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Ask HN: A tool that tracks various websites for keywords and give you updates? - laurent123456
I'm looking for a tool that would search a number of websites for certain keywords and show me the aggregated results on a page.<p>For instance, something that would use Hacker News, Lobsters or Reddit own search engine and return the aggregated results. You can then check the results from time to time and see if there's any update.<p>Any idea if something like this exists?
======
mindcrime
To the extent that any of those sites have RSS feeds, you can do something
like that with our project Neddick[1]. You can define a "channel" which is fed
by _n_ RSS Feeds (and also Twitter accounts and/or IMAP email accounts) to
build an aggregate view. Then you can define a "filter" for the channel based
on various criteria. We also have real-time notifications using the same kind
of criteria, where you can receive an email, an XMPP message, post to a
webhook, etc.
It's still somewhat beta'ish, but most everything I just described is working
today.
We're working on turning this into a SaaS offering, but that's not quite ready
yet... if you wanted to use it, you'd have to self-host. I hope to have a
Docker image ready soon, which would simplify deployment.
Sadly the documentation on deployment is a little out of date. If you wanted
to give it a try, basically create a postgres database named neddick_dev,
clone the repo, install Grails 3.3.6, and then run the runneddick.sh script
from in the repo directory. You'd also want to tweak the neddick.home property
defined in runneddick.sh to point somewhere meaningful.
We don't currently have any built-in support for leveraging a site's built in
search mechanism, but I could see it being a useful addition. If somebody
wanted to contribute that kind of functionality, I'd be happy to include it.
When we would get around to building it ourself is hard to say.
[1]: [https://github.com/fogbeam/Neddick](https://github.com/fogbeam/Neddick)
| {
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The 160sq ft apartment - olegious
http://www.berkeleyside.com/2012/03/08/berkeley-developer-sees-future-in-small-smart-apartments/
======
pwthornton
I don't think the market will bear that price. In NYC or DC the market
wouldn't bear that price. And frankly Berkeley, while nice, is no SF, NYC or
DC.
The concept of this place isn't bad. Many will decry the lack of space, but
the concept is just a place to sleep and get ready in the morning. If the
price were right (say $500 or so), it could be a nice way to live in a great
part of town without spending a ton of money. One of the joys of urban living
is that the city is your extra rooms. You don't need thousands of square feet
and a huge yard.
And if this place were $500 or so, you would have plenty of cash to go out and
enjoy the city on a daily basis. But at $1,600 a month, only someone with a
lot of money could afford to live there and enjoy the city a lot, which I
think defeats the purpose of this kind of living arrangement. $1,600 would get
you at least a studio in a very nice part of DC.
100 years ago, it was common for people to live in apartments that didn't have
kitchens. You ate in the cafe on the first floor of your building. You could
get away with a much smaller place by living this way. I think the concept
makes a lot of sense still for people who don't want to take care of a home,
but the price has to be right.
~~~
Eliezer
At $2/sqft, people would be snapping these up by the dozens just for crash
space. At $10/sqft it's a ludicrously bad deal. This seems so obviously doomed
that I wonder if the article is a misprint.
~~~
bane
Particularly considering that one of the main marketing thrusts is how cheap
these places are to build. It's be hard not to feel like your getting shafted
at $1600/mo.
------
mixmax
They could learn a lot from boating.
I live on a boat, and coincidentally I have 160 sq. Ft. of indoor living area.
In that space I have a functional kitchen w. Fridge, oven, cookers, freezer,
microwave etc. A bathroom, a table where 8 people can sit and eat, bedroom,
two chaiselongs, two guest beds, an office, cupboards and storage. And of
course an engine and a steering console - which I presume isn't of much use in
a normal apartment.
I can also change the view out the window if don't like the current one. :-)
~~~
FreeFull
Isn't boating quite a lot cheaper than conventional housing too.
~~~
mixmax
In my case I paid around $36.000 for the boat, and I pay on average $300 a
month for mooring, electricity and heating. A small apartment in Copenhagen,
which is where I live, is around $300.000.
So yes, it's a lot cheaper. Also a lot more fun.
------
fennecfoxen
"The San Francisco units will rent for $1,595 a month." Even in this property
market, even downtown, that's just ridiculous for a dinky 160 square feet.
Even furnished.
"a reconfigured bathroom and the addition of a washer/drier." Only 160 square
feet and you install a washer/drier instead of in-building laundry or a
laundromat up the street? That's not really the epitome of "sustainable" /
"urban infill" either.
"It’s a regulatory thicket in San Francisco." Yes. It's true. We suck.
~~~
grayrest
> The San Francisco units will rent for $1,595 a month.
I was wondering about this pricing. I pay the same amount for a 850 square
foot apartment in Upper East Side Manhattan (83rd and 1st so a 10 minute walk
from the 4/5/6 but still...). I started reading with the thought "I'd pay
~$800 for that if it was decently located".
I split an apartment in Cole Valley SF in 2006-7 and think we were at ~$1800
for a two bedroom but it was a pretty crappy apartment for the area.
~~~
Drbble
That's half the price of every similar Manhattan apartment I have seen. That
is a DC price, not an Upper East Side price. Long term rent control?
~~~
grayrest
It's a small/non-doorman building and I got it in late 2009 and the landlord
had just remodeled, had a number of vacancies in the building (coincidence,
not a building problem) and really wanted to rent it. I got a good deal on it
but I've talked to other people in the area with similar apartments in the
$1800-1900 range. If I were closer to Central Park or the river, the price
goes way up.
~~~
Drbble
Or when the new 2nd Ave subway is finished...
~~~
grayrest
Thought has occurred to me but I'm looking forward to this! Will be neat to be
able to go from home to work without actually walking a full block at either
end.
Pretty sure one of the 86th street entrances is coming up on my block because
they dug a ~40 foot deep hole and have a giant white truss sitting on my
corner.
------
mkramlich
I would not have minded living in such small of a space in the past. With two
big caveats. Based on actual experience, I've found the two biggest problems
living in apartments -- well, sharing walls/floors/ceilings with strangers,
anyway -- is the noisey neighbors phenomenon, and the smoking/non-smoking
thing. No matter what the official policy is on noise, there will be that guy
who decides to operate what sounds like a jackhammer at midnight, on a work
night. Or you'll be in an absolutely non-smoking building, floor, apartment,
etc. and yet this mysterious cigarette smoke will come out of the ventilation
system.
Providing a small living space? Not that hard of a problem.
Solving the rude neighbors problem and/or totally insulating/mitigating it?
Harder. (Still not impossible, in my judgment.)
~~~
pwthornton
Sound insulation isn't that difficult, it just costs money, and it's one of
the easiest places to cut corners. When people are looking at an apartment
they look to see how the kitchen is, if it has hardwood floors, a balcony,
etc. No one asks, "how is the sound insulation," but they should.
Municipalities would be doing civilization a huge favor if they upped the
minimum sound insulation requirements for apartment/condo buildings.
Some neighbors are just plain rude and in their own world, but a lot of the
issues that buildings can have are from poor materials.
The good news is that it's pretty cheap to throw down extra foam insulation
under the floor to mitigate noise issues. But don't expect builders to do it.
------
jedberg
There is nowhere in Berkeley that close to the Bay Bridge. In fact, that has
to have been taken in San Francisco, so the caption is clearly wrong.
~~~
fennecfoxen
The author refers to a 'trompe l'oeil' view:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trompe-l%27oeil>
Trompe-l'œil, which can also be spelled without the hyphen in English as
trompe l'oeil,[1] (French for 'deceive the eye', pronounced [tʁɔ̃p lœj]) is an
art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the
optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions.
(edit: HN doesn't like the ' in a link)
~~~
jedberg
Ah, I should have actually looked up what that meant, and my question would
have been answered. Thanks fennecfoxen.
~~~
cpeterso
The view is probably fake to hide the building's (as the article puts it)
"top-secret location."
------
ChuckMcM
I find these things interestingly creative, I've got a 'class B' motorhome
(basically a full size van with stuff retro-fitted into it) and it's quite
livable for one person.
I totally agree the $1600 seems out of line, but cities are really conflicted
about low cost housing. There are many ways that such places could allow
housing more people who are between homeless for chemical/physical reasons and
just below the "food" + "housing" level.
------
eplanit
Apartments of this size are typical in Japan, and also do not come at a
reduced cost. There, however, one can buy miniaturized appliances
(refrigerators, dishwashers, laundry) which do not cause one to sacrifice
having those 'luxuries'.
~~~
evoxed
Are you in Tokyo? Space is prized but at this size even in Yokohama, living
out of a hotel room downtown cost barely more than these apartments. And that
was before I caught on to all the 50000/mo ALT-havens...
~~~
FelixP
Forgive my ignorance, but it's been a while since I was in Tokyo. What's an
ALT-haven? Is that like a residential version of a capsule hotel?
~~~
evoxed
Hah no no, ALT as in Assistant Language Teacher. The go-to "career" to anyone
who speaks English (or any European language as well I suppose) and has no
other reputable skills (okay fine... experience) to immigrate to Japan.
------
sukuriant
In Redmond, $1100 buys you something like 1000 square feet (2 bedroom). $1500
for 700 REALLY nice square feet. I'm sorry, but no. 1500$ a month for a micro-
studio is completely unacceptable. Even, I imagine, in the Bay Area. What's
really insulting is that at 160 square feet and some good sound proofing, you
can have 3 or 4 of those places in the space I have my 1. That means they'd be
making 6000$ a month on people. I think I know where the price really comes
from.
~~~
pwthornton
Isn't Redmond largely suburban? I don't think the two compare.
~~~
akurilin
You're correct, there's plenty of space and they're continuously building new
apt complexes. My old apt was 1300sqft for something like 1500/mo with 2
garage spots. It's a completely different situation compared to SF.
~~~
pwthornton
What are the apt complexes like? Can you walk to stuff? Are the buildings
mixed-use with businesses on the first floor?
In most of the country, zoning prohibited mixed-use zoning for much of the
20th century. It was a huge mistake that only be unraveled now. The side
effect of that is that areas with good mixed-use and walkability are really
expensive. This is a large reason that places like NYC and SF are so
expensive, especially the areas with mixed-use zoning.
New mixed-use housing stock isn't coming online fast enough and the Bay Area
in particular is very anti-desnity, despite the fact that they need it.
Restrict growth, particularly growth with height, and you'll have expensive
rents and housing prices.
~~~
sukuriant
The 1500 for 700 square feet is right in the middle of town and has a
restaurant on the bottom of one of the buildings. Red 160 is its name.
------
pasbesoin
Soundproofing. I don't need a lot of space, but I do _need peace and quiet_.
------
shingen
I thought it looked like a great concept for someone in their early 20's, just
starting out, that didn't need much space. Somewhere I'd have been willing to
live at 22, while trying to start a company on a shoe string.
Then I saw the price. Hopefully the market teaches them a lesson.
------
mey
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_hotel>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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What You Can Do with a 13-Year-Old Laptop - sT370ma2
https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/what-a-thirteen-can-do.html
======
dddddaviddddd
Getting a quality battery is the biggest obstacle for me to use old hardware.
Otherwise would honestly consider using a PowerBook G3.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Comparing Ember Octane and React - mokkol
https://www.pzuraq.com/comparing-ember-octane-and-react/
======
onion2k
The author has taken an Ember app they wrote themselves, and compared it to a
React example that includes code from the 19th chapter of a guide to learning
React, "React Custom Hooks (Advanced)", without working through the first 18
chapters. It's no wonder they found it complicated.
Comparing things is good and useful, but if you're not qualified to understand
both sides of the argument well it's really hard to do a good job. This
article fails hard on that count.
Also...
_The first thing that is a clear difference with the Ember Octane version is
that it 's split across multiple files._
The React example is one file _because it 's an example._ The idea is to
demonstrate all the moving parts in one place. It's not presented as a
representation of what you would build as a production app. If you look at
Road To React there's a chapter called "Folder/File Organization" in the
appendices that explains how you might progress after working through the
tutorial app.
~~~
thawaway1837
Having interacted with Core Ember devs I would be very surprised if the author
didn’t know anything about React. I’d wager that he indeed knows a lot about
React.
At least the ones I interacted with did not only know React, they knew it well
enough to identify its pitfalls, and be able to translate what they believed
to be its best parts to EmberJs.
Also, the comment about different files is a thing even outside this example
(and is one reason I prefer react over Ember personally). React has no defined
file system, and strongly encourages components are written in a single file.
Ember, OTOH, does a lot of file separation, and a lot of convention over
configuration.
~~~
cageface
Convention over configuration is one of the worst ideas ever in software in my
opinion. All it means is that you have to memorize all the implicit
assumptions about how an app is put together before you can work productively.
It makes for great convention talk demos but in production what you really
want is very explicit and obvious relationships between pieces. For example,
this is the reason I find a React/Typescript codebase vastly easier to
understand than Rails.
If your language is so verbose that making things explicit is too painful then
maybe it's time to reach for a more expressive language instead of hiding
everything behind a set of implicit rules.
~~~
101404
No, it means that there's a way things are _usually_ done, but if, in you
situation, a different way works better, you are free to use it without having
to fight the framework.
~~~
cageface
In a React codebase, for example, I can look at the imports and see
immediately where everything in play in that file came from. In real
production codebases this is invaluable.
~~~
pzuraq
I definitely agree with this! In large codebases especially. This is
ultimately why Ember has decided to move toward using JS imports to stitch
components together as well, we recently merged an RFC to do just that.
~~~
thawaway1837
This was my favorite part about Ember, and what I miss the most.
The Ember team is one of the least dogmatic teams that I have come across, and
has been willing to change their entire strategy when presented with a better
idea (while providing a well defined and fairly convenient upgrade path).
I still remember when React first came out, and showed how one way binding was
so much better than 2 way bindings, and the Ember team was able to quickly
switch to this new philosophy via DDAU, while still providing an easy upgrade
path for our code. And all this was before 1.0 if I remember correctly.
------
holler
This is an excellent writeup. Something that sticks out to me is that the
Ember code feels much more readable than React with hooks. The "future"
component at the bottom using inline glimmer templates with @use is especially
exciting! To be honest I think that could be a game changer and get more
developers excited about Ember.js.
~~~
arodyginc
I'd agree that React Hooks is a big shift towards unhealthy coding practices.
But used wisely it can simplify the trivial scenarios. Only problem is to find
wise javascript devs...
------
isakkeyten
From a perspective of someone who codes react, what i dont like in ember:
\- this this this, so many this keywords
\- not a fan of decorators
\- constructor and super
\- mutability (unless it hides an immutable nature)
\- hbs feels weirder to me than jsx
\- the fact that you have yet another filetype in your code means even the
tiniest components MUST be in more than 1 file, react lets you choose (edit: i
rushed, seems there are template literals one can use)
~~~
airstrike
Honest question, what's so bad about `this`?
~~~
lhorie
Dynamic scope[1] is generally considered to be harder to reason about since
their values are not determined by where they appear in a file (but rather by
how the code executes at runtime)
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_(computer_science)#Lexic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_\(computer_science\)#Lexical_scope_vs._dynamic_scope)
------
tangue
I expected a flamewar trigger but it was a nice writeup. It's nice to see that
compared to a few years ago (remembers rails dramas, Node.js is __*, ASI in
Bootstrap), hackers have stopped the "biggest dick contest" posts. Guess it's
on twitter now...
------
haskman
I find all this code so hard to read, because there are very few elements
being _composed_ together. It reads like one monolithic chunk of code (and
with a global state!).
I find code enjoyable to read and write when it's like Lego. You build small
little self contained pieces and join them together. It makes a big difference
when building large applications.
I wrote an example in
[Concur]([https://github.com/ajnsit/concur](https://github.com/ajnsit/concur))
to demonstrate what I mean -
[https://gist.github.com/ajnsit/f0fee9a83480289a5a052273ce21c...](https://gist.github.com/ajnsit/f0fee9a83480289a5a052273ce21cc1b).
The "app" is composed of self-contained widgets, each of which are short and
easy to read, and have a defined purpose (show the searchbox, render a story
etc.) In a larger app, they can be mixed and matched together in logical ways.
------
eberfreitas
I wrote the Elm counterpart of the same example...
[https://dev.to/eberfreitas/comparing-elm-to-ember-octane-
and...](https://dev.to/eberfreitas/comparing-elm-to-ember-octane-and-
react-1in2)
------
jtdev
The functional zealotry stink permeates every corner of React. The Ember
approach seems much more aligned with my preferences.
~~~
flowerlad
I don't get why so many JavaScript developers thing functional is cool.
Functional has been around for 30+ years. OOP won against functional because
OOP is easier to understand and leads to more maintainable code. These days
people are taking a second look at functional because functional avoids state,
which makes it easier to write concurrent code with no locks. (This has
suddenly become important because Moore's law is coming to an end, and CPUs
are adding more cores instead of making cores faster and faster.) But this
advantage of functional is not applicable to JavaScript because there are no
locks in JavaScript in any case!
~~~
nonsense1234
JavaScript is also an extremely bad functional language unless you don't mind
ridiculous memory bloat and inefficiency. To be even reasonably efficient
you're basically forced to use classes because the primary ergonomic
alternative is objects that contain functions that close over lexical scope.
This is ridiculously inefficient because functions that would normally have a
single instance on the prototype chain are now duplicated for every single
object. Modern JavaScript engines can't optimize this without breaking the
spec which they obviously won't do. You can resort to just using plain
functions and objects that contain nothing but data but this quickly becomes
quite ugly without a pipeline operator.
The standard library is also filled with mutating methods and doesn't include
proper functional data structures and pure JavaScript implementations of
functional data structures, such as immutable.js, are so slow that you might
as well just use arrays and objects and repeatedly do shallow copies.
Programs that stress functional purity in JavaScript are becoming hard to
meaningfully benchmark because instead of having a few hotspots absolutely
everything is incredibly inefficient and slow. Death by a thousand cuts.
~~~
thawaway1837
To be fair, JavaScript is also an extremely bad OOP language.
And I’m not complaining about its prototypical inheritance either (I actually
like it), but the fact that it tries to hide its prototypical nature under a
Java like veneer.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Microsoft’s rebranded Azure Container Service shifts its focus to Kubernetes - wstrange
https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/24/microsoft-new-azure-kontainer-service-puts-its-focus-on-kubernetes/?ncid=rss
======
wstrange
Amazon is the last hold out here. What are the odds of a November
announcement?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Rss-puppy: A watchdog tool for monitoring RSS feeds - ingve
https://github.com/buzzfeed-openlab/rss-puppy
======
derFunk
Looks interesting. I'm using automated RSS feed monitoring currently with
IFTTT and its maker channel. The maker channel is calling my own PHP script
when an entry has been added to a third party feed. It's a feed announcing new
software releases which I then parse, download, and automatically install on a
farm of 8 servers. RSS-puppy in this case could remove the dependency to
IFTTT.
~~~
Argentum01
Project author here: Totally. And don't get me wrong, IFTTT has a slick
interface and I love not having to manage it... but also, setting up more than
a few recipes becomes a major time sync
------
meunier
This looks like it would integrate really well with newsbeuter. Having to
refresh my full set of feeds is always what's kept me using a cloud-provided
RSS reader.
~~~
onli
Something like this should support Pubsubhubbub and rss-cloud. After having
implemented something like this[0], I based my own feedreader[1] completely on
superfeedr[2], which supports those push notifications as well and crawls the
feeds in very small intervalls if not. That get rids of the problem of having
to refresh the feeds completely.
[0]: [https://github.com/onli/rsspusher](https://github.com/onli/rsspusher),
now defunct
[1]: [https://onli.github.io/feedtragon/](https://onli.github.io/feedtragon/)
[2]: [https://superfeedr.com/](https://superfeedr.com/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Fully-Remote Amateur Radio License Exam Administration - kawfey
https://blog.hamstudy.org/2020/04/fully-remote-amateur-radio-license-exam-administration/
======
kawfey
Traditionally, amateur radio license exams in the US are performed in-person
with a three examiner requirement. Due to COVID-19, most test sessions were
cancelled, bringing amateur radio examinations to a halt. Adapting to video
conferencing and online exam administration tools isn't the be-all end-all to
amateur radio testing, but it has been able to keep the flow of exams going.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Hey HN, I am looking for feedback - bestsignal
I have put my first Android application on the market and I am interested in receiving some feedback. I hope to grow the application and make it great over time, but I want to do so based on what the customer would like, not what I think they would like.<p>The application is called BestSignal and it currently has two main functions. The first function is to give users control over when their phone switches between Wifi and cellular signals based on their respective strengths. Many of us have experienced the situation where our phone hangs onto a wifi connection that is down to one bar even though we have 3 or 4 bars of a 3G or 4G connection. Now you can change that! For example, if you want to switch while Wifi is still two bars strong as long as cellular has 3 bars, then simply set the values with our easy-to-use interface and your done!<p>The second function is that BestSignal gives users the ability to monitor their cellular data usage in order to avoid those costly overage charges at the end of their billing cycle! We even allow you to set a warning level so you can be notified that you are getting close to you data limit.<p>There are a number of other conveniences BestSignal offers, including configuring connections to open networks, deciding if you want to ignore 2G networks when dropping Wifi, and giving quick access to battery-saving toggles (e.g. activating airplane mode or turning on/off your Wifi radio).<p>My ultimate goal is to make the application a go-to place to help users manage their data needs. Please let me know what you think of the application (either by commenting here, or through the "Contact BestSignal" button in the application) and I will work towards improving the application. Thank you for taking the time to check out BestSignal!<p>Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eightythirty.bestsignal<p>Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Signal-LLC-BestSignal/dp/B007QEIHEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333247460&sr=8-1
======
GoofyGewber
Looks pretty good!
~~~
bestsignal
Thank you for taking the time to look and comment. I really appreciate it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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30 Examples of Web Design Sketches - mnazim
http://designbeep.com/2013/05/09/30-great-examples-of-web-design-sketches/
======
aparajayah
Aparajayah is an Professional Web Design Company offering top quality & Eye
catchy Website Design Services as per client needs.
<http://www.aparajayah.com/web_design>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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The FBI, Credibility, and Government - douche
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/147045002381/the-fbi-credibility-and-government
======
MrZongle2
_" The alternative was the head of the FBI deciding for the people of the
United States who would be their next president."_
I like Scott Adams, but he's dead wrong here.
Last I heard, the Sanders camp hasn't conceded defeat. Neither major political
party has held their convention and officially chosen their nominees.
Additionally, there are a fair number of third parties available.
And if all the above didn't apply and Adams was otherwise right, there _still_
would be one individual besides Comey who would be responsible for "choosing"
the next President of the United States: _the individual at the center of the
controversy_ who, even if innocent, has done almost _nothing_ to avoid such an
egregious appearance of impropriety.
------
pasbesoin
On the one hand, I understand the rationale. I even remember something similar
being written into an episode of "The West Wing".
On the other hand, the U.S. citizenry has had it "up to here" with "too big to
fail".
Too big to fail politics? Political careers? (Not to mention all the other
"too big to fail' careers we seem to have, these days, particularly at the
top.)
Enough.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google will begin testing password-free login to Android apps - jonbaer
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/24/google-passwords-android
======
konschubert
> Among the pieces of evidence that Google suggests the Trust API could use
> are some obvious biometric indicators, such as your face shape and voice
> pattern, as well as some less obvious ones: how you move, how you type and
> how you swipe on the screen. > With the service continually running in the
> background of the phone, it can keep track of whether those indicators match
> how it knows you use your phone.
This is different from a password in my eyes. A password only proves that I
know a secret. It can prove that I am the same person who signed up for a
service or at least that I was trusted with the password by the person who
signed up.
This Trust API on the other hand proves that I am a specific individual.
A password is like a pseudonym. The Trust API requires me to reveal my full
identity.
I think this is big step back in privacy.
~~~
thomnottom
Thinking the same thing regarding privacy.
I'm all for getting rid of passwords, but the idea of Google (and other
service providers) keeping that much information on me would definitely push
me to getting rid of smartphone. Yes, I know that Google, Facebook, etc.
already know a lot about me. But I still have some control over it. And a lot
of it are things that I can and do change over time (what they knew about me 5
years ago doesn't necessarily reflect who I am now).
~~~
eevilspock
Not to mention that if this catches on, ever more parties (that you
authenticate with) will be collecting these biometrics, which means there
would be an ever greater chance of that data getting used to impersonate you.
To avoid this they would have to keep it on the device, in a secure enclave,
in "hashed" form rather than the raw biometric, and only transmit the fact of
authentication to Google, much as how Apple deals with Touch ID on the iPhone.
We all know Eric Schmidt's view on privacy:
_" If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you
shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of
privacy, the reality is that search engines -- including Google -- do retain
this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are
all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that
all that information could be made available to the authorities."_
_" We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know
what you’re thinking about.”_
_“Your digital identity will live forever… because there’s no delete
button.”_
~~~
jimktrains2
> Not to mention that if this catches on, ever more parties (that you
> authenticate with) will be collecting these biometrics
... and then doing data science over them. It's like Phrenology all over
again!
------
s_kilk
> Among the pieces of evidence that Google suggests the Trust API could use
> are some obvious biometric indicators, such as your face shape and voice
> pattern, as well as some less obvious ones: how you move, how you type and
> how you swipe on the screen. With the service continually running in the
> background of the phone, it can keep track of whether those indicators match
> how it knows you use your phone.
I wonder how this would deal with changes in your behaviour, lets say, due to
illness or disability.
If I'm ill and high on painkillers, will the system lock me out? If I lose my
right arm in an accident, (or even if my right arm is pinned under something
and I desperately need to use the phone), will I be blocked from using the
phone?
I think this stuff sounds like a good idea in a vacuum, a vacuum in which you
can presume you'll always be in the same state of mind and body as what Google
consider 'normal'.
~~~
VLM
> if my right arm is pinned under something and I desperately need to use the
> phone
I have pattern locking today, and "emergency call" button on the lock screen
is already a thing.
I would imagine this would be option #7 or so for the lock screen. Depending
on your phone's hardware, etc.
I used to treat my phone like my wallet, aka no lock at all beyond anti-butt
dialing swipe, but some obscure corner of VPN setup required more extreme
measures.
I assume that any lock technology on my phone is on the level of a kids diary
book lock, and act accordingly. Anyone with physical access to my phone owns
all of it, so I'm pretty happy with "swipe to unlock" and not happy about big
brother authoritarianism WRT vpn configs and lock screen choices. I don't find
a bunch of security theater about "wiggle analysis" or facial recognition to
be interesting or useful and mostly want to know about it so as to avoid it.
~~~
Godel_unicode
Anyone with physical access and lots of money to pay for a bespoke exploit
(assuming you're using a phone where that's possible), sure they have can have
access if they're willing to put in the time and considerable money it would
take.
If you're ok with the risk posture of not locking your phone that's your
decision, but you're quite wrong about the level of access granted merely by
possession of a modern smartphone.
~~~
gkya
What would be the amount of users who use a proper password on the lock
screen, instead of the pattern or a PIN? I bet the actual pattern space is
very little for these and these are very guessable. How hard would it be to
brute force these or even analyse the human fat on the screen to figure sth
out?
I unlock and lock the phone very often, unlike a computer where I unlock once
and lock when my session is done. Thus I opt for sth quick and convenient
instead of a proper password. I'd like to have a little chip like a yubikey
that I'd use with an ordinary pattern or pin, guess that'd be the best
approach that's both convenient and secure.
~~~
Godel_unicode
1 - patterns and pins are not as insecure as you apparently believe (consider
that length isn't mandated and watch the search space explode). Enable the "10
tries and it's wiped" setting and get on with your life 2 - I wasn't talking
about Joe public, I'm talking about the type of person who posts in smartphone
security articles on HN. They'll pick a good enough PIN/Pattern 3 - we're not
trying to secure against an advanced adversary, by far the most likely bad
actor is the thief who pulled it out of your bag at Starbucks. A PIN/Pattern
is fort Knox to them.
Security is all about risk mitigation, you have to consider against whom you
want the system to be secured.
~~~
gkya
3\. You can't know.
2\. No they won't. I don't. If I'll type a password once, twice a day, that's
okay. But I draw that pattern or pin tens of times a day.
1\. See VLM's post on this thread.
0\. You can't ever know who you'll deal with. All you'll know will be
"somebody has it".
~~~
Godel_unicode
You're totally missing my point. It's not that I can't know, it's that I don't
care. You can't secure a phone against nation-state actors, so don't try. Do
enough security so that the random person who steals your phone to sell it
doesn't also steal your personal photos and bank info, order stuff from
Amazon, use your phone to call their Uber, etc. They're more likely to be who
has your phone anyway.
Re-read the bottom of my other post, security is about balancing cost of
mitigation against predicted impact of threat. State actors are very unlikely
and very expensive to mitigate. Petty theft is more likely and cheaper.
------
dragonwriter
Biometric authentication is a decrease in security for users, not an increase.
Biometric authentication can, as an additional factor, with proper management
(which is non-trivial) be a benefit to security fire institutions that need to
safeguard against sharing of credentials, but replacing other authors
mechanisms with biometrics rather than augmenting them makes biometrics a net
negative.
For some consumer uses they are an increase in convenience and may be a better
security vs convenience balance, but that's undermines if they are
misrepresented as increased security, because then users will be choosing them
on faulty premises.
~~~
chme
Correct.
They should spend more time to develop better management of passwords.
I would like to have a poem generator that generates unique and easy to
remember poems, that can be used as master passwords.
~~~
Godel_unicode
...Which, because of all the rules associated with a poem, would have
shockingly low entropy and therefore not be good passwords in addition to
being a pain to type in.
~~~
e12e
I've been thinking about a project along these lines, on and off for a long
time. The basic premise is that we need passphrases - that is strong passwords
that are usable to derive symmetric keys from (and can be used to, among other
things protect the private half of asymmetric keys, and/or unlock databases
that manage user/site/password tuples). And they need to be random, and easy
to remember.
Ideally we'd want such pass-phrases to have 128 bits of entropy, although I
suspect just getting to 64 bits would be a big improvement on most general
password/pass-phrase schemes (Does anyone know of research into how stretching
a 64 bit key to 128 bits affect real-world crypto-systems? Assuming a
"slow"/"good" stretching/key derivation scheme, and the use of a salt, I
suspect it might be "good enough").
Now, some napkin math: The English alphabet consists of 5 vowels and 21 non-
vowels; we can generally start words with a combination of the two, and some
words (like "two") start with a sequence of two non-vowels. 5 * 21 = 105, with
another 23 combinations we can reach 128. That's 7 bits for a single word out
of a list of 128, identified by it's first two letters. To reach a minimum of
64 bits, we need 10 such words, or perhaps two sentences of 5 words each (Note
that there is little help in captilaization here, that single bit doesn't
really move the needle on the number of words we end up needing -- considering
the difficulty of remember which of a set of random letters are capitalized).
Creating word lists of 128 words is quite easy - we could have some lists of
substantives, verbs, adverbs etc - it might even be possible to find words
that rhyme. So we could probably construct pass-phrases like: "[The] small red
car drives quickly", "huge scary horse hides sadly" \-- which we can
input/verify/use in their "short form" encoding 70 bits:
"smrecadrquhuschohisa". To get through password "security" tests, we might say
that the first letter is capitalized, and a period added on the end (possibly
we should throw a number in there as well, but hopefully three letter classes
are enough for most "checks"): "Smrecadrquhuschohisa." or
"1Smrecadrquhuschohisa."
Note that the point here is that the words can be generated just as we
generate symmetric cipher keys - from a random 70 bit number -- and are just
as secure (or insecure) as such keys are. The rule-based capitalization and
punctuation doesn't add any entropy -- it's just there in case we need to get
accepted by legacy systems.
Also note that, even this simple scheme, requires a lot of typing for just 70
bits. At 7 bits per word, we'd need 19 words to go beyond 128 bits - which
probably means it would be just as well to go for four five-word sentences.
Now, the point of all this, is that if you want a poem that lets you remember
128 bits of random data, you have some work cut out for you, if you want this
system to be based around simple generating rules, that are obviously without
any bias (no more bias than what you find in generating symmetric (session)
keys).
I've been playing with this idea for a while, but so far it seems ~64 bits is
a likely "wall" for easy to implement correctly, in a way that's easy to use.
Other options is to use a graphical input - with emoji or images in a grid,
possibly with the added factor of colour (eg: red/white, blue/white,
black/white etc) - but 128 bits of information turns out to be a lot to
encode!
~~~
Natanael_L
To start with, never abbreviate passwords. You're making it more ambiguous,
creating more possible sentences that could match the same output.
The better solution when length is capped is hashing and something like base64
encoding.
Regarding KDF:s, they only add as much difficulty as you put work in. If you
put in 256x the work, you get log2(256) = effectively 8 extra "bits" of
entropy worth of bruteforce resistance. You want 80-100 bits in the long term.
~~~
e12e
> You're making it more ambiguous, creating more possible sentences that could
> match the same output.
Yes, but can you quantify how much entropy is in those letters and spaces that
are chopped off? In an obvious way? I agree that there is (probably) no harm
in and of itself of including them in the password, but as mentioned in the
sibling comment, the main point is to have it _obvious_ what level of entropy
is encoded. As the word tables and system is designed to be _public_ , the
don't encode more secret information, except in the case where the attacker
isn't attacking you/this system specifically. But an attacker could, so I'd
rather avoid the false sense of security that the handful of extra bits full
English words would add. And as mentioned, it adds to the difficulty of typing
in the password correctly, from memory.
> The better solution when length is capped (...)
While systems might cap length when storing/validating passwords, the capping
here is for the human part of the system. How and what to remember, how and
what to type. It's a user interface/interaction improvement over other
password schemes, not strictly a technical scheme.
Basically the problem it tries to solve, is how can we easily remember n
numbers of random data, and communicate it to our various systems, both new,
and legacy.
------
sametmax
A better title for the article: "Google wants to replace your password with
the analysis of your private life".
Of course, since it's always running in the background, you can be sure it
will be (ab)used for way more than passwords.
And I know a lot of people that will let them do it.
And that depresses me.
~~~
Godel_unicode
s/better/more click-baity
Please let's don't encourage the buzzfeedification of everything, maybe?
------
pmlnr
[https://twitter.com/f_u_e_n_t_e/status/706462603401412608](https://twitter.com/f_u_e_n_t_e/status/706462603401412608)
"A... fingerprint... is... a... username... not.. a.. password... There. I
can't say it any slower."
Biometrics should not replace passwords. Ever. They serve different purposes.
------
aakilfernandes
The problem with biometrics is its a password you cant change. What happens if
theres a leak? Unfortunately we can't update our facial structure.
This kind of API might be useful as a 2fa, but never as a standalone
authentication mechanism.
Edit: I mispoke. The main problem isn't with leaks, its with other apps
collect the same data google uses as biometrics. For example, a video chat app
that grabs the same biometric data (facial structure/typing pattern) that
google uses for authentication. That chat app then would have everything
needed to emulate you.
~~~
hmhrex
> What happens if theres a leak?
I didn't even think of this. That's a very scary thought. Not only is it
leaking your password replacement, but a good part of your identity.
~~~
kristofferR
[http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/philippines-55m-voters-exposed-
fing...](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/philippines-55m-voters-exposed-fingerprint-
passport-data-stolen-1553720)
------
Freak_NL
Google always seems to betting on several horses — for authentication, Google
is also backing the FIDO U2F standard. This is basically a standard that
allows you to authenticate with a physical security token, connected to your
computing device via USB, NFS, or Bluetooth LTE, and reusable for as many
U2F-enabled services as you like, without those services being able to
correlate that device across services (so if you authenticate as user Alice at
GMail, and later on authenticate as user Bob at Youtube, Google won't know you
used the same U2F device due to the way keys are generated).
No need to type in some generated value (as with OTP), just press the button
on the key, or swipe it past your NFC/Bluetooth LTE-enabled device to
authenticate. Logins can be optionally strengthened with a weak knowledge-
factor such as a PIN.
It already works in Chrome, it will be supported in Firefox and probable Edge
at some point, and you can choose which manufacturer you want (e.g., Yubico).
I really hope U2F gains traction, because biometrics really creep me out (in
addition to the many arguments against its use mentioned in this thread).
------
erikb
The goal is great, yeah! But the solution is very, very wrong. You don't want
to authenticate with a key that you can't change.
E.g. someone copies your face with a 3D printer and you find out. You want to
be able to stop him from accessing your secrets. But you don't want to apply
plastic surgery for that.
Second e.g. someone captures you and wants to open something you can only
access with a part of your body (like a finger, or a face or an eye). In that
case you want to be able to give it to him without him cutting off parts of
your body. The security is broken, but at least your body doesn't have to be.
So yeah, this solution is very very wrong. (It's weird that the physical key
has the attribute that someone can steal it is in some cases a feature not a
bug, but if you think about it it's true.)
------
heavymark
Google can't kill passwords, they can simply make it more convenient to login
for users like TouchID. Biometrics should simply be an additional part of 2
factor authentication. Finger prints are something we have, passwords are
something we know. Police or criminal or a partner could simply put your thumb
on your phone to login into it without your consent (or knowledge if you are
asleep). Where is people without arms, hands or lose or damage them later in
life wouldn't work. Passwords are compromised all the time but you can simply
change it. If your fingerprint is stolen eventually you have no realistic
option to change it. Biometrics should simply be an additional layer of
security as it is today.
------
grenoire
'...average of over 100 passwords in Europe'
I'm truly fascinated at this number; if I understood it correctly that means
you are registered to at least 100 services that you semi-actively use, AND
have different passwords for all.
Not even the people I know who generate randomised passwords have more than 20
they use regularly.
Is it an exaggeration or a realistic figure?
~~~
21
My password manager has 500 entries. Around 75% of them are website passwords.
~~~
majewsky
What is the remaining 25%? 125 mail accounts? :)
------
mikegerwitz
Also a discussion from yesterday on Schneier's blog:
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/05/google_moving...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/05/google_moving_f.html)
------
y7
Biometrics like TouchID work fine for authentication, but they don't work for
encryption. Encryption requires a _secret_ , and you can't really call your
biometric features a secret (even besides that it probably won't be of high
enough entropy and that you wouldn't be able to have more than one set). This
is why iPhones always ask for your password when you restart your phone --
it's not just a security feature, it actually needs your password in order to
decrypt the phone data.
------
nxzero
I'd heard this was in the pipeline, but didn't believe it given how invasive
(aka no privacy), problematic (you can't backup how you behave), and insecure
(given a motivated attacker, I've yet to see a biometric control that can't be
attacked).
Why's Google doing this?
It's not obvious to me, since I'm guessing they know all of this, likely
already have they data on users, etc.
Why's Google doing this?
~~~
dspeyer
Because passwords are terrible.
Lots of users pick guessable ones unless you have extensive password rules to
stop them, and those rules are a huge pain to your users.
Lots of users have terrible password hygiene, leaving them all sorts of places
they shouldn't.
Enough users are going to forget their passwords that you need a recovery
mechanism. Which means an attacker needs to break _either_ the password _or_
the recovery. The most common recovery method is email, but Google often _is_
the email provider.
~~~
nxzero
My understanding is that this was deployed internally first, so the calm that
"people" don't get passwords seems like a stretch.
(Meaning I assume that the average person working at Google is smart enough to
know how to use passwords.)
~~~
jsolson
Knowing how and putting it into practice are two different things.
I know I should eat better and exercise more, and yet here I am eating a scone
and not having been on my bike in nearly a month.
------
lizzard
What about your ability to refuse to tell law enforcement a password? In the
U.S. at least there is some precedent that giving a password could be a self-
incriminating act, so you can be protected under the Fifth Amendment. I wonder
if biometrics to unlock a device would count as an "act". If not, people could
be forced by courts to hand over their passwords.
------
alchemical
I still think there's a need for passwords depending on the context. For
example I would worry if Google employees didn't encrypt their work laptop
with FDE as there are very motivated people who super want access (even a tiny
slither will do) to Google's internal infra.
Google has enough dirt on people anyway to implement a passwordless system
because they practice very rigorous fingerprinting of individuals regardless.
You don't even need a Google account. Google knows who you are as you traverse
the web in any meaningful way. They do this through fingerprinting captchas /
supercookies, and subsidizing core internet infra like Blogger, any number of
vanity URLs (goo.gl), and they have others at their disposal.
But do note: Google are not 'too big to fail' like a bank.
The great _Alphabet Leak of 2030_ is upon us and we better be ready.
------
danohuiginn
> Rather than giving a binary answer, as a password does, the API can hand
> over a score to indicate how confident it is that you really are you
Helpful of them to give everybody trying to break this a measure of how well
they are doing. Much easier to optimize against than a binary succeed/fail.
------
joveian
"Consumers tell us that they are struggling to remember what is now an average
of over 100 passwords in Europe."
This is what needs to be fixed; there is no reason for most people to remember
more than two passwords for personal use, one or two more for work in some
cases, and maybe a few more in special circumstances. Decades of encouraging
(or legislating in some cases[1]) users to do the wrong thing makes people
hate passwords.
[1] Apparently in the US medical patient portals are required to (attempt to)
prevent you from storing your password in your web browser.
~~~
Nadya
_> This is what needs to be fixed; there is no reason for most people to
remember more than two passwords for personal use, one or two more for work in
some cases, and maybe a few more in special circumstances. Decades of
encouraging (or legislating in some cases[1]) users to do the wrong thing
makes people hate passwords._
I'd argue there is no point for any person to remember more than 2 passwords.
That is what password managers are for. One master password and you _don 't_
know your other passwords. Those are randomly generated for security (pick a
password manager capable of generating pattern-matching passwords for places
with terrible password policies).
_> [1] Apparently in the US medical patient portals are required to (attempt
to) prevent you from storing your password in your web browser._
HIPAA concern. If credentials are stored someone could login as the patient
and view their details.
------
hmhrex
> Biometric authentication is a powerful enabler, allowing businesses smart
> enough to deploy it to significantly increase rates of registration, gaining
> data and insight about their customers, while also increasing customer
> security. This is a win/win scenario which sounds the death-knell for
> awkward and insecure passwords sooner than we may imagine.
More unwarranted data-gathering.
I really want to like this idea, because I so very hate passwords, but until
there's a method that I have complete control over without the cost of my
privacy, I'll be opting out.
------
blisterpeanuts
This sounds pretty good from a user experience perspective, as long as there's
a fallback method (click "can't log in" to send a text to my phone etc.).
If I die or am otherwise incapacitated, and my wife needs to access my
accounts, she'll want to get my passwords from the safe (she's not great at
remembering them). Biometrics is useless for this case, though maybe she can
use the phone text fallback. It all sounds a little iffy, but then, passwords
are iffy as well.
------
joeriel
> If the institution needs more confidence, it can feed back and ask for
> additional mechanisms: more biometric data, for instance, or an old-style
> password.
I get the feeling that early adopters of this would end up erring on the side
of more confidence and still ask for "old-style" passwords. So basically, 2fa
on a more widespread/intrusive scale.
------
chinathrow
"With the service continually running in the background of the phone, it can
keep track of whether those indicators match how it knows you use your phone."
No thank you, no. I think now is the time to realise, that Google is really
building the all-seeing eye - and by forcing this stuff, they will eventually
get it.
------
peterwwillis
If the reason for this is too many passwords, the answer is a central auth
service, not new auth factors. They should be working on a privacy-oriented
protocol and network, not making yet another independent auth mechanism.
Not to mention this only works for smartphones! What happens when I need to
log in at Kinko's?
------
Kristine1975
_> Google suggests the Trust API could use are some obvious biometric
indicators, such as your face shape and voice pattern, as well as some less
obvious ones: how you move, how you type_
So when I'm nervous I can't log in?
~~~
gkya
It'll probably know when you're nervous and maybe place an ad for a sedative
in your Facebook or Twitter feed? Or maybe sth like a "who's nervous around"
screen on someone's phone will show your name on it. It's really discomforting
this thing, there's an infinite possibility of exploitation.
------
rm_-rf_slash
I think we are all looking at this as too much of a zero-sum between privacy
and security and ease of use.
What if we did away with passwords in 90% of use cases but required validation
to change account settings, like email addresses?
------
Phemist
I think the aim of this project is misguided. Next to the many excellent
points that have been raised in response to this article, there's one that I
think is a killer for its practicality, based on the article below (which was
featured a few weeks back):
[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/lego-driven-robot-
programme...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/lego-driven-robot-programmed-
to-hack-touch-screen-authentication-systems)
I think techniques such as used in the above article, that create "ultra-
generic power-user" of the users of a device, will be quite difficult to
protect against through measures such as announced by Google with Trust API.
The Lego robot from the above article could only be effective because it knew
their user's swiping pattern, without this knowledge, the model would have
failed miserably, in a very easy binary decision (is the pattern equal to the
original pattern). Now that Google is effectively making everyone's "swiping
pattern" uniform, these techniques will become a lot more effective. Not only
in the test phase, but the training phase as well. The ultra-generic power
user model was derived from 41 users who each had different swiping patterns.
To me, it seems that this would be made a lot easier if every user had the
same pattern.
A Biometric classifier for a person A tries to distinguish between behaviour
that did come from person A, and behaviour that did not come from person A.
This, in one way, can be seen as measuring the distance in some highly
dimensional behavioural space between the average/nearest of all data points
that DO belong to person A, and balancing that against the distance between
the average/nearest of all points that DO NOT belong to Person A. Presumably,
ultra-generic users are somewhere in the middle on this and muddle the water a
lot. These ultra-generic users are likely much closer to A then a random
person who is not A will be. Best of all, unless in the unlikely case that
person A is a super special snowflake, the model can be trained offline, on
persons who are not even A!
So in order for person A to be able to sufficiently distinguish itself from
ultra-generic power user B, A needs to have a secret password again..
------
edwhitesell
This is great for the large numbers of people who don't understand the concept
that any form of biometrics is a means of identification, not a password.
I could see this used as part of 2FA, if you don't mind giving away even more
of your privacy, but I will never use it.
------
warcode
As always biometrics are more secure usernames, not passwords.
------
projectramo
Does it work on twins?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The welfare state is today's equivalent of the gold standard - hga
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/05/12/depression_2010_105530.html
======
TomOfTTB
My problem with the assertion in this article is I see technology creating an
even greater need for the welfare state in the future. So I see attempts to
diminish it as being ultimately pointless.
Up to this point technology has created as many jobs as it's replaced because
it's enabled us to do more than we could before (much of the analysis
computers now do in the financial market for example wasn't possible 20 years
ago).
But that trend will eventually catch up to us. Especially once robotics
matures and starts replacing so-called "unskilled labor" jobs. Think about it.
A single robot can replace at least 3 shifts of laborer (and probably 4 since
it can work faster with no breaks). Even with the increased need for
maintenance personnel there's simply no way we'll create as many jobs as we
lose. Once that happens we're going to have an excess of people and they'll
need to be given some means to live.
Which is why I disagree with this article. For better or worse the welfare
state is here to stay. What we need to do is find a way to make it more
efficient so it doesn't bankrupt us.
~~~
DanielBMarkham
Seems to me like you are assuming a zero-sum game: technology eliminates
massive jobs so people have no work.
History is full of technology eliminating massive numbers of jobs. At any one
of these moments a person could say the future would hold incredible numbers
of unemployed. But it didn't happen.
I don't know if it will happen or not, but if I understand your argument I
believe there is nothing unique about our current time in history that makes
it any more valid that it was, say, in 1890.
~~~
TomOfTTB
Actually my point is that we are in a unique time.
Up until now technology replaced skilled labor positions. So people who would
have gone into something like economics instead went into computer science and
we just did more with what we had.
Now we're getting to the point where technology can replace unskilled labor
and that creates a unique problem because, though it might not be politically
correct to say, some people simply don't have the capacity to go into a high
tech vocation.
Put it this way. There have always been people whose job was one of pure
labor. Lifting boxes, tightening screws and so on. Once robotics gets to the
point where it's cheap enough and skilled enough to do those jobs where do the
people who have done those jobs in generations past go?
~~~
DanielBMarkham
Nope. I understand you, and my point still holds.
At each step in modernization people wondered what was going to happen. What
you are saying has been said dozens of times before. Maybe thousands.
The average unskilled laborer in the U.S. works at a much higher level of
abstraction than he did a couple of generations ago. Nothing is simple any
more, and computers are everywhere. The day laborer that does the gardening
down the street has a pickup, a cell phone, a notebook computer and a
bookkeeping system, a GPS, etc. If he is competitive he might do analysis of
the soil, use special tools, pick up knowledge at the local college, etc.
And it's going to a long, long way from robots among us to really cheap multi-
purpose robots everywhere. Market dynamics will have a lot of say in the
meantime.
You may be right. it's just guessing on both of our parts. The future will
tell. But I seriously doubt it. Claims of uniqueness need better proof than
hand-waving about talking about robots.
EDIT: You also may be right -- but in a thousand-year timeframe. And as Keynes
famously said, in the long run, we are all dead.
~~~
TomOfTTB
With all due respect you're guessing, I'm not. You're basically saying "it's
worked itself out in the past so it will surely do so in the future." But
that's not a logical conclusion. Things do change.
What I'm saying is the fact that we won't have enough jobs for everyone is
inevitable just by extrapolating on current trends.
The welfare state being discussed exists because people have been able to
retire much earlier without negatively impacting society. That in itself shows
a trend towards the amount of human labor our society needs growing smaller.
My original point is that we need to start innovating in how we govern to deal
with the eventuality of that trend reaching the point where there aren't
enough jobs for younger people. We shouldn't destroy the infrastructure we
already have and then try to solve that problem when it becomes a real crisis.
~~~
randallsquared
_You're basically saying "it's worked itself out in the past so it will surely
do so in the future." But that's not a logical conclusion._
It certainly can be. Daniel is basically arguing for the outside view, and the
outside view is often the best predictor of outcomes. Now, it may be that this
time is different, but when you have a long history of specific failed
predictions based on the details of a transition, it's certainly worth paying
attention to the trend as a guide to this instance.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What's your life goal? - kotrunga
What's your current life goal? And why?<p>Could also be 5, 10, 20 year goals, etc.
======
taway_1212
5 years goal: save enough money to safely retire.
20 years goal: find something to do that I will enjoy and get really good at
it.
------
dmitriyabr
5 years: create a 100MM+ company
Life goals:
1) Change the way how the people work or "think about work"
2) Try to change education system
------
SirLJ
In 5 years sail around the world in a 1 mil catamaran and we’ll see after I
get bored with it...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Our customer hated our pricing plans. This is how we fixed it - secondmod
https://www.techinasia.com/talk/customer-hate-pricing-plan-how-fix
======
jaclaz
IMHO they hardly "fixed" anything.
Besides the (irrelevant but mathematically and financially incorrect) higher
price per unit of the "Medium" plan against the "Small" plan of 14.90 vs.
14.50 per user, they have only re-labeled Personal/Pro/Enterprise to
Small/Medium/Large, while:
1) Increasing "Small" by roughly 30% from 10 to 14.50
2) Leaving "Medium" as it was before
3) Lowering "Large" by roughly 50% from 25 to 12
So, if I hypothetically had 12 "Enterprise" users before, I paid 300 bucks,
and now with the same people I pay 600.
Nice "fix" for anyone in the 11-23 people range.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Social Media Leads the Future of Technology [But We Can't Make Money Now] - daveambrose
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6079.html
======
daveambrose
_What these statistics suggest is that "the most precious currency today is
information," said panelist Jim Breyer, an early investor in Facebook and a
director of Wal-Mart Stores. "Each year there is more information created on
the Web than in all the previous years combined. Investment initiatives are
around participating in the information flow. We [at Accel] are interested in
companies that help us understand how to structure information, communicate,
categorize some of that self-generated information, and then act on it."_ \-
My favorite line in the piece.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
David Byrne, “Eliminating the Human” - grrrtttt
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608580/eliminating-the-human/amp/
======
WalterSear
Dunbar's number is a thing.
Low value and meaningless human interactions take up space that could be given
to people closer and more important to us. It is understandable that people
would want to ration out their human interactions, since we are actually
limited to so few.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Twitter Analytics - karangoeluw
https://analytics.twitter.com/
======
joeblau
This is going to put quite a few companies out of business. I used to work for
a company doing data analytics on social media data. The thing I really like
about this site is that it actually gives you great insights. For example, I
can see tweet reach, link click data. This is pretty freaking awesome from a
data science perspective.
Now someone needs to make a data miner so you just upload that CSV and it
tells you 3 actionable things. Stuff like:
1\. Your tweets about technology are the best
2\. Tweet during the morning
3\. Humor in your tweets is not your strength
~~~
datacog
> For example, I can see tweet reach, link click data
\- It does not show tweet reach
\- Link click data isnt very helpful if you dont use your own shortened urls.
Can you name a few companies which will go out of business because of this?
Instead, those startups might be bought by twitter to boost their offering,
similar to how they bought GNIP
~~~
joeblau
Companies on this[1] or this[2] list. A lot of what these companies provide (I
worked at one) is merely a way to gain insight into your social media profile.
Twitter Analytics is an extremely good implementation of this service for
free. Twitter also gives you the CSV to mine your own data allowing an
individual or company to make correlations that Twitter might not necessarily
be able to make.
You're right, Twitter may buy some of those companies but to me, that's still
out of business.
[1] - [https://business.twitter.com/partners/list/certified-
product...](https://business.twitter.com/partners/list/certified-products)
[2] - [https://business.twitter.com/partners/list/marketing-
platfor...](https://business.twitter.com/partners/list/marketing-platform-
partners)
~~~
datacog
> Twitter may buy some of those companies but to me, that's still out of
> business
Point taken. But, some companies are built with a goal to get acquired. I
would define out of business (and get acquired) as those companies who arent
able to sell/continue traction, and get 'acqui-hired' for talent and relevancy
of what they built, not exactly to integrate their product offering.
~~~
joeblau
Yeah, I totally agree. Investor motivations also play a part in what you're
saying. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the list of approved twitter
parters could shrink once customers figure out that you can get very good
Twitter analytics for free.
------
mrmaddog
My personal account has had this for a few months, but my friendly twitter bot
(@8ball_) still does not have access. Is there some sort of gatekeeping
mechanism? The help page refers to twitter card analytics, but that is not
helpful. It would be nice to roll my own statistics off of that CSV instead of
relying on hodge podges of services like Wildfire
([https://monitor.wildfireapp.com/count_reports/display?twitte...](https://monitor.wildfireapp.com/count_reports/display?twitter=8ball_))
In any case, I'd love to see this roll out to more accounts: I think the
information on engagement, follow:unfollow ratios and mentions over time are
incredibly useful for creating more meaningful content (for businesses and
automated services), though I am not convinced such behavior is good for
individuals, and am curious whether access to a dashboard increases or
decreases engagement.
~~~
lfcipriani
Hi, @lfcipriani from Twitter Platform Relations team. Twitter Cards Analytics
is open for every account that has Twitter Cards installed
([https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards)).
It's a way to know how your content is shared on Twitter.
To install a Card you need to insert meta tags in your HTML page and get it
validated in
[https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/validation/validator](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/validation/validator).
The approval is automatic.
Then, every tweet (from any person in the network) that includes a link from
your website will expand a Card and engagements data will be collected in your
dashboard.
More info:
[https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/analytics](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/analytics)
------
edent
All data is in Pacific Time.
That's supremely unhelpful for those of us not blessed to be living in
California.
------
watson
I'm wondering why the URL redirects to "/accounts/3lycc/timeline_activity" \-
specifically the "3lycc" part?
First I thought that the OP had submitted a link to his personal analytics
page, but entering just analytics.twitter.com in the browser redirects to this
page. Does anybody know what 3lycc means?
~~~
evan_
Mine's a different string. Presumably it's an account identifier.
------
ejain
I've had this for months now? It's useful, but I don't think it's going to put
anyone out of business... Also, I still can't register my https-only website
for ad analytics, what's up with that?
------
agotterer
Does this put a lot of twitter analytics products out of business?
~~~
datacog
It does not. I came to know this tool while using Twitter ads (they had a $50
promotion). Seems the strategy is to engage with analytics and push towards
promoting tweets. But I havent seen/read much about this tool. They need to
develop it much more to give out useful analytics (try comparing this with
facebook's page analytics)
_Here are the shortcomings of the tool:_
\- Clicks on URL: It shows the overall clicks on the url, if you use it
multiple times, it will be summed up
\- No reach metrics for your tweets
\- Filters: No filters on date ranges, difficult to dig out tweets
\- No sorting of tweets by number of retweets etc.
\- No sentiment analysis
All of these shortcomings could result into 2-3 products itself.
_Some useful things are:_
\- Follower trends
\- Interests and segmentation of your followers
\- High level overview of how your tweets are doing.
~~~
karangoeluw
> \- No sentiment analysis
I doubt Twitter will ever do this mostly because of the scale of the problem
and because I don't see why they would release it as a product for free (even
if they came up with something solid).
~~~
filmgirlcw
They bought Bluefin (biggest acquisition pre-IPO) which did a ton of really
great sentiment analysis. They ended up shelving Bluefin's product (which was
targets at brands and TV networks), because they'd already signed a deal with
Nielsen. A shame too. Bluefin's data was amazing. And they had lots of paying
customers.
It could be a very easy add-on play for big users, but Twitter hasn't
historically wanted to be in the services business.
------
fotoblur
Twitter analytics just confirmed how unimportant I am.
------
rhythmvs
This will not be an offering to the general public? While logged in into
Twitter, the page reads:
@myhandle does not have access to Twitter Analytics. If you're a publisher, developer, or advertiser, learn how to get access.
~~~
kmfrk
My site had been un-validated for Cards, so maybe that's what was causing it.
You could try to see if the same applies to you.
------
mason55
Is there any API for this? Twitter's analytics APIs are awful compared to
things like FQL/Facebook Insights. The API doesn't even have access to basic
reach numbers let alone things like organic storytellers.
~~~
markdhansen
I'm wondering also - anybody know if there is API access to these stats?
------
jgalt212
There is just so much bot activity on Twitter that I wonder if these analytics
can produce any meaningful insights.
If you think my statement is loaded, just try constructing a tweet with a
story link and a ticker symbol for an actively traded stock (e.g. $AAPL). Just
see how many clicks you get and if the link goes back to your site, you'll see
that almost all of clients clicking don't run any JavaScript (strong
indication of a bot).
The above example is from personal experience. There may be other topics away
from finance that attract much less bot activity.
------
jscheel
Interesting. It shows the distribution of genders that follow me. I wonder if
it matches the distribution I follow, the distribution for twitter as a whole,
or if it's unbalanced.
------
andersk
More I think about it it seems like this could have a negative impact on
average users.
For those who have low engagement rates it almost damages the feedback loop...
Sure they knew how many retweets & new followers they were getting before, but
now knowing that few links are clicked etc. could lessen the reason for
creating content.
------
_RPM
I had no idea this existed. Thank you.
------
rokhayakebe
Isn't this a YC company they acquired previously (2 or 3 years ago)?
~~~
ZoF
This seems like false conjecture.
That is to say the only Twitter Analytics company I know of YC funding in the
last few years is Crowdbooster, which hasn't sold to Twitter.
Why make a comment like this? It adds nothing to the discussion and makes
readers waste time on useless research. Normally I read comments like this,
quickly google, and continue on with my life, but it's become an annoying
trend.
EDIT: Could I inquire as to the downvotes? If you're about to downvote please
consider letting me know whether it's because:
a.)I made an initial error(in stating that YC aquired companies instead of
funding them).
b.)I was unnecessarily overly critical of the initial parent comment.
c.)I Came across as braggadocios and didn't add much(if anything) to the
conversation at hand.
d.)Something else entirely.
e.)A combination of any/all of the above.
~~~
rgrieselhuber
YC doesn't acquire companies.
~~~
ZoF
I edited this to funded within under a minute of posting and must have
forgotten to submit.
Care to comment on anything other than that egregious error?
edit: I made this error because the initial parent comment to which I had
responded had the word 'aquired' in it. I must have subconsciously confused
the two, if you're implying that I don't understand how YC functions after
years of reading the content here(entirely possible, albiet unlikely), that's
simply not true.
I'm a human and entirely fallible, this was an error; sorry gals/guys.
------
grimmdude
Zeros across the board :|
------
3825
I cannot access this page.
>> Server not found >> Firefox can't find the server at analytics.twitter.com.
Down for everyone says it is up. I can't get to it. I can get to twitter.com
just fine though. Anyone have an idea what I can try?
[http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/analytics.twitter.com](http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/analytics.twitter.com)
~~~
ehPReth
Do you have an extension or hosts file meant to block advertisements or
trackers? I had to tell Ghostery to allow the page load
~~~
3825
Thank you
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Kill init by touching a bunch of files - omnibrain
http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2014/11/24/touch/
======
angry_octet
This is a great example of how bad many open source projects are at accepting
contributions from 'non core' developers. The patch is just rejected, when it
actually looks pretty valid to handle all cases of return value from a kernel
interface. While it might not be a perfect solution, accepting it with
suggestions for additional improvements could have led to those improvements.
~~~
masklinn
> The patch is just rejected
_Technically_ the patch isn't rejected (and I'm kinda peeved TFA claims it
is). It's in limbo, waiting for further action from the submitter or an other
contributor: it's marked as needing improvements since it hides the issue
under the rug instead of reporting it to the caller/user.
This is a rejected patch:
[https://code.launchpad.net/~jamesodhunt/libnih/bug-776532/+m...](https://code.launchpad.net/~jamesodhunt/libnih/bug-776532/+merge/140150),
it has a "Status: Rejected" set (and a disapproving review).
Although of course the patch could have been merged and improved later, so
that libnih wouldn't blow up the whole system in case of inotify overflow.
~~~
marcosdumay
The OS disobeying your configuration files is really better than it
restarting?
Looks to me that Upstart kept the lesser of two evils. I'd reject that patch
too.
~~~
masklinn
> The OS disobeying your configuration files is really better than it
> restarting?
It does not restart, it locks up with a mostly useless error message, then,
maybe, at one point, possibly restarts. The restart is not a policy decision
it's a side effect of the box being dead. Here's the better option: bubble up
the issue to the caller and let it decide what to do.
> Looks to me that Upstart kept the lesser of two evils.
Upstart didn't do anything.
> I'd reject that patch too.
The patch isn't rejected.
~~~
mynameisvlad
> The patch isn't rejected.
Just because the reject status wasn't used does not mean it wasn't rejected.
The patch, as it was written, was rejected. It won't be used and the
recommendation was a complete rewrite in a completely different direction.
------
rikkus
.NET's FileSystemWatcher documentation says that there's an internal buffer of
a finite size, and that if (when) it fills up, you're going to be told about
it and must do a complete traversal of the directory you're watching. No-one
has invented a better way to deal with this, so that's what you need to do.
Many developers ignore this, so it's not really surprising that this has
happened with inotify too. It's mentioned that a patch wasn't accepted, but it
was with good reason - it doesn't fix the problem (by traversing the
directory).
~~~
MaulingMonkey
I'd generally take a config file failing to update (this may happen anyways
from the looks of it, e.g. if "/proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_queued_events" isn't
available) over the box dying with a terrible crash report.
I'd much prefer to accept the patch with a followup request, tracking issue,
or TODO. There wass good reason to not consider the issue resolved, but I'm
not of the opinion there was good reason to reject the patch either.
~~~
Morgawr
>I'd generally take a config file failing to update (this may happen anyways
from the looks of it, e.g. if "/proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_queued_events" isn't
available) over the box dying with a terrible crash report.
I'm not entirely sure I'd agree with that line of reasoning, to be honest.
While the crash is a big problem and falls into the category of "obscure
enough" problems that might leave your sysadmins scratching their heads for
quite some time (especially because of the contrived and terrible crash report
message), I would much prefer my system to crash and halt instead of failing
to recognize/load a config file. Not loading config files properly (and
failing silently, at that) means that you might be exposed to security
attacks, your system might be in an inconsistent state until the next reboot
and you might not even know it. I'll take a failure over prolonged
inconsistent state of a machine any day. That's what redundancy solves after
all.
~~~
sergiosgc
Failing silently should no be an option. This is a case where the best is
enemy of the good. The patch is good, albeit not optimal. Hanging on to a bad
solution, in presence of a good solution, because you can imagine an optimal
solution was a bad call.
The patch should log a warning/error and avoid the crash. It does not preempt
an optimal solution, by traversing the file tree, being developed afterwards.
~~~
x0x0
loud suicide rather than quiet misbehavior (nobody reads logs until someone
notices something wrong) is often preferred, at least for distributed systems.
------
twic
Perhaps it would be a good move to extract the file-watching behaviour from
the part of Upstart that runs as PID 1, and put it in a separate daemon that
can notify Upstart when it's time to reload a configuration file. That way,
only the daemon would crash in this situation, and Upstart could restart it as
it would any other daemon.
Although then you have the problem of the notification channel between the
daemon and Upstart overflowing, i suppose.
------
Havvy
"libnih" \- I have no clue what this does, so I immediately read it as 'lib
not invented here'. Otherwise, yay...more unstable software.
~~~
masklinn
> so I immediately read it as 'lib not invented here'.
> libnih is a small library for C application development containing functions
> that, despite its name, are not implemented elsewhere in the standard
> library set.
~~~
unwind
It's a pretty fun name. :)
Here's the core code, for the curious:
[http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~scott/libnih/trunk/files/head:/...](http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~scott/libnih/trunk/files/head:/nih/).
I found it interesting that it uses a space after the unary ! operator in C,
which (to me), provided yet another way of writing various (very common)
tests. For instance "if(! fp)" after trying to open a file.
------
shaurz
It's pretty dumb that pid 1 has any assert()s in it at all. Or libraries for
that matter.
~~~
erpellan
You're going to _love_ systemd. I think someone found a kitchen sink in there
once.
~~~
SwellJoe
I often need to wash up after particularly messy system administration tasks.
That sink will come in handy.
I'd be curious to know if systemd is tickled by this one weird trick to crash
your server. It does work with inotify (and other fun newish kernel techs), so
it would be subject to the inotify queue length...but what'll happen when it
hits it?
~~~
andrewaylett
TTBOMK, systemd _doesn 't_ watch unit files for changes. If you change a unit,
you need to run `systemctl daemon-reload` to make it notice. It does, however,
try to work out if it's in a state where you are running `systemctl` without
reloading, and warns that you may need to reload.
------
nodata
Writing to /etc/init.d requires root access. If you are root, you can bring
down the box as it is.
~~~
ge0rg
The problem here was that the box went down by accident due to this bug.
~~~
nodata
Really? How?
~~~
masklinn
Because the bug kills pid1 which took down production boxes:
> I should point out that this is not theoretical. I went through all of the
> above because some real machines hit this for some reason. I don't have
> access to them, so I had to work backwards from just the message logged by
> init.
> […]
> Let me say this again: this happens in the wild. The "touch * * *..." repro
> looks contrived, because, well, that's the whole point of a repro.
~~~
nodata
No, how did you accidentally write to /etc/init.d?
~~~
masklinn
> No, how did you accidentally write to /etc/init.d?
Let me quote again, with a finer slicing:
> I went through all of the above because some real machines hit this for some
> reason. I don't have access to them
~~~
nodata
So you don't know? Gotcha.
~~~
raverbashing
And you apparently never managed anything in production.
Have you ever heard of "reproducing a problem"?
~~~
nodata
I've never seen anything write to /etc/init.d in production (or anywhere
actually), which is why I asked for the root cause.
~~~
gpvos
Without, all the time, bothering to read the article, and asking _here_
something that no-one here could know, because it's not in the article. If you
_really_ wanted to know, you could have mailed the author.
Boy, do you deserve these downvotes.
~~~
cdelsolar
How do I get downvote access? I'm jelly.
~~~
csours
Get a high enough score. Also don't use words like jelly. HN doesn't like
reddit's tendency to use funny memes etc.
~~~
gohrt
"jelly" is a word, not a funny meme. (Also, it's Hacker News, not Not-Reddit
News.)
~~~
cdelsolar
Thank you.
------
pilif
There are so many things in here that tempt me to comment about, so here goes:
1) For me, this is a prime example of why I personally like programming
environments with exceptions. If libnih could throw an exception (I know it
can't), then they could do that which would allow the caller to at least deal
with the exception and not bring the system down. If they don't handle the
exception, well, we're were we are today, but as it stands now, fixing this
will require somebody to actually patch libnih.
Yes. libnih could also handle that error by returning an error code itself,
but the library developers clearly didn't want to bother with that in other
callers of the affected function.
By using exceptions, for the same amount of work it took to add the assertion
they could also have at least provided the option for the machine to not go
down.
Also, I do understand the reservations against exceptions, but stuff like this
is what makes me personally prefer having exceptions over not having them.
2) I read some passive aggressive "this is what happens if your init system is
too complicated" assertions between the lines.
Being able to quickly change something in /etc/init and then have the system
react to that is actually very convenient (and a must if you are pid 1 and
don't want to force restarts on users).
Yes, the system is not prepared to handle 10Ks of init scripts changing, but
if you're root (which you have to be to trigger this), there are _way_ more
convenient (and quicker!) ways to bring down a machine (shutdown -h being one
of them).
Just removing a convenient feature because of some risk that the feature could
possibly be abused by an admin IMHO isn't the right thing to do.
3) I agree with not accepting the patch. You don't (ever! ever!) fix a problem
by ignoring it somewhere down the stack. You also don't call exit() or an
equivalent in a library either of course :-).
The correct fix would be to remove the assertion, to return an error code and
to fix all call sites (good luck with the public API that you've just now
changed).
Or to throw an exception which brings us back to point 1.
I'm not complaining, btw: Stuff has happened (great analysis of the issue,
btw. Much appreciated as it allowed me to completely understand the issue and
be able to write this comment without having to do the analysis myself). I see
why and I also understand that fixing it isn't that easy. Software is
complicated.
The one thing that I'm heavily disagreeing though is above point 2). Being
able to just edit a file is way more convenient than also having to restart
some daemon (especially if that has PID 1). The only fix from upstarts
perspective would be to forego the usage of libnih (where the bug lives), but
that would mean a lot of additional maintenance work in order to protect
against a totally theoretical issue as this bug requires root rights to use.
~~~
michaelmior
> Being able to quickly change something in /etc/init and then have the system
> react to that is actually very convenient (and a must if you are pid 1 and
> don't want to force restarts on users).
I'm not sure I see how it's a must. Why not just have init respond to SIGHUP
like so many daemons and reload its configuration then?
~~~
vidarh
And that points to a fairly simple defensive practice to avoid this type of
problem:
Run it in a different process. Have said process signal if a change is found.
If they want to handle the case where /etc/init.d is potentially huge and you
don't want to rescan everything, have it write changes via a pipe.
(In fact there's a program that will do that for you: inotifywait)
------
xfs
TL;DR: He overflowed inotify queue of /etc/init which is the Upstart
configuration directory being monitored. Upstart doesn't deal with the
overflow, exits, and causes kernel panic.
The bug is not fixed because in order to trigger it you need root to spam file
operations in /etc/init, which implies bigger problems elsewhere. If you have
root and want to see panics, just echo c >/proc/sysrq-trigger.
~~~
justincormack
Rachel is a she I think you will find. A better TLDR is that init can die due
to valid response from the kernel. She found this in a production use case.
Perhaps involving fast changing services.
------
uint32
What's the point of watching for init config changes? Who has init configs
that change so often that this is useful?
------
weissadam
The good news is that Upstart is in the process of being phased out. The bad
news is its replacement. : )
------
SwellJoe
It's worth noting that the root user has any number of pathological use cases
that can bring down the system. This is but one of them. Interesting, but not
particularly dangerous or likely to be triggered in any normal circumstance.
~~~
PinguTS
Maybe next time reading the full post before commenting:
> I should point out that this is not theoretical. I went through all of the
> above because some real machines hit this for some reason. I don't have
> access to them, so I had to work backwards from just the message logged by
> init. Then I worked forwards with a successful reproduction case to get to
> this point. I have no idea what the original machines are doing to make this
> fire, but it's probably something bizarre like spamming /etc with whatever
> kinds of behavior will generate those inotify events libnih asked to see.
~~~
SwellJoe
She doesn't know why it happened.
I would argue that it was almost certainly a pathological use case, as I
suggested above. i.e. Something was already broken, and it triggered this
crash; had it been left to its own devices, it probably would have triggered
some other bad behavior eventually (disk full, OOM killer, etc., many
possibilities). I don't know it, of course, since she doesn't have the details
on what caused these inotify events on such a massive and rapid scale, but I'm
having a hard time imagining why /etc/init would be receiving thousands of
events, short of something already being broken badly.
~~~
PinguTS
Working in industrial embedded systems, I know this ignorance in software
design just to meet deadlines.
Doing testing myself on such device on one side I follow the mantra "The art
of testing is to make border cases possible and not to assume that they will
not happen."
On the other side I also have to deal with safety related stuff, where there
is the rule: "The safety of the system must be maintained under any
circumstances including during system with failures." That it is important to
maintain human safety, like a crane should work _always_ within its limits
even when failed sensors provide misreadings.
That is the same here, even when a certain service is going wild, system
integrity and function must be maintained. Ignoring this fact under the
assumption the cause is something else is for me just general ignorance in
providing quality work.
~~~
icebraining
But can't crashing be a good way to maintain integrity in the face of abnormal
behavior? A critical system shouldn't depend on a single Linux box never
crashing, in my opinion as an ignorant. It's too complicated a kernel to
depend on that.
~~~
PinguTS
That is right for safety related system. You always need a second path at
least, because of single point of failure.
But, being said that, part of safety related development is, to cover any
theoretically possible behavior. Because not doing it, leads to systematic
failures which will decrease the overall system safety. Knowing this will
prevent certification with according authorities, like FDA in medical
equipment, LLoyds in ships, TÜV in off-road vehicles.
At the end, knowing that such bugs are just ignored with such blatant
arguments fuels the image of bad software quality.
~~~
chris_wot
Trying to find the root cause is also important after a safety incident.
Rachel managed to find a way to reproduce the problem, and though it's not
exactly what occurred, it seems like she figured out a way of crashing the
box.
Perhaps the repro seems pathological. But fix this issue, and you may well
have fixed a whole bunch of other issues that are not so pathological.
Certainly, just touching Files should never force the system to reboot!
------
emeidi
As far as I understand, you need to be root (or another privileged user) who
has write access to /etc/init. Conclusion: You can bring down a machine with
superuser privileges. Breaking.
~~~
ubernostrum
Except:
1\. Apparently it watches _all of /etc_, not just /etc/init,
2\. Which means that writing large-enough config changes in some part of /etc
you thought was completely unrelated to init can unexpectedly take down your
box.
That's not good, and not something that can be dismissed as "of course
superusers can turn the box off".
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What the JVM needs - fogus
http://wiki.jvmlangsummit.com/What_the_JVM_needs
======
akeefer
I tried at the conference to get people to agree that hotswap (i.e. reloading
classes in a running system) was something that the JVM needed to add, so that
the 99.9% of JVM users programming in Java can have a more dynamic programming
experience. It really matters when it's there (especially for people that
develop server software, which is a large part of the Java community), and
there's a real, ingenious solution already implemented as part of the MLVM
project that works well enough for me to use in development all-day every day.
When I brought it up during this discussion, I got nowhere, and people
basically looked at me like I was an idiot. It was pretty disappointing to see
that a room full of language guys just didn't care about anything that would
improve Java itself; the discussion pretty much entirely focused around small-
scale stuff that would make it easier to efficiently implement dynamic
languages on the JVM.
~~~
delano
Dynamically reloading classes is a nightmare in production systems. I'm not a
.NET guy by any means, but one thing that it has that others could use it code
signing. This is precisely the opposite of dynamic reloading and it's much
more valuable.
The win-win is leveraging the power of a dynamic language at development time
and the power of something like the JVM at production time.
~~~
akeefer
Yeah, I agree that it's a nightmare in production, but it's absolutely
indispensable in development situations where you can tolerate the occasional
weirdness or failure. If you're developing a server app (or a thick-client
app), avoiding a sever restart every time you change anything is a huge, huge
win. And again, it's not like it's not implementable: there's already an
implementation, for the JVM, that works.
~~~
delano
That's true. It would be helpful to have dynamic reloading as an option with
the JVM.
------
carsongross
Full hotswap capability (which is available as a patch, today, due to the work
of a true genius Thomas Würthinger and his team) should be the first entry,
the second entry, every entry all the way down to the end. All the rest should
be footnote nice-to-haves.
The JVM Language conference once again demonstrated how out of touch with day-
to-day JVM development it is. The focus was nearly entirely on how to make
dynamic languages fast (method handles, apparently) and how to deal with
concurrency (functional programming, of course.) The first problem affects
_maybe_ 1% of the JVM's users. The second problem isn't nearly the crisis it
is made out to be (server side software keeps the CPUs full and, when it
doesn't, there are plenty of fork-join-like libraries out there.)
Meanwhile, poor assholes doing java web app development are breaking
concentration to bounce their server every time they change a method
signature.
Unbelievable.
Cheers, Carson
------
WilliamLP
... a custodian who actually cares to improve it, along with the insight and
ability to say "no" to enough features that it has sharp unified direction and
doesn't become a typical example of open source feature creep.
Unfortunately, I have a hard time seeing any reason to believe that this
resembles Oracle, and any such beliefs seem to be indistinguishable from
wishful thinking.
~~~
ewjordan
_a custodian who actually cares to improve it, along with the insight and
ability to say "no" to enough features that it has sharp unified direction and
doesn't become a typical example of open source feature creep._
Sun, in its ownership of Java, has always had the second part down pat -
they've flat out rejected many of these features in the past, as well as many
other popular requests for improvements both in the VM and in Java the
language.
It's the first part, the "cares to improve it" bit, where they really fell
down. Honestly, I think we could do with a little bit of "open source feature
creep" to make up for the stagnation over the past several years...
I've also gotten the sense that most of the "no"s were borne of lack of
resources to devote to these things rather than a desire to avoid feature
creep, though, and I don't know if Oracle is in any better position to devote
developers to any of this stuff...
------
bnoordhuis
I program in Java every day and I see nothing in that list that I really
cannot do without.
Structs / value types? Nice to have but you can make do with
java.nio.ByteBuffer.
Concurrent PermGen sweeping? I work on a big enterprise project like the
article mentions but this has never been an issue in production, only
development and then only when reloading lots and lots of classes.
Unsigned equality checks would be nice but you can work around that, too.
~~~
seunosewa
Since you're not a language implementer what you can do without is irrelevant
here.
~~~
bnoordhuis
Okay, then let me tell you what I /can't/ do without. To name a few:
hot-swappable classes
design by contract
re-ified generics
closures
These are all things that have been on developer wishlists for _years_. Design
by contract is the #1 upvoted RFE in SUN's issue tracker, the others are all
in the top 20.
But what happens? The guys that can make a difference come together and wank
about performance hacks for dynamic languages. The 2% of the user base that
actually uses Scala and Clojure will thank you for it, but the other 98% is
left out in the cold.
------
devin
Closures and TCO, please.
~~~
noarchy
I assume that you mean for the Java language, not the JVM? There are already
languages that run on the JVM that have closures.
~~~
dfox
Both closures and TCO are things that you can implement in compiler, but would
greatly benefit from direct support in VM.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
India's Pointless Search for 'Black Money' - alphakappa
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-06-25/india-s-pointless-search-for-black-money
======
yalogin
This article is written by someone with the same partisanship as an extreme
right wing Republican in the US talking about minimum wage or gay marriage.
There is too much sarcasm and too much talking down to in there. The reality
lies somewhere in the middle.
For example none of the Indians I know ever said their country will become
rich if all the undisclosed wealth is siezed by the government. The reality is
there is way too much corruption and the majority of the ill-gotten wealth is
in India. In all but the biggest cities the real estate is not priced to
market per the government and so the property is registered at 1/4th the value
(for e.g.) and so taxes paid on only that amount. The rest is not disclosed
and reinvested into the real estate market. There is a lot of that going on.
What ever the Prime minister is doing about talking to Swiss officials is just
posturing and he is also sure that not much is going to come out of it but
some political victory.
~~~
mqzaidi
Your evidence is anecdotal. The article, to its credit, has actual references,
as in what Baba Ramdev said, and a good deal of people believe him.
Just see a gamut of India opinions here,
[https://in.toluna.com/opinions/1277868/what-will-happen-
if-a...](https://in.toluna.com/opinions/1277868/what-will-happen-if-all-the-
black-money-come-back-to-India)
~~~
gnufied
A majority of educated Indians see Baba Ramdev as crook. A self-styled guru
curing cancer with Yoga and whatnot. So yalogin's response may not link to
hard evidence but just because Ramdev can get behind a cause does not mean
majority of Indians believe in it.
EDIT: If anything - if you take intersection of salaried Middle class and Baba
ramdev's followers, you will be left with a small set. I am not saying Bab
ramdev does not have a large following, but in a country where literacy is 72%
(with number going lower in north india, where majority of Baba ramdev's
followers are), it is hard to argue that middleclass supports this man's
viewpoints.
------
prateek_mir
There are two sides to this entire Black Money story.
First is the bitter reality of the parallel economy that runs in India,
amounting to huge revenue losses to the governments each year. The black
money, not only robs to country and its citizens of their revenues, but also
can then be used into funding terror activities, because this amount may very
well be transferred via Hawala Channels ( they won't wire black money to tax
havens, would they ? ). This is the money that can be used by the government
to increase the services, this is the money that was intended to be
transferred to the citizens in the form of increased infrastructure and better
services. Ultimately citizens end up paying hefty amount of money for really
crappy services.
the author is right in suggesting that this stash, if it even existed in no
longer lying in the swiss banks, and has been rerouted to other investment
opportunities, and possibly rerouted to Indian markets itself, via different
channels (like the controversial participatory notes, shell companies etc).
Both the current and the previous government have provided enough room for
managing the black money, and I'll be surprised if India is successful in
extracting any significant amount of money (order of 10 Mil. $), or to extract
only account closure reports for the Indians who held account in various swiss
banks and banks at other tax havens like Liechtenstein.
The other side of story is that it has become an issue that attracts eye
balls. The amount that is suggested to be at stake is huge enough to attract
the attention of even the upper middle class. People are very much
dissatisfied with the performances of subsequent governments, and that made
the _Black Money Issue_ something on which political campaigns can be built
upon. This issue was advertised in such a way that would attract the attention
of average person, who wouldn't go into the details of the issue, by using
headlines like, "We won't have to pay any taxes for a decade", "Every citizen
would be given X sum of money", "India's revenue deficit would be bridged"
etc.
As the events and outcomes of this election suggests, it worked. The current
government even managed to show the act of constituting the Special
Investigation Team to look into this matter, as a voluntary act of being
righteous, when in reality they were just following the Supreme Court's
directive to do so within a week.
Curious days ahead.
------
xmonkee
Someone should write an article about how some Indian writers need to stop
eviscerating "millions of indians" based on imagined opinions.
This article is downright insulting. I am an Indian, and I don't believe that
the "black money" is going to solve all of india's problems. That isn't even
the point. The investigation is a good thing not because of the actual sums of
money, but because some extremely powerful people who have stashed away the
money need to be brought down. As the author himself says, the siphoned-off
money is used to manipulate markets and elections. Shouldn't it be taken off
their hands?
And trust me, hardly anyone who ever read a newspaper would take Baba Ramdev
seriously. The author just kinda threw that in - "hey check out how stupid
these indians are... they listen to a yoga teacher lol"
~~~
kaonashi
> Shouldn't it be taken off their hands?
Alternatively, since the entire money system is based in the legal system, you
could simply restrict what one person can accomplish with large sums of money.
------
pavlov
The site has a broken browser sniffer. On IE11 it throws a black layer at 90%
opacity over the content and tells me that I should upgrade to a different
browser...
What's the point of blocking out the entire content like that? If you really
want to nag me based on some embarrassingly outdated user agent regex, go
ahead, but at least have the common sense of offering a close button so I
could still view the site despite your JavaScript competence.
------
channikhabra
> (very legitimate) resentment felt toward businessmen, farmers and
> politicians by salaried Indians
Resentment toward farmers? You gotta be kidding me. I agree with the argument
that most of the illegitimate wealth get invested in India in one way or other
and most of it might not be present in Swiss banks and several other things
from the article, but above comment shows the author has no idea how Indian
society is operating internally. I have lived both in village and in the city,
I've seen salaried city/village people having many opinions/feelings for
"farmers" but resentment was not one of them.
~~~
ortuna
I think the author maybe talking about those groups not paying taxes, while
the salaried have to.
~~~
ragsagar
I don't think anyone in India thinks farmers are given any unfair advantage.
Actually all part of society is screaming to provide help to these people who
still dare to farm instead of selling of their lands to real estate mafia even
after all the stories of farmer suicides [1]
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers%27_suicides_in_India](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers%27_suicides_in_India)
~~~
discardorama
That may well be; but historically, farms were the perfect vehicle to launder
ill-gotten wealth. You claim (on paper, and certified by greasing some palms)
that your farm's output was $X*2, when in fact it was $X. Suddenly, the extra
$X of money is counted as "agricultural income" and tax free (AFAIK).
------
vishnugupta
> "One of the best places in which to invest money is India, not Switzerland
> or the US or any western destination,”
I have always sensed this to be the case, even though I don't have any data to
back this up.
As an investor the last place I want to put my money (ill gotten or black) is
in an off shore untraceable bank, or any bank for that matter. Banks' rate of
interest can't even beat the inflation let alone give decent returns.
Secondly, I see money being splurged in entertainment industry (IPL,
Bollywood). I really doubt that that money is all white. Most of the sponsors
of IPL teams (hell, even BCCI's sponsor, Sahara) are not publicly listed (so
there's no way to know their sources of income) and have been pulled by one or
the other authorities. Bollywood's funding is more or less open secret that it
comes from Mafia and it's a fair guess that they act as guardians and
investors of the black money owned by politicians/businessmen/bureaucrats.
------
spacehome
Someone should explain to them the difference between wealth and money.
------
wowsig
Money stashed by politicians/rich-beyond-measure industrialists are a black
box for majority of Indians. This money is not understood in terms of the
impact it will make even if it flows back. Apart from this money, there is
admittedly $20 Billion stashed in the form of gold in temples in India, this
money is untaxed and not accounted for. For reasons that don't reveal
themselves to me, no one speaks of such godly tax havens.
------
known
Modi regime promised to get back $3400 Billion corrupt money Indians have
stashed in Swiss/foreign banks within 150 days.
[http://www.samachar.com/Well-bring-back-black-money-
in-150-d...](http://www.samachar.com/Well-bring-back-black-money-in-150-days-
BJP-president-Rajnath-Singh-oevcMijfhae.html)
------
known
Washington-based NGO Global Financial Integrity (GFI) puts the figure at
nearly three times higher - $3.4 trillion
[http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/Black_money_problem_sta...](http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/Black_money_problem_stalks_Indian_elections.html?cid=38345148)
------
infocollector
How do these articles get published/noticed? Here is the Assange leak amounts
- [http://bit.ly/1sGtsfk](http://bit.ly/1sGtsfk) \- And I do hope these people
do not get away from what they did.
~~~
confusedIndian
Don't think that image is true : [http://www.hoaxorfact.com/Politics/wiki-
leaks-published-1st-...](http://www.hoaxorfact.com/Politics/wiki-leaks-
published-1st-list-of-black-money-holders-in-swiss-bank.html)
------
webbrahmin
I am an Indian. While I can't say what every Indian thinks, I can say what I
think and many people like me (middle class hard working Indians) think.
1\. Black money will not solve all our problems and make us a superpower
overnight. 2\. Bringing the black money back will be a watershed event. 3\.
This will send a message that government is serious about corruption. 4\. Less
incentive for politicians to loot in future.
Better articles are expected from Bloomberg.
------
aniketpant
I am curious to know why has this been posted on HN and why do I see it on the
homepage?
------
wfjackson
>Last week, a study by the Indian business confederation Assocham put that
figure at nearly $2 trillion. Just to put this astonishing figure in context,
that’s about the same as India’s gross domestic product.
Why do even educated writers compare unrelated terms? GDP is per year. That
sentence is like comparing a distance of 60 miles to driving at 60mph.
~~~
chc
I don't follow. The lost money is an amount equal to what the whole country
makes in a year. Why is that a bad comparison?
~~~
prateek_mir
It gives a negative impression when you compare it with GDP, because, when
saying GDP, every one assumes it as the _amount a country makes_ in a year,
and the writer is take as a smug by the sensitive ones.
Seldom people take GDP as the _amount county spends_ in a year (expenditure
method for calculating GDP)( and that does not leave such a bad image of the
situation after all :D )
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Two OpenVPN Audits by OSTIF+QuarksLab and Matt Green Completed - analogist
https://ostif.org/the-openvpn-2-4-0-audit-by-ostif-and-quarkslab-results/
======
analogist
Summary link by OSTIF, which includes a quick synopsis of both audits, and
link to full report on OpenVPN 2.4 by OSTIF:
[https://ostif.org/the-openvpn-2-4-0-audit-by-ostif-and-
quark...](https://ostif.org/the-openvpn-2-4-0-audit-by-ostif-and-quarkslab-
results/)
Matthew Green/Cryptography Engineering audit direct link, which focuses more
heavily on the protocol design, as well as a 2.2->2.4 changelog audit:
[https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/05/openvpn-2...](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/05/openvpn-2-4-evaluation-
summary-report/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Unable to Sell New Cameras, GoPro Wants to Buy Your Old One - artsandsci
http://gizmodo.com/unable-to-sell-new-cameras-gopro-wants-to-buy-your-old-1794191473
======
Neliquat
Clickbait title. Sales suck so they are offering undervalued trade-in
discounts to ease the pain of the used market, and recycle some sales. Not a
bad idea, but GoPro is clearly 1. Able to sell new cameras 2. Not 'buying'
cameras except as tradeins. This is akin to saying ford can't sell cars so is
buying them back.
If you can't write a factual article, don't.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Fleet of Taxis Helped France Win World War I - vinnyglennon
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/a-fleet-of-taxis-helped-france-win-world-war-i-7f60cebcae2f
======
pnevares
If you stopped before this line, you really should go back and read the rest:
> That’s the story, but the story is mostly myth.
I also really recommend this related post on Medium, about Valiant Hearts, a
really great game from last year: [https://medium.com/war-is-boring/valiant-
hearts-is-a-fantast...](https://medium.com/war-is-boring/valiant-hearts-is-a-
fantastic-world-war-i-story-6c1a85627fce)
------
afarrell
Folks interested in the first month of WWI should do themselves the favor of
reading The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman
[http://www.audible.com/pd/History/The-Guns-of-August-
Audiobo...](http://www.audible.com/pd/History/The-Guns-of-August-
Audiobook/B002V5CUFK)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
World's biggest spy satellite: The newest 'ear' in space? - bakbak
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/1122/World-s-biggest-spy-satellite-The-newest-ear-in-space
======
RiderOfGiraffes
Alternative version, submitted three hours ago, no comments, no up-votes:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1929511>
~~~
bakbak
sorry for re-submission, i did it because Christian Monitor gives more info on
the satellite ...
~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
It's fine, there's nothing wrong with the same story from different sources.
My only point is that discussion can get diluted, and I think that's a Bad
Thing(tm). Hence I provide cross-referencing.
I wish there were a way to combine submissions, so we got a single story with
multiple sources and a single discussion thread.
But there isn't, so I just cross-reference. Sometimes. I might not bother much
longer.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Have we passed the tipping point? - yuvadam
Given the recent leaks that we have been graciously provided with by Edward Snowden, do you feel we have past a tipping point over the past few days?<p>Is it all hype that will vanish within a few days, or are you seriously considering one of the following?<p>- reducing usage of social/cloud services<p>- completely removing sensitive accounts (email) off third-party services<p>- migrating to self-hosted solutions rather than cloud-based providers<p>- increasing usage of encryption in day-to-day activity<p>I know some people who are deeply disturbed over the recent news, and I'm curious to try to gauge the feeling amongst the HN crowd. Feel free to share you thoughts and emotions regarding the state of the free web.
======
mindcrime
A "tipping point" with respect to the public-at-large? I doubt it. I'd like it
if it were, but I don't think enough people care. I expect (sadly) for the
buzz about this story to have completely disappeared off the radar of
mainstream media by next week, and to die down even online shortly afterwards
- except among extreme civil libertarian types and people who _always_ get
worked up over this stuff.
On a personal level, however, I'd say the answer is "yes". It won't be an
overnight thing, and I can't say I'm going to abandon Gmail, G+, Facebook,
etc. _completely_ , but I will be making changes in how I manage certain
things. Probably the most significant will be using pushing for more use of
encryption and services like Tor and I2P, both for myself and among my friends
and acquaintances.
One of my goals is to start a new cypherpunk / crypto-anarchist meetup / group
in the Raleigh / Durham area, and start doing things like offering sessions /
classes to the public on "How to use Tor" and "How to use I2P" and "How to use
PGP" etc. along with political advocacy.
------
waterphone
For some people, probably. It looks like the programs are supported by a
majority of the population, however, even with the violations of privacy.
Apparently nobody cares about privacy anymore, or they're so terrified of
terrorists they're willing to hand over their rights.
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/most-americans-
suppor...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/most-americans-support-nsa-
tracking-phone-records-prioritize-investigations-over-
privacy/2013/06/10/51e721d6-d204-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
“Clock boy” Ahmed Mohamed sues Irving schools, police for wrongful arrest - doppp
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/clock-boy-ahmed-mohamed-sues-irving-schools-police-for-wrongful-arrest/?comments=1
======
doug1001
before his "invention" was thoroughly exposed as a fraud--eg, there are
youtube videos showing its faithful reproduction in under a minute from
readily available components--Ahmed Mohamed, during his numerous television
interviews, repeatedly referred to the clock-in-a-box as "my invention"\--for
instance, on Good Morning America, he said "this wasn't my first invention and
it won't be my last"
AM's father--an odd cross between a muslim apologist and a Kardashian--said
numerous times during television interviews that his son had never been in
trouble before this incident.
in fact, AM had had been suspended numerous times during the previous two
years. Likewise his older sister had also been suspended for a "bomb"-related
incident in the same school district three years earlier.
and the racist school AM attended? less than 10% of the students at that
school are white; The school's valedictorian the previous year was Muslim girl
who was also quick to disagree with the characterization of the school as
anything other than accommodating to Muslims: “…Mac is a place where there is
no or very little prejudice.”
([http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/11/25/muslim-former-
texa...](http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/11/25/muslim-former-texas-
students-unexpected-revelations-clock-boy-ahmeds-school/))
------
6stringmerc
There are a bunch of sources for this story, which I mentioned in submitting
my link, and I'm not a fan of Joe Mullin's approach to the article, which is
why I called him out in the comments section over there.
There are two sides to every story. Running with the narrative that Ahmed's
family has put forward ignores that the ISD & City were prohibited from
responding due to existing laws. Like HIPAA for students.
This lawsuit might pull that plug.
------
kixpanganiban
I honestly don't know how to feel about this. I'm really happy for Ahmed for
getting the justice and recognition he deserves, and for sure, suing for
$15-mil would be hard lesson for the police and the school.
But suing for that big, even after all the coverage and press he's already
gotten (plus the gifts and scholarships he's been granted), surely throws this
whole hullabaloo under a different light.
~~~
ZoeZoeBee
Recognition he deserves, what exactly did he do worthy of recognition? Is his
family's pressing of the issue for additional fame and fortune not indicative
of their true intentions? Perhaps we should just ignore the fact that his
father has twice run for President of Sudan, and that their family friend
Anthony Bond, the founder of the Irving NAACP was the first person they called
after Ahmed was arrested, suggested the family call the media. Then the family
left the US to live in Qatar, they're in the states doing a media tour.
Edit: For more in depth coverage of the family
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-year-ago-
ah...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-year-ago-ahmed-
mohamed-became-clock-boy-now-he-cant-escape-that-
moment/2016/08/02/2b8650be-484b-11e6-bdb9-701687974517_story.html?tid=sm_tw)
~~~
sporkwitch
The attention deserved would seem to be scorn, given the apparent history of
pranks and trouble-making, combined with his family's glory-seeking as well as
unstable behaviour. Further, there was nothing inventive or experimental about
the clock: all he did was gut an existing clock and put it in a pencil case.
All indications are that the punishment was justified, and the family is
simply capitalizing on the incredible and racist double standards of the
western world today: muslims can do no wrong.
~~~
ZoeZoeBee
Today's media decide the story before any of the facts are known and push
whatever narrative they seem fit. Problem with this is most often when the
facts come in the subject is not wearing the halo the media first painted them
with. Ultimately the narrative falls apart and the media rarely offers a
follow up, the majority of the public goes on believing the first version of
the story they were sold
~~~
sporkwitch
I wouldn't even say first, I'd say they believe the version they _want_. It's
all about echo chambers these days, one need only look as far as the modern
(american) college campus, tumblr, facebook, twitter, etc. Anything that isn't
devout worship and support is now "harassment" and they have to flee to their
safe spaces. The mere concept of civil discourse and disagreement, together,
is intolerable to these children.
~~~
6stringmerc
A big "Yuuuuup" to this thread of rebuttals / context. I'm completely pissed
off at media entities for refusing to acknowledge the school district was
legally prevented from responding. Bringing this lawsuit is, to me, without a
doubt the worst possible thing the family could do. Now all the narratives
they could prevent from hitting the media will become matters of public
record. In my personal opinion, I don't think a jury will be sympathetic at
all - and probably quite the contrary - it's as though a lesson wasn't learned
and is being used as an opportunity for exploitation. As Hank Hill was fond of
saying, "That boy ain't right" and Karma is owed its due.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
English language 'originated in Turkey' - schrofer
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-19368988
======
hetman
There's a great comment about this on reddit (I'll quote the relevant part
below):
[http://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/259yt8/indoeuro...](http://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/259yt8/indoeuropean_languages_originated_in_turkey/chf4z77)
"This is essentially the conclusion of biologists who treated the spread of
language like the spread of disease. They specifically only modeled slow
expansion through cultural diffusion, meaning they completely ignored things
like languages spread through conquest. They literally ignored the Roman
empire in the evolution of Indo European. So if you look at the actual
timeline their simulation puts forth, it has things like Iceland being
populated by settlers from the Faroe Islands, who took fifty years to cross
the sea there. They also did much of this on the basis of cognates, and so by
their model Russian splits off of the slavic languages first and Polish is
closely related to Ukrainian, because Russian has a bunch of Greek words that
make it seem superficially different.
Overall, it's not good science."
The poster also recommends a video that breaks this apart in greater detail,
though it's over an hour long:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jHsy4xeuoQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jHsy4xeuoQ)
------
Houshalter
Ridiculous title if I understand it correctly. They are saying all European
languages originated there, not just English.
~~~
phaemon
Seems a reasonable title to me. If it was a person saying he had Turkish
ancestry, you wouldn't say it was a ridiculous title because "many people have
Turkish ancestors, not just him".
Obviously other languages originated there, because English is related to
other languages!
~~~
tty
>Seems a reasonable title to me
To you it might, but to any linguist this is as ridiculous of a title as
saying "English people originated in Africa". You will imediatelly think
"wait, but the actual ethnogenesis happened nowhere close to Africa, so why
would one say 'English people'? it's not useful to reference it".
It's the same with this title. It's as useful as saying that Farsi originated
in Turkey. Or any language descended from PIE, for that matter.
Not even the separation into IE families like Germanic, Balto-Slavic, etc.
happened at that time. Not even Anatolian had separated from IE. Yet the title
references the ''English'' language.
>Obviously other languages originated there
No, the thing is, they didn't. Nor did English.
What originated there is an ancestor of a group of languages.
------
cw0
I'm sure their mathematical models are very beautiful, but the facts just
don't support this theory at all. The "wheel" argument against this theory is
just too damning, and their counterargument is weak: that nearly 4000 years
after the language family split up, words for wheel, axle, and yoke managed to
spread to nearly all daughter languages as loan words. But the problem is that
these supposed loan words words reflect the same sound changes as all of the
basic, inherited vocabulary. Thus the wheel vocab must be inherited from the
same point in time as words like thou/tu/du.
Not to mention that the material culture found at the Ukraine sites is a much
better match for what we know about early Indo-European culture.
~~~
jqm
Black Sea deluge is one theory for the initial dispersal of Indo-European
speakers. Although wikipedia I don't think mentions this directly, the idea is
that forced relocation caused the spread of the language. The timeline is
approximately in line with what other theories suggest as well. And yes,
Ukraine would have been the center. Or more correctly, what is now at the
bottom of the Black Sea south of Ukraine.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis)
------
fauigerzigerk
I find it somewhat surprising that these studies focus so much on vocabulary.
Syntax seems to be much more stable over time.
All languages have so many "loan words" (do they ever give them back?) and
borrowing words happens so quickly that I find it impossible to model this
over millennia. Surely, we're dealing with a more general graph here, not with
a simple tree.
------
legulere
walk is actually a bad example for words that don't change as it changed quite
a lot in meaning.
[http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/walk#Etymology](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/walk#Etymology)
------
camus2
like 'turkey' did existed 9000 years ago.But editors need to sell
articles.let's not fall for these cheap stunts.
~~~
thaumasiotes
What do you want them to say? Anatolia? The headline has some problems, but I
wouldn't have called that one of them.
~~~
return0
It is actually "the Anatolian hypothesis". The thing with Turkey is that it
has its own language which is not related to this, so the title can be
confused for "English comes from Turkish"
~~~
Dewie
To my knowledge, Anatolia is not a strictly historical region. So one can also
say that Turkish is the majority language in Anatolia. Now you have the
problem with people not knowing what Anatolia is, on top of the possible
confusion between the Turkish language and the region that belongs to the
Republic of Turkey today (Anatolia).
The title doesn't reference the Turkish language. If English, or the family of
languages it belongs to, didn't originate near the British Isles, why would
one readily assume that the Turkish language (or its family) originated in,
and always belonged to, the region that is today known as Turkey?
~~~
return0
> Anatolia is not a strictly historical region
Of course it is, also known as asia minor since the ancient times:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolia)
And the relevant linguistic hypothesis:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolian_hypothesis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolian_hypothesis)
~~~
Dewie
> Of course it is,
"Not strictly historical" by which I mean; not _only_ used as a historical
region. So if it is still used to refer to the modern region in some cases
(?), then it can be misleading in the same way that one uses "Turkey" to refer
to that region; it can be misunderstood to refer to this modern region, while
in fact one is talking about a time where that place had nothing to do with
modern Turkey. (whew!)
> And the relevant linguistic hypothesis:
Who cares what linguists call it? This is presumably meant for a more general
audience, an audience that probably knows where Turkey lies but may not have
heard of Anatolia. Anatolia is only slightly smaller than modern Turkey, and
is subsumed by it. I don't think it is misleading.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CDC says coronavirus survived in Princess Cruise ship cabins for up to 17 days - tartoran
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/23/cdc-coronavirus-survived-in-princess-cruise-cabins-up-to-17-days-after-passengers-left.html
======
aschla
From the report:
“SARS-CoV-2 RNA was identified on a variety of surfaces in cabins of both
symptomatic and asymptomatic infected passengers up to 17 days after cabins
were vacated on the Diamond Princess...”
Presence of RNA does not necessarily mean it’s a viable virus.
------
cmurf
Source:
[https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e3.htm?s_cid=mm...](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e3.htm?s_cid=mm6912e3_w)
_SARS-CoV-2 RNA was identified on a variety of surfaces ..._
I guess we don't know from this data whether these are fragments or are intact
and communicable?
------
robocat
Would asymptomatic crew be a more likely vector between the voyages?
This is a respiratory disease: don’t ignore touch as a vector but surely the
vast majority of transmission is via the air?
------
Havoc
Damn. That will significantly lengthen any sort of quarantine I suspect.
~~~
tartoran
This is not conclusive yet but yes, this is going to take more than a few
weeks and will be quite a disaster in some areas...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Breaker 101 – Online Web Security Course - daeken
https://breaker101.com/
======
daeken
Breaker 101 launched about 3 years ago on HN. At that point, it was extremely
time-intensive (for students and myself) and cost about $1000. The price only
went up over time, which meant that fewer and fewer people could afford this
information.
Today I'm happy to announce the new Breaker 101. Same great material, but for
a fraction of the price -- only $149. I truly believe that every programmer
would benefit from this course, and now it's accessible to many, many more
people than ever before.
------
fujipadam
Looks great - what is the time commitment to go through the entire course?
~~~
daeken
It's 99% self-driven and constantly expanding, so it's tough to pinpoint an
exact number. But for the content as it is right now, it's 20-40 hours of
work. Some people take more or less time (depending on prior experience,
distractions, etc), but that's the ballpark. The only thing that's strictly
timed are the two "mid term" exams, which are 4 hours each.
------
chasb
Nice. Are you using an LMS, or did you roll your own?
~~~
daeken
Everything is running on my own platform (aside from videos hosted on
Youtube). As the class has evolved, the platform has grown quite considerably,
but it's really held up well. I've considered moving it to something off-the-
shelf, but I like the flexibility that I have with my codebase; anything that
students want, I can typically implement quickly.
------
choward
Cool ad, bro.
~~~
dang
Come on, that's not nice. daeken's been a fine HN user for years, and hasn't
posted this project since 2014. That's hardly overdoing it, and HN is supposed
to be a place where people can share their work.
~~~
dan1234
Is it really appropriate as a "Show HN" though, or should it really have been
a more general submission?
Feels like a link to a 'paid only' project goes against the spirit.
~~~
dang
Fair point, and my mistake. I added "Show HN" earlier since daeken is the
creator of the project, but I forgot to check that there was a way to try it
out. We'll take that bit out again.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Following Code Causes Segfault in Clang - DaNmarner
http://llvm.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=20516
======
lindig
If your are looking for code to break a C compiler, you can try my tool Quest
[https://github.com/lindig/quest](https://github.com/lindig/quest). It tries
to to generate code that shows that a C compiler handles parameter passing
wrong. I usually run it in a loop, like here on Mac OS X 10.9.4 witch gcc:
:quest $ gcc --version
Configured with: --prefix=/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.2.1
Apple LLVM version 5.1 (clang-503.0.40) (based on LLVM 3.4svn)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin13.3.0
Thread model: posix
:quest $ while true; do
> ./main.native -test gcc -n 1 > foo.c
> gcc -O2 -o foo foo.c
> ./foo || break
> echo -n .
> done
................................................................
................................................................
.................................................
Assertion failed: (b32 == b43), function callee_b0f, file foo.c, line 128.
Abort trap: 6
This means the tool found C code where parameter passing is not compiled
properly. It took about 10 seconds to find this. The test case is pretty
small:
:quest $ wc foo.c
140 444 3485 foo.c
The generated code that where the assertion checks that parameters are
received correctly looks like this:
static
union bt8 *
callee_b0f(struct bt4 *bp7,
double *bp8,
struct bt6 bp9,
float bp10,
struct bt7 bp11,
double bp12,
short int bp13,
...)
{
va_list ap;
typedef int bd0;
typedef struct bt0 bd1;
typedef int bd2;
typedef union bt3 bd3;
bd0 b41;
bd1 b42;
bd2 b43;
bd3 b44;
/* seed: 2040 */
va_start(ap, bp13);
QUEST_ASSERT(b34 == bp7);
QUEST_ASSERT(b35 == bp8);
QUEST_ASSERT(b36.b24.b18 == bp9.b24.b18);
QUEST_ASSERT(b36.b24.b19 == bp9.b24.b19);
QUEST_ASSERT(b36.b24.b20 == bp9.b24.b20);
QUEST_ASSERT(b36.b24.b21 == bp9.b24.b21);
QUEST_ASSERT(b36.b24.b22 == bp9.b24.b22);
QUEST_ASSERT(b36.b24.b23 == bp9.b24.b23);
QUEST_ASSERT(b36.b25 == bp9.b25);
QUEST_ASSERT(b36.b26 == bp9.b26);
QUEST_ASSERT(b37 == bp10);
QUEST_ASSERT(b38.b27 == bp11.b27);
QUEST_ASSERT(b39 == bp12);
QUEST_ASSERT(b40 == bp13);
b41 = va_arg(ap, bd0);
b42 = va_arg(ap, bd1);
b43 = va_arg(ap, bd2);
b44 = va_arg(ap, bd3);
QUEST_ASSERT(b30 == b41);
QUEST_ASSERT(b31.b0 == b42.b0);
QUEST_ASSERT(b32 == b43);
QUEST_ASSERT(b33.b10.b1 == b44.b10.b1);
va_end(ap);
return b29;
}
------
danieljh
While we're at segfaulting compiler's, here's what I found just a few days
ago:
python -S -c 'print("void f(){} int main(){return (" + "*"*10**7 + "f)();}")' | gcc -xc -
(This is legal C -- look it up. Don't argue with me over the practical
relevance of this please)
~~~
deathanatos
I will point out that there is a section called "Translation limits" that
discusses how compilers can't really be excepted to compile every legal
program, because they run in a machine with a finite amount of memory.
> Both the translation and execution environments constrain the implementation
> of language translators and libraries. The following summarizes the
> language-related environmental limits on a conforming implementation; the
> library-related limits are discussed in clause 7.
> The implementation shall be able to translate and execute at least one
> program that contains at least one instance of every one of the following
> limits:
> 4095 characters in a logical source line
Of course, it notes:
> Implementations should avoid imposing fixed translation limits whenever
> possible.
Note that these aren't strict limits, and don't really have an effect on the
legality of your program, I feel it's more of a discussion of the limits
imposed by reality, and what compilers must handle at a bare minimum.
And honestly, I would hope most modern compilers would do better than the
noted limits and I'd also hope for a decent error message, not "gcc: internal
compiler error: Segmentation fault (program cc1)" (which is what the program
generates).
Last,
> This is legal C
Is it? You're returning the result of a function that returns void in a
function that returns int (and even if main were void, I still don't think
that's legal). Were gcc able to handle the abusive number of stars, it would
say,
<stdin>: In function ‘main’:
<stdin>:1:23: error: void value not ignored as it ought to be
(which is what it says if you remove some of the stars.) Granted, this can be
corrected, and your example will still cause the same output. (Which doesn't
seem nearly as interesting as the linked C++ code. I'd _like_ to know why that
causes a segfault. With yours, I'd like to know why you were doing that.)
~~~
danieljh
You are right in that the return is wrong and accidentally stayed in during
example reduction down to a smaller version. Without it, the result is still
the same.
The reason I was testing this was a discussion on IRC about functions decaying
to pointer to functions, such that they are endlessly dereferenceable. The
snippet above crashes GCC -- hard.
So, while the implementation is free not to handle 10^7 dereferencing
operations, I'm not sure a hard crash is the right answer.
Here's a version without the return and using a lambda to shorten it further:
python -S -c 'print("int main(){(" + "*"*10**7 + "+[]{})();}")' | g++ -std=c++11 -xc++ -
------
archgoon
Hmm...
Unable to find instantiation of declaration!
UNREACHABLE executed at SemaTemplateInstantiateDecl.cpp:4384!
Not quite so unreachable...
[https://gist.github.com/cwgreene/d689f010619310dbbc77](https://gist.github.com/cwgreene/d689f010619310dbbc77)
[https://github.com/llvm-
mirror/clang/blob/b310439121c875937d...](https://github.com/llvm-
mirror/clang/blob/b310439121c875937d78cc49cc969bc1197fc025/lib/Sema/SemaTemplateInstantiateDecl.cpp#L4384)
------
udp
Something I found last week that crashes with clang-503.0.40:
template<class T> class foo
{
public:
~ foo()
{
}
foo &operator = (const foo &rhs)
{
foo::~foo();
new (this) foo (rhs);
return *this;
}
};
int main(int argc, char * argv[])
{
foo<int> a, b;
b = a;
}
~~~
archgoon
This is the same bug.
------
hamburglar
Is there some legitimate reason to want to have A's destructor called twice on
a single instance?
~~~
misnome
Probably not, but the compiler crashing isn't a good way of notifying the user
of that!
~~~
hamburglar
Ah, I didn't realize the segfault was in the compiler itself. The title
("segmentation fault on calling destructor in member function") made it sound
like the generated code crashed. Now that there's a gist of a callstack it's
clearer.
------
andrewchambers
Something tells me C++ isn't the best thing to implement a compiler with.
~~~
golemotron
I modded you up because clang is written in C++ and even if I didn't know this
I'd suspect it because segfaults in languages that are not weakly typed (i.e.,
C and C++) are incredibly rare.
There are better languages to write compilers in. OCaml is one.
~~~
nly
C++ probably isn't 'weakly typed', whatever that means.
~~~
yzzxy
You probably aren't "qualified to make that statement", if you don't know what
weak typing is and are too lazy to google it.
~~~
nly
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_and_weak_typing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_and_weak_typing)
> In general, these terms do not have a precise definition. Rather, they tend
> to be used by advocates or critics of a given programming language, as a
> means of explaining why a given language is better or worse than
> alternatives.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Better Portable Graphics - tosh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Portable_Graphics
======
JyrkiAlakuijala
Image compression is complicated. Licencing topics, decompression cpu time,
decompression memory use, decompression memory bandwidth use, compression
time, is asymmetric slower but more efficient compression available, multi-
threading, how much of the decoding can be shadowed during the data transfer,
how many levels of progression are preferred, global image artefacts (such as
banding) that don't appear in objective metrics, inter-frame copying ending up
copying strange stuff around, red colors tend to not to be compressed with
great success (there is no gamma compression for red in the eye, but in image
formats there is), how much the image format is for the eyes and how much for
the metrics, are the results the same on different platforms/implementations,
is alpha supported, how good is the HDR modeling and its rather non-linear
relations to gamma and colors in general, does the image format tend to
preserve the quality of materials such as wood, marble, skin, cloth -- or
replace them with cheap plastic imitation, some image formats work
dramatically well at low BPP (<0.5) but start failing when compared to old
JPEG at higher BPP (2.5+ BPP). Some image formats decode only a few megapixels
per second which can be a disaster if your images happen to be in the 40
megapixel category.
Overall, it is a very complex landscape.
~~~
jacobolus
> _there is no gamma compression for red in the eye_
What does this mean? Do you have a citation to a source explaining whatever
this is trying to say using precise standard color science terminology?
~~~
airstrike
Don't you know every HN thread needs its standard armchair top comment
rebuttal on how TFA is actually wrong and the author is naive and doesn't
really understand the problem with all its intricacies?
~~~
muizelaar
The top comment rebuttal is written by the author of the WebP lossless,
[https://github.com/google/butteraugli](https://github.com/google/butteraugli)
and [https://github.com/google/pik](https://github.com/google/pik) so calling
it armchairing doesn't really seem appropriate.
~~~
coolspot
Ouch
------
arghwhat
Please see AVIF
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#AV1_Image_File_Format_(AVI...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#AV1_Image_File_Format_\(AVIF\)))
for an open, royalty-free alternative with similar or better performance.
And if you must use HEVC-based imaging, consider HEIF which has considerable
support.
~~~
pornel
HEIC/AVIF container is a complicated kitchen sink. It's closer to being a
PowerPoint file than an image format. It's an unnecessarily large attack
surface and a ton of features that nobody will (correctly) use anyway. The
reference implementation is a ton of C++ code I would not dare to use in a
security-sensitive application. OTOH libpng is a single C file, and it just
wraps a single HEVC payload.
For that reason I'd say that if you can license HEVC, use BPG, not HEIF. And
I'd love to have an AV1-based BPG version.
~~~
littlestymaar
small typo: _libbpg_ , not _libpng_
~~~
anoncareer0212
Thanks, very small but led me to jump to complete misunderstandings about bpg,
png, and libpng
------
andy_ppp
You can see how unbelievably better this is than JPG (at almost any file size)
here:
[http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yolo-octo-
bugfixes/#swallowtail&j...](http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yolo-octo-
bugfixes/#swallowtail&jpg=t&bpg=t)
Or here:
[https://bellard.org/bpg/lena.html](https://bellard.org/bpg/lena.html)
The difference between webp from the first link is actually quite small
([http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yolo-octo-
bugfixes/#swallowtail&w...](http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yolo-octo-
bugfixes/#swallowtail&webp=t&bpg=t)).
Additionally you can find the Javascript decoder here:
[https://github.com/xingmarc/bpg-decoder](https://github.com/xingmarc/bpg-
decoder)
It's 215k of Javascript though so isn't really that practical in most cases
and I'd worry about how it was affecting battery life. It'd be very
interesting to do some tests and see.
~~~
ajross
> unbelievably better
I don't know that this qualifies as unbelievable. This is just good marketing
and spin. The image in that link is exploiting the fact that modern codecs
specify upsampling filters, so the HEVC half looks smoothly varying while JPEG
can, per spec, only look pixelated when blown up like that.
There's absolutely no reason that thing couldn't have shown you a jpeg image
rendered with bilinear filtering, which of course is what you'll see if you
put that JPEG on a texture and scale it up using the GPU.
But it didn't, because it wanted to convince you how much "unbelievably"
better HEVC is. Meh.
I mean, to be clear: HEVC is absolutely better, to the tune of almost a factor
of two in byte size for the same subjective quality. Just not like this. If
you've got a site where still images are a significant fraction of your
bandwidth budget (and your bandwidth budget is a significant fraction of your
budget budget) then this could help you. In practice... static content
bandwidth is mostly a solved problem and no one cares, which is why we aren't
using BPG.
~~~
dahart
> There’s absolutely no reason that thing couldn’t have shown you a jpeg image
> rendered with bilinear filtering, which of course is what you’ll see if you
> put that JPEG on a texture and scale it up using the GPU.
That’s not true, this particular JPEG will not look smooth on a GPU. The
visible blocks are 8x8 pixels, not 1 pixel. The blocks would still be blocky
because the compression has reduced them to only the DC component. This means
the JPEG decode would still decode large blocks into texture memory and the
GPU would still render large blocks with a slight blur between the 1 pixel
borders of the 8 pixel blocks.
> In practice... static content bandwidth is a mostly solved problem and no
> one cares, which is why we aren’t using BPG.
I don’t believe that’s true either. I don’t know what you mean about bandwidth
being “solved”, but more data is more data. If everyone could reduce their
static images today by 2x without thinking, I’m pretty sure they would. I
would on my sites if I could. The reason that BPG (or any other format!) isn’t
yet being used is lack of browser support and tools and licensing and
consensus, not because nobody cares about bandwidth. If what you said is true,
then JPEG & PNG would never be replaced, but it’s already starting to happen.
~~~
ajross
The point was that, to first approximation, the internet is YouTube and
Netflix. Static images are noise.
And I'm sorry, but if that JPEG is showing artifacts like that it was simply
miscompressed, likely deliberately. I repeat, there is absolutely no reason an
image of there same byte count cannot look just fine on that screen. For
goodness sake, just reduce the resolution if nothing else.
~~~
dahart
The JPEG was compressed to death deliberately, yes. That's the point of the
comparison; for the same (tiny) data size BPG gives you a clearly better
result. BPG is workable in situations where JPEG isn't.
> For goodness sake, just reduce the resolution if nothing else.
Reducing the resolution would not work and is not the same thing. You would
still get 8x8 DC blocks in a smaller JPEG at the same compression rate, and
higher detail in the BPG. The BPG is provably better than the JPEG, and since
you already know that and talked about it above, I'm a little confused by your
argument.
~~~
ZeroGravitas
I think there often is a point when reducing the bitrate further while keeping
the same resolution is a worse choice than dropping the resolution. I believe
one of the tricks of AV1 is to internalise this trade-off.
More generally, doing visual comparisons of codecs is full of traps. Since
quality often falls off rapidly at a certain point it's possible to show your
codec off by choosing the exact point to compare to maximise the difference.
This is almost certainly the case if you're comparing against jpeg and it's
starting to totally fall apart.
It's not that it doesn't correctly show that one is worse than the other but
it's probably not a good visual reflection of the true scale of the difference
any more than ramping up the bitrate until everyone would think they are
indistinguishable.
~~~
dahart
Sure, yes, but the comparison in question isn't the only comparison, it's just
one of many. Letting people see the difference visually for themselves is more
tangible and less questionable that putting up two file size numbers and
claiming they're equal quality. And if you think about it, it similarly
wouldn't completely be fair to BPG to turn up the quality so that the JPEG
looked reasonably good, because the BPG file would be in the range of
diminishing returns per byte.
It is fair to point out that JPEG falls apart below a certain compression
threshold while BPG doesn't, even if it's a little bit apples to oranges. I
prefer the way @enriquito said it
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20419900](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20419900)
but I disagree with the hyperbolic claims in this thread that this comparison
is outrageous or complete spin or cheating. It's a data point that has some
actual merit, and BTW happens to agree with the other data points we have.
------
lucideer
Presuming this was posted by someone exploring the works of Fabrice Bellard
after reading the HN comments here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20411154](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20411154)
~~~
namibj
This pattern continues to amuse me. I wish for some analysis of these
connectivity graphs, but I guess it's near-impossible to do accurately without
capturing the poster's history and looking at how they stumbled from previous
HN posts/comments onto the thing they post now.
~~~
microcolonel
It also crosses site boundaries.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20366844](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20366844)
~~~
namibj
Which is why I think user's browser history would be needed. And that's not
possible to do at statistically significant/useful scale.
------
elamje
The guy who wrote BPG is a legend. I was looking at his home page where it
lists cool projects - [https://bellard.org/](https://bellard.org/) and I was
thinking this is a great list of really popular projects. Then I realized he
made all of them! People that make this many important contributions should be
better recognized.
~~~
datalus
QuickJS is a great little JS engine as well that he wrote and is super easy to
embed :)
------
adrianN
And once again software patents are the hair in the soup.
~~~
robert_foss
Agreed. An AV1 based format would be more interesting, and likely have better
compression ratios.
~~~
theandrewbailey
See AVIF:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#AV1_Image_File_Format_(AVI...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#AV1_Image_File_Format_\(AVIF\))
------
rhardih
Anytime I see anything with Fabrice' name on it I'm immediately intrigued.
He's just on a different level. His list of projects is simply astounding. I
can duly recommend checking out some his other projects at
[https://bellard.org](https://bellard.org).
------
PostOnce
sans patent issues:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#AV1_Image_File_Format_(AVI...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#AV1_Image_File_Format_\(AVIF\))
still waiting on the software support.
------
DagAgren
iOS is already using HEIF, which is basically the same thing in a different
container format. That seems a much more likely candidate for actually being
taken up.
~~~
DagAgren
Correction: In addition to macOS and iOS, Windows 10 and Android apparently
also support it already.
------
m4r35n357
Fabrice strikes again! FFMPEG, QEMU, TCC . . . .
[https://bellard.org/](https://bellard.org/)
~~~
musikele
How this guy finds the time to work on these very different projects? Some of
them require skills that are very specific, how can you pass from writing QEMU
to TCC to the 4G station ... What does he do for living, how does he spend his
free time?
~~~
thechao
Writing emulators, compilers, operating-systems, and codecs are all standard-
skills of any low-level systems programmer. My _entire_ team of 50+ people are
capable of doing this stuff. The difference between us & Fabrice are: (1) we
work for a major company & none of our stuff is publicly available; and, (2)
he's still at least head-and-shoulders above most of the people doing this.
He'd easily be in the top 5 for my team, and certainly better than of the kids
under 40.
------
DoctorNick
patent encumbered. non-starter.
~~~
pedrocr
Seems like the same strategy starting with AV1 would be a good solution.
~~~
arghwhat
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#AV1_Image_File_Format_(AVI...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#AV1_Image_File_Format_\(AVIF\))
~~~
pedrocr
Thanks. I went to the AV1 page but didn't notice that section. Seems
promising, with implementations already cropping up.
------
yboris
I'm looking forward to FUIF - Free Universal Image Format
[https://cloudinary.com/blog/introducing_fuif_responsive_imag...](https://cloudinary.com/blog/introducing_fuif_responsive_images_by_design)
Created by the same person who created FLIF (already an amazing format)!
Better yet, it's probably the most-likely technology to be accepted into the
upcoming JPEG XL standard!
~~~
microcolonel
The problem with FUIF is probably that it's not all that efficient at encoding
images, which is probably why there are _zero_ comparisons or demonstrations
of the actual images that can be found easily by going to the repository or
the authors' blog. The one FUIF image I've seen was the one in their clip
showing generational loss with various codecs.
~~~
bryanlarsen
FUIF has the ability to losslessly transcode from JPEG. This will make it very
useful in a couple of important use cases. But by constraining itself to DCT
in this way, I assume it performs relatively poorly compared to other modern
alternatives when compressing from a RAW source.
------
devwastaken
You can already use native av1 to display images in browser. You simply encode
your image to a single frame av1 webm with ffmpeg. Browsers will automatically
display the first image fully rendered, because it acts as a thumbnail. Afaik
no need for autoplay privledges.
------
sneak
Is there a reason that browsers don't jump on the bandwagon and implement
codecs for all reasonably-stable image codecs (save this one, which seems to
be patent encumbered)?
i.e.: why doesn't Chrome support AVIF? Is it because it competes with their
own invented-here WebP?
It seems like adding new image codecs for given content types would be pretty
trivial if the libraries are available and stable and license compatible; why
be conservative and not just support the newish ones to help the best ones
gain traction?
It seems like browser vendors are just dragging their feet.
~~~
timw4mail
Because browsers have an enormous API/file support surface as is, and each new
image format can be a significant amount of code to support essentially
forever.
Webp now is supported by pretty much every browser, but a lot of image viewers
don't support the format yet. There has to be a certain amount of momentum to
justify supporting a new image format.
------
Rhamb
There is also FLIF
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Lossless_Image_Format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Lossless_Image_Format))
which has a nice property: it is adaptive by design, that is, you can only
look at the first X bytes and get a first approximation of the image, and the
further you go, the better it becomes. It also allows for both lossless and
lossy compression.
I wonder how they compare.
(Don't take my word for that, I'm no expert on the subject)
~~~
lucb1e
JPEG does that too, you can enable progressive rendering in the encoder.
Having it enabled does not make the image larger in my experience.
------
m-p-3
I knew I recognized that name, it's one of the main ffmpeg and QEMU
developers! If BPG is up to the same quality than those two, then it has to be
a great format!
------
devy
Apple has unilaterally pushing their HEIF format to replace JPEG after iOS 11
- to combat the criticism of they differentiating their iPhone/iPad by storage
sizes and artificially make the base model a very small capacity (16GB for the
longest time) and their storage not customer replaceable.
[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207022](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT207022)
------
ChuckMcM
_" Patent issues may prevent JPEG replacement by BPG despite BPG's better
technical performance.[6]"_
BPG meet GIF, GIF meet BPG. The most annoying thing about GIF in the early
days were the damn Compuserve patents that they would go out of their way to
hassle you with if they thought they could.
------
jokoon
What about encoding/decoding performance?
> Current research works on designing and developing more energy-efficient BPG
> hardware which can then be integrated in portable devices such as digital
> cameras.
I guess it doesn't really matter that much, but I'm still curious.
------
legulere
Does something similar exist with AV1?
~~~
kristofferR
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#AV1_Image_File_Format_(AVI...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#AV1_Image_File_Format_\(AVIF\))
------
Vosporos
That's it? we're milking Bellard's treasure cave for upvotes now?
~~~
wmf
I'm sure there are people who haven't been on HN for ten years who haven't
seen it. There's no Hacker Canon to discuss this stuff so people repost it
here.
------
AnthonBerg
Fabrice Bellard is a monster. I want to be just like him when I grow up. With
a monstrous list of accomplishments.
------
sproketboy
Why bother when we have PNG?
~~~
wffurr
Totally different algorithm for different purposes. PNG is lossless encoding,
doesn't work well for photographs or complex images.
~~~
Zardoz84
PNG works really fine for no HDR photos if you not are worry about the size.
~~~
zowanet
And BMP, TIFF, DPX, EXR etc all work really fine if you are not worried about
the size.
But being worried about the size is the whole point of image compression.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
On first connection to a new site (typed without protocol), try https first - amenghra
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1158191
======
Sulfu
This will not break anything as it goes to http if no HTTPS is available. I'm
french, and with new laws commings up, i'm more than ever deeple concerned
about privacy and freedom of speech. But please remember that HTTPS don't hide
where you are seeking informations from, but only content
~~~
frikk
This will break some websites that are not configured properly -- for example,
a server that has several sites but only one of them uses https. Trying https
on the other sites would default to the https in use. I've seen this happen on
some servers we run internally.
In short, there's no way to know if you're actually seeing the correct https
version of the site.
~~~
Sulfu
Ok yes you are right, this might break some unproperly configured servers (i
also regulary see websites that goes to admin panels when trying to access to
secure http), but this while probably last only few weeks or months before the
majority of websites fixes it. Anyway, i think this is a good thing, we should
have switch to full HTTPS a long time ago and this feature might help.
------
arexi
I wonder how many websites this will break. A few times in the past I have
tried seeing if websites support https and been served a default Apache page
or something instead. Still, the more encrypted traffic the better.
~~~
dmckeon
I've been using [https://www.eff.org/https-
everywhere](https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere) since 2011 (Firefox 3.6 back
then) and only rarely see sites that serve a default page or stall with https.
That's anecdata, but to get good data one would have to try to fetch & compare
results from both protocols for many websites - perhaps Google or the Internet
Archive has done this?
The biggest annoyance for me in using https preferentially is that I often end
up with multiple bookmarks for the "same" page, which differ only in their
protocol - it would be nice if there were an auto-magic way to upgrade the old
http bookmark to the https protocol.
~~~
Noctem
That's because HTTPS Everywhere doesn't blindly attempt HTTPS connections, it
redirects based on a massive set of rules. That's also how it accounts for
more complex changes than just the protocol portion of the URL, like adding an
_encrypyted._ or _ssl._ subdomain.
You can see all the rulesets here: [https://gitweb.torproject.org/https-
everywhere.git/tree/src/...](https://gitweb.torproject.org/https-
everywhere.git/tree/src/chrome/content/rules)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An XMPP interface for Campfire (node.js) - lann
https://github.com/causes/node-xmpp-campfire
======
lann
I started this during the latest <plug>Hack-a-thon at Causes
(causes.com/join_us),</plug> and now it's beta enough to open source.
Unlike some other existing solutions, this one behaves like an XMPP MUC (group
chat), and doesn't require that you run your own XMPP server or have an extra
XMPP user.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Help me find or build this simple mobile photo app - revorad
I want a really simple mobile app, to take pictures and upload them to my server. I don't need any additional features.<p>Is there any existing app I can use to do this? I don't mind using any app, as long as it can upload the photos to my server.<p>Or as a mobile newbie, how can I learn to build this quickly?<p>I would like it to work on both iOS and Android. Is PhoneGap a good option?
======
kennywinker
Upload to your server and what...? Dropbox will let you take and upload
pictures, and you can install Dropbox's linux client on your server.
There are also probably dozens of ftp apps that let you take photos, or pull
from your photo library.
~~~
revorad
I mean take a photo with the phone camera and upload that to my server.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Rails 3 jQuery Setup Script - lleger
http://github.com/lleger/Rails-3-jQuery
======
crayz
This would probably be better done as a template, but nice job
~~~
lleger
You are totally right about that. I just committed a template to do that, but
left the script for posterity.
------
bbsabelli
Anyone know of an equivalent for rails 2.3.5?
~~~
oldgregg
jrails will let you use jquery rather that prototype but it doesn't generate
clean code like rail 3 does. unless you have some dependencies that are not
compatible, the bump to 3 is really worth it.
<http://github.com/aaronchi/jrails>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What are you using for system architecture diagraming? - dpeck
Time to start doing some system diagramming to explain my design to others on the team and get feedback.<p>Is Visio still the best option? Or has something else gotten your attention lately?
======
dwwoelfel
I'm building a generic collaborative prototyping tool that I think works well
for infrastructure diagrams, especially if you want something a bit more free-
form. I wrote up a short tutorial here:
[https://precursorapp.com/blog/diagramming-with-
precursor](https://precursorapp.com/blog/diagramming-with-precursor)
~~~
Yadi
Looks pretty neat!
Any plans to move it to mobile for touch surfaces?
------
nostrademons
Don't underestimate the effectiveness of 3x5 cards & string, or of
whiteboards. Particularly if you want to _change_ your design in addition to
just documenting it. It won't be persistent (unless you take a photo of it),
but you can really quickly iterate and find opportunities for simplification.
------
mattkrea
My personal favorite (on Mac) is Monodraw
([http://monodraw.helftone.com/](http://monodraw.helftone.com/))
~~~
blub
How does this compare to Omnigraffle? Too bad I didn't find it when looking
for such a tool.
~~~
mattkrea
Omnigraffle works fine but I prefer this solely because of the ASCII output
------
AdieuToLogic
ArgoUML[1] is pretty decent, though has few updates recently.
1 - [http://argouml.tigris.org](http://argouml.tigris.org)
~~~
benlaud
+1 for ArgoUML. After created the diagram, I usually just did a C&P to Google
Docs / Evernote as document. It is very convenience.
------
blub
Visio is terrible at UML. Fortunately there are 3rd party stencils available
which make it much better.
Whatever you do, go for a drawing tool (Visio, Omnigraffle) and not a UML tool
(Visual paradigm, Enterprise architect). The latter are too complicated and
expect that the diagram is correct from a UML standard perspective, which
unless you're generating code is useless and cumbersome to do.
------
kalagan
I used Dia ([http://dia-installer.de/](http://dia-installer.de/)) and
Lucidchart ([https://www.lucidchart.com](https://www.lucidchart.com)) in the
past. It's not ideal but it can do the job.
------
Yadi
Big white papers are the best! I love sketching it out a few times, and throw
some of them.
Until it reaches a diagram that I would actually like, then I will transform
it to this FREE googleDrive tool called (draw.io).
------
hbcondo714
I'm a long time user of Visio but lately I've been using online diagram tools
like Gliffy, especially for some UML.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Java Vulnerability Discovered by US CERT And Hackers - nctalaviya
http://www.itnewsoftechnology.com/2013/07/java-vulnerability-discovered-by-us.html
======
Justvisiting
This is a link to an article dated July 2013.
------
jlgaddis
_> 7/18/2013 12:30:00 am_
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Two-Thirds of Earliest Tesla Drivetrains Fail in 60,000 Miles - ck2
https://www.yahoo.com/autos/two-thirds-of-earliest-tesla-drivetrains-to-fail-201137486.html
======
ck2
I guess we should thank the owners for beta testing for late adopters.
If Tesla covers them under warranty I guess the only problem is inconvenience
and hassle for the owners. If not, Tesla is going to probably have a much
bigger problem.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover - danso
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/22/style/pittsburgh-tech-makeover.html
======
pesenti
I lived in Pittsburgh for 17 years. I bootstrapped a company out of CMU, grew
it to $25M/year in revenue and sold it to IBM. Pittsburgh is a great place to
start a company, lots of tech talent, lots of support and exposure in the
community, cheap rent. And it is today a much more enjoyable place to live
than 20 years ago (great restaurant scene, bike paths, revitalized downtown).
There are two big drawbacks: finding experienced non-technical talent (our
C-suite ended up in DC) and raising significant funds. It's just really hard
to get serious VCs to pay attention to Pittsburgh.
~~~
nugget
> It's just really hard to get serious VCs to pay attention to Pittsburgh.
I'm an angel investor in a few dozen tech startups, about half in the Bay Area
and half spread elsewhere around the country. The biggest problem with those
outside of the Bay Area is that for lack of a better term "they don't think
big enough". A lot of the promising ones turn into lifestyle-type businesses
(e.g. a focus on services revenue instead of software revenue) when, in my
opinion, they could have achieved much greater exits. Whether justified or
not, I know many other investors with a similar bias based on similar
experiences.
~~~
Hydraulix989
Which is more of an issue with those VCs than the founders; there are a number
of self-driving car startups here and they have a unique advantage: they
aren't biased by the immaculate freeways and roads in California -- Pittsburgh
has a much wider variety of challenging driving situations, weather, and
conditions than California so it is a great test bed for developing autonomous
vehicles (indeed, CMU won 1st place in the DARPA Grand Urban challenge,
readily beating the likes of Stanford and Berkeley).
Some California VCs are mistakenly under the impression that anywhere outside
the Bay Area must be Siberia. It's going to eventually bite them in terms of
missed future opportunities and ROI on their funds.
~~~
whopa
> they aren't biased by the immaculate freeways and roads in California --
> Pittsburgh has a much wider variety of challenging driving situations,
> weather, and conditions than California so it is a great test bed for
> developing autonomous vehicles
Careful, don't compare Pittsburgh to an entire state. Pennsylvania doesn't
have any real mountains, whereas California does. Google tests their self
driving vehicles in the Lake Tahoe area, which in the winter can be much more
challenging than anywhere in within 500 miles of Pittsburgh.
Navigating serious grade changes, both uphill and downhill, presents more of a
challenge for trucks too, even for humans right now. The only places to really
test that in the US are pretty much west of Denver.
~~~
Hydraulix989
As an SF transplant, my only thoughts after seeing California drivers
struggling with the artificial snow and hills at Tahoe were "these people have
never been to Pittsburgh."
Also, eastern Pennsylvania has the Appalachian mountains, and last time I
checked, they were "real."
~~~
whopa
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Davis_(Pennsylvania)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Davis_\(Pennsylvania\))
\- 3,213 ft - highest point in PA
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tejon_Pass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tejon_Pass)
\- 4,160 ft
Tejon Pass is on I-5 in northern LA County, and it is a huge trucking route.
The grade is very steep between the Central Valley and the top of the pass,
and is fairly challenging for trucks. There is no equivalent to those
conditions in PA.
Also, if your impression of Tahoe is only the heavily touristed parts, your
view is incomplete. The mountain roads in the Sierras have no equivalent east
of the Mississippi.
~~~
ntsplnkv2
looks like someone has never been to Pennsylvania.
Tejon Pass' major difficulty is the grade, and that's about it. PA may not
have a highway that matches that grade, but many come close, and there are far
more tight curves, typically far worse road conditions, and bad weather season
is far more common than in N LA.
~~~
whopa
My point about Tejon Pass is that it's a steep grade mountain pass with heavy
traffic including lots of trucks. There's no equivalent in PA.
Highway trucking will be the first significant deployment of autonomous
vehicles. One of the big challenges is Mountain West interstates.
I do agree that the NE US is a proper testbed for bad weather city driving,
since no West Coast cities have really that bad winter weather, I'm just
objecting to the claim that somehow Pittsburgh captures all the challenging
road conditions that autonomous vehicles will encounter.
~~~
thesmallestcat
Have you ever driven on 70 or 80 through PA? Because "steep grade mountain
pass with heavy traffic, including lots of trucks" is an apt description of
either route.
------
bane
Pittsburgh is a great town. It looks a bit like it was on the barely winning
side of a fist fight, but it has lots going for it:
\- Two big, well funded, well respected schools cranking out talent. CMU is
one of the top schools in the world for CS.
\- Cheap rent
\- If you want to buy a house, some really beautiful neighborhoods
\- SEI - lots of cyber security talent
\- Great food and activities, it's not hard to find plenty of things to do,
some innovative areas that are turning around dead warehouse and industrial
areas
\- Some parts of the city are really beautiful and nice places to be, lots of
great parks and so on
But there's some realities that I don't think limit what can come from the
city, but rather shape what kinds of businesses should set up shop there.
\- Geographic isolation
\- Parts of the city can be pretty rough still, rougher than what you might
find elsewhere
\- hard to bring _in_ quality talent if they aren't being sourced from the
schools
\- Non-tech talent comes from completely different industries
So I think that if you can shape a business that targets a large domestic
market and solves real problems, even non-sexy B2B ones, you can probably grow
a thriving business there. You probably won't end up hitting it big on social
media, but many B2B problems are billion dollar businesses.
~~~
z1mm32m4n
> Some parts of the city are really beautiful and nice places to be, lots of
> great parks and so on
It's hard to understate this point. Compared with San Francisco, Pittsburgh is
much more visibly green. There are trees everywhere, grassy areas abound, and
the city itself is nestled in green hills.
San Francisco is full of concrete. The Bay Area is still really brown from the
recent droughts. There are certainly people who can overlook this and live
perfectly contently. But in Pittsburgh, I don't have to give up the greenery
for a city life.
~~~
blackguardx
The Bay Area turns green and brown every year. It has nothing to do with
droughts. In the winter, the grass on the hills is green. In the summer, it is
brown or "golden." That color is what the phrase "Golden Hills of California"
is referring to.
~~~
nostrademons
Rule of thumb is that the Santa Cruz mountains are green and the East Bay
Hills are brown. When I moved to the Bay Area, I was taught that this is how
you orient yourself: if green is on your left and brown on your right, you're
going north; if green is on your right and brown on your left, you're going
south; if you're driving toward brown, you're going east; and if you're
driving toward green you're basically in the mountains already or on one of
the bridges.
~~~
blackguardx
I didn't know that about tge Santa Cruz mountains. The hills are brown in the
summer in the North Bay and on up into Mendicino county.
~~~
nostrademons
It's because the fog regularly rolls over them on the peninsula, even during
the summer. So there's a lot of moisture available for redwoods, undergrowth,
etc.
BTW, it doesn't apply to the foothills, nor does it apply farther south (past
Cupertino or so). So Rancho San Antonio is still brown in summer, ditto
Lexington Reservoir, The Dish, San Jose foothills, etc. San Lorenzo valley is
green year-round, though.
------
joeblau
I moved to Pittsburgh a year and a half ago after living in SF for 5 years and
I can say that I really love it here. Food is great, people are extremely
friendly, and the town is just a great town to be in. I met a Pittsburgh
native and I told him that I've noticed that parts of the city are getting
"SFed." A few neighborhoods which no one would be caught dead in 5-10 years
ago are suddenly bustling with tech company tees from google, uber, duolingo,
ibm, amazon, apple and others. Pittsburghers are very prod of their city, as
they should be. I just hope it doesn't reach the level of discourse that we've
seen in San Francisco.
~~~
CydeWeys
Can you speak to Pittsburgh's zoning policies? SF makes it nearly impossible
to add a significant number of new housing units because the zoning policies
don't allow less dense housing to be replaced with larger, taller apartment
buildings. Hopefully Pittsburgh isn't like that.
~~~
Hydraulix989
It is not. I am a fourth generation Pittsburgh native. The bigger problem is
the NIMBYs in SF that vote for things like "zoning policies" to protect the
value of their houses. This situation is a very uniquely San Francisco one.
The vast majority of houses in Pittsburgh aren't million dollar homes (yet) so
this NIMBY-ism just doesn't happen.
It goes without saying that ludicrous regulations like "historically
protected" homes that you can't remodel without bribing the city and trees on
your property that you don't own (the city owns) that exist in SF don't exist
in Pittsburgh.
On another note, the nice thing about Pittsburgh is that you don't have such
an oppressively high cost of living compared to SF. You don't have $10 toast
here, and you can rent a 1 bdr apartment for the cost of renting a single
parking spot for your car in SF. Every single cost from utilities to parking
to insurance for your car is a significant fraction of the equivalent cost in
SF.
~~~
pesenti
I was about to comment "no way, Pittsburgh also has the $10 toast"... but then
looking around to the place I used to go to, I realize it's more like $4-$5
(see [http://www.coca-cafe.net/breakfast.php](http://www.coca-
cafe.net/breakfast.php) or
[https://www.facebook.com/B52PGH/menu/](https://www.facebook.com/B52PGH/menu/)).
Wow, I left Pittsburgh for NYC just two years ago and my frame of reference
has already completely switched...
------
thearn4
As a Cleveland native, I look at Pittsburgh somewhat jealously as a city that
is achieving what Cleveland has been slow to do over the last 30 years: find a
post-industrial midwestern identity.
~~~
moultano
Case Western has to step up its game.
~~~
blackguardx
As a CWRU grad, I don't really see what power they have fix Cleveland's
problems. One of them is due to the high levels segregation (both wealth and
race) and sprawl due to white flight from the inner city.
This is slowly changing as Cleveland tries to revitalize the downtown, but I'm
not sure there are any good plans to help out extremely poor areas such as
East Cleveland.
~~~
Kihashi
> I'm not sure there are any good plans to help out extremely poor areas such
> as East Cleveland.
I'm not sure this is necessarily helping, but there was a plan to have
Cleveland annex East Cleveland. The East Cleveland City Council basically
nuked it and then recalled their mayor who had proposed it, IIRC.
------
javra
Wow, this article really doesn't even at least mention some of the problems
this new boom bring. Maybe ask long time residents of neighborhoods like East
Liberty, Bloomfield, or Lawrenceville how happy they are that they got driven
out by rising rents due to rich techies? The "revitalization" of Pittsburgh
might benefit some, most of them relatively new to the city, but
gentrification will hurt lots of its populace who will then be forced to live
in the sprawl ghettos around the city where crime is already a big problem.
~~~
thesmallestcat
What I don't understand is why so many young tech dude(tte)s seem incapable of
integrating. Any place that experiences a tech boom will also experience a
boom in luxury apartments, $10+ cocktails, tapas bars, on demand laundry and
so on. This can't help but to displace the old way of living in an area, even
if it does bring jobs.
Is it so terrible to find, vet, and rent a normal apartment, do your own
chores, and eat "regular" food (non-organic, probably GMO, the horrors!) from
the normal grocery store or the nondescript diner/sandwich shop? And just act
like a normal person and not carouse like an idiot having brunch exclusively
with your well-heeled friends? I guess it's human nature and has more to do
with money than anything else, but so much for software engineer
exceptionalism.
~~~
nickstefan12
Your comment just made me think: these are all kind of conveniences of
lifestyle that might relate to millenials growing up in McMansion-ville?
When they move to the city, they don't really want to live in the city. They
want McMansion suburbanized city with a bar scene...
~~~
thesmallestcat
I think you're right, and to be more precise, that they are trying to create
their ideal college town, a place that typically combines quaint shops with
familiar big box chain stores.
------
camerond
It's always interesting to see articles like this about your town; I must say
it has been nice to watch Pittsburgh change over the years though.
In the case anyone's looking to make the leap, I'm hiring for a Research
Programmer position at CMU
[https://cmu.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?job=2005...](https://cmu.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?job=2005738)
------
vm
PG has written about what it would take for Pittsburgh to become a startup
hub. The gist of it is talent (which it has) and capital (early stages).
1) How to Be Silicon Valley
[http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html)
2) How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub
[http://www.paulgraham.com/pgh.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/pgh.html)
------
a_d
PG, who grew up in Pittsburgh, gave a nice talk about how to make Pittsburgh a
startup hub: [https://youtu.be/CpfdtgW6_oI](https://youtu.be/CpfdtgW6_oI)
------
melling
Paul Graham essay on Pittsburgh:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/pgh.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/pgh.html)
------
dmode
It seems to me that there is an article like this for every city in America
and abroad these days. Is Pittsburg really that hot ? The numbers I could find
for 2015 was that Pittsburg attracted $437mn in VC dollars, while the Bay Area
attracted somewhere around $27bn.
[http://www.post-gazette.com/business/tech-
news/2015/03/19/Ve...](http://www.post-gazette.com/business/tech-
news/2015/03/19/Venture-capital-flowing-into-Pittsburgh-
region/stories/201503190077)
That is a 50x difference.
~~~
chapmindustries
I think you're missing the point that a lot of big tech companies are moving
there. Google has 500 employees there and Uber has hundreds as well. I think
that using the amount of VC funding a city receives as a measure of how hot
its tech is doing is a bit misleading.
Also to compare anywhere against the Bay Area doesn't make sense. The Bay Area
is obviously going to beat out everywhere else. It's like someone saying that
they built a pretty big wall and then coming in and saying "Yeah but look how
big the Great Wall of China is."
------
ta201707
Last year I was going through a long and grueling job search after taking time
off for family reasons. I was based in the midwest after living around the
country over the past decade for my recent three jobs. It was the first time I
felt totally untethered and able to look at any US locations for a new job. I
work in scientific computing and machine learning, so there were various
employment hubs to consider.
Knowing the cost of living on both coasts in large cities, and wanting to be
close to my midwest family, I really badly wanted a job in a techie midwest
place. Pittsburgh and Minneapolis were the top choices, but I also considered
everything I could in Chicago, Madison, Dayton, Ann Arbor, Detroit, Grand
Rapids, and a handful of other one-offs.
I have to say I was so thoroughly disappointed by the types of jobs and job
offers, particularly salary and compensation -- even adjusting for cost of
living -- that it was just not doable.
The companies were pitching the same cramped, over-crowded "collaborative"
open offices despite private office space being so much cheaper. The salaries
were genuinely around half of what they are in Boston and New York for similar
work, probably less than half compared with SF. It seemed that bonuses and
significant equity compensation were also pared down.
In the end, I took a new job in New York and decided that living with any of
the perfectly workable strategies to reduce cost of living here (mainly, live
with roommates however you must to have a short commute) was absolutely worth
it to make 2x salary, greater bonus potential, and greater equity, and,
realistically, greater chances at career growth.
Don't get me wrong. I actively didn't want this choice and wanted the comfort
of Pittsburgh, the possibility of actual home ownership, more private space
(except that damn open plan office man), and easy drive to my extended family.
It was just not exonomically attractive to pay the cost of earning roughly 40%
of the conpensation for this, especially compounded. Maybe if I am lucky to
rise to a senior position in the future and can transfer with less of a pay
cut, it would be good.
To put some numbers on it, I am an ML engineer, somewhere between midlevel and
senior with about 6 years of experience and a graduate degree, and I was
looking for non-management and non-research-focused ML engineering roles
across companies like (formerly) Silicon Graphics, Uber, DuoLingo, Google,
random start-ups, some finance and insurance firms in Chicago, and PNC Bank
outside of Cleveland.
I earned just under 200k at my most recent long-term role in Boston prior to
my current role in NYC, not including cash bonus and equity.
The best offer I found out of all the midwest searching was in Minneapolis, at
130k with small anount of equity and no bonus. Every other company suggested
that, for their area, pushing 100k was the best they could do.
I've lived in the midwest a lot, and I know that financially, 220k - 250k plus
career growth in NYC is probably better, in pure earnings terms, than say 120k
in Pittsburgh. Obviously other considerations could make a midwestern city
attractive despite lower earnings, but the gap was big enough for me that I
decided the cramped city rat race will have to do for now.
My general feeling was that a lot of the new focus on the midwest as a tech
job region was more or less a rebranding event, trying to rebrand jobs to
enable companies to pay lower salaries and reduced compensation for the same
value proposition from the engineer, even after adjusting for cost of living.
~~~
autokad
i grew up in pittsburgh, and had to leave because there simply wasn't a job
for me - (most of the cmu startups threw my resume in the trash as soon as it
wasn't cmu) though that was a long time ago and things have changed.
however, the numbers still show slim pickings. search glass door or any job
posting website, you will find that philadelphia (not a tech city) has ~5x the
amount of positions available. NYC has 15x. a lot of people retort about per
capita openings, but I don't think that matters as much as people think.
people do have geographic preferences but also apply to many other cities, and
CMU graduates more engineers than pittsburgh has data scientist openings.
as you said, sure you have a 'lower' cost of living, but the jobs in
pittsburgh pay significantly less.
pittsbugh is not a walk-able city, its one of the least walk-able ones that I
know. Its almost 100% certainty you will need a car if you live/work in the
city, and if you normally get around without a car, moving to pittsburgh and
needing to buy/upkeep a car will wipe away most of those cost of living
savings.
traffic and parking in pittsburgh is a nightmare. you can be in a car and see
the building you want to get to, but not make it within 30 minutes.
~~~
joehosteny
Parking downtown is bad, but I'd be curious what cities you are comparing it
to with respect to traffic. I grew up in Chicago and lived in the Bay Area for
a few years, and those are both far worse. A lot of the newer tech jobs are
fairly close to downtown, the strip or the east end (both my wife and I are
able to walk to work almost every day).
------
natejackdev
I was there is May for a college visit and It seems to be the next up-in-
coming tech center.
------
smaili
The author seems to place most of the credit for the recent 'boom' on CMU for
its rich history in the Machine Learning and Robotics fields. So my question
is, what happens when other top universities begin to catch up or even
possibly dethrone CMU? Would Pittsburg still continue to attract talent and
businesses?
~~~
carrendi
I graduated from CMU (SCS) 15 years ago. The school is so far ahead of nearly
every other CS school in the world in regard to machine learning/AI, it's
laughable to think it will ever be dethroned. They have ties with DARPA and
other government agencies that have deep pockets. They've also successfully
courted every major tech corporation in the country. I have to applaud their
board of trustees/president/provost. They know what they're doing.
The article paints a rosy picture of Pittsburgh, but I remember these types of
articles appearing back in 2000. The state of Pennsylvania even had a campaign
(commercials, marketing, etc) to try to convince college graduates to stay in
the state. It didn't work. Most of the talent will eventually leave. All but 2
of my 30 or so friends from graduate/undergrad left after they finished their
degree.
In my last semester I was dying to leave because the weather is absolute shit
for half the year. CMU was really the only thing there that was worthwhile to
me.
~~~
sliken
I keep hearing OHMIGOD some car/bus is driving autonomously somewhere on the
planet. CMU has been doing that since the 80s.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Read Beyond the Headers - davidw
https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/read_beyond_the_headers
======
lx
decompiled by Google?
[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/dxmvr/oracle_go...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/dxmvr/oracle_google_directly_copied_our_java_code/c13qfov)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Identifying The Anonymous User - krainboltgreene
Hello Hacker News, it's been a long time since I've asked you guys something and I figured this place was the best place to ask this question:<p><i>What are the best or most efficient method to identifying a user without the use of accounts, destroying privacy, or demolishing anonymity?</i><p>If the question is too hard, how about if you're just limited to no accounts?<p>EDIT: I should have specified "Anonymous in the way that 4chan users are anonymous to each other."<p>EDIT2: The thing that got me thinking about it was this https://panopticlick.eff.org/
======
rth5yh
I tinkered once with hash of a user's passphrase, salted, and then using 4
digits from the middle of the resulting hash as a username. I then used a
different 4 digits as a cookie token so they only had to enter it once per
sesssion. It's not terribly secure, it's not collision-proof, etc, but you may
find some use from the basic principle - it's quick and easy and was useful on
the scale I needed it for :)
Edit: Point of note: The same people who wouldn't type 16 characters of
username and password would happily type 30 or 40 character passphrases...
There's some novelty to it, apparently :)
------
pbhjpbhj
I gather that UA info is surprisingly close to unique - mix in installed fonts
and I think you're there.
------
mooism2
What's the context? When they use your website?
What do you mean by "identifying a user"? Simply knowing that they're the same
person who performed a specific action earlier?
~~~
krainboltgreene
I edited to clarify: I should have specified "Anonymous in the way that 4chan
users are anonymous to each other."
And yes, as in "same person who performed a specific action earlier".
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Refactoring a bad view controller - tambourine_man
https://realm.io/news/andy-matuschak-refactor-mega-controller/
======
swanson
These Realm video/posts are really great. I like the format of posting a video
with a full transcription/blog post attached. Keep up the good work :)
------
CognitiveLens
> This video is not authorized to be embedded here.
Getting this for the video
~~~
bhrgunatha
I sometimes see that with youtube videos that disallow embedding, but at least
then, they have a link back to youtube to view the video.
Here there's nothing - no video title, no alternative link. What a terrible
service to your potential readers or viewers.
~~~
timanglade
Same offer as CognitiveLens: my apologies for the bad experience, and would
love to figure out what’s blocking you if you don’t mind emailing me the URL,
country, browser you’re using to [email protected] so I can work that out with
Wistia.
~~~
christopherDam
Why do you choose wisita. Youtube was great. There is no low quality option.
At some places we do not have very much speed. Please use youtube or vimeo.
------
protomyth
The speaker, Andy Matuschak, is owed a great deal of thanks from a lot of OS X
developer for the Sparkle framework to do updating of apps.
------
MarcusP
The amount of effort required to produce such a video and article must be
staggering. Keep up the good work.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Out of Prohibition’s Reach: How Technology Cures Toxic Policy - stanfordreview
http://stanfordreview.org/article/out-of-prohibitions-reach-how-technology-cures-toxic-policy/
======
exratione
There is a good book whose title and author are eluding me for the moment that
examines the necessity of a frontier for freedom. Freedom requires the ability
to up and move into an area that is a challenge for the nearest power to
control, regulate, and abuse. That is the only meaningful check on the power
of the sedentary bandits that become a region's elite.
Historically, this has all been geography. But going forward, there is the
opportunity to do something new with technology and section off slices of
economic activity into reaches that while existing in the same geographic
location as a centralized state are prohibitively expensive to control for its
bureaucrats and enforcers.
The malaise of the modern world is, I think, in large part due to the
shrinking of frontiers. There is little of the world left that is easily
colonized but also hard for the major players to reach into, and so the states
become ever more grasping. There is no safety valve by which people can up and
peacefully revolt with their feet in large numbers, and that won't return
until the cost of getting into orbit falls dramatically.
Meanwhile, there is cryptography.
~~~
PhantomGremlin
> Freedom requires the ability to up and move into an area that is a challenge
> for the nearest power to control, regulate, and abuse.
You're so right. Just read about the horrendous abuses committed by Saddam
Hussein and his psychopathic children in Iraq. And this in an area that was
one of the cradles of civilization, many millennia ago. WTF happened in the
meantime?
~~~
spikels
Life in ancient Mesopotamia was at least as violent as life under Saddam
Hussein or the current Iraqi government[1]. It was likely preceded by a
succession of violent thugs (aka rulers) back to the dawn of humanity. If only
the historical record was better you could probably trace the legitimacy of
most governments back to some Neolithic caveman beating another caveman into
submission.
[1]
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130425-indus...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130425-indus-
civilization-discoveries-harappa-archaeology-science/)
~~~
bostik
History is written by winners.
The problem therein is that the winners are usually those who, after a
prolonged conflict, stand on top of the highest pile of bodies. If they are
smart enough, they will then start to purge the records from the worst
atrocities. Maybe not to make themselves seem more benevolent than they are,
but perhaps to prevent anyone from fully documenting the amount of force and
brutality necessary to become a winner.
After all, if you know how to win in a game where the only move to win is to
cheat, why would you leave the most succesful instructions lying around?
~~~
zimbatm
Or under German occupation the french resistance where called terrorists. The
one who wins gets to select his perspective of the events.
------
DanielBMarkham
It's amazing how many problems are solved when a market accounts for just the
two factors mentioned in the article: quality and scamsters.
------
mabbo
Maybe it's just my browser, but my _goodness_ that font is hard to read. I'm
sure the article is quite interesting, but it's beyond my ability.
~~~
harshreality
cala-light, embedded as a webfont. You can go into web inspector and delete
that font in the css, turning it back into whatever the default serif is.
Cala-light does look more readable at sane font sizes, but although I'm not a
typography expert, its kerning looks bad. e.g. the letter spacing in the word
"charging" on the first line, or the sequence "rr" or "oin" just to name a
few.
~~~
MaulingMonkey
Thank you for reminding me of this option.
The height of some of the characters, such as t and i, are giving me more
trouble than the kerning, even at "sane" font sizes. Words like "contentious"
end up so flattened I'm doing double takes on half the words, having misread
them. As chrome renders them, words like "to" have height going the wrong way
outright, with the t appearing shorter, not taller, than the o!
------
dj-wonk
I must be missing the actual argument that supports the headline, "Out of
Prohibition’s Reach: How Technology Cures Toxic Policy". If the claim is that
governments cannot keep up with technology, I would hardly call that a cure.
That's a workaround.
------
reader5000
Pretentious undergrad writing + "cryptography" = heavy bro!!
------
cabalamat
See also: copyright law and BitTorrent.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How to navigate software development in terms of business domains? - roundnround
A broad knowledge of technologies is useful, but I'd like to specialise in something.
I would like to find not only a technological area of focus, but also a business area.<p>Which sectors and industries use which languages, operating systems, databases?
Which divisions of the organisations use different technologies?
What's required to enter these fields, both technically and business wise?
What can one expect to experience, daily, and long term?<p>Are there any relevant resources on the web?
======
efriese
It depends on what your goals are. If you want to use cutting edge
technologies, then it's better to stay in commercial and go with either a tech
company or small/mid sized business. I chose to go into the US Federal sector
after college and it was a great decision for me. Feds and big companies
typically use older technologies, but there's stead high-paying work. Lots of
Java and .NET with SQL Server and Oracle. Front end development is just now
starting to get popular, so we're seeing more Angular apps.
I think the best decision I made was to move around in different business
units. I started out writing code, then moved over to a post-sales consultant.
I was basically with customers every day training on our products and helping
our customers use them correctly. I then moved over to being a Sales Engineer
where I design technical solutions and help the sales team close deals.
Each position outside of development made me a better developer. Getting out
of the development echo chamber gave me more of a customer focus. This career
path is probably not for everyone because I have to do a lot of public
speaking, but I love it. I don't know how old you are or where you are, but
don't be afraid to try out different roles. You may be surprised at which role
suits you best...I know I was.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mozilla Co-Founder Brendan Eich Resigns as CEO, Leaves Foundation Board - danielsiders
http://recode.net/2014/04/03/mozilla-co-founder-brendan-eich-resigns-as-ceo-and-also-from-foundation-board/
======
dpritchett
Before you run to flag this as a dupe, note that it has lots more behind the
scenes info than the comparatively dry first-party announcement.
------
bdcravens
_Eich — who created the JavaScript programming language_
Who would want to use a language that was born in the same mind as that of
bigoted and hateful thoughts? An industry boycott of the use of JavaScript is
the only appropriate response.
~~~
Delmania
The value of the tool or an idea should not be tied to the opinion's of its
creator. The tool/idea should stand or fall on it own merits. Darwin is
alleged to have been a racist.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why I’m Deleting All My Old Tweets - dsr12
https://www.wired.com/story/im-deleting-all-my-old-tweets
======
existencebox
I'm upvoting this because I think there's an interesting discussion to be had.
But I disagree with both the crux and the primary reasons for the argument. A
few reasons.
\- If we're hiding past indiscretions, that only further de-normalizes having
indiscretions. We're already so past-the-fold as far as I'm concerned in terms
of how harshly we judge people for history long past. I'm not a believer of
"everything should be public" by any means, but the authors examples were
unconvincing. I certainly have some silly posts on old gaming forums where if
someone doxed me they could find them, and I'd probably cringe a little and
shake my head. But that's part of who I was, and I feel mental dissonance at
anything past simply accepting that in stride.
\- He worries about his son reading his tweets. As a son who never saw past
his father's "I'm a professional adult" facade, I have a perpetual sadness
that we never connected as _people_, that he never let me see past the veil at
the flawed and very human man behind the curtain. I can't speak
authoritatively on how some other father/son relationship should work, but I
can say that for me, a twitter history would have done a lot to humanize and
bring me closer together with mine.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Steve Jobs’ Response - mikecane
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2010/03/23/steve-jobs-response/
======
blahedo
What a dumb response. The person that wrote in wasn't looking for a free
replacement or a free repair---just an answer to the question of whether the
laptop was fixable. The snark was unnecessary, as was the assumption that the
user was just looking for a free ride. But perhaps Jobs just didn't read the
original request carefully; Bob Lefsetz's ranty response doesn't have that
excuse. He's using the user's question to rant about something _completely
unrelated_. Lame.
~~~
ugh
Full text of the email Jobs was responding to:
“I wanted to write and express my concern about some recent problems that I
have had with Apple Care. This week, my MacBook Pro unfortunately sustained
water damage. I understand this is entirely my fault but it is still something
I would like to get fixed. After three or four calls I was finally able to get
a straight answer. While I was happy to get a straight answer, I was not at
all happy with the answer. It is very worrisome to me that the only way to get
my computer fixed is to pay almost $300.00 up front with no guarantee that
this will fix the problem. I was horrified to learn that their is no system to
assess the problem and bill once all damage is known. I am reluctant to put
money into a problem that could easily grow. I have had three Apple computers
in a row. I love using them but I am not sure if my replacement will be one. I
feel powerless in the situation and the whole experience has turned me off of
the Apple company.”
(That’s not the kind of mail I would write to Jobs address. I would talk it
over with the support hotline. Apple is usually tolerant and there is very
often at least some wiggle room. It’s also not as if you would have to let
Apple do the repairing, right?)
~~~
stcredzero
Disclosure: I own 2 Apple laptops and pre-ordered an iPad.
I spilled a glass of wine on my Dell Inspiron 1705 awhile ago. I called Dell
and told them what happened, and they gave me the same story: $250 to look at
it. The only problem I could detect was with certain keys on the keyboard, so
I googled around a bit and found a replacement keyboard for something like
$25. I also discovered that replacing the keyboard was dead simple, and could
be done in under 10 minutes. I did that, and everything was fine.
Contrast this with disassembly of my 13" Unibody Macbook.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGcVwmUSmak>
Instead of prying out one plastic cover and undoing a couple of screws on the
Dell, I have to do all of that just to _get_ to the keyboard.
If you buy a mac laptop, buy a sleeve, buy a snap on cover, get an AppleCare
warranty, and sell it before that warranty runs out. They are not meant for
you to repair yourself, and much of their value as high-end design products
can vanish in a moment of inattention.
If you want a laptop you can maintain yourself, Dell is a better option. They
are also well designed, but with very different design goals. (Many also make
decent Hackintoshes, I hear.)
~~~
jerf
You don't mention it, but Dell puts the service manuals for their laptops
online, which can really help. For example:
<http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins5100/en/sm/>
I had to replace the keyboard on one of my Dell laptops, and while I would
have been able to do it without the manual, it was very nice to be able to
just follow instructions and know I was following the minimal path, rather
than disassembling everything, with the attendant screw-loss risks.
------
chaosmachine
Off topic: It's really distracting when a site overrides the default cursor
for no reason.
html, body {
cursor: crosshair;
}
Don't do that!
~~~
snprbob86
I was confused for a solid 3 seconds wondering how I got my mac into screen
clipping mode.
~~~
stcredzero
_Rock stars are anti-heroes. They don’t do it everybody else’s way, but their
own._
To bring the thread back onto topic, the article needs editing. One example,
substituting "anybody" for "everybody" in the above excerpt would make more
sense.
------
jongraehl
The author complains about a cult of personality around Zappos' CEO in the
middle of his paen to Apple's.
~~~
tylerdmace
Yeah, I quit reading after that. Just lookin' for a cheap troll.
------
asnyder
_Shit, I treat my MacBook Pro like gold, I know how much it costs, I won’t
even put a drink near it._
Interesting, I'm usually of the opposite mind. If I pay $2500 for a ThinkPad I
expect to be able to spill water on it and it continue to run great. Otherwise
what's the price premium for? A shiny case?
In case you're wondering, ThinkPads do in fact have a drainage hole for those
unexpected spills while working away. I wish my current HP ProBook 5310m had
one.
~~~
sliverstorm
Reliability and robustness are features of ThinkPads, not basic laptop
functionality. With the ThinkPad, a good chunk of the 2.5k goes towards making
it a solid product. With the apple, a good chunk goes towards making sure it's
pretty and a trendy product. Simple as that.
~~~
somebear
Must have been before they were bought by Lenovo. Seems like the T61's we have
at work are nothing but trouble.
Regarding the new Macbooks, the casing machined from a solid block of aluminum
is very robust. Quite a bit more robust than any Thinkpad I've ever had by
hands on.
------
houseabsolute
When you are super rich and super cool, you can be an asshole and nobody will
stop you. At least that's the message I got from this.
------
pinstriped_dude
This is reference to an article, which is a refernce to an article. Here's the
original article - [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/7503635/The-
top-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/7503635/The-top-five-
terse-Steve-Jobs-email-replies.html)
~~~
mikecane
You are missing the point of his post. It's not just picking up on a news
story.
~~~
pyre
No, it's ranting about something completely unrelated to the original
reference that he gave. The email to Steve Jobs is from a person that is
frustrated with something that a lot of people have been frustrated with at
one point or another: "Why should I have to shell out $X (where X is a non-
trivial amount) just for you to give me an estimate of how much _more_ money
it will take to fix the issue, or even to just tell me whether the problem is
fixable or not?" The idea that someone like this is looking for a 'free ride'
or to get 'something for nothing' is disingenuous. The people are just looking
for "it will cost $X to fix" or "it's not fixable, you're screwed", not,
"Well.... I _could_ look at it and tell you what I think... But it's gonna
cost ya."
~~~
sstrudeau
Diagnosis is work. It costs something. Some businesses roll the cost of
diagnosis into marketing expenses ("Free evaluation!"); others won't (e.g., my
auto mechanic or my doctor). This guy was asking for a "free" diagnosis. That
said, if he had AppleCare, even if the damage was his fault, my internal
"fairness" compass says providing the diagnosis for free seems fair even if
the repair isn't (what if the water isn't the problem and it's just a loose
connection or a known bad part?).
~~~
awa
Interesting to note is that the guy did have Applecare too.
------
hernan7
Note to bloggers: Can we stop living Steve Jobs' life vicariously?
------
jsz0
Obviously the customer is complaining about a convoluted, possibly unfair,
repair process more than trying to evade responsibility. I believe Apple has
since changed their practices. The last incident I had with Apple included a
free evaluation (they paid postage too) and a flat repair cost that was pretty
hefty. About $200 less than a brand new computer. My guess is the estimate
included the possibility of replacing the entire machine since we never
discussed the possibility the machine couldn't be repaired. (but I didn't
bother since it was just a banged up Ethernet port)
Anyway my personal feeling is I give a company as much respect as they give
me. I admit I've tried to screw companies on warranty repair if I was either
unhappy with the product or didn't like how their technical support people
treated me. If a company plays it straight and fair I'll show them respect.
Over a period of probably 3 years I had some awful experiences with Toshiba
and I certainly will try to screw them again in the future if possible. Treat
your customers with respect.
------
rsheridan6
Does anybody know how hard it would be to design a notebook that doesn't die
if you spill a few drops of water on the keyboard?
~~~
jerf
A Google term you could use is "ruggedized laptops", that will lead you to
some other terms. Prepare to pay. But if you need it, it's worth it. (In
general, you don't need it.)
~~~
rsheridan6
That looks like total overkill. I'm talking about protection from spilling an
ounce of water, not using it as a weapon to bash grizzly bears to death with
or whatever these people are doing with their computers.
------
dnsworks
Another "Let's all bow down and worship at the cult of Apple" post.
Apple's return policies are somewhat abysmal, but that's OK, because in the
eyes of many, Apple can do no wrong because "At least they're not Microsoft".
The iPhone is the only phone I've ever used that is so poorly designed that it
gets destroyed if you sweat a little bit. (Hint .. Heat makes people sweat.
The iPhone gets very hot when used.) It's a design flaw that Apple refuses to
acknowledge.
~~~
dhimes
We've had good luck with the iphones in our family. Two teenage boys and wife
have them with no problems. I don't have it yet because my mobile is my
business line and their ability to get a signal, until the newest model, has
been crap. The latest version seems almost (but not quite) as good as my old
Razr. When we're all somewhere with poor signal, everybody borrows my Razr.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CHIP $9 Computer - unusximmortalis
https://getchip.com/pages/chip
======
Aissen
More like the $15.22 computer with shipping. And said shipping cost is hidden
at the third stage of ordering, well after you've given your email (hello dark
pattern).
At least the $6.22 shipping cost to my European country is reasonable and the
same for two CHIPs (3: $7, 4: $9, 5: $11). I recall it was much higher during
the kickstarter (and they worked to reduce it, as it seems on the campaign
page).
_Edit_ : PockeCHIP shipping is $11
~~~
out_of_protocol
You can get Orange Pi One for ~$14 with delivery - which looks more powerful
[http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Orange-Pi-One-ubuntu-linux-
an...](http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Orange-Pi-One-ubuntu-linux-and-android-
mini-PC-Beyond-and-Compatible-with-Raspberry-Pi-2/32603308880.html)
~~~
arm
They say the 5V ⎓ 3A power supply needs to be connected through the Orange Pi
One’s DC socket. However, they don’t mention the size of barrel connector¹
(outer diameter & inner diameter) that will actually fit inside the DC socket.
Does anyone here know?
――――――
¹ —
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_power_connector](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_power_connector)
~~~
makomk
4.0mm/1.7mm barrel plug, centre positive according to [http://linux-
sunxi.org/Xunlong_Orange_Pi_Plus](http://linux-
sunxi.org/Xunlong_Orange_Pi_Plus) \- I think it's the same on all of the
Orange Pi boards.
~~~
arm
Oh, nice, thanks for that link and info! As you mentioned, the page even lists
the output plug polarity¹ it requires (centre positive)!
EDIT: Just realized that’s the same size barrel connector used for Sony’s
PlayStation Portable², PlayStation TV³, etc., and the power supply⁴ those
devices come with is 5V ⎓ 2A and have a centre positive polarity, so it seems
like they’ll be perfect for use on the Orange Pi One.
――――――
¹ —
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarity_symbols](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarity_symbols)
² —
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Portable](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Portable)
³ —
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_TV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_TV)
⁴ —
[http://f.cl.ly/items/3I3N1m0U1E3o3I1q0v19/sony_ps_tv_ac_adap...](http://f.cl.ly/items/3I3N1m0U1E3o3I1q0v19/sony_ps_tv_ac_adaptor.JPG)
~~~
wyldfire
Don't DC power jacks come keyed for at least voltage/polarity?
If not -- why‽
~~~
khedoros
They come in various shapes, varying on inner diameter, outer diameter, and
length. Smaller connectors may tend to be lower voltage, but that's certainly
always true.
There are several standards, and at least some of them specify voltage ranges
for particular sizes, but there's no universal standard.
List of plug sizes and their common uses:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_power_connector#Listin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_power_connector#Listing_of_DC_coaxial_connectors)
------
codemonkeymike
By being/attempting to be the "low cost leader" really brings out the worst
people in comments. People who complain about shipping and packaging and the
price on other sites and the price of other products, on and on and on. You
couldn't pay me to be in such a market I feel bad for those who provide a
cheap service or product and then get the worst feedback one could get.
~~~
pandog
If your tag line is "The World's first $9 computer" I don't think it's totally
unreasonable for people to point out that you have to pay more than $9 to get
the thing.
~~~
yardie
Who are these people that aren't aware that taxes, shipping, and duties are a
thing?
They must be Amazon Prime members.
~~~
wolfgke
> Who are these people that aren't aware that taxes, shipping, and duties are
> a thing?
Not every international person knows what is usual in the US. For example in
Germany prices are always including taxes.
~~~
xolve
Its in India as well. Usually shipping is free or mentioned separately.
------
SloopJon
Can't remember whether I've seen this before. A few details after reading
through some of the docs:
* powered by Allwinner R8 (ARM Cortex-A8) with some proprietary bits
* Debian-based CHIP O/S preinstalled on 4 GB flash
* one micro USB port for power (supports USB OTG if powered by battery)
* power connector for battery
* one USB 2.0 port
* one TRRS port for audio and composite video
* built-in WiFi and Bluetooth
* VGA adapter available for $10
* HDMI adapter available for $15 (no audio)
* case available for $2
~~~
messel
That's wild. The computer is cheaper than the adapters.
~~~
gmazza
Freebie marketing, a.k.a. razor and blades business model? [0]
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebie_marketing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebie_marketing)
~~~
anilgulecha
No, because clearly the CHIP is usable without adapters, and provides the main
functionality.
~~~
rdslw
Yes,
because on every image on main page (row with three possible use scenarios)
it's shown as connected to a display.
This _IS_ freebie marketing.
~~~
nitrogen
The bare board has a composite video output.
------
donquichotte
It's interesting that they distribute the "CHIP Flasher" as a Chrome app. It
seems very user friendly but somewhat opaque. And it's a pity there's not much
info on the hardware.
Anyway, I've ordered two pieces. They're probably going to gather dust
alongside my Raspberry Pis and Arduinos once the initial excitement has worn
off. :)
[EDIT] OK there's lots of info on the hardware, just not easy to find on their
sales page: [https://github.com/NextThingCo/CHIP-
Hardware/](https://github.com/NextThingCo/CHIP-Hardware/)
~~~
nraynaud
Made a chrome app myself, for a reason that might seem odd. It fulfills the
java promise: write once run everywhere, and access more stuff than java
(bluetooth, USB, serial etc.)
~~~
saiya-jin
surprising as it might sound, not everybody is using Chrome. my parents don't
have it, I don't use it, fiancee the same. Firefox all around. because big
brother google and no visible advantage over Firefox.
~~~
BHSPitMonkey
It's easy to get Chromium on any platform. It's harder to say that for Java,
or native apps that the author may or may not know how to build and support
across OSes.
------
pmorici
I'm having a hard time finding a reason why I would buy this over the
Raspberry Pi. Like others have said for this to be useful as a general purpose
computer you need to buy add-on boards for video. Compare that to the RPi Zero
which is $5 bucks and includes an HDMI port. You can easily add a USB ethernet
or wifi adapter to the zero for under 4 bucks and have a real $9 computer.
Not to mention the CHIP uses an AllWinner processor which has a record of not
playing well with open source and a history of security issues.
~~~
snarfy
The CHIP has much better audio support than the Pi. The Pi does not even have
an ADC. The CHIP has a 24 bit ADC. I could see it being used in audio engineer
applications where a Pi would not work.
~~~
supernintendo
This is pretty much what sold me on CHIP. With PocketCHIP, my dreams of a
handheld Linux computer with audio editing capabilities can finally come true.
------
mavci
Why is HDMI adapter worth $15? It's like create a hardware and split expensive
parts and sell with low price marketing. It's not $9 computer, It's actually
~$35
~~~
pawadu
Maybe because there are tons of patents on HDMI cables?
US6932640 Oct 22, 2004 Aug 23, 2005 Yun-Ching Sung HDMI connector
US7059914 Feb 20, 2004 Jun 13, 2006 Advanced Connectek, Inc. HDMI plug connector
US7192310 May 16, 2006 Mar 20, 2007 Cheng Uei Precision Industry Co., Ltd. HDMI connector
US20060148319 Mar 3, 2006 Jul 6, 2006 Advanced Connectek Inc. HDMI type electrical connector assembly
US8500489 Jul 15, 2010 Aug 6, 2013 Luxi Electronics Corp. HDMI locking connectors
~~~
snarfy
What does the cable have to do with it? The HDMI adapter even says "does not
come with cable". If you are talking about the connector, they are $0.43 each
on digikey.
If the rest of the HDMI adapter board looks anything like the VGA adapter,
with just passives and a connector, then they would be making a profit
charging only $3 for it, let alone the $15 they are asking.
~~~
unwiredben
Based on the BOM at [https://github.com/NextThingCo/DIP-HDMI-
PCB/blob/master/v1.0...](https://github.com/NextThingCo/DIP-HDMI-
PCB/blob/master/v1.0/BOM/BOM-DIP-HDMI-v1.0.pdf), you've got a Chrontel CH7035B
HDMI interface chip, a serial EEPROM (probably used for EDID/HDCP key
storage), and a LDO power supply for those chips. That definitely counts for
the additional cost.
------
thom_nic
I was an early Kickstarter backer and got mine right around the beginning of
2016. For me the sweet spot was small size, and WiFi. Note this was before The
RPi3 was announced with onboard Wifi. CHIP had an early issue with flash
corruption (no surprise there are always some issues with v1 hardware) but
seem to have that sorted out with a firmware fix and mine has been running
without issue for weeks.
Compared to the original RPi which required an $11 WiFi USB dongle and a
powered USB hub this is a lot simpler. I primarily used it as a headless
sensor node or wireless/networked LCD display. It's perfect for that and still
one of the lower-cost options even after shipping $$.
Their documentation ([http://docs.getchip.com/](http://docs.getchip.com/)) and
forum are actually pretty great. I think this will be a good contender if/
when they reach general availability.
------
SwellJoe
I've been waiting for the PocketCHIP to become reality before ordering
anything. It looks like they're planning to ship this month, so it might be
time to order.
I love that it includes a game dev kit that includes a music tracker...that's
what I want it for. I have an original GameBoy for making music with LSDJ, and
it's a lot of fun. But, it is difficult to find good condition GameBoys for
anything approaching a reasonable price these days. I'd love to have something
a bit more modern with the same basic feel and sound.
The PocketCHIP has the advantage of having a "real" computer inside and a
QWERTY keyboard, so if I get bored with four note polyphony, I could run
something like SchismTracker or SunVox or whatever. It is in the sweet spot
for me for this kind of device, in a way that the Raspberry Pi hasn't been
(though the Pi is cool, too).
~~~
thisisandyok
I backed the KS at the PocketCHIP level. My PocketCHIP arrived Monday, FWIW.
~~~
FroshKiller
Hey, so did I! I haven't gotten mine yet, but I'm very pleased to hear that
they're arriving already. Thanks for commenting!
~~~
thisisandyok
Sure thing. It took about two weeks to arrive after I received the shipping
notification
------
pi-rat
Still waiting for the CHIPs i ordered several months ago :/
~~~
akman
Also waiting on mine from a little over 6 months ago (the Black Friday deal).
It's supposed to ship sometime this month according to when I purchased it.
But really, at $8 (+shipping), I see it as one of those things that if it
comes, it comes.
------
codezero
I'm stoked for the PocketCHIP.
~~~
fit2rule
Hell yeah, me too. Its the latest in a very cool line of portable Linux
machines designed for hackers to have a hell of a lot of fun. I hope that it
is successful, and sits alongside other successes such as the Open Pandora
(and soon: Pyra) as an example of how to do a portable, open, fun platform
based on Linux, away from all the walled gardens and app jails that are
prevalent on the other pocketable platforms.
There is one thing that bothers me, however. With the Open Pandora, the
community has been amazing - and much of that has been because the focus is on
developers^3. The online repo of apps for the OpenPandora is a true treasure
trove of amazing things (see
[http://repo.openpandora.org/](http://repo.openpandora.org/)) - an app store
done right, in that you have total freedom to do whatever you want with the
platform, but you can also just have the plug 'n play experience of browsing a
well-curated and maintained list of apps, which can be installed with a single
click - no BOFH'ism required. The Pandora has proven to be a very good balance
of free and curated apps. Developers can make money as well, if they choose
to, and for the most part the community has been very remunerative towards the
key devs pushing the platform forward.
However, this doesn't seem to be a key strategy for the guys behind CHIP, who
are a bit behind the ball with setting up a common, community-focused
repository for developers to contribute to .. alas, it seems that its going to
be a total free-for-all with CHIP development. The best we will have is "at
least we can push our own .deb's up on a website somewhere to distribute our
software".
I seriously hope that, when the PocketCHIP starts to launch (its trickling out
now, will be ramping up towards the end of the month), the NextThing guys will
realize that they've got to get on top of this issue before someone else does
- it'd be quite feasible, for example, to turn on a "PocketCHIP apps" section
of repo.openpandora.org, and if NextThing doesn't do it - someone will. Such
is the nature of the Open Handheld community.
As a developer and user, I'd much rather have an 'official' repo, with curated
apps and quality control for the end user, than just a free-for-all wild
frontier of .deb's being passed around by all and sundry.
Actually, what I'd really like to see happen is the guys behind the OS for the
Open Pandora/Pyra consoles work in coordination with the NextThing team, so
that maybe - just maybe - all systems could be running the same basic OS core.
There really isn't any good reason for this _not_ to happen - its only because
of politics and control issues and NIMBY'ism/DRY'ishness that its not on the
table at the moment.
~~~
tluyben2
> Actually, what I'd really like to see happen is the guys behind the OS for
> the Open Pandora/Pyra consoles work in coordination with the NextThing team,
> so that maybe - just maybe - all systems could be running the same basic OS
> core.
Exactly. I would say now the Pyra will run Debian instead of Angstrom and Chip
runs a Debian as well there could be an option of unifying. Angstrom was kind
of horrible to work with IMHO; I use my Pandora a lot but from a Debian
chroot.
~~~
fit2rule
Totally agree with you. Could this be the first stages of seeing a unified
Debian system for open Linux mobile systems? That'd be coool.
~~~
tluyben2
That would be excellent indeed. And now there is not much reason not to.
Mobile systems (and enough embedded as well) have enough storage/memory now to
run those systems and Debian has no issue installing .debs on different
partitions or drives. Basically the core packages can be on the internal flash
drive and others on the SD drive which would've worked fine for the Pandora
too.
------
Illniyar
The chip has been on HN on and off for months. Is there something new
happening?
~~~
digi_owl
General availability of the Pocketchip dock?
------
jetskindo
This is amazing. Just need to figure out how I can attach a battery to it and
everything in my house will be a computer.
~~~
digi_owl
[http://docs.getchip.com/chip.html#chip-
hardware](http://docs.getchip.com/chip.html#chip-hardware)
First image shows a battery connector top right.
------
jokoon
I'd prefer such product if I can just power it and control it over SSH. I
don't really need an actual screen plug, as I would not use a home screen on
such a tiny thing: it doesn't make sense.
Although the rasbperry pi zero seems interesting, I don't know if I can plug a
minimalist, small and cheap screen on a mini-hdmi. Overall there is no point
using a classic screen on such tiny devices.
This seems to compete with the raspberry pi zero, and RPi zero doesn't have
wifi.
~~~
cstuder
Documentation for using the CHIP headless:
[http://docs.getchip.com/chip.html#headless-
chip](http://docs.getchip.com/chip.html#headless-chip)
~~~
makomk
Yeah. One of the nice things about CHIP is that in theory (mine hasn't shipped
yet) you can just plug it into your computer over USB right out the box, open
a serial terminal to it and configure it that way, no messing around with SD
cards etc. The Pi Zero can't do that because it requires an SD card and also
the driver support for USB-OTG is poor and requires manual configuration of
device mode.
~~~
johncalvinyoung
Not just in theory--that's precisely how I got mine (I KSed it, and got my
pair at least two months ago) booted up and configured for the first time.
Super easy, in fact--way easier to bootstrap than a RPi (I ordered a RPi 3
some time since).
------
MistahKoala
Would be helpful if they were more transparent about shipping. I'm not going
to go through the motions of pre-ordering just to find out what the total
costs are.
------
newman314
I bought one for June delivery, hopefully it shows up.
What bums me out is that there is no easy board that I can find of the (get
chip, pi zero ilk) that comes with an ethernet port. I know I can get a
regular Pi but it's too much for my use case.
On a related note, I've been looking for a low cost smart power plug with
ethernet (10/100/1000) without much success. If anyone knows of such a beast,
please let me know.
IMO, $80 for something like this [https://www.amazon.com/ezOutlet-Internet-IP-
Enabled-Android-...](https://www.amazon.com/ezOutlet-Internet-IP-Enabled-
Android-
Interface/dp/B00KQ4R1RK/ref=pd_sim_23_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=41LIb75CyNL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=WD0CR2WX3Q6NYFV37YRC)
is too much
~~~
5ilv3r
A regular pi has a USB ethernet device, so really you will not lose any speed
by using a usb dongle on any sbc.
~~~
newman314
Speed isn't the issue here. Having an ethernet port is.
------
manmal
Did they really use a banana for scale?
------
znpy
I made a group order for 40 CHIP computers. I was definitely pissed off by the
fact that I could only order five of them at the time (but there was no limit
on the number of order I could place).
I am looking forward for them to start delivering.
I hope that VAT won't be too high.
~~~
Someone1234
Just because I'm nosy, what do you have intended for your 40 CHIPs? Education?
~~~
znpy
As I said, I made a group order. I gathered orders by many people (mostly
friends) and ordered.
------
matthewaveryusa
Does anyone know if one of the USB slots can act as a client while the other
as a host? I can't seem to find any documentation with that level of detail.
edit: looks like one of them can run in OTG mode (i.e client), that's
wonderful!
------
tluyben2
Anyone know what is that vertical scroll shmup on the image above the gaming
header?
~~~
musha68k
Looks like Psikyo's Aero Fighters to me. The proportions seem off though, so
most likely a PAL console port played on NTSC TV and/or a sub-optimal emulator
config we see there :)
Great game and astonishing feat for a $9 computer!
------
lil1729
I still can't see a full spec for the soc. Without that, _to me_ , this is
uninteresting. Sorry. Perhaps others have different priorities. Having a fully
hackable $9 computer would have been a wonderful thing to me.
~~~
unwiredben
[https://github.com/NextThingCo/CHIP-
Hardware/tree/master/CHI...](https://github.com/NextThingCo/CHIP-
Hardware/tree/master/CHIP\[v1_0\]/CHIPv1_0-BOM-Datasheets)
------
zhte415
A big market for these that doesn't seem to be mentioned is the potential for
business presentation use: sales, training, basically anything in an office.
Why carry a laptop, when the location you're going to has a projector screen
you'll use, and likely has a keyboard (or carry a portable input device), and
a power supply. And your files are cached on your favourite cloud.
Make a nice looking case for these, and they're impressive novelties, lighter
than the lightest laptop, and probably a bit more stable than driving a
projector from a phone.
~~~
schoen
There's a clever feature in the Optoma Pico Pocket Projectors where you can
store presentations inside the projector, or on removable media that the
projector can read directly. So you can present from the projector itself
without an external device.
Of course, the projector currently doesn't run a general-purpose operating
system, so your suggestion is more useful if you need to do something beyond
showing slides or video.
------
tmaly
I ordered a CHIP over a year ago with the VGA adapter. I think it should be
shipping soon. I sort of now wish I had went with the HDMI adapter as I do not
have too many VGA systems these days.
------
dboreham
I ordered these the day they announced. Not sure if mine have shipped yet.
Excited to see them.
------
LandoCalrissian
I ordered mine in November, when are they actually planning on shipping?
------
rbanffy
It's a bit frustrating there is no easy way to change the shipping address
after the preorder.
------
LeonidBugaev
Can I start using CHIP without a display? Like ssh access when connected to
USB or via Bluetooth?
~~~
jboynyc
cstuder already answered this questions below:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11908011](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11908011)
------
durpleDrank
Do they keep costs down because they are using conflict minerals?
[http://enoughproject.org/special-topics/progress-and-
challen...](http://enoughproject.org/special-topics/progress-and-challenges-
conflict-minerals-facts-dodd-frank-1502)
------
ruffrey
I ordered one. With tax and shipping to Northern California, it was over $16.
------
mvdanj
Is it shipping soon ?
------
avodonosov
where to get time to play with all the toys....
------
vegabook
CHIP's $9 pitch is nothing special anymore, with that Rpi device for $5 now,
but the PocketCHIP wrapper is still a strong USP. Here is an IoT device where
you don't need a soldering iron to actually get basic, useful stuff going.
------
Annatar
Impressive hardware, but UGH!, not yet-another-Linux powered computer! If I
had the time, I'd port illumos to it myself, but since I don't, Linux on this
thing makes it a non-starter for me.
~~~
ytjohn
As someone who spent years maintaining Solaris systems, it always amazes me
that there are people out there that like Solaris.
Especially in the context of a hobby/experimental system.
~~~
Annatar
I love Solaris (except Oracle Solaris 11, which I really dislike!), and I love
illumos and SmartOS even more.
I grew up on Solaris - my first ever UNIX was a Solaris 2.5.1 system on a
SPARCStation 20. I've been running Solaris on intel since my first Pentium 90
workstation on Solaris 2.5.1.
Since I know how to build and package software for Solaris, I have everything
I could ever want or need on it. It's a comfortable system, and it's elegant,
once one fully understands all of its capabilities. And it's extremely
reliable and high performance, especially on intel based processors.
For some context, I am _forced_ to work on Linux and I spend my entire working
day working on it. Compared to reliability of Solaris and ease of use, I have
grown to dislike Linux in the extreme. If you are thinking, "but that is
insane, Linux is so great, how is that possible!", remember that I grew up on
UNIX, so I have different criteria for what is comfortable and reliable (even
in terms of development) than your average Linux user or Linux system
administrator does. I dislike the GNU tools and user land (with very few
notable exceptions) because I'm used to AT&T System V tools and that is how I
expect the tools to behave; GNU tool chain usually frustrates me to no end.
Working with Linux frustrates me to no end (I do professional development and
system engineering on it).
For example: --some-long-option comes to mind, or lack of proper manual pages
("see the texinfo page"), lack of backwards compatibility support, tar -z (tar
is a tape archiver, not a compressor!), and so on, and so on... I miss my ZFS,
I miss my mdb, I miss my dbx, I miss my SMF, I miss my fmadm, I miss the
simple and effective handling of storage area network logical units, I miss
the fiberchannel stack which actually works... I don't have any of those
issues on illumos based systems, but it drives the point home:
the last thing I want is yet another Linux based computer. I have enough of
that as it is at work - almost 71,000 servers, 49% of them running Linux, and
it sucks.
~~~
figgis
>For example: --some-long-option comes to mind, or lack of proper manual pages
("see the texinfo page"),
What are you even talking about here? man/info works wonderfully, if I want
more readable information a terminal sure as hell isn't going to give it to me
easier than searching a wiki. And solaris absolutely had problems with
documentation on their larger packages.
> lack of backwards compatibility support
Hardly even a real issue if you actually maintain your damn systems more than
once every half decade.
>tar -z (tar is a tape archiver, not a compressor!)
... It still is a tape archiver AND a compresser AND a 100 different but
completely valid and usable things.
ZFS absolutely is usable.
Why do you enjoy DBX over GDB?
SMF? One would think you would love and embrace systemd.
FibreChannel stack that works?
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/InfiniBand](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/InfiniBand)
I can't refute all that you have said here since I am not familiar with all of
it. But, have you considered you are just doing it the wrong/difficult way?
~~~
Annatar
Manual pages on traditional UNIX systems are extremely detailed and contain
lots of good, usable examples, and Solaris / illumos based operating systems
really shine in this area. People who grew up on a real UNIX expect to find
comprehensive, high quality documentation in the manual pages in a terminal
session. This feature was driven hard by enterprise customers and professional
system administrators in times when wikis did not exist, and even today the
quality of the content in some arbitrary wiki written by _someone on the
internet when they felt like it_ is dubious in comparison to manual pages
written by people with formal education in engineering and technical writing!
Like I wrote before, on UNIX we have different expectations in different areas
than what people are used to and accept as given on Linux. The focus is
different on UNIX.
Apropos dbx versus gdb: dbx has a 1,000 page manual, and makes it really easy
to step through assembler code while listing the original source. How many
pages of documentation does gdb have again? On top of that, gdb doesn't even
fully support my OS, I don't think gdb properly supports anything that is not
Linux... hmmm, that reminds me an awful lot of Microsoft Windows monoculture.
systemd versus SMF: systemd is a shoddy copy of SMF with a Windows twist,
trying to replace every service in the system. Unlike SMF, which is part of
the fault management architecture, which is part of self-healing technology,
systemd has no such concept, self-healing and a contract filesystem is science
fiction for systemd. SMF watches over services, but it doesn't try to replace
them; "do one thing, and do it well."
InfiniBand is a different technology than fiberchannel.
~~~
figgis
To get full GDB documentation you need to use info gdb, the man page states
that itself. Man pages are quite limited correct, so they offered a better
solution just like what you are looking for... Not sure what the issue is
here. The amount of documentation is massive, 2321 lines of text in an easy to
browse format...
GDB also works on a large amount of computers. Windows, Linux, netbsd, etc.
>>>However, its use is not strictly limited to the GNU operating system; it is
a portable debugger that runs on many Unix-like systems and works for many
programming languages, including Ada, C, C++, Objective-C, Free Pascal,
Fortran, Java[1] and partially others. [0]
>hmmm, that reminds me an awful lot of Microsoft Windows monoculture.
What? Actually they support windows, which is exactly the opposite of what you
are trying to say here... I use GDB DAILY on windows (work.) with zero issues.
I'll agree that perhaps systemd doesn't cover all use cases or wants. But
calling it a shoddy copy of SMF with a windows twist is disingenuous. I don't
care for the for or against systemd arguments but after the initial
reaction/learning phase when pulling away from upstart/sysv/init based
shit/etc, many of us are actually starting to warm up to systemd. It handles
services wonderfully, it handles logs wonderfully, perhaps it's a bit bloated
whatever you can always revert to what you want if you decide to spend the
time to actually do it.
>InfiniBand is a different technology than fiberchannel.
Fair enough, i'll have to read up more on it than.
You are making quite a lot of generalizations without doing proper research.
If you want to be stuck in your "In the old days us Unix people had it right!"
mindset than this discussion is pointless. Otherwise I would love to continue
butting heads on this.
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Debugger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Debugger)
~~~
Annatar
> To get full GDB documentation you need to use info gdb, the man page states
> that itself. Man pages are quite limited correct,
`info gdb` is completely unacceptable, and an outrage: standard documentation
on UNIX are manual pages, not to mention that systems other than GNU/Linux do
not use GNU info.
> Man pages are quite limited correct,
Incorrect; manual pages are rendered by the _nroff document typesetting
system_. Entire books have been typeset for printing with nroff. Case in
point: the UNIX Text Processing book, the AWK book, the ANSI C book. The
system is extremely flexible and very powerful, once one understands what is
going on. When you hold the printed versions of these books in your hand, you
can see that they are beautifully typeset and rendered. Brought to you by the
same programs which render UNIX manual pages when you type `man some_command`!
What you see on the screen (on UNIX, cannot vouch for Linux) when you type
`man ls` is an actual professional typesetting system rendering the content
for stdout instead of a printing press!
> I don't care for the for or against systemd arguments but after the initial
> reaction/learning phase when pulling away from upstart/sysv/init based
> shit/etc, many of us are actually starting to warm up to systemd.
That's because you haven't had the opportunity to enjoy SMF. When you've
worked with SMF, systemd looks like a cobbled-together toy. For example,
systemd turns ASCII logs into binary format, just like on Windows. This in
turn goes against the UNIX philosophy of
_Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal
interface._ [McIlroy]
[http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html](http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html)
> You are making quite a lot of generalizations without doing proper research.
That's is quite ironic, telling that to someone who does professional system
engineering and software development on GNU/Linux for a living. I have been
doing UNIX and Linux professsionally since 1993, and working with computers in
general since 1984, how many years is that? I spend every waking moment of
what free time I have researching UNIX and Linux. To tell me that I'm
"generalizing without doing proper research" just because I am not succumbing
to GNU/Linux group think is what one could call disingenuous.
~~~
figgis
I'll admit, perhaps I am wrong in the greater picture of things here. But you
are also wrong on some points. Particularly man pages being superior to info.
troff/nroff markup is needlessly complex compared to Tex. You can also use
your vi keys in info as well.. Perhaps you can just boil this down to being
comfortable using man pages, but info pages provide more options and usability
when it comes to created documentation, that's just a simple fact. If you have
trouble quickly finding the information you need when using info, consider
reading the info info page ;).
In fact TeX is used/preferred over nroff/others for a huge majority of
physics/mathematics academic journals. And quite a bit outside of it. [0 - 3]
I will admit for stuff I already know and understand enough of to be
considered proficient with it, man pages can be quicker. For something I just
installed and still need to learn info pages provide a much better platform.
You may find the following link enjoyable to skim through.
[http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/77514/what-is-gnu-
in...](http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/77514/what-is-gnu-info-for)
> What you see on the screen (on UNIX, cannot vouch for Linux) when you type
> `man ls` is an actual professional typesetting system rendering the content
> for stdout instead of a printing press!
Love the enthusiasm but (La)TeX falls into that description as well.
> That's because you haven't had the opportunity to enjoy SMF.
Maybe, I've put it on my list of things to tinker with more. Thanks for the
link.
> That's is quite ironic [...] I am not succumbing to GNU/Linux group think is
> what one could call disingenuous
I don't care about you succumbing to any group think or whatever other word
you can come up with. I am trying to show you why it is actually superior in
many ways. Just because you are comfortable with nroff absolutely 100% does
not make it better. To put it simply, you may be a professional
system/software engineer but if you can't keep up with why these systems are
considered (and shown to be) better than what you have now than you will just
continue to be frustrated/fall behind.
[0]
[http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/submissions.html](http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/submissions.html)
[1] [https://www.overleaf.com/gallery/tagged/academic-
journal](https://www.overleaf.com/gallery/tagged/academic-journal) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX) [3]
[http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch18s03.html](http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch18s03.html)
~~~
Annatar
[http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/77514/what-is-gnu-
in...](http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/77514/what-is-gnu-info-for)
Quoting from the link above:
_ADDENDUM: While not strictly relevant to the question, note that man pages
are still considered the standard documentation system on free Unix-like
systems like those running atop the Linux kernel and also the various BSD
flavors. For example, the Debian package templates encourage the addition of a
man page for any commands, and also lintian checks for a man page. Texinfo is
still not widely used outside the GNU project._
Which I can confirm and concur with. Long story short, I would forget GNU
info, because it is an invention not suitable to the task at hand, which is
efficient and fast lookup of information in a reference manual.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How You Can Exploit Cryptocurrency Correlation - yoshyoshi
https://blog.alpaca.markets/blog/2018/6/7/so-you-want-to-trade-crypto-exploiting-cryptocurrency-correlation-part-5
======
yoshyoshi
There is correlation within any sector or asset class, however there are
particularly interesting patterns in Cryptocurrency due to the new and
speculative nature of the market, along with its historical pairs structure.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Classic Game Postmortem: Loom [video] - cskau
http://gdcvault.com/play/1021862/Classic-Game-Postmortem
======
thorn
Awesome postmortem for an awesome game. This game has so big place in my
memories. For anybody making games, this is worth watching.
~~~
hatu
I was a huge fan of Loom too. There really aren't that many original and
creative worlds in games and Loom definitely had one. Planescape Torment is
another good example.
~~~
krylon
I haven't really played video games much the last couple of years, which in
part is due to hardware, but when I listen to coworkers talk about the video
games they play, I have no desire to do anything about my hardware situation.
I have the feeling that in video games, like in big blockbuster movies, the
trend appears to be replacing substance with special effects / fancy graphics
and recycling the same old ideas over and over. (I am probably
overgeneralizing somewhat, but I do so to make a point. If there have been any
games lately that really disprove my point, I would very much like to hear
about them!)
~~~
ZenoArrow
I'm in the same boat as you, I have very little interest in modern games,
certainly not the big blockbuster stuff anyway (sequels and FPSes, very little
else). However, I have seen some promising games from indie developers.
Haven't played it yet, but would like to play Journey...
[http://thatgamecompany.com/games/journey/](http://thatgamecompany.com/games/journey/)
~~~
krylon
Indie developers have a hard time, I think, competing with the level of
"bling" big companies can afford, but at the same time they have the freedom
to try out things large companies would not touch with a ten-mile pole, which
is promising. Minecraft blew my mind, even though I stopped playing it much
after I got scared of how addictive it is (on the other hand, "it is pretty
addictive" is probably the highest praise one can give a game).
------
nailer
I loved this game. There was an excellent moment where you heard a song used
to twist something. There was a bridge in the sky twisted around a mountain,
playing that same song backwards changed the shape of the bridge and let you
travel into the distance.
------
benologist
[http://www.gog.com/game/loom](http://www.gog.com/game/loom)
~~~
malyk
It's also available on Steam.
[http://store.steampowered.com/app/32340/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/32340/)
------
raverbashing
Amazing. Both for the historical (technical) value and for remembering the
game.
I wonder if the low-res versions of the images (I mean, 4-color/16-color
versions) were generated from high-version or if it was a painstakingly
redrawing/redithering.
~~~
shdon
The 16-colour versions were the originals. The 256-colour versions came
later... he actually mentions this in the video. The 4-colour version was
probably generated programmatically.
------
phodo
Passion at its finest. Moriarty takes great pride, rightly so, and this comes
across. Inspiring to say the least.
I loved this game, and also have many fond memories. The post mortem was
excellent from every aspect.
The Zork series, Wishbringer, Enchanter, Sorcerer, Spellbreaker, Trinity, and
others all had a profound effect on me growing up, playing them with my
brother and friends. It was great to see some of those mentioned and
visualized during the post-mortem.
------
claystu
Loom was the one game I never purchased that captured my imagination from the
game mag descriptions back when it first came out. It's awesome to have
finally been able to "play" it and see what it was all about.
------
watson
Loved the game! Played it again just a few years ago in an emulator. P.s. Am I
the only one who have trouble hearing the audio?
------
nfoz
I would totally help crowdfund an HD remake.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Need to send something quick? - mustak_im
https://justa.ml
======
alistproducer2
One other thing: you should really consider making this embeddable or as a
wordpress plugin or browser extension. I'd be willing to pitch in and help
with that if it something you're interested in. I've done a lot of extension
and wordpress dev.
~~~
mustak_im
Coding is fun when done together! :) ... please PM me on twitter @mustakimali
------
alistproducer2
I LOVE this. I usually email myself for use cases like this but this is much
simpler and efficient. Thanks for building this.
One observation: you should clearly label the pin as such. If I hadn't read
people's comments here I wouldn't have known what to do.
~~~
mustak_im
Thank you for your feedback, will definitely clearly label the PIN tomorrow.
everything is worthless if people can't figure out what to do with them
(without reading the manual) :)
------
mustak_im
I needed to send a long URL to my SmartTV browser, could not find anything
easy. I normally use URL shortener service but this time I decided to give
this a go.
I might add file sharing support soon, any feedback appreciated. Thanks.
------
gus_massa
A four digits PIN is too short to be secure. It looks easy to use brute force
to pick one. For example copilot uses 9 digits like: 891 192 971
I don't understand what you can send. Only text like in a chat?
~~~
mustak_im
Yes only text for now. some URL (youtube, twitter) will have preview. might
add file support but the original purpose was just to send links.
yes I agree 4 digit is too short, bumping this up to 6 digit now ;) ... but i
wanted to keep this really simple. btw the pin will only work once. and hoping
Cloudflare will help a little bit against brute force attacks until i add
CAPTCHA into the connect page. thanks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Using Data to Pick the Optimal Name for Your Startup - ttunguz
http://tomtunguz.com/startup-names/
======
jcater
> Thanks to @milesgrimshaw who inspired this reminder not to believe
> everything you read, even if there's seemingly cohoret data to support the
> argument.
I was reading the article thinking what crap this is, then came to the end.
Well done.
------
maaaats
It was an article the other day from "Paper by 53" about Facebook's new Paper.
Why not choose a more unique name? After all, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr etc.
are "unique" names that has ended up as words in our vocabulary.
I remember asking Mario, the creator of libgdx, why he chose that weird name
for his framework. He said it was because it would be easy to search and get
the results you were looking for. Not a startup, but semi-relevant to naming.
------
syntaxfree
By the way: this needs to be matched against a baseline distribution of
initial letters in words and common names. Zoozimps, yo.
------
minimaxir
For further reading, my own testing on actual data of startup names vs.
venture capital raised revealed that the name is _completely uncorrelated_ to
the amount of capital raised.
[http://minimaxir.com/2013/10/wrds-and-
vwls/](http://minimaxir.com/2013/10/wrds-and-vwls/)
------
return0
Nice message at the end, but to be honest I don't think anyone bought the
story in the first place.
------
syntaxfree
Optimality implies objectivity. You don't choose the optimal name, you find
out what it is.
------
DateK
abfiloprtx.com
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AMZN is down 9% - azov
https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AAMZN&ei=-p1aU4C1GKaUiAKELQ
======
mercury888
Why?
~~~
acchow
S&P 500 and Dow each down almost 1% today. A down day, but high tech got hit
hard:
Facebook down 5%
Twitter down 7%
Tableau down 6.5%
Yelp down 7.5%
Reported earnings haven't been great, and the stocks are tumbling down in
reaction to the reports (or in preparation for upcoming reports).
~~~
hatred
Fb would be a notable exception to this theory though.
------
peterbraden
Or as I prefer to think of it: SALE! 10% off AMZN, for 1 day only!
~~~
dataminer
Still too expensive, FB, AAPL, are much better alternatives.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
WikiLeaks threatens to publish Twitter users' personal info - richardboegli
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/01/06/wikileaks-threatens-publish-twitter-users-personal-info/96254138/
======
richardboegli
The twitter account has now been taken down. Maybe it was hacked in the first
place?
EDIT: Original tweet that started it all.
[https://twitter.com/WLTaskForce/status/817431533183238144](https://twitter.com/WLTaskForce/status/817431533183238144)
~~~
DrScump
That link now yields "Page does not exist".
Any archive?
------
jrnichols
Was WLTaskForce an official WL account? I thought it was some other group, and
not wikileaks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Does genuine tech innovation happen better in a recession? - rabble
http://anarchogeek.com/2008/7/20/does-genuine-tech-innovation-happen-better-in-a-recession
======
nir
Not sure about innovation, but it does seem like there's far better
signal/noise ration during recession.
When the market's booming, weak ideas and uncommitted teams naturally find it
much easier to get some funding - so perhaps the good ideas/teams are just as
many (or more) as in a recession, but their overall share is far smaller.
------
manvsmachine
A lot of it seems to be a result of the misconception of productivity that is
so prevalent today. A lot of people seem to think that, because you're not
actually _doing_ something, the act of just sitting down and thinking and
experimenting with ideas does not constitute being productive. They don't
realize that, if everybody simply sat down and banged out work continuously,
we'd always be doing things that we already know how to do.
------
theantirobot
Necessity is the mother invention. In the world of web software, tech
innovation is also cultural innovation. Remember the New Deal? What if a tech
innovation could enable us to do that again, without the government?
If some Ron Paul supporters could use youtube, social news, and email lists to
effortlessly fund and fly a blimp for 6 weeks, maybe there is a tech
innovation which could enable the nation to effortlessly fund giant wind and
solar projects.
------
mannylee1
I believe it does. Innovation almost always comes from the human spirit being
tested to its limits. It is then when humans are pushed to their breaking
point that they truly innovate.
For instance, there are alot of people are hoping for $8/gallon gas, since
$8/gallon gas would catapult the US into seriously investing in alternative
energies.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: ZFS for databases (Postgres) - FreeBSD or *Solaris ? - bsg75
I am finding measurable IO performance improvements in using ZFS compression on Linux for OLAP workloads. Given that the ZFS on Linux project is still moving to a feature complete release, I am considering an OS with a native ZFS implementation.<p>Although I am not too familiar with BSD or Solaris, I am considering putting the time into learning some admin skills on FreeBSD, or an OpenSolaris descendant like OpenIndiana, SmartOS, or OmniOS.<p>For systems where application compatibility is not a concern (a box only running the DB engine), does the HN community have any relevant details to share as to which OS's have advantages in this use case?
======
Z99
I've used ZFS with mysql on both FreeBSD and Solaris (OpenIndiana
specifically). The main problems I found with FreeBSD were not the ZFS
implementation, but OOM (out of memory) errors killing off processes (like
sshd). Solaris, though extremely annoying to use, offered up a 2-5x
performance increase over the same hardware running FreeBSD.
~~~
bsg75
> Solaris, though extremely annoying to use
You can't drop a comment like that without details!
~~~
Z99
Annoying things I found while implementing solaris (open indiana). All my
opinion and may not reflect other peoples experiences.
1\. Init > SMF - XML manifests instead of text configs? Very unnecessary.
svcadmin took some getting used to, consulted the documentation frequently.
2\. Packages - Many packages are available, however we ended up compiling most
of our software. That inconvenience was one of the main reasons we left
FreeBSD.
3\. Chef - At the time there was very little we could do to automate these
boxes in our infrastructure.
4\. SSH keys in LDAP - I don't recall if we ever got this working. (LDAP tree
in Zimbra)
5\. ZFS Root - Required us to manually install the OS rather than having it
provisioned
6\. Learning curve - Though not a strong point if you're dropping a new OS you
don't know that well in to a production environment things are bound to break.
Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. But like I said
earlier the performance increase was quite noticeable and worth it to the
business.
------
coolsunglasses
Don't do *Solaris, go with FreeBSD if you really don't trust Linux ZFS.
I used to administrate a Solaris box using ZFS. I'm still missing organs from
those days (required for sacrifices to tentacled horrors).
Also I was initially confused by your desire to use ZFS with a database until
I saw the "OLAP".
Godspeed.
~~~
bsg75
So far I find ZFS "sensible", considering I am no LVM expert.
So far volume creation and snapshots seem straightforward, and it only took a
bit of research to find the page size and ARC limits that so far are giving me
better than XFS on CentOS.
What future pitfalls am I looking forward to?
~~~
al1x
I run FreeBSD and Postgres on ZFS. It's been an entirely painless experience.
No pitfalls to look out for from where I sit. Your use-case and results may
differ.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Private Beta Access to Geeklist for YC News Readers (code: YCREADERS1) - chrissanz
http://geekli.st/invite/hackers
======
mike-cardwell
I prefer to sign up to things _after_ I know what they do. No idea what your
service does other than some wishy washy claims about increasing credibility.
~~~
chrissanz
Hi Mike! not wishy washy at all, we are all devs here
<https://github.com/geeklist> run by devs for devs. Go to the about to learn
more, but is pretty straight forward... an achievement based street cred
builder for developers.. easy.
------
pan69
I don't user Twitter. Is that an issue?
~~~
rekatz
for now we only are open to twitter users.
------
stack0v3erfl0w
Why do you need so much privileges for my twitter account ?
~~~
phreeza
Seems like they use twitter with a hashtag instead of an internal messaging
system
~~~
twink
Wrong.
------
the-kenny
{"response":"ok","errors":null}
------
rekatz
happy holidays :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tilt Has Raised Around $30M at a $400M Valuation - jafallone
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/08/tilt-raised-30m-at-a-400m-valuation-in-its-most-recent-funding-round/
======
pkrumins
Try Googling for "Tilt". Unexpected.
[http://www.google.com/search?q=tilt](http://www.google.com/search?q=tilt)
~~~
techwizrd
I wonder how Tilt, the company, feels about that...
~~~
jjb123
We dig it! I think it's a fun thing that many people's introduction to our
product via google will be unexpected/quirky.
------
jvrossb
I remember the very day that PG, Khaled, and James sat down in 2012 and
defined the future of Tilt. Amazingly exciting to see how it's grown since. I
love that the nicest founders in our batch are doing the best :)
~~~
jansen
Second that!
~~~
whatupdave
Third!
~~~
tbrooks
4th. I met James and Khaled in Austin pre-YC. Nicest guys in the world.
Couldn't be happier for them.
------
jakejake
A client came to me about 10 years ago and wanted me to build an app that let
individuals collect money from a group. (In their case for wedding gifts). I
told them they were crazy because it would get taken over by fraudsters trying
to cash out on stolen credit cards and PayPal accounts.
Another lesson for me I guess for being overly cautious instead of coming up
with solutions. I'm glad to see people have figured out how to make these
things work. Of course at the time you had to legally offer your right arm and
your first born to get a merchant account.
~~~
jackgavigan
Or just use WePay.
~~~
jakejake
This was several years before wepay or any service like it existed. These days
there are so many great choices - it's amazing!
------
garry
James and Khaled have been consistently executing. As with most overnight
successes, this one is years in the making.
------
mehuln
Congrats guys! Great founders, hustlers, and hackers == incredible team making
great progress. Super excited for you!
------
monksy
I was pretty close to making this. I'm glad to see this is out there, and it's
free for small groups.
------
ozgune
Congrats guys. Super excited for the team!
------
adomanico
Congrats to Khaled and the Tilt team!
------
ukd1
Love you guys!! :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Netflix’s interactive shows arrive to put you in charge of the story - tareqak
https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/20/15834858/netflix-interactive-shows-puss-in-boots-buddy-thunderstruck
======
metalliqaz
This is neat. It's quite difficult to see this translating to adult shows, but
it does seem to offer some promise for a future "remix" ecosystem on platforms
like Netflix.
Imagine there was a kind of "choose your own adventure" feature that allowed
people to select any scenes in any order from the entire Netflix Originals
catalogue, including deleted scenes, extended scenes, alternates, and
bloopers. People could edit their own programs and share them. Imagine people
editing their own version of Stranger Things down to a two-hour movie, or
perhaps changing the entire plot to more of a bizarre high-school romance. It
could be interesting.
------
tareqak
Techmeme's headline (too long to replace the original with): _Netflix tests
interactive episodes for kids which allow different storylines to be chosen,
available on select smart TVs, Roku, and iOS devices_
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Vim – Should You Still Use Vim? - koalakinger
https://matthewmullin.io/should-i-use-vim/
======
syrrim
>it’s surprisingly rare that I find myself editing only one file at a time.
Vim can edit multiple files at once.
>Most of my time is spent flipping between multiple files, ctrl clicking into
function calls, cutting code out of one file and pasting it into a new one
Also, look into ctags
~~~
sloum
Right? You'd think two weeks in Vim would have gotten at least `:vsplit
/file/path` worked out... or at least `:buffers`. That said, he does not seem
to be a terminal oriented guy so there are likely compounding effects here
rather than just needing to learn Vim.
------
themew
Nano all the way... Always liked Nano better than Vim, but nice to have a
choice.
~~~
sloum
I would argue that the two editors are completely and totally different in
focus, ability, and approach. Nano works for editing a quick file or writing
an e-mail in Alpine... but is not really functional for full time code editing
at all, in my opinion. That said, I'd love to be shown how I am wrong about
nano. It seems pretty ubiquitous around my workplace where most of the
developers did not grow up at the command line...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Demand change, transparency and accountability - Cozy as viable alternative - DaddyDuck
http://blog.cozycloud.cc/mantra/2013/06/12/PRISM-call-change-transparency-alternatives/
======
ds9
According to the FAQ:
" With Cozy, applications run in the user's personal cloud where he keeps
ownership of his/her data. This simple paradigm shift changes many things.
" * personal data are aggregated in a trusted environment the user have full
control on, * apps can collaborate around data, cross apps integration is made
simple delivering a frictionless user experience, * there is no need to
communicate personal data to a third party because the processing is made
within the user's cloud."
Maybe I'm misunderstanding this, but it seems it runs on a Cozy server instead
of the user's own hardware. Therefore it is subject to being secretly copied
by the government (of whichever country the server is in), at any time. Is
this not correct?
If that is really how it works, I don't see how "the user have full control"
as they claim.
Also the third point, "there is no need to communicate personal data to a
third party because the processing is made within the user's cloud" is silly
because as soon as you send your data to Cozy's servers you have then sent it
to a _second_ party and you then no longer have control.
The only real advantage I see here is that the business model (according to
the claims ) is not based on the company data-mining the customers. That's a
step above the likes of Facebook but it hardly compares to "control of your
data".
~~~
DaddyDuck
Hi ds9,
you might be interested in visiting this link: cozy.io
Disclaimer, I am from Cozy and wrote the article and the FAQ.
You can self host Cozy on your own hardware or any hosting provider you trust.
You are in no way tied to us.
Keep in mind we are relatively young project, in the future we will make
possible to move easily your instance from one provider to another.
~~~
ds9
Thanks that makes it more interesting! Will read more.
------
gesman
We need open source technology that auto-encrypts data before releasing it to
third party service (such as emails, chats, skypes, etc...). Although this
will piss off not only NSA but all service providers as well - as they get
used to like knowing your interests and subsequently spamming you.
------
zer0gravity
This is very close to my dream of a user centered modern web enabled platform.
I really like the fact that it promotes sharing by requiring a github account.
Definitely will try it!
------
mtgx
I'd like to see every single chat app, mail service, or video-chat app being
launched from now on offer OTR, ZRTP and PGP, or some other novelty security
technology (like Bitmessage), as competitive advantages over the "big ones"
like Gmail and Skype. And they need to make them as painless to use as
possible, and enabled by default where's the case.
~~~
muyuu
And allowing payment through crypto-currency.
~~~
gasull
Bitcoin isn't enough because it isn't anonymous. We'll have to wait for
Zerocoin.
~~~
muyuu
It's enough if you know how to use it properly.
~~~
gasull
Even if you use a Bitcoin laundry service my understanding is that it's clear
that your bitcoins went into such laundry. There is no deniability.
Actually not even Zerocoin is enough, because it doesn't offer deniability
either, but it's closer to what is needed.
Of course Bitcoin is still much better than our corrupt banking system, but
for other reasons, not so much for financial privacy.
~~~
muyuu
You don't need any laundry service to have deniability.
I can pay you from an account I've never used before to pay anyone else and
there is no way for you to find out who I am.
In the general case, even if you do things shoddily, it would still take a
massive operation so you can short-list me among the possible sources of the
payment.
Lately BTC's pseudonimity is being downplayed for social engineering reasons
(some of the visible faces in the BTC community have decided so). Supposedly
being very anonymous is very hard work now, something for experts. But in
reality it's the other way around, making yourself easy to track requires very
specific usage patterns. By default almost nobody gets tracked unless they
want to.
------
hexo
With such a low contrast, this looks like it's not intended to be read at all.
So didn't read.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Does the Inertia of a Body Depend upon its Energy-Content? (1905) [pdf] - utkarshs12
https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/E_mc2/e_mc2.pdf
======
plopilop
An interesting point to note is that Einstein derived m = E / c^2 rather than
E = mc^2. Even though both formulae are obviously equivalent, the
interpretations may vary.
For instance, for nuclear fission we use E = mc^2. Uranium breaks into smaller
atoms, but some mass has disappeared: it's because it has been radiated in the
form of immaterial energy, hence nuclear plants and A-bombs.
On the other hand, m = E/c^2 gives an interesting interpretation to what
inertial mass is. According to this equation, mass is actually "energy at
rest". If you want to move your object, you have to give it some energy, so
that the resulting energy of the body will result into the desired motion.
It's kind of similar to how hot air (the energy you give) and cold air (system
at rest) mix to form "medium-hot" air (system in motion).
And just because I like writing, note that we have no idea whether inertial
mass (the m in m = E / c^2 and Newton's Third Law, F = ma) is equivalent to
gravitational mass (the m in F_gravitation = G * m_earth * m / d^2), but
experiments dismiss any difference bigger than 1 in 10^12. The principle of
equivalency between these two masses is the fundamental postulate of general
relativity.
In a nutshell, m = E/c^2 defines the inertial mass, and general relativity
assumes it's equal to the gravitational mass.
~~~
nonbel
I'm not really seeing the difference between m = E / c^2 rather than E = mc^2.
Isn't c just a proportionality constant that we can set to 1 by choosing
different units?[1] Then you are saying that E = m suggests something
different than m = E.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_units](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_units)
~~~
plopilop
You can think of it as a dual approach. We can consider "E is defined as mc^2,
so basically we can extract energy from mass". Alternatively, we can consider
"m is E/c^2, so inertial mass is actually energy at rest".
Both explanations are valid, which doesn't mean they are contradictory.
It's kind of like one person in the train sees the person on the ground
moving, even though from the person on the ground's point of view, it's the
person on the train who is moving. Who's moving? Well, the interpretation
depends on the referential you choose. So here, you can say there is a
referential "mass" and a referential "energy". They will give seemingly
different interpretations, but which are actually equivalent.
(On a side note, there are indeed no differences between E=mc^2 and m=E/c^2,
it's just that it's easier to conceptualize inertial mass as being energy at
rest with the latter.)
------
CamperBob2
It is not impossible that with bodies whose energy-content
is variable to a high degree (e.g. with radium salts) the
theory may be successfully put to the test.
One of the more understated assertions in history, there.
~~~
robotresearcher
Here's my favourite understated claim in a paper:
"It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated
immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material".
Watson & Crick, "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for
Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" (DNA), having almost certainly discovered the
mechanism of heredity in complex life forms: one of the most significant
discoveries in the history of biology. Very dry.
------
monochromatic
Is this a translation from German, or was it originally published in English?
I ask, because this is so awkwardly worded as to be nearly unparseable:
> The laws by which the states of physical systems alter are independent of
> the alternative, to which of two systems of coordinates, in uniform motion
> of parallel translation relatively to each other, these alterations of state
> are referred (principle of relativity)
~~~
Luc
This 1920's translation by Perrett and Jeffery is so bad you might as well
read the original (search 'Ist die Trägheit eines Körpers von seinem
Energieinhalt abhängig?')
It makes a lot more sense in German, even though I'm not that fluent in it. I
searched but didn't find a better translation. It's been over a hundred years
now, surely someone made the effort...
~~~
detaro
working link:
[https://de.wikibooks.org/wiki/A._Einstein,_Ist_die_Tr%C3%A4g...](https://de.wikibooks.org/wiki/A._Einstein,_Ist_die_Tr%C3%A4gheit_eines_K%C3%B6rpers_von_seinem_Energieinhalt_abh%C3%A4ngig%3F_-
_Kommentiert_und_erl%C3%A4utert%2E)
~~~
Luc
Thanks, the full stop at the end of that URL was causing trouble.
------
PhantomGremlin
For those who read comments before reading the article, and to riff off of the
recent HN discussion of _Classic Papers: Articles That Have Stood The Test of
Time_
It doesn't get much more "classic" (or maybe that should say "relativistic")
than A. Einstein demonstrating E = mc²
See the "About the Document" at the end for the details.
------
aisofteng
>Neglecting magnitudes of fourth and higher orders...
What if we don't?
~~~
idlewords
You get essentially the same answer.
------
ahh
Einstein discovered a counterexample to Betteridge's law?
~~~
JshWright
Many academic articles are titled with yes/no questions. That how the whole
"hypothesis" thing often works.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Can you recommend a translation service for website trans? - bopf
I am looking for a translation service to help with the localization of riddle.com, where I can upload an Excel with 26 language columns and get just one Excel file back with all translations. I have tried gengo.com and icanlocalize.com, which allow the upload of an Excel file but both send back 26 individual files, which I need to merge. Does anyone know a service where this is less painful?
======
jbernardo95
I'm not sure if they support excel, but
[https://unbabel.com](https://unbabel.com) looks like a good service.
~~~
bopf
thank you.. they look really good. Will give them a try.
------
Diana2
Are you looking for a semipro or pro service?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Self-Service Crypto Index Fund API - chnsh
https://github.com/chnsh/crypto-index-fund
======
chnsh
The idea is to have a value-investing style crypto indexing strategy
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
ISSE: An Interactive Sound Source Separation Editor - ashitlerferad
http://isse.sourceforge.net/
======
riprowan
First off - what a great idea! How am I just finding out about this?
As an audio engineer, I know the first thing I want to use this on: a drum
kit. Separate the cymbals from the skins!! Separate out the room sound from
the direct sounds!! Get that pesky hi-hat out of the snare track!
Secondly - why only frequencies? Why not dynamics, stereo position, phase, and
transient response? If I could switch the screen to show those things instead
of frequency, I could isolate all kinds of other phenomena.
For example, isolate only the transients and turn them up/down, EQ them, add
reverb to them, etc (drool). Non-engineers have no idea how potent this could
be.
Or isolate only the instruments appearing at 30% off-center left?
~~~
Mathnerd314
There seems to be a deafening silence with audio stuff. Probably because
there's no money in it, or rather the money is all held by the recording
studios / big distributors, who have no incentive to share their findings.
Also Google seems to rank music-software search results really low.
Other cool projects that I only found after intensive search:
[http://photosounder.com/](http://photosounder.com/)
[http://www.soundhelix.com/](http://www.soundhelix.com/)
[http://www.cerlsoundgroup.org/Loris/](http://www.cerlsoundgroup.org/Loris/)
[http://www.klingbeil.com/spear/](http://www.klingbeil.com/spear/)
The guy who wrote this is at Apple now, probably working on Logic Pro; the
latest versions have some note-editing features.
------
Anechoic
Interesting that this has been out for 3 years and this is the first I've
heard of it. I'll have to try out the tool to separate out sources from
various recordings we make for noise control projects (for example, separating
out the wheel/rail contribution and engine/motor contribution from DMU/EMU
train recordings, or fan contribution and transformer contribution in
electrical substation recordings).
~~~
lighttower
Seeing stuff on sourceforge makes me immediately distrustful of the project.
Like it feels neglected, forgotten.... Buggy. Is this generally true for
projects you've seen?
~~~
taspeotis
> Like it feels neglected, forgotten
I feel that way about most SourceForge projects, too. If you check out this
project's history [1] the last commit was in 2013. Not that working software
needs regular change, but as a rule of thumb it's nice to see recent commits.
[1]
[https://sourceforge.net/p/isse/code/ci/master/tree/](https://sourceforge.net/p/isse/code/ci/master/tree/)
------
yoo1I
This is pretty cool!
A couple if years ago, I saw a short documentary about some commercial
software that was able to take the recording of an orchestra, separate the
instruments and allow the user to edit the pitch and volume of an individual
note an instrument was playing, but I can't seem to find it anymore.
Might anyone here know about this software ?
~~~
charlesism
You're thinking of Melodyne, by Celemony Software. It's amazing.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u573PyXo-
pY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u573PyXo-pY)
~~~
yxlx
That was an interesting video, thanks for linking it.
Two books are mentioned in the video, both of which I would like to read;
\- "History of Harmonic Pythagoreanism" by Rudolf Haase
\- "The Harmony of the World" by Johannes Kepler
The original title of the book by Haase, I found by jumping to the mark where
it was mentioned in the original german language video, was _Geschichte des
Harmonikalen Pythagoreismus_. Unfortunatelly, I have not been successfull in
finding an English translation of the book. I _could_ read the German version
but would only understand a few select parts so I would much prefer to read it
in English. Does anybody know of an English version of the book?
------
colanderman
Nice! I've been wanting a tool to do exactly this for years.
Trying it out now. One question, what does the "training brush" do? Everything
else is intuitive so far.
Edit: Just tried this out on a song with acoustic guitar + vocals. Worked OK.
There's lots of bleed between the tracks, but they _are_ separated to a decent
degree.
------
ashitlerferad
Folks interested in this might be interested in ManyEars and the associated
hardware projects:
[http://manyears.sourceforge.net/](http://manyears.sourceforge.net/)
------
braindead_in
Amazing demo. Can it be used to separate two voices in a file?
------
incepted
Ugh... sourceforge.net?
No, thanks.
~~~
ashitlerferad
sourceforge isn't like that any more:
[https://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-acquisition-and-
fut...](https://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-acquisition-and-future-
plans/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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You Could Almost Do Anything Part II - elischiff
http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2016/4/20/do-almost-anything-ii
======
wille92
Can't stand when logos and icons fail to illustrate anything. Take for example
this [1] Moving Brand's mock from a Mojo Networks redesign. The icons don't
tell you a thing. Two circles for connectivity? 4 half circles for WLAN? Plain
text would be less cluttered and less confusing.
1: [http://www.movingbrands.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/01/Movin...](http://www.movingbrands.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/01/MovingBrands_Mojo_results3_7082.jpg)
~~~
ttepasse
I'm not a designer and I mostly fail to have a designer's eye for such things.
But here the icons seem really clear:
security - a stylized lock. connectivity - linked members of a chain, which
are _connected_. WLAN - expanding circes of a radiowave login - a human head
on an upper body
All which exist as icons for decades in other UI. In this case there seems to
be a design constraint of only using circles, semicircles and quartercircles.
That fails most in case of the Wifi Symbol which needs concentric rings. Here
those are just simulated. And the metaphor of chain links for connectivity
strains. But that was also the case when it stands for hyperlink.
~~~
wille92
That is fair, I probably sold the design short when I said they didn't
illustrate anything. I guess my negative reaction comes the work I have to do
as a user--it took some amount of time for me to look at the icons and discern
their meaning. I didn't get that immediate "4 semi-circles = WLAN" recognition
that most icons provide.
------
mywittyname
I have been inspired to change my company logo to a 64x63px transparent png.
The 64 pixel height represents technology.
The 63 pixel width demonstrates that there's always one more pixel to go.
Transparent because said company does not actually exist, except as bits on a
computer.
~~~
elischiff
Funny response:
[https://twitter.com/mwichary/status/722972408613761024](https://twitter.com/mwichary/status/722972408613761024)
------
enobrev
Part 1:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11482081](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11482081)
------
irickt
how to design minimalist logos.
------
jm3
satire is alive and well in the brand design world.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Level Frames (YC W15) Launches Because All Art Deserves Its Frame - jhubball
http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/18/yc-backed-level-frames-launches-because-all-art-deserves-its-frame/
======
jhubball
Hi, founder here. Welcome any questions or feedback.
~~~
RickS
How I hoped this worked when I heard about it: Take photo of poster next to a
credit card, it extrapolates the size based on the card, and automatically
configures the frame dimensions to fit, so I don't have to measure anything.
Just a thought
~~~
jhubball
I've actually looked into that. The margin for error was around 8%, which is a
little too high for this right now.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Site Review Efreeme.com (Vintage and Handmade Site) - boonez123
http://www.efreeme.com
======
mattw
Great job! I like the simple site design. It gives it almost a craigslist feel
(in a good way).
* Drilling down into categories was a little confusing at first. It might be better if the columns were clearly defined (maybe different backgrounds or vertical borders or something). Initially when drilling down into Vintage -> Men's Clothing I completely missed the "Handmade" category, so when I got down to "Pants & Trousers" I suddenly noticed "Handmade" on the left, at which point it wasn't clear whether it was a separate top-level category (as it is) or whether it was a strange word-wrapping problem (like "Pants & Trousers Handmade").
* Related to this, once I arrived at "Pants & Trousers", it wasn't immediately apparent that there were no items in the category. (Until I actually read "Be the first to post...", I thought maybe I hadn't yet arrived at the leaf-level category, so I ended up clicking "Handmade" thinking it was maybe the word-wrap thing.) Three suggestions that might help: 1) Make the category selector variable-height so that it collapses into a single-line breadcrumb trail once I arrive at the bottom-level category; 2) Show the number of items in each category in parenthesis after the name, e.g. "Pants & Trousers (0)"; 3) Clearly mark the items for sale (maybe "Items for Sale in Pants & Trousers:" or something).
* One question that immediately popped into my mind as a hypothetical vendor with a large dose of cynicism was: How do you guys make any money? After digging (and of course your post here) I found a statement that "This website was made with love to provide a free venue for artists and vendors to sell their wares", but maybe you want to consider proactively answering the question "If you don't take any fees, how do you make money?" Else I'm left wondering whether there's some kind of hidden scheme going on, or whether your venue is going to survive (and thus make it worthwhile for me to set up a store). Maybe that's just my over-healthy cynicism talking, though. :)
Keep up the good work!
~~~
boonez123
Hi,
* I'll definitely work on that category filter. I think you are correct, as it stands now it's too confusing to understand what is going on.
* 1.)I'm not sure what you mean about it collapsing into a single-line breadcrumb. Either way I think I might have a solution for this filter. How about if I seperate Vintage and Handmade into two separate columns and then you can clearly see that's it's "Vintage" or "Handmade". 2.) Counters, duh. I'm an idiot! I'll add that asap. Memcache for the win. 3.) Yes. I'll change the wording at the top of the filter too. "You are currently browsing...." sounds, well, uh, dumb. "Items for Sale in [Category Name]" I think is much much better.
*AHHH. The money. Yes. I should make that more clear on the "About Us" page. However as you probably guessed we make money off the banner advertising, I know, it's going to be a long hard slog to the top of this one! :)
Thanks again for your input. I really value your opinions and for the most
part I'll be implementing all of them. You can almost guarantee they'll be
done by this evening.
Thanks again!
~~~
mattw
> I'm not sure what you mean about it collapsing into a single-line
> breadcrumb.
I just meant exactly what you're doing, but without the extra parent
categories so that once you get down to a "leaf" category it only shows one
line: "Parent > Child > Grandchild". Sounds like your other idea will
essentially accomplish the same thing.
> *AHHH. The money. Yes. I should make that more clear on the "About Us" page.
> However as you probably guessed we make money off the banner advertising, I
> know, it's going to be a long hard slog to the top of this one! :)
Oops, that's what I get for browsing with AdBlock all the time; forgot I even
had it on. :)
~~~
boonez123
Thanks Mattw for the clarification!
------
petervandijck
Competing with etsy is awesome, but two things:
1\. How will you drive traffic to the vendors? If they don't get any sales,
they won't stay.
2\. You have to make it look prettier. These artsy types care about looks :)
Hope you can get this going, good luck!
~~~
boonez123
1\. That is always the problem with these sites. I'm hoping good SEO helps me
out a bit too. I launched the site on Monday, Tuesday my sister put up her
Crafty and Vintage stuff, and then on Wednesday a woman from Arizona bought an
item. I have some ideas. I'm hoping that maybe offering a free store will
entice people enough too. Not sure. I'm looking for suggestions though since I
have a limited budget. My last company turned into a million dollar company
just from putting up some chloroplast signs around cities. Unfortunately I
sold a tad too early.
2\. I agree. Over time I'll invest more time into the rounded corners, and
drop shadows and so on.
Thanks again for your feedback!
Mark
------
boonez123
Basically my sister uses Etsy.com a lot and wanted something that was free. I
started building this in Mid April 2010 in Zope/Python. I know, I know. Dated
technology.
Anyway if you see some ideas to make this site better, let me know.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple at 40: The forgotten founder who gave it all away - danboarder
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35940300
======
cpncrunch
More info about him here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Wayne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Wayne)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Tennis racket theorem – Wikipedia - rbanffy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_racket_theorem
======
castratikron
Classical mechanics was my favorite course in college. It doesn't get enough
fame (everyone always wants to talk about quantum mechanics, because it's
"weird").
Check this fun problem out: [http://www-groups.dcs.st-
and.ac.uk/history/HistTopics/Brachi...](http://www-groups.dcs.st-
and.ac.uk/history/HistTopics/Brachistochrone.html)
~~~
pavel_lishin
I remember seeing a list of unsolved problems in Newtonian physics; some
seemed really interesting, involving infinitely-fast projectiles that can slow
down to a stop in non-infinite time (implying the reverse ought to also be
true).
------
kingbirdy
You can demonstrate this very easily with your phone (all directions given
assuming the phone is facing you, oriented vertically): rotating it cw/ccw
will be stable (you're on the shortest axis, only the depth of your phone,
probably a few mm), flipping it left-to-right will be stable (you're on the
longest axis, the height of your phone, probably ~5"), but flipping it top-to-
bottom will result in an uncontrollable spin, as that's the middle axis (the
width of your phone , probably 2-3")
------
mannykannot
This tumbling around a different axis after starting a rotation around another
reminded me of something else - the problem of inertia coupling that caused
several crashes of early supersonic airplanes. I would be interested to know
if they are related.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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The collected jwz bicycle wisdom - bootload
http://www.jwz.org/blog/2008/05/the-collected-jwz-bicycle-wisdom/
======
extension
I could pick apart a lot of this questionable advice but let me just say this
instead: in my experience, those who try to get into cycling with a very
pragmatic and cynical approach -- get a cheapo inefficient bike, don't take
care of it, expect it to be stolen -- tend to not stick with it.
Get a bike that you _want_ to ride, whatever that may be. Maybe it's a hot
road bike or maybe it's a gnarly mountain bike or an artsy low-rider..
whatever floats your boat. If nothing floats your boat, just ride _something_
for a little while and you'll figure out what you want. But if your bike isn't
fun to ride then you won't ride it.
Also, get the best lock money can buy. If it's _better_ than most other locks,
and you use it religiously, and your bike is not studded in diamonds, it
probably won't get stolen.
And if you feel any inclination to become some variety of bike nerd, don't
hold back, because that makes things a _lot_ easier. It really doesn't take
much mindshare.
~~~
cromulent
There's always the TiGr.
<http://tigrlock.com/pages/>
------
eloisius
This is some of the worst (and even dangerous, see #11) advice I've read
pertaining to owning and operating a bicycle.
Choosing a hybrid over a road bike isn't an awful idea if you don't mind
sacrificing speed and lightness for some durability. I also reject the idea of
riding a fixie--no matter how cool they look, I don't commute 10 miles a day
on a velodrome. However, I can take the more rigid feel of a 120psi road tire
in exchange for averaging 15MPH in hilly Atlanta. I paid $250 for a 1984
Cannondale and have probably invested a total of $30 in maintenance and parts
at this point.
The absolute refusal to maintain the machine yourself? I'm definitely no
mechanic-nerd and I do take my bike to the shop, but seriously, do you take
your PC to the Geek Squad when you get some spyware? Change a tube yourself.
Just "knowing how" isn't good enough, unless you want to spend 30 minutes on
the sidewalk in 94° weather because you caught a puncture on your way home and
are unpracticed in getting a tire off the rim.
Also, please don't use sidewalks because an intersection looks "iffy." For
one, it's rude (and illegal in most places) to pedestrians and two, a driver
is much more likely to see you if you're occupying a lane on the street than
if you come zooming into the crosswalk while they're making a right turn.
This whole list reeks of someone that has simply not taken the time to
appreciate and learn to properly use a tool.
~~~
mblakele
Upvoted, but (11) makes sense if I read it as "get off of your bike and cross
on foot, as a pedestrian". I'm not sure if that's what jwz had in mind or not,
but that is what I do when things get iffy. Agreed that riding on sidewalks is
dangerous.
------
colanderman
For some reason JWZ thinks I'm most comfortable reading things off of green-
screen CRTs. Readability link: <http://www.readability.com/articles/fd86bcaw>
That said, most of the advice seems pretty solid -- I've been (unwittingly)
following most of these rules except for #10. I'd _rather_ get greasy lubing
my chain and save that $20 for a nice meal. But that's just my preference.
------
guelo
Slightly off topic but one thing that surprised me when I moved to SF a few
years ago was how bicycle unfriendly it is with very few dedicated bike lanes
and downright dangerous in many parts, including a lot of The Mission. For
some reason I imagined the liberal utopia would be a Portland wannabe but it's
really not. My guess for why, besides the steep hills, is that bike culture
here is more centered around the aggressive hipster types and not the everyday
commuters and thus the big political push hasn't taken place.
------
6ren
> 14\. Cross train and trolley tracks at a 45° angle or more, or you will die.
45° gets shallower the faster you go - it feels like you are crossing at a
safe angle, but at speed, it's shallower than you think. Swanston Street tram
tracks vet here (Melbourne).
~~~
bootload
_"... Swanston Street tram tracks vet here (Melbourne) ..."_
Swanston is pretty grim, especially at intersections like Collins ~
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/2658435132/in/set-7215...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/2658435132/in/set-72157607405827577/)
------
angdis
It doesn't matter if JWZ is entirely correct or not. He is doing a nice public
service by providing some guidelines to help folks to introduce utilitarian
biking into their lives.
For those that are completely new to biking, his advice is as good as any.
Biking is not rocket science, everyone can do it, and it is lots of fun and
practical. Many cities are developing bike infrastructure so it makes sense to
take advantage of it.
But I will shut up now because I'm lycra-wearing racer-boy bike nerd and JWZ
says people should not take my biking advice.
------
copper
I dunno, doesn't $370 seem expensive too? I went through a few of these
things[1] back in the day, and even now a new one should cost about the
equivalent of $50. They're fixed gear, and likely not feature comparable, but
they comfortable enough to drive uphill, light enough to actually carry
around, and even on the kind of roads I used to drive, flat tyres were usually
because of bent nails or broken glass.
[1] <http://www.herocycles.com/jet2.htm>
------
duck
_You really do need to tuck in or roll up your right leg._
Or buy the $2 velcro straps they sale that go around your leg and not worry
about it again.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Open Source Minecraft Clone Built with ThreeJS, ReactJS, GraphQL, and Node.js - chovy
https://github.com/ian13456/mc.js
======
jdauriemma
This is very cool. Is there a deployed instance on the web somewhere?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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William English, Who Helped Build the Computer Mouse, Dies at 91 - helloworld
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/technology/william-english-who-helped-build-the-computer-mouse-dies-at-91.html
======
ZinnZirconium
It was a good idea at the time but the mouse has been replaced by the
touchscreen or touchpad almost everywhere just like the phone on his desk has
been replaced by the mobile phone.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Top JQuery Functions to Plain Old JavaScript - omarld
These are my top most commonly use jQuery functions converted to Plain Old JavaScript.
======
omarld
Oh oops! Something went wrong here! I'll post again.
------
Gunvig
???
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Tempe Police release fatal Uber crash video - paulashbourne
https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2018/03/21/tempe-police-release-fatal-uber-crash-video.html
======
brador
Looks like the human in the car was at fault? If he was watching the road she
would have survived, and that's exactly what he was paid to do.
------
skj
Frankly, I'm not sure I would have done any better.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Improving CLIs with isatty - jez
https://blog.jez.io/cli-tty/
======
rlpb
Please be careful with this. From the GNU Coding Standards:
"...please don’t make the behavior of a command-line program depend on the
type of output device it gets as standard output or standard input."
[https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#User-
Inter...](https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#User-Interfaces)
Of course you don't have to follow their standards, but their rationale for
this particular item is reasonable.
I think a warning as described in the article is perhaps just about OK though.
~~~
Normal_gaussian
OK until, of course, you meet me.
And I go around piping things into 'less -RS'
I wouldn't get the warning.
Though of course getting it to some is probably better than none so I'm more
than likely with you.
\--
Unfortunately many apps do behave differently towards ttys in one key way -
colour.
It is somewhat frustrating to be piping into less something like 'apt list
--upgradable' and being unable go essuly scan because its a mess without
colour.
~~~
jancsika
Instead of a warning it could grep the contents of the current directory. I
bet that would work if you were imagining a use case of typing your pipeline
on the command line.
------
mbreese
I haven’t figured out a way to do this in native Java, so I end up wrapping my
Java CLI tools in a bash wrapper (as a self executing JAR). This wrapper’s
main purpose is to set a Java property based on the results of the bash test:
if [ -t 0 ]; then
fi
I then use this flag to know if I should do things like export CLI progress
bars or other interactive things.
~~~
skissane
You can call isatty() using a Java FFI library such as JNA or JNR. Some day,
Java will come with this out-of-the-box and an external library will not be
needed – see
[https://openjdk.java.net/jeps/191](https://openjdk.java.net/jeps/191)
For JNA (probably JNR too, my personal experience is only with JNA though),
just have to add the JAR to your project (or the Maven/Gradle dependency). The
JAR includes native libraries for various platforms.
It is non-portable, it won't work on Windows, although you may not care about
that, and if you do, Windows has similar APIs (e.g. calling GetConsoleMode()
on the file handle will fail if the handle doesn't point to a console.)
~~~
tyingq
Jansi might be worth a look. Provides isatty() and other things that might be
helpful for a Java command line app. Works on Windows also.
[https://github.com/fusesource/jansi](https://github.com/fusesource/jansi)
------
peterwwillis
The problem with doing this is you end up with a bunch of tools which may or
may not have unexpected behavior depending on how you ran them. It's better to
have a simple design that just works one way, and you're forced to use it in
the one right way. When users invariably use it the wrong way, the reasoning
about the failures is simpler, and there are no extra bugs from the extra
lines of guard-rail code.
If you really wanted to add this 'protection code', you could make a bash
wrapper around every Unix command that has its input or output connected to a
tty. Not perfect, but it would eliminate a whole lot of extra tty-checking
code from every app, providing a single reliable interface. I imagine you'd
turn it off after a while, though.
------
quietbritishjim
> the isatty function in the C standard library (man 3 isatty)
It is not in the C standard library, it's in POSIX so isn't available in
non-*nix platforms. The same problem applies in other languages using it
through cffi.
------
loeg
isatty on which standard file, though, takes some consideration. Zero, any,
some, or all of stdin, stdout, and stderr may be redirected independently.
Some programs might usefully print differently redirected into a file vs
rendered on a tty. And what is one to do about pipes?
~~~
juped
no, this only makes any sense at all for stdin
~~~
the8472
it also makes sense for stdout, e.g. when you're spewing binary data that
might corrupt a terminal.
~~~
juped
No it doesn't - why would it help at all to precede that with a warning the
user wouldn't see?
------
fao_
The implementation in musl libc is a simple ioctl call[0], so really it should
be available in all languages without need for a C FFI. I always find this
kind of thing interesting.
[0]: [https://git.musl-
libc.org/cgit/musl/tree/src/unistd/isatty.c](https://git.musl-
libc.org/cgit/musl/tree/src/unistd/isatty.c)
~~~
skissane
ioctl is inherently non-portable. Even though most Unix-like OS implement it,
it is not part of the POSIX / SUS standard and so code which relies on it is a
portability problem. The problem is the ioctl command codes and their
parameters are not standardised and vary from OS to OS.
(The POSIX standard does standardise ioctl, but only for use with STREAMS,
which is an optional feature which more often than not isn't implemented.)
~~~
cperciva
Just to be clear, while ioctl has issues, isatty is part of the POSIX
standard:
[https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/i...](https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/isatty.html)
------
jessaustin
There were some interesting suggestions along these lines in the "12 factor
CLI" piece previously linked at HN, in sections 6 and 7:
[https://medium.com/@jdxcode/12-factor-cli-apps-
dd3c227a0e46#...](https://medium.com/@jdxcode/12-factor-cli-apps-
dd3c227a0e46#cca8)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Buyer Beware: Rating Nintendo 3DS Launch Games - evo_9
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/03/3ds-games-buyers-guide/
======
wccrawford
That launch games for a console are pretty mediocre isn't really news. It's
always like that.
Also, I see Professor Layton didn't make the English launch. I was surprised
to see it as a 3D game at all (since all the art was previously 2D) but the
game plays nice enough... They throw in a puzzle that has 3D (but doesn't
-really- use it) once in a while, too. And all the conversations use 3D
characters. It's actually pretty what you'd expect from a word-puzzle game
being made 3D. lol
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lightwear: Introducing Magic Leap's Mixed Reality Goggles - runesoerensen
https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/features/lightwear-introducing-magic-leaps-mixed-reality-goggles-w514479
======
epaga
> As for the cost: “So we have an internal price, but we are not talking about
> that yet,” he says. “Pre-order and pricing will come together. I would say
> we are more of a premium computing system. We are more of a premium
> artisanal computer. “
So...to me that sounds like we can expect a $2-4k price tag for the first
release? Maybe more?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Wonderful live coding demo running on a real device - atilimcetin
http://bowerhaus.eu/blog/files/live_coding.html
======
nascode
This is a single piece of awesomeness :)
------
KeepTryingGID
Breathtaking!
------
phongtt
Brilliant!!!
------
halukakin
Good stuff.
------
techdojo
Inspired!
------
hgvyas
awsome
| {
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How to Interview Your Interviewer - danielfriedman
https://medium.com/@_danfriedman/how-to-interview-your-interviewer-5875a6361ccd
======
alexschiff
A lot of young interviewees think it's not their place to ask these questions.
At least from my own perspective as a founder/CEO, as long as it's not
combative, I think much more highly of people I interview who show the
maturity to think about these things.
| {
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Tinke: Heart rate, blood oxygen level and more at your fingertip - pablosanchez
http://www.zensorium.com/tinke/
======
benwerd
I love the idea for the device itself. But I absolutely do not want this data
to be social, or transmitted anywhere besides a secure, encrypted repository
under my own control that I can optionally grant selective access to. Here's
why.
My mother has something called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. My aunt also had
it. Their mother _also_ had it. It kills as many people as breast cancer every
year, by progressively scarring the lungs until it's impossible to breathe.
There's no cure except for new lungs. (My mother is waiting for a double lung
transplant right now.) As you might expect, measuring blood oxygen efficiency
is a good way to track the progress of the condition.
As a result, carrying a smart blood oxygen meter that also measures number of
breaths and general health / stress levels really appeals to me. But the
health situation here in the States, and in many countries, is fucked (albeit
a little better than it was, thanks to our friends at the Obama
Administration). Let's say I contracted the condition (although there's no
proof that there's a genetic link), or it looked like I might be beginning to
succumb, going by my vital signs. The consequences of this information falling
into the wrong hands could range from an impact on my career to my insurance
standing. It could potentially ruin my life.
Photos of my last Blue Bottle coffee, checkins at Bourbon & Branch, or Lift
goal ticks are one thing. This kind of data should not be on a centralized
service, in a database I can't directly access. Not ever. And the rise of this
kind of product makes me think that there needs to be a sort of WordPress for
encrypted personal data, sooner rather than later.
~~~
pablosanchez
I agree that this information should be private (that's why Google Health
didn't work as GOOG planned, right?).
But they offer a way for you to make your information private.
I think the encryption makes even more sense in services like
<https://www.23andme.com> where you're getting genetic analysis information.
~~~
dmix
Google Health failed because there was very feel health SaaS companies and EHR
systems in place when it launched. Second, it didn't really provide much value
to them if they did use the APIs. And third the UI and marketing page were
very mediocre.
I run a health app and very few people (far less than I expected) over the
last 3 years showed concern about privacy.
We've actually had more emails about people wanting us to add social features
so they could connect with others like themselves.
------
zacharyvoase
I really want this. But I'm not going to buy it, because of the form factor,
iOS-only connector, closed-source hardware, firmware and application.
You might be familiar with sleep apnea, which is a condition in which (one way
or another) you stop breathing while asleep, for ten seconds to a few minutes.
The cause could be something in your nervous system (we still don't really
understand what), or an obstruction in your airways. The result is that you
wake up, sometimes with a fight-or-flight (i.e. adrenaline) response. Sleep
apnea sufferers wake up several times per night, sometimes not remembering
every episode. The net result is that even though, on waking up 'finally', you
think you've had a solid 8 hours, you actually had a large number of disrupted
sleeps. It's annoying and harmful, and the worst thing is that you might not
even know you're a sleep apnea sufferer—when you wake up due to an apnea
event, you're typically unaware that it was because you stopped breathing.
This is relevant because, during an apnea episode (and before waking) blood
oxygen saturation will drop noticeably. So an easy and accurate way of self-
diagnosing is to monitor blood oxygen saturation over the course of the night.
Cross-reference those data with a Zeo, say, and you have a cheap, accurate
method of self-diagnosis.
I've suspected that I have sleep apnea for a while now. But I don't have an
iPhone any more (I sold it and got a Nexus 4), the Tinké doesn't support
taking a continuous passive log (since you need to actively press your thumb
to it), and I want to do more interesting things with the data than this
company's app developers and designers will ever think of, or allow me to. So
I guess I'll have to wait until someone else builds something that addresses
this need, or build one myself.
~~~
cma
Don't wait; go to a doctor about this. Unless you don't have insurance.. then
you might as well wait til 2014 when you won't have an excuse not to have
insurance.
~~~
zacharyvoase
I live in the UK; I have insurance simply by being a citizen (though it can
take months to get an appointment with a doctor).
------
stephen
"It also brings personal wellness to a social platform."
Fuck everything being social. I am super interested in my health and fitness
but for my own edification, not to broadcast it to the world.
(I'm sure it's an optional feature, but, seriously, being social has to make
everyone's MVP now.)
~~~
ncavig
I absolutely agree. The two most important features to me would be the
accurate and measurability of the inputs (heart rate, o2 saturation, etc) and
the ability to get that data (API). I don't want my friends to know I just
reached 120BPM in my exercise routine, but I may want to set up an app myself
to do something based on my heart rate going to a certain level, or better
yet, if my parents heart rate meets some threshold it shouldn't be at
------
pavel_lishin
Excellent presentation, but leaves me with two questions.
1\. Why the iPhone-only connector?
2\. My stepfather, back in ye olden days, tried to create a similar product
(albeit, this was before ubiquitous mobile computing devices) and ran into all
sorts of regulatory FDA issues because they classified it as a medical device,
and required the construction of a hoop factory before you were allowed to
even start jumping through them.
~~~
pathdependent
Re: #2, from <http://www.zensorium.com/tinke/specs.html>:
WARNING
Tinké is NOT a medical device. Tinké and its associated
applications should not be used to diagnose, treat, or
prevent any disease or medical condition. Always seek
the advice of a qualified medical professional.
It seems like the same type of logic applied to over-the-counter drugs that
call themselves supplements -- it's not a "drug" if the marketers don't make
certain claims. In the case of Tinké, they are providing a means for
collecting data and do not make any claims that the product will directly
affect your health.
~~~
nradov
The FDA's definition of what is or is not a medical device has nothing at all
to do with nutritional supplements; those are covered by entirely separate
rules. In reality this product probably _is_ a Class 1 medical device, which
is subject to only very light regulation. The FDA might decide to ignore it
for a while until it becomes a larger issue. If you talk to actual FDA
staffers they're trying to encourage innovation in this space by not being too
heavy handed, while still protecting patients.
------
sxp
Why does this cost $80 more than other similar devices[1]? The website is
doesn't show any useful added features other than iPhone support and all the
screenshots are at an angle so it's difficult to see what the readout and
graphs look like compared to the normal devices that are out there on the
market. I guess having it automatically record each session is easier than
having to manually open up a spreadsheet on your phone/PC and record the data,
but that doesn't seem like $80 worth of features and some of the other higher
end devices have various levels of history and exporting of data.
And the website causes my slick-marketing-plus-low-useful-information-implies-
crappy-product sense to tingle due to the lack of upfront pricing, the
avoidance of useful screenshots of the app, and phrases like "Zen index" and
"social platform"
[1] <http://www.amazon.com/s/?keywords=pulse-oximeter>
------
jug6ernaut
Proprietary ports suck. This could be the most awesome device in the world but
being strictly limited to iOS devices means i will never buy one.
That and i hate having to plug things in to sync, wireless sync is the future
imo. With BT4.0 there is no reason not to.
------
sek
Seriously the old iPhone connector?
<http://www.zensorium.com/assets/gallery/2/7.jpg>
This was a really bad business decision.
~~~
simonbarker87
Something like this takes a long time to develop - you may find that
development started well before Apple announced the new port style
~~~
pavel_lishin
Which is why it seems to make more sense to use a standard USB connector. (I
forget the legalities of shipping things with an iPhone connector included,
but I remember there being a hubbub about it.)
------
dr_
Beyond heart rate, I guess the bigger question is how valuable is all of this
data for the average, relatively healthy, individual? There is probably some
fluctuation in our daily heart rate and O2 sats, etc. that we are not even
aware of, and are in all likelihood irrelevant, but this could potentially
make one a little paranoid. I could see this as coming in handy in a
healthcare setting, such as a nursing facility where patients are recovering
while receiving physical therapy, and need to be more carefully monitored. But
functionality is going to be more important in that setting than design is,
and you're probably paying a bit of a premium here for design.
~~~
santoshmaharshi
I pre-ordered one. Not impressed and agree with dr_7. Instead of a abstract
health metrics, if you really have a health need - any standard personal
electronics blood pressure monitor is much better choice.
------
mattlong
If it weren't bound to iOS, I would have bought one on the spot.
------
alimoeeny
Not very thrilled: "Currently your data can only be viewed on your smartphone.
Future capabilities for PC compatibility will be announced when available."
~~~
kmfrk
I don't like the closed sound of that. All those armbands - and to some degree
my Withings weight makes it so hard to share and utilize my data in more
interesting ways, especially for those of us who want to plot our data with
d3.js.
I want to use this data to show to my _doctor_ , not myself. And free,
exportable access to all my data would allow me to create a simple static
webpage displaying all my biometrics.
------
lhl
As others have mentioned, simple pulse oximeters are much cheaper ($20-50).
But pulse oximeters w/ connectivity are generally more expensive. The Nonin
9560 Onyx 2 is probably the best known (BT 2.0) - the best price I could find
online for that was $340. The MedChoice MD300C318T (BT) I found online for
€199 (~$267). These are the two models that are compatible w/ apps like <a
href="[http://simpleeye.com/platforms/android/bluetooth-pulse-
oxime...](http://simpleeye.com/platforms/android/bluetooth-pulse-
oximeter/>SimpleEyes) Android app</a>.
However, there is a cheaper alternative - the Contec CMS-50E (USB) and
apparently a new CMS50EW that also has Bluetooth, can be bought for around
$85. I haven't tried the wireless version, but the USB version works well, w/
good community support (<a
href="[http://ian.ahands.org/progs/pulseox/>reverse](http://ian.ahands.org/progs/pulseox/>reverse)
engineered protocol</a>) and can be run continuously.
For those interested in actually having/using this type of data, I'd really
recommend this over the Tinke, since it doesn't give you access to your data
at all (and of course, is limited to connecting to older iOS devices) and
generally looks to be just gimmicky.
Lastly, I recommend taking a look at the Wikipedia article to learn more about
<a
href="[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_oximetry>pulse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_oximetry>pulse)
oximetry</a>. While Tinke is using it as some sort of overall health
diagnosis, it's really most useful for diagnosis of things like sleep
disorders (like OSA) or other types of hypoxia (or monitoring for that). I'm
pretty doubtful about it's usefulness for monitoring overall health, although
it's fun to play with (watch your SpO2 drop as you hold you're breath, wee!)
------
kfury
Bluetooth would have been a much better solution.
~~~
gonzo
Well, BTLE, ya.
------
jimrandomh
No, this is useless. A heart rate/blood oxygen level sensor should attach to
your finger or wrist so you can keep it on while you're doing things. Most
sensors do that, but this one doesn't, and the form factor means it can't.
Making it plug into an iPhone docking port adds some novelty features, but
they compromised core functionality to enable it.
------
ashbrahma
Really good website! Not sure it adds much value. Can someone ELI5 (explain
like I am 5) why blood oxygen level is important?
~~~
meta
I am not a doctor. The body is quite good at keeping high ox levels. If your
ox level is too low cell damage can occur, organ damage, etc. If your ox level
gets way to low your die.
Lower than normal ox levels can help diagnose that something is "wrong" with
your body (or your environment) - lung damage, heart issues, etc. It can't
tell you what is wrong, just something is up.
------
gonzo
This seems relatively easier to do with BTLE (aka "Bluetooth Smart") heart
rate monitor and pluse oximeter. Former is for sale already, and I saw a bunch
of the later at CES.
------
drharris
Everybody has some valid feedback, but does anybody else read this as
"Tinkle"? The 8 year old inside me is giggling.
------
RandallBrown
Will this device do any better than the apps that already measure these things
using the camera on the iPhone?
~~~
borgchick
The ones that use the iPhone's camera can get heart rate, but I have not seen
one that can get blood oxygen level.
~~~
pablosanchez
I don't think blood oxygen level can be measured using the phone's camera.
Also, I read an article lately regarding the low level of accuracy regarding
heart rate measured using an iPhone camera. I'll try to find it and post it.
~~~
bathat
Depending on the spectrum of the phone camera's flash LED, you might be able
to get away with just putting a diffraction grating in front of the camera. I
recall, from reading a TI app note about pulse oximeters a while back, that
these work by comparing the relative intensity of IR and a visible-red light
transmitted through the finger (and that there was also some way to do it with
reflected light). I wonder if there is a clever way to calibrate the grating
without any extra hardware?
------
_fs
Why do I need an 80$ device to check my heart rate? What ever happened to a
watch and checking your pulse with a finger? Breath rate? A watch and monitor
your breathing. Blood oxygen level? A $20 device on Amazon.com. This is
overpriced and not that useful. Am I the only one that does not want to update
my friends facebook feed with my personal health metrics?
------
chadscira
Besides being iOS specific, does this even support the lightning connector?
------
gmaster1440
No blood sugar readings :(
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Choice as Happiness - cwan
http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/choice_as_happiness/
======
khafra
Choice can backfire(1), and must be taken in moderation. But, of course: "The
greatest miracle is this: when hungry I eat, when tired I sleep."
(1)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice:_Why_More...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice:_Why_More_Is_Less)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
2/3rds of all Bitcoins that will ever be, have been mined today - ubersync
https://blockchain.info/charts/total-bitcoins
======
ubersync
For the uninitiated: There will be about 21 million bitcoins ever. Today
almost 14 million have been mined.
~~~
compcoin
The Bitcoin system analogy is like a closed silo of wheat. All wheat (fiat
currency ) is blown to the top of the silo where the value is stored until it
is needed to be converted back into fiat currency again.
At the bottom on a equal basis Bitcoin purchasers and miners go to the market
when they desire convert back into fiat currency to pay required taxes and or
expenses that can only be done in fiat currency. The volatility in price is a
added incentive for those using Bitcoin as a payment system to convert back to
Fiat currency thus reducing the stored value.
Miners contribution (processing power and electricity) occur outside the silo
(this is there basis of claim and conversion to fiat currency to pay the
operating bills).
The miners do not increase the amount of wheat (fiat currency ) in the silo
system. Bitcoins by there simple function produce no new income or growth
either inside or outside the silo that increases the stored value of wheat
(capital) in the silo.
So any distribution to miners reduces the amount of wheat (stored capital ) by
almost 40% which is dilutive to those who paid full price to buy Bitcoin.
Tommorow if the market price of Bitcoin increase more wheat is added to silo.
This is just borrowing against the future stored value.
If enough Bitcoin is exchanged for the stored value in the silo (fiat
currency) then the market price will drop to reflect this inequality.
Mining bitcoin is a dilutive to the value paid by those who buy Bitcoin in the
free market by those who receive coins for mining. lets do some simple math
based upon today statistics. Todays volume 6297.55 x Avg price 247.6 =
$1,559,273.38 minus (3,800 coins mined x 247.6 = 618,393.38) 98.1958666466.
This means if you bought Bitcoin today your value has been diluted by more
than 39%. So each Bitcoin has only $149.40 in fiat currency available today.
So Bitcoin 2.0 applications that grow capital is the only long term solution
to this problem.
------
SCAQTony
Question, what happens to the ledger (Blockchain) if the miners (accountants)
no longer get paid for mining Bitcoin? (Asked with respect)
~~~
erikpukinskis
Transaction fees.
~~~
kolev
Won't this deincentivize Bitcoin commerce significantly though?
~~~
wmf
Yes, unless off-chain systems are developed.
It's also possible that transaction fees will stay low and miners will just
stop mining.
~~~
kolev
The off-chain systems are a workaround. And I doubt they will be cost-free.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is This the Beginning of the Great Tech Depression of 2016? - karangoeluw
https://medium.com/@karan/is-this-the-beginning-of-the-great-tech-depression-of-2016-54af7d6fdbef#.pb9bmeqnu
======
xufi
The only company I see on a rebound strangely is MS. Except for soem of the
issues of Windows 10. They're actaully growing overall and getting off to a
strong start. I feel bad for what happened to Yahoo this past week. Such a
good company but apparently they were late in aqutie a few things
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Eduhunt – ProductHunt for Education - freetonik
http://eduhunt.co/
======
freetonik
Hi guys,
I'm working on Hexlet, a platform like Codecademy, but on steroids: instead of
simple simulators we have real containers accessed via browser-based IDE.
Courses include videos, quizzes and real-world exercises. Last part looks like
this [http://i.imgur.com/DqtKD1S.png](http://i.imgur.com/DqtKD1S.png)
As a side-project we've launched eduhunt (linked in this post). Producthunt-
like community for education enthusiasts who share apps, websites, online-
courses and books on variety of topics.
~~~
gingerlime
Looks interesting, but not very clear how to submit an item. I'm guessing I'll
have to register, but will probably be more engaging and clear if you can
encourage people to submit something and then walk them through any
registration.
Otherwise, I'd love to submit Kenhub[0]. It's a learning platform focusing on
Human Anatomy, featuring articles, anatomy atlas, videos and interactive
quizzes.
[0] [https://www.kenhub.com](https://www.kenhub.com)
~~~
freetonik
Yeah, you're right, letting users submit and then ask them to sign up or sign
in to verify that submission would be way better. That famous "add to basket
and then sign up to finish" move works great.
We'll try to implement something of the sort and make a pull request, because
for now we're using stock Telescope app [0] which, I believe, doesn't have
this feature.
You can sign in using Facebook or Twitter and submit your item. It seems to be
a great resource, will appreciate your submission.
Thanks.
[0] [http://www.telescopeapp.org/](http://www.telescopeapp.org/)
~~~
gingerlime
Thanks! I signed up and submitted.
One more small thing that would be nice to improve is being able to tweak the
thumbnail. It seems to be generated automagically, but would be easier /
better if you can also upload your own thumbnail.
In any case, good luck with Eduhunt. Great to see more resources for
e-learning out there.
~~~
freetonik
Great!
Agree with the thumbnail comment, it's pretty limited now, will definitely
work on that.
Thanks.
------
invertigo100
This is a great find that someone shared with me. Nice little site. I've just
posted a tool for student engagement and brainstorming
[https://www.groupmap.com](https://www.groupmap.com). Love to see how people
can apply this in their classrooms.
------
bopf
Like it. I do think there is a need for a site like eduhunt. Teachers are
constantly on the prowl for good new tools (at least good teachers are). If
the site becomes as big in its niche as Product Hunt, it will provide a much
needed curated list of edu tools.
------
Loughla
Most educators I know (~150) that work in the school systems near me (primary,
secondary and postsecondary). Most use listservs as their closed ecosystem of
specialists, and Pinterest as their open-world system to find new educational
materials.
How does this add depth or quality to those already existing structures?
~~~
codingdave
I'm not sure professional educators are going to be the audience that would
use this. They already have curriculum and resources planned out, and often
directly provided by their districts.
Homeschoolers and autodidacts would seem to gain more value from this service.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Building channels for customer development? - sdrinf
Hi guys,<p>Let's say, that my target market is physical service contractors -say, plumbers, electricians, roofers, etc- wanting to generate more clients for their businesses; and I have a product, which can do just that.
How to reach out for these people for custdev?<p>I realize, that this is fundamentally a different channel building, than that of customer acqusition, in that it doesn't have to be scalable, or even repeatable much, BUT it has to lead to an open, mutually beneficial conversation (preferably in an office), in which they don't feel they are being sold to, and can openly discuss business.<p>How would you attack this problem?<p>Many thanks.
======
kevinrpope
Offer to buy them coffee or lunch. Be honest, telling them you're working on a
system to get THEM more work, but you'd like to leverage their expertise in
order to make it the best system possible. If you have a recommendation from a
friend or family (ie. a roofer who fixed your neighbor's roof) mention how
they were recommended because they did such a great job. Reiterate that you're
just looking for feedback and information, not a sale. Offer to meet them near
their office or at a worksite to make it as easy as possible for them. Try to
focus first on services that are hitting their low-point of seasonality (ie.
painters are busier in the summer, so try to contact them in the winter when
they have the time to talk).
Like any good salesperson, you'll need to know how to talk your way from a no
to a yes when talking with them.
Then focus on finding out what each of your service providers needs to know
about their potential customer for them to find your service useful. For
example, some electricians will only want to do (or be qualified for) general
wiring/socket replacement/etc, whereas others will be licensed to hook a solar
panel into the electricity grid. Some pest controllers do termite work only,
others do everything under the sun. Etc.
Also, keep in mind that you'll need to weigh the amount of data you get from
customers against the amount of information the service providers will want
(the service providers will always want more information).
I just finished up a contract with a company in Australia which sounds like it
has nearly the exact same business model (quotify.com.au). Let me know if you
want to chat further about this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Python Indie Bundle - Honoring Bitcoin Black Friday - mharrison
http://www.pythonindiebundle.com/
======
merlinsbrain
Daniel and Matt Harrison, can't really get better quality than this! ALL
PYTHONISTA BUY.
I own them all haha so can't avail of the bundle myself, but go do it!
Another book by Matt which I really love is the one on python decorators -
check it out (although not in this bundle, totally worth it)!
~~~
mharrison
Actually, Vol two contains the decorator book (and the functional/compreshion
book and the iteration book) :)
~~~
merlinsbrain
Well that's what I get for jumping to another book halfway through one. I got
decorators a couple of chapters into Vol 2, I have no idea how the contents
slipped my mind! Anywho, the quality remains top notch! :)
------
pydanny
We're doing this sale until midnight of December 2.
------
googletron
Awesome idea, and also a great deal! Highly recommend!
------
esacteksab
Fantastic idea! Love all three authors.
------
hjwp3
awesome!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Scrum Thinks People Are Stupid - rizumu
http://nih.blogspot.com.es/2012/03/scrum-thinks-people-are-stupid.html
======
marcusf
There's a lot to take offense to in this article and I wonder if the author
has any practical experience with working within agile constraints or if he
just picked up a book and didn't like it. For example, "In theory, developers
are supposed to be interchangeable in agile/scrum". I've never seen that
articulated in any agile literature. To the contrary, the agile manifesto puts
"individuals and interactions" on, literally, its first line. It's ALL about
people and finding ways for people to contribute to delivering working
software.
Processes at their best are self-imposed sets of constraints that are
empirically found to lead to better software (for whatever axes of 'better'
makes sense for your team - faster, feature richer, higher quality, etc.)
Scrum gives you a baseline set of rules to abide by. Any team who've worked
with Scrum for more than a few months will start to tweak, add to or remove
from these rules. If they're any good, they'll measure their tweaking and see
what works and what doesn't. This is the whole point of having a
retrospective.
As another example, if you want to include quantifiable performance bounds in
your stories, do so. We work Scrum-ish, and we have a set of QA steps for
every story implicit in its delivery (works across supported browsers, feels
fast, immune to common security errors, etc). We test for this, and we demo
it, but it's not articulated in every story. It's implicit in our work.
~~~
rbarooah
If they weren't able to adjust their rules to become effective before they
adopted scrum, why should they be able to do so afterwards?
~~~
marcusf
Who are 'they'? It might be that teams come from a more rigorous environment
with project plans and imposed rules and were never given the chance to
experiment with how they create software, or they might come from an
environment without any rules whatsoever. Both work for a lot of companies,
but usually you try something like Scrum because they don't.
A lot of times it requires a change of mindset where managers and executives
have to relinquish control and trust developers to do what's right. That might
not be the easiest thing in the world.
------
sqrt17
I'm not a hardcore scrum proponent, but "Scrum compensates for lack of X, and
hence works less well for people who have X" is not necessarily true. Being
able to swap the product backlog can help correct planning errors, but it
doesn't make planning skills obsolete. What it does, though, is to assign an
exact responsability for planning errors (sunken costs through unneeded
functionality are the product owner's fault, changes in plans that are not
realized yet are not realized).
Many important things in a Scrum process can be achieved through the
definition of what is "done". If you know for sure what parts need to be
optimized, then optimizing them may be part of getting them "done". If you
don't, then there is no point in pointlessly optimizing the whole system where
only a fraction of these optimizations will be useful and the rest of them
just make the code less readable.
------
Argorak
I am beginning to think that even small teams should be split in two groups:
feature and maintenance (even if this means a 3person/1person split). I often
see the need for internal tooling and polishing that is never met, because
there is no one assigned to it, everyone has to build features. Scrum is a
great tool for feature-driven development. Kanban is a great tool for
continuous tasks. Why not have one team doing Scrum for features and one
Kanban for maintenance? I often see that split in companies that have
developers and a separate admin group, why not do that for developers
internally?
This would eliminate the "optimizing considered harmful" point, because there
is group that can work on continuous improvement.
~~~
Deestan
I'm imagining that will cause unpleasant friction between the two.
The Feature group get all the credit and are heroes for solving things
quickly, while the Maintenance group have to clean up their bloody mess
without getting any recognition.
~~~
Argorak
I think thats a problem in general. I've seen companies where the admin team
was highly regarded, although all they did was (good) maintenance work. But
they were also good in talking about this in a way of "this and that got
better _in general_ because, over the last weeks, we worked on improving _this
and that_ ". The idea of actually naming the people that have to do
maintenance also gives them the possibility of talking about it in context of
their work.
------
jrabone
Totally agree. The whole Agile farce is about treating programmers as idiots
who'll end up putting a flight simulator in your spreadsheet unless you nail
them to a task card, and program managers as drooling morons who spin a wheel
of fortune to pick the direction.
Now, there are some companies who DO develop like that - I'd venture to
suggest they aren't the successful ones.
Hire better developers, hire better managers, incentivise the lot of them to
care about the thing they're building. Ditch the Agile crap, it's about
minimising the damage incompetent people can do to your project, while
compromising the best people until they too are just mediocre.
~~~
marcusf
Not to be confrontational, but I'd wager that you've never developed in an
agile context for any longer period of time?
~~~
jrabone
The last 7-odd years in my 20 year career, 50 (very smart) people, multiple
teams. Long enough to watch it spread through a company, with the attendant
disruption, only to be revised away as the realisation set in that, like so
many silver bullets, it was only nickel-plated at best.
Now I'm watching as another 'Agile' team pushes 6x4 cards around (at least
they've managed to adopt a half-assed electronic version of that). Sadly
there's no methodology that'll save them, but that's a different problem.
~~~
marcusf
Then I don't get the hostility displayed in your original comment. Of course
it's not a silver bullet, it's a set of tools for managing development
together with a philosophy of work.
YMMV but we've used several agile ideas (for example iterations,
retrospectives, stop-the-line) to great effect to reign in scope creep,
increase quality, reduce overtime and make people happier, overall.
------
peteretep
The thrust of this article seems to be that Scrum is designed to work in the
real world, rather than in a made up utopia the author admits doesn't exist.
Great.
~~~
rbarooah
I think the authors argument is not that Scrum isn't better than many other
approaches, just that it may have the downside of limiting further process
development when teams are healthy.
------
adrianhoward
The article doesn't really resonate with my experiences of working with good
Scrum teams.
It does, however, sound very much like some organisations I've been involved
with who have adopted one or two of the Scrum practices, but haven't really
understood the core of the process.
Scrum teams should be relentlessly focussed on improvement.
It's a deliberately minimal process which can help in of itself since
everything outside of that process is open to question and change.
Even ignoring that of the five regularly scheduled events in Scrum two,
arguably three, are specifically focussed on self-assessment and improvement
(Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective are the definite ones. I'd also argue
for the Daily Standup/Scrum because of the focus on obstacles in the way of
progress).
Now there are certainly criticisms that I have of Scrum - but thinking folk
are stupid and not fixing problems are very definitely not on the list. If a
team does not focus on improving their process every sprint then _they are not
doing Scrum by definition_.
------
saool
Then Scrum is smart.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Office comparison: 37signals vs Zappos - wlll
http://thinkvitamin.com/web-industry/37signals-vs-zappos/
======
frisco
I wouldn't want to work in Zappos's office. It just doesn't look appealing to
me at all. On the other hand, the 37s offices feel _cool_. The Zappos offices
are Office Space-like cubicles covered in random crap. The 37s offices send a
very different message; if you're going to work in an office (hopefully, not
all the time), I'd much rather be in that environment.
I think it comes down to this: the style of the 37s offices (like many other
designed offices) is more like what I see when I think of the "future". And
I'd much rather be living and working in the future than cubes covered in
random crap.
~~~
dmix
I'd also imagine the people who work at 37s are generally introverted
developer/designers while Zappos is packed full of extroverts.
I'd expect different environments for both.
Does the Zappos engineering dept look the same?
~~~
billpaetzke
Also notice the different gender makeup:
* only men are in the 37signals pics
* only women are in the Zappos pics
------
zachallaun
37signals' office seems to say, "You're in, you're out." Fried has, on
multiple occasions, suggested that offices are the downfall of work. You're
more productive in your natural environment. Their office seems to reflect
that: You come in to work, quickly and efficiently, and then you leave and
head home to get your real work done.
In contrast, Zappos' office seems to say, "You're already home."
[edit] It's also worth pointing out that these companies are employing very
different people. Zappos has a huge focus on customer service, and their
"people friendly" office reflects that. The engineers and designers at
37signals, however, very well may appreciate the minimalism and simplicity of
their environment.
~~~
mikeryan
To be fair, I'm pretty sure those 37signals pictures were taken right after
they moved in. Imagine what cubicle hell Zappo's would have looked like when
they first moved in.
It would be interesting to see any changes made after a year or so once
everyone has settled in a bit.
~~~
jasonfried
They were, you're right. The office will change over time as we settle in.
It's already a lot more lively than those pictures showed. We have plants and
fresh flowers and art and books and some other things starting to make their
way into the space. Time takes care of the personality.
~~~
rhizome
I really like that 37S chose actual chalkboards.
~~~
x0t
What about dust?
~~~
rhizome
Canned air should be as fine as it is for other kinds of dust. Chalk is
basically inert, so there are no worries about affecting electronics or
anything like that.
------
acrum
Zappos would drive me crazy. I have been in an environment like that. It's
"cute" at first, but then you realize you're just living in a messy corporate
cubicle. It really inhibits work if your job is something such as development
or design, in my opinion... just too much visual noise.
37signals office seems virtually distraction-free. If you need groups of
people to work together efficiently in an office environment (that is still
comfortable and not a cubicle farm), this is the kind of space works well, I
think. Because they have so many remote employees, I think they want their
real "office" to be Campfire anyway.
There is a significant difference in philosophy with how the companies
operate, I think. Zappos wants people to be comfortable (or 'at home') where
they work, and 37signals wants people to work wherever they are comfortable.
~~~
primigenus
"Zappos wants people to be comfortable where they work, and 37signals wants
people to work wherever they are comfortable."
What a great way to summarise the difference between the two.
------
petercooper
The Pixar offices take an interesting middle ground. They have the flair and
joy of Zappos but avoid the generic cube aesthetic:
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/veerles-blog/461586084/>
While I like 37signals, their sterile office would drive me nuts, but so would
the extreme state of disarray at Zappos'. The Pixar model keeps the craziness
slightly organized and not all in view at once.
~~~
dereg
I love these offices. They have the sophistication of the 37signals and yet
without the sterility. There's warmth and inspiring comfort.
------
subbu
Apples to Oranges. Zappos is a support oriented culture whereas folks at 37s
need a lot of quite time. I can't imagine Jamis Buck writing all his awesome
maze algorithms while surrounded by balloons and tents everywhere.
~~~
ssharp
It's definitely apples-to-oranges.
If you're a phone/email CSR, you might enjoy being in a slightly more
stimulating environment because you're daily job duties are less stimulating
and more mundane.
If you're working on software, you might enjoy the options of quite space,
cleanliness. For a company like 37signals, where design takes such a focus,
having a nicely designed and organized space might help inspire the company's
output. Also, 37s had previously blogged about holding events in their office,
so their physical presence must gel with their online image.
------
davidw
The Zappos pictures make me think of someone getting called in "we need to
talk about your flair".
~~~
rhizome
It seems apparent that everybody is striving to emulate Tony. I would also
venture that their hiring process filters for people amenable to that culture.
Could be a distinction without a difference, but some of those "streamers
tucked into the dropped ceiling" look a little forced.
------
AlexandrB
I like the Zappos approach - in theory.
However (and maybe I'm a control freak) the imposed clutter of the Zappos
office would drive me nuts! No place to think and concentrate because of a
constant barrage of visual noise.
Similarly, in theory I also like my roommate.
But some of the mess he imposes on my life drives me mad.
------
richcollins
_Something tells me that if someone at 37signals put up a huge green and blue
tent around their desk, they wouldn’t get a high-five in the hallway. The
unspoken message to 37signals employees is this: “Don’t touch. Don’t put your
stamp on this office.”_
Or maybe the 37signals employees had the good taste to pass on turning their
workspace into a kindergarten classroom when given the option.
------
yatsyk
Zappos workspace is bad from programmer point of view. Open space with lot of
crap, phones on tables. May be this workspace is good for communication,
someone could feel more happy in this workspace and so on but it's terrible
for hacking. It looks like this envirement encourage interraptions. 37s office
much better for productive work.
~~~
petercooper
You say that, but Zappos' offices look more like most hacker personal spaces
I've seen (just replace streamers with cables and turn the lights right
down..) I know more geeks who live in a mess than those who adopt a stylistic,
minimal approach. But maybe I know too many Unix nerds.. ;-)
~~~
binarycheese
You are confusing gamers with programmers
~~~
petercooper
That's not the case (though admittedly most of them were _also_ gamers ;-)).
Most Unix beards I know live in, well, not exactly filth but "jumble."
------
topcat31
I visited the Zappos office while I was in Las Vegas recently (proof:
<http://dis.tl/haPmaA>) and must attest to how unbelievably amazing and
awesome their offices are. The culture and morale is simply breathtaking.
That said, I think that it's tied much more closely to the culture than to
just the nik-naks that litter the office (though clearly they are a part of
it).
I like this post and it's good to get a look at the two offices but it would
be great to get more of an understanding of HOW the office environment affects
the office culture.
------
antidaily
_Your office ≠ your product_
Not sure this is true. I think it has to do with culture. I'm sure a lot of
the adjectives one would use to describe 37signals's office could also be used
to describe the company and/or their products.
------
arrel
What a reflction of the attitudes of each company towards their customers.
Zappos is all about coming down to the level of their users and having fun
with them. 37Signals has finally built their ivory tower, and they want
customers to think of their product as a door into that tower.
If they were political parties, Zappos would be the FDR Democrats and
37Signals would be the Libertarians.
------
hsmyers
Having worked in two disparate offices; a Capital One debt recovery phone bank
and Electronic Arts; both of which follow the Zappos model, I'd say that if it
doesn't get in the way of production be it code or money collection then why
waste time on non-productive issues. To me this is much the same as insisting
on suits for programmers...
~~~
rhizome
I worked at EA as well and it's exactly what I thought of when I saw the
Zappos offices.
------
unfug
Office design should reflect what the employees in the office are trying to
accomplish. As a developer, all of that crazy stuff in Zappos' office would be
a huge distraction to me. I haven't checked, but I'd be a little surprised if
developers' cubes/offices were as over-the-top at Zappos as those for their
customer service reps.
------
run4yourlives
Look at the markets they sell to. 37Signals needs to remain professional and
appear competent, because they routinely buck established business "truths"
and this draws attention.
I wouldn't listen to a person telling me they have a better way of conducting
business from inside a green tent. Sorry, I'd think they were an immature
kid...
...which is exactly why Zappos' approach works. They distribute a hip, cool
product to people based on other businesses' reputation. The only thing they
need to do is ship something once the right way to convince a retail customer
they are competent enough to take a pair of shoes (or whatever) from point A
to point B.
People have very different expectations with regards to the deliverables of
the companies. The office space simply flows from that.
------
nimrody
Interesting to compare these with
[http://positivesharing.com/2006/10/10-seeeeeriously-cool-
wor...](http://positivesharing.com/2006/10/10-seeeeeriously-cool-workplaces/)
\-- especially Pixar's office which is downright beautiful.
Personally, while I'm not so fond of the total mess Zappos's offices look
like, I find 37s a bit too tidy, cold and uninviting.
Bottom line - it is more important who are your neighbors (assuming you are
working together) than what the place looks like. Smart and friendly coworkers
are priceless!
------
zlopid
I think the styles are more similar than Ryan makes it out - both have control
over their environments, but in different ways. At Zappos, they have standard
half-height cubes and they control their environment by sticking things on the
wall and hanging it from the ceiling. At 37signals, I recall that they
designed that office - they had a deeper influence on their environment than
Zappos. Same thing, but a different style, and each one very much demonstrates
the company culture.
~~~
tomkarlo
Okay, but if you are hired after the new offices were designed, you now have
no input into the design and no "right" to customize the environment. I"m not
a fan of the Zappos office (it would drive me bonkers) but I do think folks
should have a right to express their personality in their work environment so
that they can feel more at "home". 37signals doesn't just look clean, it looks
severe, sterile and unwelcoming - I remember a lot of dot-com marketing firms
having offices like that in New York (anyone else remember the shark tanks at
KPE?)
As I look around my work space right now, it's reasonably "business-like" but
it's also obvious there is a lot of WORK getting done - white boards covered
in post-its and sketches, index cards with stories tacked to the wall, etc.
Those artifacts allow our team to cooperate better, but they're also part of
how we "own" the space and make it ours.
------
chopsueyar
I would like to see what the 37signals office looks like after a year.
------
djwebb1977
Both have positive notes but I think if the two offices bred the offspring
would be closer to what I consider ideal. There is a lot of noise with all the
flair at Zappos but the 37s space lacks fun & individuality. So something with
the clean aesthetic of 37s with a shot of Zappos individualism would bring it
home for me.
------
kellishaver
I think if I had to work in the Zappos office, I'd probably develop at least
one nervous tic by about lunch time. I don't see how anyone could concentrate
to get actual work done, with all the visual and likely auditory distraction
of such a cluttered, bright, flashy space. I don't just get distracted if
there's a lot of clutter around me, I actually get depressed, become extremely
introverted and irritated, and the part of my brain that cares about stuff
just shuts down. I'm the same way if I'm around a lot of noise. I probably
have some sort of sensory issue there.
My home office is quiet and free of clutter, but still warm and inviting, with
about 8 different adjustable levels of lighting, depending on my mood. It took
me a while to get it the way I want it, and it is by no means fancy, but it's
the most comfortable work environment I've had so far.
------
scrame
This seems like it is because 37signals is a primarily design driven company,
while zappos is more of a backend engineering company.
The design folks, like the article says, are more concerned with a clean
presentation and tidy appearance, the programmer style is more concerned with
being a place that they can feel is surreal and comfortable enough that they
can just work there continuously and feel comfort in the geekiness.
That being said, I work squarely in the latter camp and am glad that I don't
feel obligated to take part in the corporate sponsored 'whackyness'! Maybe
because I don't like feeling obligated to be in the office more, than
necessary. I like having random stuff at my desk, but this reeks of Office
Space style flair.
------
mhartl
Zappos and 37signals hire (for the most part) different kinds of people for
very different jobs. I, for example, would be much more likely to work for
37signals, and I also find their office much more appealing. I don't think
that's a coincidence.
------
d0m
I guess 37signals hires employees that like the design of the place. i.e.
personally, I really like how 37signals is designed and I wouldn't even think
of putting something weird on the wall.. so in a way, 37signals let me design
the place how _I_ want it to be (clean and empty). So, by working in a clean
place, I control my environment by letting it stay clean.
In contrast, working at Zappos's office, how would I be able to control my
clean environment?
------
mannicken
37signals office is similar to left-brain: ordered, clean, and structured.
Zappos office is right-brain oriented: a bunch of spontaneous stuff
everywhere.
What this actually means is that Zappos overload and "shutdown" right brain,
making left brain talk to people (verbal communication is the left brain's
job).
37signals overload the left brain, making right brain hack software and come
up with out-of-the-box solutions to problems.
------
c2
I don't really care what my office looks like. The most important thing to me
is the team I'm working with followed closely by the things I'm working on.
The appearance of the office space is so far down the list of my priorities as
to be negligible.
As long as I'm excited to go to work, the actual appearance of the office
makes very little difference to me.
------
elai
37 signals looks like a library, especially with the study booth style desks
at the sides of the windows and the carpet style. The wide hallways add to the
public lobby effect. I love the hardwood flooring, the central walls and the
meeting rooms. The phone booth rooms with rubber sound dampening panels are
genius
------
hasenj
I've worked in a zappos like office. The problem is not the mess on the
cubicles -- I was ok with that. The problem: it was too noisy. You could
hardly concentrate or think. And the work sucked. The technical infrastructure
was horrible.
------
bguthrie
Interestingly, Rackspace--another very service-oriented company--has an office
culture very similar to Zappos. I wonder if it's common to more companies
highly focused on customer support as a differentiator.
------
joeybaker
Summary: "Look how different these offices are. But wait, it turns out the way
offices look doesn't matter."
------
cfontes
Awesome post ! thanks for this !
------
mkramlich
shoe sales vs programming
big difference in type of people needed and what those people need to be happy
and productive.
------
mkramlich
summary: too much flair vs not enough
(Office Space movie reference. Hilarious must see.)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lexus hoverboard in motion - bitzerlander
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awAzM9kTvC0&feature=youtu.be&sf11678837=1
======
paulhauggis
It needs a magnetic surface to work. How is this practical?
~~~
DanBC
Skateboard parks; amusement parks.
~~~
bitzerlander
Maybe a prototype for magnetic roads and hover cars?
~~~
DanBC
You have to refill it every ten minutes with liquid helium. That skatepark has
hundreds of thousands of dollars of magnets in it.
A fun, expensive, bizarrely impractical, toy.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Announcing the OpenFaaS Function Store - alexellisuk
https://blog.alexellis.io/announcing-function-store/
======
alexellisuk
Stefan's function is pretty cool but it sounds like you guys are up for the
challenge of submitting something even better to the store. Looking forward to
seeing your PRs - get creative!
[https://twitter.com/kelseyhightower/status/93589059037769728...](https://twitter.com/kelseyhightower/status/935890590377697281?lang=en)
------
michaelmior
Really cool to see! I did feel the need to make this one correction though
> when you're LetsEncrypt SSL certificate
This should be "your."
~~~
rorpage
Fixed
------
forrestbrazeal
How can this compete with the recently announced AWS Serverless App Repo? [0]
That service is still in preview (and they may not be whitelisting folks yet),
but it sure seems like it could be a category killer.
[0]
[https://aws.amazon.com/serverless/serverlessrepo/](https://aws.amazon.com/serverless/serverlessrepo/)
~~~
willitpamp573
Maybe you're running on non-AWS cloud or on-prem. Maybe you want to run a
function that is written in a language that isn't supported by Lambda. Maybe
your function is too complex for Lambda or would be too expensive. Maybe you
already have a Kubernetes cluster running so deploying OpenFaaS is trivial and
comes at no additional cost.
------
burtonr
This is a great way to quickly and easily try out OpenFaaS by seeing some of
the things OF functions can do with nearly no setup!
------
zimbatm
It has all the important functions like left-pad.
~~~
alexellisuk
We need your functions zimbatm - whether light-hearted like left-pad or more
involved like the TensorFlow + imagenet example
------
jbob2000
> One of my favourite functions (certinfo) reports back on when you're
> LetsEncrypt SSL certificate is going to expire. How handy is that?
I can't help but feel that this is over-engineering to its highest degree.
What is a calendar for? Create an event in Google Calendar or whatever and
have it notify you a few days in advance. Completely non-technical solution
that everybody already knows how to do.
~~~
perlgeek
Not at all. Let's say you manage 100 machines, possibly for different domains,
and each generates their own certs. Now you probably want monitoring that
alerts you when the certificate is about to expire in the next 20 days (you
can renew them 30 days before they expire, without running into rate limit
shenanigans).
With 100 servers, you'll have on average about two calendar entries per day,
most of which are no-ops, because the certificate renewal worked fine.
~~~
lkerrekfjk
You certainly do not need "infinite scaling" to do that. Just a queue of
workers running on a dumb server or even just a crontab... Yes it is the very
definition of over engineering.
~~~
perlgeek
No, you don't need "infinite scaling" for just that. But if you have a FaaS-
Setup anyway, you might as well reuse it for such relatively simple (but still
useful) tasks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tech Downtime in 2010: Learn From Foursquare, Skype, Twitter, Digg and Facebook - sliggity
http://bostinnovation.com/2010/12/30/tech-downtime-in-2010-learn-from-foursquare-skype-twitter-digg-and-facebook/
======
brianwillis
Surprised Tumblr didn't make this list after the incident in early December
where they had more than 12 hours of downtime.
~~~
kmccarth
Ahh great call totally forgot about the DDoS attacks those 4-channers put on
tumblr.
I guess the lesson learned from the tumblr downtime is don't piss off 4Chan
------
kmccarth
in this article, I cover briefly why these big sites had downtime in 2010. I
offer simple advice to a non-technical crowd on how to avoid certain mistakes.
Obviously, the situations at all of these sites were pretty complex
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Thank the Ottoman Empire for the taco al pastor - Vigier
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-05-07/thank-ottoman-empire-taco-youre-eating
======
sporro
mmm
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Rejection Catalyzed Zuckerberg, Michael Jordan And Other Winners - woodywoodruff
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-rejection-catalyzed-zuckerberg-michael-jordan-and-other-winners-2010-11
======
pgbovine
i hope when the author refers to zuck's "rejection", he/she isn't referring to
the narrative popularized by The Social Network movie that he started
facemash/facebook purely motivated by getting rejected by girls (or
'mainstream society'). from what i've heard and read from the news, it doesn't
seem like zuck was a 'reject' at all. he grew up in an upper-middle-class
community, went to a prestigious boarding school, then Harvard, all while
having great opportunities to develop his amazing hacking talent. it seems
like he grew up surrounded by geeks and other uber-smart people, so i hardly
think that the origins of facebook were from a sense of 'rejection' (although
that makes for a more sensational blog post).
------
zoomzoom
There is a chinese proverb that also says something along these lines: "In
order to shrink something, you must first allow it to expand."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Slicehost now has 32-bit images - simonk
http://www.slicehost.com/articles/2010/3/1/32-bit-images-now-available
======
timmorgan
_we have created a 64-bit Slice and kernel with a 32-bit userland_
Does this mean memory consumption will be similar to that of 64-bit images,
since the kernels are the same?
It seems the same amount of memory on Slicehost slices doesn't go quite as far
as that on 32-bit VPSes.
~~~
davidw
No, it doesn't go as far.
<http://journal.dedasys.com/2008/11/24/slicehost-vs-linode>
Which is unfortunate, because their pricing isn't _that_ bad if that's not a
factor. And they seem like good people with good service.
------
jrockway
These 32-bit machines use too much memory. I only need a 31-bit address space!
Can you guys please drop everything to support my micro-optimization needs?
~~~
justinsb
I agree ... it's a major pain on EC2 to have separate images that are only
used for the smallest instance sizes. While 32 bit vs 64 bit pointers do save
RAM on these small machines, I think you make a good point in an amusing way,
and you shouldn't be downvoted for that.
~~~
jrockway
I am mostly commenting on the comments on the blog. "You guys have excellent
customer service, so maybe I'll switch back after you make some obscure change
for me that I could make myself, but am too lazy to."
If you want a 32bit userland, just make a directory, debootstrap the i386
userland there, and schroot to it. It's a 30 second operation.
------
peterwwillis
_"Unfortunately, the RPM based distro's such as CentOS and Fedora do not have
32-bit ELF support so we are, at this stage, unable to offer equivalent images
for those particular distros."_
Wow. I didn't know Slicehost was on crack.
Can somebody explain to me WTF they mean that RPM-based distros don't have
support for 32-bit ELF files? CentOS and Fedora have been using 32-bit ELF
binaries for _ever_.
~~~
sharms
I suspect what they mean is that Fedora doesn't support running at 64-bit
kernel with a 32-bit userland. The problem starts with the initramfs, and I
suppose slicehost is not in the business of modifying to underlying OS all
that much.
[http://www.mail-archive.com/fedora-
[email protected]/msg47714....](http://www.mail-archive.com/fedora-
[email protected]/msg47714.html)
~~~
peterwwillis
Modern CentOS distros ship both 32-bit and 64-bit binaries (including 64-bit
kernels). All they should need to do is kick a 64-bit image and remove the
64-bit binaries, and change your yum repo to a 32-bit one only. If the initrd
was an issue they'd just switch to the other arch's initrd or rebuild
kickstart-images with whatever support they need. This is pretty easy stuff.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Russians Love Opera Browsers, Has The 2nd Highest Share In The Country - adeelarshad82
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2386723,00.asp
======
bluekeybox
> It's a bit of a mystery, but surely if nearly a third of Russian web surfers
> have made it their default it just might be time for the rest of the world
> to take it for a test drive
I can shed some light on this "mystery". Shortly after moving to the U.S. in
the year 2000, I noticed that a number of my computer-literate friends who
remained in Ukraine (which is where I was from) were using Opera browser. They
were "hacker" types -- the kind, if they were from the U.S., you would expect
to be using Mozilla/Firefox on Linux (I was switching between Mozilla and
Konqueror on Linux at the time). However, nearly all of them were running
Opera on Windows instead. I remember thinking that this stemmed from the fact
that the "open-source" culture originated in the West and was slow to spread
to the former Soviet block because of network effects and because of the ease
with which Windows could be pirated in the 2nd world. Meanwhile, Russian
hackers, not being entirely stupid, quickly concluded that MS Internet
Explorer is not the best browser out there and switched to an alternative --
which happened to be Opera. Had the open source culture been more prevalent in
Russia at the time, they would have chosen Firefox. The current popularity of
Opera in those countries is probably entirely due to network effects
originating from those early adopters.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Two Kids, In Two Years: Best Time Management Strategy Ever - voidfiles
http://alexkessinger.net/story/two-kids-two-years-best-time-management-strategy-ever
======
bad_user
> _Maybe you don't need to have kids, but you do need to find some kind of
> full filling activity, outside of start ups. It will help you focus when you
> aren't doing that activity._
This definitely sounds true.
Taking it a little further ... startups are all about freedom and money.
As time goes by, those count less and less for me personally. The freedom you
get comes with extra responsibilities, and you really don't need that much
money to be happy.
But there's nothing like a kid coming into the picture ... a little boy is on
the way and I want to be there for him in every possible way, never miss his
first steps and provide him with all the financial support he needs to succeed
in life. Suddenly regular employment doesn't sound so great.
Entrepreneurship is exhausting, life itself is exhausting and for the long
term you need a motivator outside of feeding your hungry ego.
------
ivankirigin
Having a kid is extremely focusing. I had an 8 month old at the start of YC.
There was nothing else. With my second's recent arrival, I'm focusing a lot on
what I want to do with my time.
------
fondue
Good luck being able to plan that, we tried to have two kids in two years but
nature intervened; my wife became pregnant within two months of trying with
our eldest and no matter what we tried it took four years for our second.
------
mkramlich
0 kids in 50 years: even better than "best"
~~~
rfreytag
The moment I held my first child changed me for the better. The effect was of
stumbling on an Easter Egg hidden in my software. Revelation is an
understatement.
~~~
quickpost
Can you go into more detail about this? I'm struggling with the decision of
whether to have a child with my significant other, and wouldn't mind hearing
more about how it has affected your mental state, along with your professional
life.
Thanks!
~~~
rfreytag
"Purpose"
Your child trusts you completely. Everything you do matters to him/her
utterly. Your child withholds nothing and you find yourself, compelled to
answer in kind.
I am a stay-at-home Dad running a small software company. My son was born a
few weeks after I submitted the first proposal to develop the new product. His
first two and a half years have been circumscribed by that contract.
My daughter was born when the follow on contract went live. Her first two and
half years have also been circumscribed by a contract - the second one.
The late nights, early mornings, urgent crises, and - yes - triumphs (mine and
my childrens') have been uncountable. You must manage your time around this.
You won't have time to luxuriate in exploration before the Person from Porlock
knocks. I miss the exploring. Sleep like a soldier when you can, work fast
when you mind is clear and the house silent. I used to stay up late - now we
are awoken with the sun by the Son.
I have aged 10 years in 5 - no question about it. I also have lived 10 years
in a very full 5.
Caution, 2 children is more than twice as hard. Space them out - be in diapers
with one at a time. Have family nearby (we did not) as the buffer softens the
really hard times when everything goes wrong or everyone is sick.
To your partner - be deeply affectionate for no reason and often. You will
gain reserves for the tough times.
That makes four startups - business, marriage, and two doses of purpose.
~~~
cwp
"Purpose" is exactly right. I've been meaning to start a business for years,
but I kept getting sucked into other people's projects because they were
working on great stuff. Being a parent has _really_ forced me to extend my
planning horizon, get organized, figure out what's important (for my family as
well as myself) and devote myself to it.
When my daughter was born, I took 8 months off from my day job, intending to
divide my time between taking care of the baby and banging out a prototype. I
expected that I'd be able to work while the baby was asleep. That was true,
but what I didn't expect was that my free time would come in very short
intervals. I found I couldn't maintain focus long enough to create something
new.
Instead, I switched strategies and started doing contract work. That was
better; with well-defined tasks, I could make real progress in 15 or 20
minutes, be interrupted and then efficiently pickup where I left off. That was
a setback, no doubt, but it hasn't derailed me the way it once would have.
Not making progress on my prototype delays my startup plans, but it does put
me in a better financial position to carry them out. My purpose is clear and
concrete. It's not some abstract ambition like making "a lot" of money,
gaining the admiration of my peers, or "being a success." It's to be able to
give my family what they need, as completely as possible.
So being a parent has forced me to take a slower, more deliberate path, but
it's also given me the determination required to walk it.
------
TotlolRon
Two Kids, In Two Years: Best.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Game made using only CSS - pwim
http://asiajin.com/blog/2011/05/24/css-only-no-flashjavascript-browser-action-game/
======
rodh257
It's good to see something that is advertised as 'only CSS' or 'pure CSS' that
is actually pure CSS and doesn't have any javascript.
------
aw3c2
blogspam, source is
[http://ndruger.lolipop.jp//hatena/20110429/css_game/css_game...](http://ndruger.lolipop.jp//hatena/20110429/css_game/css_game.htm)
~~~
akkyakimoto
There are a lot of non-English news there. Without translation, it had not
been noticed for about a month for example.
------
astrodust
Based on the source, it's kind of clever. Each "cow" and "haystack" are a pair
of radio buttons, so clicking on the cow toggles the select state for both
simultaneously. This combines with some fancy CSS animation to make the cows
fly around so they're harder to click.
~~~
meric
I still don't get how the counter is incremented.
~~~
johnswamps
The counter is a large image with every possible score
([http://ndruger.lolipop.jp//hatena/20110429/css_game/images/c...](http://ndruger.lolipop.jp//hatena/20110429/css_game/images/counter_image.png)).
Initially only the top of the image is shown, but as the radio buttons are
clicked it makes visible some spacing elements which move the image so the
next score is shown.
~~~
trafficlight
I see. So each input is being made visible in sequence and the overflow
outside of #counter is hidden.
------
ewolfe
source <https://github.com/ndruger/css-game>
------
DCoder
More pure CSS minigames can be seen at <http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menu/> ,
under Puzzles.
~~~
rimantas
This one <http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menu/amazing.html> was created in 2004.
That's seven years ago…
[http://web.archive.org/web/20041030050027/http://www.stunich...](http://web.archive.org/web/20041030050027/http://www.stunicholls.myby.co.uk/menu/amazing.html)
~~~
rufibarbatus
The problem of programming a game based on :hover states is that you can cheat
the game by using a context menu to pass through the walls.
------
zbowling
Clever. Does this count as CSS being turing complete yet?
~~~
paulitex
Can you use CSS to throw your browser into an infinite loop?
~~~
qntm
I've seen this, in situations where a link is set to become bold when the
mouse pointer is hovering over it. The result is that the text becomes bold,
and redistributes itself. Having redistributed itself, the bold link is no
longer under your mouse pointer, so the link shrinks back to normal font
weight. Now the link is back under your mouse pointer so it becomes bold
again. Repeat.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lyft-Off: Zimride’s Long Road to Overnight Success - nikunjk
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/29/6000-words-about-a-pink-mustache/
======
joshfraser
I first met Logan when he was working on ZimRide. He is a great example of a
passionate, mission-focused entrepreneur. It's neat to watch Lyft get back to
their roots with the recent launch of Lyft Line.
~~~
weixiyen
Seconded. Logan is class act. It's great to see Lyft doing well. They are a
nice contrast to how Uber operates.
------
untilHellbanned
Happy to accept downvotes for making the minor comment of saying I'm happy to
see Lfyt's years of efforts in improving transportation paying off. This is so
much better to hear than Uber's tale of one-upmanship.
~~~
vikramhaer
Curious - why did you feel the need to start your comment like that rather
than just saying 'I'm happy to see Lfyt's years of efforts in improving
transportation paying off. This is so much better to hear than Uber's tale of
one-upmanship.'?
~~~
untilHellbanned
Because comments interpreted as "good job team!" often get downvoted for not
adding much value to the conversation.
I wanted to show my support for Lyft and dislike of Uber regardless of how it
would impact my karma.
------
carl8
Good Story!
I have a little story of my own. :-)
I met Logan Green the day that he first launched Zimride, at a student-run
conference on climate change at UC Berkeley, in March 2007.
At the time I was working on a very similar social carpooling website
"GotALift", but it wasn't yet ready to launch. I had also planned to announce
my website launch to the exact same group of college students, so when he beat
me to it with an almost identical product, I was a bit disappointed.
When I met him and got the chance to speak with him, I wanted to see if we
could work together. No sense both working on competing websites!
At one point I jokingly suggested that we could rename Zimride to GotALift.
Zimride was really rough and buggy at launch, as he was the sole person
working on it, and it was clearly rushed to make in time for the conference. I
offered to help fix it up. At one point he offered to split the company 50/50
with me, but then changed his mind. Something about talking it over with his
friend, who was going to help him get some funding so that they could contract
out the development work rather than have me on as a tech cofounder. I thought
that was a bit silly, since he had no money at that point and sharing equity
wouldn't have cost him anything! I could understand him being cautious, but I
thought we could have worked something out. Sadly it didn't end up happening.
Zimride became rapidly more popular during that summer since it rode the wave
of new applications on Facebook's new platform. I ended up scrapping my
unfinished social carpooling website because I didn't want people thinking I
was making a Zimride copycat (a mistake, looking back), and I ended up
rewriting it into a search engine with the goal to searching multiple
carpooling websites, the "Kayak of Carpooling". I figured there were all these
rideshare websites popping up which could use a way to search them all. That
project went nowhere, other than a contracting gig for a local transit agency.
Fast forward to 2012. Zimride finally releases a mobile app, then their Lyft
app shortly thereafter.
Next year, Zimride renames their company to Lyft!
------
pnathan
> They asked lead engineer Sebastian Brannstrom how long it would take to spec
> out the new product. “About two months,” he replied. They told him to have
> it finished in two weeks.
Real nice, guys. Would 6 extra weeks have really broken the back of things
that bad?
... that said, I do like Lyft a lot.
~~~
joshfraser
2 months is generally an unacceptable amount of time to spec out an experiment
at a startup. Things move faster than that. It's amazing what you can build in
two weeks with the right motivation.
------
fillskills
Glad to see the story behind a startup focused on a mission to change the
world for a better place. What a ride it has been for the founders.
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Does the Highway Patrol Keep Us Safe? - cwan
http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/03/28/does-the-highway-patrol-keep-us-safe/
======
yannickmahe
Interesting facts. Could replacing the highway patrol by automated radar
systems work? I'd like to see a study of that.
Also interesting is the fact that the article title seems to lead to a "no",
but the answer ends up being "yes".
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Subsets and Splits