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1972 Patent Case for BCD - MattyRad
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-628-patents-copyrights-and-the-law-of-intellectual-property-spring-2003/readings/gottschalkvbenson.pdf
This is a patent case I read for a school assignment. If you have the mental energy to finish it, you can see a forthright and reasonable verdict against the patent, a stark contrast to the nonsense that gets put through today.
======
MattyRad
I read this case for a school assignment. If you have the mental energy to
finish it, you can see a forthright and reasonable case against the patent, a
stark contrast to the nonsense that gets approved today.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Universities should flag up which websites to trust - haidut
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126912.100-commentary-dont-believe-everything-you-read-online.html
======
johnnybgoode
The mistake here is in believing universities are always correct. They don't
even come close.
Remember Citizendium, Larry Sanger's credentialist Wikipedia competitor? I'd
pick Wikipedia any day.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Airbrb.com #coworking - ghosh
http://www.airbrb.com/
======
theswan
Looks like they've been sitting on this joke for a while.
Updated Date: 2014-03-28T14:26:39-0700
Creation Date: 2012-02-20T19:27:58-0800
[http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?domain=air...](http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?domain=airbrb.com)
~~~
AbhishekBiswal
Or they just bought it back then so that no one else could buy it. It's easy
to mistype r as n.
------
whbk
Almost all April Fools Day gags are terrible..this one is actually pretty
funny. The video itself was good and clicking on an individual desk was the
icing on top..well done Airbnb.
------
danielhunt
Oh god I hate today. There's almost no point in being online today at all.
~~~
AbhishekBiswal
Exactly! First the Gmail "Shelfies" and now this :S I guess there's more to
come.
------
jsumrall
Very good... Very good... You got me.
------
albumedia
April fools :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Website that gives users insight to ads targeted to them? - sanoy
Does anybody know of any website that gives users insight to what kind of ads are being targeted to them?
======
bowmessage
There's
[https://www.google.com/ads/preferences/](https://www.google.com/ads/preferences/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Beyond Idiot-Savant AI [pdf] - bra-ket
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0aba/d53ed554ba2854173e3dc3722b8fef7ece4d.pdf
======
sharemywin
A system referenced in the article
[http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/scone/](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/scone/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Comeback of Fun in Visual Design - flowerlad
https://applypixels.com/blog/comeback
======
alxlaz
I don't really care about "fun", but I just can't find the words to explain
how happy I am that there's a chance we might put all this flat madness behind
us. I'm looking forward to:
* Not having this conversation with my mom (who, at 60+, is remarkably adept with computers but hey, we all run into trouble sometimes) over the phone anymore:
Me: Okay mom, now press the "Edit" button
Mom: Which one's the edit button?
Me: Uh, the... um, it's the one that kindda looks like... a bunch of lines in
a rectangle, I guess?
Mom: Alex they all look like lines in a rectangle
* Not hovering everything for five minutes until I can figure out what I can click and what I can't click (for bonus points: not trying to click something for five minutes like an idiot, only to find out it's a label, not a disabled button)
* Buttons, tree views, tabs and all that having relief borders again, not necessarily because I like _that_ , but because without it, the only way to "isolate" the information in them is using whitespace, and seven years of flat design hell later I can fit only slightly more content on my 1920x1080 screen than I could fit my Amiga's 1024x768 screen 20+ years ago.
* Being able to tell file types apart from each other when I'm browsing at minimum zoom level -- which is how you end up browsing _any_ collection of more than a few dozen items or so
* Being able to tell application icons apart based on what's in the icons, not based on colours. People keep parroting this idea that "symbolic icons are easily to tell apart from each other because they're so simple" but when _all_ icons are a letter or some anonymous symbol on a blob of colour, they _all_ look the same when you put a few dozen of them next to each other. Maybe they're easy to tell apart when you have like four 128x128px icons but when you have 40 of them in a tiny dock at the bottom of your screen, the only useful information they retain is what colour they are.
~~~
asadkn
The real problem isn't necessarily flat vs skeuomorphism - it's the
representations that are not really representative to everyone.
Try "Click that icon with the floppy disk to save." with a new user.
~~~
alxlaz
> it's the representations that are not really representative to everyone.
That's true of virtually every graphical representation in a computer
application. Save icon? How about _folders_? Where I'm from, folders (the
physical item) never took off. Even today, we use a sort of slimmed-down
binder for small collections of documents. For millions of people, myself
included, the folders in Windows 95 and Windows 98 were the first ones we ever
saw. That never prevented anyone from learning how to use them, or figuring
out what the "Open..." button does.
So yeah, "Click the folder button to open" never worked, for the same reason
-- no one had ever seen a folder. But the button was visually distinctive
enough that you could say "click the yellow button in the toolbar, it's way up
there on the left".
Very few icons are really globally unambiguous (and I still think designers in
the early/mid-'90s really had the right idea when they just put the frickin'
text next to, or below the damn icon). But making all icons look basically the
same makes an already difficult situation even worse.
~~~
the_other
Just my anecdote...
The folder metaphor helped me grasp what was going on. The first computers I
spent significant time with were BBCs. They had two filesystems: DFS and ADFS
(I think). The Advanced Disk Filing System had folders, but all the
documentation I found called them "files". Files could point to files and make
a tree of files. 11 year old me just gave up on this. Why would you want a
tree of files? Why should a file link to a file...? Nonsense.
Folders (in Gem and Windows) made MUCH more sense. Aaah... it's for organising
ideas. Bingo!
~~~
alxlaz
Yeah, things were very bad for 10 year-old me: in English, the slimmed-down
binder we use around here for, well, filing, is called a file. It made
absolutely zero sense that "a folder is a collection of files" and "a file is
a document". We didn't use folders, and a real-life file usually had _several_
documents.
It was pretty stupid but it made sense on its own after a while.
------
karaterobot
People sometimes forget that the move to flat design was not entirely
arbitrary and driven by fashion, it was driven by shifting technology and
usage.
Sure, fashion played a role, but in this case the main driver was the need to
support devices of different resolutions. Scalability implies vectors, which
implies shapes, fills, and strokes rather than bitmap assets.
As a designer who made "skeuomorphic" interfaces before the shift, supporting
even a couple of different device sizes with hundreds of different PNG slices
had already gotten unsustainable by 2010, and moving to a vector-based
workflow was a breath of fresh air.
The pendulum did swing a little too far: some of the early human interface
guidelines were wary of the concept of lighting (gradients and shadows). But,
realistically, that was unworkable, and those guidelines changed because
nobody followed them.
"Flat design" as a moment was actually pretty short. Later iterations on the
concepts explored during that moment, such as Material, were actually
thoughtful and workable, in my opinion.
~~~
dehrmann
> early human interface guidelines were wary of the concept of lighting
Someone needs to go out and patent using multiple ambient light sensors to
detect where light sources are relative to a screen, then shade skeuomorphic
elements accordingly.
~~~
SebastianKra
I remember seeing that implemented somewhere, but I cant find it.
Maybe someone can help...
~~~
spiralganglion
Some pre-7 versions of iOS would adjust the sheen on certain graphics (like
one of the Settings icons, if memory serves) based on the gyroscope, so as you
rotated the device the specular highlights would appear to move. Not exactly
the same, but similar spirit.
~~~
SebastianKra
Found it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIUMgiQ7rQs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIUMgiQ7rQs)
------
ChrisMarshallNY
Anyone remember Kai's Power Tools?
Now _that_ was an interesting UI.
[https://www.mprove.de/script/99/kai/2Software.html?utm_sourc...](https://www.mprove.de/script/99/kai/2Software.html?utm_source=designernews)
~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Does anyone know what happened to Kai Krause? Last I heard he was working on
Something Interesting, and then silence.
~~~
weinzierl
He lives in Germany in the 1000 year old castle he bought in 1999 from the
money he made from his ownership in the companies HSC, MetaTools and
MetaCreations. The castle was not in the best state back then and was restored
by Kai. Here is an aerial photo of the castle from 2009[1]. I lies on the
Middle Rhine, a very beautiful area.
[1]
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Burg_Rhe...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Burg_Rheineck_Luftbild_03.jpg)
~~~
ImprobableTruth
oh man, I didn't even know it was possible to just buy a castle. That's crazy
cool
~~~
conradfr
They cost a lot of time and money to maintain, that's why you can buy a lot of
them in Europe, in various state of damage.
~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
I live on Long Island, NY. It's the home of the "Gold Coast."
In northern Nassau County, there's all these 100+-year-old mansions, on a
gazillion acres.
Even though they are often owned by people that can afford the upkeep ("old
money"), they tend to get sold or donated to the county or state.
There's a few great museums:
[https://www.oldwestburygardens.org](https://www.oldwestburygardens.org)
[https://plantingfields.org](https://plantingfields.org)
[https://nassaumuseum.org](https://nassaumuseum.org)
and a few in Suffolk, as well:
[https://bayardcuttingarboretum.com](https://bayardcuttingarboretum.com)
[https://www.vanderbiltmuseum.org](https://www.vanderbiltmuseum.org)
They are a pretty big pain to keep up. There's also a couple that have been
abandoned, because the owners couldn't give them away.
------
rvz
Apple: We now have an all new redesign for macOS 11...
Designers: Apple's done it again, Time to adopt neomorphism in our apps and
the web, like we did with flat design and skeuomorphism.
Me: About this battery...[0]
[0] [https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/23/macos-big-sur-
battery-h...](https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/23/macos-big-sur-battery-
history-and-estimates/)
~~~
JoBrad
It looks like a baby bottle. Which might be an inside joke, since it’s sipping
power?
~~~
bigyikes
Looks more like a partially depleted uranium fuel cell to me... I hope that
isn’t the final design
------
caymanjim
I think Apple went overboard with minimalism, flatness, and lack of texture.
Walking some of that back is good. Recent Apple designs lack sufficient visual
cues to differentiate functions. Some things ought to pop in some way to draw
attention.
But "fun"? No thank you. All that cutesy crap they used to have was
distracting. There was no consistency at all. Yellow lined paper as the
notebook background? Winking emoji? UI elements that change size? A color
palette chosen by a toddler on LSD? This new "fun" is an unwelcome reversion.
Apple finally dropped their misguided cuteness in hardware design and ditched
all the rounded corners and pastel colors. Are they going to undo that too?
~~~
hn_throwaway_99
> I think Apple went overboard with minimalism, flatness, and lack of texture.
Never as much as Android in my opinion. Android went beyond flatness to
complete abstractness, all in the name of "minimalism". The
square/circle/triangle design decision was the most baffling example.
------
nathanaldensr
Of course this author's happy--they're a _designer_. Meanwhile, everyone else
has to absorb the burden of the "pendulum" ceaselessly swinging, retraining
their brains yet again to absorb new visual memories and habits.
There seems to be no such concept as "good enough."
~~~
IfOnlyYouKnew
Programming is currently hating on OOP, in love with strong typing, and
somewhere on the way from loving microservices to disowning ever to have
spoken in their favor. Ten years ago, it was the opposite.
So this particular quirk of thinking in groups doesn't seem to be confined to
the design domain. Nor do "swings of pendulum" preclude the pendulum also
having some forward momentum in sum.
Think of it as a skier's waving, or a sailboat crossing against the wind, and
the sideways motions is actually required for any forward motion to happen.
~~~
hn_throwaway_99
I totally agree. I call it "throw the baby out with the bathwater" syndrome.
Usually some technology has a particular problem, probably not huge, but as
that technology becomes dominant, its warts start to grate on more people.
So someone comes up with a new technology and says "Look! It fixes all the
problems of Technology A!" And people who are new enough to the field who
pretty much only have experience with Technology A think it's great, because
this new thing fixes A's problems.
Meanwhile, though, Technology B has its _own_ host of problems, and oftentimes
those kinds of problems are the ones Technology A was originally created to
fix! And so the pendulum swings until you get enough years behind you on
Technology B where it's problems become apparent enough, so someone comes up
with Technology C, which is basically Technology A with more modern trappings.
Whenever you make a technology switch, be very cognizant about what you're
losing as well as what you're gaining.
~~~
sidpatil
What you're describing is known as the hype cycle.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle)
------
m12k
The problem with the shift to flat design wasn't that it stopped being "fun",
the problem was that there was a whole bunch of things being communicated to
users by the previous, non-flat designs that got lost in the transition, and
that flat design doesn't have a good alternative for:
\- Not using shadows and lines to separate panels, and using solid color
blocking or whitespace instead is much more confining, design-wise, and
greatly limits possible information density. Sure, all that whitespace looks
great in presentations, but it's like the difference between a designer
kitchen from a magazine and a place where I can actually cook.
\- Panels that are raised up or recessed using shading provide an obvious
hierarchy, giving users valuable cues as to the relation of the elements. With
shading and depth, it's obvious that items in this toolbar affect the items in
this panel below it, one is subservient to the other. With color blocking,
it's all just rectangles next to each other.
\- Buttons that are slightly raised up have an affordance for clicking, and
there's no way in hell you can confuse them for a label - it's much easier to
overlook that 'the label with blue text' is actually a button, while the label
with black text is just a label.
\- Ostensibly, a flat design contains fewer distractions. But ironically, in
reality, a human brain may have a much harder time understanding an interface
when everything is flat and looks alike, than when elements have depth and
distinctness to them. More information communicated does not always translate
into more cognitive load in processing it - often the opposite is true.
Sure, I understand the urge to rebel against skeomorphism (that faux-leather
in the iOS Find my Friends app was an abomination) but they threw the baby out
with the bathwater. I'm glad to see a lot of these changes being slowly walked
back with successive versions of iOS - in the linked article the comparison
between the "tabs" (segmented control) in iOS 12 and 13 really showcases how a
shaded design can look both less distracting and convey more information than
a dogmatically flat design.
------
aimor
"Pendulum swings" are going to shake off everyone else at different rates and
we're going to be stuck with an eclectic mix of designs. This already plagues
Windows (Ribbon, legacy settings) and Android (square, squircle, circle,
triangle icons).
I don't think people are able to distinguish between what's new and old
anymore. Aesthetics will finally be free from corporate trend setting and
maybe we'll feel comfortable doing our own thing.
~~~
dagmx
The difference though is that on Windows you have to specifically choose
visual styles to some degree.
On Apple systems, as long as you’re using the native frameworks, the framework
itself handles a lot more of the visual update.
Both methods have their pros and cons, but you’re less likely to see an
aesthetic divergence on iOS/macOS
------
Pxtl
I don't want visual design to be fun. I want it to be clean and consistent. I
would gladly take something in 16 color EGA with Comic Sans as its main font
if it would just stick to a rigid and clear design language.
I don't think if buttons are flat or lickable or shiny or bezeled or oozing
pus-filled nodules. As long as every button has the same styling as every
other button and nothing that isn't clickable has that styling? I'm happy.
Pick something and stick to it.
And people who want "fun" designs can go work on their blog.
------
caiobegotti
In case HN is bringing it down (as it seems to be the case now):
[https://web.archive.org/web/20200705130437/https://applypixe...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200705130437/https://applypixels.com/blog/comeback)
~~~
jrockway
What's weird is that it fails at SSL protocol negotiation; Chrome says it
can't agree on a SSL version or cipher.
This is weird because the cert is issued by CloudFlare, who probably shouldn't
fail TLS negotiation just because the backend is unresponsive. Very strange.
~~~
majewsky
On Firefox, I get SEC_ERROR_OCSP_UNAUTHORIZED_REQUEST, so there may be a
problem with CloudFlare's OCSP server (?!?). But this is because I manually
set security.ocsp.require = true in about:config. When I reset that to false,
the page opens fine.
------
mekster
Thank god the designs are being reconsidered from cheap flat looks but they
now kind of look like toys with rounded corners for everything and are all
square instead of having their own sizes.
I'd still take iOS 6 design any day for iOS.
Snow Leopard and iOS6 were their OS' peak.
~~~
throw_m239339
> Thank god the designs are being reconsidered from cheap flat looks but they
> now kind of look like toys with rounded corners for everything and are all
> square instead of having their own sizes.
All that hype around "flat" was just that, hype. Design needs texture and
depth, these are just core concepts of design. Doing away with texture or
depth because somebody in the silicon valley decided it was outdated means
that all these designers that jumped into the "flat bandwagon" didn't even
understand what their job was about: not following trends but ACTUALLY
designing for a public.
------
EGreg
Finally Apple has come to its senses! This flatness was like the touchbar.
People forget but the reason this minimalist design travesty happened was
political: Steve Jobs was no longer around, he had fired Scott Forstall
because of the bungled Maps fiasco, and he promoted Jony Ive, the hardware
minimalist who wanted to Bauhaus all the things.
This is what I wrote in 2016, if Steve Jobs still ran Apple:
[https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=234](https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=234)
Look, we may not need skeumorphism, but we need shadows. We need to know what
is part of the chrome interface and what’s part of the documents. When I was a
kid I joined the Apple Human Interface developers usenet group (anyone
remember those?) They used to be religiously against hidden modes (interface
modes which could not be discovered and navigated to by straightforward visual
inspection). Apple computers used to be easy to use for precisely guidelines
like these, which they proudly published. Heck, they even proudly touted the
small size of their phones for ease of access, which I agreed with:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Af0gtsjfy7E](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Af0gtsjfy7E)
They became hypocrites and trend-followers when they abandoned all these
things. Microsoft started the flat trend (and Woz praised them for it).
Android phones became “phablets” (which Steve Jobs derided). Apple became a
follower and didn’t even bother remembering what they claimed was the best
way, just a year earlier.
But then again, of course, Apple always did this even under Steve - claiming
RISC processors were far better and next year claiming Intel was better after
they switched. Claiming they invented the Omnibox in Safari years after Chrome
did.
But at least I am happy to see some of Apple’s original DNA coming back.
~~~
majewsky
> This is what I wrote in 2016, if Steve Jobs still ran Apple:
> [https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=234](https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=234)
You may want to install a spam filter on that comment section, or just disable
it.
------
risyachka
Sometimes you don't need to overthink it - design changes are required every
few years to make a product look fresh and new. Not because previous design
was worse, or not usable, or new is better, or boring etc.
~~~
dehrmann
The car industry has known this for years.
~~~
sidpatil
Automobile design has been heavily driven (pardon the pun) by two external
factors: safety and emissions regulations. These serve a practical
purpose/benefit to consumers.
------
caiobegotti
This kind of design ban lift is very welcome, as it brings a freshness to
things again (speaking as an user specifically), but I sincerely hope this
doesn't become a short-time cycle thing with Apple dictating the new UI motif
of the next 5 years only to change it back and then back again and back. My
memory of the change from skeuomorphism to a more flat colorful design is that
it was rather abrupt across UIs everywhere in the industry, not to say a bit
"traumatic" to some people probably.
~~~
kkarakk
well it didn't shift coz of apple alone, they're just the largest visible
adopters. as someone said in this thread, skeumorphism started looking really
strange and is tough to do on high rez screens and varying form factor screens
------
mojo982
I feel like I'm one of the few people who still likes flat designs. I hope it
doesn't swing all the way back to full skeumorphism. YouTube looks way better
than it did five years ago. What I do miss is efficient use of space.
HackerNews still has a great design, it's really efficient with space. Old
school iOS used space efficiently too, because it had to. It only had a 3.5"
screen to work with. I miss that.
~~~
sjwright
What I miss since iOS 7 is buttons that look like buttons. _BUTTONS THAT LOOK
LIKE BUTTONS._ Is that too much to ask!?! Why are we stuck with _sometimes_
plain blue text, especially when the use of that blue in UI "elements" isn't
even consistent with regards to function or behaviour.
~~~
JoBrad
As a user, I like where flat design has taken us, generally. But I absolutely
agree with you: the loss of “functionality hinting” (I’m sure there’s an
actual term for this, but I don’t know what it is) is pretty bad. You can
stumble around a design that isn’t in your language, if the cues are strong
enough. But all-text directions throw that right out.
~~~
kd5bjo
> “functionality hinting” (I’m sure there’s an actual term for this, but I
> don’t know what it is)
“Affordance” is the term you’re looking for:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance#As_perceived_action...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance#As_perceived_action_possibilities)
~~~
aGHz
It seems the term is in fact "signifiers". From your link:
> Affordances determine what actions are possible. Signifiers communicate
> where the action should take place. We need both.
------
Animats
This is too much like 1950s auto design. Tailfins for your phone!
In 1955, the auto industry caught up with the pent-up demand from WWII.
Suddenly, making cars wasn't enough. Now they had to convince people to
replace their old car even though it still ran. That's when auto styling
became exuberant. All the automakers had tailfins. Big tailfins.
Peak tailfin was reached in the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado. Tailfins then shrank,
until by 1965, they were completely gone.
Tailfins are what you do when you have no clue how to improve the product. By
1955, car engines had enough power, automatic transmissions and power brakes
worked, suspensions were smooth, and air conditioning was available. Getting
from point A to point B comfortably was pretty much solved. Solutions to the
hard problems in fuel economy, safety, reliability, and handling were not yet
available for production cars. So chrome and tailfins dominated.
------
musicale
I like discoverability and generally appreciate Apple's unified visual design
for macOS 11 and iOS 14.
However, I will miss the distinct outline shapes and silhouettes which have
made macOS icons easy to distinguish from each other since the original Mac
(really earlier than that, going back to the Lisa and Xerox Alto.) Now
everything's going to be an iPhone home-screen RoundRect.
Consider these distinctive silhouettes of Super Smash Bros. fighters:
[https://www.sporcle.com/games/skuban/super-smash-bros-
charac...](https://www.sporcle.com/games/skuban/super-smash-bros-characters-
by-silhouette)
Or the silhouettes from Apple's iconic iPod ads:
[https://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/ipod-
silhouettes-2000-2...](https://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/ipod-
silhouettes-2000-2011/)
------
andybak
There's a lot of middle ground between excessively flat and excessively
skeuomorphic. I don't want cartoon pictures and faux-wood textures on
everything. I just want things to look clickable..
Material design _almost_ gets it right. A bit more visual distinction between
interactable and non-interactable elements and I'd be happy.
------
vffhfhf
What if we could give complete control of visuals to user?
I use kde nowadays and the amount of customization is awesome.
I am using chrome OS theme with tela icon pack and a cool ass animated mouse
pack. And its frankly awesome.
I feel like Apple is stagnating.
~~~
IfOnlyYouKnew
I kinda like the ability to customize the Linux desktop. But in practice, I
always end up with some major problems and many edge cases where my choices
just don't work.
A recent example was some web view showing a change log that respected the
font color settings but not the background, resulting in white-on-white text
with my dark UI.
I'm probably far more willing to spend time on such issues. But I never got to
a place where I felt I was "done". In that sense, Linux only demonstrates the
difficulty of UI choices, and how it may not be possible to leave it to users.
Hell, it's not even possible, apparently, to leave to application developers,
judging by the state of the non-customized Linux desktop. Design may be a
creative endeavour that requires a competent dictator, and cannot be done in
the bazaar-model of OSS.
(That, of course, is on top of the rather large number of flaws of any given
Linux UI. Seriously: after reading much praise and endless criticism of MacOS
here on HN, I gave (K)Ubuntu another shot. And the only possible conclusion is
that Apple and Linux are measured on widely different scales.)
~~~
shaan7
> And the only possible conclusion is that Apple and Linux are measured on
> widely different scales.)
+1
They are simply designed for different end users - and that is fine. I used
macOS for ~5 years before getting fed up with the limited window management -
but I understand why it is that way - most people don't care. So people who
do, can just use KDE et al, peace.
------
mensetmanusman
I wonder if Apple will ever let people install app icon libraries to change
the appearance of default apps. That would be fun (at least I remember having
fun as a kid doing that on Windows 95).
~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
Remember that app in the 1990s that allowed heavy-duty customization of the
OS? Was it called Kaleidoscope? Can't remember.
I know that it could do things like apply a "steampunk" theme, where all the
scrollbars turned into brass poles, with green leather handles for the thumb
button.
Some of the themes were vomit-inducing (most of them, actually), but it did
have a couple of great ones.
~~~
compressedgas
Kaleidoscope
[https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/kaleidoscope](https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/kaleidoscope)
~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
Yup. That's it.
------
antidaily
Yay for some depth to design. Nay for the overuse of drop shadows (especially
on Messages icon).
------
tuatoru
Nielsen Norman Group have been criticising flat design for a long time.
One of the major criticisms is that over time they cause even experienced
users to become hesitant and uncertain.[1]
That right there should have been enough to squash flat design.
[1] [https://www.nngroup.com/articles/flat-design-long-
exposure/](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/flat-design-long-exposure/)
------
sandGorgon
here's a very interesting take here - about art deco being the design for the
next few years [https://vanschneider.com/art-deco-will-be-the-visual-
languag...](https://vanschneider.com/art-deco-will-be-the-visual-language-
of-2021)
However, I also believe that the Bauhaus way of using flat designs with
interesting shapes and motion will be an interesting path forward
~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Whatever you think of Art Deco - and personally I loathe it, but that's
incidental - IMO it would be a tragic failure of imagination to try to
reincarnate a design style that's already a century old.
Likewise for Bauhaus design - also a century old.
There are hints of a new generative aesthetic - busy in an unhierarchical
repeated-elements kind of way, with organic influences - but that's better
suited to architecture and sculpture than commercial design.
There probably won't be a completely original design language until AR/VR
become ubiquitous - which will take a while.
~~~
sandGorgon
In a lot of ways, material design is Bauhaus.
------
coldtea
The post, describing the new iOS 14/macOS icons:
> _Some of them depict physical objects in a style that can only really be
> called skeuomorphic_
No, this style cannot really be called skeuomorphic. You cannot have
"skeuomorphic" icons. Neither etymologically or semantically.
Skeuomorphic etymological comes from Greek for "appliance like".
And semantically it's about GUIs (key distinction: GUIs, not icons or images)
emulating real world objects.
A movie player interface that looks like a real-world DVD player is a
skeuomorphic UI.
A movie player icon that looks like a TV set, or a Dick Utility icon with a
hard drive and a pair stethoscope are not "skeuomorphic".
They are merely life-like depictions.
Same way, if an icon for my "Horse" app (say, a note taking app) is a
realistically rendered horse, that's not "skeuomorphism". That's just an icon
with a plain old "realism" painting/rendering of a horse.
------
ksec
"Pendulum swings" , "Changes". Are these really the right word to use?
Apple has always had some from of Skeuomorphic in their design since its early
days. It was what Steve wanted it to be. Apple _felt_ that flatness were wrong
right after iOS 7 was released. An every year since then they have been
"walking back" those "changes".
Everything Ive changed all reverted back to Steve Jobs' era. Scott Forstall
wouldn't have left. Their Head of UI wouldn't have left. Apple Store changed
in design and layout, ( You could argued whether those are from Angela or Jony
) some of them are reverted back. Apple's Keyboard to literally no key travel,
reverted back to 1mm but still very shallow to the old 1.5mm. A large part of
Apple has spend a half a decade fixing their wrong directional changes.
I really miss Steve Jobs.
~~~
jsf01
What do you mean about the key travel on the keyboard? I’m not familiar with
the term in this context.
~~~
ksec
The depth of Key press. The previous keys on Macbook are 1.5mm in depth, the
distance it travel every time you press it, with roughly 60g of force. This
has been sort of the golden standard in keyboard on Notebook ( and in many
cases Desktop ) for more than a decade. Apple reduce that to 0.7mm in their
infamous butterfly keyboard in the name of thinner devices. For some that
might have been fine or even preferable. For many its typing experience is
much worst.
Due to its reliability problems ( which may not have anything to do with the
lower key depth ) Apple walked back on the design and uses a 1 mm Key travel
"Magic Keyboard". And from my experience it is pretty much the same as the old
Butterfly keyboard in terms of Typing experience.
------
kumarvvr
As with all visual systems, too much minimalism and too much noise spoil the
experience.
Ultimately, the context matters a lot. Not to mention the app, target users,
complexity of the app, and what not.
But I really hated those flat, borderless 'buttons' in earlier iOS versions.
That's just stupid design. It's minimal for sure, but functionally.
------
kkarakk
We're finally back on track to the cyberpunk "anything goes" vision i think is
gonna be the final winner of the design wars.
consumers don't give a shit about consistency. they want fun
------
reaperducer
There is still some "fun" left in macOS, but it's harder and harder to find.
Three examples: Enlarge the network icon for a Windows, or unknown computer,
and you'll see the monitor has a BSOD on it.
Enlarge the icon for Mail and you'll see the postmark on the stamp reads,
"Hello From California."
Enlarge the icon for Pages, and there's a fun little travelogue.
There used to be an Apple program that had the famous "Misfits" text on it. I
thought it was TextEdit, but it doesn't seem to be there anymore.
------
simon_000666
I’m not such a fan of all this Jony Ive bashing. It seems unfair to ascribe
the whole minimal/flat design movement to him. I remember reading that in
university he designed a pen with a part that was for ‘fiddling’ with in
meetings, completely non functional other than to satisfy people so I somehow
doubt he is the minimalist Puritan he is painted as in so many articles like
this.
------
treerunner
Bringing back skeuomorphic ornamentation is not “fun.” Susan Kare’s original
Mac icons, (bitmap icons, not that it matters), now those were fun!
------
BMorearty
Hooray! I am so happy to see this. Like the author, I’ve been hoping for
skeuomorphic design to return ever since it went out of vogue. I honestly
didn’t expect it to happen. I thought Apple would go even farther away from
it, eventually removing the beautiful shadow around each window.
With Apple’s flat design, you can’t even tell that buttons are buttons. They
just look like labels.
------
artsyca
Let me be the only leperous pariah in this thread to mention that the same
rationale can be applied to the way we dress, as a culture of design
professionals and engineers.
Because UI trends can come in and out of fashion but hoodies and T's are for
life I get it.
Any ex-military in this thread understand the importance of dressing up to
pass muster?
~~~
kkarakk
Except even hoodies are going in multiple directions fashion design wise.
techwear,leisurewear,exercisewear(as seen in avengers infinity war) etc
~~~
artsyca
Total bullshit. The hoodie went out with the tonsure in the middle ages. How
about rope belts, are they making a comeback too?
Ok. I'll concede the hoodie has some utility for beach culture but in the
office? C'mon.
------
gfodor
I see literally no reason why this new aesthetic was not possible to introduce
7 years ago. The mindset was there, the tools, and the culture. It’s puzzling,
and should be considered an epic failure imo.
------
gridlockd
I generally welcome this trend, but speech bubbles are not supposed to be
three-dimensional shapes like that. It makes no sense whatsoever and it looks
disturbing to me.
------
lurquer
The best design, of course,is and will always be LCARS.
Regrettably, nobody knows how it works or which buttons do what... but it
makes up for it with soothing beeps and clicks.
------
kps
> _They’re squircles alright_
I pulled out a ruler and they have flat sides, so — round rects are
everywhere!
------
mdoms
This makes perfect sense if you ignore the existence of every software vendor
other than Apple.
------
cletus
How about instead of "fun" we work on "fixing bugs" and "usability"? Just off
the top of my head:
\- I miss the old copy and paste UI that Apple originally had on iOS. The
magnifying glass worked so well. Now we have the "pure" design where you just
drag the cursor. This is partially obscured by your finger and it can be so
difficult to get that cursor between narrow letters (like "i" and "l", mainly
because they're sans serif pretty much always). If you overshoot you can
backspace and type in. If you go too far to the left you have to repeat the
whole process. It's just dumb.
\- Face ID is so dumb, I miss Touch ID. I get you want to have the full front
face for the screen. Do what Samsung did and put a sensor on the back. Apple
argues there are too many false positives on Touch ID. I don't care about
that. I do however care about all the false negatives on Face ID.
\- Let me control security. 5 failures of Face ID = a prompt for your PIN
code. I don't want this but I can't change it. Because of all the false
negatives I have to enter my PIN code way too often;
\- Swipe up is a terrible replacement to the Home button. Again, this is all
in the name of screen real estate. I've heard it says that design is the art
of compromise. What made the Macbook Air amazing was that it was the "correct"
compromise. Fast forward to Johnny Ive's war on thickness and you have the
disaster that was the 12" Macbook. That's what happen when you optimize for
one thing only to the extreme. So for the edge-to-edge screen we have this
swipe up nonsense. Why is it bad? Because which way you swipe depends on which
way the app is oriented. Some don't change orientation with the phone so it's
a side swipe "up". Some do but the trigger to change orientation fails for
some reason. The gestures to get to app selection (with a weird swipe up and
right) are strictly worse than a double press of the Home button;
\- I swear swiping for text entry continues to get worse. As one example, if
you try and swipe something and get, say, "Rome" instead of "tome", you now
have a capitalized word. Delete it and swipe in "tome" and it'll appear as
"Tome" because obviously you meant to keep capitalization even though you
never chose capitalization in the first place.
\- Often the keyboard will end up obscuring my messages, like iMessage fails
to account for it being there so I have to dismiss it and open it again and
it'll scroll up like it should've done. This bug has been around for months;
\- Flat design is stupid. The pendulum has swung too far from skeuomorphic
design. The whole point of the old design was to give _affordances_ to prompt
user behaviour. The designers have gone insane and completely thrown out this
key element of UI/UX design.
So before we think about "fun" how about we first tick off "functional"?
~~~
vxNsr
I agree with everything but swipe-up for home being bad. I find it to be a
much faster way to navigate apps over the home button.
------
marban
Apple is not bringing back the fun — designers & web decorators didn't have
the balls to push the barriers and surrendered to everything default with the
advent of Web 2.0. Screen design has been desperate for an 80s moment since
then.
------
toron123
Is it me or it looks like rip off of KDE.
------
MintelIE
Busy work for people who really shouldn't be in tech is what UI design has
become.
We had great UI, then tech branched out and we need to redo every UI
continuously so the marketing people (who mostly also don't belong in tech)
can boast of new and improved this and that. It's all so tiresome.
------
fmajid
Another benefit of that hack Jony Ive's departure, and yet more proof that he
was worse than useless without the firm grip of Steve Jobs to guide him.
And as to Ive, he cannot even claim to have originated flat design, it was a
slavish imitation of Microsoft and Google's design.
~~~
ericsoderstrom
Maybe I'm out of the loop. Why is Ive a "hack"?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The pros and cons of self-learning - Yarduza
https://sumone.io/the-pros-and-cons-of-self-learning/
======
oliverobscure
Personally, I find it really difficult to make progress without a rigid
curriculum. There’s such a wide range of online content that I feel
overwhelmed by the choices I have in what I should learn, which is why I
decided to go to university in the end - I trust them to pick out the most
relevant topics to my field of study. Although, to be fair, I do occasionally
look at online courses so I can fill in some of the gaps not covered in
lectures.
~~~
Yarduza
You're not the only one to be deterred by that. I spend a lot of time building
a curriculum for every new subject I learn online.
If I may ask, what did you study?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Log Management is the New Kid on the Block - KarenS
https://www.loggly.com/blog/aws-cloudwatch-log-management/?utm_source=HackerNews&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=Blog-AWS-Cloudwatch
======
andrewvc
Cloudwatch desperately needs a new UI. Of all the AWS control panels,
cloudwatch should have the best UI, but somehow, it is one of the worst.
AWS really needs to reorient themselves here if they want to get serious in
the space.
------
Shogunuff
Glad they bring this to the forefront. Log files provide the best information
for diagnostics, but mainly and afterthought after something happens.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.) - mikegreenberg
Hello!<p>Every once in a while, I like to offer my time to help other passionate people be a little more successful with their goals. If there's anything I can help you with, just ask here. No strings whatsoever.<p>If you'd like my help: Be specific about what you're trying to fix/solve/accomplish...your goal. The more details you provide, the better I can help you out.<p>I've done this before a few times now, and it's worked out well for everyone. Check out some of the previous "No strings" sessions I've done to get an idea of how I can help. (http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=mikegreenberg)<p>I will try to help all requests made before the end of today and will attempt to complete by the end of Sunday. Be patient and check back. Please keep requests to tasks I can do in ~15 minutes. I'll spend more time willingly, but smaller requests lets me help more people! Thanks. :)<p>Cheers!!<p>PS: If you'd rather give than receive: Go find someone else to do something nice for...like give them a back rub. Or, you can help be an early tester of a lightweight address book I'm building inside Chrome... If you're interested, visit my quietly launched site: http://yourglimpse.com (PS: This "No Strings" offer is a week late because I was busy building this prototype at http://hackdayfoundation.org! Hope you like it!)
======
devs1010
I recently started an open source application relating to web crawling / data
analyzing, is there anything small that you could do to get my project a few
eyeballs, I know its raw at this point but I work on it at least a few days a
week and would love to have someone else interested in it to at least bounce
ideas off it so the more exposure the better:
[https://github.com/devs1010/WebGatherer---Scraper-and-
Analyz...](https://github.com/devs1010/WebGatherer---Scraper-and-
Analyzer/wiki/Intro-to-WebGatherer-Application)
Thanks
------
hacker007
I would appreciate it if you could give me some feedback on my side project:
<http://www.gotcheapbooks.com>. I am a developer and I am trying to learn more
about design and usability. Please give me suggestions regarding the
following:
\- What can I do to improve the design?
\- Any suggestions for making it more user friendly?
Thank you for your help and have a great weekend!
~~~
mikegreenberg
<http://designingfortheweb.co.uk/book/> This is a great resource I give out to
anyone interested in learning about designing on the web. They cover basic
principles, how it all works together, even a case study at the end. Highly
recommended.
There's nothing painfully wrong with your current design, especially if you're
a developer with little existing knowledge. I would add more whitespace into
your front page. The elements feel as though they are sitting on top of each
other. Adding some breathing room will also help your visitors scan the page
more easily.
I'm not much of a designer and have stronger programming sense. But I know
what looks good. So sometimes, I'll go through my bookmarks, RSS feeds of idea
sites, or check out website templates to get ideas. I might even take one and
tweak it to my own tastes.
Also, see if you can go to a hackathon nearby and find an awesome designer to
work with. Make sur eyou sit next to him and casually watch how he works. I
did this last weekend it was an awesome way to observe a designer working
within in his element.
From a usability point of you, your approach is direct and intuitive.
Everything does what it seems like it should do. I wasn't surprised by
anything. The interface is really snappy. Took a look through your javascript
and you have excellent, well organized, well documented code. Beautiful!
Regarding improving your user experience... take a cue from Google and see if
you can implement a realtime search as the user types. People are suckers for
instant gratification. Maybe you can tie into a book preview service and offer
an inside look of the books from the search page? I don't know, just a few off
the wall ideas.
Great job with this otherwise! Hope this helped.
------
nickfromseattle
I'm a sales founder at a 3 month old b2b saas startup. We make listing online
classified ads effortless. Our focus is real estate companies and auto
dealerships. We have 4 customers in Florida. Can you refer us any more
business?
~~~
mikegreenberg
Email me an informational url about your business and contact info I can pass
along to a few people in those industries. If I think you'd be a good fit,
I'll certainly share service with them.
@nobulb.com prepended by my initials.
------
alecbee
Aloha!
Would love your FB on our new email marketing software (www.redcappi.com).
And speaking of "doing nice", we contribute a minimum of $2 per paid account
to Charity:Water for clean water!
Mahalo!
~~~
mikegreenberg
It's great that you donate a portion of your revenue to Charity:Water! Here's
some feedback...though it's vague, you didn't specify any specific part of
your site for me to address:
\- The color of red in your logo at the top doesn't match the red in your
footer. (Minor, maybe, but this was screaming at me.)
\- The overall design could be balanced a bit better. The area at the top
which summarizes your business is quite spacious, whereas the content
underneath (Stroll, Explore, Create, and Story sections, etc) feel cramped.
Consider a CSS grid layout to give your elements and position some "visual
rhythm" (or a consistent visual feel that allows the eye to casually consume
content without jarring distractions and interruptions within the layout).
<http://960.gs> or <http://blueprintcss.org> is quite nice for this.
\- RedCappi seems to be two products in one (with a tab on the right allowing
the user to switch information between the two products. This is not very
intuitive and I'd be willing to bet that the majority of your web builder
traffic is a lot less than your email marketing traffic. Consider separating
the two products more clearly and giving each their own space on your domain.
This will improve SEM/SEO as well as help users to more quickly find the
information they need.
\- WAY too many pricing plans. By offering so many options, you are probably
scaring your customers away from making a decision they (may or may not) have
to live with. Everything starts out free for your customers anyway, so why not
just let them grow their plan as their needs require it. You can mention
limitations, but I wouldn't throw prices in their face unless they're looking.
And when the only thing between plans that change is the number of contacts
allowed, make the plan configurable with a slider. MUCH easier to understand
for the user and they can play around with the slider to fit their plan
(giving them the perception of more control, which they'll love). Heroku does
this if you want an example. (<http://www.heroku.com/pricing>)
\- I like the idea... I'm not doing too much email marketing so I'm not
certain what are strong features, what is done well, etc etc. I was looking
for screenshots or a tour but couldn't find anything of the sort.
Hope this gives you a good start. :)
------
CrazyLeggs1964
I have Mozilla Firefox as my browser. I had Autofill with IE, to fill out
forms, name, address, ect... but cann't find a way to fill in the blanks
automatic with Firefox What gives do you know?
~~~
mikegreenberg
Here is Mozilla's support doc for the autocomplete that's built into the
browser. <http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Form%20autocomplete>
Here's a plugin that will work just as well. [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/autofill-form...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/autofill-forms/)
These were both found with a search for "firefox autofill".
<http://google.com>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Gravitricity – Fast, long-life energy storage - lelf
https://gravitricity.com/
======
syllable_studio
I love Gravitricity. I'm the founder of a similar startup called Terrament. We
are also building gravity storage underground, but our patents are extending
this idea to use autonomous, modular weights. This enables us to maximize both
height and weight, which is the simple recipe for cheap gravitational energy
storage.
We are also working on a seed-round of investment. It's an exciting field with
plenty of room for competition. And it's so important for fighting climate
change! We need to build this asap.
[https://www.terramenthq.com/](https://www.terramenthq.com/)
~~~
mike_d
Can you explain why this is better/different than flywheels?
I know Pennsylvania and New York both have 20 MW storage systems that takes up
a few acres and are relatively cheap per unit of storage.
~~~
lightgreen
From Wikipedia: Flywheel energy storage systems using mechanical bearings can
lose 20% to 50% of their energy in two hours.
Basically flywheel cannot store energy for a long time. It needs to be
constantly used to be effective.
~~~
choeger
Could you not levitate the flywheel on magnets?
~~~
Aachen
Apparently not that easily or the half-life would be longer than two hours...
You want to try if storing energy in a flywheel while using a lot of energy
for the magnetic field can outperform gravity storage?
------
LordHeini
Why do so many of these gravity thingies show up lately?
An easy calculation shows how low the storage potential is.
Lets take a weight of 500 tones of steel, which would be 63.29 cubic meters.
Now sink those 500 tonnes into a hole a 100 meters deep that would make a
rather lowly 0.1362 MWh of storage.
[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=500+*+1000+kilograms+*...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=500+*+1000+kilograms+*+StandardAcceleration+*+100+)
Not sure what the cost of digging a 100 meter hole where you can sink 63 cubic
meters of steel in would be, specially since water management is needed too.
I am not convinced that it is worth it.
~~~
syllable_studio
You're thinking too small though ;). You can dig a mile deep. And you can lift
enormous weights. As comments show below. Gravity is weak, but cheap. It can
scale up to provide 1 GW of storage - enough to balance the load of an entire
large city.
Lots of these ideas are popping up right now because it's a very compelling
idea which is demonstrated to work. And because climate change is driving
massive growth in renewable energy (woot) we will desperately need massive
amounts of energy storage in the very new future. The energy storage market is
expected to grow massively year over year.
~~~
LordHeini
Sure you can always get the big option but that does not mean it is feasible.
What does it cost to dig and maintain a 1.5km deep shaft?
I found is something around 8000-10000$ per meter. I can buy a whole lot of
batteries for that.
This technology just does not scale since m _g_ h always holds true.
Unlike flywheels where you get w^2.
Just making the wheel out of carbon fiber and making them go fast, squares the
amount of energy you can store.
~~~
rjmunro
$8000 to dig a 1m hole sounds very high - that's months of someone's salary.
Surely the best drilling machines can beat the cost of paying someone with a
shovel for a month?
But mostly they won't be digging the holes, they will be using shafts left
over from earlier mining operations.
~~~
LordHeini
That is what i found:
[https://minewiki.engineering.queensu.ca/mediawiki/index.php/...](https://minewiki.engineering.queensu.ca/mediawiki/index.php/Shaft_construction)
Honestly i would have thought it to be more expensive.
At higher depths the ground pressure is enormous and you need a lot of
bracing.
Then there is water management, air, transportation of the dug out material...
When there is rock you usually need blasting or gargantuan drills which i am
not sure even exists in the required diameter.
------
andbberger
I don't get how any of these gravitational energy storage startups get past
the napkin phase. There is no competition with pumped hydro. Who cares if
weights on winches are marginally more efficient when you have many orders of
magnitude more mass to move.
This site claims a max weight of 4.5e6 kg. Lake Powell, for example, has a max
capacity of 3e13 kg!
So, SEVEN orders of magnitude less mass to move. Sounds competitive.
~~~
kolinko
I may be wrong, but there is a limited capability for doing pumped hydro - you
may run out of elevated lakes in a region, and if you want to create new ones
then you will affect the environment.
A hole in the ground can be dug up everywhere, e.g. next to each single PV
plant.
~~~
kleiba
With seven orders of magnitude of difference, you'd have to dig a whole lotta
holes before hydro has to start worrying about competition on the capacity
level.
~~~
andbberger
Right, the thing to worry about is power, not energy. Ideally the pumps would
be sized to fill/drain lake Powell in 12 hours. Which is ludicrous. The
turbines in the Glenn Canyon Dam have a max (output) capacity of 890m^3/s [0].
It would take just over a year to drain the reservoir through them.
[0]
[https://web.archive.org/web/2016*/http://www.gcrg.org/bqr/6-...](https://web.archive.org/web/2016*/http://www.gcrg.org/bqr/6-1/glencanyon.htm)
~~~
_ph_
Which is fine, as many regions have a strong seasonal availability of
renewables. Storing energy for some months will be required to go fully
renewable. There are also short term storage requirements, over the course of
a day or a week.
------
mNovak
I always thought it'd be interesting to do the gravity storage inside the
column of a wind turbine. After all you've already built a tall steel tower.
Individually it's tiny storage, but in aggregate it's not meaningless,
especially as we keep building more towers.
But I assume there's structural issues with suspending a few extra tons on
your structure.
~~~
dragontamer
I feel like "gravity storage" should take advantage of natural landscapes
better.
ARES (rail energy storage) builds a rail-line uphill, for example. Rail cannot
handle a very steep slope, but a gentle hill climb will build up potential
energy fine.
In the case of vertical-based gravity storage, I'd imagine that lifting blocks
to the top of a cliff (or down a valley) would be most efficient.
I mean, Pumped Hydro is gravity storage, and does just that. Pumping water up
a mountain and generating energy by dropping it back down. But presumably, we
don't want to use water in the Western states (where water is scarce). So
Gravity-energy storage WITHOUT water is the goal.
~~~
syllable_studio
The issue with using natural landscapes is that it limits your height. And
adding more height is ~exponentially~ (edit: quadratically) better than just
adding more installations with an equivalent total height. (You can dig about
a mile deep). You can see more details in my comments below - search for the
text "It is worth it to dig a hole!"
~~~
andbberger
Wrong, wrong, wrong, so wrong!
Gravitational potential energy is (approximately) linear in height. I say
approximately because this assumes constant g (which is a good assumption when
h is small compared to the radius of the earth, which it is).
And in fact, a consequence of gravity's 1/r^2 nature is that one is only
subject to gravitational acceleration from what is beneath them (shells above
cancel out), so mine shafts are less efficient than towers (the effect size is
small to the depths we can mine).
So adding more height doesn't help, and if that height is underground it could
actually hurt net efficiency.
Efficiency in this context refers potential energy stored per unit height. The
field is conservative no matter what you build.
~~~
reitzensteinm
I'm assuming that the quadratic parent refers to comes from the increased
potential energy per kg of material multiplied by the ability to store more
material due to the additional volume.
If you picture a dense weight like a cannon ball on the end of a string you're
right, but if you're digging down n meters, encasing n/2 meters worth of dirt
and moving it up and down the free n/2 meters of shaft, the energy storage
would indeed be proportional to n^2.
I don't know anything about the field and had the same reaction you did, but
considering parent is running a startup in it they're either a lunatic that
doesn't know the equivalent of FizzBuzz or there's something we missed on
first inspection, and we should charitably assume the latter...
~~~
syllable_studio
Haha, thanks. It's a little of both of course. You have to be a bit of a
lunatic to think you can do these things. But someone's got to get it done.
~~~
reitzensteinm
I read the whole pitch deck and it seems like you've thought it through well.
I'm curious about the potential for failure; if one of the last links freezes
up somehow (i.e. the disengagement you mention elsewhere fails), is there a
process for clearing it?
The single shaft vs multiple parallel approach does seem a bit risky in the
early days. If there's a 10% failure rate, and you built one shaft, that's a
10% chance of an existential threat to the company. 10 shorter shafts mean one
will likely be inoperable.
Of course over the long term worrying about this doesn't make sense. Once
you've scaled, 1k large vs 10k small shafts would not matter from this
perspective.
Best of luck mate!
------
MrLeap
Is it really worth it to dig a hole? I seem to recall some other initiative
that was stacking large blocks with some kind of tested COTS construction
cranes. The stack-of-blocks way seems to intuitively scale better. You can
increase capacity without digging another super deep hole, or ever upgrading
your cabling.
~~~
reincarnate0x14
There are a bunch of these seemingly questionable ideas out there trying to
score funding. A few years ago there was one to run a train up a mountain or
create a giant compressed gas reservoir underground.
It may seem strange to use energy density in this context but in many ways
those are even worse than batteries due to the massive amount of work they
require and poor scalability because of all the physical infrastructure and
space.
In fact, this exact scheme looks to have been posted to HN in 2014. From my
understanding they are looking to re-purpose holes that have already been dug,
for the most part, which is a good idea, but if the planned prototypes are
only doing 250 kW nameplate with maybe 100 KWH of stored power, there is
almost no way it's going to beat a battery plant you can have more or less
just built to order already commercially. And said battery plants aren't even
remotely good enough at purpose for meaningful energy storage, they're mostly
used for what are considered "ancillary services" in the US power markets,
like eating or producing reactive power, voltage support, etc, because the
modern grid scale inverters can react to grid conditions faster than grid
frequencies (50-60 Hz). More rarely they might be scaled big enough to shave
the peak off a demand curve for 5-10 minutes to save transmission capacity or
congestion.
Keep in mind all this in happening when LNG is basically free except for the
cost of moving it, so you can also put in 1-60 MW combined cycle gas plants in
short amounts of time with very well understood technology and proven
manufacturers.
~~~
ajuc
I'm wondering why we don't use hydrolysis -> store hydrogen -> burn hydrogen
-> run a steam turbine for energy storage.
Efficiency would be low, at about 70% * 60% ~= 40% but capacity would be huge.
1 kg of hydrogen has specific energy of over 140 MW.
We could even capture CO2 as well with that energy and make methan and use
normal gas powerplants for retrieving the power :)
Just build double the number of solar panels to account for efficiency loses.
Should be cheaper than grid-scale energy storage with 90%+ efficiency.
~~~
_ph_
Hydrogen is difficult and consequently expensive to store. Also, the low
efficiency is a problem. Pumped storage hydroelectricity is way more
efficient.
~~~
rklaehn
At small scale, this is correct. At very large scale, hydrogen is incredibly
easy to store. You can just fill up and old depleted gas well and store
terawatt-hours of energy easily.
Germany has enough gas well storage to survive several months. This
infrastructure is currently used for natural gas, but it can be repurposed for
hydrogen.
I still think that commoditized battery storage will win in the end, but
storage cost is not an argument against hydrogen.
~~~
_ph_
Besides it is not trivial to repurpose natural gas storage for hydrogen - you
need an entirely different level of tightness, you would be disappointed about
the amount of energy you can store this way, as hydrogen is way less dense
than natural gas, so the capacity of the storage would be poor.
~~~
rklaehn
For very large scale storage we are not talking about steel pressure vessels
that are subject to hydrogen embrittlement, but depleted natural gas
reservoirs which are just gas-tight geological formations and have no issues
whatsoever with hydrogen embrittlement.
For small and medium scale storage you are right. Which is why hydrogen for
cars and even trucks is a bad idea.
~~~
_ph_
And you would get much less hydrogen stored at the same pressure than methane.
To store reasonable amounts of hydrogen, you need very high pressures. Gas
powered cars use like 60 bars of pressure, hydrogen 700.
~~~
rklaehn
Yes, that is correct. But the end to end efficiency of Electricity -> H2 ->
Electricity is much better than Electricity -> H2 -> CH4 -> Electricity.
Hydrogen at 0°C and 100 Bar (~10MPa) has a density of 8.3447 kg/m^3. It has an
energy density of 120 MJ/kg. So about 33 kWh/kg. So you end up with 278
kWh/m^3.
Now of course you have to multiply this by the H2->Electricity efficiency.
Let's be very pessimistic and take 0.6 or 60%, which is what a gas turbine
plant can achieve today.
You end up with 166 kWh/m^3 of usable electricity per cubic meter.
One of many german gas storage facilities [https://www.nafta-
speicher.de/en/company](https://www.nafta-speicher.de/en/company) has a volume
of 1.8e9 m^3. That translates into 300 Terawatt-Hours of storage capacity for
just this one facility.
~~~
_ph_
And at what pressure do those storage facilities operate?
~~~
rklaehn
Can be quite high, in the 100 bar range and above.
------
syllable_studio
Quite a few comments question the cost of digging -- which is understandable.
But the context to remember is that these are huge infrastructure investments
that will return revenue from that investment over 20-100 years with little
maintenance costs. The excavated shaft is like a factory not a product. The
product is each cycle of energy generation giving you a profit day after day.
The shaft is a one time investment that will yield that product forever.
There's lots of research showing how the costs work out (see my other comments
here)
~~~
dx034
Also, hasn't digging become much cheaper in recent years with new technologies
from the oil industry? I'm sure some of that efficiency gain can be used for
those shafts (they're obviously bigger than a bore hole for oil).
------
mullingitover
Why not merge all the energy storage ideas?
Pump air into a giant pressure chamber...that's also a super-deep hole with a
pulley system...and the weight for the pulley is a flywheel sealed in a vacuum
chamber, magnetically levitating to avoid any friction losses. Oh, and the
mass for the flywheel? A bunch of batteries.
~~~
syllable_studio
This is probably a joke, but it's not so crazy. Many designs are combining one
or more of these.
~~~
mullingitover
Not entirely joking. I just saw the big hole and immediately thought it'd be a
great place to store pressurized air, and then I continued thinking of other
energy storage mechanisms you could cram in there.
------
throwaway189262
Isn't pumped water storage the same thing but much easier to manage? Like
think of a 10 ton weight suspended from cables 100m high vs a $300 above
ground pool on a 300 foot hill. Isn't pumped water storage going to be
hundreds of times cheaper for amount of energy stored?
I didn't do the math but this reeks scam to me
~~~
shajznnckfke
$300 for an above ground pool? Where do I sign up?
~~~
throwaway189262
All you need is walmart, a hose, and a parking lot!
------
rklaehn
This will work, obviously. But I don't see how it can be competitive with
batteries.
High energy density lithium batteries are currently being commoditized. They
are also increasingly able to handle many thousands of cycles. E.g LiFePo4
cells.
The raw materials for batteries are not actually that expensive or rare, so
that leaves the manufacturing.
You might think that making something as complex as a battery can never be as
cheap as hanging a weight from a rope. But there are examples of very complex
products (solar cells, LCD displays) that became incredibly cheap due to mass
manufacturing.
A square meter of solar cells, requiring extremely pure silicon and nanometer
scale engineering, is now not much more expensive than a square meter of good
roofing shingles.
------
peter_d_sherman
>"Our patented technology is based on a simple principle: raising and lowering
a heavy weight to store and release energy. The Gravitricity system suspends
weights of 500 - 5000 tonnes in a deep shaft by a number of cables, each of
which is engaged with a winch capable of lifting its share of the weight.
Electrical power is then absorbed or generated by raising or lowering the
weight."
Idea: Could elevators be retrofitted with something like this?
Then they could use/store energy only while going up, and regenerate some of
it going down... and take passengers to various floors while doing that!
"The Regenerative Elevator"!
Stores energy going up, regenerates some of it while going down!
Invented here on Hacker News, by yours truly, 9/8/2020!
(Yes, I know, it's a stupid related idea! <g>. But my other related idea was
more stupid, and that one was to fill up a U-Haul truck with trash, put a
steel cable on it, find a hill, and use the steel cable (in conjunction with
the overweighted U-Haul truck and hill!) to drive a motor/generator/winch
assembly that uses electricity going up the hill, and regenerates some of it
back, going down the hill... <g>)
On a serious note however (for non-passenger elevator energy storage), I think
Gravitricity has a good idea, and I wish them much success with it!
~~~
hoytech
I'm not sure if you are joking or not, but regenerative elevators exist, and
have existed for over 100 years:
> DC-driven winding-drum elevators—the leading design until the 1930s—use a DC
> motor in the basement that winds and unwinds the elevator’s steel cable on a
> steel drum, thus lifting and lowering the car from pulleys atop the elevator
> shaft. DC drive was the only way to go at the time for a speedy elevator,
> because only DC could deliver variable-speed operation for smooth starts and
> stops. The DC motors were also energy efficient, capable of something that
> has only recently become possible with modern elevator designs: regenerating
> power when the elevator descends.
[https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/dawn-of-
electronics/s...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/dawn-of-
electronics/san-franciscos-secret-dc-grid)
------
gglon
Eduard Heindl's gravity storage: [https://heindl-energy.com/](https://heindl-
energy.com/)
Potentially reaches a storage capacity between 1 and 10 GWh. Lifting a (huge)
rock by pumping water underneath.
Interview: [https://omegataupodcast.net/299-gravity-
storage/](https://omegataupodcast.net/299-gravity-storage/)
~~~
syllable_studio
Yeah, this is another promising one. The other disadvantage with that design
is that the weight of the water is actually working against them. So if their
rock/concrete is about 2.5x heavier than water, the weight of water is
subtracted and you only get 1.5x the weight of water. Also their height is
limited by the height of their piston. So I'm not yet convinced that their
solution is better than just using underground pumped hydro.
~~~
gglon
It may be so. But an underground pump hydro is just boring.
------
abdullahkhalids
The video has some numbers in it about performance. They say dig a shaft of
150-1500m and hang a weight of 500-5000 tonnes. This translates to energy
storage of between 204-20400 KWh storage.
Obviously, this seems very technically challenging. 500 tonnes is 64 m^3 of
iron. We will see if their engineering is good enough to pull off their
claimed 171 US$/MWh.
~~~
jayd16
26 m^3 of tungsten is what, less than a 3x3x3m cube? If they stack 10 cubes at
the bottom they get mostly the full storage (-3m at least) for each weight.
Seems feasible.
~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
Tungsten costs around $30k/ton, so you'd be looking at a cool $15M for that
500T cube.
Lead goes for around $2k/ton, so this might be a more feasible compromise.
~~~
brohee
Depleted uranium prices are very hard to find, but should come as cheaper than
tungsten.
Civilian sales look at least possible, I heard of at least one sailboat with a
DU keel.
------
yongjik
Sorry for repeating myself, but gravity is weak. If you hang a 500t weight in
a 150m vertical tunnel, it only holds 500 * 1000 * 9.8 * 150 = 735000000 J, or
735 MJ, that is, 204 kWh.
A Tesla model 3, basic model (MSRP ~$38k) has battery capacity of 50 kWh, so
we're talking about four Tesla 3's.
I don't think digging a 150m hole is cheaper than four Teslas - and Teslas
come with the rest of the car you can use for driving.
~~~
syllable_studio
Gravity is weak, but it's cheap. It is indeed surprising, but plenty of
research shows that the levelized cost of gravity storage is cheaper than Li-
ion batteries - even if you assume that Li-ion will get 4x cheaper in the next
20 years. There are other problems with Li-ion as well that will prevent it
from scaling up to the amount of storage that our grid will need. I discuss
all this with lots of citations in a white paper here
[https://github.com/syllable-hq/uphs-feasibility-
study](https://github.com/syllable-hq/uphs-feasibility-study)
~~~
gspr
> Gravity is weak, but it's cheap.
I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be pedantic, but what does "gravity is cheap"
even mean?
~~~
syllable_studio
No worries. Here is a good resource that talks about the levelized costs of
gravity storage. It's estimated to be much cheaper than Li-ion battery storage
on large scales.
[https://www.storage-lab.com/gravity-based-storage](https://www.storage-
lab.com/gravity-based-storage)
------
zaroth
If you wanted to build one at the scale of a PowerWall (5kW/13.5kWh) what kind
of height/weight combinations would be required?
By my calculations you would need to raise 40 tons up 3 meters to store
13.5kWh. Definitely not a home storage revolution!
Now, if the entire house was built on a lift....
~~~
mkj
Isn't that 0.326 kWh? 40e3 * 9.8 * 3 / 3600
~~~
zaroth
Damn, you're absolutely right. Off by a factor of ~40...
You would need to raise the 40 tons up 120 meters, or conversely, you would
need to raise 1,600 tons up 3 meters.
------
simonebrunozzi
Energy storage by lifting or releasing a weight, in their case, in a well
underground. Nothing new; I am wondering what's special about them, compared
to tens of other companies trying to offer the same type of energy storage.
AFAIK, the most common is done around hydro dams, by pumping water upstream as
a form of energy storage. The infra is already there, but it's not as
efficient as systems like Gravitricity. But it costs a negligible amount of
money to "activate" energy storage in a pre-existing dam.
~~~
mNovak
I believe the argument for new storage concepts is that renewables will drive
a need for large amounts of new energy storage capacity, batteries are
expensive, and that not everyone is situated near a suitable geography for
pumped hydro.
------
kaliszad
My father has an idea to use sodium (Na) as fuel for fuel cells. This could
easily replace batteries by having more or less instant reactions to demand,
being much more energy dense and being simple to handle. Also, there is no
CO_2 that would need to be captured compared to "bio" fuels. The resulting
sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and hydrogen (H_2) can easily be used further e.g. in
the chemical industry or recycled, electrolysis of NaOH is well known and also
produces hydrogen as a byproduct. The resulting sodium metal can again be used
as fuel. It creates a circular economy. Handling sodium securely at scale is
also probably even easier than handling gasoline or diesel. Most of these
reactions at industrial scale are more than 50 years old but nobody bothered
to actually implement it (even though a hint about sodium cells for
electricity generation is present in "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas:
A World Tour Underwater" by Jules Verne already) instead of the more complex
approaches like e.g. synthetic gasoline.
You can look at the orgpage about these ideas
[https://orgpad.com/s/energiewende](https://orgpad.com/s/energiewende) my
father also gave a talk last week about it, there is a recording, which will
be posted during the next days.
Disclaimer: I work for the small startup OrgPad, which tries to create a tool
for easier decomposition of linear ideas/ content into a network of ideas/
content. An ex-Googler, Pavel Klavík PhD. describes the technology (hint
Clojure and ClojureScript) and approaches behind OrgPad in a recent talk
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UoIfeb31UU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UoIfeb31UU)
~~~
willis936
Many years ago I briefly had a thought experiment about converting a
gasoline/oxygen combustion engine into a sodium/water combustion engine. Solid
fuel mixing concerns aren’t the primary issue. The primary issue is the energy
density is just so danged low compared to gasoline. However, compared to
electric batteries, sodium is far more energy dense.
~~~
kaliszad
Well, there are patents for running diesel engines with sodium, at least I was
told so much by my father who researched the problem thoroughly. The density
isn't that low considering using a fuel cell, you can convert the energy a lot
more efficiently. Also you don't just burn up the fuel into the air as
currently, there is no industrial process to collect the CO_2 and other gases
produced from the exhaust.
------
klunger
This reminds of Energy Vault [1], which is based on the same principle, just
above ground. Doing this above ground seems to make a lot more sense when you
consider all of the additional costs associated with digging and maintain
massive shafts. I am not clear why the underground approach is at all
appealing. Can anyone explain?
[1] [https://energyvault.com/](https://energyvault.com/)
~~~
syllable_studio
Yeah, very similar. The main reason is that you can get about 10x more height
underground. You can dig about a mile deep. An Energy Vault tower is about 500
feet tall. And as mentioned below in other comments, adding more height gives
you more storage per weight, so it's super important. Adding more height and
weight scales quadratically while just adding more weight (in side by side
towers) only scales linearly.
[https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17FI-
jrI9RWS3q7Ng44Yh...](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17FI-
jrI9RWS3q7Ng44YhiHs7il8JvnxK-cV6_g_-cGo/edit#slide=id.g844fb8814b_1_136)
~~~
klunger
Wow, I see you have already thought about this exact question a great deal.
This was a clear and compelling answer.
Your pitch deck is impressive. Good luck!
~~~
syllable_studio
thx!
------
scythe
If you dig a well with cross-sectional area _A_ and depth _D_ , the amount of
energy you can store with compressed air at 10 MPa is 10 _AD_ MJ if _A_ and
_D_ are expressed in m^2 and m respectively. [1]
If you drop a steel weight down the same well of cross-section _A_ and height
_H_ in the same units the energy stored is 0.08 _HA_ ( _D_ - _H_ ) MJ[2].
Again, _H_ is in meters, and _AD_ > _A_ ( _D_ - _H_ ), and in order to beat
compressed air 0.08 _H_ > 10, so your steel weight needs to be 10/0.08 = 125
meters long! That's taller than most of the buildings in downtown San
Francisco -- and in order to get any use out of this thing, your hole should
be at least twice that deep.
Of course, compressed air has its inefficiencies and complexity, but the
feasibility of a metal rod even close to that long seems pretty low to me.
Compressed-air caverns use as much as 7.5 MPa, but a purpose-built well could
potentially go much higher. Plus you don't have to deal with the damn thing
vibrating from Coriolis forces and seismicity.
Now, I know what you're saying -- you're saying, if you're so smart, why don't
you do it? -- but there are simply too many huge caverns out there to even
think about constructing CAES chambers. There are several GW in service today.
And even with that huge resource people wonder if batteries won't simply
corner the market. Storage is getting here painfully slow, it seems like, but
the competition is very fierce.
1: True isothermal decompression cycles are impossible, so of course I'm
approximating by using the ideal gas law.
2: (8000 kg/m^3)(10 m/s^2)/(mega = 1000000) = 0.08
~~~
syllable_studio
Yeah, compressed air is a very viable and promising solution. It does have
efficiency trade-offs as you mention though. And typical compressed air
designs still use fossil fuels in the compression process. There are some new
designs I've seen that get around using fossil fuels.
One of the most prominent new startups out there exploring advanced compressed
air is hydrostor. Note that they also dig underground :)
[https://www.hydrostor.ca/technology/](https://www.hydrostor.ca/technology/)
------
lebuffon
How does it compare to liquified air storage? It might have a sweetspot
somewhere but liquid air uses a lot of off-the-shelf technology.
[https://www.rechargenews.com/transition/liquid-air-
storage-o...](https://www.rechargenews.com/transition/liquid-air-storage-
offers-cheapest-route-to-24-hour-wind-and-solar/2-1-635666)
------
diimdeep
Where is innovation and efficiency ?
To me it smells like
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzV_uzSTCTM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzV_uzSTCTM)
and all about patents, marketing and money burning, but I don't know as much
as these professors do so maybe I am wrong.
~~~
Blammar
Oh, there are definitely interesting problems to solve. See my post below for
some issues.
------
_ph_
The concept is quite obvious and has been proposed several times in the past.
The key question is, what are the costs? Even if the costs for drilling the
hole are written off over a very long time span, the wires that hold the
weight and the machinery have constant operation costs. It probably can't
compete with pumped storage, but pumped storage isn't viable without at least
some hills. This concept could be deployed in many regions, also wouldn't take
much surface space, you could deploy it even in densely populated regions. The
question is: how does it compete with e.g. batteries?
------
neilwilson
Interesting idea.
Why would this be better than a set of railway lines down a hill side into a
forest pulling up standard goods carriages full of rocks?
You get a forest (which buffers runaway carriages and does all the other
lovely forest things) and energy storage on the hill. All using largely
commodity items and you can build it anywhere there's a spare slope.
~~~
dx034
That's what ARES promised 4 years ago. But their website looks abandoned. [1]
[1] [https://www.aresnorthamerica.com/](https://www.aresnorthamerica.com/)
------
nicexe
You could theoretically store energy by winding springs and making use of it
by letting them unwind (by spinning a generator or whatever). Toy-car style.
This doesn't involve digging a deep hole in the ground and hope that the earth
keeps it level.
A drawback would be the hazards that heavy tension/forces bring with them.
~~~
tgvaughan
This was precisely the basis of the energy storage systems in Paolo
Bacigalupi's novel, The Windup Girl.
------
wqsz7xn
Isn't this the exact same concept as a dam which pumps water back up when you
have excess power? Also how heavy does that weight have to be to be able to
store enough energy worth digging a hole that large? Can you even get a weight
heavy enough to store a significant amount of energy?
~~~
syllable_studio
You can in fact! Pumped hydro is already the cheapest form of energy storage -
about 95% of all energy storage is pumped hydro. We can't build more pumped
hydro because it's not feasible to build enough dams. (We've used up the best
locations)
The US Gov has studied plenty of research showing that underground pumped
hydro is cost effective and obviates the need for dams. (See my white paper
here: [https://github.com/syllable-hq/uphs-feasibility-
study](https://github.com/syllable-hq/uphs-feasibility-study))
So startups like Gravitricity (and Terrament, my startup) are innovating on
what is already well-researched territory.
------
deeviant
Why does every gravity storage startup claim they invented gravity storage?
It's not just not true, it's like, _obviously_ not true. Anybody that took
high-school level physics understands gravitation potential energy and it's
not a huge leap from there.
------
markvdb
Does anyone know if something like this has been implemented in some way
already? In old mine shafts maybe? The geology has been studied, and some
shafts at least there already...
~~~
syllable_studio
Yeah, I did a feasibility study on underground pumped hydro which you can find
here: [https://www.terramenthq.com/uphs/](https://www.terramenthq.com/uphs/)
UPHS has never been fully built to my knowledge, but it's been well studied
and quite a few projects have tried to get funding for it.
U.S. DOE research from 1984:
[https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6517343.pdf](https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6517343.pdf)
Projects trying to work on this: [https://utilitymagazine.com.au/pumped-hydro-
storage-the-futu...](https://utilitymagazine.com.au/pumped-hydro-storage-the-
future-for-old-mines/)
Other proposed projects: \-
[https://www.waterpowermagazine.com/features/featureinvestiga...](https://www.waterpowermagazine.com/features/featureinvestigating-
aquabank-)
\- [http://www.eaglecrestenergy.com/project-
description.html](http://www.eaglecrestenergy.com/project-description.html)
[https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6517343.pdf](https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6517343.pdf)
------
beefman
If that weight were a fission reactor you wouldn't have to move it up and
down. And it would be 100% efficient. And you wouldn't need an external power
plant.
~~~
syllable_studio
The nuclear debate is interesting, with valid talking points on both sides.
But even if nuclear were safer and cheaper than wind+solar+storage (which it
isn't), it would take decades to build. We might not have that much time.
Climate change is urgent and we need all hands on deck to build as fast and as
cheap as possible. May the best designs win asap in this fight!
~~~
p_l
Some of the known SMR designs are amenable for mass production, _if someone
would kickstart the line by putting money on the table_. Very safe ones at
that.
A lot of the cost goes down when the reactor isn't a practically one-off
build, and when you can for example use prefabricated components to "assemble"
a power plant quickly.
Some designs go even further, and have power blocks that are essentially
something you slap on large railcar, including option that instead of
refueling you send back the module while the vendor sends you a freshly-fueled
one.
------
steeve
5000 tons at 1500m is ~20MWh [1], assuming 100% efficiency (frictionless free
fall).
That means that the theoretical maximum is 50x (!) less than 1 nuclear reactor
can do in 1 hour (1000 MW for 18 months or 13 140 000 MWh). Put it
differently, you'd need to dig 50 of these to output the equivalent of 1
nuclear reactor (and nuclear plants have 2 or more reactors) for one hour.
That's also assuming digging a hole this deep in a stable manner.
[1].
[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=5000+tons+*+9.8m%2Fs%2...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=5000+tons+*+9.8m%2Fs%2Fs+*+1500m)
~~~
LordHeini
You are completely mixing up MWh and MW which are two different things.
~~~
steeve
You are right. The actual number for a nuclear reactor is 13 140 000 MWh.
(1000MW * 18 months). But I figure people would get the idea better.
------
graiz
Interesting concept but digging a big hole sounds expensive and prone to
flooding. I can see how this would have better efficiency than pumped-storage
hydro but I wonder if you couldn't raise and lower weight near cliffs rather
than drilling wells.
If it does work, I would imagine the Boring company would be all over this.
~~~
syllable_studio
I can see why you'd suspect that. But it turns out that the oil and gas
industry has 100 years of precedent demonstrating how to build such shafts
into bedrock. Flooding and earthquakes are all real concerns, but we have
well-proven solutions.
~~~
imtringued
Oil rigs only need to drill a hole with the diameter of a pipe. With gravity
storage you would want the hole to be as large as possible.
~~~
syllable_studio
Maybe not as large as possible, but we're looking at about 10m diameter and
about 1 mile deep. Here's an example of existing mining tech that meets this
capacity.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5vAWR7rpco](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5vAWR7rpco)
------
thelastname
Am I the only one to expect the goatse on the bottom of the site?
------
um_ya
Can we stop with these convoluted systems and just do nuclear already?
~~~
X6S1x6Okd1st
With nuclear you still need storage to flatten the peaks and troughs though
right?
Also this does not seem very convoluted, it's using an electric engine pretty
directly. If you are actually boring straight down it seems like the failure
modes are pretty okay.
~~~
core-questions
> With nuclear you still need storage to flatten the peaks and troughs though
> right?
Why? Just build more. Keep expanding capacity so the base load covers the
peaks and thensome. Push the price of electricity down while keeping it
carbon-neutral and crush competition. Get everyone 2c/kwh power. Wouldn't that
be more fun?
~~~
_ph_
The problem is the speed at which the reactors can be ramped up and down, this
is very limited. Also, if you have enough capacity to cover all peaks, most of
the time the reactors are not running at full power. That increases the cost
of operating the reactors, which is far higher than you claim. Currently,
projects building new nuclear reactors are challenged by their costs. Never
mention the safety concerns and of course the waste problem.
~~~
jabl
Current versions of the traditional LWR design can ramp at about 5% of full
power per minute, which is about the same ramping rate as a CCGT plant. With
steam bypass it's possible to ramp even faster.
Demand response, frequently promoted as a way to increase penetration of
intermittent renewables, can also be used to reduce the cost of a system
composed on high capital cost, low marginal cost dispatchable generators like
nuclear. Charge the EV's and run heat pumps to warm thermal storages during
the night when demand is lower, say.
~~~
_ph_
Yes, demand response will play a huge role in the grids of the future. But
when you say "current versions", which current operating nuclear plant
achieves this ramp speed?
Also, it means you have to run your reactors regularly at below 100%, so you
still can react on additional demand, which increases further the cost of a
very expensive technology.
~~~
jabl
> But when you say "current versions", which current operating nuclear plant
> achieves this ramp speed?
IIRC that 5% figure I read was wrt EPR and AP1000, presumably older generation
LWR's are slower, by how much I'm not sure. France has run older generation
PWR's in load-following mode for decades, but I'm not sure which ramp speeds
they achieve; fast enough in practice in any case it seems. CANDU reactors in
Canada have steam bypass and can apparently ramp at >10%/min.
In any case, my point is that ramp speed is in practice not a technical
limitation. Of course you want to run a generator with high capital cost but
very low marginal cost at 100% as much as possible, but if you now and then
need to ramp (say, if the wholesale price goes negative) you can do it.
> Also, it means you have to run your reactors regularly at below 100%, so you
> still can react on additional demand, which increases further the cost of a
> very expensive technology.
To be clear, I'm not advocating a 100% nuclear grid. I'm just pointing out
that the "nuclear can't ramp and is thus unsuited for the grid of the future"
isn't correct. In particular, I think solar and a moderate amount of storage
is very well suited to cover the daily variation in many parts of the world. I
also think that dispatchable low-carbon sources (which could be hydro, or
nuclear, or something else like geothermal where available, CCS where
geological formations for storing CO2 are available, etc.) have a role to play
in least-cost deep decarbonized grids. See e.g.
[https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006)
~~~
p_l
From my understanding some of the "delay" in ramping up is related to
enrichment level of the nuclear fuel and thus how fast the speed of the
reaction can change.
~~~
jabl
Kind of. When reducing power there's a buildup of a particular Xenon isotope,
which is a powerful neutron adsorber. So until that isotope decays away
sufficiently you might have problems starting the reactor back up again.
Unless you have enough excess reactivity, such as by having fresher fuel
loaded.
AFAIU France primarily uses reactors which are earlier in their fuel cycle for
load balancing, and ones which are near the end run with a flatter profile.
~~~
p_l
Makes sense!
Didn't know about specific as it's not really my area, but would running a PWR
with very high enrichment level (AFAIK some designs use 93% U-235) allow quick
spin down and spin up?
~~~
jabl
> would running a PWR with very high enrichment level (AFAIK some designs use
> 93% U-235) allow quick spin down and spin up?
Well.. there are a lot of factors in a reactor design affecting the ability to
increase or decrease power quickly. Geometry, fuel/moderator ratio, fuel
density, burnable poisons (for flattening the reactivity swing over the fuel
cycle), amount of control rods etc etc. Fuel enrichment being only one thing,
which in turn affects other things as well (e.g. reactors using highly
enriched uranium tend to use different fuel designs than low enriched fuels).
But yes, military reactors for navy ships obviously have very different
demands on them than civilian power reactors, and are designed accordingly.
And yes, while US navy reactors use 93% enriched fuel, it's not necessary,
e.g. French and apparently Chinese submarines use low enriched fuel (7% for
French).
------
dave333
All this is moot. Hydrino energy will make storage largely unnecessary except
possibly for small handheld devices.
[https://brilliantlightpower.com/news/](https://brilliantlightpower.com/news/)
~~~
syllable_studio
Wow, this is surprisingly less-debunked than I expected. Though, of course my
first reaction is extreme skepticism. But I guess we'll see!
[https://www.quora.com/What-is-wrong-with-Dr-Mills-Hydrino-
Th...](https://www.quora.com/What-is-wrong-with-Dr-Mills-Hydrino-
Theory?share=1)
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Light_Power](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Light_Power)
~~~
gryfft
Ahem.[1][2]
"We'll see?" This guy has been milking this since 1991. As Aaronson's article
so sardonically points out, there's _nothing there to debunk._ Every claim
that can be made about the "hydrino" can be made with equal weight about the
"doofusino," so what's the point?
He's had three DECADES to set up any kind of publicity stunt or get the
attention of any number of existing billionaires or just scrape together the
resources he needs to build the no-shit this-changes-everything prototype. Or
maybe Elon Musk and everyone who knows him is an idiot without vision who
think they can make a buck on solar when this guy's world-changing technology
is _right around the corner this time for really real I promise._
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Light_Power#Criticis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Light_Power#Criticism)
[2]
[https://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/doofusino.html](https://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/doofusino.html)
~~~
dave333
The Wikipedia article has been policed by skeptics and is not a fair
assessment of Mills. Doofusino theory article is just satire and offers no
serious rebuttal. Mills has made considerable progress over the decades
overcoming engineering challenges in harnessing hydrino energy release. Recent
advances of electromagnetically pumped liquid metal electrodes (to solve the
problem of tungsten electrodes instantly melting), and a ceramic cell liner
(solves the problem of the hydrinos melting a hole in the side of the reaction
vessel) have got Mills close to a field prototype and he has prototypes that
produce hundreds of kW continuously (hundred hour run) with water bath
calorimetry. The skeptics will soon have scoffed their last.
~~~
gryfft
Policed by skeptics? That's the POINT of Wikipedia! Are you saying that a
communal resource based on accurately documenting actual reality should be run
by credulous people who will accept any statement without applying one
second's worth of critical thinking?
As I said, Doofusino doesn't NEED to be a rebuttal. THERE IS NOTHING HERE TO
REBUT. The proof is in the pudding and Mills has _no pudding whatsoever._ All
he has are his claims about all the magical fairytale things his wonderful
technology can do.
I don't care if he says it can braid my hair and create free cheerios on
demand because he finally found the right alloy to use in his psychogravitic
negamatrix. It's not real until there's proof and he hasn't offered any in
thirty years. See you in another thirty, I guess.
~~~
dave333
Wikipedia doesn't support debate - only authoritative sources are allowed -
which means novel theories yet to be fully accepted get locked out and
ridiculed by the skeptically correct.
There are many experimental papers that show hydrinos exist and have the
properties predicted by Mills classical model of the hydrogen atom.
[https://brilliantlightpower.com/](https://brilliantlightpower.com/) has many
videos of working prototypes producing excess energy. Dark matter exists and
interacts gravitationally like baryonic matter but is electromagnetically
inert like hydrinos are predicted to be. The expansion of the universe
accelerates (Mills predicted in the 1990s). Etc.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lego Computer - sigkill
http://www.totalgeekdom.com/?p=1725
======
sigkill
I like the way he stresses over thermal and the build.
Lines are visible where the pieces are joined to each other, however instead
of looking bad, it gives it a very deathstar/futuristic feel especially with
the glossy black pieces.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Why Do (Some) Chinese People Pick 'Weird' English Names for Themselves? - hunglee2
https://yiqinfu.github.io/posts/chinese-people-weird-english-names/
======
mech422
One thing I've never understood, is why when people anglicised names, they
didn't go with phonetic spellings?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Startups That Started As Blogs - morefranco
http://www.fastcolabs.com/3015976/why-these-5-successful-startups-started-as-blogs
======
jmduke
Surprised to not see Moz on here: while I think they were technically a
consultancy at first, their chief export for quite a few years came in the
form of incredibly valuable blog posts. My favorite is the 91-point eCommerce
conversion checklist:
[http://moz.com/blog/holygrail-of-ecommerce-conversion-
optimi...](http://moz.com/blog/holygrail-of-ecommerce-conversion-
optimization-91-points-checklist)
~~~
dasil003
I sort of put 37signals in that bucket as well even though they did a lot more
consulting, their blog was pretty huge in the very small standards web
community of the early Zeldman era.
------
joshdotsmith
Amy Hoy has spoken a lot about this. I think we're about to see a wave of new
startups that focus first on info-products that involve blogs at some stage,
then later pivoting into a SaaS product.
This is exactly what I'm doing right now. Everything works as one big
marketing funnel from tweets/pins/posts to free downloadable content and one-
off landing pages, to single page apps, to e-books and videos, all the way up
to SaaS. I have to come to love the term Amy uses for these: e-bombs. Finding
customer pains and dropping e-bombs on them is a really lean way to learn a
ton quickly, build an audience, and even make money.
If you get really good, you can make it into a repeatable process that works
over and over regardless of your domain experience. That said, I still think
it might be a little difficult for me to do this for, say, theoretical
physicists. I'm personally inclined to partner up with domain experts rather
than trying to do it all myself as a lone technologist.
Great examples in the post. Now let's see some more! I've seen Moz and
37signals mentioned. Who else are we missing?
------
Vekz
Wufoo.com not on the list. Was launched out on success of their blog
[http://www.particletree.com/](http://www.particletree.com/)
------
bdcravens
Seems like most of the comments on here aren't getting it. The article isn't
talking about products that were discussed on a blog; it's referring to blogs
that pivoted into a product.
~~~
jere
How is "Dalton Caldwell express[ing] his distaste for Twitter's decision to
restrict its API" a product?
------
ibudiallo
How about stackoverflow? It was slowly introduced with coding horror.
~~~
elchief
and joelonsoftware
------
applecore
I'm surprised there's no mention of Mint. Their blog played a big role in
their pre-launch strategy.
------
catwell
Deezer was originally a blog called Blogmusik. It was streaming music
illegally and was shut down following a trial by the French equivalent of
RIAA, then re-launched as Deezer.
EDIT: I realized that Deezer is not well-known in the US. It is a major music
startup competing with the likes of Spotify and rdio in the rest of the world.
------
pushkargaikwad
Ideally we want to say "Businesses that started as blogs". SEOBook is a great
example, Aaron started it as a blog in 2005 where he used to put daily seo
news, then he slowly converted it into a business and is now offering tools
and there is a paid forum. SEOMoz is another such example.
------
tannerc
Are we counting straight-up professional bloggers too? Kottke, John Gruber,
the whole BoingBoing team, etc.
Makes you think, doesn't it? Maybe blogging was a little bit bigger than it
was made out to be just a few short years ago.
------
rrhoover
There are several examples of startups taking a blog-first approach. While I
was writing this, I found it surprising no one else was talking about this.
------
RickyShaww
The evolution of blogs. I'm quite fascinated by the efforts and sh!t load of
works the have put into it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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First Nation's clay kills antibiotic-resistant bacteria in lab tests - walterbell
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/antibiotic-resistant-bacteria-clay-1.3421198
======
hobs
That article is fairly content free except they did link the paper:
[http://mbio.asm.org/content/7/1/e01842-15.full](http://mbio.asm.org/content/7/1/e01842-15.full)
* Some show antimicrobial or other therapeutic properties, and they have a long history in the treatment of human diseases (5, 6). However, their use is considered to be “naturopathic” medicine, and to date, none have been approved by regulatory agencies for therapeutic applications.
* This deposit differs from other clays such as kaolinite or bentonite. X-ray diffraction shows that KC possesses a low clay mineral content (~24% [wt]), dominated by the presence of biotite (unpublished data). Moreover, as a natural clay deposit, KC has a significant resident microbial community (1,000 to 3,000 taxa), which includes Actinobacteria, which are known to make bioactive small molecules and may contribute to KC activity by the production of antimicrobials (unpublished data).
* More recently, the antibacterial activities and physicochemical characteristics of other therapeutic clay minerals have been investigated in the laboratory (11, 12). Haydel et al. reported on the broad-spectrum in vitro antibacterial activities of a natural iron-rich clay (CsAgO2) that was used to treat patients with Buruli ulcer (12).
* We suggest that the broad-spectrum antibacterial activity of KC may be a valuable option for the treatment of ESKAPE infections, especially in last-resort situations
Looks like they are saying this clay has some interesting physical, microbial,
and mineral properties, in other words, it seems like they dont have any idea
of why it works but are pretty sure it does.
~~~
colechristensen
>it seems like they dont have any idea of why it works but are pretty sure it
does
This is true for a large volume of medical treatments
~~~
theon144
Is this really true? That we don't know, or only have a very vague idea about
the pharmacodynamics, or simply the mechanism of action of various treatments,
so the process is more about establishing that they aren't harmful?
~~~
TeMPOraL
Best example - aspirin. We know it works - but we have no clue how exactly.
~~~
adrianN
The important part in your comment is "exactly", because we know quite a bit
about its mechanism of action.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_of_action_of_aspirin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_of_action_of_aspirin)
~~~
joezydeco
But we didn't know any of this when we started using aspirin as an analgesic.
~~~
adrianN
Well, yeah, willow bark was already used in antiquity to treat pain.
------
daveguy
Lots of things kill bacteria. Bleach for instance. That doesn't mean you
should take it as an antibiotic. Conclusion of the article:
"The next stage in clinical evaluation involves detailed clinical studies and
toxicity testing."
No, the next step is just toxicity testing -- long before any sort of clinical
study.
~~~
jMyles
> Lots of things kill bacteria. Bleach for instance.
I'm not sure that's a reasonable comparison - this is a substance with local
repute and a history of successful use.
Nobody is claiming that bleach is useful in similar applications.
~~~
sandworm101
Bleach is used to kill bacteria in much the same way as this clay, has been
for a long while. Bleach is used worldwide to purify drinking water. It is
used, in diluted form, on skin infections. In a way, I personally use it to
prevent athlete's foot.
If you swim in a chlorine pool (diluted bleach) as much as I do, nothing lives
on your skin for long. Swimmers don't suffer athlete's foot.
~~~
dogma1138
Bleach is also used in dental practice for clearing out bacteria after root
canal's when setting the temp filling if hydrogen peroxide doesn't work.
------
gPphX
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy)
Felix d'Hérelle "quickly learned that bacteriophages are found wherever
bacteria thrive: in sewers, in rivers that catch waste runoff from pipes, and
in the stools of convalescent patients."
~~~
agumonkey
Always wondered if Garlic sulfur came from 'evolutionary pressure'(sort of) in
a bacteria rich environment.
It's a bit like asking arsonists about fire.
------
rrrazdan
In the Indian subcontinent, certain clay's have been used since ages to help
with wound healing and as an antiseptic.
~~~
ptha
Similarly the Egyptians used honey in wound dressings. "We now know that honey
actually contains substantial amounts of hydrogen peroxide which can kill
bacteria".
Also "moldy bread was used in China, Greece, Serbia, Egypt and probably other
ancient civilizations as treatment for some disease conditions, particularly
infected wounds. The observed curative powers may have been due to some raw
forms of antibiotics produced by the mold growing on the bread".
[http://amrls.cvm.msu.edu/pharmacology/historical-
perspective...](http://amrls.cvm.msu.edu/pharmacology/historical-perspectives)
------
OliverJones
This looks promising.
Hopefully the people of the Heiltsuk Nation will make more samples available
to labs hoping to reproduce this work.
Hopefully some of those labs will, in secure containment facilities, explore
how readily the bacteria adapt to develop resistance to this clay. It's
important to work out protocols that don't promote rapid global adaptation.
------
DubiousPusher
You can pretty much show any kind of effect from a treatment by P hacking, not
adequatly designing a study or accidentally contaminating your experiment.
This is exactly the kind of thing that really doesn't need attention until
it's replicated.
------
snake_plissken
A gander: I wonder if the clay increased the pH to a level that disrupted some
cellular functions of the bacteria. Most clay is alkaline.
------
jakobegger
And here's the obligatory XKCD link:
[https://xkcd.com/1217/](https://xkcd.com/1217/)
~~~
sandworm101
Can a handgun kill bacteria? I remember reading about experiments to test
whether bacteria could survive meteor impacts. They couldn't come up with a
gun powerful enough to wipe them out.
Here:
[http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F3-540-25736-5_3](http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F3-540-25736-5_3)
~~~
Retric
Spores != bacteria. Further, can kill is not the same as sterilize, so yes a
handgun can kill some bacteria in much the same way a bullet wound kills some
skin cells.
They are probably less susceptible to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrostatic_shock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrostatic_shock)
though.
Though, without actually sterilizing a sample it can be difficult to notice,
but lot's of things kill bacteria. They are easy to kill, but hard to kill
off.
PS: _Spore formation in bacteria is not the principal method of reproduction
but simply a method of surviving unfavourable conditions._ They are like
pinecones which can survive forest fires while pine trees tend to burn really
easily.
------
et2o
My favorite way to kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria is with a gun.
------
briantakita
now lets distribute knowhow about how one can, with autonomy, learn to heal
themselves
------
jMyles
It really is amazing how little we know about the healing and prophylactic
qualities of plants and minerals. I mean, sure, we do know a lot.
But we have such a perverse incentive structure - and I'm talking about IP
here - that makes it more worthwhile to understand something esoteric and
bizarre like a difficult-to-isolate chemical compound, unlikely to have been
encountered very often in the history of human evolution, while it's difficult
to find motivation to do a simple study like this one.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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The “No Assholes” rule for software developers - mkm416
http://www.alleyinteractive.com/blog/no-asshole-rule-software-developers/
======
noir_lord
I never criticise code unless I know the circumstances it was written under
_and_ I can be constructive about it.
I've written some truly horrible code over the years, at the end of a 80 hour
week to get something up where marketing decided to book a launch event and
there are two paths, the right one which will take two days and you have one
or the hack which will do through launch and cause you pain later...yeah I've
picked the second option.
There is no such thing as perfect code since it's written by humans and we are
all imperfect.
------
mring33621
I think this raises good questions about developer attitudes. It is possible
that I might fail this test if thrown into one of the article's scenarios. I
will think on it.
However, the article's scenarios also clearly illustrate that there is no "No
Assholes" expectations for management.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Masters in Data Science Worth It? - el_shambler
I've been seeing a lot of different ads recently about different Masters in Data Science programs (MIDS), most notably for UC - Berkeley and SMU.<p>I did find a few older threads in regards to the field itself, and then one from a year ago with a lot of good comments on it [0]. The general consensus seemed to be that a masters does carry some weight but for $60k, that's too steep. With SMU's price tag at $53k, it's not much different.<p>Some of the arguments for a MIDS is it gives exposure and experience that online courses could not give. While you might learn the same knowledge, the MIDS gives additional experience and overall better mastery of the material.<p>I'm wondering if there are jobs out there that can justify the $50-$60k price tag, or if an online certificate like the one on Coursera from John Hopkins [1] would be sufficient to a) land a job, and b) give me the experience needed (maybe with using kaggle along the way)?<p>Thanks<p>[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8209062
[1] - https://www.coursera.org/specialization/jhudatascience/1<p>*edit - grammar
======
dudul
First of all, data scientists are in very high demand today. Probably one of
the hottest market. I'm no fortune teller but I don't see any reason for that
to change.
Second, I find that it's really really hard to learn data science just with
online courses. And even if you could learn as an autodidact, it would be very
difficult to get the legitimacy and be taken seriously without a degree.
You could, without a degree, join a company that does data science, try to get
a foot in the door to work with their team, learn in the trench and get a real
position as data scientist.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fixing E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600 - tujv
http://www.neocomputer.org/projects/et/
======
JoeAltmaier
ET was green in the game, I'm guessing, because Howard wrote it (completed
it!) before the movie was released. The whole thing was on a punishing
deadline, which is why it may seem rough and strange to lots of folks. Howard
was tremendously proud of finishing a whole Atari 2600 game in just a few
weeks; not a single other Atari programmer was willing to take on the
challenge. In fact, Howard had to do it against management's wishes.
~~~
anon4
All this time I thought management had forced Howard to do it under an
unreasonable deadline, leading to a poor game, but this comment made me
rethink things. I'm starting to think Howard had the idea for an exploration
game more or less thought out long before E.T. came to be and just saw an
opportunity to fit his vision in the game.
Too bad he didn't have enough time for testing (I presume), the fact you're
punished for exploring in a game that requires lots of exploring is really
unexcusable.
------
mambodog
If you want to compare the original and the 'fixed' version, here they are
running in the browser:
Original: [https://archive.org/stream/atari_2600_e.t._-_the_extra-
terre...](https://archive.org/stream/atari_2600_e.t._-_the_extra-
terrestrial_1982_atari_jerome_domurat_howard_scott_wa/atari_2600_e.t._-_the_extra-
terrestrial_1982_atari_jerome_domurat_howard_scott_wa.bin?module=atari2600&scale=2)
Fixed: [http://jamesfriend.com.au/et2600/](http://jamesfriend.com.au/et2600/)
------
tujv
Also recommended is "Racing the Beam" from MIT Press [1]. It is a terrific
tour of Atari 2600 software development by examining several different games,
including another Howard Scott Warshaw cart, Yar's Revenge.
[1] [http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/racing-
beam](http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/racing-beam)
------
jpace121
Stuff like this is personally really cool, and is one of the reasons I learned
to program in the first place/ still play with programming.
------
brickcap
If you manage to complete it send it to angry video game nerd. His faith will
be restored :)
------
nitrogen
I love reading reverse engineering and ancient game modding stories because
it's like an extreme form of inheriting a messy, undocumented codebase.
------
kken
This is insane in a good way :)
------
Pitarou
Makes me proud to be a nerd. :)
------
millerm
Nice job. It's fun to seem some creative hacking. You could flame bait the
title by renaming it to "Why I stopped using E.T. and started using E.T." :-)
------
Theodores
Did anyone have difficulty recognising 'E.T.' in any of the screenshots,
particularly the first one? Or was it just me?
------
__m
Well, it still sucks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How ‘Hoverboards’ Epitomize Our Broken Patent System - reverend_gonzo
http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-hoverboards-epitomize-our-broken-patent-system-1450674060
======
venning
Article has nothing to do with a "broken" patent system. The author is just
relating a few, not-really-connected anecdotes.
Inventor patents device. Cheap knockoffs with production issues flood nascent
market. Inventor licenses patent to company with more resources. Owners of
another device resolve patent dispute by selling rights to another
manufacturer. Author guesses that they will enter market too.
Where's the broken patent system here? Even if the US patent system is broken,
this article does nothing to address it or even point it out.
The author mentions Xiaomi above the fold and notes how surprising it is that
they are involved. Except that they are barely involved at this point. He only
mentions them because they are Chinese and he tries to contrast the US and
Chinese patent systems later.
------
serge2k
Can we quit calling these hoverboards?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Show HN: Js-cookie – An open source cookie API derived from jQuery cookie - fagnerbrack
https://github.com/js-cookie/js-cookie/#readme
======
fagnerbrack
This library was born when we decided to remove the jquery dependency from
jquery-cookie. Since then it was entirely built on community feedback,
including every line of the documentation.
The source code is not very legible, but that's a conscious decision made to
decrease the gzipped size of the minified file.
Also, we have 100% practical integration test coverage (because the cost is
small), even for AMD/UMD and every character that is disallowed in RFC 6265.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
240 year old automaton that can still be configured to write new messages - libovness
http://www.wimp.com/writerautomaton/
======
sp332
This was on the homepage just a few minutes ago.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6678947](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6678947)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Jeffrey Epstein: ABC stopped report 'amid Palace threats' - tomohawk
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50296742
======
drak0n1c
ABC's excuse of the allegations not meeting their journalistic standards at
the time doesn't hold up. The evidence against Epstein in 2016 was very solid
compared to other accusation stories that ABC granted national coverage.
------
thrower123
Sitting on this story and similarly, the Weinstein stories, is inexcusable for
media that wants to wrap themselves in the flag of journalistic integrity.
It's no wonder trust is at an all-time low.
------
TMWNN
Bill Clinton is mentioned. "Three years ago" means that ABC suppressed the
story during the 2016 presidential election.
------
tzs
> In 2015, a judge ruled that the allegations made by Ms Giuffre regarding
> Prince Andrew were "immaterial and impertinent" and ordered them to be
> removed from a claim against Epstein.
I'm not up on British legal terminology. What does it mean when a court finds
an allegation "impertinent"? I know what the word "impertinent" means in
ordinary English, but if it was just that it seems an odd thing for a court to
declare when dismissing something. I'd expect them to just say it was
immaterial and leave it at that. So I'm guessing "impertinent" has some
specific legal meaning in their system?
~~~
likpok
There's a bunch of "words" in the english legal system that are like that: a
pair of words (with one frequently sourced from french). There's a list here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_doublet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_doublet)
"immaterial and impertinent" isn't referenced on that list, but shows up in a
list of reasons to dismiss. [https://www.upcounsel.com/legal-def-
averment](https://www.upcounsel.com/legal-def-averment) suggests that they
were once different, but are now the same.
------
yk
Was just looking around for some corrobation, and it seems that project
Veritas has found something for once.
WaPo Opinion piece: (It estimates that this is on the same order of magnitude
as the mishandling of the Weinstein scandal by NBC.)
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/05/ive-
had-t...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/05/ive-had-this-
story-three-years-abc-news-anchor-slams-her-networks-handling-epstein-scoop/)
Hollywoodreport (which quotes more from the ABC statement and Robach's
statements on the Veritas video):
[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/abcs-amy-robach-
made-...](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/abcs-amy-robach-made-jeffrey-
epstein-comments-private-moment-frustration-1252410)
The primary source: [https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/11/05/video-leaked-
insid...](https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/11/05/video-leaked-insider-
recording-from-abc-news-reveals-network-executives-killed-bombshell-story-
implicating-jeffrey-epstein/)
------
aklemm
News outlets should self-report any threats to their integrity, thereby
protecting themselves from any blowback by oligarchs.
------
CobrastanJorji
This clip was released by Project Veritas. This is James O'Keefe's propaganda
outfit.
This is the same person who attempted to trick a CNN reporter onto a boat full
of sex toys in an attempt to seduce her on camera:
[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/acorn-foe-james-okeefe-
sought-t...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/acorn-foe-james-okeefe-sought-to-
embarrass-cnns-abbie-boudreau-on-porn-strewn-palace-of-pleasure-boat/)
In 2017, they were caught trying to convince The Washington Post to publish
fabricated rape allegations:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/a-woman-
approa...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/a-woman-approached-
the-post-with-dramatic--and-false--tale-about-roy-moore-sje-appears-to-be-
part-of-undercover-sting-
operation/2017/11/27/0c2e335a-cfb6-11e7-9d3a-bcbe2af58c3a_story.html)
He's been convicted of sneaking into Congressional offices.
You should read up on this person before believing anything they release:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe).
Project Veritas is a pure propaganda outfit, and republishing anything they do
is a disservice to information.
~~~
AndrewBissell
If there was any doubt as to the veracity of the leaked video, ABC would have
simply issued a denial.
------
munk-a
Hasn't Project Veritas burned any ability to claim to be a factual outlet at
this point?
The conjectured story is concerning, but the fact that Project Veritas is the
primary source yields a quite shaky providence. I'd much rather BBC had found
better corroboration before running such a story.
~~~
derision
> Hasn't Project Veritas burned any ability to claim to be a factual outlet at
> this point?
No? What supports this claim?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Idea Sunday - _hoa8
Continuing the series! Go...<p>A small HN experiment. Every Sunday, a thread will be started to share product ideas. Why? Because many people have ideas they will simply not have the time to implement, and many need product ideas to work on.
======
miguelrochefort
Why are recipes linear and textual? I'm surprised the recipe-book metaphor
sticked with us for that long.
I want a social cooking platform where the only way to represent a recipe is
with a diagram.
[http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/156044/2247517/Pancak...](http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/156044/2247517/Pancake-
recipe-crop.jpg)
You're a cooking master? No need to explain you how to make a roux or how to
blanch vegetables.
Don't have butter? We'll substitute the step where you need butter by the
steps to make it.
Allergic to peanut? These nuts are a good alternative.
Let's build a semantic recipe platform that's not linear and add a functional
twist to ingredients (the part where you can substitute an ingredient by the
function that returns one).
~~~
mikeblum
I'm on a side project right now that involves indexing recipes by ingredients
and the like, making an api could make the jump to substitutions and other
meta-like mods.
~~~
xerophtye
Have you tried [http://foodpair.com/](http://foodpair.com/) ?? it scrapes
recipes from different sites and indexes them ingredient and lets you search
recipes by just telling it what ingredients you have. You can also click each
ingredient in a recipe to find out general substitutions for it (not recipe-
specific).
------
avalaunch
A major pain point in my life is house maintenance and repair. I really miss
having a (good) landlord. That's what I want - a single point of contact to
manage the upkeep of and fix any issues related to my home.
There's so much friction in the process of finding the various contractors
needed to keep a home in good order. First you have to search on craigslist,
angieslist, or google for contractors that service your area. Then you play
phone tag with each. Then you schedule a time for each to come out and give an
estimate, which can be a major interruption to your week. Then you schedule a
time for the chosen contractor to actually complete the work. And then you
cross your fingers that you chose well, because if you didn't, you'll have an
even bigger headache on your hands.
Ideally I would pay a large monthly fee (500-1k) and absolutely everything
would be covered. Regular maintenance would simply get done without requiring
anything of me. My lawn would get cut when it needs it. My driveway would be
cleared when it snows. My gutters would be cleaned as needed. My home would be
cleaned twice a month. And so on. When ever anything else needs fixing, I'd
have a single point of contact (an app, maybe) where I could open a ticket.
I'd then be offered a selection of times when an expert could come fix the
issue and after selecting a time that works for me, an expert would actually
show up at that time and fix the problem. A little more friction could be
removed if I could preselect times when it's acceptable for maintenance
personnel to enter my home. Ideally I wouldn't even have to be home. The
service would also have permission to deal with my insurance company as needed
since that's also a major pain point. They'd cover anything not covered by the
insurance. Or perhaps I could do away with my existing home insurance in favor
of this full service home insurance company.
To begin the service, someone would have to perform a full home inspection to
uncover preexisting issues which wouldn't be covered. The service could help
take care of those issues but it'd have to be on an a la carte basis. Once the
home was up to snuff, then the monthly fee would kick in and cover any new
issues, as well as regular maintenance.
A simpler version of the idea, which wouldn't be as good but would have a lot
less risk would be to offer maintenance only: lawn cutting, regular cleanings,
ect... I'd still pay good money for that.
~~~
busterarm
Property management companies take care of this for rental units.
Why not just find a good one that operates in your area and pitch the idea to
them? Normally they operate for a percentage of rents but I'm sure you could
find one who would do it for flat rate.
Your problem with the insurance company thing is you might have to give them
Power of Attorney (which you really don't want to do) to make insurance claims
on your behalf.
The Property Management company would already have the liability insurance
that any company working in this space would need to do this for you.
~~~
avalaunch
For some reason I cannot edit my comment so I'll reply again.
I've been researching property management companies in Cincinnati (where I
live) and I've come to a few conclusions:
1\. There are no good property management companies in Cincinnati. At least,
there are no highly reviewed property management companies - only those with
negative reviews or no reviews at all.
2\. Owners looking to rent their homes might be a great demographic for this
idea. While most of the property management companies state that they do
regular maintenance checkups, they really aren't incentivized to do so and
from the reviews I read they typically don't. They're really only incentivized
to keep the renter renting so that they continue to get their cut. As it
stands, owners and tenants are often at odds when it comes to "needed" repairs
because the property management companies charge the owners $50/hour plus
parts for any repairs beyond the most routine of maintenance. Basically the
property management companies have stuck themselves between a rock and a hard
place where it's almost impossible to make both the owner and tenant happy.
If, however, the owners were paying a larger monthly fee that covered all
repairs, they'd no longer be at odds with the tenant. Of course, the problem
of "tenant abuse" would then fall on us. Hopefully by being proactive with
regular maintenance the abuse could be mitigated somewhat.
I'm going to call a few property management companies tomorrow to get a better
idea of what exactly is and isn't covered under their plans.
~~~
busterarm
Seeing as though I live in Hilton Head, I'm probably in the ideal market to
try a scheme like this (#2).
There are a ton of remote homeowners renting out their property here without
using a property manager or without using a good one. Unfortunately the
homeowners I mention here tend to be extremely greedy people and don't have
property managers because they don't want to pay anyone. They do things like
advertise their units have cable TV and free wifi and have the cheapest, worst
tier of service and constantly call the cable provider every month trying to
get credits for fictional outages.
There's probably some money to be made here but I'm not sure I'd want to be
the cog that keeps their greed-machine running.
------
personlurking
Just going to throw this one out there. I live in Lisbon, it's tourist-central
(I'm from SF and I've never seen so many tourists). Since I see a ton of lost
people every single day there should be a way to digitally leave comments on
things and places and a free one-stop shop to find such info (like
Wikitravel). This info, although having a central repository, should be pushed
out to an app that connects to one's phone (in particular, GPS) so that when
you need help with figuring out where you are, what statue you're standing in
front of, etc, you can open the app and it tell you (no entering
anything...only if you want to get to another location).
By entering what you want to do beforehand, the app would know where you are
and have a list of places you said you want to go, and tell you how to get to
the next closest place, or alert you if one on your list is about to close for
the day. Perhaps each city version is done by locals and in case of bad
actors, there can be a voting system so the right info goes to the top. Plus,
there could be integration with Google Maps so you can see if you're going the
right way.
~~~
jhardcastle
Reddit for real places rather than links? Upvotes and downvotes, comments
(with upvotes and downvotes). A search function (that actually works) laid
over Google Maps rather than textual links? Interesting.
~~~
raldi
I thought reddit fixed its search function sometime in, like, 2010. What have
you searched for recently that didn't give the results you were looking for?
~~~
raldi
(sound of crickets)
~~~
jhardcastle
You are right. I was unjustly unfair, and my information is outdated. As a
longtime user of the site, I suppose old biases die hard. Thanks for all
you've done to improve things over there.
------
egypturnash
Basically Yelp for transgender surgeons.
I've been working on making the decision as to who I'll get to sculpt new
genitals for me, and researching this on the web is a mess - every site
comparing them is out of date, triggers my mental sketchy spam site detectors,
or both.
It'd be great to be able to go to a nice-looking site and say "all I'm
interested in right now is MtF genital surgery", then see doctors who do that,
and crowd-sourced reviews if their work. (Other people may be interested in
FtM genital surgery, breast augumentation/removal, orichectomy, you get the
idea - various manipulations of genitals and secondary gender cues.)
I think there's probably less than a hundred people who offer these kinds of
services in the world, so it's not exactly a huge database to worry about.
~~~
maxcan
I feel like this is a symptom of a far larger problem, the need for yelp for
medical care in general. Its kind of shitty that there is absolutely no way to
quality and price compare medical providers.
Also, good luck with the transition, I have a friend going through something
similar, its definitely not an easy thing.
~~~
ryanSrich
ZocDoc?
~~~
maxcan
Its a start. I feel like zocdoc is good for looking up doctors who take your
insurance but because the healthcare system itself is so massively broken,
they can't tell you how much a procedure would cost and success rates. I may
be wrong though and hope I am.
------
manish_gill
This might be fairly simple, but I can't find a good solution - A replacement
for Google Groups.
More specifically, a better UI to use Mailing Lists. Perhaps like vBulletin or
other advance forum software. Maybe even built-in support in my email client?
For the life of me, I can't find a good way to use Mailing Lists. I don't like
receiving 40+ messages every day, but I don't find digest mode good enough
either. Google Groups is clunky, and it gives me no good motivation to return
to it. The readability is also not all that great imo. The whole ajaxy thing
it has going for it is also bad. I want to read static text on a functional
and beautiful UI. It's not too much to ask for. :(
~~~
qw
In my opinion, discussions were handled better in the old Usenet days. How
about running a private NNTP server and use one of the programs that forwards
the mailing list to the NNTP server? There are still lots of good NNTP clients
out there like XNews
~~~
sdesol
I can't agree more and what I absolutely loved about Usenet discussions was,
every reply contains a subject line. And it was expected etiquette to change
your subject line if your reply deviates from the parent.
With usenet, I could easily tell what I haven't read and if a branch deviates
from what I'm interested in discussing, I can just ignore that entire branch.
------
harryh
Build a company around creating a best in class development environment that
they can sell to other tech companies. This would involve everything from
repository management (on top of git) to build & compilation tooling to
automated testing and probably more than that eventually.
Once companies reach a certain scale they inevitably expend some of their
resources on building internal development tools. At Foursquare we have 1
person (on a team of ~80) doing this fulltime. Google has spent a ton of
effort on this with blaze. Facebook & Twitter have done similar work. But it's
all fragmented and it's all reinventing the wheel.
A company should do this right for everyone. If it was good enough I'd happily
write very very large checks to use it.
Honestly I think this is what GitHub should be doing, but they don't appear to
have their shit together enough to innovate so someone else should do it.
~~~
simpleAJ
How about Phabricator- [http://phabricator.org/](http://phabricator.org/)
~~~
harryh
That's part of the puzzle, but it's (AFAIK) mostly for code review and bug
tracking. I'm very much interested in the build tooling & automated testing (&
probably also deployment) pieces.
~~~
epriest
This stuff is still in beta and not generally useful, but we have Harbormaster
(Build/CI), Drydock (software resource management) and Releeph (release
management) in the pipeline.
------
miguelrochefort
An IDE for ideas. Intellisense for thoughts.
For those of you who develop using powerful IDEs (such as Visual Studio,
Eclipse, ...), it's hard to imagine going back to a basic notepad.
Most people, most of the time, don't write software. They exchange ideas,
express wishes, share their feelings. And to do that, they use tools that are
not more powerful than a basic notepad.
This forces them to be explicit, to explain what they mean, to repeat ideas,
to think linearly.
I believe it's time for the average person to have access to tools that are
just as expressive (if not more) than the ones developers have been using for
years. It's time to break the speech metaphor and develop a completely new way
to communicate. It's time for a UI-driven, computer-assisted, general-purpose
language.
What I suggest we build is an IDE for ideas. Intellisense for thoughts.
~~~
andrey-p
Interesting idea, but could you elaborate on the practical side of this?
Here's my take on this, in the form a ramble:
Intellisense works really well for code because there's a finite set of, for
instance, methods you can call on a certain object - so I'm assuming you mean
something that's more than just autocompletion.
I'm not really sure language on its own is powerful enough to handle ideas.
When I think of organising thoughts and ideas I normally think of a mind map
type of thing.
However, mind map software is too restrictive in terms of what you can create.
A sheet of paper + pen is an excellent tool for noting down ideas and
thoughts, but paper is finite and ink is irreversible: you can't move
around/delete stuff.
I also sometimes have trouble with situations where idea A and idea B are
related, but are situated at two completely ends of a mind map graph. So this
might mean dispensing with two-dimensional mind maps entirely, but I struggle
to imagine a non-annoying way of displaying a mind map in 3D.
~~~
miguelrochefort
"Thought" might be a better term than "ideas". The purpose of such a tool is
not to brainstorm, but to communicate.
We communicate using natural languages. If you check Twitter, you'll see
people write down all kind of thoughts and information. But this information
is not semantic, and only a human (or NLP) can make sense of what is said.
When people communicate, it's either to make a statement about the past ("I
ate sushis"), about the present ("I'm in Las Vegas"), or about the future ("I
want to watch Terminator 2").
The past and present (which actually are the same) are simple declaration
about reality. The future is all about wishes and intents.
Of course, you could add another dimension/mode (reality/fiction). In fiction,
past/present could be "I wish Hitler wasn't born" and the future could be "I
want to work at Google". In reality, you would say "Dinosaurs existed"
(past/present) and "There will be an hurricane tomorrow" (future). The
difference is that the future is no longer a wish, but a prediction (as we're
dealing with reality).
I want people to be able to communicate the following ideas without just
relying on boring text:
\- The Lego Movie was great.
\- I want to be in NYC by noon.
\- I'm interested in Bitcoin.
\- Lock my house's doors.
\- I want to wake up at 7AM every monday.
\- I'd love to attent to the next Metallica concert in Barcelona.
\- It's rainy in Vancouver.
\- Where is my car?
\- Turn on the oven to high.
The above statements should be purely semantic. I should be able to click on
"Metallica" and get more information about them. I should be able to click on
"event" and see where and when it takes place. I should be able to click on
"car" and see exactly what car he's referring to. I want statements to be
elevated to a level where they have meaning, and that text only is a single
representation of these ideas.
You're in Vancouver? You won't see "It's rainy in Vancouver". You'll see "It's
rainy (here)". If you don't know what Bitcoin is, you might see "John Doe is
interested in [insert a short summary about what Bitcoin is]". If you're
metallica, you'll probably see "3723 people want to see you in Barcelona". If
you're the oven, you'll probably understand "Heat up to 500 F".
Now, the above statements are simple and don't show why someone would need an
IDE for thoughts (NLP + manual confirmation would be enough in many cases).
But people shouldn't limit what they think to 140 characters either. They
should be able to express complex ideas such as (a product review):
"iphone" -> "Do you mean iPhone 5S ..." -> Yes
"display" -> "Are you referring to the display of the iPhone ..." -> Yes
- Glossy
- Cracked
- Too Dim -> Yes
- _____________
...
As you can see above, it's not easy to express complex interactions with text.
But the idea is that you can input any keyword representing a "thing" (object,
attribute, value), and continue adding nodes by searching for them with
keywords until you have the elements you want to refer to. Then, you can drag
relations between them and see suggestions based on likeliness and what not.
It would of course infer things based on past statements and what it knows
about you.
When writing a product review, people don't always know where to start, and
often repeat things that other have said. By being able to refer to specific
aspects of a product, see what others have said and confirm/infirm their
statement (upvote/downvote), as well as build on top of it is probably a
better way to converge meaning than to ask potential buyers to read through
all of them manually. Maybe this should have his own idea thread.
Basically, I want a semantic version of Twitter that can suggest me things I
can say about things I want to talk about, and let me endorse an existing
statement instead of repeating it.
~~~
sitkack
I see it doing reverse stemming so that the nouns and verbs in the AST are
more simple, like annotating verbs and nouns with a temporal tag.
You type in english, and it generates an AST on the fly. This would allow
conversations to line up and be searchable by content rather than just text.
If the software isn't continually improved I could see it dumbing down the
grammar that the group uses. It could enforce a defacto double-speak.
Another nice side effect, is that you could search by concept. I find this
very very difficult with current search tools.
~~~
miguelrochefort
That's the plan.
------
rhythmvs
A file naming convention (lightweight markup) that would allow us to store
structured (meta)data right inside file names. Obviously inspired by Markdown
and CSV.
We could then build lean, database-less asset management applications, while
the user data (i.e. the files and their metadata) would always be portable,
across platforms.
Take for example:
J.M.W. Turner | Rain, Steam and Speed | ···· 1844.jpg
W. Blake ···· | Newton ·············· | 1795–1805.jpg
as compared to the clutter we now must deal with:
_IMG00123.JPG
Turner_-_Rain%2C_Steam_and_Speed_-_National_Gallery_file.jpg
My practical use case: take snapshots of my incoming receipts, bills, etc.,
name the jpgs using the proposed file naming convention (including fields for
VAT, net amount, etc.), put them in Dropbox, build a parser and accompanying
GUI to edit file names (and their corresponding metadata; have total amounts
etc. being calculated in real time), drop a link to that (web app) interface
to my accountant.
It’s just an idea for HN Idea Sunday; I did a somewhat more detailed write-up:
[https://gist.github.com/rhythmus/11118629](https://gist.github.com/rhythmus/11118629)
~~~
tfgg
I like this. I've often had a similar issue in computational physics when
handling lots of different calculation input/output files with variations in
parameters. I've tended to automatically generate directory hierarchies, e.g.
rc=1.0/ecut=60/kp=4,4,4/
rc=1.0/ecut=80/kp=4,4,4/
rc=2.0/ecut=60/kp=4,4,4/
rc=2.0/ecut=80/kp=4,4,4/
but some standard way of expressing it in the file name would be great, and
nicer to parse out later. There are filesystems that allow metadata, but I've
never seen one really being used for that purpose. You could make some
associated command line tools that are equivalent to 'ls' that allow
splitting/slicing the files down different parameters.
~~~
yummyfajitas
Take a look at hdf5.
~~~
tfgg
Thanks, I'll take a look, but it seems like I'd have to change the format of
the files, right? Unfortunately that's not really feasible, since their format
is determined by the scientific codes I use -- that's why I was attracted to
the idea of using the file name. I can, however, have a go at HDF5 for code
that I write myself.
------
monk_e_boy
Web filter. I love F1 and there is a race today, so I can't look at 99% of the
internet as they will show the result. I will watch the race later when the
kids have gone to bed.
This problem is so big that i have to avoid facebook becaue they also show
trending news.
So a filter that filters F1 or any selectable sports news. Then when i turn it
off after watching the race the filter shows me a list of what news it found
and filtered for me.
Added extra, while i'm watching the race it could show me tweets in real time,
but back shifted so as to make sense with the race.
My football loving buddie also agrees he'd pay for this filter.
~~~
covercash
I don't have HBO, so filtering all Game of Thrones references every Sunday and
Monday would be fantastic.
Not sure I'd pay for that service since it's probably easier to just pay for
HBO and watch it "live" like everyone else.
~~~
kayge
I thought the same thing, but unfortunately a lot of spoilers come in the form
of images. Or maybe fortunately, since it adds an interesting layer of
complexity to this idea.
~~~
fffffffffffffff
ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc
~~~
notfoss
Sometimes, I wonder if there really are cats and dogs messing around with
computers...
------
miguelrochefort
Sell anything in a snap.
1\. Find something you want to sell
2\. Snap a picture (or a short video)
3\. Tap "list for sale"
4\. Let mechanical turk + computer vision identify the object
5\. Let the system pick a value (based on sales history, location, demand)
6\. Contact the seller when a serious buyer made a deposit
7\. Proceed to demo + sale
I shouldn't have to write down any spec when selling something as ubiquitous
as an Xbox 360. I shouldn't have to go through 100 different ways to describe
an iPhone 4S when looking to buy one.
Delegating item identification to a third party is how you reduce the friction
of listing items for sale and improve semantics.
And to think that this system only applies to selling items is naive. The
possibilities are endless.
~~~
ogreyonder
Already done:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6660089](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6660089)
[http://i.imgur.com/mmPAztu.png](http://i.imgur.com/mmPAztu.png)
I didn't get much interest so I didn't bother building it :)
~~~
miguelrochefort
I built a prototype too: thingsy.co
It finds all the pictures on Instagram with the hashtag #forsale, post them on
Craigslist, and contact the seller through Instagram when a buyer emails the
Craigslist contact info.
Craigslist killed it.
~~~
flylib
there is a lot of activity in this sector right now, including some VC funded
startups, the approach they are taking is to grab instagram #forsale pics then
post it on their own storefront site
~~~
miguelrochefort
Really? Do you have any example?
~~~
flylib
this is the best one I seen - [https://10s.ec](https://10s.ec)
a few others
[http://new.soldsie.com/instagram-selling/](http://new.soldsie.com/instagram-
selling/)
[https://paytagz.com](https://paytagz.com) (Member of
[http://boost.vc](http://boost.vc))
~~~
miguelrochefort
Cool thanks!
------
raldi
Unlike "Who is hiring?" posts, which are ephemeral, "Idea Sunday" posts
continue being useful for a long time. Therefore, consider posting a link at
the end of each one allowing readers to jump to the previous one.
~~~
tobr
Linking to a search might do!
[https://hn.algolia.com/#!/story/sort_by_date/0/%22ask%20hn%2...](https://hn.algolia.com/#!/story/sort_by_date/0/%22ask%20hn%20idea%20sunday%22)
------
Bootvis
A bit lame maybe but here it goes:
The "Ready for Battle alarm clock". An alarm clock that wakes you up with your
favourite quotes from video games or movies such as:
\- Rise and shine, Mister Freeman. Rise and... shine. Not that I... wish to
imply you have been sleeping on the job. No one is more deserving of a rest,
and all the effort in the world would have gone to waste until... well, let's
just say your hour has... come again. (or part of this one).
\- It's time to kick ass and chew bubble gum... and I'm all outta gum
This idea would work best when you always wear your Google Glass like device.
Then the audio can be combined with a nice visual of for instance the G-Man.
For now, without the glass integration, it's easy to do make this with your
own phone. A nice service could be to personalize the message, i.e. "Wake up
Mr. Bootvis...".
The big problem here is that just copying these audio samples isn't allowed
and so it will be hard to build a company out of this.
~~~
kbar13
that would be cool, but wearing glasses while sleeping is not recommended.
~~~
a3n
Contacts and cochlear implants.
~~~
mcintyre1994
Contacts are worse (..other than the ones you can sleep in). Seriously though,
sleeping with your alarm clock makes it too easy to snooze anyway - we should
just project the image and go hologram later. :)
------
basicallydan
I've been sitting on this gem for a while. I present to you: The Bruce Wayne
Gap Year.
Wealthy people with desires to become Batman can more-or-less do so.
First they sign a waiver and an NDA, removing any liability from the Bruce
Wayne Gap Year company. Then they'll pay the company tens of thousands of
dollars to pay for what is to come.
They'll be put into a real criminal gang [1], and taken around the world
getting involved in all sorts of illegal [2] activities.
Sooner or later they'll be subtly led to the Himalayas, where they'll join a
monastery, lead a simple life of celibacy and minimalism and slowly learn to
meditate and fully understand themselves and their body.
After a while, they'll be groomed by a man [3] claiming to be working for a
mysterious and powerful leader of a guild of assassins, and taught all kinds
of martial arts over months and months, culminating in a complex battle which
determines their eligibility. At that point, they will be asked to do
something their morals will not allow (this will be determined in a
psychological screening), and end up betraying and destroying [4] the guild.
Then they return home, better for the experience.
It can't fail. A friend of mine also suggested it be re-implemented for all
sorts of action hero/film type situations. James Bond, Die Hard, Rambo, etc.
It's essentially a very expensive, realistic roleplaying experience.
[1]: Actually, very highly paid and well-trained actors. We don't tell them
that though.
[2]: Mostly not illegal, but they're made to believe that these things are
illegal. Some things will be borderline (they may accidentally end up
threatening people who are not part of the ruse, for example), hence the NDA.
[3]: Also an actor. A very good, very well paid actor. Possibly we'll just get
Liam Neeson, and he'll act so well that he'll convince them that he's not Liam
Neeson.
[4]: Not really. The martial artists will never be allowed to be worse than
the client, and will also be stunt-trained and capable of faking death.
~~~
huhtenberg
Wealthy people who are in a physical condition to do this, don't have time.
Wealthy people who have time, don't have health.
And those who have both, won't even talk to you.
~~~
Cryode
Mainly because they are already Batman.
------
wting
There's a lot of parallel conversations on Reddit / HN / etc. for various
articles.
Would about pulling high rated, top-level conversations from multiple sources
for a quick digest? Sort of like Google News for commentary.
~~~
loomio
As someone who often appreciates the comments as much or more than the content
- yes! I often come across articles in places other than Reddit or HN and wish
I could do a "reverse lookup" to see where it might have been submitted just
so I can read the comments.
~~~
rahimnathwani
There's a Chrome add-on which uses the Algolia API to do this. It adds a pop-
out side bar showing the HN comments for the page/article you're currently
reading. You must be on the page submitted, rather than on a comments page,
though.
~~~
avalaunch
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-
sideba...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-
sidebar/ngljhffenbmdjobakjplnlbfkeabbpma/related?hl=en-US)
------
rjf1990
Airbnb, but paid with labor.
Many travelers are short on cash but would love to trade services for a
night's stay. Me, I would be happy to host a guest for free provided they did
my dishes or laundry.
Many homeowners, especially empty-nesters, have homes with plenty of space
that they still have to maintain. This would provide benefits to both parties.
~~~
kbar13
hm, this could have some legal / human rights issues potentially.
~~~
spellboots
So does Airbnb...
~~~
kbar13
afaik, airbnb requests that the travelers pay using fiat money, not labor.
------
yzhou
Here's what I want: A cheap text ssh terminal with wifi,or cellular, nice
keyboard hardware, with extremely long battery life (or solar powered), which
i can just throw it in my car and forget it. Whenever I am away of my computer
I can always log in to my cloud server and write codes or do some quick fixes.
~~~
krishna2
This should be possible with a Kindle. The basic Kindle costs $50 or so. And
it is a fork of Android. And has a month of battery life. There are some
Kindle-roots [Search "root a kindle"]. Would something like this work for you?
The keyboard will still be the kindle-keyboard.
The other option is a cheap ipad with a bluetooth keyboard. If you turn off
all the unnecessary apps and notifications and put it on airplane mode - it
should last a couple of weeks. You turn it on only when you need it. You will
still need to get an ssh app [many available].
~~~
sarthakk
The basic Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite don't use Android. It's only the higher
end models like Kindle Fire that use the Android fork.
------
mden
Idea: Tree of knowledge
Ever been interested in a topic that once you google you end up with
explanations(quite often on wikipedia) that rely on foundational knowledge you
didn't even know you should have? And then you started working your way back
by googling things you didn't know until you hit something you do know and
from that point you try to inch your way forward to the original topic just to
get discouraged a few hours in? I know I have and it's a pain!
A well built knowledge map that would graph the relationships between
different topics in a field would help alleviate this problem. Take for
example linear algebra. You've heard about this fancy thing called singular
value decomposition but barely know what a matrix is. You type SVD into a
search box, and it generates a breadth first tree with all the topics you need
to know to be able to understand SVD up to a certain depth. And then you just
work from the leafs that you do understand up to the topic you are interested.
This saves hours or sometimes days of just trying to understand the ordering
in which you should be learning things. It essentially builds a curriculum for
the user on the fly for a topic they are interested.
I would propose this as a community wiki so knowledge maps could be
crowdsourced and curated as they would be time consuming and difficult to
build for a single person. Would also suggest adding the ability to let users
create accounts and mark off topics they feel confident they know.
Potential problems: The two big problems with this idea are 1) generating a
proper knowledge map: There will be ambiguities in the edges and even the
nodes of a map. Sometimes (often) you will need to be clever how you organize
the information. For example, your have a dependency listing like: Matrix <\-
Rotation Matrix, but in reality it might be better to have something like
Matrix <\- Linear Transform <\- Rotation Matrix. Linear transforms would act
as an intermediary node for rotation, scaling, shearing, w/e.
2) a topics can be studied in different frameworks: E.g. linear algebra can be
studied with or without using vector spaces. Once again, deciding how to
create the knowledge graph will be difficult.
Solution: Have multiple types of edges. You can have edges to signify hard
dependencies, soft dependencies, generalizations, and extensions. Maybe other
types of edges. You will still need to be clever, but having a way to signify
the relationship between topics will help resolve the problem.
~~~
dominotw
You mean something like this
[https://www.khanacademy.org/exercisedashboard](https://www.khanacademy.org/exercisedashboard)
but for all knowledge?
~~~
mden
Yes, but as a wiki and with the additional edge information + breadth first
listing as I mentioned. It doesn't have to be as finely split up as this one
but maybe it should.
I have to say I'm really impressed by their progress since the last time I
checked their knowledge map (~2 years ago).
------
marpalmin
A kind of task rabbit that will connect expats ( who don't speak the language)
with locals. The idea is that the local will help the expat in small tasks
like understanding an insurance policy, housing contract, employment receipt.
~~~
sounds
Sounds interesting!
But would the company be able to build brand? First, to find expats would be
somewhat difficult as they tend to blend in! Second, the company would need to
be careful which people they hired, so they might be able to start at the top
end of the market (high rates, high quality service) and work down from
there...
That gives me the idea that it could start from an already existing service-
oriented company, whether that's landscaping, security, legal services,
accounting, etc. and they could just add translation and a more taskrabbit-
like approach (phone app, etc.)
~~~
marpalmin
Yea you got a point. However, I think you should pay a small fee, let's say 10
euros for the help. I used to live in the netherlands and it happened to me
many times that I didnt understand contracts, bills, etc and I got tired to
ask friends/coworkers to help me with that. I would pay a small fee to have an
external part to do it. I think it would work better targetting high skilled
expats in European cities with lot of them where the native language is not
English like Amsterdam, Munich, Berlin.
------
DanBC
== Dying Skills, Lost Tech ==
I knew a chap who could roof a home with Cotswold stone. He knew how the stone
was quarried (but he didn't do that bit) and how it was made into roof tiles
(but he didn't do that bit very often) and he knew how to roof a house using
those tiles. There are not that many people who can do that anymore.
There's a meme about the NASA Saturn V rockets that says we've lost the
paperwork and thus re-making them would be cery hard, and could involve
rediscovering technology.
The Domesday project is sometimes used as an example of digital obselesance
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Domesday_Project](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Domesday_Project)
And here's an example of someone looking for Cray software and code and
documentation
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3464546](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3464546)
So, this would be a site that interviews people (using crowdsourced
interviews) to glean information about how they do or did things, and why,
with video if possible of them demonstrating the techniques and equipment and
methods.
This would be a teeny bit like the Endangered Language Project.
[http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/about/](http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/about/)
There would need to be some way to control for truth and accuracy[1] and also
some suggestions for what is a good interview.
[1] my dad used to tell quite a few lies. One of these (well, one set) was
about his diabetes diagnosis and treatment. He claimed he had been diagnosed
as a child while still at school, and that he had to sharpen his syringe on
the stone floor. Utter cobblers, but somehow it found its way to an academic
site. I sent them a polite email and they made their disclaimers about
uncorroborated etc a bit clearer.
~~~
lesterbuck
This sounds similar to the BBC Mastercrafts series:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qvrcj/episodes/guide](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qvrcj/episodes/guide)
It came highly recommended to me, and the six episodes are sitting on my disk,
but I haven't gotten around to watching any yet.
------
miguelrochefort
A system to compose and track drug/supplement stacks, regimen and diets.
Transforming yourself has never been more accessible than it is today. We have
access to so much information and so many resources that there's rarely any
valid excuse not to become what you want to be. The problem is that the whole
process can be overwhelming, and finding what works for you requires
discipline and dedication. Most results don't happen overnight, and the only
way to get through months of imperceptible progress is to have a clear plan,
track everything, and learn from others.
I've seen all kinds of people in all kinds of context attempting to share some
regimen with others. You will find that on Oprah, in books, at the gym, at
your doctors, on forums, etc. That's all fine, but why do they still have to
write down the name of the product, the brand, the posology, the side-effects,
their interactions, everything by hand? Wouldn't it be easier for them to
write them down with a tool that understands what the regimen means, and
easier for us to add them to our own regimen in a single click?
Once the system understands what I (and others) want to achieve, how I
progress and exactly what I do to reach it, only good things can come out of
it. It can learn (machine learning, correlation finding), it can recommend
tweaks, it can help me acquire products, it can reward me, etc.
How hard is it to set-up a database of all drugs/supplements/vitamins, and let
people semantically fill the why, what, when and how?
I don't think there's a lack of niches either:
\- Bodybuilding
\- Cognitive enhancement (nootropics)
\- Weight loss
\- Hair loss
\- Skin care
\- Allergies
\- Acne
\- Long distance running
\- Diets (vegan, paleo)
\- Chronic disease
\- Life extension
~~~
lhenriquez
I've been looking into a very similar idea. There's a fair amount of prior art
in this area, but I feel that no one has nailed it by including the right
level of data sharing and practitioner motivation in a way that lets the
ecosystem learn from experimentation and improve while not running afoul of
HIPPA. If you're interested in exploring the idea more lets connect :
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/loganhenriquez/](http://www.linkedin.com/in/loganhenriquez/)
------
keithwarren
RAID Arrays for online storage services.
So many services offer a free tier, maybe 5gb for free and then you pay after
that. Some are much higher. Build sort of a proxy to these services so that
you have a distributed and large free online storage system.
This was an idea my team had last year when we were looking closely at a photo
organization and management startup. We had won a startup competition, had
investors tender offers but in the end we decided not to pursue the idea
primarily because the storage business absolutely sucks, and photo systems are
inherently storage businesses. This idea of 'BYOS' (Bring your own storage)
was one of the hacks we thought up to get around the problem but in the end
customer discovery taught us that the idea had too much friction for most
people. Tech folks loved it, 35 year old moms didn't.
You can simply start with a few of the larger players, use the service to
connect your free DropBox, Google Drive and OneDrive accounts. There may even
be a monetization option wherein as you approach saturation of the storage you
push the user to sign up with a specific vendor for a discounted deal and that
other vendor can be a partner company or your own storage medium.
It has to be simple and transparent though, you still want people to have that
simply sync experience regardless of where the file is stored and they should
be able to view all the files across all the services at one time, regardless
of where they are physically stored.
~~~
jarofgreen
Seen [https://trovebox.com/](https://trovebox.com/) ? It started out as a
thing kind like this, an Open Source photo service that could use any backend
you configured, but now appears to be some kinda B2B service .... shame.
------
siruva07
I'm responsible for purchasing our computer equipment for our startup. Every
time I make a purchase on our company (@MakeSpace) credit card, I have to
remember to send an email to our accountants (record the purchase as an asset,
depreciation for taxes, etc).
More importantly, it's hard to keep track of what equipment was given to each
employee. I imagine at a larger company this would be handled by an IT
department, but sub 50 people I'm doing this on a spreadsheet myself. Would
love a simple web app to record serial # of machine, receipt (that I could
upload PDF), date purchased, employee, etc.
Happily would pay monthly SaaS. Please message me if anyone knows of this type
of product. I'd happily be your first customer if you want to build it.
edit: Happy Easter!
~~~
Theodores
Someone can sell/make you a tool for that however you can also do it yourself
with a simple Google Docs spreadsheet. Your accountant will understand it as
will anyone else that has to maintain it. You get versioning built in so you
can see who has changed what. Plus you can make it read only.
Regarding the receipts, have a folder and just give the receipts a simple
date-supplier-what-for filename. You could probably paste the hyperlinks into
your spreadsheet if you could be bothered. If you can't then they are easy
enough to find.
~~~
siruva07
"you can do it yourself with a simple Google Doc"
Isn't this how ZeroCater got started?
The features for this (act 2) make it very interesting. Imagine one slick sell
to post to CL / Ebay.
------
nathanathan
[X-post from the previous Idea Sunday thread that didn't make it to the front
page:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7616132](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7616132)]
Idea: Git-story, a website that generates summary narratives from git commit
histories and other github data.
Here's a brain-dump with some ideas for the specifics:
Use foreshadowing: "It all started with one person, X, spending months to
gradually build what would one day become Y, a project forked by hundreds and
starred by thousands."
When someone makes their first contribution to a project give them a brief
introduction, like a shorter version of
[http://osrc.dfm.io/](http://osrc.dfm.io/)
Use sentiment analysis on commit messages to say things like "Frustrations
mount as...", "the developers rejoice after..."
When people work on multiple concurrent branches use use phrases like:
Meanwhile, X and Y toil away on the new Z feature.
Use the time between commits to chunk them into single sentences/paragraphs.
Also, add comments if the project goes dormant, or if there is a spike in
development.
Use keywords in commit messages like merge, revert, resolve to generate events
in the story.
When bugs are resolved look for linked issues and use the age of the bug and
number of comments to say thinks like "X finally fixed the controversial Y
bug"
~~~
danohuiginn
Neat idea. It's a bit like that facebook auto-generated video, but for github.
Include a decent plugin architecture, and you could get lots of contributions
to add in data from everyone's pet CI system, bugtracker, download counter,
etc.
[actually, if you started with something like Rails, you could launch versions
from old code, take screenshots, and stitch together a video]
------
rdl
A tablet (iPad or Android) game which is designed to be used while exercising.
Use ANT or Bluetooth 4.0LE to tie into a treadmill, bike, or other exercise
equipment to get output measurements (speed); ideally, find some devices which
allow two way commands (not common at all right now).
Networked games against other people, or vs. computer or past personal
performance. The interesting part is a "use while running" interface for the
touchscreen, requiring inputs (using gross motor skills, not fine control) to
do things in-game while retaining performance. Or maybe use audio output for
instructions (i.e. "press the blue button, then the red, then the green" while
keeping heart BPM above 130, and targets moving on screen.
~~~
hershel
[http://toshnology.blogspot.co.il/2014/03/goji-play-
making-30...](http://toshnology.blogspot.co.il/2014/03/goji-play-
making-30-minutes-of-exercise.html)
------
gus_massa
Current “Idea Sunday” thread
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7616132](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7616132)
(14 points, 7 hours ago, 22 comments)
~~~
jeroen
That (earlier) thread has now been killed.
------
11thEarlOfMar
I frequently wonder if there is a place on the planet I'd be happier in. The
idea is a site that allows me to select a wide variety of attributes and then
search for places in the world that match those attributes. For attributes
that I only care about only generally, I'd be able to select from a broad
category. For those that I care a lot about, I'd be able to drill in to highly
granular selections.
For example, I may only care that: : Government = Democracy
But for climate, something a little more specific: : Climate : Rainfall < 200
cm : Climate : Snowfall = 0 cm
And then something really granular: : Sports & Leisure : Adventure Sports :
Sky Diving < 50 km
Major categories might include: • Climate • Geography • Demographics •
Government • Infrastructure • Security • Entertainment • Recreation • Culture
• Education • Economy
It could be marketed as a branded plugin for company web sites in travel, real
estate and jobs. They'd pay for clicks and then use the results to market
their services.
I've found sites that offer this, but none have been quite what I wanted. One
requires you to enter the locations you think you'd like and then helps you
decide. Another was pretty close, but only covered the USA.
~~~
roma1n
I would like the same service for jobs I might enjoy.
~~~
squintychino
They have this. It's called 'any job search engine out there'. They all let
you put in these search parameters to get back jobs that meet your criteria.
------
rokhayakebe
I compiled different ideas over the week.
coMarketing: I would like to see a solution that allows smaller companies that
target a similar audience to be able to put their "little" marketing dollar
together and have a better chance at fighting the big guy.
Phone screen on my computer: When I am at my desk, I want to be able to use my
phone from my computer. I can use the desktop interface to go through
contacts, check feeds, answer texts, and even forward calls to my desk phone.
Conversation blog: A blogging platform that is based on discussion. Each blog
post is a conversation between two or more people, let us stop the monologues
because in real life to hear two is more interesting than one.
Alarm Band: A simple band that wakes me up with a buzz, but I just want to
spend $25 for it.
PHP wrapper: I began to write a simple consistency wrapper for PHP, but I
never finished. Basically it a class that gives me a clear structure on how to
pass parameters for functions. I ALWAYS know to do function something
(haystack, needle) then the wrapper rearranges according to the actual
function requirement.
~~~
shanacarp
If I could figure out how to do comrketing - I would
~~~
rokhayakebe
I work for a company that targets dentists. I am always thinking if we could
run a direct mail campaign with 3 or 4 other companies targeting the same
audience we can reduce our cost by more than 1/3 and we can offer awesome
packages to clients.
The same is true for paid search, facebook, etc...
------
gbrits
Related to @mden's Idea: Tree of knowledge.
Chrono: chronological inventions and academic breakthroughs of mankind as a
dependency graph. This is a lingering idea that has been coming back to me a
couple times a year over the last decade or so.
What if there's a kind of semantic wikipedia that is built upon a dependency
graph of inventions and academic breakthroughs. What led to the invention of
the internet, to nano-tubes, etc? How cool would it be from an education
standpoint to be able to jump back in time and see invention upon invention
replayed (with backgrounds on how these breakthroughs came to be) up to today.
Check out what led to invention X (the galaxy S you're reading this on),
played back . Or reversely, lookup which inventions were build (transitively)
upon the discovery of Y. You'd also finally be able to answer definitively who
was more important: Tesla or Edison ;)
Socio-economic backgrounds, anecdotes, etc. what led to invention X, and how X
was important for Y, etc. An interactive "Short history of nearly everything"
~~~
lesterbuck
You will love watching the old BBC series Connections, which is exactly about
the thread of inspiration behind many inventions:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_%28TV_series%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_%28TV_series%29)
------
neilsharma
Problem: Completion rates for online courses are dismal and engagement with
other students and faculty is low.
Idea: Weekly online, live discussion sections to accompany self-paced video
lectures. Discussion sections have 5-10 students and are facilitated by
Teaching Assistants
How it works:
Students taking a MOOC course sign up each week for a discussion section.
There can be multiple discussion sections to accommodate changes in the
student's schedule, different time zones, etc. Students pay ~$10/discussion,
once a week, for an hour.
Discussion sections can be G+ Hangout style and taught by crowdsourced
Teaching Assistants. These TAs can be grad students in universities looking to
make extra money. They can assist students with HW problems, go over tough
concepts, and talk about material outside of the immediate subject matter.
TAs can rev share per discussion. Example: 30% rev share for a class of eight
students paying $10 each --> $24 for the TA for an hour of teaching. This is
significantly higher than market rate (~$10-16/hr)
~~~
jeffreyrogers
Is it really a problem that completion rates are low though? I'd argue that
most people's time is better spent on things other than taking online courses.
I'm a proponent of making education accessible, but it seems that it is fairly
easy to find good resources to learn just about anything online, particularly
if it is related to computing. The real problem I think is motivation. Most
college students don't try that hard in school, so I wouldn't expect most
people taking online courses (particularly free ones) to try that hard either.
If you're motivated enough to learn the resources are already available to
you. If not, I think the efforts of others to make you learn will have
marginal effects at best.
Edit: I was replying to the first point about completion rates being low. I
actually think the discussion idea is a good one and would be helpful for
those who actually want to learn the material.
~~~
neilsharma
I think you're right that low completion rates aren't a problem. I don't have
specific numbers, but I'd presume that most students who fail to complete an
online course aren't motivated going in and are merely sampling or browsing.
They'd probably drop out regardless and skew the completion rate horridly.
For everyone else, I'd imagine the motivation level is higher because of
voluntary enrollment than a college student's who is forced to take certain
classes.
Also, the current iteration of online education can survive on unassisted
self-motivation. I can't recall the specific stat, but I believe 80%+ of
students taking coursera classes already have a bachelor's degree. Most
classes tend to be technical, where online resources are free and plenty. And
given the self-paced nature of online classes, most students who learn best in
group environments are probably pre-filtered and never sign up.
Perhaps discussions would be even more relevant as online education becomes
more mass-adopted? Group tutoring for home-schooled kids, KUMON classes taught
online, K-12 education where students need more hand holding, liberal arts
classes where answers are subjective and can't be auto-graded, etc.
------
sambeau
A meetings clock that counts UP the price of a meeting based on the the
salaries of the people in the room.
~~~
3rd3
What would be the effect of it?
~~~
kbar13
to keep aware of how long meetings affect productivity in $ sense for
business/management-minded people, I would assume.
------
binarymax
Food Golf.
(Code golf - for recipes). A community where members submit recipes. Score is
a function of ingredient count and cooking time. The lower the better. Recipes
are also rated for taste/quality by the community.
~~~
DanBC
I am reminded of the bits of Reamde that talk about recombinant cooking -
people take two existing prepared food items and mix them to get something
else. EG: a can of mushroom soup, a can of tuna and a pack of ramen noodles.
(Sounds revolting).
But I like the idea. Perhaps a twist could be to prepare a weeks worth of
meals using the least ingredients - people are allowed a small set of regular
items for the pantry (plain flour, milk, granulated sugar, salt) but have to
use or reuse a limited set of ingredients to create a tasty nurritious menu
for a week on a tight budget.
------
pubby
A twitter/imageboard system where it takes 2 weeks for messages to appear once
posted. The idea being that messages still relevant in 2 weeks are important
and interesting ones.
~~~
NoodleIncident
I had a similar idea a while ago.
Basically: a reddit/HN clone, but at any given time only one article can be
commented on. That article is replaced every day or every hour (whatever
interval makes sense) with the highest-upvoted submission that doesn't have
comments yet.
The goal would be to encourage deeper discussion of matters, rather than
fleeting posts. I have no idea if tree-style comments would be better than
just a simple forum thread. A major part of the site would also be scrolling
through all of the past articles, and being able to read all of the previous
discussions.
~~~
Spittie
That's a really nice idea, I'm sure such a site has the potential to generate
very high-quality discussions about a topic.
The only problem I see, is that the audience of HN (and Reddit even more) is
big and has many different interests. It's very hard to cover those interests
with only an article a day, and many might just lose interests after a bunch
of days without anything interesting for them. Moving the cadence down would
probably help, I think the sweet spot might be around 4/6 articles a day.
I think I'd also try to bring down the number of submissions compared to HN.
HN gets a lot of those, and it's good, but I don't think it would be healthy
for such a site. I can think off limiting the number of submissions an account
can do every day/week, limiting submissions to accounts older than X days
(this is mostly to avoid spam) and/or having a pay-for-submission system (not
real money, but karma or other similar things).
------
karangoeluw
Ok I'll go first.
It's an "Imgur for audio files".
Now there's times when you record an audio and want to share it. What do you
do? Uhh,, umm.... Yup. exactly. There's no reliable, easy-to-use app to share
audio files (not music).
So, this is a web/mobile app for easily uploading and sharing audio files, and
playing them. I don't have a full plan laid out, but I'll work on it for sure.
(If you'd like to be notified when it's done, let me know:
[http://eepurl.com/SRIPT](http://eepurl.com/SRIPT))
~~~
wxm
In what way would it be different from SoundCloud? No fancy commenting?
Anonymous uploads?
~~~
4ngle
The big thing about imgur is the community. Consider the front page of imgur.
I think that's the cool thing about the idea.
You usually go to Soundcloud because you're linked there, it's not something
that easily builds its own culture.
~~~
dwiel
Soundcloud has a nice culture. I go there both to discover music and to listen
to music I've liked. It's different than imgur but I think that partly is just
due to the fact that it takes anywhere from 3 minutes to an hour to experience
each 'piece' compared to an image which you can digest in a few seconds and
flip through a bunch when you need to burn a minute or two.
~~~
karangoeluw
You bring up an interesting point:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7614790](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7614790)
------
LazerBear
GitHub for mathematicians.
For every theory, define its axioms and valid logical steps. Let anyone build
theorems based on these (validate them automatically), and allow people to
fork others theorems to create their own.
It's probably possible to get a lot of proofs from projects like Mizar and
Metamath to start with, then let the community build on top of it.
Maybe even a crowd sourced bounty program for unproven theorems, like P=NP.
Let people pledge and automatically pay to whoever proves or disproves it.
I think this can really change how mathematical research is done.
~~~
neonhash
> validate them automatically
That's the hard part. There is some research being done in that are really
interesting, such as
* Koepke, Schröder, Cramer with Naproche [http://www.naproche.net/index.php](http://www.naproche.net/index.php)
* Paskevich with SAD (unfortunately he stopped his research) [https://web.archive.org/web/20131207185950/http://nevidal.or...](https://web.archive.org/web/20131207185950/http://nevidal.org/sad.en.html)
~~~
LazerBear
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see the problem. If your users submit
their proofs one line at a time, then validating each line is O(1) if they
give you the assumptions they used and the steps they took.
Edit: In case I wasn't clear, I didn't mean anything like natural language
processing (though that would be awesome). I meant very strict formal math
where everything is explicit.
------
fest
Ordering prototype (3d printing, CNC machining, lasercutting) parts,
reimagined. It's a major pain just to get a few parts made- first you find a
company that does that, e-mail them their design, they get back to you with a
quote and you either accept it or go back to step 1.
What if you could just upload your design, select a material from catalogue
and receive an instant quote. If you're happy with it, order the parts and
then either pick them up in person or have them delivered.
~~~
yankoff
There are services like that. Check out
[https://www.ponoko.com](https://www.ponoko.com)
~~~
fest
Exactly like this (sad smile).
------
PopcornTimer
Mixergy specifically for bootstrapped solopreneurs/micropreneurs except NO
video interview or a lot of the unnecessary info.
I want something I can read (comprehensive guides) with specific background
info on insider knowledge per industry or cool things they did that made the
company a success.
Mixergy interviews are often too long, too much noise to sift through, and not
enough core information.
Examples of things I've love to see... Say you are building a physical
product... How did you go about figuring/developing the prototype. If its
hardware, where did you go to get the prototype done (PCB boards, etc..). How
did you figure out manufacturing, if its overseas, how did you coordinate
(different language, sourcer, shipping information, quality control, etc...).
If you're in the food industry, how did you manage to get contacts to help you
get your product into stores, how did you develop or manufacture the product,
etc.. If you're in catering, how did you go about reaching specific clients
before you were known, etc...
The things people want to know are the details that are difficult to find that
could be useful. I don't care much for the stories (success or failure doesn't
matter as much as the core background on how things got done).
~~~
karangoeluw
I'd like to do this. If anyone has the connections and would like to help out,
email me [email protected]
------
huherto
A corporate firewall where employees can control which sites they want to stay
away from.
I don't know if this exists. But some companies don't ban some sites because
they don't want to appear to be too controlling.
I personally do this by changing my own /etc/hosts file, but it is too easy to
override. A firewall solution my be better for technical and not technical
employees to help them to control their own browsing addictions.
------
s369610
Idea: ShowMeThere (needs better name, camanywhere?)
An phone/web app that allows you to click on a place in google maps and
request a "cammer" for x minutes, you pay $x and anyone running the software
on their phone that is near that location can accept the offer and start
streaming video from their phone to you, allowing you to have a kind of "live"
street view.
There is UI for the payer to click on arrows to inform the cammer to move here
or there, and to zoom or focus on certain things, also a pre translated set of
things to help communicate with cammer. Cammer gets paid after the x minutes
is up.
Cammer gets cheap money for being a personal camera man for someone somewhere
else in the world.
Client saves a trip out there to see something for himself.
Use cases: Want to see if an antique you are looking for is at the markets but
cant get away from work?. Want to check out markets in turkey but live in
australia? Want to see what the surf is "really" like right now and whether
you should bother heading out? Police work/chases! heaps of uses.
For popular events and markets, a cammer could setup shop and offer high
quality streams etc.
~~~
2511
like this idea. Though it looks like Ustream is already doing it. Also the
challenges with the app: How to ensure that the video was actually shot on
that particular location. What if the "cammer" turns off location settings?
------
hershel
One of the biggest problem in the new field of medical apps is lack of
verification: how do i as a doctor or patient know if an app works, and how
well ?
Of course this problem is generic for many types of products.Reviews are a
partial solution ,but it would be quite useful to have a site that gathers
research and helps in creating valid research on various products.
------
martinaglv
tl;dr Independent store for bookmarkable HTML5 mobile apps
This is an idea that I had recently, but for which unfortunately I have no
time. I hope that some of you folks can make it happen.
The idea is that with the recent release of Chrome for Android's "Add to Home
Screen" feature, there is now a way to bookmark websites to the home screen of
every mobile os. Mobile sites can add a meta tag to hide the browser chrome
and look fully native. Combined with fast mobile processors, this means that
we can finally have native-like experience only by using HTML.
It may be difficult to build a business around it, and could make more sense
if it is crowd-sourced (the database could be hosted as json on a github
repo).
I haven't done much research, but I believe that an independent store which
collects these apps, makes them discoverable, and instructs people how to
install them would be very useful, and will do a great job for promoting the
freedom of the web over closed app stores.
~~~
seanwalker08
I am working on a user submitted solution to html5 apps now and had a question
for you. Is your idea to host the apps instead of just linking to them like a
typical user submitted site does? If you wanted to chat a little about it, my
contact info is in my profile here.
------
Buetol
An anonymous and representative group discussion and voting system
Practical example: Attending a conf as a woman
\- You want to ask questions during the talks but you are afraid that because
you are a woman your answer will be "dumbed-down" or just different
\- Also, the guy doing the talk would like to answer the best possible
question (or a random one)
So, there can be a lot of solutions to this problem, here is mine:
\- Every attendee get an anonymous account on discuss.confname.org
\- So everyone can ask questions anonymously and also it's fair because
everyone has only one account
Except, that I made up this example in 5 minutes. This problem is effectively
on every possible group in the world. People would like to express their
opinions inside the group without risking differentiation.
I tried to describe this idea and the implementation (
[http://kioto.io](http://kioto.io) ), but it's really hard to explain. So I'm
just implementing a prototype right now to better explain this idea.
~~~
dzink
This does exactly that and you don't even create an account, so it's really
anonymous: [http://www.gosoapbox.com/](http://www.gosoapbox.com/) . All you
have to get is a shared url for the dicussion. Their primary use case is for
classroom discussion, but functionality is what you described.
~~~
A_COMPUTER
SSL record to long, can't get in. Broken.
------
pnathan
Chores service.
For $X, we will come and do Y chores, quickly and professionally, relatively
flat rate. Y job is a typical household chore.
Particular pain point: cleaning the litterbox. I don't really like it, so it
gets delayed a bit more than it should. Garbage can be a pain when the
apartment building is poorly laid out.
I don't mean a maid or cleaning service. If I lived in a house, I'd want
someone for random house maintenance tasks.
I'm half-tempted to do this where I live - I live near both a university and a
fairly well-off suburb. Pretty sure a freshman would appreciate odd-job work
not far from campus.
The catch is that I don't really have time to deal with bonding, insurance,
payroll, workman's comp, etc, etc. Someone with 10-20K, familiarity with the
process, lots of flex time over the next 4-6 months (when your help gets sick,
YOU get to do it. =) ), and a yen for business could probably make a tidy
income from it.
~~~
spaboleo
Think of this from the viewpoint of changing demographic: People get older and
need to taken care of, which is shockingly expensive.
There are several attempts, with prototyped like housing/neighborhood
scenarios, where the younger generations (students) live together with the
elderly. Older people might live in the ground-level apartments, while the
young students wouldn't worry about walking up 2-3 flights of stairs. They
could do some shopping, basic housekeeping, watch them take the right
medication in the morning. In return the elderly could return the favor by
exchanging non-monetary things, like home-made food. Or they could just pay
for the students to lower their rent.
All those solutions are great, but they require serious building of
infrastructure, which can't be done immediately.
So services like the one described above seem to be an intermediate solution.
The problem is that all those "micro-tasks" (take the cleaning the litterbox
example) are too easy/short to be paid a sufficient amount of money to be
done. It's an entirely different league if you pay a gardener to come to your
house twice a week for 3-4 hours. And even gardeners/poolboys etc. have issues
if they have to drive from client to client for 30min. or more.
It would be great if there would be a platform that allows people living
geographically close together share a qualified person doing specific
services. Take someone walking their dogs every morning as an example. The
cost can be shared amongst 6-10 dog owners. While the time spent for walking
6-10 dogs might only double (you need time to collect and return them) instead
of increasing 6-10 fold.
So the service should bundle and curate requests from a neighborhood or house.
If a couple requests are similar, like "I would love someone to clean my
windows every X weeks." They get bundled into a service package for which
local contractors provide a quote. And other people living in the neighborhood
can then pledge for the service. With every new customer joining the average
price is lowered for everyone.
Kind of like a curated form of a cross between taskrabbit and kickstarter.
~~~
pnathan
I _completely agree_. I think that the effective way to start this would be to
get a high-rise to buy into the idea. If you have 10 floors of apartments all
in the same building, you have some good time efficiency and can start sharing
resources - i.e., a big bin to throw bags of cat crap in that can be trundled
down the hall from apartment to apartment.
I like your angle on how it'd help the elderly. It might be an interesting way
to put together a 'senior living' neighborhood in conjunction with a
developer. You could contract with the developer that your labor force would
handle the big lifting duties; on the buy side, the rent would be marginally
higher (and spread out over the development). Perhaps that already exists
though.
------
genericsteele
Idea: StackOverflow for comebacks
I've always had a hard time coming up with a good comeback in conversations.
It would be great to have a site where I could post a situation and have the
community suggest and upvote/downvote insults and comebacks. Maybe introduce a
real-time element so I could use it in an actual conversation.
~~~
egypturnash
Here's an analog solution to your problem: Find some of the collections of
"Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions", a long-running series Al Jaffee did in
MAD. It took the format of a cartoon drawing setting up the situation, with
one person asking a question, and another offering _three_ funny answers, plus
a blank to write your own. Which is super valuable, because a lot of having a
good comeback is rehearsing a bunch of them beforehand, so you have something
ready.
(For instance sometimes I like to wear little horns glued to my forehead while
looking otherwise normal. People regularly ask me "are those real?" By
repeatedly answering that question, I now know that some variant of "yeah, I
used to file them down, but I've been letting them grow out because I've been
busy" will get a laugh.)
------
kidlogic
Yelp for Manufacturing - help hardware startups determine which manufacturer
fits their needs and remove the question of whether or not they're working
with someone qualified
~~~
lesterbuck
This is actually a serious problem, and really solving it would be very, very
profitable. For an example of the issues involved, listen to the Mixergy
interview by the founders of TouchFire, and iPad keyboard. They describe the
baroque method of hiring a manufacturing consultant so you don't get eaten
alive by a bad Chinese manufacturer.
[http://mixergy.com/steven-isaac-touchfire-
interview/](http://mixergy.com/steven-isaac-touchfire-interview/)
Let me know if you would like to talk more about this. Contact info is in my
profile.
~~~
kidlogic
shot contact over linkedin + twitter. Let's chat!
------
adamzerner
Skimmable video. Like this -
[http://worrydream.com/MediaForThinkingTheUnthinkable/](http://worrydream.com/MediaForThinkingTheUnthinkable/)
Like any platform, there's the chicken-egg problem. I'm not sure how you'd get
enough content, but I'm confident that if you had enough content, it'd be
better than YouTube.
But starting off getting content wouldn't be that hard though. You could take
currently existing YouTube videos and make them skimmable. And you could
convince people to make videos for your site because the quality is so high.
And if you could create a tool that makes making these videos easy, it'd
provide single-user utility, is important for platforms. See
[http://platformed.info/](http://platformed.info/)
------
frankpinto
A site where you sign up for coffee / tea / lunch with a stranger in your
workplaces area.
Context:
\- I'm currently in Guatemala City and nobody talks here. A lot of people go
to their office, bring their lunch, go home. You hang out with your high
school / college buddies some evenings / weekends. I should know who works in
the building next to mine.
\- Haven't read the book but the concept of "Never Eat Alone" has been running
through my head for a bit
\- [http://www.inc.com/ilan-mochari/6-habits-
connectors.html?cid...](http://www.inc.com/ilan-mochari/6-habits-
connectors.html?cid=sf01001)
Inspiration:
[http://teawithstrangers.com/](http://teawithstrangers.com/)
[http://teawithtanay.com/](http://teawithtanay.com/)
~~~
alejoriveralara
Si!
~~~
frankpinto
Alejo! Forgot to tag you even though I was going to ask you to do the design
haha
~~~
alejoriveralara
Would love to. Definitely!
------
sakai
A simple service for setting up and running jobs/workers without having to run
a server.
Ideally, it would have the following features:
* Pay once, run forever (pay for the job up front and never again -- no recurring billing to worry about)
* Configure once, run forever (use Docker/LXC in the background to allow custom environments and absolve the user of the dependency headaches that can arise when running multiple jobs on a single machine)
* Easy to use
I've been casually working on this as it's a pain point I've experienced
numerous times (e.g., running a daily job that should cost ~50 cents per
month, which is substantially below any available VM price).
Would anybody use this? Other thoughts?
~~~
olegp
This is the only service in this space I could find:
[https://starthq.com/apps/crondash](https://starthq.com/apps/crondash)
It doesn't actually run the job but could be used to trigger them.
I think the idea could work if you could write the tasks as snippets of JS,
think IFTT/Zapier but with a code editor.
~~~
sakai
Yes! Well said.
It would definitely need to include:
* Web code editor for jobs (JS, Python, Ruby, Perl, Go, etc., etc.)
* Results served over an authenticated API (e.g., servicename.com/api/<username>/<jobname>/files/result.csv would get you the latest result.csv file generated by your script, .../<jobname>/20140419/files/result.csv would get you yesterday's, etc.)
* Jobs could probably be both scheduled (i.e., cron-like) or triggered via a webhook
~~~
olegp
Might make sense to stick with JS to start with for the sake of simplicity.
I actually wrote a Node.js PaaS that I never open sourced & periodic short
lived jobs was one of my use-cases.
Let's continue via email.
~~~
notduncansmith
Hey guys, too late to get in on this discussion? Sounds really cool and
something I could see myself using a lot.
hello at duncanmsmith.com
------
vishaldpatel
Here's one I've had for a little while: Say you're playing a sport with your
friends. You're yelling at each other.. commands likes, "pass the ball here".
Or if you're out playing paintball and trying to coordinate an attack - your
sound, and your opponent's sound are both pretty important.
As far as I know, such use of voice does not exist in any game. Player's voice
does not really interact with the environment. So, say someone says, "come to
me!" through voice-chat.. you still have to look at the map to see where they
actually are.
~~~
radikalus
Dolby Axon had something similar-ish:
You and others on voice chat were in a 'virtual' room and the sound was
stereo/volume adjusted accordingly.
I remember that when people misbehaved on group voice chat we used to "put
them in the corner"
It didn't map to the game environment but the execution was pretty nice; I
fear that, if you use the game's physics, you'll quickly realize why radio-
comm became such a thing
~~~
vishaldpatel
Yes for sure.. but one would have to be close to the enemy player and then
he'd be dead. And ally players.. well.. maybe there can be a way to mute
allies ;).
------
gamegoblin
I really hate the format of arguments/debates in person. I feel like they
would be a lot more rational if done through email or something, where one
isn't expected to respond immediately as part of a conversation.
I'd like a website which facilitated debates, allowed debaters to branch off
multiple threads of debate and close threads once they are settled (ideally
until all threads are closed), backreference other threads, citation lists
that get automatically aggregated, etc.
~~~
splike
Its not much good, but what you're describing sounds like
[http://www.debate.org/](http://www.debate.org/)
------
nashadelic
A knowledge assimilator: it crawls the web and other knowledge sources and
summarizes facts about any topic. The system is thus able to auto-generate a
wikipedia-like page for the topic.
If employed in an corporate/enterprise environment, it reads all the
documentation and then someone can ask it questions like: "What does the SDP
5.1 do?", "What is the capacity of an SDP 5.1?", "Can I connect an SDP to an
SCP" etc.
~~~
lesterbuck
IBM Watson can do most of that today, in specific fields like medicine, and is
growing into a general purpose learning and deep Q&A system.
------
refrigerator
[X-post from the previous Idea Sunday thread that didn't make it to the front
page:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7616132](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7616132)]
Idea: a new way to purchase and set up a fish tank. Currently, you have two
options:
a) Buy everything separately - tank, filter, heater, plants, fish. You have to
find out whether your fish and plants are compatible and your tank is big
enough for what you want etc. You have to figure out where to put the heater
and filter so that it doesn't look unsightly.
b) Buy a prebuilt tank with the filter and heater etc. pre-installed somewhere
not too ugly. You still have to figure out which livestock you can keep, based
on tank size, filter type, plants, and whether they can live with the other
livestock you want. You also have to live with the prebuilt tank company's
design decisions, which you might not like.
The solution: a company that offers minimalistic, sleek tanks with a modular
system for adding filters, heaters, skimmers, lighting, etc. that keeps the
equipment out of the way and not looking ugly. Also, an online service where
they can select and order the modular tank and equipment that they want, and
be allowed to choose from compatible livestock and plants. Alternatively, they
can start with livestock that they want and they can be recommended the right
modular tank and equipment etc. They can pay for everything all together and
the items would be delivered as they are needed (with marine tanks, for
example, you have to let the tank 'cycle' for a few weeks so that the water
parameters normalise before you can add livestock).
What do you guys think?
~~~
keehun
Is the market size worth it? How will you reach the every-day regular-John-
Smith families who aren't going to be keeping an eye out for a service like
this?
~~~
refrigerator
I think there's definitely a market for it. Before people go out and buy fish,
they usually do some research first on what it will entail, so if this site
can also become a really good source of fishkeeping info and shows up on page
1 when people search for something like 'fishkeeping' or 'fish tanks' then
that could be good
~~~
keehun
I guess I'm not totally aware of who the "they" are in "they usually do some
research first" because I feel like a significant chunk of fish purchases come
from parents of little children who are already sleep deprived and go to the
nearest pet store or (God forbid,) Walmart or any other shop where they know
there are fish.
If you're correct that "they usually" actually do research beforehand, there
would probably be a market big enough to sustain a small online business.
------
joeclark77
Crowdsourced gardening. You create an account, taking pictures of your garden.
A cloud service stitches them together into a 3D model. GPS location and the
height of the various house/trees/walls are used to predict sunlight and
shade. Historical weather is recorded and predictions of future weather are
built in. Optionally the user can use cheap sensors or manual test kits to
measure soil contents, moisture, acidity etc.
Once the data is put in, the garden becomes part of the user's "profile" on
the site. Others can examine it and make suggestions about what to plant, how
to amend the soil, etc. User can log the things they do and upload photos (or
use automated sensors and webcam to send periodic updates). You can "star"
someone's garden to keep track of it and see how well their decisions worked.
Would be a great tool for experienced gardeners with too much time on their
hands, and busy newbies (who are nerds like me) to get free access to
distributed knowledge to learn how to grow food in the back yard.
------
Lambdanaut
Let's take 3D printing to the circuit board world.
A consumer machine that can be configured to takes as inputs:
1\. A set of different electrical part. (Perhaps self-contained in a large box
like printer ink is)
2\. A circuit board schematic file
The machine cuts the board and solders the parts in.
And there you have it! Your own computer factory! (For limited definitions of
"computer")
If this idea ever piques anyone's interest, I'd love to lend a hand with it.
~~~
hershel
[http://tempoautomation.com/](http://tempoautomation.com/) is working on a
solution for the pick and place part. Maybe they know of solutions to the
other parts.
------
maxerickson
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7582482](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7582482)
~~~
gus_massa
(Note: This is a comment of dang about the “Idea Sunday” posts in the last
Sunday thread.)
------
fiatjaf
A platform for building websites with data you already have (or will
create/update) and want to make public.
There are already a specialized niche for this: blogs. Blog platforms just
take your data (posts) and display in a nice time-aware format.
But there are not alternatives for pages built with not temporal articles,
tree-structured data, hierarchical content, lists of things etc.
------
jreed91
I just thought of this so I haven't exactly vetted it out yet or checked if
anyone else is doing this.
A major pain I've noticed is event planning. If you are doing it solo you must
call a ton of different individuals. You have to call for a place for the
event, a caterer or someone to supply food, decorations, and finally invite
all the people you want to come.
My idea is kind of a cross between airbnb and eventbrite. We create a service
that works with only local locations and food vendors. This service allows
them to post times they are available and food availability in a central
location. Individuals who are planning an event can come to this web site and
select what they want and where they want there event.
This service acts as the middleman easing the pain of event planning in a one
stop web site and also benefits the local small businesses by connecting them
with people looking for vendors for an event.
Let me know if anyone sees any problems with this or ways it could be
improved.
~~~
notduncansmith
The only problem I see with this is that most people that want to organize an
event on the scale that it would be inconvenient to manage all these things on
their own, would be able to afford an event planner (or they have a staff).
------
ezl
Better calorie counting.
My fitness pal is great, but it too long for me to use, I suck at looking up
or even knowing exactly what I ate is.
What I'd like is an app that lets me just take a picture of my meal, then add
any comments that might be helpful "ham sandwich" or "poached salmon, about
the size of my palm" \-- then it magically figures out what I ate and the
nutrition contents (within a day is fine)
I've seen this attempted before, but nobody still seems to be in business. I
suspect this has to happen with a human powered "pictures+comments to
nutrition data" engine.
I'd be willing to pay $30/mo (too low? $50?) for this and commit to paying for
4 months. If 99 other people (or 59) people committed as well, that'd be
$3000/mo revenue for the day this thing launches.
1\. Would anyone else back that as a pre-signed up user? 2\. Is anyone willing
to do it for us?
~~~
oevi
this already exists: [http://mealsnap.com/](http://mealsnap.com/)
------
X4
OK, you got me in.
I've got a Software Architecture assignment which allows me to work on any
kind of large scale Project (regardless of number of languages and complexity)
for 3 Months. The end result will be planned, discussed and evaluated
scientifically. We're two experienced devs. Suggestions for ideas are welcome!
------
realrocker
A mobile app to gamify recruitment. Users can win small amounts of credit by
1) referring friends(from phonebook) for a job 2) reviewing jobs to put them
in the baskets of: not applicable, interested but not actively looking,
interested and applying.This credit can be redeemed for non-cash items like:
gift cards and coupons. Recruiters pay a fee(in-app payment) to post jobs. In
return they get: 1) leads to candidates who applied and 2) profile summary of
people who found the job interesting but did not apply or found it not
applicable. For e.g: 10 applied(list of contact info), 15 found the job
interesting but did not apply(of which: 70 % are web developers, 60 % have
salaries more than 100k, 80 % are more than 5 years of exp. I have been
working on a prototype but it still need to iron out a few wrinkles idea-wise.
------
Ryel
Full text search of Youtube videos.
How many times have you watched a video, maybe an hour long conference and
wanted to go back to a point in the video where something specific was
mentioned. You have to skim to the area where you think it happened, and then
re-watch the video until you find what you're looking for. That sucks.
Even if Youtube allowed people to embed the full transcript of a video in some
kind of search layer with corresponding points in the video that would be a
dream.
Besides that I'd like a web browser built on 'the hive' that eliminates
advertising. If you want to browse the web without being tracked, traced,
prodded and harassed you could install the browser and a small, unnoticeable
amount of your CPU is used to help power the hive. I would then like to see
that operating system give a charitable donation every 6 months that says they
will donate 1 month of computational power to a research organization.
One thing I've always wanted to create is a competition website like Kaggle
but with real world results. Let's say I create this and go to Mount Sinai
hospital in NYC and tell them that I want to run a contest. The contest is to
anybody who thinks they can increase Mount Sinai's margins by X percentage
within a particular area of interest. The agreement with Mount Sinai is that
they have to give us all of the available data and we will open-source it. The
challenge for open-source folks is to review the data and if you can find a
way to increase margins by X percentage while still upholding the same level
of quality, you win the prize. Let's say Mount Sinai gives us access to the
entire spreadsheet of products they order from hospital gowns to radiation
machines, or even lets say we fund a $100,000 bounty to anybody or any team
who can reduce their emergency room wait times by 50%.
You could solve the problem in any way possible, improving hardware/software,
or simply finding redundancy in logistics.
Hospitals are probably not the best examples but I hope you see what I'm
getting at...
------
hershel
1\. Combining the mio water flavoring , which gets very good reviews in his
category ,into a cap of a reusable water bottle ,similar to pillid[2]
2\. Pcb layout design, in the electronics industry, is somewhat similar to
games like pipes. So why not gamify pcb layout[3] ?
3\. Recently i read some interesting research about some electronic circuit.
It would have been very useful to get access to a full diagram/layout and a
module to buy and play with.
[2][http://store.nalgene.com/product-p/pillid.htm](http://store.nalgene.com/product-p/pillid.htm)
[3][http://www.chipestimate.com/blogs/IPInsider/?p=2126](http://www.chipestimate.com/blogs/IPInsider/?p=2126)
~~~
meigwilym
UK drinks manufacturer Robinson's have just released Squash'd[1], similar to
your first idea
[1][http://www.robinsonssquashd.co.uk/](http://www.robinsonssquashd.co.uk/)
~~~
hershel
Mio does look similar. the whole point is make it easier to carry it inside
the bottle - less hassle, less forgetting, less things to carry.
Even better would be integration inside the reusable bottle cap such as you
just press somewhere to flavor a bottle.
------
caseyash2
As a part of my venture into user interface and user experience design
([http://www.caseyash.com](http://www.caseyash.com)), I created a few
concepts. It would be excellent if I could implement them, however technical
individuals are rare in Tennessee.
Below are the concepts:
Pack - A travel planning tool that integrates weather information to stay
alert on what to pack.
RQRES - A real estate search that uses a collaborative algorithm to quickly
find a home. The application pulls 10 homes; user rates them and then are
shown results that are highly relevant.
Pattern - A more difficult game of Simon. Instead of four tiles, there are
nine. The game also features ways to manipulate the game board.
Wonder - Hyper-local network.
------
brightsunday
Bufferbox Duplex - I sometimes find myself wanting to transfer a physical
product (books, keys to bikes etc) with someone. Sometimes it is hard
coordinating this and I often wish I could just put it into a box from which
only they could come and pick it up.
If people are familiar with Bufferbox (YC S12,acquired by Google) this is
essentially the duplex version. People can deposit and retrieve
packages/items.
One can think of charging people for the amount of time the package remains
inside the system or based on the size of the box etc.
Pros - if there is a secure payment system on top of this, one can essentially
use this to implement a small marketplace.
Cons - Could be used for exchanging illegal goods as well.
------
mudil
WP plugin to charge for guest posts.
As a blogger for last 10 years, I think someone should consider providing WP
blogs with ability to charge for guest posts. That can be done either as a
single time purchase (for a single guest post) or as a recurring payment (i.e.
monthly charge for unlimited or predetermined number of guest posts per
month). The purchaser makes a payment and opens an account, and then is
redirected to WP where he can write a post.
Guests posts is a growing industry for a number of reasons: SEO manipulation,
old fashioned PR, promotional activities, contests with multiple participants
(such as writing contests), etc etc.
~~~
conroy
Matt Cutts has said recently[0] that guest blogging should be avoided.
[0]: [http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/guest-
blogging/](http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/guest-blogging/)
~~~
notduncansmith
I don't understand why this comment is being downvoted. I feel like it's
relevant to the discussion (and was about to post it myself).
~~~
dang
Comments like the GP have been affected by the recent change we made to make
some downvotes more powerful (cf. sama's recent post on this). We did this to
address HN's toxic comments problem, but it has a downside: some good comments
get caught in the crossfire. It's not that they're getting more downvotes than
before, it's that you see it more because they're getting counted more.
The HN community has long had an informal self-correcting mechanism for this
case: when fair-minded users see a substantive and civil comment unfairly
faded out, they upvote it back to par. We're encouraging everybody to do this
consciously. The hope is that the overwhelming majority of good comments will
come to rest in positive territory, while comments that deserve it stay
negative. Exactly this happened with the GP.
In general, it's best to give such comments a corrective upvote yourself and
trust your fellow users to do the same. "Why was this downvoted" posts mostly
add noise—especially once the comment in question is back at par. (We're
seeing a lot of this.) If it turns out that it's necessary to rally corrective
upvotes—that is, if casual reader attention isn't enough—we'll figure out an
unobtrusive way to achieve that. For now, though, let's wait and see if it is.
------
slater
A sortable, queryable list of movies. A site that would retrieve a resulting
(and sortable!) list of queries such as "Show me all science-fiction movies
made in the last ten years", or "All Arnold Schwarzenegger movies that have
won an Oscar" (trick question!)
\- Yes, IMDB exists. And has some of the functionality I'd like. But it is a
slow site, replete with ads, upsells, 2003-esque "only show 10 results per
page!", etc. Yes, I realize they have to make money.
\- Yes, there are millions of movies in existence, and thousands added to the
pile every year. Not sure how to fix that data issue :(
~~~
miguelrochefort
Take a look at Wolfram Alpha:
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/Movies.html](http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/Movies.html)
------
Jemaclus
Google Glass app that streams subtitles from Netflix, Hulu, or even cable TV.
I rely heavily on subtitles to watch TV (I'm very hard-of-hearing), but I've
found that my [hearing] friends don't like subtitles very much. It would make
my life 10 million times easier if I could watch TV with subtitles or closed
captioning without having to subject my friends to that as well.
I don't know jack shit about Google Glass, but this is so high on my list of
wants that I'd drop $1500 for a Google Glass just for this app, assuming it
worked well and as advertised.
Someone make this happen.
~~~
karangoeluw
I remember an app demo in my last hackathon: when reading the Bible in hebrew,
English translation appeared on Glass.
Your idea isn't hard to work on, but I don't have a glass to do it.
~~~
AustinDizzy
The app you're talking about is Word Lens:
[http://questvisual.com/us/](http://questvisual.com/us/).
~~~
karangoeluw
Nope. It was an app for glass.
------
bliker
I really want a nice wysiwyg markdown editor. Not the two column layout. I
want syntax highlighting, but it should not only do colors but also semantics.
Headings should be actually bigger and italics slanted.
I tried and failed to make this idea a reality. I got to partial solution
using regular expressions. But it is far from functional and reliable but it
is only like 200 lines!
You can check it out here:
[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52646091/syntax/selectio...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52646091/syntax/selection.html)
~~~
quaunaut
Have you ever checked out [Mou]([http://mouapp.com/](http://mouapp.com/))?
You can turn off the live preview and it does exactly what you're asking.
Just, it's not in-browser.
------
cweiss
A photo app designed specifically for concerts - The main feature is that the
display goes dark while filming/snapping shots. As someone who goes to a lot
of shows, I hate the myriad of tiny squares I see between myself and the stage
and I've noticed a fairly small percentage of folks actually check focus/etc.,
they just stick their phones in the air and shoot away.
Bonus points for good social media integration - Read my location/4sq to know
what show I'm at - Easy posting to 4sq/FB/Twitter/Compuserve.
~~~
vishaldpatel
Seems like a thankless sacrifice to use a photo app that will take pictures at
a concert in a way that doesn't annoy others. How would you market this?
~~~
cweiss
A mix of "Dont be this guy" ad messaging and emphasis on the social sharing
side similar to Vine. Auto-sharing (or at least auto-queue for sharing) so
you're also not 'texting' in the middle of the show right after you get the
shot.
To be honest, I'd love to see it added as a feature in an existing successful
photo app.
------
kordless
A highly distributed framework for building a coop cloud using OpenStack and
Bitcoin: [https://github.com/StackMonkey](https://github.com/StackMonkey).
Whitepaper here: [https://github.com/StackMonkey/xovio-
pool/blob/master/whitep...](https://github.com/StackMonkey/xovio-
pool/blob/master/whitepaper.md)
I'm working on this full time now, so it's less of an idea than a reality in
progress! :)
------
cabalamat
Something like Wordpress but including a wiki as well as a group blog. The
blog entries would also be viewable based on recentness/score (like on reddit
or HN) or by topic (like on forum software).
It would be possible to have a local mirror of the site on one's PC which
would automatically sync with the live site; this mirror could also be used to
set up other live sites. Thgis would be an anti-censorship measure if the site
went down, someonre else could mirror it easily.
~~~
poppingtonic
Look at the blog lesswrong.com. It's a community blog built from reddit's
code. It has a wiki as well.
[https://github.com/tricycle/lesswrong](https://github.com/tricycle/lesswrong)
~~~
cabalamat
Thnaks. Here's the correct URL btw:
[https://github.com/tricycle/lesswrong](https://github.com/tricycle/lesswrong)
------
rokhayakebe
Endorse Graph: A browser plugin that allows people who are signed in with
their Linkedin, Github, Stack Overflow, Medical-Sites, etc... to endorse the
content of a web page.
------
iamsalman
Searchable photo albums OR Google Image search for personal photos.
Basically a way to organize photos into searchable tags which are context
aware and auto-generated. This way, I will not have to browse through tons of
photos to find the ones shot at a concert, for example. What if I simply
search for "concert" and all my photos shot at some concert are fetched. The
key here is to auto-tag the photos as good (or near to) as Google does with
their Image search.
------
ld00d
A system of homeless charity. I never have cash. What if I could scan a QR
code to donate? What if that donation was better distributed through a central
agency instead of directly to the person on the street corner? The guy on the
corner gets a bigger piece as an incentive.
A distributed peer to peer encrypted chat system. No dependencies on Google or
whoever for hosting. No middle channel holding private keys. Threaded
conversations. Synced across devices.
~~~
spaboleo
Regarding the first topic: Check out Handup
([https://handup.us/](https://handup.us/)) – It's not exactly what you
described, but they are kind of a middle man between the homeless, charities
and you as a potential donator.
I dig the peer 2 peer chat.
------
coinspotting
You can look at Firespotting - it is a hacker news for ideas.
------
elemos
A safe storage locker. I travel frequently for work between a few different
cities and it's a pain to constantly have to pack and re-pack, and buy and re-
buy those things which I cannot pack.
I just want a locker where I can feel safe leaving my stuff in the cities that
I travel to most frequently. This means I'm reasonably assured they wont get
stolen as well as being afforded many of the same rights when you own or rent
property.
~~~
siruva07
The physical dropbox. That's what we're building at www.makespace.com.
What cities are you in?
------
notduncansmith
One idea I saw posted last week that I'm scoping out and considering working
on: Dataclips for everyone.
Heroku Dataclips allow you to share the results of a SQL query against your
database with a simple URL. It'd be really cool as a standalone service that
you could hook up to your non-Heroku DBs (local, QA, production, etc). An API
would be sweet as well (imagine having a dataclip with your stack traces
during QA).
~~~
BjoernKW
I'm working on this right now. If you're interested shoot me a message.
------
yesimahuman
Registered agents as a service. Right now hiring people out of state is a
pain, despite how popular remote working is getting. There are a lot of random
rules in each state, and you have to have a registered agent in a state in
order to hire in that one. There are a few services that do this, but they do
it poorly and not in the typical startup fashion we've come to expect.
------
sarvagyavaish
Travel Assistant While travelling I like to keep family and friends involved
up to date about my travel plans - itinerary changes, delayed flights, boarded
flight, landed flight, etc. Instead of a pushing updates by texting 3-4
different people, I want to be able to provide an update in one place, say, on
the Travel Assistant app, and my family can receive appropriate updates.
~~~
spaboleo
Doesn't www.tripit.com do exactly this?
~~~
Nicholas_C
Can you notify other people of the status of your trip automatically though?
I've used TripCase in the past and they don't have this feature that I'm aware
of.
------
vecio
A specific place to share and watch how other developers or designers work on
their projects, by live screen sharing. It should be a good place to learn
from real projects development.
I came across this idea after YC said no to my Android screen live sharing
service [https://shou.tv](https://shou.tv), a live video streaming service for
Android gamers.
------
MicroBerto
This might exist but Googling for it has been a wasteland.
I follow many social media feeds that are other companies in my industry -
some partners, some competitors.
I want a script or app or service to dig through their social media history
(pics, posts, etc) and send me what's been most engaging.
That's it. Can probably be done in iMacros, just haven't found the time...
Could be a small SAAS though.
------
dk8996
Social analytics. The idea is that you can keep track of multiple facebook fan
pages/twitter accounts and see how they grow over time. How many followers
overtime, how many links, ect.. You may want to see other info like from what
countries the likes, follows are from. Something very simple that just keeps
track of your analytics and displays a nice chart.
------
curlyreggie
This might be trivial. One of my friends is a serious blogger (she has around
7-8 blog sites on various topics she writes). Why not a simple blog aggregator
to post in blogs into the site you wish?
E.g., You want to blog for tumblr, create a post here and then it gets auto-
posted to tumblr directly.
Of course, the API issues and permissions are another headache to worry about.
------
wmaiouiru
A cloud processing platform that would automatically edit videos for users
based on algorithms. My thesis is that users will take more and more videos
but the tools to edit them (adobe premiere, youtube editor etc) are too much
hassle for people. The first market segment would be goPro and google glass
users. Thoughts?
------
zealon
Ok, here is mine: Prototyper. \- Create a webapp that allows the users to
choose their phone model. \- Based on that, generate and allow downloading of
a custom app (Android, iOS) for that model. \- The user should be able to
customize the software modules for that app and interconnect them, IFTTT-like.
HTH ;-)
------
miguelrochefort
Semantic product review. Object-oriented product review if you will.
Refer to specific aspects of a product and make semantic statements about
them.
Endorse what you agree with instead of repeating it.
Basically, no blank text box waiting to be filled witohut the reviewer's own
unique way to format thoughts.
------
fiatjaf
A tool for storing/sharing information inside private communities.
Enough of the forum/blog/posts/email solutions! How can a community of people,
oriented to a subject or location, keep organized data about things it cares
about?
------
dmacedo
Github for databases. I've been brainstorming occasionally about this idea...
:)
~~~
joeclark77
Database version-control is IMHO going to be very important in the near
future. I'd encourage you to go ahead with it!
~~~
dmacedo
Definitely!
So far gathered thoughts on this, documented some business and sustainability
plans (some awesome ideas here), and planning a medium-term timeline to
actually work on.
But this is very complex to handle on my own, and only in my spare time!
~~~
joeclark77
Have you thought about a database to target? I know there are 3rd party tools
for SQL Server version control, but haven't been exposed to any for
PostgreSQL, which is becoming my database of choice.
~~~
dmacedo
I have a number of them to target, part of the business plan is to cover
several (very interesting) use cases, along with creating a shared workflow
for these. So while some relational databases will be covered, so will other
types.
Also note I'm interested in focusing open source databases first, if not only!
------
mukeshsoni
A site which keeps track of which of these 'Idea Sunday' ideas actually got
implemented and how are they doing 1 year, 2 years, 5 years or 10 years later.
Will give empirical data only how powerful are ideas.
~~~
hackerpolicy
How would you keep track of the ideas that have been implemented/are being
worked on? User-submitted?
~~~
mukeshsoni
I think it needs to be a mix of user submitted entries (company name which
implemented the idea) and automated tracking there after.
------
hiis
1) daily email that highlights the top 10 posts on HN (by points or by most
comments)
2) simple way to share sensitive financial details with others (e.g., credit
card payments, pay stubs, paypal history, bank transactions)
~~~
notduncansmith
1) [http://www.hackernewsletter.com/](http://www.hackernewsletter.com/) 2)
Seems like there are tons of messaging apps that claim to be secure. Mark
Cuban recommends Cyber Dust: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cyber-dust-
disappearing-chat...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cyber-dust-disappearing-
chat/id690158616?mt=8) (not encrypted AFAIK but transient). There's also
Telegram (though I think there's some drama around them from a competition
they ran earlier this year) for secure messaging, and Google Docs.
------
rdl
Free network (data, voice, mobile) monitoring in exchange for personalized and
general/statistical data based recommendations (which plan to change, which
ISPs in the area are best, etc.)
~~~
spaboleo
Yeah it is a total hassle to research that and don't get screwed. One can
basically spend days researching on that topic and in the end you'll still
feel like you made the wrong decision.
The problem with this is that you (as a customer) mostly are locked down by...
a) a long-term commitment (2 year contract) b) the process of changing is made
so complicated (30 day grace period, waiting for technicians)
All that makes it hard for the customer to adapt to the ever so fast changing
market.
The only way I see is to virtualize this. So that you would no longer be a
customer of cellular provider X and internet service provider Y, but you'd be
a fixed-fee customer of Z-ALL. The company Z-All then acts as a customer for
provider X and Y.
It would be interesting nevertheless!
------
DanBC
It would perhaps be better if only one person posted these threads.
------
bnchrch
Hey, I created a little meteor app today just for this.
[http://thoughts.meteor.com/](http://thoughts.meteor.com/)
~~~
cheepin
.. and here comes the spam
------
shanacarp
A peer to peer mortgage marketplace.
Basically, qualified investors own pieces of mortgage in their communities.
I've seen variations of this for student loans - why not mortgages?
~~~
akg_67
Realty Mogul [https://www.realtymogul.com](https://www.realtymogul.com) Real-
estate Crowdfunding.
------
JacobJans
A twist on a simple timer / productivity app.
When you want to focus, instead of pressing start, you ask for time from
someone else.
Once you've completed using that time, you get to pass it on to somebody else.
Completion depends on approval from the previous owner of the time.
As the time gets used, it gets passed from person to person, creating a "time
chain." Participants get to see the history of the time chain. Established
users can create new time chains and watch them grow.
------
ape4
zipcar/uber: A service that delivers a car you drive to where you are when you
want it. Maybe you call up an hour before or via an app. And/or the opposite:
you have driven somewhere can don't want the car anymore - eg drinking.
~~~
endeavour
Taxi?
~~~
ape4
Taxis are great for some situations but not others. 1. Say you are working
late (the train service has closed) and know you'll leave in the next 3 hours.
Order a car to be delivered to your parking lot and just get into it whenever
your finish work. 2. How about the dreaded: other people offering you a ride
since you don't have a car. You would be very happy to take a taxi but they
insist. No problem; order up a car and its waiting for you when you leave the
meeting and nobody will have to take "help you out".
------
hackerpolicy
Waze but for supermarket prices.
~~~
arb99
I think Waze gets its data from other users, but in the uk we have
[https://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/](https://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/) which
will tell you the cheapest online grocery shopping company to go with for your
selected 'trolly' (basket). (it compares tesco, sainsbury's, asda etc)
------
miguelrochefort
Semantic version of Twitter.
Every tweet is RDF.
~~~
perlgeek
I'm actually working on something like this, though with JSON instead of RDF.
Drop me a line ([email protected]) if you're interested.
------
philip1209
An app that shares the password of local wifi - e.g. for the coffee shop you
are sitting in.
Perhaps neither practical nor legal, but something that would be useful when
the barista is feeling snarky and you don't want to return a second time to
ask for the wifi password.
------
hershel
Tools to reduce distraction in doing research on the web.
------
ddorian43
html5+flash video player all in one with reasonable pricing and no revenue-
share for vast/google ads
~~~
vishaldpatel
I used Projekktor. The paid version has VAST support and works quite well:
[http://www.projekktor.com/](http://www.projekktor.com/)
~~~
ddorian43
does vast also work in flash-mode ?
~~~
vishaldpatel
I'm not sure - I made sure that the videos I'm hosting were webm and mp4, and
I've only tested it in html5 browsers.
------
nhebb
A newsletter advertising network.
------
hackaflocka
A Chrome plugin for Hacker News and Reddit that does only one thing: collapse
all comments to top level comments.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Finding Family Is Big Business: Ancestry.com Files For $75 Million IPO - jasonlbaptiste
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/03/finding-family-is-big-business-ancestrycom-files-for-75-million-ipo/
======
quizbiz
What could they be raising capital for that needs an IPO?
~~~
madh
Maybe this is just an exit for the founders and investors?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Scott Aaronson on Penrose's argument (why machines can't think) - lkozma
http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec10.5.html
======
erikstarck
For those not familiar with the Penrose argument, here it is, slightly
simplified:
\- Consciousness is weird and we can't explain it.
\- Quantum mechanics is weird and we can't explain it.
\- Therefore, consciousness and human intelligence must come from quantum
mechanics.
Yeah, yeah, I know, that's obviously not how he frames it, but it's close. I
read his book a few years ago, expecting some great insight but seriously,
that's all there is to it.
He actually claims that mathematicians have some magical ability to "see" in
to a parallell universe of mathematical answers, an ability that computers
lack. How can this argument even be taken seriously?
~~~
xtacy
Quantum mechanics is weird, alright. But we can still predict what's going to
happen, as we have theories. Do we have such a formal theory for
consciousness?
~~~
wlievens
Quantum mechanics is objectively observable, consciousness is not. It's a very
different kind of beast, therefore.
------
ars
An interesting argument, but the lookup table argument falls flat.
The number of inputs is pretty much infinite, not finite like he says.
I emailed him this, I'll post here if he replies:
I think you are incorrect about the lookup table. Just
walking around a city will provide more input permutations
than any lookup table could possibly encode.
You assumed that responses are always deterministic, but
actually peoples behavior is influenced by what they have
seen recently. Or even what they have been asked recently!
Every lookup table will also have to include the result
of choosing any question from the lookup table - and in
what order.
The possible number of orderings of that grows far faster
than any finite lookup table could encode, because simply
asking a question in the lookup table changes the answer
to all further questions.
~~~
AndrewDucker
I think you're confusing "finite" and "small enough that I can imagine
something that size".
A billion operations per billionth of a second for a billion years is still
finite, it's just big.
~~~
ars
I am not confusing them.
My argument is that each time you add a question to the table, you need to
encode an answer that depends on all the other questions asked.
Meaning the number of answers is exponential (actually factorial) to the
number of questions in it. Such a table is essentially infinite.
i.e. if you have 10 questions you have 3 million possible answers. But with a
million questions you have 8 x 10^5565708 answers. I hope you realize how big
this number is.
~~~
almost
The difference between infinite and "essentially infinite" is that one is
infinite and one finite. That is a large number, but it's not infinitely
large.
~~~
ars
You are speaking about math, I am speaking about complexity theory.
~~~
almost
As far as I'm aware complexity theory doesn't have it's own special definition
of "infinite".
Just to be clear, I'm totally in agreement with you that a lookup table based
AI would not actually be possible in the real world, but I don't think any
sane person would claim that.
~~~
ars
I didn't say infinite! I said "essentially infinite".
I would have used the exact term from complexity theory, except I don't know
what it is for n! - the highest they have is EXPSPACE which is 2^n (which is
smaller - much smaller).
~~~
hugh3
I thought you said "pretty much infinite". Either way, neither "essentially
infinite" nor "pretty much infinite" is a meaningful concept (I can just
picture infinity, off at the nonexistent end of the number line, laughing at
the puny numbers you describe as "essentially infinite"), so it'd be better to
just rephrase it as "really really big", with as many "really"s as you feel is
appropriate.
------
kanak
I took a theory of computation class with Prof. Aaronson and this brought back
some fond memories. I like the fact that he's formal when he needs to be, but
doesn't shy away from using simple "real-life" examples when he can. Think
about how many professors would use a line like:
> can the human mind somehow peer into the Platonic heavens, in order to
> directly perceive (let's say) the consistency of ZF set theory? If the
> answer is no -- if we can only approach mathematical truth with the same
> unreliable, savannah-optimized tools that we use for doing the laundry,
> ordering Chinese takeout, etc. -- then it seems we ought to grant computers
> the same liberty of being fallible. But in that case, the claimed
> distinction between humans and machines would seem to evaporate.
Wonderfully written. I may not understand Godel's Theorems or ZF, but i did
gain an understanding about some faults in Penrose's argument.
------
narag
How old is the book he mentions? Is the argument still viewed seriously apart
from a mental exercise?
If the answer is yes, I'd be puzzled. It's naive to think that computers in
XXIII century will be anything like current ones. _We_ are after all machines
and I find no reason any complexity (quantum, midichlorians or whatever) that
we have can't be introduced in the construction of future computers.
That's like a XIX scientist saying that a microscope will never be able to see
atoms. Surely he could have demonstrated it with good math.
Rephrased. the argument should be "computers as are built now can't think"
that is so obvious simply because lack of power.
A reasonable simulation of conscience that tries to resemble that of a living
organism would need at the very least senses, pain/pleasure, feedback (if I
want to move, I can,) all throwed in an integration layer that "feels"
everything at once.
First we should see if we're able to simulate an ant, then a mathematician
brain :-)
Current simulations of living beings or colonies have value for statistical
studies, but they're nothing in which that impossibility assertions can base.
~~~
hugh3
It may still be viewed seriously by people who really _want_ to believe that
there's something essentially different about human consciousness, and that we
are not "just" fancy meat-computers.
I don't know if it has ever been taken seriously by anyone who doesn't
approach the problem from that point of view, though.
------
naveensundar
Encapsulated this is Penrose's argument in a crude fashion
1\. Humans can perform _Turing-uncomputable_ operations (mathematicians
mainly) 2\. _All_ of present day physics is computable 3\. So there should be
some uncomputable physics yet to be discovered. 4\. Penrose feels this new
physics should be in quantum mechanics.
A small video of Penrose's argument :
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gl6aThSs1s>
On one hand the very notion that a computing device is conscious is patently
ridiculous. Why? Because everything computes something. Even my fan computes a
function so does the engine of a car[1], but are those artifacts conscious?
The only honest answer is to say that this is a difficult problem.
This is a very good interview of David Chalmers (the philosopher who
originated the term "Hard problem of consciousness") that I found on HN
sometime back
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo>
Obligatory XKCD reference: Can a bunch of rocks be conscious?
<http://xkcd.com/505/>
[1] Very trivially they compute the function which describes their dynamics.
------
terra_t
Penrose's argument has always been full of it.
Humans aren't Turing-complete; they can certainly emulate a small, finite,
Turing machine, but they can't emulate an arbitrary large one.
An individual human is not complete in any way; look at how many people have
failed to proof Fermat's last theorem.
Finally, people aren't consistent; Robert Penrose can say "Penrose will never
utter this statement" and the roof doesn't fall in.
------
kanak
> why not go further, and conjecture that the brain can solve problems that
> are uncomputable even given an oracle for the halting problem
Can anyone give me an example of such problems?
~~~
ihodes
The halting problem, for instance: whether or not a e.g. Turing machined will
halt on a given input or loop endlessly.
~~~
kanak
Sorry if i wasn't being clear. I mean problems that remain undecidable even
when you have an oracle for the Halting Problem.
~~~
robinhouston
I don't know whether you‘re going to like it, but the most obvious example of
a problem that is undecidable even given an oracle for the halting problem is
the next halting problem up: i.e. given a Turing machine that has an oracle
for the halting problem, does it halt?
~~~
wlievens
Turtles all the way down.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Linux Beats Mac Dramatically In Humble Bundle Total Payments - glazemaster
http://www.thepowerbase.com/2013/03/linux-beats-mac-dramatically-in-humble-bundle-total-payments/
======
armored_mammal
Probably people buying from their Android devices being counted under the
'Linux' flag?
~~~
dottrap
Sounds reasonable. And with that, it's hard to extrapolate useful and fair
conclusions. Since Humble Bundle purchases can't work towards iOS unlike
Android, that ignores a huge market segment.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Kindle Finally Gets Typography That Doesn't Suck - Garbage
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3046678/the-kindle-finally-gets-typography-that-doesnt-suck
======
ddp
Awesome! TL;DR - new layout engine and new font. But Amazon has to reprocess
its catalog due to the change (i.e., you'll need to re-download everything).
iPad version went out this week, but physical Kindles update won't be ready
until summer.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Our world is in danger, not of becoming too dangerous but of becoming too safe? - cwan
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/15/milktoast-nation.html
======
RiderOfGiraffes
Content-free "blog" entry about an original:
[http://ceae.colorado.edu/mc-
edc/pdf/Milksop_Nation_Jack_Gord...](http://ceae.colorado.edu/mc-
edc/pdf/Milksop_Nation_Jack_Gordon.pdf)
From the guildines:
> Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports
> on something they found on another site, submit the latter.
<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The story of Computer Space, the first mass-produced video game. - technologizer
http://technologizer.com/2011/12/11/computer-space-and-the-dawn-of-the-arcade-video-game/
======
tiles
If you enjoy stories about early video games, Pong-story.com, a site focused
on the Magnavox Odyssey (the first home video game console) is fascinating:
<http://pong-story.com/intro.htm>
------
skurry
Very inspiring story. Best part is when they discovered that all their four
demo units had been damaged during transport to the debug trade show:
"They got three of them working, but the forth one proved damaged beyond
repair. Thinking quickly, they made the best of the situation by turning the
damaged machine around, opening up the back, and showing off the internal
workings as if they had always intended it to be that way."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Aol Employees Make Zombie Video About Talent Exodus - FluidDjango
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/30/aol-zombies/
======
thenextcorner
That's it, Techcrunch is officially over. Jumped the shark!
------
jak88
Wait, AOL still has talent there?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Andreessen Horowitz Raises New $1.5B Fund - kressaty
http://a16z.com/2014/03/27/andreessen-horowitz-raises-new-fund/
======
salimmadjd
Some interesting read on A16Z.
The keys to Andreessen Horowitz's success (February 15, 2013) [1]
Ben Horowitz on quality of good founders to be CEO (Mar 14, 2010) [2]
Mark Andreessen interview on Bloomberg about their strategy (Feb 28, 2103) [3]
On the Charlie Rose show about feature of Facebook (Nov 11, 2012) jump to min
15:00 [4]
Insights into their investing strategy based on 20 of their investments (Oct
17, 2013) [5]
Investment syndication patterns (Oct 3, 2013) [6]
Ben Horowitz presentation at DLD Conference on how they choose an investment
(Feb 1, 2013) [7]
[1] [http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/02/15/andreessen-
horowitz-t...](http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/02/15/andreessen-horowitz-
transcript/)
[2] [http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/notes-on-leadership-jobs-
gr...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/notes-on-leadership-jobs-grove-
campbel/)
[3] [http://www.bloomberg.com/video/67149794-andreessen-
interview...](http://www.bloomberg.com/video/67149794-andreessen-interview-
about-investment-strategy.html)
[4]
[http://www.charlierose.com/watch/60150320](http://www.charlierose.com/watch/60150320)
[5]
[http://digitalmedia.strategyeye.com/article/WvR0QuYTcU/2013/...](http://digitalmedia.strategyeye.com/article/WvR0QuYTcU/2013/10/17/insight_4_things_that_20_deals_show_us_about_andreessen_horo/)
[6]
[http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/trends/sequoia-a16z-investmen...](http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/trends/sequoia-a16z-investment-
syndicates)
[7] [http://www.businessinsider.com/how-andreessen-horowitz-
choos...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-andreessen-horowitz-chooses-
investments-2013-2?op=1)
~~~
DanielRibeiro
Ben's interview with Sarah Lacy[1] is also just amazing. Some excerpts:
\- At
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=sqI...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=sqI7fa04atc#t=3284s):
_the people who work at tech companies in SV are like super brilliant and
incredibly capable, and the last thing a person like that wants is to not to
be able to get in the game and like help fix what is wrong._
_...and let me tell you: every company in SV like including Facebook,
including Square, including Twitter, including all of them, has got shit
horribly wrong, horribly horribly broken and wrong and everybody in the
company knows it and the CEO knows it, so it is better to talk about it.
Because that’s how companies are, like stuff just breaks. If you have like 500
or 1000 people trying to do something, it is not all going to be perfect, it
is gonna be ugly and you get that out there and you let people work on it. And
that is probably the number 1 thing I would say about motivating people when
stuff goes wrong._
\- At
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=sqI...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=sqI7fa04atc#t=3662s):
_If you don’t have winning product, it doesn’t matter how well your company
is managed, you are done_
\- At
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=sqI...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=sqI7fa04atc#t=3698s)
:
_Why even bother with management if that is the case? But the truth is: there
are several things that are very important, one is if you get into trouble,
and if you have bad management, your company will probably die. Like the
people will just quit, they are not bonded to it, the don’t like working
there, they never liked working there, and that is that, it is a wrap. ... if
you succeed at building a company that everybody just hates working at, what
have you done? You just made a whole lot of people a whole lot more miserable
in their lives._
[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqODNbFz6EY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqODNbFz6EY)
------
lifeisstillgood
I listened to Marc A on this week's Freakonomics podcast, giving a very
plausible rationale for why we should still care about crypto-currency. (Go
listen - its good)
I am trying to salve my conscience and turn open source software and public
sector into a mission (#) - but despite loving his pitch and wanting to
believe in the Golden future, I must have too-small-a-mindset.
How on earth can you spend 1.5 billion on startups in the next couple of
years? I could take 5 million right now and do some amazing stuff in message
queueing in local UK government - the future is bright, but cheaper. Are they
wanting to put in for 300 small startups that will change our infrastructure
but essentially make things cheaper, reducing the total cake? Or is this 100M
for a few "build the next rocket" startups?
(#) oss4gov.org/manifesto - I still think its the best I have yet expressed
about how angry I get seeing proprietary code running government.
~~~
mchusma
It is still expensive to build big companies, and $1.5B is tiny by financial
markets standards. Bond firms like Pimco and Blackrock measure things by
$100Bs and trillions.
Let's say you invest in 50 startups per year for 5 years. That is 250 firms,
averaging $6M/firm.
~~~
imjk
You're forgetting money that they can leverage from banks with the money they
raised.
~~~
HockeyPlayer
I've never heard of a VC leveraging up with borrowed money. Who would be on
the hook if the fund loses money?
~~~
ganeumann
VCs' portfolio companies often raise debt. This is called venture debt and the
lenders are banks like Silicon Valley Bank.
VCs tend to have a love/hate relationship with venture debt. On the one hand,
it means they suffer less dilution as the company grows; on the other hand, it
means their investment gets riskier just at the point where they are finally
de-risking the company.
------
paulbaumgart
Software is eating the world, and a16z is eating the venture capital world.
It's no surprise LPs are throwing money at them.
They've been around for less than five years and are already setting the
standard by which other VCs are measured.
Case in point: they made something like a 5-10x multiple on their investment
in Oculus-- _in 3 months_.
~~~
Jormundir
They are doing quite a good job as VCs, but lets not start painting a picture
of skill based on one of their companies.
Investing in startups is gambling, and A16Z is basically rolling up to the
roulette wheel and placing a bet on every square. The only difference is the
payout of one success is (maybe) large enough to offset the loss of betting on
everything else.
I can't look up the numbers now, but I'm pretty sure when the investments are
pooled, the returns are modest, relatively in line with returns on other types
of investments. (Would love for someone to back this up or correct me if I'm
wrong based on the numbers).
~~~
bulltale
Fred Wilson gave a nice overview.[1] Indeed not much better than other
investments.
[1]: [http://avc.com/2013/02/venture-capital-
returns/](http://avc.com/2013/02/venture-capital-returns/)
~~~
DaniFong
The returns for top notch VC firms like a16z and the returns for VC as a whole
are like a difference in kind.
~~~
foobarqux
Sure, but they still aren't abnormally outsized, probably even before
adjusting for risk. If they were they would do like the very top hedge funds
and charge more than 2/20.
If you know specific rates of return please share.
~~~
ironchef
A set of example return information (albeit old and only from the first fund)
is here:
[http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/23/nice-ira-
andreesse...](http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/23/nice-ira-andreessen-
horowitz-returns-first-fund-twice-over/)
I would anticipate there would be diminishing returns over time as the "bets
are spread" if you will... that being said they're doing a damned amazing job
so far.
~~~
foobarqux
Besides being only a single data point the returns for one $300M fund aren't a
good indicator of the returns for 2-3 concurrent $1+ billion dollar funds.
~~~
ironchef
I concur...that's why I said: "only from the first fund" and "I would
anticipate there would be diminishing returns over time as the "bets are
spread" if you will".
That being said it is counter to your statement "Sure, but they still aren't
abnormally outsized, probably even before adjusting for risk." That particular
data point is quite higher than both the median and the means of VC returns
that I've seen (and would probably lend more credence towards DaniFong's
statement). I look forward to seeing how their other funds progress so that we
have more data points.
note: edited in a paren that was missing.
------
namenotrequired
Honest question, as I've never really understood the industry: where does this
money come from and why? And where does the money go that acquisitions and
IPOs earn them?
~~~
zt
Venture funds are "General Partners" that manage a pool of capital on behalf
of "Limited Partners" or LPs. Limited partners in a fund this size are usually
pension funds (CalPERS), university and not-for-profit endowments (Harvard,
Brown, MacArthur Foundation), and maybe high-net-worth individuals.
So A16Z raises commitments of 1.5B from all of these people who have a lot of
money that they want to grow. Those people deploy their capital to VC, to
Hedge/PE funds, to timber, to public markets, to bonds, etc.
A16Z aren't actually given a pile of cash though, instead A16Z does capital
calls on an as-needed basis. Then A16Z deploys that capital to startups and
other companies over the life of the fund (often ten years with some
extensions).
Most venture funds operate on something like a "two and twenty model" meaning
that every year they get 2% of the funds value for operating expenses. In A16Z
they have a huge staff of designers, recruiters, BD experts, etc, that help
their startups. The 2% goes toward things like that.
The 20% is carry, which is earned as a percentage of net income. So let's say
that A16Z invests 5M in a company on a 10M pre-money valuation. A16Z owns 1/3
of the company. The company sells for $30M the next day to Facebook. A16Z now
has $10M dollars. They take $2M of that for themselves and then they
distribute back to the LPs the other $8M.
(This is lacking a lot of nuance like side funds, but I hope it's helpful).
~~~
napoleond
_The 20% is carry, which is earned as a percentage of net income. So let 's
say that A16Z invests 5M in a company on a 10M pre-money valuation. A16Z owns
1/3 of the company. The company sells for $30M the next day to Facebook. A16Z
now has $10M dollars. They take $2M of that for themselves and then they
distribute back to the LPs the other $8M._
I'm pretty sure carry is _profit_
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carried_interest](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carried_interest)),
so in your example A16Z would pocket $1M, not $2M (because the $5M A16Z
invested needs to be repaid to the LPs first, and then A16Z gets 20% of the
remaining $5M). Please correct me if I've misunderstood.
~~~
zt
Oh ya, that's my mistake. I was right when I called it "net income" but then
didn't do the net in the actual math! I'll leave it unedited so your comment
makes sense though.
------
mhartl
It's interesting to see a mention of "full stack" startups. I hadn't realized
that investors have identified such companies as being members of a distinct
category.
~~~
napoleond
It's a specific reference to a blog post by Chris Dixon:
[http://www.cdixon.org/2014/03/15/full-stack-
startups/](http://www.cdixon.org/2014/03/15/full-stack-startups/)
------
pbreit
Does anyone know what kind of IRRs a16z is seeing in previous funds?
The amount of cash available to startups right now is breathtaking.
------
martindale
The biggest returns in this fund will be in the cryptofinance space.
------
EGreg
How does one successfully apply to a fund like this?
Warm intros only, right?
------
sjg007
Man Andreessen has come along way since Mosaic.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask YC: How to write a java app for the cell phone ? - iamyoohoo
Hi all,<p>I was wondering if anyone had any clue of how to do this. We're trying to create a java (MIDP?) app to be able to show articles from a website on the cellphone.<p>Any idea or references of where to start ?<p>Thanks
======
st3fan
Unfortunately 'the cell phone' does not exist. Even though they all probably
support some form of MIDP, they are all slightly different. It's a true
nightmare.
I would certainly pick a niche market like S60 or iPhone/Touch and not try to
be cross-cellphone compatible.
~~~
zacharye
And then you can work native in order to give your app much more access and
power than a java app would have.
------
danw
Try google or the Java docs <http://java.sun.com/javame/index.jsp>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The CIA Is Sharing Declassified Maps - bane
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cia-celebrating-its-cartography-divisions-75th-anniversary-declassified-maps-180961419/?utm_source=keywee-facebook.com&utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_campaign=keywee&kwp_0=299086&kwp_4=1167645&kwp_1=531375?no-ist
======
rdtsc
Related is the story of Soviet maps. The Soviets had engaged in a monumental
effort to map the world and then during the collapse in one of the republics
the classified stack of maps got in the hands of Westerners:
[https://www.sovietmaps.com/](https://www.sovietmaps.com/)
Here is a longer article about it:
[https://www.wired.com/2015/07/secret-cold-war-
maps/](https://www.wired.com/2015/07/secret-cold-war-maps/)
And also the map of San Francisco from the 80s:
[http://i.imgur.com/SdmmFUd.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/SdmmFUd.jpg)
~~~
cm2187
What are the little planes on the San Francisco map? Surely there aren't 12
airstrips in the San Francisco bay. Unless that includes helipads...
~~~
lakisy
Take a look here
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_in_the_San_Fr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_in_the_San_Francisco_Bay_Area)
The Bay Area has 3 international airports, 2 federal airports, 8 General aviation towered airports and 15 General Aviation non-towered airports.
------
Cieplak
I'm really curious why this 14 mile strip of Antarctica is censored:
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/70%C2%B010'04.0%22S+87%C2%...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/70%C2%B010'04.0%22S+87%C2%B043'57.5%22E/@-70.1507513,87.6467429,19851m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d-70.1677778!4d87.7326389)
Satellite map images with missing or unclear data:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_map_images_with_miss...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_map_images_with_missing_or_unclear_data)
~~~
arca_vorago
Google will censor just about anything if a government asks them to and claims
it's for national security. Hell, they even do it for the uber-rich
independent of government.
~~~
Cieplak
I'm pretty sure that any US person or organization that doesn't comply with
matters supposedly pertaining to national security will go the way of Joe
Nacchio and Qwest.
~~~
tunap
Fife Symington concurs. Although, "security" has nothing to do with it. You
are either "in" or you're "out".
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fife_Symington#Second_term_.28...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fife_Symington#Second_term_.281995.E2.80.931997.29)
------
rhizome
The maps:
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov/albums](https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov/albums)
------
borgdr
I'm a bit surprised that this one was declassified given the sensitive nature
of the content.
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov/5988128522/in/album-721...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov/5988128522/in/album-72157632812220423/)
~~~
Karunamon
Wait, was this actually classified to begin with?
If so, it's a case study in how that power is misused...
~~~
moftz
The dog is probably one of the bomb-sniffing dogs that work at a CIA building
or campus. Any information about the security for CIA locations, I'm assuming,
is going to be very well protected information so this is going to include any
pictures of the security forces. The picture is just a dog chewing on a stick
but the dog is part of the security force and therefore the picture becomes
classified. It probably didn't need to be classified. We aren't using some
sort of super advanced, secret machine to detect bombs, it's a regular yellow
lab. It was probably included in a bunch of pictures that included information
regarding the tactics or tools available to the security forces or pictures of
secured areas (that aren't generic grassy areas) so the whole group was
classified.
------
colinthompson
These are incredible. I'm especially impressed with how high res the scans
are. Time for some new office posters!
------
jacobolus
Sweet planimeter a ways down the page at
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov/sets/72157674852500522](https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov/sets/72157674852500522)
------
fafner
Have they been uploaded to Wikipedia (Commons)?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Have Neuroscience inspired ML architectures been successful? - hsikka
Does anyone have any literature on neuroscience inspired machine learning architectures, specifically more recent ones, 2017 and onward? I believe the push to do formalize computational paradigms in the brain may yield an interesting result.
======
mindcrime
FYI, you may get more response to this kind of question on
/r/machinelearning[1]
[1]: [https://machinelearning.reddit.com](https://machinelearning.reddit.com)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple approves Spotify's iPhone App - ajg1977
http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-spotify-says-apple-still-testing-iphone-app-spotify-vanishes-from-app-s/
======
ajg1977
It's a real shame though that the iPhone/iPod Touch doesn't allow better
integration with third party music apps so they can play in the background or
be controlled by remote. (though fortunately both of these can be enabled for
jailbroken phones )
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Most Common Error in Coverage of the Google Memo - Garbage
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/the-most-common-error-in-coverage-of-the-google-memo/536181?single_page=true
======
merricksb
Active discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14959601](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14959601)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Germany's Paradox: Family-Friendly Benefits, But Few Kids - thejteam
http://www.npr.org/2013/05/07/180610371/germanys-paradox-family-friendly-benefits-but-few-kids
======
xtraclass
But no, there are many, many children of every age in Germany. Of course
mainly by 'new-Germans' who originally are from Turkey or other islamic
countries.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Merrill Lynch “Macs are no good. Go to your library and use a PC” - rograndom
http://www.rograndom.com/2011/04/merrill-lynch-mac/
======
th0ma5
This might be a "knows enough to be dangerous" type of situation. An expert in
one field seems like an idiot to an expert in a similar, but different, field.
For instance I swore up and down that my Time Warner cable modem had blown up,
and repeatedly called demanding for a replacement. I was a damned computer
expert, and I knew the thing bloody well wasn't working.
So the tech comes, and we turn on the lights, and the thing works. It was
plugged into a socket that was switched with the lights.
The tech support people are trained for "idiots" and they are not trained for
computer experts that have varying opinions that may well be correct. Also,
they aren't trained in understanding, or taking reports on, subtle cross-
platform browser bugs.
I've been impressed with tech support that connects me with an expert who has
both my experience and accent, but at some point I think someone in this mess
would've just tried a different browser. It isn't like that was above the
skill level of anyone involved.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The China Conundrum – are we headed for a supply chain meltdown? - Sequenza
https://diginomica.com/2019/01/25/the-china-conundrum-are-we-headed-for-a-supply-chain-meltdown/
======
rrggrr
We are in process moving a product line from China to Canada as result of the
25% tariff. Fact is, the product was migrating to North America anyway as
prices from China increased, and product innovation has not kept pace. It
difficult to fully state how the lack of foreign competition, protection, and
subsidy has created inefficiencies and other problems across large sections of
Chinese goods. Youtube bloggers ADVChina and serpentza are good places to
start in understanding the scope of difficulty.
I have one former Chinese partner in China, now far too successful to care
anymore, who described it to me this way... You have farmers and one
generation down from farmers managing the largest and arguably most complex
political-economic situation in the world. The expertise is simply not there
at the highest provincial and central levels, where its desperately needed.
The political will isn't there to rebalance.
The meltdown won't just be the supply chain. China's military will impact the
nature and breadth of the decline.
~~~
baybal2
My previous employer tried the same in 2015 with both BC and Washington with
Oregon. We scrapped the plan after 6 month of the pilot plant keeping failing.
Finding cadres was really tough even for the simplest things. Finding a guy
who can program a particular brand of chipshooters took 2.5 months. We found a
single guy in all BC/Washington/Oregon area, and he demanded 100k+ for
something that I can teach a highschooler to do. In Shenzhen, I'm 100% sure
that I will get few solid applicants on day one for just any machinery brand.
Simple assembly line workers. 50k+ undergrad students were horrid workers,
with terrible discipline. 70k+ masters students, just a bit better. People
with years of work experience and 80k+ expectations finally did that, but they
were still spending more time wiring simple electric bikes than Chinese
highschoolers do. At that stage, we decided to stop.
~~~
sithadmin
>Finding a guy who can program a particular brand of chipshooters took 2.5
months. We found a single guy in all BC/Washington/Oregon area, and he
demanded 100k+ for something that I can teach a highschooler to do.
So why did you waste 10 weeks searching for a candidate, when you could have
so easily trained an entry-level employee?
It seems like your firm either failed to engage suffiently talented
recruiters, or possibly failed to set the compensation offered appropriately.
~~~
baybal2
We did not hire him, and I kept doing it myself.
Before, in my whole life, I only touched high end chipshooters less than 10
times.
~~~
onion2k
Most people who need that sort of work done can't do it themselves, and people
who can do it are rare in the US. It sounds like the one guy you found knows
his value and charges accordingly. I admire him for that. What you charge for
your time should be based on the value you return, not how hard your work is.
~~~
ddorian43
Good luck paying cleaners then. They provide a lot of value (keep the office
1+ month without cleaning)
~~~
tw04
And if you've got an office full of sensitive material, you will and do pay a
significant premium over what you'd pay to clean an office full of of help-
desk employees.
~~~
ddorian43
Damn cleaners with security clearance.
------
evenequator
> That’s why global CEOs and business leaders need to deal with the China
> Conundrum now.
They are. They are:
\- 37 percent have moved production out of China in the past 12 months, while
33 percent plan to move in the next 6-12 months.
[https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2019-01-17/...](https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2019-01-17/job-
jitters-mount-as-chinas-factories-sputter-ahead-of-lunar-new-year)
\- Apple Is Moving Some High-End iPhone Production to India
[https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/12/27/apple-is-moving-
so...](https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/12/27/apple-is-moving-some-high-
end-iphone-production-to.aspx)
\- China’s Xi Jinping 'most dangerous' to free societies, says George Soros
[https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46996116](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46996116)
~~~
seanmcdirmid
They moved production to India (and Brazil likewise) because THOSE countries
have huge import duties, not because of a rebalancing away from China.
~~~
nyolfen
i don't see why one precludes the other
~~~
seanmcdirmid
They aren’t producing for export outside of those countries.
------
forkLding
I believe the article is wrong. It uses Foxconn as an example despite the fact
that Foxconn is a Taiwanese company that suffers all the conditions that the
author mentions: Chinese spying, Chinese sanctions against Taiwan and vice
versa, etc. for years. China and Taiwan are even still technically at war.
However, Foxconn has been in China since 1988 and is very big in China.
In my mind the real killer has been increasing costs, China's manufacturing
decline has been showing signs since 2016, and is more related to increased
labour costs and increased pollution regulations. The trade war is just
another final nail in the coffin. The "China conundrum" or manufacturing
moving out of China has been happening for a while, its just people haven't
paid much attention to it until now. The decline would have happened even
without the trade war.
~~~
janekm
I'm also very sceptical that Foxconn would be setting up that factory for any
reason other than avoiding Indian tariffs on mobile phones. India is not
really the first place one would think of to build a supply chain.
------
ajross
> _In the late 1970s and 1980s, Americans fretted a lot about something called
> “The China Syndrome.” The idea was that in the case of a nuclear reactor
> meltdown, the fiery radioactive core would burn a hole through the earth and
> come out somewhere north of Peking_
Good grief, no. It was a colorful metaphor in the industry for explaining the
self-sustaining problem with meltdowns: the fuel was very dense and would
naturally flow and pool together, remaining a cohesive blob even as it escaped
its containiment. Other runaway reactions naturally disperse and explode,
meltdowns don't. So the failure mode analysis needs to worry about what
happens long after it leaves the building and hits bedrock.
It was also the title of a pretty good movie, FWIW.
------
sanxiyn
By 2015, Samsung already moved more than half of smartphone manufacturing from
China to Vietnam. All others are late to the party.
~~~
mooreds
What's after Vietnam?--is my question.
~~~
latchkey
Cambodia... I was just in Sihanouk last week and the entire city is under
_massive_ development by the Chinese. You have 4-5 star hotels built with
potholed dirt roads out front. Giant apartment buildings are going up in
marshland. There is also a massive port built there where China can now move
goods through. There is zero care for the environment and the entire city is a
mess. Tons of gambling, prostitution and drugs... it is literally like the
wild wild west there. All in the last couple of years. [1] [2]
Vietnam doesn't work so well with the Chinese because of their history and
because the US has already been giving Vietnam a bunch of free boats [3] [4]
and money.
[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/jul/31/no-
cambodia-l...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/jul/31/no-cambodia-
left-chinese-money-changing-sihanoukville)
[2] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/this-
cambo...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/this-cambodian-
city-is-turning-into-a-chinese-enclave-and-not-everyone-is-
happy/2018/03/28/6c8963b0-2d8e-11e8-911f-ca7f68bff0fc_story.html)
[3] [https://thedefensepost.com/2018/03/29/us-gives-
vietnam-6-pat...](https://thedefensepost.com/2018/03/29/us-gives-
vietnam-6-patrol-boats/)
[4] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vietnam-usa/u-s-
delivers-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vietnam-usa/u-s-delivers-
patrol-boats-to-vietnam-to-deepen-security-ties-idUSKBN18J0FU)
~~~
onion2k
Won't the collapse of China's economy take their investments in Cambodia with
it? The point of moving your supply chain away from China is to avoid that.
~~~
latchkey
Maybe, but if anything I'd think this investment would help protect them since
it allows the occupation of a major shipping hub.
------
baybal2
Lets dispel those claims
> 1\. China has attracted many billions of dollars in investment and outright
> purchases from Western companies
Not Western, the West and US in particular never were the no.1 investors in
China. China was at all times bad at soliciting foreign money. Claiming
foreign capital as a reason for China's past growth is like claiming that
electric trains are running on gasoline. Most of that growth was from internal
sources. That's beyond any dispute.
> 2\. Tariffs and Trade Wars – President Trump and President Xi Jinping have
> pushed their trade war to the brink of disaster.
China and USA can mutually embargo each other tomorrow, and it will be a just
a needle prick for both. USA and China have really little economic
interdependence, completely contrary to the popular opinion. Though China will
fare a little bit better, as it trades in more elastic goods, and will find
markets to replace the US faster.
> 3\. In terms of psychological advantage, US has the upper hand (my
> rephrasing)
And that, the only thing that's true. Despite all of above being relatively
insignificant, the US side managed to make it sound like the end of the world
was coming, and even convince many people in _China_ of that. In fact, the
prime majority of recent deflationary wave in China was due to people who were
closing down and panic selling businesses that were perfectly fine.
> 4\. “These China-U.S. tensions are real, and it’s a long-term problem I
> don’t want to deal with. I want to find other suppliers in other countries
> and even completely move to another country for manufacturing. It’s just not
> worth the long-term risk anymore.”
The prime majority of China's problems are fully internal, and completely
orthogonal to the trade disputes. If something will sink China, it will be its
own baggage of troubles.
------
stupidcar
I think what we're seeing is the culmination of a breakdown in the decades old
neoliberal political consensus that Chinese nationalism could be gradually
dispelled through a policy of opening up Western economies to integration with
China's. In practice, at the highest level, the Chinese government has kept
the market subservient to nationalist goals, and remains stubbornly
autocratic, repressive and hegemonistic.
The populist leanings of the Trump administration perhaps may make them more
receptive to this argument, because they understand these kind of nationalist
and hegemonistic instincts better than neoliberal technocrats, but I think
this has been a dawning realisation throughout Western policymakers over the
past decade. Even the Obama administration, which was strongly neoliberal,
worked hard to isolate China economically through the TPP. Trump's disdain for
trade deals killed that, but his confrontation of China is really just a
noisier continuation of a pre-existing US foreign policy.
Big business might have put a restraint on Western policymakers' wishes to
oppose China if they'd had more success in penetrating the Chinese market. But
here the Chinese government has been too defensive, and Western business
leaders have realised that they simply won't be allowed to be dominate in
China in any meaningful way. Meanwhile, they have watched their infrastructure
get attacked and their IP stolen, and have decided enough is enough.
------
resouer
> China’s goal, simply put, is to replace the U.S. as the world’s leading
> superpower, and they’re using illegal methods to get there. China’s state-
> sponsored actors are the most active perpetrators of state-sponsored
> espionage against us.
The goal is absolutely true, thanks for pointing out, as China has to raise
its huge population.
But ... illegal? WTF ... China has been ranked as the 2nd country after US by
Nature Index [1] for years, which presents research outputs by institution and
country. Is it illegal??
I believe there're tons of engineers in HN. I do think that if a private
enterprise in China can inject a spy program on the chip without being
discovered by the most developed countries in the world for years, that should
be the concern.
But the question is, why do a country with such ability still want to spy
United States? That ability should be more advanced than the current US
technology for decades ...
[1] [https://www.natureindex.com/annual-
tables/2018/country/all](https://www.natureindex.com/annual-
tables/2018/country/all)
~~~
ridgeguy
>But the question is, why do a country with such ability still want to spy
United States? That ability should be more advanced than the current US
technology for decades ...
Mainly because it's cheaper to let somebody else do the research and find the
problems.
If you were interested in stealth aircraft technology, you might be glad to
read about another country's research into Schiff base salts for paint. Or
somebody else's modeling for multistatic radar aircraft detection.
It costs tons to do these sorts of things. If by spying, you could just
eliminate half of the tech dev blind alleys, you've saved a lot of money and
maybe time as well.
~~~
resouer
My point is, developing such spy tech, cost tons tons more, which is almost
impossible. This is not some kind of movie, it’s about software and chip!
~~~
hyeonwho4
Spying is cheap: software and hardware cadets in a military academy learning
to exploit specific systems. The main cost is wages, which are lower in China.
For military tech, you need materials and engineering specialists. Often
multimillion dollar prototypes just to find out where the problems with the
techniques are. Specialized facilities for testing prototypes. De novo
techniques for testing those facilities. Compare spywork, where it might be
enough to bribe a single person in a chip fab to add a backdoor circuit.
~~~
resouer
Spying is not cheap, and the main cost is technology & science, not wages.
Even in WWII the technology spies are definitely top tier geniuses with
brilliant minds, not to mention now it's 2019 already.
------
paradoxparalax
My TAke on this all is that, yes, Mister Xi is bad...
But Hackernews is probably being spread with "Guided-Stampede" , you know, It
is like a stampede when all the bison run following the one before him without
knowing where is heading...........
Happened in the old wester movies with the cows. If you shoot a rifle at the
bovines, for example.
Or if you let a napkin fall in the ground, sometimes, and this is true.
But this Stampede is "guided" , is not spontaneous, It must be whatsapp or
facebook Religious groups "Reinforced Opinion Formation" Spammed messages, if
you know what I mean, Reinforced , yes.
The kinds of The Brexit, Hungary, Yellow Jacket, Brazil, you know
whoever......
This is to make people believe Chinas economy is collapsing?????????
!!!!!!!!!!!
Did I miss Any headline here, really???????
~~~
naiveai
The goal is not to convince people "China's economy is collapsing 25 question
marks". The goal varies from article to article. This article is only trying
to convince people that some companies are moving away from China for various
reasons and trying to explain the reasons why. Whether you think it's correct
is a different story.
~~~
paradoxparalax
This article is perfectly OK, and this headline "Conundrum" is perfectly OK. I
was talking generally about some of the comments made , really, they sound
like people has fever and are in Delirium state.
So it cannot be a coincidence when many people have the same coincidental
completely mistaken perception, "It" All Has a Commom Source. Humans are
smarter then this...
They are being lead into that......
------
karmakaze
> In fact, the U.S. and other countries are barring the use of Chinese-built
> 5G equipment from Huawei and ZTE thanks to allegations...
This doesn't seem like it should be legal either but the article has no issue
with it, rather touts it as being good. I'm sure if the US lost economically
due to allegations it would be a different story altogether.
~~~
creato
> I'm sure if the US lost economically due to allegations it would be a
> different story altogether.
Are you joking? China has many more restrictions on foreign competition in far
less sensitive areas than their communications networks.
Setting that aside, it seems reasonable for any country to decide for any
reason what they allow to be used in such core infrastructure. Any country
that can afford not to depend on someone they might not completely trust now
or decades in the future is foolish to do so.
~~~
headsupftw
I don't really follow your thinking. When you said "Any country that can
afford not to depend on someone they might not completely trust now or decades
in the future is foolish to do so." I believe by "any country" you were
referring to the U.S. But when you said "China has many more restrictions on
foreign competition in far less sensitive areas than their communications
networks.", you seemed to completely ignore your rhetoric that "any country"
(say China?) would be foolish to not put restrictions on foreign competition
if they don't trust them. I guess you like to have your cake and eat it too.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Academic research finds five US telcos vulnerable to SIM swapping attacks - kerng
https://www.zdnet.com/article/academic-research-finds-five-us-telcos-vulnerable-to-sim-swapping-attacks/
======
caleb-allen
Below is a link to the original study
[https://www.issms2fasecure.com/assets/sim_swaps-01-10-2020.p...](https://www.issms2fasecure.com/assets/sim_swaps-01-10-2020.pdf)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Can A.I. Turn Average Fans into Experts? - joshagogo
http://unanimous.ai/swarms-beat-espn/?utm_source=26
======
divebomb
I'd much rather listen to the average fan's opinion than Stephen A Smith, so I
wouldn't be surprised if normal people were able to make better predictions,
too.
What I'd like to see is an ESPN where the predictions have some consequence to
them - you're gonna call yourself an expert? Prove it.
------
joshagogo
Regardless, if this is legit, Caesar's Palace should buy these guys.
------
DaedelusArcher
I almost feel like the great performance in picking winners (against the
spread, too) buries the lede that UNU amplifies the intelligence of any
collection of individuals.
------
Cortexia
I'd go with fans over experts any time.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google execs got discount on jet fuel, says NASA - z0a
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/google-execs-got-discount-on-jet-fuel-says-nasa-2013-12-12
======
esalman
Oh, the horror!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Loop Recognition Benchmarks in C++, Java, Go, Scala (2011) [pdf] - saltcookie
https://days2011.scala-lang.org/sites/days2011/files/ws3-1-Hundt.pdf
======
f2f
the go side of that paper should be accompanied by this link, always:
[http://blog.golang.org/profiling-go-
programs](http://blog.golang.org/profiling-go-programs)
------
dcsommer
> Go and Scala have powerful type inference, making explicit type declarations
> very rare. In C++ and Java everything needs to be declared explicitly.
I guess they forgot about C++11's auto?
~~~
masklinn
And "powerful type inference"? For Go? Doesn't it just do local implicit
typing using the RHS type straight as the LHS's?
------
realrocker
This is really old. C++, Java are mature languages. Scala hit 2.11 in March
2014, while Go version 1 was released in March 2012 and currently is at 1.3.
Versions don't tell the whole story, but they do matter.
~~~
claudius
On the other hand, this:
// Step d:
IntList::iterator back_pred_iter = back_preds[w].begin();
IntList::iterator back_pred_end = back_preds[w].end();
for (; back_pred_iter != back_pred_end; back_pred_iter++) {
int v = *back_pred_iter;
…
can now be written
for (auto v : back_preds[w]) {
… ,
hence you could argue that while C++ is certainly “mature” in a sense, it is
far from converged.
------
igouy
Discussion from 2011
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2615096](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2615096)
------
pella
benchmark - now 2014 :
[http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/](http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/)
~~~
broodbucket
While this tells a somewhat similar story, comparing web frameworks to the
languages themselves is apples to oranges.
------
kasey_junk
Needs a 2011 tag.
~~~
dang
Yes, and the title was rewritten as well [1].
Submitters: please use an article's title unless it is linkbait or misleading
[2].
1\. Submitted title was "Google Publishes C++, Go, Java and Scala Performance
Benchmarks"
2\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
~~~
barrkel
IMO the title is misleading, and the submitted title is better. Though "Google
Researcher Publishes..." would more accurately state its provenance.
The algorithm encoded in the benchmark is loop recognition, but the purpose of
the paper is to benchmark the languages, not to find loops.
~~~
dang
Ok, thanks. We added "Benchmarks" to the title.
~~~
saltcookie
[http://readwrite.com/2011/06/06/cpp-go-java-scala-
performanc...](http://readwrite.com/2011/06/06/cpp-go-java-scala-performance-
benchmark)
this is the real artical, which just points to the pdf
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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NASA unveils new spacesuit for next Moon landing - gaisturiz
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50070615
======
eatbitseveryday
> Mr Gohmert explained: "We can take safe haven in this suit, we'll seek
> refuge in here, we'll keep the body at 8 psi (pound force per square inch)
> for a certain period of time, then we'll drop down to 4.3 psi and we can
> remain there for six days."
> "That's no small feat to be able to live in a volume that's only a couple of
> inches bigger than your body for six whole days."
This means one can expect to expel solids and fluids while in this suit, and
perhaps take in nutrients, if one is "stuck" in this suit due to emergencies?
Why don't they show the insides of the suit? How long does it take to put on?
What technology is inside of it?
It's kind of pointless just to show the colors of the suit and someone bending
down to pick up rock (albeit I realize this is an accomplishment from prior
suits... but I cannot appreciate the work to make that happen).
~~~
daveslash
The idea of not being able to scratch my nose for six days is horrifying.
~~~
gnode
I remember hearing a story about some fluid getting in the eye of an astronaut
working on the exterior of the ISS, and them not being able to wipe it away
due to the helmet, so just continuing while in pain / discomfort.
Perhaps spacesuits could do with some kind of manipulable swab within the
helmet to deal with situations like this.
~~~
eatbitseveryday
Chris Hadfield [0] seek to ~ 11m30
[0]
[https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_hadfield_what_i_learned_from...](https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_hadfield_what_i_learned_from_going_blind_in_space)
------
thelazydogsback
> The suit has a 100% oxygen environment
That can't be right, can it?
[edit] Ok - I guess under low pressure it's not toxic. But if the pressure is
adjusted so that 100% has the effect of 21% O2 on the system, wouldn't the
volume of gas be much less, making it a larger effort to breath?
~~~
thelazydogsback
On an related personal anecdote -- if you ever want to feel what's it's like
to open your mouth in a vacuum and get a taste of what it would be like to do
so in space (save the lack of any heat) you can always do what I did by
accident as a kid: Swim in a pool that has a flexible plastic (in this case, a
thin-bubble wrap sort of material) sheet floating over half of the pool, swim
under part of the covered area, and then stand up out of the water. The sheet
will lift up, but there will be no air whatsoever. Open your mouth, and find
all of the air in your lungs immediately sucked out with no way to take a
breath -- pretty horrifying if you're not expecting it...
------
rutherblood
this looks even more ridiculous than the 60s version
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Step Toward Protecting Fair Use on YouTube - jacquesm
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2015/11/a-step-toward-protecting-fair-use-on.html?m=1
======
walterbell
From a comment on the article,
[http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2015/11/a-step-
toward...](http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2015/11/a-step-toward-
protecting-fair-use-
on.html?showComment=1447952666085&m=1#c8130636333639258122)
_" … a far more effective change would be to remove the immediate monetary
reward for a false claim. As it stands now, the instant a claim is made, all
ad money is diverted to the claimant and is never recoverable by the creator.
This is further compounded by the fact appeals go to the claimant, not a 3rd
party, for review and along with the conflict of interest can take weeks to a
month to be addressed during which time the claimant is still monetizing the
creator's work.
A simple change would be once a claim is made against a video to hold (escrow)
all revenue until the dispute is resolved or one party fails to respond in the
given time. After there is a resolution, the revenue is released to the
correct party."_
~~~
devindotcom
A legitimate problem, but the solution proposed sounds even worse. If Google
said they were going to put all the money in a box when there was some dispute
over who owned it, I feel that neither creators nor copyright owners would be
happy.
I don't have a better solution, of course. I started typing one out and
immediately realized how it could be gamed. It's not a simple problem and it
doesn't have a simple solution that I can see. But it's good that it's being
looked at, at least.
~~~
gizmo686
It doesn't seem like that big of a problem to me. Currently, it seems like the
claimants are big companies, who should have the cash reserves to absorb a few
months delay in the relatively small amount of ad revenue that they are
missing out on. Small creators may still face hardship as a result of the
delayed income (although if they are cannot absorb this, then I think they are
still spread to thin to be sustainable), but under the current system they get
nothing from this time period.
~~~
nemothekid
> _Currently, it seems like the claimants are big companies, who should have
> the cash reserves to absorb a few months delay in the relatively small
> amount of ad revenue that they are missing out on._
I've found this parallel really interesting, as Facebook has now been
criticized for not having Content ID and those criticisms are led by smaller
creators (I guess the big media companies have given up being outspoken about
piracy on video platforms that don't have Content ID-like systems).
~~~
codewithcheese
It's pretty amazing. Facebook whole strategy seems to be encouraging people to
rip YouTube videos and put them in the Facebook player. A YouTube embed share
on Facebook is just not given the viral weight a Facebook video has, and
Facebook is doing nothing to stop piracy. They will of course crack down...
when they feel like enough creators have moved from YouTube to Facebook.
~~~
majani
Poetic justice for YouTube, who grew off the back of willful ignorance of
music copyright for the first few years before cracking down.
------
Jerry2
Last year I uploaded some old footage onto Youtube.. the footage was from WW2
that was filmed by US Gov. I saved it from a site that went down in 2000s and
wanted to put it up for my cousin who was studying WW2 in HS.
In less than 24 hours, there were 4 different copyright claims by various
companies. Over a 20 min clip. They obviously didn't own the copyright but
they were claiming the clip as their own and wanted cuts of revenue.
About two years ago I uploaded an animation that I did in Apple Motion and it
used stock sounds and music from Apple. Within a day of upload, I received a
copyright claim by some company and they demanded I remove audio.
From my brief experience with Youtube/Google's Content ID system and the way
they do business, I'm really glad I don't have to deal with this mafia on a
daily basis.
~~~
shiftpgdn
Try uploading classical music as played by yourself or a computer. It will be
monetized by Sony/BMG nearly instantly.
~~~
e40
Yep. I uploaded a video of my son playing several hundred year old piano piece
and it was within hours "claimed" by someone.
It doesn't seem to hurt Google's business, but I won't upload stuff anymore.
~~~
marcosscriven
I'm curious how that would be found so quickly - presumably it would have to
be the title, because performances are individual.
And why would Google even take such a claim seriously? If you're playing Bach
clearly no one has a claim.
~~~
such_a_casual
It doesn't work like that. You can take down any video instantly just by
filing a copyright against it.
~~~
jacquesm
It would appear to me that that is a knife that cuts both ways.
~~~
newjersey
Even John McCain's people should know this is true.
[https://www.eff.org/files/mccain_youtube_copyright_letter_10...](https://www.eff.org/files/mccain_youtube_copyright_letter_10.13.08.pdf)
Although their request for special treatment shows they just want YouTube to
expedite cases that they care about.
[http://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/oct/15/john-mccain-
you...](http://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/oct/15/john-mccain-youtube)
> "But we believe it would consume few resources - and provide enormous
> benefit - for YouTube to commit to a full legal review of all takedown
> notices on videos posted from accounts controlled by (at least) political
> candidates and campaigns."
------
15charlimit
Just as video uploaders can have strikes placed against their accounts, so
should users of the ContentID system.
A potential solution would be adding a "fraudulent claim" response option
(requiring a detailed explanation) for people to reply to
takedown/monetization notices with. When a ContentID account gets too many of
these checks (verified by an actual human being working at youtube) they are
cut off from the system for a period of time.
If this response is used incorrectly more than a couple of times by a given
account, they would be locked out of using it in the future to prevent
flagrant abuse/bogging down of the system.
Potential for liability on false copyright claims will never be added to the
law because big entertainment has the government in its pocket. Thus it falls
on content hosts/providers to force abusive industries to "play fair".
ContentID itself being a terrible system is beside the point, and an argument
for another day.
~~~
jacquesm
That sounds like a workable and practical solution and it almost makes you
wonder why it isn't there right now, it's that simple.
------
CM30
It's a good start, though I think reviewing their content ID system is far
more important at this point. I've seen videos claimed or taken down based on
everything from outright fraud (companies and individuals claiming to own
songs and video footage they don't have the rights/exclusive rights to) to
weird coincidences (like songs being 'claimed' because a song they used was a
bit similar to a popular pop song, even if it had nothing to do with it).
It's nice to see them stand up for their users in at least some sense though.
------
minimaxir
Jim Sterling, who has been the victim of malicious copyright claims on videos
which are clearly fair use, has a good video on the implications of the
policy: [https://youtu.be/w-UgOXP82UI](https://youtu.be/w-UgOXP82UI)
~~~
oxide
I remember when Konami tried to silence Super Bunnyhop awhile back via DMCA
abuse and Youtube stepped in, I'm glad to see that has in a way evolved into a
proper policy, caveats be damned.
------
rdancer
The Content ID juggernaut was devised by Google to placate the copyright
holders and content creators whose backs YouTube had been built on. As it
stands, 90%+ of all music played on YouTube is produced by the oligopoly of
the three major music labels, so it is in YouTube's existential interest for
the labels to be catered to. That means giving them a portion of the <10%
revenue generated by the works of independent creators, and sometimes shutting
down videos and channels.
YouTube is popular because it is cheap, user-friendly, and popular. And it is
that way thanks to rampant copyright infringement, redeemed by Content ID and
the associate policies.
------
lfam
Why would you use YouTube if you care about these issues? The whole business
is based on monetizing your effort without compensating you.
Sure, youtube has a big network effect, but that doesn't matter for the use
case of using it as a host for videos shared on social networks or embedded in
other sites.
You could try something like MediaGoblin instead. Taking these steps help
ensure that we never have to worry about YouTube letting some random claimant
knock our videos offline again, at least not without them filing a claim
against a registrar, VPS host, etc.
From MediaGoblin.org: "MediaGoblin is a free software media publishing
platform that anyone can run. You can think of it as a decentralized
alternative to Flickr, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc."
------
adrae5df
So I visit the website, click on the link _some of the best examples of fair
use on YouTube_ , and land on this:
[https://i.imgur.com/ygLwM6S.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/ygLwM6S.jpg)
Priceless.
------
Cogito
Thanks for posting this.
Is it possible to change the link to the non-mobile version?
On mobile it will redirect automatically, but the mobile version is a bit
janky to read on desktop. It's a pretty minor thing, and it's not that
important, but here it is!
------
pablo-massa
Few years ago I see this video of a YouTube creator that usually uses
copyrighted material on fair use. He explain some problems with the current
(now updated) system.
YouTube's Content ID System SUCKS (2013)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuTHhtCyzLg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuTHhtCyzLg)
------
DHJSH
I just wish they'd help me when there's no copyright infringement at all, so
there's no need for a "fair use" argument--but I still get an infringement
notice.
This happens, for example, if I sit down at my own piano and record myself
playing some unambiguously out-of-copyright work, for example Mozart, Chopin,
or Bach.
Just last week I got a notice from a record label because their matching
software identified a Beethoven piano piece as being that from one of their
copyrighted recordings. It wasn't--it was me playing.
Google should stop allowing companies that do this access to their content
match system.
~~~
jacquesm
I guess that's their way of telling you that you are so good now that they
would like to sign you to their label.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Reaction Housing’s temporary shelters - Campbellb
http://www.reactionhousing.com/
======
pmorici
Seems impractical compared to something like the Ikea flat pack shelter.
[http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/26/8287509/ikea-refugee-
shelt...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/26/8287509/ikea-refugee-shelter-
flatpack-photos-iraq-syria)
------
simondelacourt
The wrist band lock seems rather impractical the majority of circumstances
that you'd encounter in the aftermath of a disaster or in refugee camps. And
the advantage of no assembly seems to be a rather small advantage compared to
the cost (a rather bulky construction). The amount of shelters you can put on
a truck
([http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52e6ca70e4b0aeaf06546d...](http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52e6ca70e4b0aeaf06546dfb/t/54f52911e4b02c0acdf6c119/1425352982937/Shell+carryingFeb10.jpg?format=1500w))
seems to be quite little.
I like the techy look and the idea seems cool, but it also seems to look like
a very technocratic approach to shelters. This might work well for first world
countries that have to deal with the fixing shelters after a disaster when
conditions are quite good. But I can't see this helping out afters disasters
like the one in Nepal.
~~~
codewithcheese
Yeah imagine how many tents you can fit on a truck that size! 100s maybe a
thousand. Let alone can a truck get into the disaster zone?
------
relet
In summary - how does this compare (technology and/or cost) to common
container housing, as seen on building sites and refugee centers today?
------
lentil_soup
Is not clear how the unit is powered. Does it have batteries, solar panels or
do you have to plug it in?
~~~
sageabilly
I'm wondering about this too. That, combined with what looks like a lack of
windows, would make this somewhat impractical in emergency housing situations
where the restoration of electricity is likely to take a lot longer than
setting up shelters.
------
jkot
Good luck getting trucks with this into Nepal. Tents or even wood for cabin
can be air droped.
------
codewithcheese
Roadmap: After 7 years exos capable for space launch? Did I hear that
correctly?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
OpenHAK: Open-Source Health Activity Kit - mettamage
https://www.openhak.com/
======
mettamage
I got this from the website linked at [1], but I figured this warrants its own
discussion.
Are there more open source Fitbit type of hardware?
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20604566](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20604566)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: easy noprocrast loophole - nearestneighbor
There is a frustratingly easy way to circumvent "noprocrast", defeating its purpose. For example, in Firefox, you can use "private browsing" (Shift-Apple-P on a Mac).<p>Would it be a good idea to track IP addresses to make it a bit harder to work around the noprocrast delay?
======
NathanKP
If you are that addicted already then you'll probably need to use something
like this:
<http://visitsteve.com/work/selfcontrol/> \- For Mac OS X
<http://www1.k9webprotection.com/> \- For Windows, designed to block porn but
it can block any site you want.
Have fun!
~~~
asimjalis
<http://www.opendns.com> is another way to block sites.
------
revorad
An easier loophole is to go straight to <http://news.ycombinator.com/logout>.
Then you can continue reading.
If you're really struggling, seriously try working on a computer without an
internet connection (See <http://www.paulgraham.com/distraction.html>).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Wait, So How Much of the Ocean Is Actually Fished? - samcampbell
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/09/wait-so-how-much-of-the-ocean-is-fished-again/569782/?single_page=true
======
wahern
Indeed, in just the past few months, researchers have used
that data to [...] identify supply chains where vessels
offload catches to each other at sea, and to show that the
creation of marine protected areas can lead to a wave of
pre-emptive overfishing.
How long until some fishermen begin to claim a right to privacy? I don't mean
that flippantly. Logically speaking, it's a stretch to go from a personal
right of privacy as the EU is slowly enshrining to one that protects the
economic activity of commercial actors. But as a practical and political
matter I don't think it's insurmountable. In America we're experts at
reframing these rights issues in a way that benefits corporations. Europe
might not be immune to these pressures, simply behind the curve.
------
samcampbell
>One prominent study said 55 percent, its critics say 4 percent, and they both
used the same data.
TL;DR - The first study (55% fished) divided the ocean in 160,000 squares
(each 3,100 square kilometers) with 55% containing fishing activity in 2016.
The second study divided the ocean into much smaller squares (123 square
kilometers)and found only 4% had fishing activity in 2016.
~~~
BugsJustFindMe
Oh, well, if we're dividing the ocean, then I divide the ocean into 1 square
(each one ocean) with 100% fishing activity in 2018.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Goodbye Python, Hello Go - eadmund
https://thinkfaster.co/2018/07/goodbye-python-hello-go/
======
tomohawk
One of the biggest benefits of go vs python is that you only manage your
dependencies during build. You end up with a single executable that is easy to
deploy and mostly immune to the deployment of other things. In python, you
have to also worry about deployment. To be safe, you need to carry the vm and
other dependencies with you.
This means you can't just give any python program to someone and have it just
work, unless it's pretty trivial.
~~~
nine_k
Go also carries all its dependencies with it; this is why it produces large
single static binaries.
Python lacks a tool to _painlessly_ produce the same, that is, a self-
contained binary that includes the VM and all the dependencies. Determining
Python dependencies may be slightly tricky, because `import` is an executable
statement, and dependencies may be native-code libraries.
There are several tools for that, but all have their downsides, and none is in
widespread use. Polishing such a tool until it's as simple and fool-proof as
Go's build tool could be quite beneficial for Python community.
~~~
ofrzeta
Why does it have to be a self-contained binary? When you pack everything into
an virtualenv you get more or less the same result, don't you? If you want to
have a single file you can zip it :)
~~~
sacado2
You can deploy an executable on a server just by typing
GOOS=linux GOARCH=386 go build foo && scp foo user@server:
That's a lot of time saved, especially when you do it on a daily basis, and
not something you can do as easily with virtualenv and such.
~~~
meddlepal
Yea I just do not buy it. How much time is saved? Is it writing an additional
SSH command to extract the file or hitting the up-arrow on your keyboard to
repeat the previously run command?
~~~
sacado2
Not a lot, but when your test environment is on a remote server (because it
replicates the production DB and you can't have that on your dev machine for
security reasons), you tend to do it a lot. Add fast compilation to the mix,
and you have a very productive workflow. `make && zip && scp && ssh unzip` is
way slower than `go build && scp`
------
KaiserPro
First let me state that a language is just a brush with which to paint your
logic. I really don't subscribe to the X is better than Y. I might concede
that x is better than y for certain tasks, but not a sweeping generalisation.
The first point about inconsistent spelling mistakes, I 100% sympathise. I
suffer from this terribly. Pylint and syntastic are a silver bullet for me. I
have been tempted by a more fancy IDE, but I'm so used to vim, I'm
reluctant/scared to change.
Parallelism: I do look over the wall at Go and wish that python 3.x had spent
more time on removing the GIL, but that is old news now.
However I enjoy threading with python(not its limitations), because its so
trivially easy. The Queues primitive saves 90% of the headache. as for ctrl-c
not doing anything set all your threads to daemon
(<threadObj>.setDaemon(True)) When the main thread exits, so does everything
else. Go shines by having built in true parallelism
If I need horsepower, then I have to run multiple processes (not
multiprocessing, that has drawbacks.) which has the annoyance of serializing
and message passing. (but that does mean scaling horizontally less painful
further on). Again, Go really shines here.
Statically compiling thing: YES. This means that I can 90% of the faff with
docker (xyz version not working any more, the build fails) and use a real
scheduling system that runs on real steel(or AWS) and not the omnifaff that is
kubernetes.
~~~
codemusings
> I have been tempted by a more fancy IDE, but I'm so used to vim, I'm
> reluctant/scared to change.
I'm happy to report that JetBrains' VIM plugin is almost flawless (Block-based
editing, window splitting, save/close, it's all where it's supposed to be).
I used to be in the same camp. But if you add a linter and parser and full
blown backend to make lookups for code completion to your VIM configuration
you might as well use an IDE. I've switched to IntelliJ for Java.
~~~
abhishekjha
And they provide a free all pack subscription for open source contributors.
Its nice to see all the features at one place though their pipenv integration
is still a bit shaky[0]. I haven't got a response yet.
[0] :
[https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/PY-30855](https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/PY-30855)
------
k_bx
For those who lack the generics, I just wanted to remind that you can "script"
in Haskell by adding this to your header:
#!/usr/bin/env stack
-- stack script --resolver=lts-12.2
and run it as an executable if your machine has stack installed. If not --
compile it with a `stack ghc --resolver=lts-12.2 ./file.hs` and you'll have a
`./file` executable. No project creation, no need to list the dependencies.
~~~
exceptione
Good trick! Do you also know the Turtle library? I just got across it, and it
looks like a neat shell library from the outside.
------
gsibble
I've written in Python for ~13 years and I'm really enjoying Go. It's fast and
its libraries (the few there are) seem to make a lot of sense. I don't think I
would use it for daily scripting like the author, but for a large new project
I would definitely pick Go over Python now.
~~~
lmm
Try an ML-family language (e.g. OCaml, F#, or Rust) if you haven't already.
You get the best of all worlds: expressiveness, safety and speed.
~~~
doteka
I like the expressiveness of Rust in theory, but for the programs I write I
don't feel like I get sufficient payoff for fighting the borrow checker, as
compared to writing in Go. Would I be correct in saying OCaml is pretty much
Rust without the borrow checker? I have no prior experience with the language.
~~~
petre
Dlang is also very nice if you like Algol style languages. You can get
productive in it pretty fast, just like in Go, but it's expressive, it's
garbage collected by default and you don't waste time fighting the compiler.
Also the code compiles as fast as Go with DMD and LDC. I havent tried GDC.
[https://tour.dlang.org/](https://tour.dlang.org/)
~~~
ben-schaaf
Plus you get templates and CTFE, which are both awesome. Though if you're
doing web stuff I've found D compile times to not be so great anymore,
especially when diet templates get into the mix.
------
arendtio
Does someone know a ressource where I can easily learn how to switch from Bash
to Go?
To give some context: When it comes to serious programs I use Go already, but
often I just want to code a little script to watch a website for changes for
example:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
url="https://example.com"
mem="memory.txt"
oldsum="$(cat "$mem")"
newsum="$(curl -sL "$url" | sha512sum)"
if [ "$oldsum" != "$newsum" ]; then
xmpp_notify "$url changed"
echo "$newsum" > "$mem"
fi
I haven't tried it yet, but in my mind it feels like writing such a program
would be more time consuming/complex in Go than writing it in bash.
Neverthelss, I feel like Go is overall a much better language than Bash (with
all those quotes), so I would like to transition to writing more short
programs in Go and for that I would like to learn how to do things like
reading/writing/grepping files as easily in Go as I do it in Bash. Any idea if
someone wrote some hints together already?
~~~
IshKebab
Writing a program like that would not be too difficult in Go. It's something
like this:
func main() {
url := "https://example.com"
mem := "memory.txt"
oldsum, err := ioutil.ReadFile(mem)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
// Download URL
resp, err := http.Get(url)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
defer resp.Body.Close()
body, err := ioutil.ReadAll(resp.Body)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
// Hash it
newsum := sha512.Sum512(body)
if oldsum != newsum {
err = exec.Command("xmpp_notify", url + " changed").Run()
if err != nil {
log.Warn(err)
}
err = ioutil.Write(mem, newsum)
if err != nil {
log.Error(err)
}
}
}
Don't listen to the naysayers. Go is fantastic for scripts like this - it's
really good at network stuff, has a ton of built in functions, etc. And you
get actual robustness and error checking that isn't a complete joke. Look how
many ways your Bash script could fail! That's fine if you're literally
watching the output with your eyes. If not it's going to cause issues when
`curl` fails for example.
The only downside really is that you have to compile the Go code, which is
fast but not as fast as just interpreting a Bash script (the first time).
Another possible issue is executable size - if you have a lot of Go scripts
they may take up a fair bit of space.
I wish Go had an interpreter / JIT mode for scripts.
Edit: Before someone says "but that's 3 times longer than the bash code!"
please write the _equivalent_ Bash code that has proper error checking.
~~~
boris
Just add this as a second line?
trap "exit 1" ERR
~~~
majewsky
I think you mean:
set -euo pipefail
------
greyman
> I’m not a fan of full blown IDEs that require their own configuration.
Hmm, but those IDEs actually do solve most of the problems author has had with
Python. If one regularly code in Python, spending a few hours configuring the
IDE is justifiable. I for example never write scripts outside the IDE, because
why?
~~~
kungtotte
_Note: I like Python, so this is me playing devil 's advocate here._
If you _need_ an IDE to solve common pain points of a language, isn't it fair
to say that another language which lacks those pain points is a better fit for
you? Using an IDE to aid you, to smooth things out and allow for more rapid
development and better workflow is one thing. Being forced to use one because
the language is lacking is a bad look on the language!
~~~
jacobush
You could also say that this attitude holds us back. What if Smalltalk had
only been accessible from _vi_ back in the day, would Smalltalk have been as
appreciated? I think not.
------
SjuulJanssen
Some issues:
\- I make stupid mistakes in Python constantly. I misname a variable or a
function or I pass in the wrong arguments: Try mypy
\- If the task is IO bound: Threads are the wrong the answer to that. You're
going async by using Golang, why not in python?
\- With Python, I have to ensure all the packages I need are installed on the
remote machine: pipenv Like slezyr mentions
\- Consistent Styling: Try autopep8 or black
\- Intellisense: I would say "use Pycharm" but vscode is getting better I
heard
~~~
raverbashing
Pylint is a bit hard to configure, use Prospector
Prospector does a better job and it prevents you from wasting time with what
essentially are stylistic choices and BS like a hard 80 chars limit per line
(remember, A Foolish Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Little Minds)
And yes, yes, automated stilling tools are better
Intelisense is needed but even the standard vim autocompletion plugin does an
ok job
------
vortico
This is like saying "Goodbye car, hello airports!" If your needs change, then
of course your favorite solution may change.
------
ivan_ah
This makes me want to try Go, though I wonder how long it would take to
develop the same "fluency" and knowledge of which library to use. It would be
exiting to have things run fast though...
One minor plug `pyflakes` is very good for basic checks for mistyped variable
and missing imports, etc. It's not "smart" and doesn't check type consistency,
but very useful to catch stupid mistakes.
~~~
dilap
I went from Python to Go; Go is an amazingly simple and quick to learn
language and ecosystem. Give it a try -- you'll probably start to feel
proficient a lot faster than you'd think.
------
slezyr
> I like having a single binary. I usually run code on EC2 machines to give my
> scripts closer network proximity to S3 and to our database. With Python, I
> have to ensure all the packages I need are installed on the remote machine,
> and that one of my coworkers hasn’t installed anything conflicting.
pipenv
------
hellofunk
> I make stupid mistakes in Python constantly. I misname a variable or a
> function or I pass in the wrong arguments. Devtools can catch some of these,
> but they usually require special setup. I’ve never been able to configure
> pylint easily, and I’m not a fan of full blown IDEs that require their own
> configuration. The worst is if you mistype a variable that’s hidden behind
> conditional logic. Your script might run for hours before triggering the
> error, and then everything blows up, and you have to restart it.
This this this, a million times this. I work mostly in Clojure where such
problems are equally as bad, maybe even more so. Dynamic, elegant languages
can feel liberating in so many ways, but there are significant workflow
drawbacks that get me nearly every day.
~~~
falcolas
First off, I get that it's unfortunate they aren't detected by Python itself
in some form of compile step, but that's a cost of using a dynamic language.
But they don't use the tools created to catch these kinds of errors, and
complain that they aren't protected against these errors? There's a fairly
large disconnect there. Hell, I have protection against this built into my VIM
install. Not running these basic tools is tying a hand behind your back.
~~~
hellofunk
Are you talking about mypy?
~~~
falcolas
No: python-mode
[https://github.com/python-mode/python-mode](https://github.com/python-
mode/python-mode)
------
JoJoJoboop
I've been using Go over python for a couple months now and so far it has been
incredibly effective. I never really liked Python's syntax so it's nice to go
back to something c-ish.
------
Alir3z4
XAR lets you package many files into a single self-contained executable file.
This makes it easy to distribute and install.
[https://github.com/facebookincubator/xar/](https://github.com/facebookincubator/xar/)
Then just build your XAR executable with:
$ python setup.py bdist_xar
------
ausjke
Python is regularly ranked to top 4 programming language for a reason, Go has
a long way to catch up I think, if it ever happens.
I recently started using python as the primary language, the more I use, the
more I like it.
Go's put everything in a static binary has its pros and cons.
------
luord
I'm pretty sure I've read this same article, give or take a few words, many,
_many_ times before, only replacing the two languages being compared.
This bores me, probably because I find everything to be the exact opposite
(except for parallelism, I'd be foolish to pretend Go isn't better in that
area) but specially because I find Go to be an _ugly_ language to write. The
error handling is only the top of the can of worms.
Python, in comparison, is a delight to write and specially to read (when it's
well written).
In short: Oh, terrific, another one.
------
littlestymaar
Related: [From Python to Go and Back
Again(2015)]([https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1LO_WI3N-3p2Wp9PDWyv5...](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1LO_WI3N-3p2Wp9PDWyv5B6EGFZ8XTOTNJ7Hd40WOUHo/mobilepresent?pli=1#slide=id.g70b0035b2_1_168))
And the HN discussion
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10402307](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10402307)
------
rajangdavis
Are there numpy/pandas/matplotlib equivalents in golang?
~~~
rajangdavis
Looks like the following are equivalents:
numpy - [https://github.com/gonum/gonum](https://github.com/gonum/gonum)
matplotlib - [https://github.com/gonum/plot](https://github.com/gonum/plot)
pandas - [https://github.com/kniren/gota](https://github.com/kniren/gota) (API
not finalized)
------
iamleppert
If most of your use case is copying s3 files to and fro, maybe doing a bit of
transformation what does it matter what language you use? You could deploy
some python or even JavaScript code to lambda and get the job done faster than
you could with Go. From a performance perspective compiled languages only win
in some very niche cases these days (mostly cpu bound tasks that can’t be
distributed and require low latency).
------
crdoconnor
Re: gofmt - python has black now. It's excellent.
Pylint solves the undefined variable issue, but it is annoying as hell and
_always_ requires configuration. I wish there was a linter for python that
didn't care about 80 character limit and was careful not to drown important
errors with unimportant stylistic tics.
~~~
fermigier
Black is excellent ideed, and solves the problem of having code compatible
with PEP8 once and for all.
flake8 is a linter that doesn't need much config, and you can config it to
give you only "serious" errors and not stylistic issues.
I gave a talk on these subjects last year at the Paris Open Source Summit:
[https://speakerdeck.com/sfermigier/python-quality-
engineerin...](https://speakerdeck.com/sfermigier/python-quality-engineering-
a-tour-of-best-practices) (NB: Black didn't exist yet at the time).
~~~
crdoconnor
flake8, like black, shouldn't really require any config on most projects yet
annoyingly it always requires at least a little. I really would switch to
another tool in a heartbeat if they could just fix that.
Ideally instead of needing to be told whether to only show "serious" errors,
for instance, it should just give you a project "score" (sum of the errors x
their severity) and show the top 20 or so errors in order of importance and by
default it should _never_ exit with error code 1 with just stylistic errors
unless explicitly configured to do so.
~~~
shloub
Have you tried pyflakes?
~~~
crdoconnor
No, and I think you just made my day. Thanks!
Or rather, I'd vaguely heard the name but I erroneously thought it was just
another flake8 type thing.
~~~
camel_Snake
pyllama is another project in the same space which I like. It uses pyflakes
under the hood.
[https://github.com/klen/pylama](https://github.com/klen/pylama)
------
therealmarv
Goodbye plenty, matured, well tested libraries and frameworks and big
community. Hello go.
(Nothing against golang, just wanted to point out it's not that easy for every
usecase).
~~~
djstein
So much this. No one is writing large production applications without some
sort of imported library. Go simply has not been around long enough or had
enough users to mature. For all of the pros Go has (not even mentioning the
cons) they seem miniscule compared to what we give up switching to it. It has
always sounded like the hot new fad and not a stable thing. Especially with
daily articles like coaxing people into using it.
~~~
majewsky
Exactly! It will be many more years before big mature projects like
Kubernetes, Docker or CockroachDB would consider switching to Go.
~~~
therealmarv
This are all sort of very close to system frameworks itself. I would never
write something like that in Python. This is a good example for golang.
------
nhanhi
Archive URL: [http://archive.is/smcWh](http://archive.is/smcWh)
------
f00_
What do Go users think of Scala? Seems like the alpha language
------
finnmagic
“Python is much more flexible.”
------
RickJWagner
Wow, that seems like a pretty big jump. Good for the author.
------
tanilama
Revenge Post.
------
paulie_a
> I make stupid mistakes in Python constantly. I misname a variable or a
> function or I pass in the wrong arguments.
> Unit tests would catch most of these, but it’s hard to get 100% code
> coverage, and I don’t want to spend time writing unit tests for a one-off
> script.
Sorry, I actually do like golang but this is telling of a bigger issue.
Someone else is going to have to delete/fix it
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Jetbrains IDE MacBook Air 2020 crash likely an Ice Lake CPU bug - api
https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/JBR-2310#focus=streamItem-27-4151843.0-0
======
api
Look at the thread and note that it also happens inside a virtual machine:
[https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/JBR-2310#focus=streamIt...](https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/JBR-2310#focus=streamItem-27-4151738.0-0)
... and on a Microsoft Surface with the same generation chip.
This is probably an exploit (denial of service at least) but unfortunately we
could not follow responsible disclosure as we stumbled on it during a
collaborative debugging session.
Might want to not use these chips in anything security-critical that executes
any untrusted code.
I am now hoping Apple dumps Intel for ARM or perhaps AMD. I'd be perfectly
happy with an ARM64 Mac that worked and was free of CPU errata and security
bugs... as long as Apple doesn't also lock it down like iOS. They shouldn't
change much at all in the OS... just rebuild it all for ARM. (Or use AMD Ryzen
and no rebuilds needed.)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple: Leopard delayed until October due to iPhone team developer poaching - mattculbreth
http://www.tuaw.com/2007/04/12/apple-announces-leopard-delays-due-to-the-iphone/
======
mattculbreth
Well that's a bummer. Was looking forward to it. But they say they'll give
away a "feature-complete" beta at the developer's conference.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
You Can Now Transfer Your Twitter Verification to Another Account - bhartzer
https://twitter.com/fart/status/1263222585778507776
======
tallies
It's a hoax. Twitter reply:
[https://twitter.com/TwitterComms/status/1263256788238909441](https://twitter.com/TwitterComms/status/1263256788238909441)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How are humans going to become extinct? - fromdoon
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-22002530
======
ggreer
To summarize: At this point, humanity is its own greatest extinction risk. If
we don't destroy ourselves in the next century, we will almost certainly
inherit the stars.
For a much deeper treatment of this subject, I recommend _Global Catastrophic
Risks_ , edited by Nick Bostrom and Milan Ćirković. The overarching point is
straightforward (see the paragraph above), but the details of each threat are
interesting on their own.
1\. [http://www.amazon.com/Global-Catastrophic-Risks-Nick-
Bostrom...](http://www.amazon.com/Global-Catastrophic-Risks-Nick-
Bostrom/dp/0199606501)
~~~
ProAm
Humans will most definitely be the cause of human extinction on planet Earth.
I would put my money on Homo sapiens not making it another million years on
the surface of the planet.
~~~
visakanv
Homo sapiens reached anatomical modernity about 200,000 years ago and began to
exhibit behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago.
I suspect that our descendants 1,000,000 years from now wouldn't consider
themselves Homo sapiens- primitive, brutish creatures. (Consider how we feel
about our ancestors from as recently as 50,000 years ago.)
~~~
infectoid
> Consider how we feel about our ancestors from as recently as 50,000 years
> ago.
Or a few thousand years ago for that matter.
I think the social landscape with look and feel a lot different in the next
100 years.
~~~
ekianjo
> Or a few thousand years ago for that matter.
Actually we can relate very well with the concerns of people from a few
thousands years ago. Writings from ancient Rome, from ancient Greece are still
very contemporary in many, many ways.
------
lutusp
A quote: " ... international policymakers must pay serious attention to the
reality of species-obliterating risks."
Are these people all completely ignorant of evolution and science? No matter
what happens in the future, one or another species-obliterating risk is a
certainty. Here's why:
1\. Our species has existed for about 200,000 years.
2\. On that basis, and given our present knowledge of biology and evolution by
natural selection, it's reasonable to assume that, within another 200,000
years, we will have been replaced by another species who either successfully
competed with us, or into whom we simply evolved over time.
3\. Human beings are a note, perhaps a measure, in a natural symphony. We're
not the symphony, and we're certainly not the reason the music exists.
4\. Based on the above estimate, there will be 10,000 more human generations,
after which our successors will no longer resemble modern humans, in the same
way that our ancestors from 200,000 years ago did not resemble us.
5\. We need to get over ourselves -- our lives are a gift, not a mandate.
6\. I plan to enjoy my gift, and not take myself too seriously. How about you?
~~~
spingsprong
"1\. Our species has existed for about 200,000 years.
2\. On that basis, and given our present knowledge of biology and evolution by
natural selection, it's reasonable to assume that, within another 200,000
years, we will have been replaced by another species who either successfully
competed with us, or into whom we simply evolved over time. "
When our species had existed for around 5 years, does that mean it was
reasonable to assume that within another 5 years, we will have been replaced
by another species?
~~~
kamaal
That arguments sounds like a classic religious argument against evolution. _'
If we came from the monkeys, why aren't currently monkey's turning into
humans'_ like argument.
The answer is evolution is more like a fork/branch than modifications on the
trunk. Mutations happen all the time, every cancer victim, is a victim of
mutation. But when the gene begins to spread and take root rapidly, at some
point we get that gene dominant among a species.
A lot will happen over the next 200,000 years. We will likely change in major
ways.
But if you were to take this whole singularity thing seriously we may not even
need all that. By 2045 you can live on eternally on the cloud.
~~~
vixen99
monkey's?
------
ilaksh
I feel a medium-term or maybe even short-term threat (in the next 10-30 years)
not of extinction necessarily but of becoming completely irrelevant. People
like to jump to the conclusion that artificial super-intelligence will want to
eliminate humans. I don't think that is a foregone conclusion at all.
However, if (when) super-intelligent artificial general intelligence
"arrives", that pretty much makes normal unaugmented humans the relative
equivalent of chimps. It means that our opinions and actions are no longer
historically relevant. We will be, relatively speaking, obsolete mentally
disabled people running along doing relatively stupid things.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Juh7Xh_70](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Juh7Xh_70)
In order for our opinions and abilities to actually matter relative to the
super-doings and super-thoughts of the new AIs, we really _must_ have this
magical nano-dust or something that integrates our existing homo sapien 1.0
brains with some type of artificial super-intelligence.
So that is what I am worried about -- will the super-AIs show up before the
high bandwidth nano-BCIs (brain-computer interfaces) or before I can afford
them.
Of course, in the long run there may not be a good reason for AIs to use
regular human bodies/brains at all and so that may be phased out for
subsequent generations.
~~~
salmonellaeater
Even an AI with innocuous goals will destroy humanity[1]. It would have to
have explicitly pro-human goals in order to be anywhere near 'safe.'
[1]
[http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer)
~~~
kamaal
Well actually, no!
There are a lot of things to this Armageddon-through-AI equation. Firstly this
thing called 'energy'. A paper clip maximizer will long reach its demise
before converting a maximum part of planet to paper clips, merely because it
needs a lot of resources to produce energy, and maintain itself too.
In fact true AI would not destroy anything. Because true AI would know it
doesn't have sufficient data to make any such decisions.
~~~
Houshalter
There is more than enough energy on Earth alone to destroy humanity. Most
likely an AI would want to maximize it's energy. Covering the entire face of
the Earth with solar panels, or even building a matrioshka brain from the mass
of the solar system.
An AI not specifically programmed to value human life would have no reason to
keep us around. It'd either kill us because it sees us as a threat,
competition, or just annoyance, or it would kill us by accident as it consumes
all the resources it can.
------
sdrothrock
The article talks about disasters that could eliminate humanity, but I wonder
if humanity is more likely to become extinct in the sense of no longer being
"homo sapiens."
For example, through a technological singularity or even just through
accumulated gene therapy over generations.
~~~
ggreer
When Bostrom and others talk about humanity, they usually mean humanity and
its extremely advanced descendants. They expect some value drift. Robin Hanson
puts it rather succinctly in [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/12/steps-up-
the-ladder.ht...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/12/steps-up-the-
ladder.html):
_Of course we should also wonder what we may become as we rise. We are no
longer the foragers who began this climb, nor the farmers who climbed just a
few floors below, and those ancestors would probably not be pleased with
everything we have become. We’ll probably also have misgivings about what our
descendants become. But hopefully we will on net be proud of them, just as our
ancestors would probably be proud of us._
~~~
lutusp
Okay, hold on a minute. When you say, "humanity and its extremely advanced
descendants", when you link to an article containing the phrase "steps up the
ladder", when you quote someone saying, "we should also wonder what we may
become _as we rise_ " [emphasis added], you're overlooking something basic
about evolutionary theory that everyone needs to understand.
And that is that evolution is not necessarily a progression from less to more
advanced, from less intelligent to more intelligent, or for that matter, from
_less anything to more anything_.
Evolution is not a plan with a goal, it is a blind algorithm that chooses
survivors, regardless of the survivors' traits, with the single requirement
that they are the fittest for the environment in which they find themselves.
This talk about steps up the ladder and extremely advanced descendants is
scientifically ignorant and a New Age fantasy. We are as likely to be replaced
by cockroaches as by superbeings.
~~~
ggreer
1\. I was explaining the position of Bostrom, Hanson, and others. I do not
completely agree with them.
2\. I think you have misinterpreted their position. Bostrom and Hanson know
quite a bit about evolution. They know that evolution is undirected and would
eventually result in an organism we wouldn't recognize, let alone value. But
they both think that we are entering a time in which we will no longer be
bound by evolution. They think that humanity will soon be able to engineer
minds, allowing us to improve their raw abilities while having them retain
many of our own values.
On this point, I do agree with them. Evolution hill-climbs, so it gets stuck
in local maxima and can't search the entire solution space. We're already
building lots of stuff that could never evolve: radio, wheels, impellers,
turbines, lasers, etc. In billions of years, evolution hasn't figured out a
way to send signals faster than 0.000001c (300m/sec). That's how fast sound
waves and nerve signals travel. As optimization processes go, it really is
quite terrible. If we want to make better minds in any reasonable time-frame,
we'll need to engineer them ourselves.
~~~
lutusp
> I think you have misinterpreted their position.
I understand it perfectly -- they're either as ignorant as their followers, or
they're exploiting public ignorance.
> Bostrom and Hanson know quite a bit about evolution.
They either know nothing about evolution, or they're deliberately misleading
their readers. Contrary to their writing, natural selection is not a race to
the top, because it's not a race to any particular objective.
> But they both think that we are entering a time in which we no longer be
> bound by evolution.
Apart from revealing their inability to grasp evolutionary theory, this is an
ignorant New Age fantasy. We will always be bound by natural selection, even
when we actively participate in the process.
> They think that humanity will soon be able to engineer minds, allowing us to
> improve their raw abilities while having them retain many of our own values.
But that's also evolution. To argue that people meddling with genetics isn't
evolution is to misunderstand evolution's scope.
> Evolution hill-climbs ...
You really need to stop thinking about natural selection as though it's a race
to the top of the hill. This idea contradicts both evolutionary theory and
copious observational evidence.
> We're already building lots of stuff that _could never evolve_ [emphasis
> added]: radio, wheels, impellers, turbines, lasers, etc.
All these things exist in nature, even including the lasers, _all of which
evolved_ in nature:
[http://laserstars.org/summary.html](http://laserstars.org/summary.html)
Bacteria use wheel- and axle-based electric motors to propel themselves
through their environments:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22489/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22489/)
All your examples have similar pre-existing embodiments in nature. And _they
all evolved_.
> If we want to make better minds in any reasonable time-frame, we'll need to
> engineer them ourselves.
People doing engineering is an example of natural selection. There is nothing
in the sequence of human events that isn't an example of evolution by natural
selection.
All this talk about moving beyond evolution fails to grasp how evolution works
in our lives. Even A/B testing of Web pages is an example of natural
selection.
To summarize, these people you're quoting are simply pandering to low public
taste -- they're either broadcasting their own ignorance or exploiting the
ignorance of the public. Evolution doesn't work they way they claim, and their
writing is a scientific laughingstock.
~~~
ggreer
I don't have time to address everything you've laid out here, but I must say
that you seem to almost willfully misinterpret my statements. Moreover, many
of your rebuttals are simply incorrect on matters of fact.
Please, in the future, try to remember the principle of charity. Also, you
might foster more productive discussions by sprinkling a little tact onto your
comments.
~~~
lutusp
> Moreover, many of your rebuttals are simply incorrect on matters of fact.
You're wrong, but post your evidence -- let the evidence decide. The authors
you cite make a number of obviously false claims about evolution, claims
falsified by citation in the standard references.
------
Zigurd
Global thermonuclear war is still the #1 risk for destroying civilization and
having a good chance of killing every human on the planet.
~~~
sentientmachine
Even then it would probably not end our species. Even if every country had
nuclear weapons and simultaneously vaporized every square inch of land surface
(very unlikely), there would be a few carnival cruises and people who escaped
to underground bunkers to hold out for enough years to repopulate some place
later. It would be 99% losses, but the tough ones would survive. It may take a
few thousand years to get back to where we were, but the buried technology
would be found, and we would quickly get back to this point, with a lot more
genetic resistance to the radiation fallout.
~~~
lutusp
> Even then it would probably not end our species. Even if every country had
> nuclear weapons and simultaneously vaporized every square inch of land
> surface (very unlikely), there would be a few carnival cruises and people
> who escaped to underground bunkers to hold out for enough years to
> repopulate some place later.
This is very, very likely, and there's even concrete evidence, based on the
fact that the human race was nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, but recovered.
70,000 years ago a huge volcanic eruption with global consequences called the
"Toba event" reduced the human population to somewhere between 3,000 - 10,000
people. We know this by analysis of our DNA, which carries a lot of
information that can be used to assess our genetic history. That record shows
that a severe genetic bottleneck took place 70,000 years ago, and geographic
evidence shows a corresponding massive volcanic event thought to be
responsible. More here:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory)
~~~
9876543210
The theory behind the Toba event is really interesting, and the wikipedia
article does mention that a number of other species are implicated with
similar apparent bottlenecks, but it seems curious that this event wouldn't
have affected all living creatures universally.
Based on the description of the event, a 5-10 year volcanic winter, I'm trying
to imagine how such a disaster might compare to the dinosaur's extinction
scenario. Why would only some creatures suffer more devastating effects than
others? Does this point to additional complexities in the chain of subsequent
events in the post-eruption environment, such as species-specific plagues, and
partitioned food-web collapses due to the loss of a keystone species?
Would plants and aquatic species expess such a bottleneck differently, when
compared to primates and other apex predators?
~~~
lutusp
> ... but it seems curious that this event wouldn't have affected all living
> creatures universally.
That's easy to explain based on the fact that some species tolerate
temperature change better than others. Remember that the Toba event took place
just as an Ice Age was beginning, so there were multiple stressors, affecting
many species. The survivors were those that (a) could take shelter against the
sudden cold, and/or (b) were naturally more resistant to the cold.
A similar partition happened during the asteroid-initiated dinosaur extinction
event 65 million years ago -- some species were better able to deal with the
sudden cooling of the global climate. Like the little mammals, who could take
shelter underground, and from which we eventually sprang.
> Would plants and aquatic species expess such a bottleneck differently ...
Yes. Some of them are able to tolerate freezing conditions that would kill
most land animals. As just one example, there are species of frog that can
freeze solid, then recover when things thaw out.
[https://www.units.muohio.edu/cryolab/projects/woodfrogfreezi...](https://www.units.muohio.edu/cryolab/projects/woodfrogfreezing.htm)
------
midnitewarrior
The disastrous effects of exponential growth will be our demise.
~~~
infogulch
I blame the economists. They had to drop out of their math degree because they
couldn't understand exponential functions... surprise surprise now we have
earth-destruction level superpowers trying desperately to keep up an economy
based on unsustainable exponential growth.
~~~
philwelch
Most economics grad schools prefer you have a math degree, actually.
~~~
infogulch
What? You're not going to take my ad hominem argument lying down? Fine, I'll
just go back to youtube comments...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Russia's sacred myths - techterrier
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37595972
======
navait
An interesting analogy to this is Stalin and the film _Ivan the Terrible_.
Stalin commissioned the film because he admired Tsar Ivan, and thought of
himself in his mold. His version of Ivan was a great man who was surrounded by
corrupt boyars intending to sell out Russia, and only he has the strength to
unite the country against them. Ivan is loved by the common people, but hated
by the sophisticated, "europeanized" nobility, who are traitors.
Stalin loved Part I, but was unhappy with Part II, since it didn't fit his
myth of Ivan. He banned the film and nearly had the director, Sergei
Eisenstein executed.
~~~
DominikR
You might be surprised to find that many Russian emperors who are viewed in a
positive light in the West are viewed negatively in Russia and vice versa to
this day.
It is actually quite logical since Russia and the West often have had
conflicting interests for centuries. What was good for Russia was often bad
for the West and what's good for the West was often bad for Russia.
Current example: Putin. (not an exactly an emperor but certainly in power for
decades) Insane support in Russia from the common people and viciously
vilified by Western elites and media. (for common people though it is mixed
here, they are not in a conflict with Putin)
~~~
triplesec
This is mostly because there is no free press in Russia since Putin ascended
to the throne, and the elections are all fixed.
~~~
kafkaesq
"No free press" is a bit of an overstatement. There is still a comparatively
free press in the RF -- but it's been successfully marginalized. And that's
precisely the approach -- _marginalizing_ dissenting voices, rather than
automatically banning them (in all but extreme cases) which characterizes
Putin's neototalitarian style.
Because you just don't need to ban dissenting voices, when your propaganda is
successful enough.
And BTW, popular support for Putin really is quite genuine. To a point where
he almost doesn't need to fix elections (it just makes him feel a bit "safer")
or manipulate the press. This may not much much sense in the West, but it's
the way things are, nonetheless.
~~~
DominikR
> which characterizes Putin's neototalitarian style
First of all the RF is not totalitarian, Putin can't just do whatever he
likes. If he did and people would hate him for that then he wouldn't have the
power to turn a landslide defeat into a victory by fixing something. So there
are real restraints on his power that are directly tied to the support he gets
from the population.
But even if I were to accept your characterisation of Putin ruling with a
"neototalitarian style" then I'd like to know when in the history of the RF,
the USSR or the Russian Empire the society was more free than today? As far as
I remember it has always been a Monarchy, a dictatorship or total chaos with
Mafia ruling the streets and even the government. So what exactly is "neo"
about his totalitarian style when it's obviously gotten better?
Russia never was a democracy by Western standards and it is highly unlikely
that it will ever be one.
For me as a Libertarian I'd actually desire to get rid of democracy or at
least restrict government influence so much that democratic elected officials
have next to no influence. That's because I don't want to be robbed by the
majority that always tends to vote for laws in order to steal from those who
are successful so they themselves can be lazy.
~~~
marklgr
> That's because I don't want to be robbed by the majority that always tends
> to vote for laws in order to steal from those who are successful so they
> themselves can be lazy.
Keep you randism for yourself please, it's really annoying to have to suffer
listening to that ideology when it brings almost nothing to the discussion.
~~~
DominikR
Didn't know this is your safe space. You could move to a country where only
one ideology is allowed.
------
grabcocque
Every nation has its own foundational myths. God knows the way Americans
mythologize their founding fathers to so far beyond the bounds of credibility
doesn't bother them.
~~~
georgeecollins
You could get a completely misleading idea of the US in WWII from countless
movies, even one as recent as Pearl Harbor, when people ought to have enough
perspective to know better.
The idea is people who point out a movie like Pearl Harbor is inaccurate
aren't attacked in the US.
~~~
a2tech
The difference is you can't be jailed in the US (or fined) for pointing out
factual errors in the movie.
~~~
DominikR
I very much doubt that this article is 100% accurate on the reason for the
fine. The Russian government doesn't defend Communism and the USSR in any
shape or form.
What triggers them is any suggestion that the Nazis were good and suggesting
the surrender of St Petersburg to the Nazis would have been great definitely
falls into that category for the majority of Russians.
On top of that St Petersburg really has a problem with violent Neo Nazis
groups, or at least had - don't know how it's today.
I'm actually pro freedom of speech to a degree that most people in Europe are
not (I would allow them have their stupid demonstrations) but the truth is
that in most countries some ideologies are forbidden. Nazism is forbidden in
most parts of Europe or how about showing public support for ISIS.
I'm 100% sure it is forbidden everywhere in Europe (maybe with UK being the
only exception).
~~~
kafkaesq
_The Russian government doesn 't defend Communism and the USSR in any shape or
form._
Well, it's not like anyone's trying to get the USSR officially reconstituted.
But there does seem to be a very deep undercurrent of respect about what the
USSR _stood for_ (as a form a "Greater Russia", in effect), independent of the
CPSU's hegemony over it.
As exemplified by, for example, Putin's famous statement about its collapse
being "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century". And the
widespread contempt for Gorbachev for having presided over it (or at least for
having caved into under far too generous terms for Russia's geopolitical
adversaries).
~~~
DominikR
I agree, I understand his statement mostly as rejecting the way how the
transition was made and for the chaos that ensued after the collapse. (which
was truly horrific even without the wars)
~~~
kafkaesq
But also in that Russia lost its historic Great Empire position (in
particular, with respect to the Baltics and Ukraine), along with a good chunk
of its superpower status in the world, generally. Which he didn't have to
mention directly, but that's the "chord" that quote seems to strike, in a
broader context.
------
tsukikage
...seriously, BBC? "War flick not historically accurate" is news now? Are we
going to get an article this length for every similar film Hollywood has spat
out?
~~~
kozak
"1984 becoming reality" is actually the news. It's not about the movie as
such. The bottom part of the article tells us about someone who it being
severely fined for stating a well-known historical fact, because according to
the official Russian propaganda, this well-known fact (USSR initiating the WW2
together with Germans) is not considered to be truth in Russia.
~~~
offa
Am Russian, can confirm. I actually had an argument about that with a friend
of mine a few days ago, in his eyes (and many other Russians both home and
abroad) we are the ones who have saved the world while the Allies stood by and
watched. The notion is deeply engrained in the Russian cultural memory now,
and seeing how WW2 is still tremendously important to the majority of the
population I do not see it changing any time soon.
~~~
shuntress
I do believe there is some truth to that. Its too complex to make a serious
judgement that "The Russians could have won on their own". Though it does seem
clear that making an enemy of Russia was a bigger mistake than making an enemy
of the USA.
The losses sustained by Russia during that time are absolutely staggering and
probably contribute to the "Are you guys even helping at all?" line of
thought.
~~~
Koshkin
It is easy to come to blaming others for something that is, to a high degree,
one's own fault. Much of the losses sustained by the Soviets during the war
were due to the pitiless practice of a forced sacrificing of soldiers' lives
in trying to achieve military objectives. All sides were doing that, but
nothing can be compared to the scale on which it was practiced by the Soviet
military command.
~~~
wbl
And the alternative would be to have the line break. The Germans were within
miles of all of of Moscow, besieged Leningrad for months, and we all know
about Stalingrad and the attempt to cross the Volga. Losing would have
unthinkable consequences, and the casualties were also due to German
executions of POWs.
~~~
ptaipale
It was not always just desperately holding the line. There was definitely an
aspect of actually exterminating unwanted elements by sending them to missions
that couldn't be accomplished or which could only be accomplished through
overwhelming losses.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtrafbat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtrafbat)
------
strictnein
If you want a deep (and I mean _deeeeeeep_ ) dive into where some of this
comes from - "Eurasianism":
Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia's New Nationalism
[https://www.amazon.com/Black-Wind-White-Snow-
Nationalism/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Black-Wind-White-Snow-
Nationalism/dp/0300120702/)
> "According to the Soviet mythology, 28 soldiers from the Red Army's 316th
> Rifle Division, mainly recruits from the Kazakh and Kyrgyz Soviet republics"
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are both part of the Eurasian Steppe which play a
big role in this invented history of Eurasianism
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Steppe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Steppe)
~~~
guard-of-terra
But it's not Russian nationalism, it's pan-sovietism.
------
antocv
This is such blatant disgusting propaganda.
Russia has myths, Soviet mythology etc, which accidently happened yesterday in
historical terms.
Real western democratic freedom loving surveilling states have history and
fact checking.
------
ommunist
The Labour leader was recently fired off her office and quite literally
ostracyzed for a glimpse of thought expressed orthogonally to mainstream
Holocaust propaganda in the UK. So I guess there are many systems of self-
censorships, political taboos and all this is for public good. It does not
matter what people believe in, if you are maintaining system of these beliefs.
In Russia it is WW2, in the US it is "everyone can become a millionaire", and
so on. It is rather pointless to play anything on the field of managed public
opinion, where the BBC is one of the major players
------
guard-of-terra
...but it's a Soviet myth, not a Russian one. Unfortunately there's not too
much people who feel the difference.
------
thr234234
Post-soviet countries are very sensitive to WW2 history. Similar thing on west
would be to question, how many people died in Holocaust.
> _In January 2014, independent liberal broadcaster Dozhd TV came under
> attack. It was accused of smearing the memory of WW2 veterans by asking
> whether residents of wartime Leningrad could have been saved by surrendering
> the city to Nazi forces._
Zero? Germans were planning genocide to get their _Lebensraum_
> _The public discussion of WW2 history has also been curbed by a
> controversial 2014 law against the rehabilitation of Nazism._
omg
~~~
ptaipale
Zero doesn't sound like a reasonable expectation. Elsewhere, conquered Soviet
civilians and POWs suffered horribly, but not everyone was killed.
However, a more reasonable question is whether a timely evacuation of
Leningrad would have saved more of the residents. Stalin intentionally left
much of the civilian population in the siege.
And it is indeed a problem if a law "against rehabilitation of nazism" is used
for silencing honest, civilized discussion about WW2 history.
~~~
open_bear
> Zero doesn't sound like a reasonable expectation.
No it does. German documents clearly say "if they try to flee the city - shoot
them". Hitler had specific plans to destroy it completely after the war.
> but not everyone was killed.
Out of 27 million deaths only 8 millions were combatants. Do the math on
civilians.
> is whether a timely evacuation of Leningrad
Leningrad is a major industrial and cultural center, second city in the USSR,
its loss would've dealt a colossal moral blow to the Soviet people. It also
tied a lot of Nazi forces, that could've been used elsewhere (i.e. Stalingrad
battle).
> Stalin intentionally left much of the civilian population in the siege.
No he didn't. Siege started in September, only 3 months after Nazis attacked.
It is not possible to evacuate 3+ million city in such a short time. 659,000
were evacuated before the siege began, and 30,000 after. Many people didn't
want to leave their homes.
> is used for silencing honest, civilized discussion about WW2 history.
No it is not.
~~~
ptaipale
This doesn't look like the start of a useful debate, so I'll just say that
Stalin prioritized military and ideological victory over sparing the civilian
population of Leningrad. Other leaders in other countries made different
choices.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Calls him an asshole, makes him a billionaire - jakarta
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100929/REVIEWS/100929984
======
Nemisis7654
I caught an early screening of this movie last week. I quite enjoyed it. I
know this movie will probably be catching some heat for being inaccurate, but
I feel like the inaccuracies within the movie are necessary to make an
engaging plot.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Don't launch - peter123
http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/03/dont-launch.html
======
cperciva
This is one of the great advantages of a public beta -- once you've ironed any
problems, you can have your media launch and justify it by saying "we're no
longer in beta".
------
gord
Excellent article and blog from a programmer entrepreneur whose been there.
Some other points he makes include -
\- Startups should be optimized to learn [product and customer are being
discovered]
\- Sales metrics are a good thing [start small with $5/day search engine
marketing, iterate until this yields results ]
\- Bite off small chunks of development [and release them, as they often are a
distinct usable feature]
~~~
lrajlich
Agreed, Eric writes an excellent blog and is based on real world experience.
Coordinated marketing and product launches make sense in the context of a
Product Development model but cut into your ability to learn in the context of
a Customer Development model. Instead of allowing your initial customers to
teach you about your product, you are skipping that step and going straight to
teaching the market about your product.
------
jlm382
I've always been a fan of launching early. Until now.
A few months ago, I launched my pet project to the public, with some nice
publicity on websites like TechCrunch, but it was incredibly difficult to
capitalize on the benefits of launching a premature product.
I thought it was successful. (it was certainly better than not doing a
marketing launch at all)... but this didn't take into account the fact that it
would have been significantly better if we had launched with good timing and
with a better tested product.
I'll know for next time :)
~~~
monological
What did you launch?
~~~
timcederman
internshipIN.com
------
dhimes
He links to SEM on $5/day
([http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2008/09/sem-on-
fiv...](http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2008/09/sem-on-five-dollars-
day.html))
In that post, he mentions bidding directly against searches for competitor
products. If the competitor has trademarked the terms, is it legal to use them
as keywords? I've heard of companies receiving "cease and desist" orders for
such behavior.
~~~
wildwood
I've heard of people getting "cease and desist" _letters_ (i.e., from the
competitor's lawyer) for this behavior, but never an actual C&D order, which
is a court order.
The general approach seems to be, unless the trademark holder specifically
complains, you can place ads on their keywords, and even use their trademark
in your ad, as long as you're not pretending to be them. "We're better than
X", for example. And if the trademark holder does take issue with it, they're
at least as likely to take it up with Google as they are to take it to court.
~~~
dhimes
Thanks for the clarification.
------
TimothyFitz
I accidentally submitted his front-page instead of the actual article url,
which I've since deleted. Thanks for resubmitting peter!
~~~
ashot
that was the product launch, and this is the media launch then
------
donniefitz2
That is the best blog post I've read this month. Truly helpful.
------
johnyzee
This advice is great for tempering the more unsophisticated "release early,
release often".
Joel makes similar points eloquently in "Good Software Takes Ten Years":
<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000017.html>
------
adrianwaj
Launching enables you to catch your competition by surprise so that they have
to play catch up on your features. They also have to go after your customers
and your momentum, so there are two aspects of launch: revealing what was once
secret, and publicizing that offering as best as possible - which is what a
good launch should do -- and then also harnessing feedback.
If one can't execute all those simultaneously, it's better to sit back and
watch competition do it instead, and whilst doing this, it may or may not be
advantageous to be public.
------
jwilliams
A soft launch (the product launch in my nomenclature) is also pretty a fairly
common/typical technology de-risking exercise.
------
maurycy
This post does not take into account that before launching you have no idea
whether your project is something people want.
~~~
eries
"So don't combine your product launch with a marketing launch. Instead, do
your product launch first. Don't chicken out and do a closed beta; get real
customers in through real renewable channels. Start with a five-dollar-a-day
SEM campaign. Iterate as fast and for as long as you can. Don't scale. Don't
marketing launch."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
We Broke into a Bunch of Android Phones with a 3D-Printed Head - crunchiebones
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/12/13/we-broke-into-a-bunch-of-android-phones-with-a-3d-printed-head/#73b70be91330
======
bsenftner
FR is one biometric. One biometric can be spoofed, as this article shows. For
authentication of anything desiring security, such as financial transactions,
it is recommended to have at minimum 3 biometrics. Considering a phone can
perform financial transactions and is often a storage place for passwords, 3
biometrics should be required to unlock a phone. The iPhone's 3D FR is closer
to 1.5 biometrics, and with added software analyzing successive video and 3D
sensor "frames" it could become a full 2 biometrics - but one should still
have a 3rd, such as fingerprint or passcode for financial authentications. But
at that level, why have FR at all?
In time, within a year, publicly available FR systems will have "spoof
detection" suites. The FR software I work on does, but this is just the
beginning. Non-living 3D objects, such as that 3D printed head, fail under
motion analysis because it lacks the momentary flush of a human pulse, and
likewise that can be used to detect prosthetics on a face. Additionally, it is
too rigid, faces undergo constant subtle deformation - the lack of that is
also a spoof detection method.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What if IBM has a clue? - bsg75
http://redmonk.com/jgovernor/2013/08/13/what-if-ibm-has-a-clue-get-lucky/
======
mathattack
Compare their stock performance to Microsoft or the S&P over the past 5 years.
Looks like a decent clue. They have a great salesforce, and that is one way
they make their own luck despite missteps and selective underinvestment.
(Selective because they like to buy back shares)
[http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=MSFT+Interactive#symbol=m...](http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=MSFT+Interactive#symbol=msft;range=5y;compare=%5Egspc+ibm;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;)
------
jgalt212
IBM definitely has a clue (certainly when you view them primarily as a
shareholder optimizing entity).
| {
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Evolution's Third Replicator - ptn
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327191.500-evolutions-third-replicator-genes-memes-and-now-what.html
======
xiaoma
Here's her TED talk on the same topic:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_blackmore_on_memes_and_temes....](http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_blackmore_on_memes_and_temes.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Solaris 11 has the security solution Linus wants for Desktop Linux - petsos
https://blogs.oracle.com/darren/entry/solaris_11_has_the_security
======
babarock
I'm going to go on a small tangent here and ask: Solaris ... _desktop_??
I've been using Linux on the desktop for quite some time now, and couldn't be
happier. However I come to realize, after trying to "convert" a lot of people
around me, Unix isn't made for the "desktop" (understand, unfortunately,
Windows-clone).
I also use Solaris (10, not 11m but still) at work. All the time. And if Linux
isn't that great on the desktop, Solaris is a catastrophe.
I'm not being very convincing, as the points I'm mentionning would take a
whole blog post to prove. My question here is the following:
If this article is on the Oracle website, could it mean that the people at
Redwood are trying to be more agressive on the desktop market? Or are they
simply using Linus' name to attract traffic?
~~~
gaius
You know, Sun Microsystems stock ticker was SUNW... The W was for Workstation.
~~~
freehunter
Yeah, but workstation and desktop are not exactly the same. Back when SUNW
went public (1986), that distinction may not have been as defined. It makes
sense to run Unix on a workstation (workstation defined as a high performance
machine meant for a specific productivity use case). It doesn't make sense to
run it on a desktop (desktop defined as a general purpose PC your family would
use at home).
------
gvb
Debian/Ubuntu doesn't create a root login (by default) at all, so there is no
root password.
Linux already has RBAC - if you look in /etc/group, you will see a group
"lpadmin", if you are in the group, you can add/configure/delete printers
(after authenticating with your user password). To the best of my knowledge,
this is what Oracle is bragging about, and is equivalent to Microsoft's UAC
(with Win7, they finally made it as convenient as linux).
~~~
pejoculant
RBAC appears to be a bit richer of a concept than group based authentication.
In particular, role assignments can be session dependent and role assignments
can be constrained to live in a particular hierarchy. The latter is useful for
situations where you want to make it possible for a user to have role A or
role B but not both at once.
Edit: Just to add, the key thing that they appear to be bragging about is that
they use RBAC to grant the user logged into the system console the "Console
User" profile which by default has permissions to modify printers and wireless
connections. Once you have this role, you don't not need to authenticate
further.
------
Elhana
RBAC is nice in itself, but you can't really use Solaris on average desktop.
No drivers, costs money to use in production... and still no sol11 ON sources
they promised?
------
obtu
Along with many Linux distributions, because they ship PolicyKit policies
allowing some of these things by default. That said, Solaris is used on
servers and should probably default to a reduced attack surface over
convenience.
~~~
reidrac
It looks like PolicyKit is a little bit unknown, although all major
distributions have been using it for a while.
<http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PolicyKit>
The Wikipedia page works very well as TL;DR:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PolicyKit>
------
calloc
I ran OpenSolaris on the desktop for a little while. That experiment lasted
only about two weeks before I gave up due to various things just not working
correctly.
I wonder if things are any different with Solaris 11, or more likely I'd be
running OpenIndiana which so far has worked really well for the server work I
have it doing.
------
freehunter
So serious question, how does this significantly differ from the user account
controls in Windows? Even before the Vista/7 UAC was introduced, you could set
permissions for a user to be able to do certain things and not other certain
things. UAC increased this ability with the slider.
Obviously it sounds like Unix had more fine-grained controls earlier than
Windows did, but it still seems like Microsoft could write this same article
on behalf of Linus.
------
nwmcsween
RBAC is garbage... developers and such need to write complicated rulesets for
n solutions of RBAC systems. A less painful solution would be what FreeBSD
currently has - capsicum.
~~~
binarycrusader
If you have specific feedback about areas that need improvement, I'm certain
the blog author would love to hear them. Ranting without justification isn't
likely to solve anything.
~~~
nwmcsween
I have worked on and used selinux, rsbac, smack and others, there is no area
to improve on rbac itself isn't usable or even secure compared to a capability
based system like capsicum.
~~~
binarycrusader
RBAC is a capability-based system, so I think you're confused.
Unless of course you're basing your claims on a definition of "capabilities"
that limits that application specifically to capsicum.
I would encourage you to read more about RBAC as it is not as limited as you
seem to be implying.
------
rbanffy
I somehow find it hard to believe Linus doesn't know about "sudo"...
~~~
klausa
Of course he knows.
Read his original rant, as babarock suggested:
[https://plus.google.com/u/0/102150693225130002912/posts/1vyf...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/102150693225130002912/posts/1vyfmNCYpi5)
~~~
zokier
I read the rant (again) and imho it seems like sudo could very well be used as
a solution to his problems ("need to have the root password to access some
wireless network, or to be able to print out a paper, or to change the date-
and-time settings"). From my point of view it seems like the real issue is bad
default configuration for sudo (or an alternative system).
~~~
mvip
The problem isn't that Linus isn't aware of sudo (of course he is), but a
stupid implementation in of the printer tool in OpenSUSE.
~~~
sciurus
Agreed. Does openSUSE use PolicyKit for CUPS like Fedora does, or does it
depend on lpadmin group membership?
[http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/CupsPolicyKitIntegrat...](http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/CupsPolicyKitIntegration)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Technical Analysis Is 100% Bullshit - Stjerrild
https://www.fscomeau.com/why-technical-analysis-is-bullshit/
======
D3nTe
Don't know much about trading, but this guys sure comes off as an asshole.
Reading that was painful.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sign up for Facebook - sizzle
https://signupforfacebook.org/
======
ld00d
Bug report: even though the cursor indicates you aren't allowed, you can still
click the button without accepting all of the "I'm OK with this" buttons.
------
headsoup
Also, at the end suggest 'what to do if you're not OK with this:
_Options for:_ Organising and running groups
Communicating with friends and family
Sharing photos
Keeping up with the news
Other social media options for Business
Also need an associated site for 'Sign Out of Facebook'
_How to:_
Provide contact details to important people to keep in touch, Communicate with
non-users (for group admins), Set up and use email/IM groups (for users and
admins), Download your data, Share photos, Keep up with news,
etc
Keep that traction going :)
------
andy_ppp
When laid out like that it’s horrendous isn’t it. Great idea. Their business
model is based upon abusing your trust isn’t it.
------
throwmeaway444
You do realise that Google does all this and more. Why is Facebook suddenly
any more evil?
Google knows where you live, Google knows what you did in that location,
Google __knows __much more.
Why do people get upset when Facebook obviously is doing the same? They all
are.
Google knows everything Facebook knows and more, and they are BUILT on selling
that information to advertisers.
~~~
bmpafa
my opinion is that Facebook gets a darker rap for all this b/c they're
famously more aggressive at engineering addiction. Maybe Google works just as
hard at this, but it's pretty plain that FB's put a lot of effort into
inducing the sort of addictions to social media that many feel are making life
worse for a lot of people.
------
hw
Sign up for Facebook button still takes me to FB even though it's disabled.
FYI
------
newscracker
This site is on GitHub so that people can provide feedback there.
I'm sure there's a lot more content and news related to the deviousness and
maliciousness of Facebook missing on this site right now.
------
nugi
Clever.
------
mlevental
there's no way this lasts right?
~~~
bringtheaction
Facebook will definitely get this site taken down quickly. There is something
called the Trademark Clearinghouse and registrars work together with them.
[http://www.trademark-clearinghouse.com/](http://www.trademark-
clearinghouse.com/)
IANAL but whatever trademark equivalent of fair use exists if any I don’t
think OP site falls under it even.
I mean, the site is a valid criticism and it’s clever and I applaud them but
no I don’t think it will last a whole lot more than some few hours more at
tops.
~~~
dmitrygr
I thought parodies were allowed
~~~
kelnos
I doubt this would be considered a parody, but there might be grounds for
defense based on the idea that it's criticism. The domain name they picked is
problematic, though, since it could make it seem like they're affiliated with
Facebook. Adding a big disclaimer to the top to point out they're not might be
a good idea.
------
feelin_googley
Forgot about email accounts and contacts.
Cant remember what year it was but at some point FB removed each members
personal email address and replaced it with a [email protected] address.
This cut off the possibility that members might try to contact other members
via personal email, and instead redirected all their communications through
Facebooks servers.
Facebook needed to see those communications because... why not?
~~~
scarlac
While this is technically true, the history of how it came about seems
forgotten already:
It was ironically done for privacy. Users actual e-mails were shared with
friends, and people had too many "friends", causing their e-mail to be leaked.
After a bit of trial and error on hiding the e-mails from scraping, they
eventually hid all e-mails by default and only exposed the @facebook.com
emails. The original idea of people only having 'real' friends turned out to
not work. You can't trust your Facebook "friends", which should be alarmingly
clear for everyone by now.
------
bassman9000
[https://imgur.com/a/7nxyJ](https://imgur.com/a/7nxyJ)
How does this make it to HN
~~~
kelnos
In my experience, Cisco Umbrella flags quite a few sites as malicious that
absolutely aren't. Most of the flagged sites I've noticed have come from a HN
posting.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Show HN: Tablo, Publish in eBook and paperback to nearly every shop in the world - ashdav
https://tablo.io
======
saimiam
[https://twitter.com/grandmagifs/status/986890684891185152?s=...](https://twitter.com/grandmagifs/status/986890684891185152?s=20)
Thought I'd gif-fy your headline.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AI-powered photo search, but without paying with my data? - Philipp0205
I like the AI powered photo-search in GoogleDrive and OneDrive. But I don't want to pay with my data.<p>So does somebody know an alternative?<p>Ty!
======
kleer001
So, you're paranoid that your private photos are going to be saved and or used
by these companies?
... after a few minutes googling I found a few contenders...
However, nothing is going to be as easy as the google or microsoft ready to go
products.
[https://blog.cloudsight.ai/](https://blog.cloudsight.ai/)
[https://imagga.com/solutions/auto-
tagging.html](https://imagga.com/solutions/auto-tagging.html)
[https://www.ibm.com/watson/services/visual-
recognition/dev-r...](https://www.ibm.com/watson/services/visual-
recognition/dev-resources/index.html#devresources)
[https://docs.aws.amazon.com/rekognition/latest/dg/what-
is.ht...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/rekognition/latest/dg/what-is.html)
------
cujic9
I've been pleasantly surprised by the face- and object-recognition AI in the
Synology Moments app: [https://www.synology.com/en-
us/dsm/feature/moments](https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/moments)
Synology is a Network-Attached Storage (NAS) appliance.
I don't _think_ it uploads my data anywhere. If it does, it certainly doesn't
upload everything, because I would have noticed the bandwidth usage, but I
haven't verified that it doesn't upload some low resolution version of photos.
------
mceachen
I'm building that right now. Want to help test it?
[https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-
photostructure/](https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/)
| {
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Tao: A new language for dynamic document description of real-time 3D animations - vmorgulis
https://github.com/c3d/tao-3D
======
secoif
Yet another language on HN that doesn't show a single code snippet on the
linked page.
Link should probably go here
[http://www.taodyne.com/tutorial-2.0.html#/language](http://www.taodyne.com/tutorial-2.0.html#/language)
~~~
gee_totes
That is some seriously unreadable documentation. I thought we moved away from
mystery-meat navigation when flash died?
(Mystery-meat meaning when I click on the nav arrows, I don't know where I'll
go)
------
tunesmith
I wish there were something like this for audio engineering. Start with stems,
and then declaratively create your mix with text that can be tracked in
version control. Even if coming up with the proper mix would be easier in an
IDE, I'd love to have the source for cleanup and tweaks.
------
amelius
It would be supercool if, using this language, one could easily perform all
the operations that one can do in SketchUp.
------
vvanders
I feel like this misses the forest for the trees from what I can see in the
docs.
If you really want impressive animations you'll want animators/designers
building them not developers in code. I think a better approach would to
integrate industry standard tools than a new language.
~~~
CyberDildonics
I don't even know if I would go that far. People stopped using scripts for 3D
work about 25 years ago. There are also industry standard geometry formats.
I'm not aware of a an industry standard for volumetric video, but it wouldn't
be a language.
~~~
sitkack
This looks like a programmatic compositor. I'd probably go with opengles and
scheme or clojurescript.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What programming languauges does the High Frequency Trading Firms use? - moshiasri
I have recently read an article about IEX and brad katsuyama on bloomberg website.And have also read the book 'FLASH BOYS' by michael lewis. after reading about all this i wanted to know what programming languages does these guys in big banks use??
======
canterburry
I found this YouTube presentation very informative about how an HF firm uses
Java for live trading...
Just one awesome fact...they structured their code such that they only have
one GC event a day (and it's tuned to happen at night). Watch it, pretty cool
compared to anyone doing plain vanilla java dev at an enterprise.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iINk7x44MmM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iINk7x44MmM)
------
chollida1
For anything on the fast path the list would be mostly what you'd expect:
\- C++
\- C
\- Java
\- Verilog/VHDL or what ever language your FPGA tooling requires.
As for support tooling then python and R are very popular.
It's important to note that its not only speed that dictates what you use in
HFT, the shear amount of data you need to handle also dictates what you use.
As an example C++'s inplace new operator helps for things like object pooling.
I'm not UHFT or HFT and we can get by with F# and C#. We are at the stage
where we have to think about our data structures and memory access patterns
but we aren't throwing away readability and maintainability just to get the
best possible performance.
From my experience, its much more typical for funds to target performance
around this level than the HFT level.
I guess it should be said that you can name almost any programming language
and you'll find that someone is using it and claiming to be an HFT shop, ie
someone will probably mention OCaml due to Jane Street.
This question
[http://quant.stackexchange.com/q/12618/743](http://quant.stackexchange.com/q/12618/743)
on the quant stack exchange shows that pretty much every language gets used.
~~~
moshiasri
thanks mate, i had no idea that there was an stackexchange column for the
quants. anyways, thanks a lot for the info.
------
tmaly
my previous comment "mostly C++" got down voted. I happen to work at a firm in
this industry. C++ is the language used most in HFT.
Aside from this, you can verify this by just looking at the job postings.
~~~
chollida1
Not sure why you were downvoted, but your answer had more than a few issues.
1) It was added well after I had already added an answer that included C++
2) it was only 2 words with additioanl information meaning that it didn't
really add any value to the question.
I have no doubt you probably know the HFT scene and could probably add some
color to people outside of it, but your first answer didn't really help in any
appreciable way and this was probably why it was down-voted.
------
libx
See the documentary 'The Wall Street Code'
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw3XtscVCVI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw3XtscVCVI)
AFAICR one of the protagonists (Haim Bodek) said his company had one million
lines of C (or mainly C) code for HFT trading.
~~~
moshiasri
Thanks for the documentary link, i have read quite a lot about trading
machines and the works of haim bodek.
------
Rainymood
I know that Jane Street is a London based firm that works completely on OCaml
... not sure if there are any firms that use Haskell though
~~~
endeavour
Haskell has many great attributes but predictable performance isn't amongst
them (laziness makes it difficult to reason about) so I doubt it is used for
HFT.
------
tmaly
mostly C++
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
10 Big U.S. Businesses That Have Moved Their HQ Abroad to Pay Less Taxes - psogle
http://www.focus.com/fyi/finance/10-big-businesses-that-have-moved-abroad/
======
cwan
With taxes set to rise (and given the literally trillions of dollars of
cumulative new deficits how can they not?), this is going to happen
increasingly more. The unfortunate reality is that politicians heap blame on
the "greed" of profitable corporations and wealthy individuals forgetting that
these companies (and people) have the greatest ability to move abroad.
Going Galt anyone? Related article: [http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-
budgeting/article/107123/Mi...](http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-
budgeting/article/107123/Millionaires-Go-Missing)
------
ktharavaad
Its kind of unfair that only big companies can get this sort of competitive
advantage while smaller startups are stuck paying taxes through their nose
under the draconian tax policies of the US government.
There should be a guide or services for smaller companies and Startups to
incorporate in tax shelters so they too can enjoy the tax benefits and thus
level the playing field with the big boys. Are there such resources around?
~~~
bwd
These resources are called tax lawyers, and they are very expensive. The
knowledge required to do this is very specialized and guarded with extreme
zeal by its possessors. As is usual in any situation involving government
regulation, the biggest winners are the lawyers. If you want to get an idea of
how complex and draconian these things really are, try looking up PFIC and
"controlled foreign corporation".
------
jonursenbach
Astonishing how so many companies are relocating to Bermuda and the Cayman
Islands. The weather must be really nice there!
/sarcasm
------
jhancock
We should treat companies that move overseas as dead to us. The estate tax on
death is around 50%. Please pay as you leave.
~~~
gaius
It would be worth it.
------
jrockway
The "tragedy of the commons" in action. The infrastructure that enables their
customers to buy their products doesn't come for free. But since they don't
_have_ to help pay for it, they don't.
It will all come tumbling down eventually.
~~~
dantheman
It's not a tragedy of the commons. If you look at how actual money is spent
there is plenty of money to cover all costs. Sales tax, gas tax, and property
tax should be enough to cover the services that benefit the corporation. Now
when the government is involved in all sorts of activities that in now way
benefit the company -- non infrastructure/police/fire services, and a company
wants to opt out by moving that's not a tragedy of the commons since they
aren't externalizing any costs or exploiting any resources.
Some might argue that education, welfare, etc are beneficial to a corporation,
but in reality they're not. They are to benefit the community -- the
individuals receiving the output of those services. Of course a company
requires educated people and if there aren't any available then they will have
to develop schools to train their employees (something that has been done in
the past).
~~~
jrockway
_Some might argue that education, welfare, etc are beneficial to a
corporation, but in reality they're not. They are to benefit the community --
the individuals receiving the output of those services. Of course a company
requires educated people and if there aren't any available then they will have
to develop schools to train their employees (something that has been done in
the past)._
My point is, when everyone stops paying taxes, there won't be any educated
people anymore. Each company will have to get into the business of training
people, making the cost higher than not paying taxes.
Classic tragedy of the commons.
~~~
mhb
Education has not always been funded by taxes and need not be.
~~~
jrockway
Translation: "I can afford private school for _my_ kids; fuck everyone else."
~~~
gaius
Ermm, bollocks. Very high quality education has been provided free to students
by religous, charitable and philthropic foundations for centuries, in most
cases far better than what the State (with its obsession with equality over
achievement) could provide.
Not to mention that in the UK it's been shown that private and State education
actually cost about the same per student... If the government just got out of
the way, everyone could afford a good education for their kids.
------
martythemaniak
Yes, because Halliburton, Tyco and Accenture are the model corporate
citizens...
------
quizbiz
favorable tax laws != favorable business laws
To what extent will a government go to protect your investment/property? Are
you big enough where the potential for loss is an acceptable risk? If so and
your business is very liquid and global then I see no problem in having an HQ
elsewhere. What do you care where their HQ is? Most likely, their investors
are still collecting profits in the US. The saved money from taxes drives up
equity, reinvestment, research and development. Am I crazy for not caring
where a business is centered? I guess I don't watch enough Lou Dobbs.
~~~
sielskr
_To what extent will a government go to protect your investment/property?_
My guess is that it is better for a business to be under a common-law
jurisdiction. The legal system in most of the world is of a type called civil
law, as contrasted to common law, but common law tends to protect property
better because property is more central to its conceptual framework. Nick
Szabo argues convincingly for the superiority of common law over civil law on
his blog, <http://unenumerated.blogspot.com>.
One of Dubai's economic zones uses common law. (They hired a retired English
judge to run the legal system in the zone.) _added._ Bermuda and the Cayman
Islands use common law, too.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Monkey research suggests a biological explanation for toy preferences (2012) - crassus
http://www.livescience.com/22677-girls-dolls-boys-toy-trucks.html
======
withad
I'm calling bullshit on the title (which, in the hopefully likely event it
gets changed, is currently "Hormones Explain Why Girls Like Dolls and Boys
Like Trucks"). One study showing a correlation might suggest something worth
looking into further but it hardly "explains" anything.
The results with the monkeys are interesting, if both the research and the
reporting of it are accurate. However, animal models, while certainly useful
indicators, are still just animal models and can't say anything definitive
about _human_ biology and psychology.
And as for those studies on young children, it's a mistake to think that just
because a child is only a few months old they haven't been exposed to enough
cultural influence to skew what they prefer to look at. If just a few of those
parents have put a football mobile above their baby boy's cot or decorated
their little girl's room with Disney princess wallpaper, that familiarity
could easily explain the results.
Do biological differences exist between genders? Absolutely. Are some of those
differences driven by ancient evolutionary pressure rather than modern
culture? It's a reasonable hypothesis, worth investigating. Have those
differences now been explained by a single factor and a few small studies,
half of which were on monkeys, and do they just happen to line up with
traditional gender stereotypes? You'll have to do a lot better than a Live
Science blog that cites nothing but other Live Science blogs to convince me of
that.
EDIT: Well, at least the title was changed to better fit the article, even if
it still doesn't line up with the actual science.
~~~
wmil
Your information is badly out of date. Studies have been consistently showing
biology beating culture for the last 20 years.
~~~
dalke
What are these studies? The metadata studies I've heard about say otherwise.
That is, some studies say one thing, other studies say the opposite, and so
it's impossible to really conclude anything by choosing a subset of the
literature.
For a recent lay presentation on this topic, see
[http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2014/02/03/ftbcon2-e...](http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2014/02/03/ftbcon2-evidence-
based-feminism-w-full-transcript/) . At the top is a link to a Google document
(
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1slJbQpPTlg_m6cKgsarzGLqY...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1slJbQpPTlg_m6cKgsarzGLqYNfEpuvmqv4QTV303Fro/edit?pli=1)
) with full citations.
~~~
ll123
Here are some I think are interesting.
[http://www.isna.org/node/564](http://www.isna.org/node/564)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer)
They talk about male babies who were sexually reassigned at birth and given
female hormones. However many of them decided to reidentify as males later on
life, showing that even with female hormones and a female upbringing, it was
not enough to make them adopt a female gender identity.
I wouldn't say this is conclusive evidence. But I think it's enough to show
that people should keep an open mind about this subject.
~~~
hcarvalhoalves
>
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer)
I'm learning about this now. _Shocking_. This could pass as some story about
medical experiments during nazy germany.
------
AutoCorrect
It's interesting watching the conversation over sex differences take shape. On
the one hand, we have a group of people that say even though males and females
are biologically different there are NO differences in the way we think or
perform. At the other extreme you have the "girls are nurturing, males are
war-like" argument. What it really is is a combination of both nature and
nurture. The effects of testosterone and estrogen are well known. Brain
plasticity is a marvelous thing. Add to that 'developmental windows' where
certain behaviors and predilections become our (as in each individual
person's) baseline behavior and you have a fantastic spectrum of humanity.
Average people will tend more toward stereotypical behavior, because the
stereotypes define average. Those at either end of the spectrum may be a hyper
stereotype or a stereotype defying unique one-of-a-kind individual. Don't hate
it, embrace it.
I found the below links a week ago, just browsing for 'sex differences':
[http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-how-and-why-sex-
diff...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-how-and-why-sex-
differences/201101/how-can-there-still-be-sex-difference-even-when-there-is)
[http://sugarandslugs.wordpress.com/2011/02/13/sex-
difference...](http://sugarandslugs.wordpress.com/2011/02/13/sex-differences/)
[http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/sexdifferences.aspx](http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/sexdifferences.aspx)
~~~
agumonkey
It's always sad to witness this need to flatten things on a space of two
extrema. Often it's a complex combination that can't be pinned down neither in
space nor time.
~~~
saraid216
I really, really like the Genderbread Person for this reason.
~~~
agumonkey
Never heard of it. Pretty nice. I'd just change the 'and' in sexual
orientations since people desire and feeling can target different types.
rapid picture link ps:
[http://i.imgur.com/t7Lfh4p.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/t7Lfh4p.jpg)
~~~
saraid216
It actually oversimplifies all four dimensions, if you can even claim with any
surety that there _are_ exactly four dimensions. There are things like "third
gender" [1] and there are demisexuals [2] and there are asexuals and so on.
What I like about it is that it's just slightly too big as a concept
presentation (though it _feels_ like it isn't) and mostly evokes the
recognition that There Are Things You Didn't Know About.
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender)
[2]
[http://www.asexuality.org/wiki/index.php?title=Demisexual](http://www.asexuality.org/wiki/index.php?title=Demisexual)
------
athesyn
Honest question, why are people so afraid of there being inherent differences
between boys and girls?
~~~
bitops
Imagine a scientific study that just said "Scientific justification for social
oppression found." In a nutshell, I believe that's why.
It's not even that it's bad for there to be differences between the sexes;
what's bad is that some people will inevitable take these studies as
justification for their sexist views and attitudes.
~~~
saraid216
You don't have to imagine it:
[http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2766200?uid=3739696&ui...](http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2766200?uid=3739696&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103484766073)
"The Negro: Is he a biological inferior?" (1927)
That was from one crappy Google search. I can probably go home and break open
books to get indirect references for a lot more studies.
~~~
sltkr
But that article concludes that “the Negro” is NOT inferior:
> I have tried to review briefly the important fields in which evidence of
> Negro inferiority is most likely to be found, if found at all. In no case is
> the proof conspicuous by its volume---rather the opposite appears true.
~~~
saraid216
I actually wondered how such an article got published as late as 1927. That
would explain it. I can go find a better one tonight. More broadly, though,
here's a Wikipedia page on the subject:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism)
Glancing through the citations, #33 is "Tiedemann, Friedrich (1836). "On the
Brain of the Negro, Compared with that of the European and the Orang-outang"
(PDF). Phylosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 126."
------
judk
My favorite part about baby psych studies is how the researcher gets to pick
whether "prolonged staring at an object" means "natural affinity for the
object" or "surprise at the unexpected object"
------
ris
Aren't these the totally debunked monkey research studies that are being
referenced?
~~~
drhayes9
Yup:
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/08/05/3816216.ht...](http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/08/05/3816216.htm)
~~~
agarden
That article is about MRI studies, not monkeys. Do you have any links about
the monkey studies?
~~~
drhayes9
Sure: [http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/03/entertainment/la-
ca-...](http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/03/entertainment/la-ca-rebecca-
jordan-young-20101003)
Search for "monkey".
The basic premise is that drawing cultural associations cross species is
pretty much a no-go; a preference for a "pot" doesn't validate traditional
gender roles any more than a preference for a particular color would -- it's
more a reflection on our own cultural biases than it is a proof of hard-wired
gender roles.
~~~
mcantelon
That references one study with monkeys. Was it the same one?
~~~
nerfhammer
One but not the other.
What that linked article was about:
[http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/imagingthebody/Hand...](http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/imagingthebody/Handouts/alexander_2002.pdf)
What this post also discusses:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/)
------
elgabogringo
And I bet male monkeys prefer to code, while female monkeys prefer to work in
marketing.
~~~
interstitial
I always through female monkeys preferred Elementary Education and males
Business Mangemanent with a concentration in IT.
------
aestra
I'm just going to leave this here for further discussion.
[http://www.newsweek.com/why-parents-may-cause-gender-
differe...](http://www.newsweek.com/why-parents-may-cause-gender-differences-
kids-79501)
In one, scientists dressed newborns in gender-neutral clothes and misled
adults about their sex. The adults described the "boys" (actually girls) as
angry or distressed more often than did adults who thought they were observing
girls, and described the "girls" (actually boys) as happy and socially engaged
more than adults who knew the babies were boys. Dozens of such disguised-
gender experiments have shown that adults perceive baby boys and girls
differently, seeing identical behavior through a gender-tinted lens. In
another study, mothers estimated how steep a slope their 11-month-olds could
crawl down. Moms of boys got it right to within one degree; moms of girls
underestimated what their daughters could do by nine degrees, even though
there are no differences in the motor skills of infant boys and girls. But
that prejudice may cause parents to unconsciously limit their daughter's
physical activity. How we perceive children—sociable or remote, physically
bold or reticent—shapes how we treat them and therefore what experiences we
give them. Since life leaves footprints on the very structure and function of
the brain, these various experiences produce sex differences in adult behavior
and brains—the result not of innate and inborn nature but of nurture.
For her new book, Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into
Troublesome Gaps—And What We Can Do About It, Eliot immersed herself in
hundreds of scientific papers (her bibliography runs 46 pages). Marching
through the claims like Sherman through Georgia, she explains that assertions
of innate sex differences in the brain are either "blatantly false," "cherry-
picked from single studies," or "extrapolated from rodent research" without
being confirmed in people. For instance, the idea that the band of fibers
connecting the right and left brain is larger in women, supposedly supporting
their more "holistic" thinking, is based on a single 1982 study of only 14
brains. Fifty other studies, taken together, found no such sex difference—not
in adults, not in newborns. Other baseless claims: that women are hard-wired
to read faces and tone of voice, to defuse conflict, and to form deep
friendships; and that "girls' brains are wired for communication and boys' for
aggression." Eliot's inescapable conclusion: there is "little solid evidence
of sex differences in children's brains."
Yet there are differences in adults' brains, and here Eliot is at her most
original and persuasive: explaining how they arise from tiny sex differences
in infancy. For instance, baby boys are more irritable than girls. That makes
parents likely to interact less with their "nonsocial" sons, which could cause
the sexes' developmental pathways to diverge. By 4 months of age, boys and
girls differ in how much eye contact they make, and differences in
sociability, emotional expressivity, and verbal ability—all of which depend on
interactions with parents—grow throughout childhood. The message that sons are
wired to be nonverbal and emotionally distant thus becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy. The sexes "start out a little bit different" in fussiness, says
Eliot, and parents "react differently to them," producing the differences seen
in adults.
Those differences also arise from gender conformity. You often see the claim
that toy preferences—trucks or dolls—appear so early, they must be innate. But
as Eliot points out, 6- and 12-month-olds of both sexes prefer dolls to
trucks, according to a host of studies. Children settle into sex-based play
preferences only around age 1, which is when they grasp which sex they are,
identify strongly with it, and conform to how they see other, usually older,
boys or girls behaving. "Preschoolers are already aware of what's acceptable
to their peers and what's not," writes Eliot. Those play preferences then
snowball, producing brains with different talents.
~~~
interstitial
At some point you need to ask yourself, why the hell do I care? This is so
much low-level posturing and image-crafting on the part of anyone who
participates. It bespeaks of a self-righteous society with no ability to
organize or plan other than whine about the color of the bike shed and other
narcissisms of small differences.
~~~
supergauntlet
What are you even saying? You could use this as a response to like 60% of the
comments on HN.
------
pnathan
Title relatively misleading.
The researcher's website is here:
[http://www.geriannealexander.com/](http://www.geriannealexander.com/)
I leave it to more expert people to analyze the publications, which appear to
be available for the price of name & email.
------
codev
Bullshit
Read the main paper cited in the article by Alexander at Texas A&M in 2002. It
says: female MONKEYS prefer COOKING POTS.
Then if you aren't debilitated by laughing read the methods, it's a total
piece of shit yet is quoted again and again because it agrees with people's
prejudices.
~~~
gus_massa
Do you have a direct link? I couldn’t found it.
But there is a strange linked press note about the male-typical digit ratios:
[http://www.livescience.com/18484-finger-length-masculine-
fac...](http://www.livescience.com/18484-finger-length-masculine-faces.html)
> _The researchers studied a group of 17 boys ages 4 to 11 and measured their
> finger lengths, and took images of their faces. They digitized these images
> by marking 70 measurement points to compare the face shapes. Analyzing the
> data on the computer, the researchers were able to see what parts of the
> face could be linked to digit ratio, and how strongly they were correlated._
It’s a small sample number, too many fuzzy criteria and it looks like an easy
set of measurements to cherrypick or find spurious correlations and
"explanations".
------
judk
My son likes dolls, and my son likes trucks. Is he a secret hermaphrodite?
~~~
hcarvalhoalves
Many boys like to play with dolls. What are action figures after all?
I think toys are a bad measure for any study related to gender.
------
Gracana
Anyone interested in gender studies and the current understanding of gender
ought to read "Delusions of Gender" by Cordelia Fine. It is a fantastically
interesting book.
[http://www.amazon.com/Delusions-Gender-Society-
Neurosexism-D...](http://www.amazon.com/Delusions-Gender-Society-Neurosexism-
Difference/dp/0393340244)
------
scotty79
Do boys actually prefer trucks and balls or do they just not prefer dolls and
pick a toy acording to some other quality (complexity of movement?) not taking
into account how much the shape resembles human?
Maybe girls would also pick trucks and balls if human shped figures were not
available?
------
exarch
Taboos are alive and well among the scientifically literate. If you don't
believe me, just check out the cognitive dissonance in this thread.
------
j2kun
Who's to say monkeys are not also socialized by gender?
------
gesman
It also finally explains that boys like girls!
~~~
angersock
Red card.
------
amalag
Why or how?
------
icantthinkofone
So, despite what everyone has been saying, girls are different from boys?!
------
billconan
and they all like stuffed animals
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple’s Next Laptops Could Be More iPhone Than Mac - boramalper
https://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-next-laptops-could-be-more-iphone-than-mac-1528992149
======
dickbasedregex
I've been figuring for a couple years now I'd have to abandon macs once my air
dies. Apple seems bound and determined to shun developers and instead sell
facebook machines.
~~~
todd3834
I am a developer and I love using a Mac. The stock terminal app has improved
so much over the last few years that switching to any flavor of Linux always
leaves me wanting Mac OS. It also seems like >90% of the developers at all of
the companies I’ve worked use Macs. I’m sure that’s not the case for everyone
but that’s been my experience. What has Apple done to make you feel this way?
What am I missing?
Disclaimer: my current laptop still has an ESC key also I used to work for
Apple
~~~
ddon
Few things - not updating hardware for years, pretty much no innovation on the
desktop (both, hardware and software), getting rid of ports on recent laptops,
not having touch screens, horrible cables [1], etc...
[1]
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=apple+broken+cable&t=ffab&iax=imag...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=apple+broken+cable&t=ffab&iax=images&ia=images)
~~~
Bud
Apple doesn't make horrible cables, iffy anecdotal gif-evidence
notwithstanding. Apple's reputation is quite decidedly for making high-quality
cables.
"No innovation on the desktop" doesn't really mean anything. Who else is
"innovating on the desktop" right now?
"Getting rid of ports" can also be interpreted as "moving to new and superior
ports". Apple has always been brutal in weeding out obsolete interfaces and
introducing new ones.
~~~
Larrikin
Every single Apple wire I've ever had up until the past couple years have all
been trash. Whatever that white coating was only ever intended to look good in
commercials. I never had a single wire ever fray on me besides theirs. It
seems like they may have finally fixed the problem they've had for a decade
since my latest replacement power brick seems to be going stronger than all
the other wires, but I am probably just lucky so far
~~~
ymolodtsov
They’ve actually changed all the wires a few years ago: they feel more
plasticky and are much sturdier.
------
nordsieck
> The company announced that its initial wave of 7nm chips will be available
> first to its data-center customers—who are driving its greatest revenue
> growth—not to the companies that build laptops and tablets.
Intel said nothing of the sort, in large part because their upcoming process
is called "10nm".
------
plassma
And complete their long slow transition from making computers to making
appliances for web browsing and word processing
~~~
SiVal
They don't care much about web browsing and care far less about word
processing. They are making appliances as interfaces to services, with as many
of the services as possible being ways to buy things from Apple. I'm not
saying this to be cynical. I'm being quite literal that that is their business
plan.
------
callesgg
For most romantics that should be enough. Essentially the same thing as a iPad
with keyboard.
ios is still to limited when it comes to usb storage but when that is "fixed"
i belive 80% of all computer users could be satisfied with IOS.
Neglecting the fact that users want torrent software and the likes.
~~~
vbezhenar
Are you expecting iOS? I'm sure that they'll ship macOS. There were rumors
about internal ARM build of macOS years ago.
------
ofrzeta
Really, I don't get why they just can't keep on doing incremental updates to
the machines they have. I am still using a Macbook Air 2012. I am actually
waiting for the successor to come out. This machine with 8GB and 512GB SSD is
fine as it is. It might be boring but from what I know it is also what the
majority of developers (or other users) want or need. Maybe NVM if there has
to be some innovation. And maybe put some effort into keeping (or improving)
the build quality. Can't be so hard. Oh, and fix the damn power supply cables
for that matter (Magsafe is great but what about those cables)!
------
geoalchimista
Looks like my dream of having an MacBook Pro 15'' with octa-core Intel
processors that support AVX512 and an Nvidia graphics card with which you can
run CUDA will never come true. Now I just wish they could keep the Unix kernel
of macOS, cuz I don't want a bigger iPad.
~~~
Bud
iOS is also sitting atop Unix.
------
illustrioussuit
No paywall: [https://outline.com/SBXeKp](https://outline.com/SBXeKp)
~~~
heyoni
And it works with reader mode. Bless your soul, child.
------
Theodores
Paywalled again. With 'could be' in the title rather than 'will'.
From this I guess they are guessing this based on the fact that Apple have
been slow to update their laptops recently?
So one day soon Apple are going to come out with new computers that are a
radical departure from the past, the x86 gone and their own chips powering the
next generation of MacBooks?
Sounds great but in the same timescale Google are going to bring out something
that is an Operating System but not as we know it, with A.I. baked in. Should
be interesting times.
~~~
adjkant
[https://outline.com/](https://outline.com/) works well to get past most
paywalls. There's a chrome extension version as well.
~~~
oldcynic
Thank you! Web search for WSJ bypass has been mostly failing lately.
Downvoting you for being helpful is a bit uncharitable, +1
~~~
adjkant
Glad it helped! No idea why I'm being downvoted. I have no affiliation FYI - I
post about it every so often here literally because so many people complain
about paywalls...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Credit Karma has acquired instant message bot Penny - klintcho
https://www.recode.net/2018/3/14/17112598/credit-karma-penny-acquisition
======
socratesone
Damn. Was my favorite finances tracking app. What else do people like?
~~~
AznHisoka
Not Mint. It kept asking for my bank passwords every single month.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
ASCII Delimited Text – Not CSV or TAB delimited text - fishy929
https://ronaldduncan.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/text-file-formats-ascii-delimited-text-not-csv-or-tab-delimited-text/
======
Pxtl
I've done this.
Everybody hated it. Most text editors don't display anything useful with these
characters (either hiding them altogether or showing a useless "uknown"
placeholder), and spreadhseet tools don't support the record separator
(although they all let you provide a custom entry separator so the "unit"
separator can work). Besides the obvious problem that there's no easy way to
type the darned things when somebody hand-edits the file.
~~~
3JPLW
It's a shame. The solution is in the charset, but tools never developed to use
it so we don't use it. But I'd wager that if tools had historically supported
them, then the situation would be no different than it is with tab.
There are representational glyphs for tab, return, and others (⇥, ↵), and
editors can show them in 'show whitespace' modes. There could be
representational glyphs for these control characters, too. I'm not sure about
the history of these symbols, but I imagine they were initially on keyboards.
But if these control characters were on keyboards and had a representation in
text then they'd be just as useless as the tab character is today.
Precisely what makes them valuable is their difficulty to type or display.
~~~
Pxtl
> Precisely what makes them valuable is their difficulty to type.
Again, if they'd caught on you'd imagine there would be some eventual
convention in text-editors for what keybind would be used to enter them. Too
bad the AltGr key (intended for entering rarely-used glyphs) doesn't appear on
pure-English keyboards.
~~~
markeganfuller
I'm looking at my English keyboard and it has Alt Gr...
~~~
hnal943
Living in the US, I've never heard of an AltGr key until this discussion.
~~~
spoiler
I'm from Croatia, and we have the AltGr key.
However, I discovered that Alt + Control = AltGr when I needed to use it at
work[1], so it's simply a shortcut, I think.
[1]: We have (I recently switched to an UK keyboard, because it suits me
better) keyboards at work, because the Croatian (all slavic languages, to be
honest) is _horrendously_ counterproductive for programming. Google the
layout, and you'll realise why. An example: You need to press AltGr+B for `{`
(if I remember correctly).
~~~
chinpokomon
Perhaps, but I think it still goes against the original intent. Ctrl-~ or
Ctrl-^ should give you a record separator (RS) and Ctrl-Del or Ctrl-_ should
give you a unit separator (US). For the same reason Ctrl-m or Ctrl-M should
give you carriage return (CR). This is because ASCII values from 00-1F are
_control_ characters and effectively grounded the most significant bits 7 and
6. Shift similarly would toggle or ground bit 6, depending on the
implementation.
What happened was that the Ctrl key became synonymous with "command" after
Teletype, so it became more about doing something. Think about Ctrl-x, Ctrl-c,
and Ctrl-v as an example, but you still see some relics like Ctrl-d as End of
Transmission (EOT) to close a shell or terminal. Alt is like a shift, but it
is actually closer to the Fn key on most laptop keyboards. It was an
alternative function of that particular key, so where the shift key provided
you with an alternate case, Alt was more akin to an entirely different key...
it isn't Alt plus an 'a' key, it is Alt-a.
AltGr was like another Alt key. It was originally there to allow you to enter
an alternate glyph, especially line drawing characters available in extended
ASCII, B0-DF. I thought it was a mapping closer to flipping the most
significant bit to 1, but it doesn't exactly overlay the lower ASCII range, so
that might be another change that evolved on the way to the modern keyboard.
To your original point, Microsoft Windows will now usually treat the chord
Ctrl-Alt as AltGr. I don't know if that is with all layouts, or just those
keyboards that lack AltGr. I find that most Linux distributions tend to follow
Microsoft's lead and provide similar mappings but now they even repurposed the
Win key as Meta or sometimes called Super. So it is likely that Ctrl-Alt is
commonly the equivalent of AltGr.
For the propose of this discussion, I think it'd be better if Ctrl could be
used to type these text separators, but the way modern operating systems map
their modern keyboards, it might be difficult to ever reach consensus on how
this should be done.
~~~
gpvos
This hasn't been true since IBM keyboards became popular. For example, on
older keyboards shift+number would simply toggle a bit, so shift+2 would be a
double quote, etc., but this hasn't been common for decades now.
Unfortunately.
~~~
chinpokomon
Probably on the path to scan codes. By using scan codes, they could abstract
what a particular key meant and thereby remap the keys so that they didn't
have to match the ASCII table layout. I still don't understand why we evolved
scan codes the way we did. This requires the OS to be in sync to be able to
map them back.
------
dxbydt
Don't do this. Tsv has won this race, closely followed by Csv. Anything else
will cause untold grief for you and fellow data scientists and programmers. I
say this as someone who routinely parses 20gb text files, mostly Tsv's and
occasionally Csv's for a living. The solution you are proposing is definitely
superior but isn't going to get adopted soon.
~~~
radicaledward
I was surprised to see you list tsv as more common than csv. I encounter csv's
on a pretty regular basis, but I don't think I've had to parse a tsv in the
past 3 or 4 years. As a junior web developer, I don't have much experience
though. 9 times out of 10, the csv is coming from or going to Excel, or a
system that was designed to support Excel. If you don't mind my asking, what
types of data do you regularly work with that are in tsv format?
~~~
l-p
Your comment disturbs me a little… One of my gripes with Excel was that it
imported and produced TSV data by default when you asked for CSV.
~~~
shrikant
Excel actually doesn't 'care'. It uses the record separator defined in your
Windows "Regional Settings", and the defaults there differ for each system
locale.
------
mikestew
Anyone that's ever had to parse arbitrary data knows of the approximately 14
jiggityzillion corner cases involved when sucking in or outputting CSV/TAB
delimited formats. Yet much like virtual memory and virtual machines, we find
that a solution has existed since the 60s. For those wondering about the
history and use of all those strange characters in your ASCII table:
[http://www.lammertbies.nl/comm/info/ascii-
characters.html](http://www.lammertbies.nl/comm/info/ascii-characters.html)
~~~
joosters
Interesting web page! Despite many years of using ASCII and knowing some of
the more common control codes, I had never even thought about what the other
mysterious 0-31 codes were defined as.
Something that the page doesn't mention is that CR+LF were originally two
separate control codes because the action of returning the print head to the
left hand side would take too long with a standard line printer. Therefore,
separating the actions into two codes meant that the printer would not miss
out any printable characters.
(At least, I read that somewhere on the internet and assumed it was true!)
~~~
iclelland
It's more likely that it's because they are two separate physical actions
(returning the head to the left, and advancing the paper one line). They could
be used independently: You could print a line in _bold_ , for instance, by
issuing a CR without an LF and then printing the same line again.
A carriage-return operation takes _much_ longer than a single character, or
even two or three. It doesn't make sense to issue two characters just to take
up time. The printers always had to have some internal buffer memory (and
handshaking over the communication lines to say when the buffer is full) in
order not to lose any characters.
~~~
drivers99
"You could print a line in bold, for instance, by issuing a CR without an LF
and then printing the same line again."
Last I checked, this still works even on laser printers (at least on a
LaserJet), when sending data to it as plain text. It's not actually printing
over itself, but it knows to make the repeated characters bold.
~~~
mzs
less (among other unix tools) does this too (but you have to do one character,
bs and the character again). There are more, like _, bs, character underlines
(like cat there is ul that handles this specifically). If your terminal
supports os (overstrike) in it's terminal description it handles that
natively.
------
mjn
Alas, I don't think this works with the standard Unix tools, which is the main
way I process tab-delimited text. Changing the field delimiter to whatever you
want is fine, since nearly everything takes that as a parameter. But newline
as record separator is assumed by nearly everything (both in the standard set
of tools, and in the very useful Google additions found in
[http://code.google.com/p/crush-tools/](http://code.google.com/p/crush-
tools/)). Google's defaults are ASCII (or UTF-8) 0xfe for the field separator,
and '\n' for the record separator. I guess that's a bit safer than tabs, but
the kind of data I put in TSV really shouldn't have embedded tabs in a
field... and I check to make sure it doesn't, because they're likely to cause
unexpected problems down the line. Generally I want all my fields to be either
numeric data, or UTF-8 strings without formatting characters.
Not to mention that one of the advantages of using a text record format at all
is that you can _view_ it using standard text viewers.
~~~
sheetjs
Awk lets you set both:
$ echo -n "1,2,3|4,5|6|7,8,9,0" | awk 'BEGIN{FS=","; RS="|"} {print NF, $0}'
3 1,2,3
2 4,5
1 6
4 7,8,9,0
In fact, you can also specify the output delimiters as well:
$ echo -n "1,2,3|4,5|6|7,8,9,0" | awk 'BEGIN{FS=","; RS="|";OFS="foo";ORS="bar"} {print NF, $0}'
3foo1,2,3bar2foo4,5bar1foo6bar4foo7,8,9,0bar
~~~
groovy2shoes
Yup. It wasn't fun to type (using Ctrl-V in bash to input the raw control
characters), but it works fine with the ASCII separators as well:
$ echo -n 'a^_1^^b^_2^^c^_3^^' |awk 'BEGIN{FS="^_"; RS="^^"} {print $1": "$2}'
a: 1
b: 2
c: 3
------
baddox
My guess is that TSV/CSV won out simply because anyone can easily type those
characters from any standard keyboard on any platform.
~~~
csixty4
TSV/CSV characters were also pretty much guaranteed to exist no matter what
kind of terminal was used, and not cause any side-effects. No doubt some
teletypes & dumb terminals used those FS, GS, RS etc. characters for special
features since they weren't likely to appear in printed data. And I know those
characters are used for other things in PETSCII and ASCII. 0x1C, the File
Separator in ASCII, is used to turn text red in PETSCII.
~~~
csixty4
Sorry, that should say "PETSCII and ATASCII"
------
sigil
Meh. What if some data has ASCII 28-31 in it? If you're not using a "real"
escaping mechanism, and instead relying on the assumption that certain
characters don't appear in your data, then I don't see anything wrong with
using \t and \n (ie TSV). Either way, you know your data, and you're using
whatever fits it best.
If you need something that's never, ever going to break for lack of escaping,
might I suggest doing percent-encoding (aka url encoding) on tabs ("%09"),
newlines ("%0a") and percent characters ("%25")? Percent encoding and decoding
can be made very fast, is recognizable to most developers, and can be used to
escape and unescape anything, including unicode characters. Unlike C-escaping,
which doesn't generalize and accommodate these things nearly so well.
~~~
scintill76
I think the answer is that those shouldn't occur within your data. If you're
dealing with binary data, why are you using a text-based file format? If your
data is textual, it shouldn't have control character delimiters within it, as
they are reserved for that context.
So, strip them out of your data if you have to. If you think they need to be
preserved or escaped, IMO you're doing something wrong.
~~~
sigil
It's nice to be able to use the unix toolset (grep, cut, sort, join, etc) on
all kinds of data, not just strictly "textual" data.
They're often my tool of last and only resort when dealing with very large
datasets. Sure, you could wait for that dump of all of wikipedia to import
into a nice indexed and queryable database, but why not start grepping it
immediately? Maybe you want to sort by a key that's textual, but there's
satellite data that's non-textual. sort(1) is a pretty amazing program in
terms of resource usage; it parallelizes, it makes efficient use of available
memory and disk when merge-sorting.
Anyway, there are plenty of examples!
~~~
scintill76
If you've actually got, say, a JPG file embedded in the middle of a CSV or
something, it's just not designed for that IMO. But if you use the reserved
control characters, you can at least output any text data without escaping (at
least if "textual" is defined as "a string of characters that are not ASCII
delimiter control chars", which ought to be easy to assume, unless something
is corrupted or deliberately trying to mess things up.) I think you can
actually more easily and reliably grep, because you don't need state to know
whether the comma byte is a comma character or a delimiter. You simply use a
comma when you mean a literal comma, and the control char when you want the
delimiter. Anyway, as others have pointed out, there are other obstacles to
widespread adoption of these control chars.
I agree that cut, sort, etc. are good to be familiar with. Someone else[1]
linked a "csvquote" utility that pre-chews (and un-chews at the end of the
text-processing pipeline) CSV data to make it work better with standard UNIX
utilities. Looks neat, so I'll be keeping it in mind next time I'm processing
CSV with UNIX utils.
[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7475793](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7475793)
------
rwmj
This is factually wrong about CSV, which can store any character including
commas and even \0 (zero byte), provided it's implemented correctly (a rather
large proviso admittedly, but you should _never_ try to parse CSV yourself).
Here is a CSV parser which does get all the corner cases right:
[https://forge.ocamlcore.org/scm/browser.php?group_id=113](https://forge.ocamlcore.org/scm/browser.php?group_id=113)
~~~
tbrownaw
_you should never try to parse CSV yourself_
Why? Writing a correct parser is not significantly harder than figuring out
how to interface to an existing parser library, and allows cool things like
heuristic parsing of malformed files.
OTOH it's _shocking_ how many people can't write a correct CSV _generator_ ,
even after being explicitly told what they're doing wrong (which is always
either "you need to put quotes around the data" or "you need to double any
quotes that are part of the data") and given examples.
~~~
rwmj
If you knew enough about CSV to be able to write a correct parser, then you'd
know enough not to write one lightly.
Here are some surprising valid CSV files:
[https://forge.ocamlcore.org/plugins/scmgit/cgi-
bin/gitweb.cg...](https://forge.ocamlcore.org/plugins/scmgit/cgi-
bin/gitweb.cgi?p=csv/csv.git;a=tree;f=tests;h=b8d1a991cf7eb5c2290dc8ec027c0c50261667dc;hb=HEAD)
The test program in the same directory shows the semantic content of each.
~~~
tbrownaw
testcsv6.csv at that link is malformed. DQUOT is used to (1) escape itself,
and (2) enclose strings. It is not a generalized escape character the way
backslash is in C-family languages.
Interpreting it as a generalized escape causes two problems. One, if you
generate files that way, they will be unreadable by parsers written according
to the RFC. Two, if you read files that way, you will silently garble files
generated by someone who forgot to escape the quotes that were part of their
data.
~~~
rwmj
I'm afraid you're wrong about this. Excel generates and parses "0 as a zero
byte. The RFC doesn't discuss how CSV files work in the real world. This is
exactly what I was talking about in my comment above.
------
JoshTriplett
Leaving aside the pain of displaying and typing such characters...
> Then you have a text file format that is trivial to write out and read in,
> with no restrictions on the text in fields or the need to try and escape
> characters.
Phrases like that lead to lovely security bugs.
~~~
dfc
The thing that leads to "lovely security bugs" is the nonchalant mindset; it
has nothing to do with the simple text format. The same attitude paired with
ASN.1 data has caused just as many vulnerabilities.
~~~
JoshTriplett
It's not just the nonchalant mindset; it's the thought that because you pick
something you don't expect to form part of your input domain, you don't have
to escape. Either you have to actually _restrict_ your input domain, or you
need escaping.
~~~
userbinator
This, very much this!
Escaping should _always_ be a consideration. Not thinking about it, thinking
"it'll never happen", etc. is what leads to things like HTML and SQL injection
vulnerabilities.
If you're inputting or outputting data in any format, always keep in mind
things like "what are the delimiters? What if the data in the input/output
contains them?"
~~~
dfc
How is this any different than reading ASN.1 data and not worrying about the
size of integers?
------
rgarcia
How about everyone just started following the CSV spec?
[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180)
Doesn't allow for tab-delimited or any-character-delimited text and handles
"Quotes, Commas, and Tab" characters in fields.
~~~
oneeyedpigeon
I love the way that, in the _frickin ' formal spec_, the presence of a header
row is ambiguous, so every tool that ever deals with CSV has to ask a human
whether or not a header row is present. Great design decision, that.
~~~
ajanuary
It's an artifact of budding a standard around what people are already doing.
------
yardshop
There actually are glyphs assigned to these characters, at least in the
original IBM PC ASCII character set:
Ascii table for IBM PC charset (CP437) - Ascii-Codes
[http://www.ascii-codes.com/](http://www.ascii-codes.com/)
They correspond to these Unicode characters
28 FS ∟ 221f right angle
29 GS ↔ 2194 left right arrow
30 RS ▲ 25b2 black up pointing triangle
31 US ▼ 25bc black down pointing triangle
They may not be particularly intuitive symbols for this purpose though.
see also: IBM Globalization - Graphic character identifiers:
[http://www-01.ibm.com/software/globalization/gcgid/gcgid.htm...](http://www-01.ibm.com/software/globalization/gcgid/gcgid.html)
(then search for a code point, eg U00025bc)
Unicode code converter [ishida >> utilities]:
[http://rishida.net/tools/conversion/](http://rishida.net/tools/conversion/)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437)
------
trebor
Now I feel silly for having glossed over the control characters since I was a
kid. Those characters are decidedly useful on a machine level, though the
benefit of CSV/TSV is that it's human friendly.
~~~
chiph
Trivia: Carriage return and Line feed are separate characters because they
used to be separate operations for devices like Teletypes. Want double-spaced
text? CRLFLF. Working with a slow device? CRCRCRLF to give the carriage time
to return.
Baudot4Life, yo.
~~~
wglb
Or DEL characters more likely.
~~~
chiph
The operators could have sent LTRS (all holes punched) but they never did --
their finger was already on CR, so they would just hit it a couple of times.
Same net effect - delay until the carriage could return.
Which, BTW, was an indication that your machine needed service. The spring
should have been wound tight enough and the track clean & oiled well enough to
get the carriage back to the first column in time to not drop any characters.
A pneumatic piston ("dash pot") slowed the carriage down as it approached the
first column so it wouldn't crash into the stops and get damaged.
------
Roboprog
CSV is a solved problem - RFC 4180:
[http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180#section-2](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180#section-2)
As used by Lotus 1-2-3 and undoubtedly others before there was an Excel.
Example record:
42,"Hello, world","""Quotes,"" he said.","new
line",x
Now go write a little state machine to parse it... (hint: track odd/even
quotes, for starters)
~~~
rquirk
Coincidentally I did this just this week. I believe there's no need to track
quotes, just if it has an opening quote or not. That RFC really explains it
all very well. The only edge case I had was with empty records (foo,,bar) and
that was probably due to my implementation.
------
mikeash
It doesn't solve the problem, although it does make it _far_ less likely to
run into it.
For a trivial example, try building an ASCII table using this format, with
columns for numeric code, description, and actual character. You'll once again
run into the whole escaping problem when you try to write out the row for
character 31.
~~~
mantrax3
For CSV forbidding commas in data is not practical.
For ASCII delimiters, forbidding ASCII delimiters in data _is_ practical.
Sure - you can't, say, nest ASCII tables into one another due to this
limitation.
But for simple structure, it doesn't hurt to have ASCII separators in the
toolbox.
The only big problem I see is that they're rendered as invisible characters,
which will make debugging harder. If we wouldn't have abandoned and forgotten
the special ASCII chars, this wouldn't be the case.
If your dev tools show special chars (like mine do), then it's perfectly fine
to use them.
~~~
Pxtl
> Sure - you can't, say, nest ASCII tables into one another due to this
> limitation.
In hindsight it's too bad we don't have similar characters that follow a more
sexpr-ish layout - say, ListStart, ListEnd, and Delimiter. Then you could tree
them endlessly. If you wanted to be _really_ fancy you could add an
"assignmentSeparator" character to officially bless key-value-pairs and
encompass a nice JSON-ish format, but Lisp pretty-well demonstrates that isn't
necessary.
But in hindsight it's just too bad we don't use these control characters _at
all_.
~~~
derefr
You know what's nicer than delimiting beginnings and ends of things? Length
prefixing. _Protocol message formats_ and _data encoding formats_ both already
know what they're going to say before they say it, and so know its octet
length.
The only reason to use delimiters, ever, is for user-modifiable data (e.g.
source code) where you might want to insert or delete characters and have the
containing block remain valid.
\---
And now, a fun tangent, to prove that how deeply-rooted this confusion is in
CS: user-modifiable data was originally the sole use-case for \0-terminated "C
strings" in C.
C has two separate types which get conflated nowadays: char arrays, and
\0-terminated strings. Most "strings"\--as we'd expect to find them in other
languages--were, in C, actually char arrays: you knew their length, either
because they were string literals and you could sizeof them, or because you
had #defined both FOO and FOO_LEN, or because you had just allocated len bytes
on the heap for foo, so you could just pass len along with foo. Because you
knew their length, you didn't need to use the string.h functions to manipulate
them. It was idiomatic (and perfectly-safe) C, when dealing with char arrays,
to just iterate through them with a for loop.
The concept of \0-termination, and thus what we think of as "C strings", only
applied to _string buffers_ : fixed-size, stack-allocated, uninitialized char
arrays. The string.h functions are all meant to be employed to manipulate
string buffers, and the \0 is intended to mark where the buffer stops being
useful data, and starts being uninitialized garbage.
The strings in string buffers had short lifetimes, and didn't usually outlive
the stack frame the buffer was declared in. Generally, you'd declare a string
buffer, populate it using some combination of string literals, strcat(3),
sprintf(3), and system calls, and then pass the string--still sitting inside
the buffer-- _to_ a system call like fstat(2) to get what you're really after.
That would be the end of the both string buffer's, and the string's, lifetime.
If you ever _did_ want to preserve the contents of a string buffer into
something you could pass around, though, this would be idiomatic:
int give_me_a_path_string(char **out)
{
char buf[MAX_PATH];
/* ... */
int len = strlen(buf);
*out = memcpy(malloc(len), buf, len);
return len;
}
Note that, after this function returns, the pointer it has written to _doesn
't_ point to a "C string": instead, it's a plain pointer to a heap-allocated
array of char, with exactly enough space to hold just those characters. If you
want to know how big it is, you look at the return value.
So:
• C has "C strings", but they were only intended as buffers.
• C also has "char arrays", which are really what you should think of as C's
equivalent to a "string" datatype. char arrays, not "C strings", are the
fundamental data structure for representing and persisting strings in C.
• char arrays are less like "C strings" than they are like Pascal strings:
they come in two parts, a block of memory N chars wide, and an int containing
N. You don't examine the block to determine the length; the length is
explicit.
• Pascal (and thus most modern languages with strings) put both the length and
the character-block on the heap as a unit. C puts the character-block on the
heap, but puts the length _on the stack._ This is more efficient under C's
Unix-rooted assumptions: you need the length on the stack if you want to work
with it to immediately shove the string through a pipe.
~~~
Pxtl
The problem: I have never encountered length-prefixed data. Ever. Every data
interchange file I've ever dealt with has been either delimited or fixed-width
fields (and the widths are not defined anywhere in the file).
~~~
derefr
Examples of length-prefixed data abound in protocols and formats defined by
systems and telecom engineers (e.g. the IETF). IP packets are length-prefixed.
ELF-binary tables and sections are length-prefixed. PNG chunks are length-
prefixed.
It's just these worse-is-better text-based protocols like HTTP, created by
application developers, that toss all the advantages of length-prefixing away.
(And, even then, HTTP _bodies_ are length-prefixed, with the Content-Length
header. It's just the headers that aren't.)
~~~
mikeash
The only problem with length prefixing is that it interferes with streaming
data, because you need to know the full length in advance. Thus HTTP chunked
encoding. Still, it works great in most scenarios.
My favorite way to deal with this stuff is Consistent Overhead Byte Stuffing:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistent_Overhead_Byte_Stuffi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistent_Overhead_Byte_Stuffing)
In short, you take the data and encode it with a clever scheme that
effectively escapes all the zero bytes. The output data contains no zeroes,
but results in almost no overhead, with the worst case being an increase of
1/254 over the original size, and the best case being zero increase. (Compare
to e.g. backslash escapes of quotes in quoted strings, where the worst case
doubles the output size.) You then use the now-eliminated zero byte as your
record separator. This lets you stream data (with a small amount of buffering
to perform the encoding) while still easily locating the ends of chunks.
I've played around with COBS but never used it in a real product, so this is
not entirely the voice of experience here. But it is a nifty system.
~~~
penguindev
that is just freaking cool. took me about 4 times to grok it. it sort of
reminds me of utf-8, and how you can synchronize that easily.
------
htp
Took some time to figure out how to type these on a Mac:
1\. Go to System Preferences => Keyboard => Input Sources
2\. Add Unicode Hex Input as an input source
3\. Switch to Unicode Hex Input (assuming you still have the default keyboard
shortcuts set up, press Command+Shift+Space)
4\. Hold Option and type 001f to get the unit separator
5\. Hold Option and type 001e to get the record separator
6\. (Hold Option and type a character's code as a 4-digit hex number to get
that character)
Sadly, this doesn't seem to work everywhere throughout the OS- I can get
control characters to show up in TextMate, but not in Terminal.
~~~
quesera
In Terminal, they are:
FS: Control-\ 0x1c (field sep)
GS: Control-] 0x1d (group sep)
RS: Control-^ 0x1e (record sep)
US: Control-_ 0x1f (unit sep)
(These control key equivalents have always been the canonical keystrokes to
generate the codes)
But they have to be preceded by a Control-V (like in vi) to be treated as
input characters. Control-V is the SYN code (synchronous idle), but has no
special meaning in an interactive context, which is presumably why it was
chosen.
The full set of control codes (0x00 - 0x1f) and their historical meanings are
why Apple added the open/closed Apple keys, eventually the Command key. They
wanted a set of keystrokes that were unambiguously distinct from the data
stream.
Control-S, e.g., will pause text output in the Terminal (also xterm, etc).
This was super useful in the days before scrollback. :) Control-Q to resume
(actually flush all the buffered output).
Overloading Control sequences was an unforgivable sin committed by Microsoft.
...if I remember the history correctly, Apple decided that having both
open/closed Apple keys was confusing, and having the Apple logo on the
keyboard was tacky, so they renamed the key for the Mac, and Susan Kare
selected a new glyph, which is a Scandinavian "point of interest" wayfinding
symbol.
...as a further aside, Control-N and Control-O are the cause of the bizarre
graphical glyphs you sometimes see if you do something silly like cat a binary
file. Control-N initiates the character set switch, and Control-O restores it.
This can be used to fix your Terminal when things go awry. Most people just
close the window, but I hate losing history. :)
0x20 - 0x74, unshifted:
!"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~
0x20 - 0x74, shifted:
!"#$%&'()*→←↑↓/▮123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_◆▒bcde°±▒☃┘┐┌└┼⎺⎻─⎼⎽├┤┴┬│≤≥π≠£·
...works in Firefox. YMMV.
Terminal-charset-quickfix: at shell, type "echo ^O". To get the literal ^O,
use Control-V then Control-O.
~~~
graywh
Most terminals will let you use ctrl-6 for ctrl-^ and ctrl-7 (and sometimes
ctrl-/) for ctrl-_.
------
slavik81
This seems a little better than it is. Those control characters are appealing
because they're rarely used. Making them important by using them in a common
data exchange format will dramatically increase the rate at which you find
them in the data you're trying to store.
Ultimately, this is a language problem. If we invent new meta-language to
describe data, we're going to use it when creating content. That means the
meta-language will be used in regular language. Which means you're going to
have to transform it when moving it into or out of that delimited file.
There is no fixed-length encoding you can use to handle meta-information
without imposing restrictions on the content. You're always going to end up
with escape sequences.
------
tokenrove
I think people are missing the fact that you have a "control" key on your
keyboard in order to type control characters. (Of course, control is now
heavily overloaded with other uses.)
------
csixty4
Pick databases have used record marks, attribute marks, value marks, sub-value
marks, and sometimes sub-sub-value marks in ASCII 251-255 since the late
1960s. Like the control characters this blog post recommends, the biggest
obstacle for Pick developers working on modern terminals is how on Earth to
enter or display these characters. There's also the question of how to work
with them in environments that strip out non-printable characters.
This isn't some clever new discovery. It's begging us to repeat the same
mistakes that led to the world adopting printable ASCII delimiters in the
first place.
~~~
pacaro
Awesome! I was going to make a comment about Pick but you beat me to it. The
challenge we had with Pick style involved customers using codepages that
required these characters in text.
Encodings aside, the principle of having a hierarchy of delimiters can be
hugely powerful
------
revelation
It is now 2014. The world doesn't use ASCII, you will still need escaping for
binary or misformatted data, and overall the idea of mapping control
characters and text into one space is _dead and dusted_. Don't do it, don't
let other people do it, use a reasonable library that handles the bazillion
edge cases safely if you need to parse or write CSV and its ilk.
~~~
eggie
In science, a lot of people use ASCII and flat files. I used to really dislike
it, but over time I understood that there are certain practical reasons to do
this which deserve respect.
Due to the volume and novelty of data that we work with, we are often pushed
into a corner between human time and machine time. Each data set comprises a
new set of concepts, and each is huge. In this corner, sometimes a character-
delimited file is the best solution. There is not time to carefully craft a
binary format and then document it so it will not be forgotten later, nor is
there time to wait for a general-purpose format parser to operate on tens of
billions of records. We need a solution that can be designed in 1 minute and
be legible by all of our tools without modification.
Typically, I have used tabs in the place of the ASCII separators. This ensures
readability without any kind of parsing. Also, this lets me use the default
behaviors of well-worn, bug-free tools in the core of the Unix toolchain for
basic data processing tasks. Frankly, this is not a bad compromise.
If you are passing messages around a web stack, JSON, XML, and friends are
ideal solutions. If you have to occasionally deal with CSV, use a parser. I
just want to note that for many tasks in data analysis, it's OK to simply use
the _dead and dusted_ convention of mixed delimiters and data.
As these things develop, I will be trying to investigate how to use more
modern formats such as binary JSON representations in my work, and I'd be
curious what solutions people here suggest for working with very large data
(e.g. many trillions of observations).
------
eli
Makes sense, but it's practically a (very simple) binary storage format at
that point. You can't count on being able to edit a document with control
characters in a text editor. And I wouldn't trust popular spreadsheet software
with it either.
------
susi22
Related: This tool:
[https://github.com/dbro/csvquote](https://github.com/dbro/csvquote)
will convert all the record/field separators (such as tabs/newlines for TSV)
into non-printing characters and then in the end reverse it. Example:
csvquote foobar.csv | cut -d ',' -f 5 | sort | uniq -c | csvquote -u
It's underrated IMO.
~~~
dbro
Thanks for bringing up csvquote. I wrote it last year, and am happy to hear
that other people find it useful.
It is indeed a simple state machine (see
[https://github.com/dbro/csvquote/blob/master/csvquote.c](https://github.com/dbro/csvquote/blob/master/csvquote.c)),
and it translates CSV/TSV files into files which follow the spirit of what's
described in the original article in this thread.
But instead of using control characters as separators, it uses them INSIDE the
quoted fields. This makes it easy to work with the standard UNIX text
manipulation tools, which expect tabs and newlines to be the field and record
separators.
The motivation for writing the tool was to work with CSV files (usually from
Excel) that were hundreds of megabytes. These files came from outside my
organization, and often from nontechnical people - so it would have been
difficult to get them into a more convenient format. That's the killer feature
of the CSV/TSV format: it's readable by the large number of nontechnical
information workers, in almost every application they use. I can't think of a
file format that is more widely recognized (even if it's not always
consistently defined in practice).
------
Falling3
This reminds me of a depressing bug I run into frequently. I do a bit of work
integrating with an inventory management program. Their main method of
importing/exporting information is via CSV. The API also imports and exports
via CSV, except whoever wrote the code that handle the imports decided not to
use any sort of sensible library. Instead they use a built-in function that
splits the string based on commas with absolutely no way of escaping, so that
there is no way to include a comma in a field.
It's led to many a headache.
~~~
chiph
I deal with a vendor who occasionally sends us files without the double-quote
character escaped. I feel your pain.
~~~
flomo
I used to work in an industry where different vendors passed around massive
CSV files. If there was a way to abuse CSV, someone had done it, no two of
them were exactly alike.
------
hrjet
I have created a (work-in-progress) Vim plugin [1], that uses Vim's conceal
feature to visually map the relevant ASCII characters to printable characters.
It sort of works, but there are known issues which I have listed in the
README.
[1] : [https://github.com/hrj/vim-adtConceal](https://github.com/hrj/vim-
adtConceal)
------
mmasashi
It does not solve the problem. Here is the points which I think.
1\. Control characters are not supported in the almost of text editors. 2\.
Control characters are not human friendly. 3\. The text may contain control
characters in the field value.
In any formats, we cannot avoid the escape characters, so even I think CSV/TSV
format is reasonable.
~~~
stronglikedan
You are correct in that it does not solve a problem. Furthermore, the article
tries to create a problem with CSV that does not exist.
> CSV breaks depending on the implementation on Quotes, Commas and lines
CSV does not break; the implementation is broken if it doesn't parse CSV
properly. With a proper implementation, CSV solves every problem that will
arise from this method.
~~~
__david__
The problem with CSV is that it looks so simple that nobody ever uses a real
library to do it—they just roll their own. So you end up with a million
implementations that are all buggy in various different ways. If you receive a
CSV formatted file you can never be sure if it's actually good, valid CSV, or
some invalid crap from that some programmer that reinvented the wheel because
it was "so easy".
~~~
saalweachter
And as a side effect, if you are relying on lots of data files provided by
other people, you inevitably end up with a library 57,000 parsers, 55,000 of
which are for different, slightly broken CSV files.
------
omarforgotpwd
"Alright let me get you some quick test data. Just need to find the 0x29 key
on my keyboard... or 0x30? Wait is this a new row or a new column? What was
the vim plugin for this?"
And then someone wrote an open source CSV parsing library that handles edge
cases well and everyone forgot these characters existed.
------
dsjoerg
This is a good illustration of how the hard part isn't "solving the problem"
\-- it's getting everyone to adopt and actually _use_ the standard.
Reminding everyone that an unused, unloved standard exists is just reminding
everyone that the hard part went undone.
------
tracker1
I actually really appreciate this article, though I've known about it for
decades now. In fact, I used to return javascript results in a post target
frame back in the mid-late 90's and would return them in said delimited
format... field/record/file separated, so that I could return a bunch of data.
Worked pretty well with the ADO Recordset GetString method.
Of course, I was one of those odd ducks doing a lot of Classic ASP work with
JScript at the time.
------
christiangenco
Here's an implementation of ASCII Delimited Text in Ruby using the standard
csv library:
[https://gist.github.com/christiangenco/73a7cfdb03e381bff2e9](https://gist.github.com/christiangenco/73a7cfdb03e381bff2e9)
The only trouble I ran into was that the library doesn't like getting rid of
your quote character[1], and I don't see an easy way around it[2].
That said, I really don't like this format. The entire point of CSV is that
you have a serialization of an object list that can be edited by hand. Sure
using weird ASCII characters compresses it a bit because you're not putting
quotes around everything, but if you're worried about compression you should
be using another form of serialization - perhaps just gzip your csv or json.
In Ruby in particular, we have this wonderful module called Marshal[3] that
serializes objects to and from bytes with the super handy:
serialized = Marshal.dump(data)
deserialized = Marshal.load(serialized)
deserialized == data # returns true
I cannot think of a single reason to use ASCII Delimited Text over Marshal
serialization _or_ CSV.
1\. ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:2028:in `init_separators': :quote_char has to be a
single character String (ArgumentError)
2\.
[http://rxr.whitequark.org/mri/source/lib/csv.rb](http://rxr.whitequark.org/mri/source/lib/csv.rb)
3\. [http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-2.1.1/Marshal.html](http://www.ruby-
doc.org/core-2.1.1/Marshal.html)
------
yitchelle
The big problem with the two markers mentioned in the post is they are not
part of the visible character set. Using a comma delimiter is good as it is
visible, you can just use a basic text view to see it.
A tab delimiter is not preferable as it is not visible, and can be problematic
to parse via command line tools (ie what do I set as the delimiter
character?).
I think that is the whole point of having ASCII delimited text files is to
have human readable data in it.
~~~
NoodleIncident
If you're using command line tools, others have posted how to use them.
C-v-shift-_ and C-v-shift-^ both work for me.
They print a little strangely, but if you were really dedicated to the idea,
you could alias the tools you use to use these by default for their input and
output separators.
------
peterwwillis
You know where this is useful? Databases.
No, please, put the gun down... let me explain. _Sometimes_ you have a
database that's so complex and HUGE that changing tables would be a nightmare,
or you just don't have the time. You have a field that you want to shove some
serialized data into in a compact way and not have to think about formatting.
You could use JSON, you could use tabs or csv, but both of those require a
parser.
With these ascii delimiters you can serialize a set of records quickly and
shove them into a string, and later extract them and parse them with virtually
no logic other than looking for a single character. And because it's a control
character, you can strip it out before you input the data, or replace control
characters with \x{NNN} or similar, which is still less complex than
tab/csv/json parsing.
Granted, the utility of this is extremely limited, probably mainly for
embedded environments where you can't add libraries. But if you just need to
serialize records with the simplest parsing imaginable, this seems like an
adequate solution.
~~~
csixty4
You just described a Pick or "multivalue" database. They were a nightmare to
work on, but I'll admit that's mostly because of the tools (or lack thereof).
It led to people storing all sorts of different data in one table and the
queries got really messy because multivalue fields had to be treated
differently than regular ones.
------
DEinspanjer
I never knew about these which is just a bit shaming considering how long I've
been in the data munging field. :)
I agree with several other comments that the biggest issue is not being able
to represent them in an editor. If you use some form of whitespace, then it is
likely to lead to confusion with the whitespace characters you are borrowing
(i.e. tab and line feed). If you use special glyphs, then you have to agree on
which ones to use, and it still doesn't solve the problem of readability.
Without whitespace such as tab and line feed, all the data would be a big
unreadable (to humans) blob, and with whitespace, it would lend confusion
about what the separator actually is. Someone might insert a tab or a
linefeed, intending to make a new field or record, and it wouldn't work. If
the editor automatically accepted a tab or linefeed and translated it to US
and RS, then there would have to be an additional control to allow the user to
actually insert the whitespace characters that this is supposed to enable. :/
------
htns
CSV if you do it as in RFC 4180 [1] already has everything the link describes,
plus pretty good interoperability with most things out there. If you abused
CSV you could even store binary data, while ASCII has no standard way to
escape the delimiter characters.
1: [http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180)
------
Pitarou
While we're on the subject, we should probably be using control code 16 (Data
Link Escape) instead of the backslash character to escape strings.
The problem is, of course, that we can't see it (no glyph) and we can't
"touch" it (no key for it) so people won't use it. Ultimately, we're all still
stick-wielding apes.
~~~
XorNot
All this is making me realize that we also could have easily avoided having
confusion about what's a command line argument separator and what's part of a
file name if some of these were keyboard keys. "Field separators" to break up
your command line, and regular spaces as just regular spaces? Hell yes please.
------
ChuckMcM
I've used these in ASCII files and they are quite useful. But as most folks
point out, actually using control characters for "control" conflicts with a
lot of legacy usage of "some other control." Which is kind of too bad. Maybe
when the world adopts Unicode we'll solve this, oh wait...
~~~
maxerickson
I bet someone stubborn would find a way to screw it up anyway (I guess
stubborn people are the biggest problem with csv...).
------
chinpokomon
Having read through all the comments, I think the only real benefit to using
the control characters is in the original intent. That is a flat file that
represents a file system, with file separators (FS), group separators (GS),
like a table, record separators (RS), and unit separators (US), to identify
the fields in the record, storing only printable ASCII values.
This isn't intended to be a data exchange format, it is a serial data storage
format. In this way, there may be some valid usages, but modern file systems
do not need this sort of representation and it has no real benefit over *SV
formats for most use cases. I suppose It could still be used for limited
exchange, but since it can't be used storing binary, much less Unicode (except
for perhaps UTF-8), other formats are less ambiguous and more capable.
------
Balgair
Haha! Oh wow, I just finished a project dealing with this exactly. The obvious
problem is that most editors make dealing with the non-standard keyboard keys
very difficult. As a consequence, most programs (Python, MatLab, etc) really
don't like anything below 0x20. I was reading in binary through a serial port,
and then storing data for records and processing. Any special character got
obliterated in the transfer to MatLab, Python, etc. I ended up storing it as a
very long HEX string and then parsing that sucker. I'd have loved to use
special characters to have it auto sort into rows and columns, but that meant
having it also escape things and wreck programs. Ces la vie.
~~~
sp332
C'est la vie ;)
~~~
Balgair
Gratzie
~~~
Yetanfou
Grazie |-)
~~~
Balgair
Day nada
------
hamburglar
I will be sure to use this if I ever encounter data that is guaranteed to be
pure ASCII again.
------
binarymax
Protip - if it doesnt appear on keyboards, you can use ALT+DDD (DDD being 000
to 255) to enter a control character. For those on windows, drop into a
command prompt and hold ALT while pressing 031 on the numpad. You will see it
produce a ^_ character.
~~~
chrisBob
On what computer? Is this windows only? Now that I use a mac this might be the
only thing I miss from windows computers.
~~~
JadeNB
As htp mentioned above
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7474951](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7474951)),
you can do this on a Mac by using Unicode Hex Input as your input source.
------
wisty
Devil's advocate - CSV is superior, because edge case bugs (a comma in the
data) are likely to be tested.
The edge case bugs in ASCII codes could still crop up. It shouldn't, but then,
valid SQL shouldn't crop up in a web form either. And when it does, we'll need
escape codes just like CSV, only it won't be well tested in all the tools
(because it's not going to frequently happen).
It's like all the OSS advocates laughing at Microsoft's idiotic "My Documents"
folder. It's not there because they didn't realise how much trouble it would
case programmers, it's there because they _wanted_ for force people to deal
with edge cases.
------
gwu78
Why not use the non-printing char as the comma instead of the record
separator.
1\. Replace all the commas in the text with the unique non-printing char
before converting to CSV.
2\. Convert this char back to a comma when processing the CSV for output to be
read by humans.
Because commas in text are usually followed by a space, the CSV may still even
be readable when using the non-printing char.
I must admit I've never understood why others view CSV as so troublesome vis-
a-vis other popular formats.
in: sed 's/,/%2c/g' out: sed 's/%2c/,/g'
I guess I need someone to give me a really hairy dataset for me to understand
the depth of the problem with CSV.
Meanwhile, I love CSV for its simplicity.
~~~
dbro
that's exactly what
[https://github.com/dbro/csvquote](https://github.com/dbro/csvquote) does for
commas and newlines both.
~~~
gwu78
Why use this instead of sed, awk, flex, lua, etc.?
sed does the job and on almost all UNIX clones it never needs to be installed.
Because it's already there.
------
rcthompson
If you use unprintable characters in your file, it's no longer human-editable
as text. It may as well be XML (i.e. technically text-based but not
practically human-readable).
~~~
JadeNB
> It may as well be XML (i.e. technically text-based but not practically
> human-readable).
Is this really a standard complaint about XML? I thought the main complaint
was that it wasn't human- _writeable_. I wouldn't want to read novels in XML,
but I've never had a problem opening up an XML file in a text editor to get at
bits of it.
~~~
rcthompson
Well, you'll often get XML files with a single line and no whitespace between
elements, and that makes things a lot more interesting. Basically, you can't
rely it being practical to quickly poke around in the text of an XML file. I
always feel sad when I have to read the text of an XML file to get
information.
~~~
JadeNB
> Well, you'll often get XML files with a single line and no whitespace
> between elements, and that makes things a lot more interesting.
That can be fixed with `xmllint --format`; but I agree that, once you need to
bring in external tools, it's not clear that calling it 'human-readable' is
really appropriate any more.
------
notimetorelax
Would it work if the file was encoded with UTF8 or UTF16?
~~~
bkyan
I had the same question and found this:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_control_characters](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_control_characters)
Seems like the same control characters are present.
------
zenbowman
Interestingly, Apache Hive uses control characters for column and collection
delimiters by default. I commend them for that decision.
------
co_dh
How do you enter them ? in console, in editor? Since they are invisible, how
do you find if you have entered a wrong character?
~~~
thebelal
You can type them in console and vim with
File separator - C-v C-\
Group separator - C-v C-5
Record separator - C-v C-6
Unit separator - C-v C-7
They are all visible characters in both vim and emacs by default.
You can see them on the terminal with `cat -v`
It would be nice if more tools were built to take advantage of these
characters, but there are some that do.
~~~
tmalsburg2
In Emacs, one way to enter these characters is to use `M-x ucs-insert` and
then enter the hex code of the separator:
M-x ucs-insert 1c
M-x ucs-insert 1d
M-x ucs-insert 1e
M-x ucs-insert 1f
for file, group, record, and unit separators. Is there an easier way?
~~~
fshaun
C-q (quoted-insert) will insert the next input character ignoring any other
bindings. So: C-q C-\ C-q C-] C-q C-^ C-q C-_
------
snorkel
Hah! Wonderful example of a forgotten feature.
It's not often that the tab delimited format is problematic, at least nothing
that a simple string-replace operation can't solve, so it's not worth trying
to convince every existing text reader and text processors to recognize these
long forgotten record separators correctly instead.
------
neves
Wow. I can't count the number of times that I saw a bug due to a newline, a
coma or quotation marks inside a field.
------
sitkack
We need a font to display the hidden characters and a keyboard with 4 more
keys. Problem solved.
------
Splendor
I tried to use it but one of the tools I rely on (BeyondCompare) resorts to
hex comparisons when it detects these comparisons. In contrasts, it treats CSV
files better than anything; letting you declare individual fields as key
values, etc.
------
rcfox
I've recently had to deal with exclamation mark separated values. It sure is
exciting, especially when there are empty fields:
foo!bar!baz!
a!b!c!
d!!!
e!f!!
------
mncolinlee
I thought I was one of the few using pipeline-delimited format in my tools.
You can handle many of the incidental problems by having both pipeline and
quotes like CSV.
------
kyllo
This is awesome, but sadly no one is going to use it until Microsoft Excel
allows you to export spreadsheets in ASCII delimited format.
------
efalcao
mind. blown.
------
Eleutheria
EDI is actually a wonderful and simple ASCII format for complex documents in
use for over 30 years.
The underlaying mapping formats for specific industries are a pain to parse
but everything is easily formatted using stars or pipes as field separators
ST|101
NAM|john|doe
ADR|123 sunset blv|sunrise city|CA
DAT|20140326|birthday
Ah, the joy of simplicity.
~~~
commandar
HL7 used in healthcare is similar.
Just grabbing the first few segments from the example message in the wiki
article:
MSH|^~\&|MegaReg|XYZHospC|SuperOE|XYZImgCtr|20060529090131-0500||ADT^A01^ADT_A01|01052901|P|2.5
EVN||200605290901||||200605290900
PID|||56782445^^^UAReg^PI||KLEINSAMPLE^BARRY^Q^JR||19620910|M||2028-9^^HL70005^RA99113^^XYZ|260 GOODWIN CREST DRIVE^^BIRMINGHAM^AL^35209^^M~NICKELL’S PICKLES^10000 W 100TH AVE^BIRMINGHAM^AL^35200^^O
The delimiters are defined at the beginning of the opening MSH (message
header) segment. HL7 is zero-indexed, but your zero index is always the
segment label, so it's easy for non-technical people to count naturally to get
the field identifier without having to explain counting n-1 to them.
The one exception to that is the MSH segment. Things get a little screwier
there because the first instance of the field delimiter is _also_ counted as a
full field in the spec, so it tends to trip people up. So even though "^~\&"
above looks like it should be MSH.1, it's actually MSH.2, etc.
The delimiters used in the wiki example are the most common you encounter, but
some systems do things differently because reasons. The primary HIS at my
hospital uses colons and semicolons, for example (and I want to poke out my
eyes with ice picks every time I have to look at the messages coming from it
as a result). But since it's all defined right in the message header, it's
trivial to convert between delimiters when you need/want to.
Either way, this is how the vast majority of electronic medical records are
transmitted today.
~~~
Eleutheria
And the good thing is that you can generate very complex structured documents,
not only lists like in cvs.
Of course xml and json do the same, but more verbose.
ASCII formats like EDI were invented when every byte in transmission counted.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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The ‘effective altruists’ - akbarnama
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n18/amia-srinivasan/stop-the-robot-apocalypse
======
msilenus
I've read this book together with the two books about Effective Altruism bei
Peter Singer (The Life You Can Save and The Most Good You Can Do), and I have
to say these books have really changed my life. I know it sounds cheesy, but
I've never read books that had such a lasting influence on me.
Those books provide just the right rational and scientific arguments and have
shown me with how much cognitive dissonance I, as a supposed rational person,
ran through my life.
~~~
a3voices
I'd argue that being an effective altruist actually makes you less rational.
As part of your genetic fitness, your brain is optimized for survival,
reproduction, and keeping your children alive. If you're in the middle class
and you give your money away then it goes against those objectives.
~~~
edanm
The objectives of "your genes" do not have to be your objectives. So you can
be rational, but have different goals from what you were "meant" to (for some
value of the word "meant").
~~~
a3voices
Well perhaps that is true but then you will experience a lot more mental
incongruity. For example, gay and transgendered people have much higher
suicide attempt rates. The more you deviate from traditional family values,
the unhappier you will likely feel. There is a big correlation I bet.
~~~
edanm
I don't think what you're saying is true re: mental incongruity.
And I don't think your example of gay suicides proves it, as it's hard to know
what is the cause (and many people will point out, and I would agree, that
there are _many_ other causes of gay suicides, e.g. that our culture is
oppressive toward gay people).
------
dmvaldman
What I like about the effective altruist movement is the research they
provide.
What I don't like is the cultish behavior, and inherent bias that what I think
is good is "universally" good. Effective altruism is nothing more than a
rebranding of utilitarianism, and suffers from the same moral quandaries.
Should I kill someone if it is the best way to decrease child mortality rates
in Africa?
Should we all quit our jobs to solve friendly AI? Because if not there is a
non-negligible probability of human extinction, and the math clearly says this
should be our top priority.
I think it's healthy to be aware of the short comings of effective altruism as
well as its benefits. Morality and duty are too nuanced for a single ideology
to provide all the answers.
Edit: wording
~~~
darkmighty
I don't get what people have against utility theory (if that's what you mean
by utilitarianism). For me it's one of the few models that _must_ be obeyed:
there _must_ be a way to create a partial order among possible choices.
Whatever the reasoning behind your actions is, you are going to choose _a
single action_ (at each step) -- this _forces_ you to choose the best. That's
all utilitarianism is for me -- it tells you nothing about how to construct
the utility function. Now the utility this view provides is just that: you can
see clearly what sorts of thing you give greater priority, so you'll make the
best possible judgement.
~~~
pdonis
_> Whatever the reasoning behind your actions is, you are going to choose a
single action (at each step) -- this forces you to choose the best._
This works at the level of individual choice, but it doesn't add up over
multiple individuals, because you can't compare different people's utilities
on the same scale. But the key claims of utilitarianism under discussion (the
ones that are supposed to motivate people to donate to charity instead of
purchasing luxuries for themselves) require adding up utilities over multiple
individuals. Your argument doesn't justify utilitarianism in that sense.
~~~
darkmighty
I agree that you can't necessarily add up utilities over multiple individuals,
but you can naturally claim that a "good" individual utility takes into
account the well being of others, and if the utility of each action is unique
you may say there's a composing function g such that your utility
u(a=action,t1=actor 1) is also a function of the utility for other people
u(a,t1)=f(a,g(u(a,t2),...,u(a,tN))).
I also think utility can makes sense when there's a set of actors looking
forward to make a set of decisions. Again, this set of decisions is going to
be unique. So if those actors are able to 1) achieve consensus on a utility 2)
coordinate their actions according to said utility, then it also makes sense
to talk in terms of a joint utility theory.
~~~
pdonis
_> you can naturally claim that a "good" individual utility takes into account
the well being of others_
That's not the same as utilities of multiple individuals adding, or otherwise
being composed into a single utility function. The "good" individual's utility
function can certainly depend on that individual's _beliefs_ about how his
actions will affect the well-being of others; but it can't depend on the
actual utility of those others, because the "good" individual doesn't know the
actual utility to others of various states of the world.
_> if those actors are able to 1) achieve consensus on a utility 2)
coordinate their actions according to said utility, then it also makes sense
to talk in terms of a joint utility theory._
I agree with this, but I think the necessary conditions for it are very rare.
In most cases of collective action, the actors do not have consensus on a
utility function and do not coordinate their actions according to a single
utility function.
In fact, in most cases the actors probably do not even share a common or
compatible set of beliefs about factual things. In US politics, for example,
you have members of Congress who are young earth creationists alongside other
members who believe standard evolutionary theory.
------
nefitty
Peter Singer's work has influenced my life in a big way. I have taken the 10%
income to charity pledge and am on track this year to hit it(I calculate it
every week as my income may begin varying weekly).
My charity of choice is Schistomiasis Initiative, which I donate to through
GiveWell. The Life You Can Save has a satisfying "Impact Calculator" that can
help you visualize what good your money is capable of doing
[http://www.thelifeyoucansave.org](http://www.thelifeyoucansave.org)
I urge everyone here to really consider taking the pledge and begin diverting
at least some of their income to effective charities. I am now also
considering donating a fraction of my 10% to AI research. (Tip: Don't set up
automatic donations if doing it yourself manually every month isn't too much
of a hassle. The good vibes are definitely worth soaking in!)
~~~
asgard1024
> I urge everyone here to really consider taking the pledge and begin
> diverting at least some of their income to effective charities.
I wasn't aware of Peter Singer etc., but I was actually independently
considering doing the same thing (also 10%). But to be honest, I still fight
with my worries - I am not sure about the local culture (Czech Republic), many
people here still believe "who doesn't steal, steals from the family", and I
worry that some of my friends/family will not like the idea. Although it may
be completely unfounded fear or rationalization (I have a fair share of social
anxiety).
~~~
nefitty
I sympathize. I've actually had some negative reactions from close family as
well. Thoase reactions are hurtful but I believe this choice to be the right
thing to do. I now rarely speak about my charitable gifts, unless questions of
ethics or beliefs arise in conversation. There's nothing wrong with keeping
your giving to yourself if that makes you feel more comfortable!
------
stared
Is it only me, who would prefer to have the phrase "efficient altruists"
rather than "effective altruists"?
In the context of sciences, "effective X" usually means "something that is not
X, but in the effect acts as X" (e.g. "effective potential"). So, I when I
first met the phrase "effective altruism" I was thinking it is something in
the line of Ayn Rand or so - that we should be egoistic, but (some) egoistic
behaviours are effectively altruistic. While "how to do as much X given fixed
amount of resources?" is talking about being "efficient".
~~~
vog
To my understanding, "effective" also means to have an impact, while
"efficient" focuses more on the ratio impact/resources.
In that way, I find the wording "effective" better suited. It means the
maximum impact given your resources, while for "efficient" it would be okay to
have 80% of the effect if you get that for just 70% of your resources.
~~~
stared
I understand that "effective" has also this meaning. But, as I pointed out, is
ambiguous, with the "default" meaning being very different (not just subtly)
from the intended one.
Especially as, in evolutionary biology, and game theory, there is a big topic
of investigating how egoistic behaviour may give raise to an altruistic
effect.
(And of course, the main thing is that adjectives created from nouns are very
ambiguous, i.e. effective can mean both "altruism that gives effect" or
"altruism that is an effect".)
------
vinceguidry
I have trouble both with Effective Altruists' claims that they can actually
quantify human well-being to the point to where if you spend $X, you'll get $Y
benefit out of it, and without that, the entire point is lost.
Even if you could, with a fair amount of certainty, say that for every $40
that the Yurt charity gets, they'll build 3 homes, there's a pretty hard limit
on how many $40's they'll be able to turn into homes. Eventually they'll run
out of qualified people willing to build homes for peanuts. Charity simply
doesn't scale. The more you try, the more it just looks like regular old
business.
EA could very well be a viable philosophy at the low volumes that participate
right now, but if they're successful as a movement, whatever they build is
just going to turn into another Red Cross. The Red Cross couldn't scale
appropriately, and I highly doubt it was due to any lack of can-do
willingness.
------
amelius
There is also a TED talk by Peter Singer: "The why and how of effective
altruism" [1]
[1]
[http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_singer_the_why_and_how_of_eff...](http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_singer_the_why_and_how_of_effective_altruism)
~~~
dan00
Looking it, one suggestion came up, that you should go for a career where you
can earn as much as possible, because then you could gave more money away, use
it for something good.
So finance came up and I'm not gonna to say, that finance is by definition
evil, but I can see quite some bad things coming out of finance, just think
about all the trading with food, which painfully increased prices especially
for the poorest people in the third world. Not to speak about the effects of
the financial crises and their reasons.
I was just quite surprised about this kind of thinking, this kind of
simplification and to think of this as the most effective kind of altruism
seems to be a bit blinded.
~~~
Avshalom
>Looking it, one suggestion came up, that you should go for a career where you
can earn as much as possible, because then you could gave more money away, use
it for something good.
That one comes up a lot and the fundamental problem is that nobody actually
does it. People start careers with the intention of doing it but hedonistic
treadmill/peer-pressure seems to wring it out of them sooner rather than
later.
Even ignoring, as you point out negative externalities, it's just bad advice
to suggest that doing something that no one seems capable of carrying though
with is a good way to affect positive change.
~~~
dan00
Yes, that's certainly a good point.
What if someone really wants to go into finance, likes its money and prestige
and now he might be even able, thanks to effective altruism, to appease his
morally doubts.
------
XzetaU8
"Pathological Altruism"
[http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873246884045785455...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324688404578545523824389986)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Your 2048 - anilshanbhag
https://github.com/anilshanbhag/Your2048
======
why_not
My Google Account doesn't seem to want to connect, but we just did a
potentially similar thing here:
[http://games.usvsth3m.com/2048](http://games.usvsth3m.com/2048)
Great minds, etc!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fear not Get ready to face Shadow IT - jerianasmith
http://www.ishir.com/blog/5495/fear-not-get-ready-face-shadow.htm
======
warrenm
"Get ready"?
For an article written in 2010...maybe
One written in late 2017? Shadow IT has been a major issue since the prevalent
rise of easily-accessible cloud services, possibly the prominence of BYOD, and
several other factors. It's been around for decades, but 20 years ago it was
more like, "I got this buddy in IT that can help".
BYOD can (or can not) be a shadow IT issue - if done right, it's no issue at
all (since usually all folks are doing with their own phones is checking work
mail - proper security on the backend can mitigate most/all issues on the
forend).
The worst aspect of shadow IT, though, is the simplicity with which people can
just spin-up cloud servers/services and expense it on the corporate card:
_that_ is the realm that is most worrisome from an ITOps/SecOps point of view
- since those external resources are being started (and likely never stopped -
and almost certainly never patched/updated), the business has an incomplete
view of the infrastructural landscape (often dangerously so).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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The Little Mocker (2014) - mjbellantoni
https://blog.8thlight.com/uncle-bob/2014/05/14/TheLittleMocker.html
======
mattlutze
I appreciate how the conversational presentation of the discussion here makes
the topic more accessible. I should probably come across this topic before but
I'm glad the author made it so easy to digest.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Open source deep learning models that programmers can download and run first try - pplonski86
https://github.com/samdeeplearning/The-Terrible-Deep-Learning-List
======
reader5000
There isnt really any math to deep learning other than the concept of a
derivative which is taught in high school calculus. The reason deep learning
papers seem mathy is people take network architectures and various elementary
operations on them and try to express them symbolically in latex using
summations and indexing-hell. For example the easy concept of "updating all
the neurons in one layer based on the neurons in the previous layer and
connecting weights" is expressed as matrix-vector multiplication for not
really any apparent reason other than it is technically correct and makes for
slicker notation, and I guess makes it easier to use APIs that compute
gradients for you. Deep learning however is broadly an experimental science,
which in many ways is the opposite of math as traditionally envisioned, in
which great insights follow deductively from prior great insights. If you ask
a basic question like "why should use 4 layers instead of 3?" there is no
answer other than "4 works better". Similarly with gradient descent versus
random search in weight space. There are many problem domains where random
search is as good as any known hill-climbing heuristic search (like gradient
descent). Why is GD so effective when learning image classifiers expressed as
stacked weight sums? Who knows.
~~~
davedx
Using matrices to perform the calculations is an optimization over doing a
bunch of for loops. This vectorization results in faster code within higher
level languages and on certain hardware platforms (SIMD). It's nothing to do
with "slicker notation", although having written gradient descent with for
loops and matrix operations, the vectorized version is simpler and cleaner to
read in my opinion.
~~~
Houshalter
He's not complaining about using vectorization in code. The problem is papers
and even explanations targeted at non-experts, often use obfuscated math in
place of clear explanations. I've complained about this before here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13953530](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13953530)
Mathematical notation is basically a programming language. A programming
language with weird symbols you can't type to search for, single letter
variable names for everything, and no comments. And it's written by
programmers that are obsessed with fitting everything into a simple line and
making it as small as possible, no matter how difficult it is to read. Any
programmer understands this is incredibly bad practice. And even if parse
every step and perfectly follow _what_ the code is doing, without explanation,
it's pretty difficult to figure out _why_.
~~~
davedx
OK, I see what you're saying. I think you have the same issue with "real"
programming languages too. If you compare some very concise Clojure or Scala
code with the equivalent in Java, it can be quite hard to understand if you're
not very familiar with the language. But I wouldn't necessarily say it's
"incredibly bad practice". A Scala programmer can write concise and elegant
code that to another Scala programmer is actually faster to understand because
of that conciseness. Whereas the same code written with for loops and class
method calls and all the boilerplate in Java would take more studying to
filter out the low level constructions.
It's about the level of abstraction. And yeah if you don't understand the
notation or syntax at the level of abstraction you're studying, it will be
very hard.
(FWIW I find Scala code quite hard to understand sometimes, but I also find
the more I know about the language, the more comprehensible it gets).
~~~
Houshalter
It's not necessarily the conciseness that's a problem. Using foreach instead
of a full for loop is one thing. What I'm complaining about is code in place
of an explanation. E.g. imagine coming across some nasty piece of code like
this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root#Overv...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root#Overview_of_the_code)
It doesn't matter how familiar you are with the language. Without an
explanation of what the hell is going on, just looking at the code is useless.
~~~
davedx
Now we're talking about documentation. You are correct, no code is conpletely
self documenting. But that Quake code is very low level, the opposite of what
I think the grandparent doesn't like (very high level abstract notation)
------
shoshin23
I would say that this title is misleading. A lot of what is presented there
needs a strong grasp of deep learning(and the other underlying concepts behind
them.), without which all you'll do is load the examples on Xcode and run
them.
Moreover, I would probably encourage people to read examples of Tensorflow or
Caffe2 running on iOS rather than something like Forge. Forge is an
interesting project but won't really help you if you don't have a clue about
MPS or Deep Learning.
~~~
itg
The original title, which is also the title of the repo, was much more
accurate. The author mentions these are models to download and start playing
with right away, not a set of repositories to help you learn deep learning.
~~~
sctb
OK, we've updated the title from the (slightly edited) repo description of
“Examples to get started with Deep Learning without learning any of the math”
to this phrase from the description.
------
solomatov
It's a bad idea to learn deep learning without learning the math.
~~~
Retric
I disagree, now prove your point.
~~~
solomatov
Your deep learning models don't always work as expected. In such cases you
need to debug it. Understanding how models works internally is required for
debugging them.
~~~
joshvm
I would wager that a lot of people who "do deep learning" have absolutely no
idea about the models they're using.
Hyperparameter optimisation is basically a fudge right now - you try
everything and see what works. Even the research groups who came up with the
standard network stacks, like VGG, basically lucked out and found an
architecture that worked, then tried several variants and found one that
worked better. DL papers are full of handwaving speculation about why
particular networks perform better than others, but right now it's just that:
highly educated speculation.
This isn't limited to deep learning. If you want to try any kind of machine
learning, it's totally reasonable to throw different fitting functions at your
problem to see which one works best. Unless you have an unusually clear
problem category, it's rarely possible to say at the outset that "This problem
would best be solved with method <X>". A counter here would be that if you
need to classify images, you should almost certainly use a convnet.
You need _some_ understanding about why things might be going wrong, e.g. your
loss isn't moving -> crank up the learning rate. You're seeing nans? Probably
your learning rate is too high. But that doesn't really need any serious maths
to understand. You can get by quite well by figuring out empirical rules.
I'm not arguing that you _shouldn 't_ learn the maths, it's a wise idea to,
but many people use deep learning models without knowing how backpropagation
works for instance.
------
rrggrr
Gosh I wish this existed for Python.
~~~
jcl
Could you clarify? Several of the examples are Python projects (with and
without Tensorflow), and others are apps consuming models that probably came
from Tensorflow.
------
amelius
So sad to see the divide between iOS and Android platforms.
Half of this stuff I can't run.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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The effects of Portal 2 and Lumosity on cognitive and noncognitive skills - newsreview1
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131514001869
======
bitwize
Valve playtests the shit out of their games. A lot of _Portal_ 's theming is
based on their extensive testing culture and the ways they've developed to
manipulate the player through testing. For example, the Weighted Companion
Cube came about because they wanted a level where you solve puzzles while
carrying an object. But the playtesters kept leaving the damn object behind.
So Valve's solution was to tell them it was a "character" they had to care
for.
~~~
MegaButts
Maybe this used to be true (I am not making a claim one way or the other) but
it seems unlikely they would have that approach and end up with their latest
offering - Artifact. I realize not every game is going to be a hit but that
game doesn't seem to be liked by just about anybody.
~~~
knolan
It’s not a game that I, a long time Valve fan would have any interest in, but
I’ve been told by friends who are into card games that the actual game was
fun, it was the awful pricing that killed it.
~~~
cameronbrown
I played Artifact, it was fun until it died, but a very tough set of lessons
for Valve to swallow:
1) Their reputation really has been damaged over no HL3/Dota 2 money grabs.
2) That they can't just publish anything onto Steam anymore with little to no
upfront communication.
3) Not all monetisation models are viable - especially with the recent loot-
box fiascos. If they wanted a card economy the game should've been free with
random cards, with the _option_ to purchase cards to have your own collection.
The past few months they've definitely started to change over the response to
Artifact. Dota Underlords was shipped in only 5 months, so it just shows what
they're capable of with a little pressure.
------
nickjj
I wish they did this test with people who played the Quake series (Quake /
Quake II / Quake 3 / Quake Live). They were arguably one of the most popular
non-realism based FPS games of their time (they spanned ~25 years).
The big difference between Portal is, Quake is a multiplayer game where you're
playing against a human in real time and there's no backup plan of being able
to Google an answer if you get stuck. You either practice and get better or
get utterly destroyed. It's really a good case for overcoming challenges and
persistence.
There's 1v1 matches where you need to memorize maps to such a degree that you
can almost navigate them blind folded. You're also dealing with timing
multiple items down to the second, predicting where a human opponent will go,
mastering each weapon in every scenario to maximize damage output while
minimizing damage input and also generally having a high level overview of how
the match is going to figure out when it's worth taking risks or play it safe.
That's just the mental side of it too. Then there's needing very good reaction
times and dexterity to aim quickly and precisely and each weapon has its own
style of aiming (flick shots, precise tracking, projectile prediction, instant
hit scan weapons, etc.).
And then there's other variants of the game like 4v4 TDM or capture the flag
that share similar challenges as above but now it's amplified because you're
playing with a lot of people and you need to make very interesting decisions
with powerups.
All of this happens within seconds and becomes second nature once you've
played long enough. It's actually almost unbelievable that a human brain can
react so quickly and become so well adjusted to navigating a high speed
virtual world under pressure. A lot of these Quake games were played at live
events with hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line before e-sports
became as huge as it is today.
~~~
leoc
Team Fortress 2 is (as you may know) the sequel to one of the most popular
Quake (as in Quake 1) mods, and very much a Quake mod itself.
------
gallerdude
I still maintain Portal 2 has the greatest narrative in all of video games -
it’s expressed purely in gameplay, it’s funny as hell, and has a surprisingly
deep emotional core.
~~~
seph-reed
It's not my favorite game, nor the favorite of anyone I know, but I'd be
willing to guess it's worth top 3 (or at least 5) for almost everyone. Which
is to say, in a first-past-the-post scenario it wouldn't win, but in a run-
off-vote scenario it may very well be the best game ever made.
~~~
DEADBEEFC0FFEE
It's really not useful to make top n lists. As soon as there disagreement,
distinctions and catagories evolve. Its probably sufficient to simple state
you enjoyed the game, and to highlite some aspects you enjoyed.
~~~
seph-reed
Top N lists are just another tool for organizing thought. You're right that
they aren't a silver bullet of truth.
------
DanielleMolloy
So carefully selected video games are the real brain training. Who would have
thought..
The following finding also continues to be interesting: “More remarkably, we
found that playing an action video game can virtually eliminate this gender
difference in spatial attention and simultaneously decrease the gender
disparity in mental rotation ability, a higher-level process in spatial
cognition.”
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/17894600/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/17894600/)
~~~
bjornjaja
Some of this stuff is common sense—it’s amazing what length people go
researching certain subjects. For instance, if your brain does a particular
type of action (like tracking fast moving objects) it gets better at doing
that in general. Same thing with studying math, people get better at solving
problems.
Now, if those problems being solved in games or otherwise are limited in
scope, well so are the gains achievable.
So, the question then is, how to APPLY that to a general set of problems. Not
how it affects the brain doing a particular task. For instance, teach a man to
fish salmon then ask him to take that knowledge and figure out how to catch
whales or even plastic pellets in the ocean?
Or how about if one study math how can it increase ones art ability or vice-
versa? It changes perceptions etc. Seems common sense to me I dunno.
~~~
whatshisface
It's not obvious that it could eliminate the gender gap. If men start higher,
why couldn't they stay in the lead as both sexes improved? That's why you have
to do the research.
~~~
oh_sigh
I wonder if any researchers controlled for video game playing time when doing
these spatial rotation studies between genders.
------
ngngngng
Anecdotal, but I completely agree that Portal supercharges your brain, and
I've believed this for years. Back around 2011 when portal 2 came out we had a
family reunion. I had been playing a lot of Portal at the time. One of my
uncles broke out one of those brain teaser type metal ring puzzles where you
have to pull the rings apart.
It made it's way around the room as we talked and no one could figure it out.
As soon as it came to me, I saw clearly exactly what needed to happen to solve
it, and within seconds it was solved. I still think it must have been all the
Portal 2 I had been playing.
------
logfromblammo
So to make _real_ genius kids, throw away those Baby Einstein videos, ditch
the "brain training" apps, and just _play_.
What would the play curriculum be?
Minecraft
Portal 1 & 2
The Talos Principle
Infinifactory
What else? I'm thinking something that involves a fourth spatial dimension or
causality manipulation would also be good. I'd recommend Spellbreaker if I
thought kids would tolerate text-only games these days.
~~~
NoodleIncident
Maybe I'm just salty that I didn't figure out you could pick up laser
redirectors without breaking the connection until after beating the game, but
The Talos Principle always seems out of place in these lists. I've always seen
it as a game focused on its story, which by necessity involves puzzle-based
gameplay; but I've never thought that the puzzles were that good. In
particular, it feels like the game actively discourages you from using 3D
spatial reasoning, in favor of the puzzles being about using the tools you
have to collect more tools. Most of the puzzles could have just been a 2D top-
down perspective.
~~~
logfromblammo
The puzzles needed for the low-effort ending are all like that, but some of
the puzzles required for the 100%-completion ending are literally outside the
box, requiring you to use tools from multiple discrete puzzle zones together,
or to liberate tools from their zones to use in a portion of the level outside
the puzzle fences.
Additionally, there are multiple Easter eggs peppering the game that take some
amount of subversive reasoning to see or touch.
There's a "solve the puzzle as presented" level of reasoning, and there's a
"break the puzzle" level of reasoning. Some puzzles have a "get the tetromino"
solution, a "get the star" solution, and a "get somewhere I shouldn't be able
to reach" solution.
For instance, have you found the Space Core, from Portal 2, in The Talos
Principle?
------
moron4hire
A neuroscientist friend of mine says Lumosity is not just junk science, but
junk implementation of junk science. I would imagine just about any real
puzzle solving task would have a greater impact on cognitive ability than the
specific case of Lumosity.
~~~
neves
And Portal certainly is more fun than any Lumosity game.
Educators don't usually consider fun to be important for learning.
~~~
inetknght
> _Educators don 't usually consider fun to be important for learning. _
That's quite unfortunate. I think fun is absolutely crucial to truly learn
something.
~~~
logfromblammo
I think my only hope for learning Spanish at this point would be a game that
starts out in a Texaslike setting, with the storyline missions sending the
player into progressively more Spanish-speaking situations, with more
Hispanic-specific cultural elements, until complete immersion occurs.
Start out ordering tacos for lunch. End by smuggling someone out of Venezuela
via the Orinoco in a narco-submarine, with paramilitary groups ready to
execute you if you mistranslate something.
------
ThePhysicist
Not surprised by this as Portals puzzles combine so many different abilities
like abstract reasoning, planning, dexterity and reflexes. Now, the question
is of course if other 3D video games (e.g. DOOM) have similar health benefits.
I'd say Portal is a pretty "intellectual" game compared to most shooters, so
I'd expect the overall effect to vary. Navigation in three-dimensional
environments seems to be quite a complex task in itself though, so maybe
that's already where most of the effect is coming from?
~~~
jplayer01
Agreed. Wish there were more games out there like Portal, but it seems to be
entirely unique in the industry.
~~~
MayeulC
Oh, there are more. Out of my mind, I can cite The Talos Principle, Qube and
Antichamber.
Maybe in slightly different categories: Fez (~2D), Mirror's edge (parkour),
infinifactory. The Stanley Parable as well, perhaps?
Then there are numerous 2D ones, and I'm pretty sure I am forgetting some that
I have in my library. Portal isn't unique, but it has one of the most dynamic
and entertaining narratives. It also spearheaded a whole lot of "portal
clones", which was nice to see, as I quite like those puzzle games.
~~~
MauranKilom
From your first three I've only seen Antichamber. I agree that it's a
cognitive challenge like portal, but I also think it doesn't involve the same
kind of spatial reasoning portal does. Well, at least not in the (otherwise
ubiquitous) 3D space.
~~~
MayeulC
Well, the most difficult part of Antichamber is that the 3D space is a non-
euclidian one, so you have to adjust the way you think space. But I still
think that the main game element is how to find your way from point A to point
B in that space. And pathfinding isn't a trivial exercise in euclidian space,
already, which is the point of the article.
I recommend the Talos Principle, even though I haven't finished it yet. Some
challenges are quite hard, and it has even more spatial reasoning than portal.
Here also, enigmas revolve around getting you from point A to point B, but you
usually have to carry along some tools to help you. This often ends up being a
variant of the Hanoi tower, or the wolf, goat and cabbage, but in a space with
more than one dimension, unlike those classic riddles. And there is some lore
hidden in the game world that can be quite interesting to puzzle together.
Now, if you want more portal, the game modding community is quite profusive
around Valve's IP. You have Portal stories: Mel, Aperture tag, Portal:
prelude. The quality is often worse than complete games, but the puzzles can
be quite challenging.
------
diehunde
I don't know any of those but could it be that Lumosity is just harder on your
brain making you more tired and mentally exhausted? I mean, if a group relaxes
for 8 hours and other group does lumosity for 8 hrs, why should the second
group do better after exhausting their brains for so long?
~~~
hcs
Good question, I think there was a break between the training and the
posttest, but it isn't quite clear from the description in the paper:
"Each participant spent 10 h in the study, which spanned four separate
sessions in the on-campus laboratory of the university, across 1-2 weeks. Each
of the first three sessions lasted 3 h. Session 4 lasted one hour - solely for
administering the posttest battery. At the beginning of the first session,
subjects in both conditions were asked to read and sign the consent form.
After signing the form, subjects were randomly assigned to one of the two
conditions. All subjects were then administered an online set of pretests.
Once they finished the pretests, they logged in to play their assigned game
for the rest of the first session. They continued to play their assigned game
for the entire second and third session (for a total of 8 h of gameplay).
During the last session, they completed the online set of posttests."
"Before and after 8 h of gameplay, subjects completed an online pretest and
posttest battery of tests measuring our focal constructs and their relevant
facets."
~~~
mattkrause
Sounds like the post-test was done separately to me.
Session 1 is probably about 2 hours of "training", with the rest of the time
eaten up by the pretest and consent paperwork. Sessions 2 and 3 would be be
almost entirely training (3 hrs each), which gets you to 8 hours of training
in 3 sessions, leaving the last one for just the post-test.
------
domnomnom
The tests for problem solving used were:
Raven's progressive matrices, Insight Test, Remote Association Test
Spatial cognition:
Mental rotation test, Spatial Orientation Test, Virtual spatial navigation
assessment
------
duxup
Could it be that Portal players felt they were more successful in their games
than Lumosity players felt?
I know that successfully completing a task(s) just before a test will result
in better performance on tests, and failing will result in poorer performance.
~~~
ChrisClark
They aren't asking how a player felt about Portal or Luminosity. It looks like
they did some standardized tests after they played the respective games.
~~~
mikey_p
Yes, but parent is arguing that the feeling _could_ be what is affecting the
test results more than any cognitive abilities or enhancements as a result of
playing the game. I.e. if you "won" the Lumosity games (which normally get
harder until you fail) and "lost" at Portal, is the effect the same or is it
reversed?
A very valid question indeed.
------
thrillgore
All the marketing for Lumosity reeks of unclaimed benefits/snake oil. At least
Portal 2 is objectively fun and rewarding narratively to play.
~~~
SketchySeaBeast
It increases your "hours spent listening to J.K. Simmons rant" count, and
that's way more important than poorly sourced "neuroplasticity" training.
~~~
javajosh
Ok, HN seems to frown on tomfoolery, but amen: JK Simmons was absolutely the
best part of the Portal 2 story.
------
bhhaskin
A study of only 8 hours isn't much of a study at all.
~~~
ocdtrekkie
Most studies probably use much less than 8 hours of a respondent's time, I
believe. The greater issue is the use of only 77 test subjects to begin with.
~~~
Donald
Read the paper, the authors did a power analysis to arrive at their
participant sample size. (
[http://myweb.fsu.edu/vshute/pdf/portal1.pdf](http://myweb.fsu.edu/vshute/pdf/portal1.pdf)
)
> We needed at least 34 participants per condition to estimate moderate effect
> sizes in our analyses, with a power of .90.
------
isaacgreyed
I wonder if any of this boost, or even a significant portion, comes from just
being happier and relaxing after playing a game for 8 hours. Rather than some
perceived brain training.
------
nurettin
People who have played a funny, pretty looking and relaxing puzzle game prior
to solving skill based questions perform well. What have we learned? Was it
the puzzles or GlaDOS?
~~~
vintermann
Maybe all GlaDOS' subtle (and not so subtle) digs at humanity encourages
humans to do their best.
Or maybe the humorous absurdity of a testing-obsessed "abusive mom" computer
makes people relax more in actual testing situations. I suspect these sorts of
aptitude tests get a lot of their power from the intimidation factor.
------
lliamander
But how long does that benefit last?
------
personjerry
Wait is everyone here commenting just from reading the abstract? I couldn't
get access to the pdf (elsevier paywall)...
------
wlesieutre
The idea of rounding up a bunch of test subjects and having them play Portal
to collect data on them is hilarious to me.
_Hello and welcome to the Aperture Science computer-aided enrichment center._
I wonder if there was cake at the end.
~~~
tiborsaas
I wonder if they were promised cake upfront :)
~~~
jtms
If they were, it was most likely a lie.
------
ChrisMarshallNY
I would kill for Portal 3...
sigh...
~~~
whitebread
I would peacefully protest for HL3
~~~
umvi
I would self-immolate for a game that simultaneously served as the sequel to
both HL2 _and_ Portal 2 (i.e. Gordon Freeman has both a gravity gun and a
portal gun)
~~~
lvturner
No you wouldn't.
~~~
dymk
At least give him a chance.
~~~
lliamander
It would rather defeat the purpose.
------
boringg
sample size please - how is this even publishable?
~~~
robbrit
From the article:
> In this study, we tested 77 undergraduates who were randomly assigned to
> play either a popular video game (Portal 2) or a popular brain training game
> (Lumosity) for 8 h.
~~~
boringg
Sorry my comment should have been clearer. I wasn't actually asking for the
sample size - i was making a statement that the sample size was ridiculously
small as to be irrelevant. It was more like an eye roll. Thank you for
responding to my literal comment snd reminding me to be clearer in my messages
:)
~~~
robbrit
77 is a large enough sample size to produce statistically significant results
in a lot of cases, depending on the problem. For example, using 77 men and
women, you could easily see a statistically significant difference in height
between genders.
This paper is pretty simple, it's just a straight-forward before-and-after
test. They are holding a lot of factors constant and not doing an
observational study, so 77 is actually a fine sample size for something like
this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CloudRail – A Universal API for Stripe, Facebook, Slack, Dropbox, Twilio and More - kwrt
http://cloudrail.com/cr-product/
======
jefflinwood
This seems more complicated than just using the original APIs, as none of the
sample applications or StackOverflow questions you might find with a quick
Google (for instance, creating a capability token with Twilio) would apply any
more.
As thinkingkong asked, what's the use case?
~~~
kwrt
Did you try it? I think it makes it way easier if you need to integrate more
than one API. But open for your opinions or suggestions how to improve it. The
solution has just been launched, so yes there are not many tutorials out
there.
Use case is if you need to integrate more than one API in your app.
~~~
jefflinwood
I was just trying to figure out what problem developers had that you were
trying to solve.
From your web site, it appears that your thesis is that (some) developers have
a problem using multiple API's from multiple providers, and you are offering
an integrated approach to make their lives easier.
~~~
kwrt
That's right. We've heard from developers that they spend over 50% of their
development time for an ordanary app to integrate other services via APIs.
CloudRail tries to reduce that significantly. 1 API (with some configuration)
instead of N APIs for N services.
------
tomasien
I can see this getting useful if you either are integrating unnecessarily
complex APIs or a massive number of fairly simple APIs. Neither Slack nor
Facebook qualify, but I'm assuming this company is betting on the growth of
the IoT (which will likely fall into the "lots of simple APIs" category).
~~~
kwrt
Thanks for the feedback. You are absolutely right. Currently CloudRail is more
tending to simple APIs and a massive number. This is mainly caused by the fact
that actually everybody can add services to the system. So most of the
connected services are created and maintained by the community or even the API
provider itself. Result is of course more simple APIs.
------
thinkingkong
Hey guys,
Hope someone from CloudRail is here. I'm not quite sure what problem this is
trying to solve. Do you have an example of where CloudRail would save me time,
or complexity with an integration?
From what I can see, it just looks like a wrapper sitting in top of other
APIs.
~~~
kwrt
The idea is a single API for multiple services, so actually yes kind of a
wrapper. So instead of getting familiar with different APIs and integrating
multiple SDKs you can use the config tool to create a custom API which does
exactly what you need. Eg "I need a function to upload a file to Dropbox, a
function to like a page on Facebook and one to switch on the Philips Hue
light". After integrating the CloudRail SDK, you'll see exactly that endpoint,
even with you individual naming. So just one manual to read, one SDK to
integrate and maintain.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tesla Roadster is going to be able to hover over the ground, says Elon Musk - devy
https://electrek.co/2019/01/09/tesla-roadster-hover-off-the-ground-elon-musk/
======
dTal
With compressed air? No. I don't care how "not joking" he is, the power
density is just not enough to lift a car for more than a few seconds even if
the entire car were filled with tanks. It's just common sense. Have you _ever_
seen compressed air VTOL on _anything_?
He also claims it will allow the car to accelerate "at the limit of human
endurance" which would imply thrust vectoring also.
Perhaps he's testing the limits of human credibility...
~~~
olyjohn
Even if it would work... what would hovering even do that is beneficial?
Without tires touching the pavement, you won't turn or stop well at all. You
will bottom out over every speed bump and driveway and parking lot entrance,
unless you're hovering like a foot off the ground. The efficiency gains from
the decreased rolling resistance will certainly not overcome the juice that
these things will suck down...
~~~
dTal
Parallel parking?
(There are no "efficiency gains from decreased rolling resistance" if the
tires aren't even touching the ground. Your wheels will spin without moving
the car, an efficiency of 0%)
------
Traster
I think we need to have a conversation about Elon Musk and gas-lighting.
I think we can all agree that some people are demonstrably taking what Musk
has said to be a genuine statement about a feature in a new product. You can
observe this from the people discussing in detail how it will work. Now, I'm
not going to argue about that. Let's assume it turns out that this feature is
not in the next Roadster. Can someone convince me that this isn't market
manipulation? He's lying about features in his future products in a way that
will clearly effect the market if they were true. And when it turns out to be
untrue he'll throw his hands up and say it was a joke - despite literally
saying he's not joking and going into details of the implementation.
Tell me, how does this differ from when Elon Musk called someone a pedofile,
repeatedly, then claimed that his accusations must be true because the guy
didn't sue him, and then filed court documents claiming that it was clearly
all a joke to defend himself from libel claims.
Does anyone else feel uncomfortable handing ANY money or control to this
person? I personally feel like Elon Musk seems to have started to cross a line
into actively attacking some of the fundamental norms in our society in some
sort of effort to avoid ever having to have any responsibility. This is
genuinely starting to feel dangerous to me, maybe I'm being overly sensitive,
but we've let this stuff slide in the past and it has been catastrophic.
------
AndrewKemendo
I saw this tweet and immediately became concerned that the SEC would consider
this a problem with disclosure, as there's a world in which people take this
seriously (given his history with successful rockets) and thus would take
action financially because of it.
In my mind it was a silly offhand joke - aka there is no world in which he's
not joking about this. HOWEVER there may exist people who took it seriously
and then went out and bought TSLA.
~~~
CardenB
I think it’s safe to announce features for your product
~~~
AndrewKemendo
It is if they are reasonable and not total fabrications that are deceptive.
That's not to say that musk was being deceptive, I don't think he was.
I think even this thread shows that people take Musk's jokes or snide comments
as truth.
------
jt2190
Here’s the tweet that the article makes reference to:
> SpaceX option package for new Tesla Roadster will include ~10 small rocket
> thrusters arranged seamlessly around car. These rocket engines dramatically
> improve acceleration, top speed, braking & cornering. _Maybe_ they will even
> allow a Tesla to fly...
[Emphasis mine.]
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1005577738332172289?s=12](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1005577738332172289?s=12)
------
King-Aaron
Ok, some thoughts of mine:
1\. Reactive thrusters for aiding turning - Bosch is playing with this concept
already for motorcycles, and is an interesting idea. Effectively firing a
thruster against the direction of turning. Would be interesting to see
implemented, RIP to whoever was riding a bike next to the car that does a hard
turn all of a sudden.
2\. Braking - having a reverse-thrust system in emergencies would be
interesting, but I'd imagine you'd need an awful lot of thrust... Again, RIP
to the small child who's crossed the street and required you to emergency
brake.
3\. Acceleration. We have rocket powered drag cars already. Do it. Please.
4\. Sustained flight of a car. I think that reefer over at Joe's office may
have affected him deeper than we'd like to have thought.
------
megaman8
As a consumer, at this point (unless they can make it fly), I'd rather have
them add reliability and reduce the total cost of ownership.
------
xt00
Anything that would replace the back seat of the car that generates thrust
downward I would expect would cut into area that would be allocated for
battery. So less area for battery but a major demand for the battery being
added? Sounds like wishful thinking to me unless it’s just a few USB fans with
spaceX written on the side of them facing down.
~~~
k__
Maybe they reduce the >600miles range to 60?
------
exabrial
Some time ago, Eaton invented a hydraulic hybrid system that stored hydraulic
fluid under compressed air tanks from braking. It was incredibly efficient
because of minimal conversion losses in a simple system. It didn't take off,
sounds like what's mentioned
------
lodi
Reading only the headline, I thought this was going to be a claim that it'd
accelerate so fast it would lift its front wheels off the ground--like this...
[https://youtu.be/_59wxPsC9NU?t=142](https://youtu.be/_59wxPsC9NU?t=142)
But what he actually said... that's just crazy.
------
sunstone
Musk is technically very clever (have you seen SpaceX rockets landing in
tandem?)s o it's likely he has something that comes close to what he's saying.
If so, I expect the real problem with this system will be safety. Sure you
might be able to squirt a high density gas or liquid at high enough speed to
move this car but then what is that high speed fluid going to hit? Probably it
would tear up roads, cut down trees, decapitate passersby and create all kinds
of mayhem.
Stick handling this through a government approvals process looks like a non-
starter.
~~~
aaaaaatttuyy
> Musk is technically very clever (have you seen SpaceX rockets landing in
> tandem?)s o it's likely he has something that comes close to what he's
> saying.
This was done in the 90s, there's nothing special about landing rockets
upright.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X)
Also, being technically clever includes being able to navigate the problems
that you brought up, such as the need to meet government standards, meet
safety requirements and actually be useful.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
High level autonomous dexterity in robotics - roboscan
https://deev.blue
======
roboscan
These guys [https://deev.blue](https://deev.blue) declare they will produce an
autonomous dexterity in a robot. Is it even realistic?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Amazon's answer to lightweight iPad Air.. - vimarshk
http://www.amazon.com/
======
superbaconman
the hardware looks pretty impressive for the price. I'd like to see Linux
running on it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How does the Activity Monitor in OS X calculate memory usage? - x0054
Ok, I am asking this here because I came up empty on Stack Overflow, Super User, and Google. How the hell does the Activity Monitor in OSX 10.10 calculate memory usage. The numbers from sysctl and vm_stat match each other (I assume vm_stat just pulls the numbers from sysctl), but those results are always higher by 10-20%, compared to what Activity Monitor reports. So, who is lying to me, the Activity Monitor or sysctl?
======
dbkaplun
You can use _otool_ to see what libraries a program uses:
$ otool -L /Applications/Utilities/Activity\ Monitor.app/Contents/MacOS/Activity\ Monitor
/Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app/Contents/MacOS/Activity Monitor:
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/ApplicationServices (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 48.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Versions/C/Foundation (compatibility version 300.0.0, current version 1153.20.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versions/C/AppKit (compatibility version 45.0.0, current version 1348.13.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 57031.30.5)
/System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/Versions/A/IOKit (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 275.0.0)
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/GraphKit.framework/Versions/A/GraphKit (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 25.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/SecurityFoundation.framework/Versions/A/SecurityFoundation (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 55126.0.0)
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CrashReporterSupport.framework/Versions/A/CrashReporterSupport (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 631.0.0)
/usr/lib/libsysmon.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.0)
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/NetworkStatistics.framework/Versions/A/NetworkStatistics (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.0)
/usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 228.0.0)
/usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1213.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation (compatibility version 150.0.0, current version 1153.18.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Versions/A/CoreGraphics (compatibility version 64.0.0, current version 600.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/CoreServices (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 62.0.0)
And for top:
$ otool -L $(which top)
/usr/bin/top:
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation (compatibility version 150.0.0, current version 1151.14.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/Versions/A/IOKit (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 275.0.0)
/usr/lib/libncurses.5.4.dylib (compatibility version 5.4.0, current version 5.4.0)
/usr/lib/libpanel.5.4.dylib (compatibility version 5.4.0, current version 5.4.0)
/usr/lib/libutil.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.0)
/usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1213.0.0)
~~~
x0054
They both use libSystem.B.dylib, other then that, I don't see significant
overlap. But everything under the sun uses libSystem.B, so that's no help. I
am pretty sure that top pulls the data from sysctl. Apple must have come up
with some "clever" way of calculating memory. The only thing I can think of is
that they are reporting compressible memory. Meaning that if the system was
short on RAM, it could say compress the 8 gigs of ram down to 5 gigs, but they
are not doing so no, because that would be a waste of CPU cycles.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to solve hard (technical) problems - kmille
https://github.com/kmille/linux-debugging/blob/master/mindset.md
======
pmiller2
This is a pretty decent debugging checklist, but nothing more. I was hoping
for something different when I clicked. Maybe this should be retitled "How to
solve hard (debugging) problems"?
------
Terretta
Audience is pasting from Stackoverflow?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What kind of standing desk do you use? - nodivbyzero
I want to try standing desk to increase my productivity. What kind of standing desk do you use? Any recommendations?
======
neilsharma
I use Varidesk. Its a ~35 pound adjustable platform you place on top of a
normal desk. There are handles on the side so you can easily change the height
to a few settings.
Specifically, I got the Varidesk Pro Plus 36: [http://www.amazon.com/VARIDESK-
Plus-Height-Adjustable-Standi...](http://www.amazon.com/VARIDESK-Plus-Height-
Adjustable-Standing-
Desks/dp/B00JI6NCCK/ref=pd_sim_229_3/176-3577757-6695818?ie=UTF8&refRID=0ERX1YDM4QKFKXS2BP4D)
Had to watch for a few things: is the keyboard platform the same height as
their monitor (ideally, no). Would monitor/keyboard/mice cables get crushed if
you keep the desk down? Can it support two 24"\+ monitors?
It's incredibly durable (it'd won't tip over short of putting your entire
weight on it in the elevated position). Use it for 2-3 hours/day (with a
compression mat I got from costco for $20).
There are a couple models, and none are that cheap ($300-$400), but I've had
back pain and poor posture all my life so I figured I'd invest what is
typically 1 month of my living expenses into this.
------
chollida1
We give everyone, one of these desks....
[http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/S49022524/#/S5902...](http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/S49022524/#/S59022528)
We had existing desk tops so we just had someone come in and install the legs.
They work well and given that we tend to average 4 27" monitors per person
they handle the extra weight well. Mechanical riser's are awesome!
They also rise fairly high, important when you have someone who is 6'9" on
your team:)
Just don't forget to buy a standing mat to, ummm, stand on.
[http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-standing-desk-
mat/](http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-standing-desk-mat/)
__EDIT __Yes, the mat really matters, we 've had a few ergonomic experts in
and their advice usually varies but they all agree on using a standing mat.
~~~
nodivbyzero
Does a mat really help?
~~~
kzisme
It helps a lot! Try working a retail job or somewhere where you have to stand
for 8+ hours without a mat (then try it with it)
HUGE difference
------
bobsky
At our office we have Haworth Planes Height Adjustable [1], which I like and
many others that visit inquire about them. They are premium but they will
last, cost is ~$1,200 [2]
Pro-tip, get the wheels; everything should be on wheels, makes all the
difference.
[1] [http://www.haworth.com/home/resources/design-tools/image-
sea...](http://www.haworth.com/home/resources/design-tools/image-
search?searchQuery=Planes%20Height%20Adjustable) [2] a reseller has one on
amazon [http://www.amazon.com/Haworth-Planes-Height-Adjustable-
Desk/...](http://www.amazon.com/Haworth-Planes-Height-Adjustable-
Desk/dp/B006J1JPIC/)
------
caw
I have an Evodesk, which is the cheaper version of the NextDesk. I picked it
because I was able to get a curved work surface without a significant added
cost, along with a memory controller (save your height settings and 1 click
adjustment from sit-to-stand), and a cable tray.
It's sturdy enough for my laptop and 2 monitors from my sit height (~25ish?
inches) to my stand height (~46? inches). The cable tray was a bit difficult
to fit a surge protector into but I eventually found one that worked. The top
is a bit different from normal desks, but it feels fine to rest against and
use my laser mouse sans mousepad.
Most of my coworkers have some variant of the Geek Desk.
------
bstpierre
I got this desk earlier this year:
[http://amzn.com/B00JREVI5G](http://amzn.com/B00JREVI5G)
after having tried simply raising a "regular" desk to standing a year or two
ago. Standing all day didn't work for me, but the crank-up makes it so I can
stand in the morning and then sit for the afternoon. FWIW I use it cranked
nearly all the way up and I'm 6'0" \-- it might not be tall enough for someone
taller than that. The crank is easy to operate and fairly smooth.
It's got a large surface for keyboard, notebook, coffee, etc. The second tier
comfortably fits two external monitors + laptop.
------
tdoggette
I use an Ergotron Workfit-S:
[http://www.ergotron.com/ProductsDetails/tabid/65/PRDID/378/D...](http://www.ergotron.com/ProductsDetails/tabid/65/PRDID/378/Default.aspx)
It's very quick to move up and down, and the keyboard tray and monitor are
independent. Not much adjustibility on the monitors, but otherwise I have no
complaints.
------
bwh2
I built the standing desk on Mint's design blog:
[http://www.mintdesignblog.com/2012/08/diy-standing-
desk/](http://www.mintdesignblog.com/2012/08/diy-standing-desk/)
Cost me about $60. I polyurethaned a plywood top instead of buying an Ikea
top. Plus I stacked some books as monitor stands.
------
eip
Built my own. 4x4s, 2x6s, and plywood. Measured to exactly my height. It's
about $80 of wood and ~40 minutes to assemble.
The only problem is it's too big to fit through doors so it has to be
disassembled to move.
------
aprdm
[https://www.opendesk.cc/lean/standing-
desk](https://www.opendesk.cc/lean/standing-desk)
And you can even make it yourself!
------
duyhuynh
We offer the most affordable standing desk on the market.
[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ergo-world-s-first-
smart-...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ergo-world-s-first-smart-
standing-desk-that-talks/x/7544098#/story)
$299 for the DIY Kit.
$399 for a full desk.
$599 for the Smart Version.
~~~
mod
Am I missing something or is this not actually offered yet?
------
nodivbyzero
Does anyone have triangular corner desks?
~~~
tdoggette
My Ergotron clamps onto a corner desk.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Dissection of COVIDSafe (Android): Australian government's contact tracing app - ghuntley
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17GuApb1fG3Bn0_DVgDQgrtnd_QO3foBl7NVb8vaWeKc/edit#
======
mcannon
I believe the government, PM and various ministers have said the code will be
released. My sources also say exactly the same.
They’re obviously operating with extreme urgency to get the app out. For you.
Give them a few weeks to clean up code and release it (which is very normal) -
but in the meantime, here are some tips:
\- Turn the HN angry mob mode off - it’s not helpful. We’re all in this
together.
\- Commend the government on some smart privacy and security choices (data
deleted after 21 days, open source code, AWS in Australia, sensible sec
practices etc). They won’t get it all right - and we as a tech community can
help them. Find a bug & help get them closed.
\- When asked by non technical people “Should I install this app? Is my data /
privacy safe? Is it true it doesn’t track my location?” - say “Yes” and help
them understand. Fight the misinformation. Remind them how little time they
think before they download dozens of free, adware crap games that are likely
far worse for their data & privacy than this ever would be!
Thank you
~~~
discordance
I would love to trust them more, but the Australian government does not have a
good track record with regards to privacy. Two such recent examples:
\- Australian's browser history is being provided to law enforcement even
though that practice was excluded from the original intent and law [0]
\- Australia passed laws in 2018 which enable law enforcement to compel tech
companies into inserting backdoors into their software [1]
0: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/07/web-
browsing-h...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/07/web-browsing-
histories-are-being-given-to-australian-police-under-data-retention-powers)
1: [https://www.wired.com/story/australia-encryption-law-
global-...](https://www.wired.com/story/australia-encryption-law-global-
impact/)
~~~
Daishiman
The Australian government is not a single monolothic institution. It's a set
of hundreds of thousands of people with different agendas and intentions. You
cannot assign singular agency to the entire government; rather we have to go
case-by-case to understand the implications of programs like these.
~~~
roenxi
That is a little like saying the human body isn't a single organism because,
say, the digestive tract operates with its own agency and intention outside of
conscious control. It isn't correct; the politicians in the government have a
very high level of agency around what ends up being fed into the institutions
and what agendas and intentions are allowed to rise to power.
This isn't the step that gets us to a dystopian future, but it is so cheap and
convenient for government to take programs like this and expand them every
single time there is a crisis that it may as well be assumed to be coming if
people don't kick up a stink each and every time.
We don't need perfect safety. We've can't have perfect safety. Having perfect,
technologically enforced safety will create systems that will become corrupted
and evil with a high, high likelihood. I don't want the government to have the
ability figure out who I'm talking too at all; I'd rather we went in the exact
opposite direction of this app and put legal barriers in place to them even
asking. COVID-19 is horrible, but it will pass. This tracking strategy will
not.
~~~
hilbert42
_" I'd rather we went in the exact opposite direction of this app and put
legal barriers in place to them even asking. COVID-19 is horrible, but it will
pass. This tracking strategy will not."_.
Absolutely damn correct brother! 10/10.
------
jay_kyburz
Here is how I think the app should have worked.
Instead of requesting codes from a central government server to be distributed
to people you come into contact with, your phone could have generated its own
codes for distribution.
Then when a COVID infection is found, the gov could simply publish a list of
all codes collected by the infected person.
Your phone could request this public list daily and you could choose to get a
COVID test if your code is in the public list.
The government would have no way to link any codes to a particular phone or
person. A lot less data would need to collected, stored, and managed.
This app is designed to allow the government to find and collect anybody they
think needs testing. It can also be used to find and punish anybody breaking
social distancing laws.
(Updated for clarity)
~~~
jessriedel
If I understand you correctly, this is exactly the procedure that Stanford's
CovidWatch is implementing.
[https://www.covid-watch.org/article#contactTracing](https://www.covid-
watch.org/article#contactTracing)
They are pushing for a standard protocol that incorporates this mechanism. It
may or may not be compatible with the joint effort of Google and Apple, and
with Singapore's under-development BlueTrace standard.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlueTrace](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlueTrace)
------
tastroder
It's interesting to see these tracing app discussions crop up all over the
world at the moment. In Germany it quite literally took dozens of public
interest groups, two weeks of media attention, EU guidance and an open letter
by hundreds of scientists to make the government switch from central data
collection to an acceptable decentralised approach.
The amount of misinformation put out by lobby groups in the process was
frankly astonishing, is that similar in Australia or is this app primarily
driven by the government itself?
~~~
temac
> In Germany it quite literally took dozens of public interest groups, two
> weeks of media attention, EU guidance and an open letter by hundreds of
> scientists to make the government switch from central data collection to an
> acceptable decentralised approach.
Interesting. Do you have any pointer on the current German approach? I've been
looking at the Robert protocol from Inria+Fraunhofer, and I'm not sure I like
the central secret DB it requires.
~~~
def_true_false
I guess they meant the DP-3T. See
[https://github.com/DP-3T/documents](https://github.com/DP-3T/documents)
~~~
temac
I think so, and it seems this is very recent; I found that:
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-
europe...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-europe-
tech/germany-flips-on-smartphone-contact-tracing-backs-apple-and-google-
idUSKCN22807J) I hope France will follow.
------
em10fan
> Non-compliant. The CovidSAFE application heavily uses source code from
> [https://github.com/opentrace-community/opentrace-
> android](https://github.com/opentrace-community/opentrace-android) which was
> released under GPL v3
That's not to say its non-compliant, they could have reached out to the (one)
contributor and licenced it separately.
~~~
zelphirkalt
For this specific case, it would be a grave mistake to license under anything,
which does not contain a copyleft to make sure they release the source code as
well and grant the 4 freedoms.
~~~
tzs
If I'm understanding this right, this app was written by the Australian
government. Does the license for any libraries or other outside code they have
included even matter?
Generally, governments have what is called "sovereign immunity" when it comes
to civil lawsuits. They can only be sued if they decide to allow it. Some
countries waive their sovereign immunity for specific laws.
For example US copyright law waives it for the Federal government, and so if
the US government used your library without permission you could sue them for
copyright infringement. It does not waive it in regard to the US states,
however, and so if individual states used your library without permission you
would probably not be able to do anything about it.
I have no idea if Australia has sovereign immunity from Australian copyright
law. Google, Bing, and Duck Duck Go are all insisting on just returning
results about the recent US Supreme Court case that said the waiver of
sovereign immunity in US copyright just covers the Federal government, not the
state government.
~~~
angry_octet
The Australian Govt respects copyright a dictacted by legislation, rather than
some general immunity concept. So particular legislation (such as FOI,
Archives Act, etc) may dictate that copies are made and kept. In general, the
Govt pays fees as would a commercial entity, but many of the use cases could
be covered by a legislative requirement or a fair use provision, and it is
rather baroque, and the process of legal reform is quite slow.
[https://www.alrc.gov.au/publication/copyright-and-the-
digita...](https://www.alrc.gov.au/publication/copyright-and-the-digital-
economy-ip-42/crown-use-of-copyright-material/)
[https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/government-
alleged...](https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/government-allegedly-
owes-authors-illustrators-and-journos-copyright-millions-20171119-gzob0u.html)
As to software, I don't believe any part of the Australian Govt has been sued
for violation of open source copyright, and it is generally taken quite
seriously at agencies like CSIRO. It has always been a big talking point for
MSFT and big integrators as a reason not to use open source though.
------
thisrod
I think this discussion is putting the cart before the horse. If there is no
alternative to this app, what protections should it have? That's the second
question to ask. The first one, which hardly anyone is asking, is whether the
thing is necessary to start with.
There is one very strong reason to suspect Australians don't need this: the
app has only been here 3 days, but the novel coronavirus has been around for 3
months, and it has never looked like getting out of control. Turns out that
telephones and old-school contact tracing still work, and they work even
better with some help from DNA manipulating virus detection robots. Who would
have thunk it?
Plus, at this point, each app user has a 1 in a million chance of being
exposed to the virus. Talk about number needed to treat!
Australia should focus on prisons, aged care facilities and concentration
camps, where the risks are still meaningful. And we should rack our brains to
imagine other ways that the virus could rapidly spread beyond our capacity to
contain it. If things keep going right, we won't need this app. If something
goes wrong, it will be an unexpected thing that the app can't fix.
------
SyneRyder
I've been running COVIDSafe on Android for most of today, Samsung's Battery
monitor is showing 3% battery use by COVIDSafe after 6 hours. I guess that's
about a 10-12% battery hit over a full day, but at least it's using less
battery than Spotify or TuneIn or Pocket Casts when they were in use with the
screen off. So we're not talking Pokemon Go levels of battery drain here.
It works fine in the background on Android. Much like the Pebble smartwatch
app does for its Bluetooth connection, you get a permanent notification, and
you have to disable battery saver to stop the app sleeping. But you can still
use your phone for other things. Battery monitor regards the app as in
"Active" use the whole time, not in "background" use.
~~~
rstuart4133
The battery problem seems to be an Apple thing. iOS can shut the app down if
it is in the background, and will do so if the battery is getting low. One
solution is to keep it in the foreground - but that does chew power.
------
ferros
It was interesting to hear a lead story on the nightly news talking about data
privacy issues related to where the data was stored, saying that the data
would be stored on “American company Amazon’s Servers”.
No mention of Australian regions or GovCloud etc.
~~~
maxden
The ABC is reporting that the server must store data in Australia and the data
cannot be transferred overseas.
~~~
crispinb
Unless they've done some independent investigation, that's just federal
government speak.
The feds have been at pains to present COVIDSafe as having stringent privacy
safeguards, but they have such an appalling record that few will believe them
without trustworthy independent scrutiny. I can't see how that can be possible
until (at a bare minimum) the app's source code is released.
I really hope they do, and that they make any necessary improvements
subsequently recommended. Contact tracing is a fantastic potential use of
mobile technology. It would be a pity for it to be undermined by the usual
impulse towards contemptuous patrician secrecy.
~~~
sjy
A “privacy impact assessment” was performed by an independent law firm,
reviewed by an independent statutory authority responsible for privacy
protection, and published before the app was released.
[https://www.oaic.gov.au/updates/news-and-media/privacy-
prote...](https://www.oaic.gov.au/updates/news-and-media/privacy-protections-
in-covidsafe-contact-tracing-app/)
------
aaron695
I saw this coming BUT I thought if they were clever they might get the code
from the Singapore government (Who I think developed OpenTrace) direct?
You can release you code as GPL. But you can also release you code however,
separately if you want.
Also it depends on OpenTrace's libraries and if it's been contributed to.
~~~
toyg
Uhm, no.
Once your code contains GPL code _that is not yours_ , it has to be GPL.
Particularly in v3, where a number of loopholes were closed. You are free to
attach further non-conflicting clauses to it, but the GPL of the original code
must be respected. That’s the entire point of the GPL.
Double-licensing requires you to have ownership of the entire codebase. At
that point, you are licensing _everything_ , so you’re free to pick any
license that suits you.
~~~
cyphar
You're agreeing with the OP. The point they were making was that the
Australian government could've gotten the source code under an alternative
license by asking the sole copyright holder (which I believe is either the
Singaporean government, or a contractor of the Singaporean government).
But to be honest, as an Aussie I don't think our government is remotely
competent enough to have considered the copyright license of the code they
were using. There were initial reports they would provide the source code of
the application, but these promises were quickly revoked for reasons of
"national security" or some other such rubbish.
EDIT: I meant to say that it was a bullshit reason such as "national
security", not that it was a direct quote. The actual reason they claimed was
that it was easier to hack if the source code was public.
~~~
crispinb
_but these promises were quickly revoked_
Were they? Where did you see that?
The Health Dept's response to the Privacy Impact Assessment's recommendation
for release of the app's source code says as follows:
_Agreed. The PIA and source code will be released subject to consultation
with the Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre_
([https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/covidsafe-a...](https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/covidsafe-
application-privacy-impact-assessment-agency-response))
Now that 'consultation' _might_ be a delaying tactic, but it's just as likely
to be that the Dept. of Health has no idea of the implications of such
release. It certainly doesn't suggest the revocation you claim.
~~~
cyphar
I was basing it on the public statements of the Health Minister[1].
Now, it's very possible that they'll release it tomorrow and this whole
discussion will have been a waste of time -- but at the time of writing the
Minister for Government Services said unequivocally that they would release
the source code[2] and later the Health Minister said they were "unsure it
would be safe"[1], and finally when the app was released the source code was
nowhere to be seen. To be fair, he was insistent that they would release it
(despite being "unsure it would be safe").
But sure, I also wouldn't be surprised to discover that the whole process has
been delayed by some other bureaucracy. After all, they probably see releasing
the source code as a token gesture and not a form of review by the public.
[1]: [https://www.itnews.com.au/news/health-minister-now-unsure-
if...](https://www.itnews.com.au/news/health-minister-now-unsure-if-source-
code-for-covid-contact-tracing-app-is-safe-to-release-546981) [2]:
[https://www.itnews.com.au/news/govt-to-release-source-
code-o...](https://www.itnews.com.au/news/govt-to-release-source-code-of-
forthcoming-covid-trace-app-546884)
------
alfiedotwtf
Would anybody be interested in setting up a bounty? I'm thinking first team to
show a major break in privacy wins the pool. I'll put in $100, and I hope
others do too.
Edit: to be explicit, I'm talking about REing the app locally, nothing server
side
------
aapeli
It's called dual licensing.
The Au Gov got the code for TraceTogether (what OpenTrace, the open source
implementation of BlueTrace is based on) weeks before the source was publicly
released as GPL.
~~~
hyperpallium
Not disputing, but do you have a link for when they got source?
Opentrace was open sourced 16 days ago [https://github.com/opentrace-
community/opentrace-android](https://github.com/opentrace-community/opentrace-
android)
~~~
aapeli
Don't have a public source, sorry.
------
lukevdp
In the Privacy Impact assessment that was released here
[https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2020...](https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2020/04/covidsafe-
application-privacy-impact-assessment-agency-response.pdf)
The government is planning to release the source code “subject to consultation
with the Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre.”
Take that for what you will. I suspect some people will take this to mean they
won’t be releasing the source, however at this point I think it’s reasonable
to believe it is still going through this process.
~~~
ggm
On national radio this morning they implied a belief in security-by-obscurity
regarding things. I can't even. (I suspect the journalists mangled what the
ASD said)
------
hyperpallium
They said they would release source, but they've distributed the app first, so
are in breach.
They also said location would not be used, but
android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION
Can't trust them on things that can be checked; therefore can't trust them on
the things that that can't be checked.
~~~
maxden
Yes, I thought they said a few days ago that the source code will be made
available for scrutiny but this now how its being reported:
"Some, if not all, of the app’s source code will be made public."
~~~
pmontra
Will Australians be able to build from source, install and connect to the
central server (if any)? Or at least build and verify that what comes from the
stores is what they built? If not, having the source code doesn't really
matter much.
~~~
barbs
I think it would go a long way in establishing trust if they release the
source code, even if you can't perfectly prove that the binaries are built
from it. They would have to be outright lying if that wasn't the case.
------
Sophistifunk
The Australian government is not to be trusted, they (both parties) have been
trying to take control of the internet for decades now, and even when they're
not trying to do something nefarious, government IT projects have a long
history of incompetence. Even recently (but before CV19) they've been
drastically increasing the reach of the state to spy on people and force
backdoors into software.
------
scoot_718
> Remind them how little time they think before they download dozens of free,
> adware crap games that are likely far worse for their data & privacy than
> this ever would be!”
Not a convincing argument for anything.
------
tgsovlerkhgsel
Does this randomize the Bluetooth address too? I saw the README (from the
dissection) mention a function that hides the name "so the other side only
gets the address", which would defeat the entire purpose of rotating
identifiers.
If it does randomize the Bluetooth address, does it use a separate identifier,
and if so, does it rotate both at the same time? Otherwise, you can use an
identifier that changes at time 1 to link the other identifier with its new
version when it changes at a different time.
~~~
rstuart4133
It's OpenTrace [0]. OpenTrace is GPLv3, and is based on a published
specification that's not too difficult understand. The fact that it _is_
dervived from OpenTrace and they haven't published the source is the whole
basis of this story.
To answer your direct questions:
\- randomize Bluetooth addresses: I expect not, as that would screw any
existing bluetooth connections, like headsets.
\- does it use a separate randomised identifier: yes.
On Android at least you would be foolish to trust it without a verifiable
chain of trust from the source to the binary you are running. It has two
things that matter greatly: your true name, and your precise location. There
is nothing physically preventing them from uploading your whereabouts every 10
minutes to a server - so you have to trust the binary doesn't do that. Right
now we only have their word [1]. Whether you care enough above the sort of
information it could leak to need to trust it is a different question. But if
you do care, you would be a fool to do so without a verifiable chain.
A verifiable chain of trust means:
\- source starts from a trusted origin. (It does: opentrace)
\- there is a cryptographically signed audit trail showing how they change it
to get to its current state. (The original is in github, so that's possible).
\- they publish the source before deployment. (The two points above means
someone inspecting the result only has to look at the changes, not the entire
thing).
\- they use a reproducible build.
[0] [https://github.com/opentrace-community](https://github.com/opentrace-
community)
[1] Right now I'm sure they are good for their word. Move on 24 months and if
you still have it installed, then based on their past history I would not
trust them as far as I could kick them.
~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
The Apple/Google protocol does randomize:
> The advertiser address type shall be Random Non-resolvable.
> The advertiser address, RollingProximityIdentifier, and Associated Encrypted
> Metadata shall be changed synchronously so that they cannot be linked.
(page 5, [https://covid19-static.cdn-
apple.com/applications/covid19/cu...](https://covid19-static.cdn-
apple.com/applications/covid19/current/static/contact-
tracing/pdf/ExposureNotification-BluetoothSpecificationv1.1.pdf))
I assume you can use your "regular" Bluetooth address for any communication
with paired devices (which is then just as trackable as it would be
otherwise), while still using this at the same time for the BTLE
announcements.
However, I suspect these APIs may not be available to non-OS applications.
~~~
rstuart4133
You made me look, and my times have changed.
> I assume you can use your "regular" Bluetooth address for any communication
> with paired devices
It turns out even that's not true. It's normal to use a different mac each
time you connect to the same paired device:
[https://www.lairdconnect.com/support/faqs/why-does-ble-
mac-a...](https://www.lairdconnect.com/support/faqs/why-does-ble-mac-address-
keep-changing-my-smartphone)
I don't know whether it multiple mac's in flight at the same time, but given
the the effort they've put into it, it's entirely possible.
------
enturn
Are there concerns that unpatched Android devices could be vulnerable to the
Bluetooth bug discovered in February this year?
[https://www.welivesecurity.com/2020/02/07/google-critical-
an...](https://www.welivesecurity.com/2020/02/07/google-critical-android-
bluetooth-flaw-attack/)
~~~
gruez
Exploit details were released a few days ago[1]. Some essential bits were
removed, so not any script kiddie can use it, but it's only a matter of time
before a full exploit available publicly.
As for how it relates to the app, I don't think it matters much. I'd imagine
most people already have bluetooth enabled, so using this app or not won't
change their vulnerability status.
[1] [https://insinuator.net/2020/04/cve-2020-0022-an-
android-8-0-...](https://insinuator.net/2020/04/cve-2020-0022-an-
android-8-0-9-0-bluetooth-zero-click-rce-bluefrag/)
------
ggm
I'd love to know where 15 minutes exposed came from. Feels like a value
imputed from a join over battery drain and usefulness. I thought five minutes
made more sense. If you are 15 min within 1.5m of a stranger in most
Australian states you're probably mildly in beach of social distancing.
~~~
aiham
15 minutes was part of the definition for a casual contact 2 months ago, a lot
earlier than the app and the social distancing rules.
[https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2020...](https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2020/03/coronavirus-
covid-19-information-for-casual-contacts-of-a-confirmed-case.pdf)
~~~
ggm
You will notice in that guidance that if you subsequently fall ill as a casual
(sub 15 min) contact they will need to talk to you for contacts tracing..
So that implies there is a health risk burden under 15 which needs to incur
costs of contact tracing at which time this app cannot help.
------
bamboozled
I'm wondering how the application protects against people running malicious
clients works? If the point of this app is to broadcast identifiable
information into the public domain, what is stopping others from snooping this
information and creating their own tracing DB?
~~~
mickotron
Cool go ahead, you're only gonna get my device identifier, phone model, some
encrypted temporary ID that identifies me for 15 minutes, which health agency
the app is affiliated with (the same as the attacker given we are in range),
etc.
Seriously my Facebook app and the underlying Android OS is sucking way more
sensitive data than this is broadcasting. And only to the restricted physical
range of Bluetooth.
And if you did happen to get my device identifier, TempId etc, you still have
to map those to my personal identity. Decrypt my TempId and what do you get,
my app UserId. Not even my phone number. Try harder.
My bigger concern is a malicious client that can exploit a weakness in mine by
sending a specially crafted json payload and gaining remote code execution.
The data on its own is pretty worthless for location tracking. It needs
enrichment or correlation with other data to be used for that purpose.
------
bfgeek
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/17GuApb1fG3Bn0_DVgDQgrtnd...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/17GuApb1fG3Bn0_DVgDQgrtnd_QO3foBl7NVb8vaWeKc/preview)
(preview link might be more useful).
------
stephen_g
My biggest worry (apart from the fact that any Australian law enforcement
agency or intelligence service could serve the department that released the
app with a notice under the TOLA Act (AA bill) to add a backdoor, and they
would be compelled to do it and then deny its existence), is that it probably
just won't be extremely effective, but people will see it as a magic bullet
out of lockdown.
There is a lot of pressure from the right wing and business lobbies to re-open
everything, but the only reason that we have had such low numbers is because
we locked down early and hard.
People are saying "Install the app so we can go back to normal quicker"
already - this is dangerous. With commercial grade hardware and software not
designed for this, we can't assume the app will be reliable all (or even most)
of the time. The period of time somebody is infectious seems to be quite long.
So using the app as an excuse to ease lockdown will not work and would
probably just result in unrestrained community transmission. Especially as we
are coming into winter, we really don't want a second wave!
------
discordance
@Dang - there are a suspicious number of new users on this thread leaving
positive comments about the about the Australian governments new surveillance
app
~~~
processing
Yes, don't think they were aware of news profile names being green for first
<2 weeks. In this instance for the 5 hours they signed up to astroturf.
~~~
dang
Please don't do this here. The site guidelines ask you not to:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
------
timkam
I would assume many GPL-licensed applications are GPL non-compliant. From a
user's perspective, what are the most relevant problems when this is the case?
(Excluding problems of philosophical nature that only free software geeks care
about. No intention to be disrespectful; but the more practical the problems,
the more likely it is that ordinary users can relate to them.)
~~~
zelphirkalt
These "problems of philosophical nature that only free software geeks care
about" however, tend to quickly have very practical consequences, that many
people care about, though. Only that many do not realize, that their problems
would not have happened, if they had used free software. Most people are not
even aware what free software means or that it exists.
So I would not mix the two issues of a problem being a real problem and
people's lack of knowledge about the software licensing world or software in
general. Just because people don't know what the actual root cause is, it does
not mean, that the problem does not exist, or that the people will not care
about consequences, that will affect them.
I will also say,that without idealism of many great people creating free
software and little pockets of free society, we would not be, where we are
today. A very general statement, I know, but I have no doubt in my mind, that
the idea of making knowledge freely available and making sure it stays that
way does help advance society in many areas.
~~~
timkam
It's hard to disagree with the statements you make in this comment, but this
does not answer my question. To say "free software is important" is one thing;
another thing is to say "if a GPL-licensed software includes a closed-source
dependency, this is a news-breaking problem". Considering the deep dependency
trees many applications have, I would assume incompatible licenses in an app
or library, and yes--even closed source dependencies in GPL-licensed
applications--is a problem that occurs rather frequently. I think there is a
generic problem at the intersection of license management and dependency
management. COVIDSafe is just an example of this, and given the prevalence of
these issues, I think it is in itself not particularly newsworthy.
------
henvic
In my opinion, GPL is just another flavor of proprietary software and they
should stop calling it free software or even opensource. Something like
"Copyleft shared source" would make more sense to what it really is.
[https://medium.com/@henvic/opensource-and-go-what-
license-f6...](https://medium.com/@henvic/opensource-and-go-what-
license-f6b36c201854)
~~~
MaxBarraclough
As terms-of-art in the software world, 'Free software' and 'Open Source
software' have clear accepted definitions. There's nothing wrong with being an
advocate for 'copycenter' licences, but please don't muddy the waters.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Advertisers Blacklist Hard News, Including Trump, Fearing Backlash - forgingahead
https://www.wsj.com/articles/advertisers-blacklist-hard-news-including-trump-fearing-backlash-11565879086?mod=rsswn
======
forgingahead
This is an important trend, but as usual the news people have slanted it to
their own benefit: Advertisers are not blacklisting "hard news", they're just
fed up with their brands being associated with negative, sensationalist
reporting.
These types of blacklists are _good_ , especially if they ideally force media
companies to drop the emotional clap-trap and get back to proper reporting and
journalism.
Media has always been manipulative, but it's become incredibly heightened in
the deathmatch for eyeballs and ad clicks. If the ad-buying companies continue
this pushback, perhaps the media companies will start reporting the news in a
more neutral & factual way.
~~~
hos234
Yup interesting trend. The real story is the public has made this happen.
Given the kind of cut throat competition that exists, Marketing manager don't
really get "fed up". They are more focused on hitting their weekly numbers,
than on where the numbers come from. It's all the screen grabs and naming and
shaming on social media that makes them notice and change tack.
I see the public pressure getting more organized and targeted in future.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The World's First Digitally Signed International Agreement - jkaljundi
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/12/behold-the-worlds-first-digitally-signed-international-agreement/282582/
======
ericcumbee
>they've been widely adopted in the business world (and, controversially, by
President Obama)
The link discussed President Obama's use of an Autopen to sign a bill. I'm not
entirely sure how that is comparable to Digital Signatures.
~~~
jkaljundi
It is always strange coming from Estonia with strong crypto based certificate
based digital signatures hearing services like Echosign or Hellosign called
digital signing, when often people there use writing their name in an input
field and the software turning it into a Comic Sans like script being called a
digital signature.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
SemanticProxy: Jump-Starting the Semantic Web - babyshake
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/reuters_semanticproxy_jump-start.php
======
jonmc12
Same silly data collection based on NLP and/or meta-data. Reuters is not going
to jump start anything until they pair this with a meaningful notion of user
intent.
~~~
drewp
Why don't _you_ pair it? The advance with opencalais is that they offer a
production-level service that's very easy to use and integrate. (Especially
when they get normalization working.)
Jump start != produce a complete end-to-end solution including whatever
components you happen to think are essential
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Under quoted, late, no contract unpaid project - damaru
Hi there, I am learning the hard way how to manage client. I am in the end of a contract, well without any contract, with a client. I quote way under because I wasn't clear on the work that needed to be done. I am really late on delevery of the contract - client is pissed and angry. And I only received part of a security deposit. I probably should have step away from the contract months ago, but I stayed with the process in the feeling that the project was just about to be done.<p>One major problem that arose, is that the brief for the project wasn't complete. It was in the form of, 'We want that part like it was, but make these change' 'This part leave it as it was working on the site' 'This part you can remove'. So I had to learn the site itself without knowing really what I was doing. Now that site was half broken on it's way out, and now it's not working anymore, so I cannot have the bigger picture.<p>Now the client wants the site done. I am not sure when it will be done since I don't have a clear image. They don't want to pay until the site is done, I need food so I work on other project at the same time, which makes me a lot slower on delivering on that first project. I invested hundreds of hours on that project, so I feel like walking away would be a huge loss, but the time I spend on this project I cannot spend it on paying project...<p>That seems the typical, I just started to freelance and getting the learning experience in! What would HN do with that project? The remaining payment is around 10 000$, which is quite substantial for me.
======
mrmincent
Create a scoping document now. You need to put down on paper what needs to be
done.
Find all the emails between you and your client that happened up until you
sent the quote to the client. Put any requirements from those emails into your
scoping document. That is what you work towards. Send this to the client to
sign off on.
Gather any requirements asked for since and put that in a new scoping
requirement for releases 2, 3 and 4 if need be. Send these to the client to
sign off on.
Explain to the client that you are happy to deliver what is being asked for,
but you will need payment on delivery of the first release, and each release
after. If you have to split the $10k up over different releases, do so, but
explain to them that as the scope of the project has evolved you will have to
charge for the extra work that has fallen outside of the original project.
All that said, if you are skipping actual paying work to try and get this to
work, you are missing out twice. You have already sunk a lot of time into the
project for potentially nothing. Don't skip your baths on the chance that it
rains.
~~~
damaru
That's what I was wondering about. Seems like there is a lot of dirty clothes
to clean at this point. I sent an email to the client yesterday to sit down
and talk, instead of them sending angry email of 'Why isn't this ready- and
how about that part - and this part which we never talked about'. Not only
that, but there is an intermediary person between me and the company. And
there seems to be another intemediary person between her and the 'bosses'.
If I take one thing from that is learning to work 16 hours a day for many days
in a row. I am getting tired but at least I know I can put the extra effort
when needed, as long as it doesn't stay like that for too long.
~~~
mrmincent
Yeah mate at this stage I would work out a timeline for the next six months
and if this project can't fit in you're better off getting rid of it. It sucks
for everyone involved, but if things are going to carry on the same for the
next 6 months you might as well end it sooner rather than later.
------
saluki
Aside from in the future work with a contract, I would also recommend breaking
all projects up in to phases with incremental payments. That way you are
satisfied the client is paying and the client can verify they are happy with
the work. And you'll find out if there are going to be issues early on.
Sounds like things are getting out of control with this project as far as
scope and payments.
I would setup a scope of work in phases for what you quoted initially. Note
what is completed. Then setup a reasonable time frame to complete the
remaining items along with incremental payments and an initial payment to
cover some of the work you completed above the initial deposit.
Be careful with this as far as when you can complete it and how much payment
you expect. If things are way more work than they should have been now is the
time to ask for extra time/money. And if you can pad your schedule some I
would do that as well so you meet all the remaining deadlines to keep them
happy and paying.
This will document that you have far exceeded what they have paid for so far .
. . in their initial payment.
Once you have this, contact them and let them know you are committed to
completing the project this is the time frame and payment schedule you are
proposing to make it happen.
If they balk at doing this I would indicate you will send them an invoice for
the work completed beyond their initial payment and you'll be happy to provide
their next developer with a summary of the status of the project to get them
up and running.
Follow up and send them an invoice for the % of work completed. Best case they
pay this . . . but this is mainly to allow them to screw you by not paying
this invoice and not think about trying to ask for their initial deposit back.
They might not be as mad as you think and just want a cost/time frame for
their project so if the scope is out of line you could even propose more fee.
To cover items they have added or if the existing app was in bad shape.
You should probably weigh if you'd be happy getting away from this project
with just their initial deposit. If so you might want to try to go the invoice
for % complete route and move on to other projects.
Good luck.
------
codezero
I'm not a freelancer so my advice may not be practical. Talk to your client,
let them know 1) you are committed to finishing the project 2) you don't know
how long it will take 3) you want to better understand your client's needs,
and in doing so, you can get a better idea of how long it will take.
Let them know that because you are a freelancer, you have other contracts too,
so that will be a factor in determining how much time it will take to deliver
for them. It's reasonable to say that not having any of the project fee will
mean you need to have more parallel projects to pay the bills, and you might
see if you can get some amount for work delivered so you can scale off other
contracts and dedicate more time to them.
------
johnjlocke
The advice so far is very sound; I will add this as well. In the future, work
with a contract, and never work without one again. This first thing to do in
future projects is define the scope and make sure that both you and the client
are in agreeance on what will be delivered and when for how much.
For this project, the blame is entirely on yourself. That is not meant to be
harsh. No contract, you were not clear on what you were doing but took the job
and did not set expectations correctly. This is a learning experience -
communicate where you are with the project to the client on a regular basis
from now on.
------
fsk
Another way to look at it is the time spent already is a sunk cost.
Figure out how much time it will take you to finish, and your effective hourly
rate to get the remaining $10k. If it's a reasonable hourly rate, go ahead and
finish. Otherwise, walk away.
Also, that's why it's better to work hourly rather than fixed-price. That way
you avoid arguments when the client increases the scope.
You don't need to always have an airtight contract. What I do is make a limit
on how much I'm willing to risk, and once that limit is reached I stop working
until I get paid.
------
wikwocket
Do you want to walk away from it, or try to complete it? Your post doesn't
seem to say, so I'm not sure, but it does sound like a bad situation where it
may be in everyone's best interests to move on.
Don't obsess about the time you spent on it. It is a sunk cost; try not to let
it bias you against the best course moving forward. Instead you might
consider:
1) How much deposit did they make? Can you afford to walk away and return this
amount?
2) What is the best case scenario if you proceed? $10k is a lot (although not
that much if this is a 250-hour project) but are they likely to pay it?
Without a contract?
3) What is the worst case scenario if you stop the project? Are you
incorporated, in case this comes to legal action? Feel free to ask a lawyer
for a free consultation to find out more.
~~~
damaru
My plan is to finish the contract - but not held hostage by it. Trying to find
the best solution for everyone.
I can't afford to walk away and give back the deposit at this point. The
client seems serious enough to end up paying. I might have high hope as well
since they're German (why do I trust them more is probably just a preconceived
idea).
The site itself is live and 95% working for the user. There will still be a
big part of administration and management that I see coming shortly - which is
working as far as I can tell but will be another story when they start
managing their site.
I have talked to a lawyer, but at this point I got told, since it was
international online business stuff I needed to get a specialize lawyer and
would need to put the money down first. We aren't incorporated yet, just moved
from freelancer to owning my own business. I am not too worried legally at
this point, I am more worried about tears and sweat - and the negeative impact
it has on the other part of my business.
Thanks for the comment, it help just to put it out there and see different
points of view!
------
brandonhsiao
Future advice: at the beginning, sit down with clients and draw up a
comprehensive list of _specific features_ they want created. Quote them for
this exact list. Any adjustments, updates, new features, etc.--charge an
hourly rate.
Don't feel like a dick charging for every single little feature. An hourly
rate guarantees fairness. If the feature only takes ten minutes to add, great,
they're only paying ten minutes of cash. If the feature takes longer, you
deserve to be paid for that too.
~~~
tostitos1979
I lost 2K this way many years ago. Didn't have a contract. I didn't get the
money. It was like 2K or something. It felt bad but I got over it. Learned a
lesson.
Another freelancer who was there bragged how he had a lawyer on retainer. I
didn't get into freelancing much so don't know how good of an idea that is.
Would love to hear best practices.
------
ohsnap
Easier said than done but: Fire the client, cut your losses and move on. Be
direct - tell him/her that the project wasn't managed right, their
expectations are out of line and there is no end in sight.
Don't try to convince your self you can fix the project. Faster you get away
the faster you can get new clients that you will be able to manage better.
Also don't panic: everyone learns the hard way to manage clients :)
~~~
damaru
I hear you with that. It's hard to let go of something you sunk hundreds of
hours. It would be quite healtier to just fire them and move on. It would have
a tremendous positive effect on my days on my business.
I am thinking to do it in 2 phases. I am finishing the last wave of update to
the site today or tomorrow. From then on I'll let them know as I said to them
previously if the want any other update/changes, they have to pay if not the
contract is done. At least I give them a bone, and if they pay I am willing to
continue the relation.
Yes indeed, it was the hard way to learn to manage client. Although I read
about it so many time, I just jumped in hoping it wouldn't be one of those...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An Unexpected Toolbox for a Beginner Programmer: Emacs-Prelude-Colemak-SandS - ThisIsSavo
https://thisissavo.github.io/programming/music/2017/02/03/an-unexpected-toolbox-for-a-beginner-programmer.html
======
ThisIsSavo
Hey, I am a beginner programmer and I wrote a blog post about some things that
I use, such as: Emacs text editor, colemak keyboard layout, Shift and Space
keyboard remapping etc. I would like to hear your comments if you have any.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mortal Kombat 3 source code leaked - mrpippy
https://archive.org/download/MortalKombat3SourceCodeDump
======
arayh
For anyone interested, MK3_source_windows_RC2.tar has the source code for the
arcade version of MK3, which contains commented assembly from Ed Boon
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I'm surprised they didn't add "Expert at moonwalking" to the skills list - alexkearns
http://www.jobstheword.co.uk/Job/Info/1186/Digital_Designer/Guildford/Allianz
======
wccrawford
Sounds like they just lost a jack-of-all-trades by refusing to pay him what
he's worth as he improves... And now they're trying to find another for the
same price.
Imagine their surprise when they find out that's actually a job for 3-5
specialists at those prices.
------
pitiburi
Well, it seems right for the Huuuge salary they offer!
~~~
michaelcampbell
> £22,000 - £32,000 + bens
That's per quarter, right?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Jan. 1 has become the birthday for Afghans who don't know when they were born - kumarski
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2022570799_afghanbirthdaysxml.html
======
jdmitch
In a lot of the world Jan. 1 is everyone's birthday. Or Dec. 31 (The article
cites Somalia, Sudan and Vietnam as other examples, but I have been to several
other countries where the majority of the rural population has the same
issue). It's not really a big deal - some people just don't care what the
exact date was that they were born. It seems a bit culturally imperialistic to
impose that norm on a lot of issues (aid distribution, human rights, passport
standards, etc.)
This is the quote cited from the UN report, which makes a case for the
importance of registration pragmatically:
_> “Birth registration is instrumental in safeguarding other human rights
because it provides the official ‘proof’ of a child’s existence,”_
... but it begs the question for any parent in this situation: "Why do I need
proof, my child is right here in front of me?!"
~~~
pjc50
It is, like most forms of official identity, primarily for the benefit of
official databases and categorisation systems. But not entirely:
Birth registration and death registration are a matched pair that enable the
tracking and prevention of certain kinds of abuse. In Victorian England, way
before the availability of contraception or abortion, there was "baby
farming". This involved a oneoff payment to send an unwanted infant to be
"looked after" with no further contact. The baby farms had very high mortality
rates, which everyone turned a blind eye to. This was eventually stamped out.
See e.g.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Dyer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Dyer)
The most famous example of "why do I care about my birth certificate" is of
course Barack Obama. Some people were determined to make it very important.
~~~
alexeisadeski3
Which other nations require native birth for position?
------
pizza
Hah, here I was thinking the title referred to account sign-up pages, where
Afghanistan would be the default country and January 1st the default date.
Programmer's first reaction, haha...
~~~
StringyBob
Same here. The twist for a programmer is that if you run a system and were to
'ignore' all Jan 1st Afghan registrations as people who have filled in junk
data on registration forms, you would be also potentially be skipping over
lots of real users!
------
rmc
Seems like someone needs to do a "Falsehoods programmers believe about
birthday" ;)
It's not suprising really. Many people don't track this when they don't need
to. Many people used to not track how old they were (i.e. what year they were
born in), because it didn't matter.
The UK brought in an old aged pension for everyone about 100 years ago. But
you had to be over a certain age. So people suddenly found reason for figuring
out how old they were. There had been censuses in the UK for ~50 years before
that, but the age didn't matter. You could find people who only "aged" 5 years
between 1901 and 1911 ;). It's messy stuff like that that can make genology
difficult.
------
pseingatl
Roman calendar? I think the reporter means, "Gregorian" calendar. That's the
calendar used in the U.S. and by U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and by everyone
else in the Middle East when they wish to make a distinction from the hejira
calendar. Although maybe a legacy of the Russian occupation is the use of the
Julian calendar? Who knows? It's sloppy reporting.
Also, Chinese people have individual birthdays. However, black children born
in many counties of northern Florida before 1930 were not given birth
certificates.
~~~
abrowne
Maybe they got "Roman" from Roman alphabet? – another culture import of the
Western forces.
------
pinaceae
This had an adverse affect on the Austrian SSN number scheme. The number was
your birthday plus 4 digits. In a country with less than 8million people and a
functioning healthcare system this works nicely, generates a unique
identifier. a lot of software was built around this premise, a government
issued, unique identifier.
migration brought in people from turkey, which a while ago was one of the
countries handing out estimated birthdays. whenever a gov official visited a
town, all new babies were registered and got a birthday at the first of the
month.
boom.
the SSN in Austria can no longer be considered unique, but still a lot of
newbies fall into this trap.
the butterfly effect.
------
heyadayo
In South Korea, it is literally everyone's birthday on January 1st.
[http://voices.yahoo.com/korean-age-
birthdays-5317511.html](http://voices.yahoo.com/korean-age-
birthdays-5317511.html)
~~~
jemeshsu
For Chinese, it is on seventh day of the lunar new year. Its called “renri”
(人日), literally "human" "day". On this day, for southeast asia Chinese, you
eat the Yusheng (鱼生) raw fish salad dish
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusheng](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusheng).
You can eat yusheng any days during Chinese New Year, just that it is more
prosperous to eat it on human day.
------
Kiro
In Sweden this has caused issues with uniqueness of the social security number
for immigrants.
------
edanm
This is very common.
In Israel, a lot of people immigrated here from e.g. Iraq, and they don't know
their birthday. I guess in some cultures birthdays just weren't remembered (at
least in the past, maybe that's changing?).
~~~
yen223
I'd imagine that turmoil is major factor for the deficiencies in record-
keeping.
My father's official birthday is a few months after his actual birthday,
because he was born right in the middle of the Japanese occupation of our
country. Couldn't get a birth certificate until after WW2 had ended.
------
moha114aw
In Ethiopia, most of the rural born population (more than 80%) don't know
their exact date of birth. So, what their parents usually do is try to find
some historical reference that occurred during their childrens' birthday and
approximate it to some specific date.
------
pearjuice
>but since the American invasion, it’s become a new kind of holiday — a de
facto birthday for thousands of Afghans who don’t know when they were born
Speaking about cultural and capitalist propaganda. In a lot of countries (due
to religious motives) birthdays are not celebrated. In fact, true Christianity
is also very anti-birthday but capitalism and other mass-spending arguments
basically altered those beliefs for their own good.
~~~
aestra
True Christianity? Let's not invoke the no true Scotsman fallacy here. Yes it
is true that some Christians at some times thought celebrating birthdays was
wrong. Notably the Puritans and Quakers and currently the Jehovah's witnesses.
These groups also don't celebrate Christmas. There's also many Christians who
allow the celebration of birthdays and never had a problem with it as far as I
can tell. It wasn't always capitalism and mass spending just cultural
exchange. Charles Dickens has a lot to do with our modern Christmas for
example.
------
ExpiredLink
I work for a governmental organization that in case of a missing birth date
records only the year and sets month and day to 0 (e.g. 1972-00-00). This, at
first sight, reasonable workaround from a user's point of view has some
unanticipated ramifications when you search for a person. Those month- and
day-less are born on each day of a year ...
------
darkhorn
It was same in Turkey, it has changed. Now they register it as it as July 1.
------
drdeadringer
I know a planet where every year is "Year One"...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sold my dipshit company for $5m, where to invest? - to_the_top
Hey, I recently sold my dipshit company for $5m cash and I have spent some money buying real estate only about $400k (an office for myself, for 200 and commercial unit (not rented out yet)) and invested another 500k in stocks/bonds (with my inv broker). I am having a hard time finding good RE brokers who can find other properties for me (they all send me the same MLS listings, no private deals) and my investment broker is only able to provide me with 4-5% return, my own portfolio of 300k is doing better then his and I am new at this. So I am wondering, what practical advice anyone can give me so I can safely invest this money to beat inflation and live off of this for the rest of my life. Should I invest more of it into stocks? Should I buy a strip mall? or a strip club? :P I need practical advice investing, most stocks I have looked into for blue chip companies yield around 3%? and I would not want to put all of my money into stocks to make $150k a year off of $5m, with 1% being inflation and being taxed on that. Any sites/books/ideas let me know, I am thinking of doing a real estate course myself just so I can look at my own listings and invest properly into real estate.<p>edit: I am hoping the investments can be somewhat passive so I can focus on a new startup. I am in Ontario, Canada.<p>edit: I am 23, not married, no children :)
======
ChuckMcM
An interesting dilemma is it not? As you're young and inexperienced you are
not unlike the 3 or 4 folks who become millionaires under the California
lottery each year.
So good news and bad news, good news is you have choices, bad news is
commercial real estate is (by some estimates) the next thing to go into the
crapper).
Lets say you had $5M clear to work with. Yes, the 2 - 4% "return" is currently
'safe' money (which is to say treasury bill equivalents) so take $2M and buy a
treasury bill 'ladder', these things are sold by the government quarterly and
you can buy them at all maturities, so you split $2M equally into 40 parts,
buy 10 year T-bills with their 3.5% return and you end up with about $70,000 a
year (in the US at least) which is tax free. (So that is like having a salary
of $110K/year before taxes.)You buy a place to live and if you want, you
create another income stream to cover the taxes for that place.
At that point you've insured you're not going to go homeless or hungry and you
are left with between 1.5 - 2 million to be a bit more speculative with.
Putting .5 - .75M into equities is a reasonable way to capture that growth and
it gives you a way to augment some of your return. If you want to just
"participate" then buying index funds on the S&P 500 can do that with minimal
hassle.
If you go the Angel route you can invite people to tell you how they are going
to change the world and sponsor some of them. I suspect you will learn a lot
doing this, but I would not expect it to be particularly profitable.
You can find another niche, create a company to fill that niche, build it up
and sell it too.
Oh and I don't think you want a 'broker' what you want is a Financial Advisor
(There is a separate certification for them, they don't trade stocks directly
so they generally have less conflict of interest when it comes to fees).
Sounds like a nice problem to have, hope you do better than the Californians
(the Lottery here has depressing statistics about how some very large
percentage of lottery winners have lost it all in 18 months, sad really).
~~~
to_the_top
Solid Advice, I was looking up T-Bills, and I think the return is 1.5%
(<http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/rates/tbill.html>)
Any advice on which firm to talk to about the financial advisor?
~~~
ChuckMcM
Hmm I used this page: <http://www.treasury.gov/Pages/default.aspx> and went to
the 10yr note and looked at its return. So to be clear, I'm talking about US
Treasury Bills and not Canadian Treasury Bills. If you have a relationship
with a financial institution you can buy them 'directly' (which is to say you
own t-bills as opposed to buy into a fund which invests in t-bills) at $10,000
each. (insert caveat about 'Goldman Sachs' which handles sales of t-bills to
individual investors and takes a cut, grrrr)
I don't have a magic bullet for finding a good financial advisor, mine cold
called me in 1988 when I was at Sun and convinced me to by some California
Municipal bonds. Now going on 23 years later I still consult her for financial
advice. I think its more of a style thing in terms of being able to talk with
someone about what makes sense and what doesn't with investing.
To give you an example, I was waaaaaaaaaaay over invested in tech in the 90's.
My advisor told me I was, but didn't push me to do something different. 2000
may not have had a y2k bug disaster but it was financially painful for me.
Some folks might blame their advisor for not being forceful enough and getting
me out of tech, but I don't roll that way. I heard what she had to say, we
talked about the pros and cons, and I went with 'let it ride for one more
roll' (a reference to the game of craps).
I was less forgiving of a recommendation for a fund manager who turned out to
be a total turd. But I'm a big believer in Iacocca's comment that if more than
half your decisions are good then you are ahead of the game. So advice for
looking for an advisor:
1) Interview them, ask them the 'hard' questions, like "did you suggest to
anyone to invest in Madoff's schemes?" (note either 'no' or 'yes' has good
follow up questions, "No? It was such a great return why not?", "Yes? Even
when the returns were out of line with other investments?")
2) Know that the wider the diversification the closer to the mean you will
get. If the S&P 500 has a return of X% and someone tells you they can
guarantee you > 1.5X% return, then you know they are not being truthful :-)
Doing about 50% better than the S&P 500 occasionally has sort of emerged for
me as a good razor for becoming suspicious. (note that 'banks' make there
boatloads of cash on volume, not because they beat the S&P by 50% but because
they beat it by a small amount but on a lot of other peoples money, and
FedRsrv money but that is a whole different rant)
3) Check for compatibility. Everyone is different in how they interact with
each other, and money, like sex, is one of those things that often has some
really strong notions that were burned into ones brain at an impressionable
age which color the way you look at everything. Risk averse? Risk seeking?
Money as a tool? Money as a game score? Do they define themselves by how much
money they manage? Do you? Its perhaps the hardest thing to get right.
------
pclark
Love to hear your "dipshit company" story. Do a post?
~~~
sagacity
Yes, please do!
Edit: Added: I'm sure many here would benefit from this.
~~~
to_the_top
i will do a post on it soon.
~~~
sagacity
Will look forward to it, thanks.
Also, if you do this via a new thread, make sure you post the URL of that
thread here, so that people can track from here. :-)
------
rbranson
Until you figure it out, immediately dump half of it into a Vanguard 500 Index
fund (VFINX). Vanguard's management fees are tiny (one quarter of one percent-
ish). No other risk investment will do you better than the S&P 500 as it's
compound annual growth rate has been 8.92% since 1897. Also, getting in and
out of the fund can be done in $100 increments and there are no fees for it,
so your money stays in a pretty liquid state.
~~~
dstein
With this much money you obviously don't want to be dropping the whole lot
into the market at one point. If this were 2009 it would've been a great
decision, but after a 2-year bull run that looks like it's petering out I'd
probably opt to keep most of it in cash/bonds/money market until you have a
better plan for the money.
~~~
rbranson
Perhaps over a 3-year span. However, over 10-20 years, you can't beat the
market. Even if you try to predict the ups and downs, the odds are pretty
stacked against you. The only funds that have been able to beat the market
over a non-trivial span of time have been pyramid schemes.
------
latj
How old are you? Are you married? Have Children?
I would suggest moving to New Zealand. They are looking for new citizens. You
can buy a big ranch for nothing and live in paradise for the rest of your
days.
Or, if you have young children, you could move to northern Europe- Sweden or
Finland. Your children are very likely to receive quality healthcare and
education.
Or, if you really have to stay in the U.S., I would invest a fraction of your
nest egg in ammunition. Really. This stuff lasts forever and only goes up in
value. Gold is almost useless to me.
Or, you could buy the abandoned house next door to me in St. Louis, MO. In the
past it housed a hoarder and a grandmother of drug dealers. It has gone many
weeks without a door and has been empty now for months. If you buy this house,
I cannot promise to feed you for the rest of your life, but if you still live
in America, are honestly trying to feed yourself, and are unable too- I will
help you find something to eat.
Let me know.
~~~
hsmyers
Same advice excepting location--- I'd suggest Ireland instead, hide out until
the world stabilizes (if it ever does).
~~~
dmc
Ireland has a huge cost-of-living, awful healthcare, and is terribly run.
It's a good place to house a corporation(the tax is very low) but for living
in... You'd want to be very secure, financially.
------
eunomad
One of my friends just buys lots and lots of gold. I think it depends on your
goals and what you want to achieve. In your prior post about selling, you said
you wanted to pursue something bigger. Taking that into consideration, you
would want to keep away from real estate in today's market where it is flooded
and then you have to remember that owning real estate also requires management
of the assets/upkeep etc.
Since Africa is having a meltdown and the Iran just took some war ships
through the Suez, I would say military companies would be a good investment
right now. Also, I would look to companies that help Americans forget their
troubles such as entertainment, food etc.
There is a really cool Vodka company in Alaska, Alaska Distillery, that might
interest you. They have a cool product and want to expand internationally.
They make Salmon Vodka which is a niche product. There are three partners and
maybe you can buy one out.. (I don't have any ownership in this company) They
have amazing sales that are strong and steady and they have a great leader
running the company.
You don't have to buy stocks on the stock market, you can find a stable
smaller company with good growth and invest money in it without too much risk
and get a nice income in return.
------
gte910h
If you're looking for longterm investments that are active, franchise
businesses (7-Elevens, Dunkin Donuts, etc) are remarkably stable. Magic
Johnson is a _huge_ investor in these for this reason (and has a line of
theaters)
Generally speaking, diversification is very very important.
Even though bonds, stocks, or other items might be doing poorly at the moment,
diversification protects against a precipitous loss. So get some of each sort
of security, some real estate, some counter cyclical stock (aka invest in
companies that do fine in down markets). Make sure you get very comfy with
your insurance agents as well: Liability and Errors and Omission insurance are
very important now, as you're a target. Make sure you're properly covered on
all your properties and that you use limited liability mechanisms with all
your business ventures. Be very careful you understand what actions as a board
member/fiduciary officer are not covered by the policies.
Additionally, keep more than you'd think is useful in a cash/near cash
account. Opportunities arise quickly. The ability to write a 200k check this
afternoon can make you many times your 5m sometimes.
A very serious aside:
At the same time, be _very_ careful of deals with ??? in the plan, especially
with people related to illegal drugs. If you're not sure what your money is
going, it might be going to normal wasteful stuff, or it could end up related
to drugs.
This is a good way to find everything of yours frozen, and you finding things
getting seized (I looked at some of your old comments is why I mention this
point, having known people who have had run ins when in a position like
yours).
~~~
JSig
Your note on diversification reminds me of a video I recently saw from Eric
Sprott. In it he said the following.
"I focus in on things. I get deep into things that I like. I dont worry about
diversification. I think it was Warren Buffet who coined the term
'diworsification'. I dont belive in diversification. For example on the long
side of our funds we are well through 70% into precious metals. For me, I am
probably into 70-80% gold. For me it does not bother me because I know that is
the place where I have to go."
He is a man of conviction.
~~~
gte910h
Depends on life goals. If your primary goal is to amass further wealth, large
bets on single items/industries can pay off very well. However, if your goal
is to not lose wealth, then diversification is a very good strategy. The OP is
in the latter school with these particular investments.
Additionally, I find it ironic you bring up Buffett: Berkshire is diversifying
out of insurance :D
[http://www.financialexpress.com/news/warren-buffett-
scouts-f...](http://www.financialexpress.com/news/warren-buffett-scouts-for-
buys/755525/)
>Foremost, though, was his acknowledgment of the need for Berkshire to expand
its non-insurance businesses, a broad collection that most prominently
includes the railroad Burlington Northern and the electric utility
MidAmerican.
~~~
jsarch
Expanding on your advice: when diversifying it helps to not throw darts. It
may be best to not have investments only in tech, auto, health, etc., but it's
quite another to randomly choose a company or two in different sectors.
Unsolicited advice ;-):
* Tech: ARMH over MSFT over FB (phones/tablets need to be low, low power and P/E of FB seems egregious)
* Auto: VLKAY over F over GM (100MPG TDI trumps "made in USA" trumps bankruptcy)
* Health: ILMN (NGS is the next $100BB market <http://bit.ly/fYehBI> )
(OP: I'd be more than happy to be a "trial run" for your angel investing. ha!
;-)
------
gopi
I am in a similar situation but i was so parnoid and keeping most of my money
in a treasury money market fund for years. Now i am slowly trying to get into
a 50/50 diversified bond-equity portfolio slowly in the next 2-3 years (via
dollar cost averaging).
To all the curious people there are a lot of lifestyle success like this
(which you wont read in techcrunch) from seo/ppc affiliates to viral websites
to SaS companies, you just have to search for it.
------
nickbp
The best thing you can do right now is taking a good 3-6 months to figure out
what you want to do with this money, framed in terms of what you want to do in
your life. Just park the money in a safe place (eg money market fund, treasury
bills) and work things out. There's no need to rush into things, the money
will still be there when you know what you want to accomplish with it.
After you've done that, you should have some idea of when/whether you plan to
use the money, and how comfortable you are with losing some of it. To be
honest, you're probably best off just choosing a reasonable mix of
stocks/bonds/cash which reflects your goals/needs, then going on with your
life. 5mil sounds like a lot, but in investment-land it's not an unusual
amount for a family to have saved for retirement. You would be well off to
check out the Bogleheads wiki and forum at <http://bogleheads.org>. The forum
would be an excellent place to post any questions you may have.
With regard to specific allocations, here are some example mixes between
stocks and bonds, and how those behaved over 40 years. It's not the best
chart, but it should give you some idea. Note that the author is subtracting
out an annual 1% management fee from those returns, which is completely bogus.
Go with good index funds and you'll be paying 1/15th of that.
[http://www.fundadvice.com/images/stories/fundadvice_images/f...](http://www.fundadvice.com/images/stories/fundadvice_images/fine_tuning_full.pdf)
Also, if you ultimately decide that you really want to get into real estate,
you might want to consider REIT mutual funds/ETFs, rather than buying
individual real estate properties and the risk/maintenance that comes with
them.
------
chopsueyar
Look for an "exclusive buyer agent" in your area for real estate.
<http://www.naeba.org/>
There are many good deals in residential and commercial properties (used for
rental income and a store of value).
If you are interested in the southwest Florida area, check out
<http://truesarasota.com>. Call and ask for Bill. Mention what you wrote
above. He will take good care of you.
You may want to try one or two residential rental investments and see if you
prefer residential or commercial. It really does depend on your strengths and
having a trustworthy network of people (handymen, estimators, inspectors,
plumbers, electricians, etc).
Rent out your commercial unit ASAP. Get some revenue, at least to offset the
taxes. Collect first month's, last month's, and a security deposit equal to
the month's rent for your commercial property.
When a commercial tenant breaks the lease, you may be responsible for removing
any materials and heavy equipment the previous tenant has left. This takes
time and money and you cannot rent the space again until it is taken care of.
You may want to reconsider a personal office and use a home office instead.
There may be better tax benefits to that situation, while generating
additional rental revenue for your newly vacant office. Build a new detached
home-office/garage.
You also have enough money to buy enough solar panels to never have an
electrical bill (provided your house is not too large). There are many tax
incentives for this, too. Not paying for electricity seems like part of a good
strategy to beat inflation. This may also work for your commercial properties.
Congrats on your success.
------
iworkforthem
Last time, I check real estate is about location, location, location. Every
place has its own demographics and its own legislations. I dun know any
books/sites can teach you all that.
I am familiar with how the real estate operating in Singapore, but across
Malaysia & Indonesia, it's a very different case. The same is with you. You
have to be there to know how people does business there.
Across the board, one thing I find some similar is that money move when
investing in property quite a lot. Investors tends to seek out undervalued
properties, buy in.... rent it out.... hold for a few years and sell.
Example... A few years ago, properties are hot in China, Hong Kong, etc..
Government come in... and it is no more.. Now it's going back Europe and USA
again.
Take time to understand the location, why does the property make sense. Who
does it make sense to? Financially how will it make sense for you in the next
3-5 years timeframe.
------
k00k
Dude, you can't call your company something funny like "dipshit" and then not
tell us what it was! That's just evil.
------
sagacity
Congrats on the sale first!
Have you thought about setting aside, let's say 5 or 10% of it for (angle)
investing in a few promising startups?
HTH
~~~
to_the_top
I don't think I can become a angel investor yet, but I will be using some of
the money to fund my own future ventures though.
------
brudgers
To understand real-estate and its development, I recommend the Urban Land
Institute [www.uli.org].
With "only" $5 million, you probably don't have enough to make a big enough
impression on the commercial side to get preferential treatment. Real estate
is similar to startup investing in that there are relatively tight communities
of investors who do deals together. In my opinion, there is little reason to
seek a real-estate license if your goal is to invest - commissions are just a
line in your _pro forma_. What is valuable is insight into the market - not
the conventional wisdom which floats around among agents.
------
flashgordon
Mate first of all congratulations. While I cannot give you advice on how to
invest your money, I would just caution against marketing your company as a
"dipshit company". What is that hinting about your buyer and your product?
Again I am guessing by "dipshit" company you actually mean a company that you
felt was not adding any value and you found some one gullible enough to buy
it. If you had a more positive connotation then my sincerest apologies!
But congratulations once again (another person I am not jealous of :D).
------
amurmann
I strongly recommend "Unconventional Success" by David Swensen
([http://www.amazon.com/Unconventional-Success-Fundamental-
App...](http://www.amazon.com/Unconventional-Success-Fundamental-Approach-
Investment/dp/0743228383/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298992329&sr=8-1)). The book
reads a lot like a text book, but everything he sais just seems to make sense.
The man is CIO at Yale university. SO he should know what he is talking about.
~~~
anamax
> The man is CIO at Yale university. SO he should know what he is talking
> about.
Yale's endowment lost 30% in 2009
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/business/11harvard.html> .
Heck - even the stuff that I barely pay attention to did better than that.
How many of you lost 30% on the investments that you manage?
~~~
nickbp
From the article, it sounds like 'fiscal 2009' must've encompassed late
2008/early 2009, in which case 30% losses would not be abnormal. Otherwise
this line sounds a bit odd:
_At the end of fiscal 2008, Yale continued to turn in the best 10-year
performance with an average annualized gain of 16.3 percent, which was
followed by Harvard with 13.8 percent._
------
mmk
hi there, a couple tips/ideas \- almost all brokers are not investors, they
get a commission when they sell you investment products - keep that in mind.
\- probably invest 80% in stuff that retains value/grows steadily and 20% in
high risk/return stuff. \- real estate is probably a good investment now. I
would aim for places where a large amount of cash and ability to close quickly
gives you a pricing advantage (ie vs a lot of small deals where other people
bid up the price) \- within real estate, restaurants are poor credit risks
(being hit driven), commercial real estate is down right now, and residential
is down except in select areas like SF. \- residential real estate is counter
cyclical, ie in a boom, its bid up, in a bust, people turn to renting, so it
is a solid investment (assuming the surround location is a stable economy) \-
US stock market in aggregate is going to be flat, due to a structural issues.
\- areas of growth include tech, so buy what you know or emerging markets, so
buy a multinational with solid exposure there. \- other possibilities include
ETFs (like mutual funds) are more liquid, but be careful not all ETFs follow
the intended basket of investments that closely.
good luck, max, mba
------
gw666
I couldn't find the book that I really wanted to recommend in my earlier post.
But now I've found it: "The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll
Ever Need," by Larry Swedroe. It's the book I used to base my investing
strategy on. Its ideas are backed by a simulation of using the strategy
against 35 years of historical data--with long-term results of 9-11%/year.
Highly recommended!
------
d_mcgraw
Check out the book 'The Investment Answer'
(<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0982894708>). Its a great place to start
when trying to learn about investing and long term money management. It also
goes in depth on how to select someone to help manage your money.
------
baggachipz
First, tell me how you did this so that I can make that happen. Please.
Second, and I've always said that I would do this, take 2 million and put it
in very safe liquid investments. As a baseline, you can live off the interest
from that money forever. The rest you can treat as "house money" and do angel
investing, real estate speculation, etc.
------
gw666
Check out [http://www.sanfranmag.com/story/best-investment-advice-
youll...](http://www.sanfranmag.com/story/best-investment-advice-youll-never-
get), and optionally read "A Random Walk Down Wall Street." I've been using
these ideas for over two years now and am very pleased with the results.
------
damoncali
Some advice on commecial real estate: find a partner in the business, and I
don't mean a broker, I mean an actual, experienced investor who can do deals
with you.
Levered real estate is no joke, and despite the seemingly simple nature of the
business, there is a ton of nuance that can get you in trouble.
------
gobezu
its surprising no one mentions it but let me tell you where the rush is -
africa
ofc you need to be able to muster the challenges that will come with it but
the return is one that you can't match
investment in agriculture is really one to consider in countries such as
ethiopia with huge arable land available to investors with fees that are
practically negligible and you get a whole lot of incentives including 5 year
tax break please look around just as the chineses, indians and arabs are doing
and cash home instead of continuing the same simple minded real estate, start
up, yadayada rubbish, which is as you really know either exhausted or close to
fold
good luck
------
dbro
Read some good books. start with this one: [http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-
Investor-Definitive-Invest...](http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-
Definitive-Investing-Practical/dp/0060555661)
------
jyan
I am curious--is that $5m after or before taxes, because it really matters?
------
ante73
Make sure you diversify your portfolio. You don't want too much real estate in
it.
Consider adding some municipal bonds. In most cases the income is tax free.
Create a ladder of individual bonds and hold to maturity.
------
DanI-S
This dawned on me the other day: Invest in ski resorts in China. They've got a
rapidly growing middle class, flush with money to spend, and there's nothing
more middle class than skiing.
~~~
RyanHolliday
I don't know that I'd assume there's nothing more middle class _in China_ than
skiing.
------
swampplanet
What a place to be in. I would suggest you look outside of the Western World
namely Central and South America. I'm a commercial broker and that's where I'm
putting my money.
------
mdink
So I know people keep asking this, but I am dying to hear what industry /
niche your dipshit company was in. Obviously you are out now, so no need to
keep secrets?? :)
------
RoyG
Lots of good investment advice; my advice is to guard against losses:
1.) Keep the hookers and blow to a minimum.
2.) If you think you've met 'the one,' be sure to get a prenup.
------
turar
Is there a reason for secrecy around the name and nature of your dipshit
company? Does it have a website?
------
antidaily
Max Klein?
------
ntulip
good real estate deals are hard to come by. i recommend you reach out to the
biggest broker in your area or even outside. but the bank is where the good
deals are. Talk to your banker.
------
zaph0d
Buy Facebook shares on SecondMarket.com.
~~~
to_the_top
I can't I have tried. Only for big time investors. (Even asked my inv broker
at Waterhouse to look into it)
~~~
mrchess
And the rich get richer...
------
woid
what do you guys think about covestor.com?
I'd like to play there with some spare cash...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Realtime Analytics with MongoDB - jrosoff
http://www.slideshare.net/jrosoff/scaling-rails-yottaa
======
rrival
I liked this one as well:
[http://www.slideshare.net/jrosoff/scalable-event-
analytics-w...](http://www.slideshare.net/jrosoff/scalable-event-analytics-
with-mongodb-ruby-on-rails)
------
nessence
I'm working on a system which is similar but higher volume.
Have you done any benchmarks to test thousands of updates per second?
Same, but on the front-end. What is the impact of generating 10 reports per
second for 2 hours? Do the writers get behind?
You won't have scaling issues in until the front-end hits some threshold of x
queries per y updates, with x servers.
Good presentation on another application of mongo.
~~~
jrosoff
We have hit 1000's of updates per second on our current system during some
high load periods and did not see any problems. Our steady state is 100's per
second, but it bursts to 1000's for extended durations about once per week if
not more often.
10 reports per second is actually not that much load and has almost no impact
on writers. We have an alerting system that runs while data is input to the
system. It effectively loads a report for each metric reported in the input
and decides whether or not to send an alert. That system generates queries
about 50 reports per second on an ongoing basis and does not impact the
writers. Our read volume in steady state is about 2x our write volume.
We have not seen any queueing problems on writes and the lock ratio in mongodb
is typically in the 0.01 - 0.005 range.
We have found that we can break this by running lots of map-reduce jobs
simultaneously while processing high write volume but that's a whole other
ball of wax.
Our data access patterns very easily accomodate sharding. Both reads and
writes are pretty even distributed across the set of URL's we track. By
activating sharding using URL as shard key, we feel we can handle scaling
several orders of magnitude beyond where we are now without anything more than
additional hardware (or virtual machines).
I'd love to hear how your system scaling goes. Feel free to hit me up via
email if you want to discuss (jrosoff AT yottaa.com)
------
SanjayUttam
If you like this, you may want to check out HummingBird...(Node + Mongo)
<http://webpulp.tv/post/757442457/hummingbird-michael-nutt>
~~~
jrosoff
Hummingbird is awesome and both as a tool and a case study. We learned a lot
from Hummingbird that we incorporated into the design of our system.
------
rgrieselhuber
Slide 11 and 12 were interesting because they are close to the same solution,
but 11 looks more complicated with Voldemort, et. al. in the mix. HBase with
Hadoop seems like another good alternative not mentioned.
~~~
jrosoff
Yeah slide 11 depicted what we thought would be a great solution before we
started investigating MongoDB. MongoDB effectively replaced all those other
systems for us and was _significantly_ easier to set up and develop against.
A few people have mentioned HBase as an alternative. We did not consider HBase
at the time we were making our architecture choices, however if we were
starting today, we'd probably have looked at it too. My first impressions of
HBase are that it lacks the level of documentation & community support behind
MongoDB. I am definitely going to dig in some more to see how it would
compare. That being said, we're totally happy with our choice of MongoDB and
would recommend it to anybody considering HBase.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How do I prevent Scrum from turning great developers into average developers? - Antecedent
https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/158451/how-do-i-prevent-scrum-from-turning-great-developers-into-average-developers
======
temporallobe
I am not really seeing the problem here, nor do I agree with the premise that
scrum turns X developer into Y developer. Your success as a developer is
primarily driven by your desire to succeed, but also by a combination of the
team, project, and company culture. Scrum is not at fault here, because bad
management, lazy team members, and a toxic work environment can make any
worker in any discipline complacent, no matter which system is used. I’ve
worked for 20 years in this industry and have seen various management and
development methodologies used, and my conclusion is that what matters most is
the attitudes of the people themselves. If you have even one toxic coworker or
even worse, a toxic leader, it can change the morale of an entire team and
possibly even put an entire project at risk. That’s what can turn a great
developer into an average one. If you have below-average developers, scrum
will do nothing to actually make them more motivated; they will probably
remain average, despite appearances that they are moving tickets quickly.
Like any other system, scrum can be abused and twisted into something it was
never meant to be. A project I worked on had daily scrum-style standups as
well as daily, weekly, and monthly status reports; We also had Jira and our
boards were closely scrutinized by every level of management and the customer.
We happened to use scrum, but you couldn’t look at this and say scrum was at
fault for such duplication of information and ridiculous reporting
requirements.
------
vannevar
"Everyone just wants to take something easy off the board that you can get
done in a day so you have something to report in tomorrows daily scrum."
Then you have nothing to worry about, you don't have any great developers.
------
warrenm
Friends don't let friends use scrum
------
mempko
It's a shame that the consultants took scrum and destroyed it. Here is the
truth about scrum. Scrum is a radical framework to get rid of management and
therefore micromanagement. Scrum is meant to empower creators by destroying
all obstacles that get in the way of creating great work together. Here is a
great source to start. [http://scrumbook.org/](http://scrumbook.org/)
~~~
Scarblac
In practice, without any consultants involved, the Scrum master is a manager,
the Product Owner is a manager, _and_ I still have my regular manager.
------
madhadron
Poor scrum. It gets so maligned. If you have a high functioning, well gelled
team with well developed communication habits and rituals, you don't need
scrum. But, guess what, those are few and far between, and scrum is an
excellent starting point.
Whenever I see a complaint it's usually because someone involved has violated
some part of scrum. It's run by the developers. They set what they're planning
to work on. No one else should be talking in scrum meetings, and certainly not
making decisions based on scrum meetings. It's totally fair to evict everyone
else.
Take the hard problems thing. You can tackle hard problems. Saying, "I'm going
to try working out this prototype idea and do a literature review of this
topic" is perfectly reasonable as a plan for a week or two.
~~~
Scarblac
Where I work, we can choose what we work on, as long as it's one of the
backlog tickets the product owner wants done for the next release.
The way they are formulated means there is very little room for solving hard
problems (of the type that could result in fifty tickets not being necessary
anymore), let alone making prototypes for things if they aren't guaranteed to
releasable results for any of the tickets.
~~~
madhadron
So your product owner doesn't understand their role in scrum. It's a fairly
common pathology.
------
monksy
You can't. That's part of the intention of scrum. No deviating developers
without prior permission.
~~~
jVinc
There is no mention of permission in scrum. There is no event where you
discuss if people had permission to do what they did.
You might be using scrum in an organisation that is otherwise overly
restrictive or has build it's own processes around how to seek permission
prior to implementation but that has nothing to do with scrum.
~~~
monksy
What did you do yesterday? (Also their next question is somewhere arround why
didn't you finish it) What are you doing today? (That sounds like scope creep)
Are there any blockers? (Let me give you my unsolicited advice)
~~~
madhadron
If you're in a toxic team, maybe. I have found it to be the minimal useful
script for daily updates because it 1) quickly updates the team on changes, 2)
quickly heads off duplicated work and misunderstandings, and 3) provides a
fast channel to get someone help.
------
adrianmsmith
Is it just me, or is it the case that in discussions about Scrum, most of the
responses are “then you’re not doing it right”, “no true Scotsman”-style?
~~~
finnthehuman
I once heard that described as "the non-falsifiablility of religion
surfacing".
You might have noticed that the answer is never "maybe your situation calls
for trying these small tweaks to the vanilla scrum process..." even though
Scrum claims to be about retrospectives and continuous process improvement.
------
ikeyany
Agile encourages developers to "stay in their lane". It's intertwined with
American culture at this point.
------
blake1
Don’t let them participate in scrums.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Gandhi Nobody Knows (1983) - asciilifeform
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20090226171138/http://history.eserver.org/ghandi-nobody-knows.txt
======
Estragon
I stopped reading at this point:
> ...when Gandhi's wife lay dying of pneumonia and British doctors
> insisted that a shot of penicillin would save her, Gandhi refused to
> have this alien medicine injected in her body and simply let her die.
True as far as it goes, but a near-slanderous distortion of what actually
happened:
To those who tried to bolster her sagging morale saying "You will get
better soon," Kasturba would respond, "No, my time is up." Shortly after
seven that evening, Devdas took Mohandas and the doctors aside. In what
he would later describe as "the sweetest of all wrangles I ever had with
my father," he pleaded fiercely that Ba be given the life saving
medicine, even though the doctors told him her condition was beyond
help. It was Mohandas, after learning that the penicillin had to be
administered by injection every four to six hours, who finally persuaded
his youngest son to give up the idea. "Why do you want to prolong your
mother's agonies after all the suffering she has been through?" Gandhi
asked. Then he said, "You can't cure her now, no matter what miracle
drug you may muster. But if you insist, I will not stand in your way.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasturba_Gandhi)
The OP's calumny is reminiscent of an earlier incident where Kasturba was ill,
and doctors insisted that she needed to eat beef to get better. They asked his
permission, and he said that he would not grant it, but that if she was in a
position to indicate her wishes, she could choose for herself.
<http://www.gandhi-manibhavan.org/gandhicomesalive/chap01.htm>
If there is something actually interesting and historically verifiable
elsewhere in this apparent hit job of an essay, I'd be grateful for a pointer,
though.
What is it with the recent campaign to slam Gandhi?
([http://www.metafilter.com/101933/We-believe-as-much-in-
the-p...](http://www.metafilter.com/101933/We-believe-as-much-in-the-purity-
of-races-as-we-think-they-do))
~~~
akkartik
I'm not sure what version to trust on that particular story[1], but read on.
It's more an attack on the movie (and an establishment's propaganda) than on
the man.
I'm Indian, and I grew up steeped in the legend of Gandhi. I've always had a
close identification with him. His birthday is adjacent to mine, and I used to
wear these round glasses as an adolescent. I say these things to show that I
should dislike this essay. And yet I find myself unable to. It's a good,
balanced, _exquisitely_ written essay.
And having read it and pondered it and enjoyed it I find my opinion of Gandhi
hasn't materially changed. He had the hustle of an entrepreneur.
_"Gandhi was erratic, irrational, tyrannical, obstinate. He sometimes verged
on lunacy. He believed in a religion whose ideas I find somewhat repugnant. He
worshipped cows. But I will say this: he was brave. He feared no one."_
Even the attack on Hinduism is interesting (I assume that's the part
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2409364> referred to as looney-land. I
call it 'things you can't say'). It's cathartic to find that there's as much
to criticize about Hinduism as about any of the other major religions,
something I hadn't quite focused on until now. Perhaps I'm losing my roots.
\---
[1] <http://www.hark.com/clips/fcxrvdvphc-who-cares>,
<http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0068895>
~~~
warrenwilkinson
I'm glad you said it first. This is a REALLY well written essay. The writer
obviously knows something about Ghandi. He has clearly read much of the man's
letters, knows who he associated with, has read several biographies, and seems
to know the time period like the back of his hand.
And yet that doesn't seem to matter.
~~~
sid6376
I will politely disagree, from his repeated mention of V.S.Naipaul and also
his suggestion to read his books at the end, it seems the writer had a
conviction and then just decided to justify himeslf by reading and quoting
material which suited his point of view. The article throughout seemed written
by a british apologist and if someone was to form an opinion of the british
rule in india entirely upon this article it would seem that british committed
no atrocities at all on India post the Jalianwala Bagh Massacre in 1919 due to
the deep guilt that the incident inflicted on them. So i am uncomfortable
accepting the fact that this article was written by a well-reasoned
individual.
~~~
akkartik
Without meaning to indulge in conversational terrorism
(<http://www.vandruff.com/art_converse.html>, nit-picking), I don't think you
meant 'at pains' where you used it.
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/at_pains>
~~~
sid6376
Thanks for that. I have removed the phrase from my answer.
------
ezy
Wow, that was... crazy. A slightly less frothing at the mouth response:
[http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.indian/msg/38b451...](http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.indian/msg/38b451bdbfbefb61)
The OP article had me going, because it was partially correct about the film
being a hagiography. But it went quickly into looney-land about half way
through. If you look up the author and his other writings, you'll realize why.
~~~
bdhe
> The OP article had me going, because it was partially correct about the film
> being a hagiography.
I think the idea and principles that Gandhi stood for are nevertheless
important just as the ideas and principles the Founding Fathers of the US had
in mind when framing the constitution are considered important. The details of
Gandhi's life are slightly less important. Also, people fail to realize the
context behind a lot of Gandhi's misgivings. It was a different era (which is
no excuse) but even Abraham Lincoln wasn't of the opinion that blacks are
equals and the Founding Fathers owned slaves themselves.
The lesson is to take their stories with a pinch of salt, but nevertheless
feel motivated and inspired by the goals and ideals these famous people
represented, not the minutiae of their actual lives.
~~~
pstack
I think the more valuable lesson is that you don't need to white-wash history
to paint a figure as better than they were (especially if they were not
particularly good at all in some cases), simply to uphold the value of the
things we associate with them. Society doesn't have to confuse the two. A
worthy idea or concept can stand on its own, even if we uncover unpleasant
truths about the people involved.
~~~
thaumaturgy
I agree with this, and have for a long time, but I also think that human
society is still evolving, and that evolution has until recently precluded
that kind of behavior.
Great causes have been championed by heroes, moreso than on the merits of the
causes themselves. Heroes are people we can identify with, and reflect a kind
of perfection that most people look up to.
I think this is starting to change, thanks in part to the communication age,
which is not only stripping the white-wash from our heroes but also making
them gradually less necessary.
------
pstack
If there's one thing you don't do, it's offer any criticism of Mother Theresa,
no matter what information there is in the world about her outside of the
perpetuated religious and media portrayal of her to the masses.
If there's a second thing you don't do, it's offer any criticism of Ghandi.
People cling so irrationally to the persona that have been drilled into their
head throughout their entire life that offering any insight or raising any
contradictory perspectives on certain characters draws the same response you'd
get if you went up to a devout religious person and started asking about their
crazy mythology. That is, you encounter a brick-wall that only spouts that you
are wrong, because (instead of The Bible Says So) "she was a saint" or "he was
a pacifist". And that's as far as you'll get. People who have no investment or
interest in either person will be highly offended that you would dare make any
assertions.
Hyped figures perpetuated by media and society are destined to be remembered
this way for eternity and any contradictions -- no matter how scholarly --
will always be categorized as hateful.
Oh, if there's a third thing you don't do, it's offer any criticism of Nelson
Mandela.
Oh, and if there's a fourth thing you don't do, it's offer any criticism of
Che Guevara.
~~~
OstiaAntica
Che Guevara was Stalinist murderer who ran a gulag. Those are facts, not a
criticism.
<http://www.slate.com/id/2107100/>
<http://reason.tv/video/show/killer-chic>
~~~
jbooth
I almost commented a second ago, too, on how Che is actually controversial,
because hippie kids wear him on a t-shirt they got at the mall as a generic
symbol of resistance, and then some conservative asshole always has to come in
with an extremely selective outrage towards human rights, and use overheated
terms like "stalinist" and "gulag". Was Che ever in Russia? How did he run a
gulag?
Meanwhile, neither the hippie nor the conservative could likely tell you
offhand what country the guy was born in. I had to wiki it myself.
~~~
Joakal
I was surprised Che was outside of South America. Here's the list of places he
been to:
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:CheGueva...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:CheGuevaraCountries.jpg)
(Including being in Congo during the war)
------
vnorby
_"Gandhi was erratic,irrational, tyrannical, obstinate. He sometimes verged on
lunacy. He believed in a religion whose ideas I find somewhat repugnant. He
worshipped cows."_
That line from the article is ridiculous. Anyway, it is not an original idea
to claim that Gandhi was a puppet of the British Government, an opportunist,
etc. by Western AND Indian thinkers. Yes, the Indian Government has, in many
ways, manufactured his character, as the article claims. Most Indians are
aware of that. However, establishing hero figures is not different than what
many countries, religions, and other "imaginary communities" have done to move
past horrific injustices like Britain's brutal occupation of India. This
article serves no beneficial purpose but to restate: history is written by the
victors.
~~~
thaumaturgy
Yep. Just try and tell a conservative American what kind of person Christopher
Columbus _really_ was, or that Washington nearly got all of his men and
himself captured or killed and was saved only by a freak fog one night.
------
tumpak
He is trying to say Gandhi is flawed and trying desperately to prove it.
I celebrate any man with many flaws who goes on to create wonderful impact in
the world.
I don't think I learned much from the original post. I already knew Gandhi was
flawed. That is why he was wonderful. Being a man with many flaws, he achieved
what was thought impossible.
This reaffirms that we each can change the world despite our own deep flaws.
Critics like to find flaws in each detail and strip us all naked. Thats what
the original post seemed to me.
~~~
kedi_xed
I learned a lot. I don't think the article is of a high quality, but it has
now broadened my viewpoint on Gandhi. I find it hard to believe in something
with no faults. And it seems that human nature shows that the more adamant
someone is in being pure and showing the world, the more a deeper darker side
they seem to have.
I hate it when people are portrayed as super human. Finding out about their
weird quirks takes them down a peg..gando is just a bloke...
------
aaronbrethorst
Apologies if this was posted recently. I couldn't find it in a cursory search
via searchyc.com:
[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/apr/28/differe...](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/apr/28/different-
gandhi/?pagination=false)
------
llambda
I think there's some valid criticism of the film "Gandhi" to be had. However,
an essay that insists on being flippant and glib through the repetitious use
of terms like "Sir Dickie" (to describe Sir David Attenborough, used on ten
occasions in the essay) is probably not it.
~~~
shrikant
Nitpick: you mean Sir Richard Attenborough, who's the director of the movie.
Sir David Attenborough is a naturalist.
------
joelburget
It's of course tempting for storytellers to make their characters one-
dimensional. In this case the makers of the movie decided to portray a
singularly good and humanitarian Gandhi. Usually we see purely good or purely
bad characters and know they are good or bad because the movie tells us. We
usually don't know why characters are bad, other than the fact that they're
fighting against the main character, so they must be.
The problem is this makes for boring characters. I love it when I see more
complex characters and their motivations. I know that's not exactly the Gandhi
the movie makers wanted to portray, but maybe it would have made for a better
story.
------
joelrunyon
I'm always amazed at people's desire to disparage those who have had a
positive impact on the world.
Ghandi obviously wasn't perfect, but he did plenty of good things.
It's easy to be a critic, but before you decide you need to criticize
something, ask yourself "what good have I done lately?"
Then shutup and get to work.
------
entangld
I don't see the point in attacking the character of people who have
accomplished great things.
What does a person's private life have to do with their struggle against a
government? Usually, not very much. It's just a more intellectual version of
gossip rags. Just trying to tear down historical celebrities.
------
Joakal
The Julian Assange Nobody Knows (2007) [0]
[0] <http://web.archive.org/web/20071020051936/http://iq.org/>
------
asciilifeform
To the naysayers:
What would you have to find out about this man to stop worshipping him? That
he ate kittens?
Or are the facts simply irrelevant?
------
dman
Why is this on HN?
------
BuddhaSource
Lets keep it real,
There is no perfect man! A man leaves behind his persona of what he believed
or did. His karma is respected.
There is always a down side to everyone, as for Gandhi he failed as a father &
many more things. Accept it, this should not affect your believe for what he
did which no one else could.
I believe Steve Jobs for what he doing, I know he is not perfect.
lol my 2cents :P
------
ajaimk
One man's hero is another man's villain. Remember the "good stuff" about them,
follow said "good stuff" and forget the not so "good stuff".
If you don't have anything "good" to say, shut up and go about doing "good
stuff" yourself.
~~~
ajaimk
Do explain the down-votes when you make them.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Mark Zuckerberg Needs to Come Clean About his Views on Privacy - mahipal
http://social.venturebeat.com/2010/05/13/zuckerberg-privacy/
======
wdewind
"He believes that people should have a single identity: “You have one
identity,” he emphasized three times in a single interview with David
Kirkpatrick in his book, “The Facebook Effect.” “The days of you having a
different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people
you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly.” He adds: “Having two
identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.”"
I think this is a pretty good example of zuck's both arrogance and privilege.
He's so insistent that people have "one identity" because he's a person who
CAN have one identity. When he projects who he is to everyone he takes zero
risk: he's a white, male, American, who has already made all his money: the
pinnacle of the upper class. Having your head in your asshole is an example of
lack of integrity.
------
Super74
Have you heard of the phrase, "When I see a bird that walks like a duck and
swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck."
Well even from the beginning of Facebook, within the Harvard campus, Mark
Zuckerberg has been surrounded with allegations ranging from questionable
personality traits, unethical behaviors and outright illegal activities.
Now with the release of a new "biography" detailing the early days of Facebook
in Silicon Valley, these instances continue to highlight character flaws that
seem to some to be quite disturbing. So why are we so surprised to witness
continued actions of betrayal and lack of customer-focused decisions on behalf
of a company that he runs and guides on a daily basis? "Zuck IS a duck!"
Personally, I totally agree with the concept of a more open society and the
need for a platform in which to exchange personal ideas and personal media
with friends and family. What I don't agree with are the blatant decisions
that manipulate that information in ways contrary to the users' choices.
Many times in the past year, I have been literally offended and personally
shocked at the amount of attacks to this information of mine and have
contemplated closing my account for those reasons.
Instead, I have controlled my privacy options as best as I can and have held
on to see where this all leads, in the hope that Facebook will finally get
their act together and re-focus their energy on connecting people, not causing
anguish those people who make them the billion dollar company that they are,
their customers.
With Zuck the duck in charge, I'm not so sure that this will happen.
~~~
dejb
> Mark Zuckerberg has been surrounded with allegations ranging from
> questionable personality traits, unethical behaviors and outright illegal
> activities.
It certainly seems he wouldn't fair well if he applied the concept of ‘radical
transparency’ to himself.
~~~
c1sc0
Now that would be an interesting distributed effort to see: try to build a
timeline of all of Zuck's questionable behaviour on a single site, we could
call it something like zucksucks.com ;-)
~~~
Super74
Absolutely brilliant! Just start with all of the articles citing direct
actions on his part. I'm sure the compilation would end any speculation as to
the nature of his character, if there ever was any.
~~~
frisco
What would that accomplish? _Please_ spend the time you could be slandering a
persona everyone loves to hate doing something more meaningful with your life.
No one ever claimed that Zuck is Zuck _because he's a good guy_ ; Zuck is Zuck
because he's _CEO of Facebook_.
~~~
Super74
Slander: a malicious, false, and defamatory statement or report.
Since when did calling someone on their verifiable actions become slander?
When America becomes complacent to the lack of moral and ethical
accountability of our CEOs and business leaders, the end cannot be far away.
We must expect and demand a certain level of trust from the people who
safeguard our personal information. The possibilities offered within the
concept of "the cloud" will never come to fruition without this essential
component.
What if your bank decided to publish the activity on your accounts?
~~~
Silhouette
> What if your bank decided to publish the activity on your accounts?
As something of an advocate for privacy and data protection, I have found it
instructive to compare the recent behaviour at Facebook and Google with that
of Mint, whose entire business basically depends on people trusting them with
access codes to their bank accounts.
I'm not saying Mint's approach is perfect, but this is the first line in point
1 of their Privacy and Security Policy (<http://www.mint.com/privacy/security-
policy/>):
"Simply put, we do not and will not sell or rent your personal information to
anyone, for any reason, at any time."
(For the avoidance of doubt, I am in no way connected with Mint, Intuit or any
related organisation. I'm just an interested observer of how privacy and
security are handled by on-line businesses, and found them a useful example.)
~~~
jeebusroxors
Out of curiosity - did facebook have a similar policy and then go about
changing it? They also note they post changes on their website, but it does
not need to be on the front page, or other high traffic area.
I have seen this service before and really like it, however I just can't trust
them with my bank info.
~~~
Super74
Here's a great infographic (<http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/>)
highlighting Facebook's changes to their default policies regarding the stuff
the general public can view on your profile.
The trick they are pulling is to default "yes" for you when they update the
policies. You are then forced to go through the labyrinth of settings to
change everything back. Clever, no?
------
alanthonyc
I'm not sure what he needs to come clean about. His recent actions speak
louder than any words he can come up with now. It's pretty clear where he
stands on this.
~~~
falsestprophet
Facebook's position on privacy will be whatever maximizes shareholder value.
If jealously protecting user information will maximize shareholder value, then
we can expect that. But, it probably doesn't so we probably can't.
------
joecode
_“Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity."_
This strikes me as an extremist viewpoint. Portraying oneself more
conservatively in less familiar company is often essential. Indeed, in some
cases (private thoughts, for instance) the only appropriate company with which
to share is oneself.
~~~
dejb
> Portraying oneself more conservatively in less familiar company is often
> essential.
People's reaction to the 'less conservative' aspects of each other would have
to change if there was no way of hiding them. It is rather analogous to gay
people 'coming out of the closet' and the whole gay rights movement but
applied to a whole spectrum of preferences and proclivities. People's
prejudices will eventually dissipate, especially when they are most likely
'coming out' in some way themselves. In fact those that genuinely are
conservative in every area will probably find themselves in a minority. Of
course if people have really bad secrets like they are a wife beater of
something then this is unlikely to be accepted and there would rightly be
moves to stop that behavior.
~~~
prodigal_erik
> People's reaction to the 'less conservative' aspects of each other would
> have to change if there was no way of hiding them.
Has this ever happened anywhere? We've already seen absence of privacy in
tribal societies, and those are exceptionally bad places to fail to conform.
Only cities are large and anonymous enough to allow eccentrics to go unnoticed
and thrive, which is what makes cities the wellsprings of prosperous liberal
societies.
> It is rather analogous to gay people 'coming out of the closet'
Some of whom were murdered for it. There are still only a few areas (large
cities, of course) where they are relatively safe. And it took them two
generations just to achieve that!
~~~
dejb
> Has this ever happened anywhere?
Probably whenever significant technological/social change occurs.
> We've already seen absence of privacy in tribal societies, and those are
> exceptionally bad places to fail to conform. Only cities are large and
> anonymous enough to allow eccentrics to go unnoticed and thrive, which is
> what makes cities the wellsprings of prosperous liberal societies.
I think you could argue this in many ways. Are you arguing that increased
privacy played a role in the development of civilisation? It's in interesting
idea but I don't see much supporting evidence.
> Some of whom were murdered for it. There are still only a few areas (large
> cities, of course) where they are relatively safe. And it took them two
> generations just to achieve that!
Should we go back and stop it?
------
knuckle_cake
We know what his views are. It's more interesting whether he tells the truth
about them publicly or not.
------
alttab
The chesshere lies through a smile you can't immediately refuse.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Facebook is slowly eating the rest of the Internet - wallzz
https://medium.com/@washingtonpost/how-facebook-is-slowly-eating-the-rest-of-the-internet-a545870cf414#.iut61fr09
======
brudgers
A Washington Post post on Medium? Quality seems more stooping down than
lifting up.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Heap is a new approach to analytics. Just capture everything - raviparikh
https://heapanalytics.com/
======
DodgyEggplant
Poor man's analytics: events, client side, server side, whatever. Set up a
separate DB with one big table, many columns for properties. One server call
to write an event (a row), one ajax call to write from the client, throw it
wherever you need. A bit of good old simple SQL for queries and reporting, and
you are done.
~~~
pc86
I've often wondered about the efficacy of having a simple catch-all script
that just tracks _everything_ a user does on the site. I would think it would
pound the database relentlessly under even modest load.
~~~
darkxanthos
One trick is to not use a database but a flat text file. You can optimize for
querying nightly.
------
meritt
Windows user here. The fonts on your site do not render well on Windows
machines. I see an increasing number of sites using embedded fonts that, for
whatever reason, render poorly on Windows. Please cross-platform test your
sites.
<http://d.pr/i/T7Wq> Chrome 25
<http://d.pr/i/p0AO> Firefox 19
~~~
matm
Thanks for the heads-up, we'll fix this asap.
We've run into this issue before, and it seems to have something to do with
the font's Unicode values being "out of range" on Windows, whatever that
means.
~~~
crazygringo
FWIW, I've worked on projects where we "blacklist" embedded fonts on certain
combinations of OS+Browser -- particularly chrome on older versions of
windows.
Based on the user string, we would serve up a version of the HTML that didn't
request the embedded font, and then those users would see Arial instead of,
for example, Proxima Nova.
Super-annoying to have to deal with. But it works.
------
azov
What happens if I'm a smallish site and suddenly get slashdotted / DDoSed?
Will I be charged thousand dollars? Is there a way to cap monthly costs?
~~~
matm
With the current model, your charges would spike. Which is bad.
But we plan to offer caps and the option to auto-sample if you exceed your
tier.
~~~
aaronblohowiak
Your target market is also probably familiar with
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burstable_billing>
------
huhtenberg
Welcome to the blacklist.
I, for one, very much object to all my clicks and "activity" on a page being
captured and streamed down some black hole for god knows what purposes. Not to
worry though - you are in a good company with all other analytics services out
there. The only difference is that you are far more open (and proud?) about
how obscenely intrusive your service is, so you get an honorary 2nd spot,
right after KissMetrics.
~~~
pc86
I don't mean this to sound as snarky or mean as it probably will. I'm truly
interested in your answer.
Why should you have the choice to object? What is obscenely intrusive about
tracking how you use an application you (may or may not) pay for? I don't see
why anyone would have any reasonable expectation of privacy when they're using
a service online.
Note I am only referring to analytics contained on a single domain. I'm not
making an argument for or against services like FB that track activity across
multiple domains.
~~~
huhtenberg
> _Why should you have the choice to object?_
What? Are you asking me to justify _having an option_ of being able to object?
That's a bit too meta, with today being Friday and all.
~~~
emmett
You can't opt-out of server-side tracking. They could easily architect the app
to require a round-trip to the server on every call (this is how typical early
web apps worked). In that case you really don't have an option to object.
Does that bother you too? (A service recording your usage of it)
Why is measuring on the client-side different from measuring on the server-
side?
~~~
icebraining
The difference is that server-side tracking doesn't track my clicks,
scrolling, mouse moves or if I mistakingly type or paste some personal data
(e.g. password) into some text field.
Server-side tracking is much more controllable in what and when the
information is sent, instead of essentially having Telescreen[1] websites.
[1]: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen>
------
nostromo
Why do a HN launch with "request an invite"?
This seems like a common anti-pattern.
~~~
matm
Our thinking is that it's an efficient way to grow responsibly while still
gathering user feedback early and often.
We tried to include as much tangible product as is possible with an invite-
only product.
~~~
evolve2k
Feel free to launch with whatever you like, i just dont agree with calling an
invite page 'Show HN' as it's misleading.
------
acgourley
I'm positive there is a market for it. Unfortunately "capturing everything"
has an unsolvable problem beyond capture performance, storage cost and query
performance (which are hard but solvable) - it let's you find the outcome you
were looking for all along.
~~~
raviparikh
This is a really good point - blind data analysis without any notion of
multiple hypothesis testing leads to false positives. This XKCD is a great
illustration of that: <http://xkcd.com/882/>
This is something we're thinking about and are definitely conscious of.
~~~
saosebastiao
Not just false positives in a confirm/deny scenario. It can also lead to
overfitting in a modeling scenario.
I once created a model that showed very strongly that US/China exchange rates
were a driver of revenue. This model was intuitive based on the market
dynamics as we understood them, and they helped provide a strong predictive
power which helped reduce operational costs. Over time, this model began to be
taken as irrefutable truth among quite a few people in the org. Then when the
economy collapsed, we very quickly learned that it wasn't US/China exchange
rates that was the strong predictor, but rather something else which
correlated with those rates.
Not only was the model broken, but it had now breeched trust in the ability of
model based forecasts. In other words, if I were a business, I would be
bankrupt.
I think the best value-add that you can possibly provide with your service is
a way of helping your customers understand what is meaningful and what isn't.
~~~
foobarqux
What was the actual underlying correlation?
~~~
saosebastiao
Inflation...specifically using an industrial goods index.
------
codegeek
The demo page (<https://heapanalytics.com/dashboard/demo>) fails in IE8.
Is it just me or IE8 is just not considered by web startups anymore ? Sorry to
deviate a little but every time I try to look at a "Show HN" in IE8 (work
computer), it fails for about 85% of the time. I could understand that some
startups heavily depend on latest browsers but what about others ?
~~~
mbell
IE8 is a complete mess in comparison to modern browsers. To support IE8 you
often have to go through a lot of extra work after the site works in modern
browsers to get it functional even if your not doing something particularly
complex. At the very least its often a whole bunch of different CSS /
replacing CSS with images to get the rendering to look decent. In addition a
lot of 'Show HN' posts tend to use 'cool new tech' that just doesn't work at
all in IE8. To get it functional you often have to implement an entirely
different approach just for IE8. Most 'Show HN' links are MVP products, the
devs just decided to release quick instead of spending a few extra weeks
dealing with IE8's shenanigans.
~~~
dubcanada
IE8 is perfectly fine, and also somewhere between 20-30% of your users.
If you have an analytics software that doesn't work in IE8. You lost analytics
for 20-30% of your users.
And since array.prototype.slice.call is not supported in IE8, this analytics
software is about 80-70% useful. And maybe even less if you have a large IE
clientele.
Seems strange to me that one would limit themselves that much.
~~~
ricardobeat
No, it's not perfectly fine. It's terrible and takes a good amount of extra
work to get working for any mildly complex website.
Around here IE8 is at < 7% market share; if your product is slightly related
to tech that's more like 0%.
~~~
dubcanada
I spend more time fixing issues in IE10, Opera, and the WebKit family then I
do fixing IE8.
Sure it doesn't support a lot of HTML5/CSS3. But if you build a site using
100% HTML5/CSS3 then why do you even care what it looks like in anything but
WebKit. Why spend 15 hours getting it to work in IE8. Let IE8 look like IE8,
and the rest look like the rest. That's how it's suppose to be done.
IE8 is old, if you want to support it. You use older technologies. That's the
point. If you want to use the newest and greatest you lose old support.
But to call it terrible is wrong, it is/was a solid browser.
~~~
ricardobeat
That's the point. IE8 is old, and not 'perfectly fine' if you're creating a
web-based product and not just looking for rounded corners. It was great after
living with IE6, but we moved on. Even Google has dropped support for IE8 in
most apps.
------
vyrotek
Looks great! I'm mostly intrigued by the ad-hoc Group By query functionality.
Traditionally that's an indicator of some sort of relational database on the
backend, but is that the case here?
On the other hand, the dynamic nature of the data makes me inclined to think
that they're using MongoDB or something similar. In the past I've had to
create similar systems but we denormalized the data coming in based on pre-
defined Group By settings.
I'd love to learn more about the stack and database used for HeapAnalytics and
any other similar services.
~~~
matm
We initially tried to build this on Mongo, and it was a huge pain. I'll need
to elaborate on why at some point, but the very ad-hoc nature of all our
querying precludes any non-relational database from being our store (at least
any that I'm aware of).
~~~
vyrotek
It sounds like you and I had very similar experience. :) Please do share and
elaborate some time.
For my past implementation of a similar data-store we had some different
requirements that let us cut a few corners. But, if I were to take another
stab at it with your requirements then I would try a new approach.
I think I would use a single table to represent the 'event' itself and have
that table be essentially owned by the customer. This table could be put on a
specific shard set aside for each customer or you could just name it
"{customerId}_{eventName}" and have a lot of tables. Then each event coming in
would potentially perform an 'alter' on the table in order to make sure all
custom properties have a column.
Are there any downsides to this approach I'm not considering?
------
kybernetyk
First: The service sounds great. Something I would sign up for.
But I don't really get the pricing structure:
What if I have less then 2500 unique users/month? Do I pay $25? Is it free? If
it's $25 what then if I have more than 2500 but less than 20000 users? Is it
$150 then?
~~~
raviparikh
Right now the way we price is pro-rate it for people who are between tiers.
For example, if you have 3000 uniques per month, then you'll pay $28.75 ($25
for the first 2500 users, and then $3.75 pro-rated for 500 additional users on
the next tier). If you have below 2500 users, you just pay for the portion of
that $25 that you use (a site with 1000 users would pay $10). We're updating
our pricing page to clarify this.
~~~
pc86
Thank you for explaining this. That's a huge difference that the impression of
tiered pricing that I got.
Any plans for either a free trial period or a very small (<50 users?) free
plan?
~~~
raviparikh
Definitely - we offer a one month free trial of the lowest tier plan (2500
users/month).
~~~
TylerE
I would highly advise you to rethink that. What if we're a larger site? To be
honest, your pricing is way out of our ballpark anyway (We're a smallish daily
newspaper, ~300k uniques/monthly), there's no way I'd ever get approval for
$20k/yr for analytics, no matter how cool, and I'd never get approval to spend
$1k+ just to try it.
For orgs like us, your pricing seems rather brutal, as we're probably much
lower in pages/visit than an "app" type website. (We're at ~10 page views per
visit, average)
~~~
matm
Feel free to reach us at [email protected]. We'd love to talk about fair
pricing, and we certainly need more data points to evaluate what that fair
pricing is.
~~~
corin_
Do you feel there's scope for pricing coming down a lot? I'm in a similar boat
to TylerE: around a million monthly uniques, but in publishing, so there's
really no way to justify $4k/month for Analytics when stuff like Google's
already exists. 10% of that might be justifiable, but even then it's not a no-
brainer.
~~~
TylerE
Yea, precisely. I'd say for us we could maybe to like, $100/month. Also - how
does it work for multiple sites? We actually have 4 separate sites for
separate towns.
~~~
raviparikh
Depending on how usage looks on your site we can find a way to accomodate.
Shoot us an email at [email protected] and we can coordinate a time to
chat.
------
isalmon
It's ironic that on their website they don't have their own code (well, maybe
it's on the backend) and use Segment.io + Mixpanel instead.
~~~
dubcanada
? It certainly does have their own code. Look at the second script tag in the
head.
~~~
isalmon
Ha they just added it!
------
erichocean
Yes! I've been doing this for awhile. If you feed the data into a Bayesian
classifier, you can figure out what kind of user you're dealing with, too.
~~~
seancron
That sounds really interesting. Could you describe how you do that a bit more?
~~~
erichocean
Sure. The simplest approach is to use a naive Bayesian classifier (you can
find a bunch of open source implementations).
In my app, I actually track client-side actions -- essentially, clicks, but
with more context. Anyway, you can treat a single user session like you would
the text of an email, where the "actions" are the words.
From there, all you need to do is capture a bunch of sessions and tell the
classifier which users are not strong computer users and which know what
they're doing, passing the corresponding "documents".
Now you can feed in new documents and determine which of your users know what
they're doing, and which aren't really computer users.
(It my experience, people fall into one of those two camps.)
~~~
robflynn
I have done something similar before but also measured which content was being
consumed. Are they readers, listeners, or watchers?
Eventually, you can pretty easily detect the best way to approach each
potential client from a marketing perspective.
------
joonix
Dumb question but how does this work?
Since Heap captures everything from day 1, all analysis is automatically retroactive. There's no need to wait days for data to accumulate.
So it studies my server's web logs? I'm confused about what this means.
~~~
darkstar999
It means that if you start tracking on day X, then on day Y you decide you
want to generate a certain report, the data is already there, you don't have
to start tracking anything new.
~~~
flippyhead
But also if you change your page structure your reports might stop working
------
soneca
I liked it _very much_ as a non-tech founder that is not quite sure how to
define some events on KissMetrics and regret not having qualified a particular
form of sign up as an event before.
Comparing prices though, a question: is every visitor of my site a new "user"
for you? If it so, then my monthly average events for user would be very low,
then an "event based" pricing would be better for me than a "user based"
pricing. Comparing prices with KissMetrics, my guess is KM would be cheaper
for me with an average of 3 events per visitor. But if your "user" entity
doesn't consider, at least, the ones that bounced, then maybe is a good deal.
~~~
raviparikh
This is a really good point and something we thought about when constructing
the pricing model. Right now we're not a very affordable option for sites with
a lot of bounced traffic or low amounts of user interaction. However we'll
soon be amending our prices to better accomodate customers such as yourself.
~~~
soneca
In my case, if you just say "we don't count bouncing visitors as users",
tchanananam!! you just became the perfect analytics tool for me. Even still
considering that I have a lot of users that just click once and leave. Please,
consider it.
PS: "tchanananam" is a brazilian expression onomatopoeia when there is a punch
line revelation...
------
tommoor
Interesting pricing model, it's actually kind of nice to see it segmented by
user instead of events - definitely a case of putting the more useful
information for the customer first rather than just using events.
My first impression is that it would be a bargain for some businesses (low
number of users / high value) and far too expensive for large consumer sites
with low user value, I guess this is the case for most analytics providers
though.
------
AaronFriel
This seems really interesting, but starting at 250 users per month seems high.
I notice the price/active user starts at a penny and falls 60% as the users
climb to over 500,000.
Would it be possible to create a price option for even smaller companies, demo
sites, etc, at a higher rate?
Say, what if the owner of a small blog wanted to use this to do really fine
grained analysis of users actions but they average 250 hits a day?
~~~
matm
Our bottom tier (which includes a 1 month free trial) lets you track 2,500
users/month.
That said, pricing is really hard to get right. There's basically zero chance
we nailed it on the first try.
~~~
web007
You definitely didn't get it right. =) That's one of the joys of startup life,
A/B test it until you do!
Even for a "successful" site (>1mm MAU) $2,000 a month feels insanely
expensive. The performance difference between this and GA ($0) is not high
enough _initially_ to offset the sticker shock.
Look at NewRelic, Tracelytics or even Mixpanel (expensive IMO) for better
pricing levels. You've built the equivalent of "hosted snowplow"
(<https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow>) with a nice GUI and tools, you should
expect to charge something much closer to cost than your current approach
appears to.
~~~
eddmc
I'm not saying that Heap have got the pricing right but you should absolutely
NOT look at cost when you put pricing together - rather, you need to ask your
customers about the value of what it is you're providing. For example, Heap
will be saving the time and hassle of deploying a generic solution on a server
and the time of customising it. Plus Heap will be improving their product
every day whereas the self-hosted version would need a developer to add new
features. These sort of things all add up - you'll be surprised what you find
out when you ask your customers.
Pricing is hard. There are a lot of good articles and discussions on HN if you
do a bit of searching.
------
bertomartin
Great technology, but you guys will know a lot about my business and my users
and I'd like to be convinced that you won't do ill with this data...not that I
don't trust you, but it would be more comforting if you made your policy
towards the information you collect more up-front and clear. But great job.
------
physcab
I imagine that your event feed is going to get pretty unwieldy if you have a
thousand events named like the following:
div.star.empty
button.btn.btn-primary
button#nodisturb.muted
a.bold-text.text
Do you have any ideas how you are going to overcome this? It seems
unintuitive.
~~~
matm
Very keen observation. There are a number of ways to solve this problem.
Machine learning helps (there are a few simple heuristics we currently use to
sort the Event Feed).
But the right interface for defining events helps even more.
Sorry for the frustratingly mum response.
~~~
pnt
What if you tracked the event's parents, e.g. button <\- div <\- .sidebar <\-
body, etc.? When presenting the events to the user, you could hide generic
parents like 'div' and only show interesting parents with ids or classes. To
search through events, perhaps the user could use css selector syntax in
addition to the current UI you have.
------
bravura
Can you discuss how you address the "schema-on-read" problem?
One of the downsides of the cheap bit-bucket approach of tech like NoSQL and
Hadoop is that it's easy to get the data in, but harder to get it out. The
producer of the data has less work. The consumer of the data now has more,
since there are no longer guarantees on the structure.
An emerging 3rd-wave approach is that of an "eventual schema" (see
[http://arunxjacob.blogspot.com/2011/11/schema-on-read-not-
so...](http://arunxjacob.blogspot.com/2011/11/schema-on-read-not-so-fast.html)
by Arun Jacob, chief of data at Disney). But best practices for eventual
schema are immature and evolving.
How do you approach the problem of getting data out, and allowing people to
use common concepts to query their data?
------
flippyhead
I love the concept, definitely addresses a pain point in using other
platforms. The thing I worry about is when I make some change to the styles or
HTML structure of my site I have to now consider how that will break my
analytics.
------
Cakez0r
Great job! I think other analytics platforms will start to follow suit as more
people start to realise that it's cheap enough to just mercilessly capture
every user event. The UI looks beautiful and seems very intuitive too.
------
Jasber
Looks very cool––what kind of performance hit is introduced by logging every
event?
~~~
matm
It's essentially imperceptible. We measured it, and our client-side script
introduces a 0.1% CPU overhead.
~~~
raylu
I don't think anyone is concerned about the CPU overhead. (Also, let's not
talk about measuring things without defining exactly what was measured. On a
blank page I'm sure your JS runs great.)
How does it affect network performance? If I click a link and it takes me to
another page, how do you track that?
~~~
matm
Good point. In terms of network performance, we try to batch events and
minimize server requests.
For link tracking, our method is similar to how other analytics products track
link clicks - we delay the page navigation the min of: 1) 250ms, 2) the time
it takes for our server to respond to a click event.
~~~
uptown
>we delay the page navigation the max of: 1) 250ms, 2) the time it takes for
our server to respond to a click event.
So if your server takes 10 seconds to respond to a click event, the user
waits?
~~~
matm
Oh, whoops. Good catch. That should be min, not max.
------
pnt
Does Heap track event streams like mouse position and scrolling? The storage
overhead would be significantly larger than instantaneous events like clicks,
but this data would be interesting.
~~~
matm
Unfortunately, we're not tracking those events now, mostly because they don't
fit neatly into the event-based analytics model (i.e. they're not as
"graphable").
But that doesn't mean they aren't important. Agreed the data can be very
useful.
------
reddiric
I'm obviously outside of the audience this is for, and probably most other
commenters since only one other person mentioned performance.
Perf??
And of course, this follows the "include a script tag to our server" cloud
product web API pattern. This isn't setting off giant alarm-bells for anyone
else? This gets past the sniff test?
The fact that this doesn't fail the sniff test for most people is probably why
most web-apps feel like most web-apps feel, instead of like
<http://prog21.dadgum.com/>.
------
namabile
This looks great. I was looking in the docs and you even have a way to track
purchases/revenue and identify users.
In addition, the fact that you're able to associate identity data with past
actions should help tie users together across sessions and devices, if I'm
understanding correctly.
From the Heap docs: _User properties are associated with all of the user's
past activity, in addition to their future activity. Custom user properties
can be queried in the same fashion as any other user property._
------
jstsch
Looks nice. I do worry about the privacy implications of analytics like this.
I'm also pretty sure that this doesn't fly in Europe... something to consider
perhaps!
------
dropdownmenu
Awesome idea to help make capturing data more easy, but how will you deal with
the problem of the curse of dimensionality? As you start to capture more
variables you data begins to appear far apart leading to less meaningful
results.
Also, while 'capturing everything' sounds like an awesome idea it can lead to
worse performance if you don't take into account that your data now has more
variables that can each introduce noise.
~~~
disgruntledphd2
The thing about the curse of dimensionality is that it only really kicks into
play when you try to put every variable into a model (or when you have low n
relative to p, generally). If you restrict yourself to analysing events that
you actually care about, its much less of an issue.
------
k3n
Anyone know of a decent user-tracking / analytics package that isn't SaaS? And
isn't log-based, like Urchin (which I just discovered is yet another victim of
Googlicide[1])?
My app is in dire need of user-tracking and analytics, but it's a self-hosted
application and many of my clients run it on LAN segments that don't have WAN
connectivity.
1\. <https://www.google.com/urchin/>
~~~
namityadav
Piwik (<http://piwik.org/> , GPL 3, PHP-based) is perhaps the best analytics
solution that you can host on your own.
~~~
k3n
Thanks! I'll definitely look into this.
------
smnl
What if my site uses e.stopImmediatePropagation() in any click/event handlers?
Would this still be able to capture those events? And if so, how?
------
netvarun
We use heap at semantics3 and it's really awesome. I highly recommend it. It's
really like crack for devs.
------
anonfunction
Wow this is pretty amazing and something I wish google had offered for awhile.
The one area where I think your going to need to work on is your pricing. It's
just to high for most websites. Of course, if your an elephant hunter...
------
dm8
I would love to use this product! I was talking with my team recently about
having product similar to heap and we've used bunch of analytics products in
the past.
@Founders of Heap:
I would love to do beta test for you guys. When do you guys open the gates for
beta?
------
czzarr
this sounds really awesome if they can manage to stay up under heavy load.
It's such a huge pain to set up and maintain the tracking of events in
application code. Having everything retroactively sounds positively great.
------
shadowmint
I'd be amazed if we don't start seeing a "Tracking BlockPlus" for this sort of
thing, if it doesn't exist already.
edit: Sort of already does it seems: <https://www.fanboy.co.nz/>
------
randall
Closing the lightbox doesn't stop YouTube, fyi. Also, can you handle scrolls?
------
soneca
Does it also offers cohort abalysis based on the time of a particular event
(not just a particular property like Browser)? eg. filter everyone that signed
up at the first week of January.
------
kerno
Looks like a great tool and I'm looking forward to putting it in action.
But, what's with the robot and spaceships blowing up a city in the background
of your site?
------
krazydad
Cool service, but the pricing is insanely high. My piddly website gets 100k
uniques a month, which would cost $600 to track. Kraaaazy.
------
philfreo
You should integrate with Analytics.js...
<https://github.com/segmentio/analytics.js>
------
coolsunglasses
I plan to make my next website for mainland China, I really need to know that
IE is going to work fine here and which versions thereof.
------
michaelmior
Strange. I was just envisioning a service like this last week. Cool to see
someone actually building it. Best of luck!
------
enigmabomb
I'm really excited about this, I signed up. We've been trying to solve this
with different things for a while.
------
lingben
looks great but you should take a look at your pricing structure! pricing is
extremely difficult so I don't mean to over-criticise, the thing is that
you've basically priced yourself out for 90% of potential customers,
especially larger ones
------
endlessvoid94
What are the performance implications on, say, a javascript web application?
------
gcb0
Hope your sites don't have dialup or mobile over 2G users. ever.
------
blakeeb
Reticulating Splines!! Amazing Maxis reference, I'm sold.
------
markus_tipgain
That looks awesome! I definitely try it out.
------
homakov
2 questions
1) why would i need this info?
2) how do u track follow/like events
------
biolime
This looks absolutely amazing, great work!
------
philfreo
Please integrate with Analytics.js!
------
orangethirty
I suggest to test the text on orange button. From "Request an invite" to:
"Get exclusive access"
"Learn more"
"Take a better look"
"Find why N is for you"
"Join our FREE client club."
"Get a FREE account" _Note that free account != free product. Just give then
login details._
~~~
Samuel_Michon
_"Get a FREE account" Note that free account != free product. Just give then
login details._
Wow, that's really sleazy. I really hope nobody actually uses that idea.
~~~
orangethirty
That is one of the highest converting messages you can put on a button.
~~~
Samuel_Michon
I think that depends on what kind of conversion you're after. If you just want
to harvest email addresses, then sure. If you're looking for satisfied paying
customers, this kind of trickery won't work.
If you build a button that promises something for free, you need to give
something for free — free tier, 30 day trial, ebook, screencast, etc. Having
visitors fill out an account form is not a gift to them, it's a gift to YOU.
~~~
orangethirty
The issue here is that I'm sharing findings from my own data. This is not me
making stuff up. I have actually used this very same button text to increase
conversions (up by .04% on a site with thousands of visitors). It was not used
to harvest emails. A practice that simply does not work, unless you plan on
sending Viagra ads. I don't do such things.
_If you build a button that promises something for free, you need to give
something for free — free tier, 30 day trial, ebook, screencast, etc. Having
visitors fill out an account form is not a gift to them, it's a gift to YOU._
See, this is where you miss the point. The person is getting a free account.
You might not think its something, but there are a lot of accounts out there
for which you have to pay. Need to go to Costco? Hey, you have to pay for
membership (an account), just to make sure you can enter the store. Free
accounts may not be what they used to be (in your opinion), but they are still
very valuable overall.
Now, of course you are not going to just give them an account. That would be a
waste of a good lead. You will then follow up with another offer. Say, pay
half-off your service price for the first month. And so on.
I know some of this stuff looks rather strange to people here. But the
business world is very, very different from programming.
~~~
Samuel_Michon
Thanks for your explanation. I think we have different definitions of what an
'account' is. For me, an account is in which a user shares his contact
information (maybe also business & payment info). That in itself doesn't add
value.
From your last comment, I gather that (to you) 'account' surmounts to 'access
to the service or product'. If so, we agree.
When you apply for Costco membership, you get something in return: the chance
to buy products for less than they would normally cost. I don't see how that
translates to the example provided.
NB: I'm a publisher, marketer, editor, and designer. I develop software, but
I'm not a programmer.
~~~
orangethirty
I'm happy to be talking to another business dev. Shoot me an email. I love
sharing data with others.
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