` slaughters that optimization.
------
esalman
This is built into Bootstrap.
~~~
mac1175
I have seen this in the HTML5 Boilerplate code in line 27-28
[https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/blob/master/index....](https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/blob/master/index.html)
~~~
wubbfindel
FYI, You can link directly to lines in github:
[https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/blob/master/index....](https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/blob/master/index.html#L27)
~~~
waffle_ss
Also, I would avoid linking to 'master' as it's a moving target (in the future
such a link could point to completely different code or even a file that
doesn't exist). I try to link to the actual commit that master is pointing to
at the time:
[https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/blob/7a22a33d4041c...](https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/blob/7a22a33d4041c479d0962499e853501073811887/index.html#L27)
~~~
oneeyedpigeon
You can also link to line ranges, which is relevant in this case:
[https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/blob/7a22a33d4041c...](https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/blob/7a22a33d4041c479d0962499e853501073811887/index.html#L27,L28)
~~~
mac1175
Thanks! This is much helpful.
------
kmfrk
The main reason you should do this is not so much as a CDN fall-back, but to
prevent users from downloading redundant files retrieved from other sites.
Also remember to always use the https URL for the assets, whenever able.
~~~
imjared
Is there a reason to use https over a protocol-relative url? My go-to is
<script
src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
~~~
pyre
Some older versions of IE don't like protocol-relative, IIRC. Depends on your
target platform, and customer-base.
~~~
Encosia
I've tested the protocol-relative URL in every version of IE that was
available on Browsershots about a year ago (which went back even further than
IE6, IIRC). None of them had trouble with it.
~~~
pyre
I remember suggesting it to someone else at my previous employer and there
were issues. It may have been Outlook[1] though. I can't recall off-hand.
[1] [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4303633/preventing-
secure...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4303633/preventing-secure-
insecure-errors-by-using-protocol-relative-urls-for-image-sour)
------
jjoergensen
Simple stuff should be simple
------
gwgarry
I have always thought that all the stuff in common CDNs should be available in
local storage by default. Common stuff like jQuery and the like. Firefox
should have this as a feature where it downloads those scripts once and stores
them in local storage. That way you're not leaking privacy everywhere you go
to Google et. al.
~~~
addandsubtract
That would be ideal, but currently local storage doesn't work across domains.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Surprising Usefulness of Sloppy Arithmetic - solipsist
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/fuzzy-logic-0103.html
======
jerf
Despite what the article says, if you're using floating point numbers you're
_already_ using sloppy arithmetic. That's not just a sarcastic point, it's
actually important; given that you're already not being precise it isn't
necessarily surprising that you can trade away even more precision for speed,
rather than it being some sort of binary yea/nay proposition that cracks
numeric algorithms wide open.
"Off by 1% or so" leads me to guess it is implemented by using 8-bit numbers,
and not necessarily with any particular sloppiness added by the chips, just
the fact that the precision is small. Visual and audio processing could be set
up in such a way that you wouldn't overflow those numbers because you know
precisely what's coming in. You'd have to be careful about overflow and
underflow but, per my first paragraph, you _already_ have to be careful about
that. It also makes sense in such apps that silicon would be more profitably
used computing more significant bits more often rather than dithering about
getting the bits in the 2^-50 absolutely precisely correct, a good insight. I
don't know if that's what they're doing because it's hard to reverse engineer
back through a science journalist but "8 bit math processors in quantity" ->
"science journalist" -> "this article" is at least plausible.
~~~
modeless
Science journalism is so frustrating! Here's the version for smart people:
<http://web.media.mit.edu/~bates/Summary_files/BatesTalk.pdf>
In summary: Low-precision high-dynamic range arithmetic (floating point with
small mantissa, ~1% error) uses ~100x less power and die area than IEEE
floating point. The errors are acceptable for a huge class of applications
(basically anything you'd consider running on a GPU today).
~~~
alf
I don't quite understand how he gets a 10,000x speedup from a 100x transistor
count decrease. Does die area increase with the square of transistor count?
~~~
pjscott
What he's doing is representing numbers with their logarithms, with limited
precision. A floating-point multiplier/divider, then, turns into a fairly
small adder, which is much smaller and faster. Square roots and squaring turn
into bit shifting. They have some clever method for doing addition/subtraction
efficiently. And since they can fit all this in a small area with short
critical paths, they can clock it very, very fast, and include a lot of them
on a chip.
~~~
modeless
It would be rather interesting programming a machine where division was faster
than addition!
------
vilya
The chip architecture described in the article reminds me of the DEC MasPar
system [1] we had at uni back in the mid-90s. 2048 processors (IIRC), where
each processor could only communicate directly with it's 8 neighbours. If you
wanted to get decent performance out of it, you had to think carefully about
you were going to get your data onto each of the processors.
[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MasPar>
~~~
rlpb
Interesting. This reminds me of cellular automata. Are we headed towards some
kind of hybrid?
------
pjscott
This would be beautiful for protein folding. That particular application is
extremely parallel, numerically heavy, and should tolerate the loss of
precision very well. It also eats up processing power like a black hole, so a
few orders of magnitude speed improvement would definitely be nice.
~~~
cowsandmilk
Based on my experience, different stages of folding should require differing
precision.
For ClusPro (protein docking, <http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/prot.22835>), we the
first stage are rough energy functions for global sampling of the protein
surface. For these functions, we use floats because it is a rigid body
sampling and is very tolerant to clashes. However, when it comes to the
minimization/refinement stage, we have seen weird things happen with floats
and instead use doubles.
Similarly, the functions used in early stages of protein folding can probably
deal with loss of precision, but the stages for producing high quality
structures would not.
------
sanxiyn
The idea has been there for a long time: take a look at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logarithmic_number_system>
------
jorgem
I just need a sloppy python math library, now.
~~~
tkaemming
That's easy — just delete `decimal.py` from your standard library.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Superb.net Dedicated Servers Discounts up to 70% - duck
http://www.superb.net/dedicated-servers/server-specials-and-promotions/anniversary.php
======
duck
I don't want to spam HN, but thought this was a good deal for anyone needing
dedicated hosted servers for their startups. I don't know anyone there, but
have heard some good reviews about their services.
If you don't think this belongs on HN, click the flag button. :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How we got hosted, the Rails way - robertgaal
http://blog.wakoopa.com/archives/how-we-got-hosted-the-rails-way
======
naish
As an alternative, I would suggest Slicehost:
http://slicehost.com
I stumbled upon them last week after looking for an inexpensive dedicated
server or VPS with root access. They offer slices of 4-processor RAID-1 Linux
boxes (with your choice of distribution) for reasonable rates. You can add
slices as you grow, up to the point of requiring a dedicated box. This is not
a managed service--you have full control over your set up.
They are developer centric, appear to have a great community going and have
received entirely favorable reviews online (at least as far as I could find).
They are very Rails friendly (their interface is developed in Rails), but also
support Python, Java, PHP, LISP, etc. With root access, you can install
whatever development/server environment you desire.
I'm just getting set up, but so far, I have been very happy with their
service.
~~~
ph
Amazon (and others) will sell you time on a massive grid. Amazon's is called
Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), and it seems like it might be a good alternative
to a VPS -- the elasticity of each instance would be a boon to a quickly
growing web service.
I am currently developing my startup's software on a dedicated server running
FreeBSD, and I am paying some attention to making it so it will scale
(probably in a load balanced cluster).
To this end, I have set up FreeBSD jails (low overhead chrooted full installs)
so that I can test splitting up the application in various ways.
I would imagine that a transparent grid system would reduce the need to worry
about scalability issues for many uses.
~~~
naish
EC2 is intriguing; however. it is only available to a limited number of beta
testers. The waiting list appears to be lengthy... I'm not counting on gaining
access any time soon.
------
mattculbreth
I'd strongly encourage people on this list (who I'm going to assume are
technical) to get their own VPS, not a shared account somewhere.
I've been very happy with Future Hosting at http://www.futurehosting.biz/.
I've got a VPS with Ubuntu on it and we completely control the box. We're
paying $25/month for that server.
~~~
run4yourlives
Why is that, exactly? Assuming configuring servers is not the core competency,
what would be better about a VPS over a shared services?
What you trade off in control you make up for in free time. Granted, as you
get larger and develop traffic, the trade off will need to be re-evaluated,
but I don't see any major benefits at the beginning.
~~~
brett
The earlier you set up your own servers and take care of them the better
you'll be at it. If your seriously strapped for time maybe you can put it off,
but it's a skill you want to have.
------
drop19
I have to say this matches my experience with any shared host for a serious
web app. TextDrive is super helpful with customer service but not being able
to get root on your server cuts off a lot of solutions.
So my advice to anyone hosting a Rails app or any other web app would be to go
with a dedicated host (where you at least have a virtual server or something)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
It's the Latency, Stupid - bluesmoon
http://www.stuartcheshire.org/rants/Latency.html
======
noonespecial
Old article but a good explanation of bandwidth vs latency. Long have I
labored in the paneled offices of PHB's to explain that windows networking
between New York and Denver is just not going to work even tough that 10Mbit
leased line is 'just as fast' as ethernet.
~~~
bluesmoon
I'd like to see what the numbers are with today's hardware. I wonder how much
has changed in the last 13 years. Will report my findings here.
~~~
bluesmoon
hmm, looks like it still takes about 86ms to get from west coast to east coast
and back. Does this mean that the network is as fast as it's gonna get? For a
while at least.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CEO of Cambridge Analytica explains hyper-targeting political campaigns (2016) - misterbowfinger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Dd5aVXLCc
======
misterbowfinger
FYI, Cambridge Analytica was used extensively for both the Cruz and Trump
campaigns
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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