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Design Doc: Use JavaScript instead of TypeScript for internal Deno Code - rkrishnaan
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_WvwHl7BXUPmoiSeD8G83JmS8ypsTPqed4Btkqkn_-4/edit#heading=h.cx5nx247bag
======
temporallobe
This cones as no surprise to me, as TypeScript is a transpiled language. I
know this is probably an unpopular opinion at HN, but I am a huge supporter of
plain old JavaScript and have never really seen the benefits of DSLs like
this. Coffeescript was especially pointless to me when I had to use it on a
project. My reasons are simple: debugging becomes much more difficult when you
add a layer of abstraction. It compiles to JavaScript anyway, and sometimes it
does so in very odd ways that makes it difficult to understand the
relationship between what you wrote and what it produced. IMO, straight
JavaScript is more than adequate for most scenarios if you know the language
well enough, especially with the powerful features built into the more recent
versions. In my 20 years as a (mostly) front-end developer, I have not heard
any convincing argument in favor of a transpiled JavaScript pseudo-language.
Of course there are advantages, but most of these can be solved with better
code organization and architecture.
I will say I don’t quite feel as strongly about CSS pre-processors like SCSS,
which I really enjoy, however I still prefer plain old CSS for the same basic
reasons.
~~~
Agent766
My team started development of a React SPA. It was initially written with jsx.
As we're starting to implement more, I'm finding more and more cases where the
js code was wrong; property names that don't exist, wrong types being passed
around, and non-existent props being used.
How do you suggest addressing this in a 10 dev team when developing in js?
~~~
thegreatpeter
Check out [https://reasonml.org](https://reasonml.org) \- created by Jordan
Walke, the creator of React. Reason offers the best of both worlds - type
safety without getting in the way and faster JS than what you'd write by hand.
~~~
searchableguy
As much as I would shill reasonml. Think before you adopt - it still requires
more upfront work than typescript (you will have to write bindings for most
things even popular stuff. You might end up fighting it too.) but as parent
said, you get more expressiveness (algebraic types, powerful pattern matching,
immutability, partial application etc) and sound type system with a speedup on
both transpile times and actual run time.
You can leverage ocaml/ml as well as js ecosystem. Mix different files and
syntax.
Bsb is also faster than tsc.
~~~
giantDinosaur
To add to this, there are at least 3-4 pain points which... are just a pain
with ReasonML, that can kinda counteract its type system.
\- non-standard ordering of arguments between belt/standard library
\- Ocaml's standard library actually generally avoiding the Option/Result
type, in preference of exceptions, which is unexpected and a pain since it's
an ML.
\- package management involves manually adding things to the bsconfig (has
this changed?)
\- things randomly break between relatively minor Bucklescript versions, they
broke something pretty important in like a .x release when I was messing
around with it
\- server side isn't good. It technically works but all the bindings are old
or terribly documented, and you never really know if it's not going to blow up
at some point.
Otherwise, I actually quite like it! None of those are actual core language
complaints.
~~~
mbrock
The way it deals with async/await also seems pretty tedious.
------
esperent
It's important not to read this as a critique of Typescript. Rather, it's a
note that it's not a good fit for this one particular performance critical
piece of code.
It sounds like they are discussing the central code runner of deno. I would
have expected this to be compiled to JS in any case, but it seems like they
are compiling the runner, then compiling user code. Of course that's slow.
It's also not representative of a normal TS use case, which is unfortunate
because I expect we'll see this discussion shared all over the web as an
argument for dropping TS.
~~~
_bxg1
a) Any static type system has things that it can't express elegantly or maybe
at all. In my experience, the more "meta" your project is, the more you're
going to run up against these bounds. So it makes sense that this could be the
wrong use-case for TypeScript.
b) There is a valid, broader point to be made here that while TypeScript
_itself_ doesn't carry any runtime overhead (by design), it can in some cases
force you to contort your code, so that it can be type-verified, in ways that
have a runtime impact. In my experience (a couple of years writing TypeScript
professionally) this is uncommon and not a huge problem, but does happen
occasionally. It's also worth noting that the vast majority of these cases can
be papered-over using //@ts-ignore, "as" casting, etc. if necessary.
------
eatonphil
I started using Evan Wallace's TypeScript [0] implementation (and bundler)
written in Go and it's pretty fast (there are benchmarks too). I'm surprised
this kind of thing is not something Deno's pursuing. Having used esbuild I see
the future of web tooling as not necessarily written in (or compiled to)
JavaScript.
[0] [https://github.com/evanw/esbuild](https://github.com/evanw/esbuild)
~~~
uasi
They are considering switching from tsc to a TypeScript compiler written in
Rust[0][1], and `deno fmt` subcommand already uses it internally.
[0]
[https://github.com/denoland/deno/issues/5432](https://github.com/denoland/deno/issues/5432)
[1] [https://github.com/swc-project/swc](https://github.com/swc-project/swc)
~~~
yawaramin
swc is not a TypeScript compiler, it doesn't do any typchecking. It just
strips out types and outputs JavaScript.
------
dfabulich
JS engines should be able to ignore TS annotations, out of the box.
[https://github.com/samuelgoto/proposal-pluggable-
types](https://github.com/samuelgoto/proposal-pluggable-types)
~~~
CGamesPlay
It's interesting, I wonder why the proposal doesn't talk about leaving TS code
and simply ignoring the syntax using something like babel to preprocess it out
(without needing to run the type checking outside of CI).
~~~
mikewhy
tsc can also do that, but I think there's something else here.
I'm not really sure what this post is getting at. I trust Ry knows the issue
better, but from what I've read I have the same questions as everyone else
here:
\- Why is Deno defining interfaces and classes like that?
\- Will this mean losing type checking in projects using deno?
\- Why not strip types in development and only check at commit/push/build
times?
------
untog
This is quite difficult to make sense of beyond the initial description so I’m
not sure about the current status. But it would be a shame to lose valuable
type info because compile times are long... isn’t there a tool out there that
does nothing except strip types from TS files? If you used that you could get
quick rebuilds when developing but retain type checking when you do a full
build.
EDIT: Sucrase! That’s what I was thinking of:
[https://github.com/alangpierce/sucrase#transforms](https://github.com/alangpierce/sucrase#transforms)
~~~
alangpierce
Hi, Sucrase author here. I'm also having a hard time understanding the
rationale here, but it looks like it's maybe a nuance around self-hosting. In
general, for any regular TS project, I'd certainly recommend decoupling
typecheck and transpile as separate operations and running typecheck alongside
lint. IMO one of the nicest things about TypeScript is that you can run your
code before you've figured out how to get the types to check out.
They do consider swc (which has roughly the game goal as Sucrase) in the
conversation, so it seems like there's some consideration of a transpile-only
approach. TypeScript's built-in `transpileModule` is probably the most
reliable and officially-supported way to get the equivalent, and is much
faster than running TSC with typechecking.
------
mcintyre1994
Does this mean that their standard lib won’t have types, in the same way that
Node’s doesn’t? I’m not entirely sure how it works but VSCode seems to have
types for the Node standard library somehow and it’s really helpful. I assume
that’s Microsoft’s work so does this basically mean that unless Microsoft do
the same thing for Deno it’ll be a worse editing experience compared to Node
in VSCode?
Or would the Typescript internals not have been available in that way anyway?
It just seems hard to compete on ease of use with Node in VSCode without
whatever magic is making the editor so smart - which I assume is something to
do with Typescript.
~~~
davnicwil
No - you don't have to write the code in Typescript to get types - you can
manually write type definitions for Javascript code.
In this case it would be even easier since it's already in Typescript and
would presumably be a straight port, so all of those type definitions can be
automatically generated from the existing code and will just work.
~~~
mcintyre1994
I was going by this quote:
> ry So - to make a long story short - we're removing the types from internal
> code and making it pure JS this reduces complexity and helps us ship a
> faster product. I acknowledge it's unfortunate to lose the type information,
> but it's really masking larger problems. It's not going to happen
> immediately tho. We have a bit more work to figure out how exactly it should
> be done. It's not going to be one big 9000 line file either. But it might
> not be ES modules. depending on if we can make that work or not.
The “lose the type information” there suggested to me that they’re not
planning to ship them at all.
~~~
davnicwil
I think that's in reference to losing the type information for their own
development of that code. I'm almost certain they don't mean they will stop
shipping type definitions for the public APIs.
------
kbenson
This doesn't seem all that odd. I read this as a temporary solution to the
fact that there's some real problems that TypeScript causes for the way their
project is laid out and used with regard to certain types of introspection
(noting duplicate classes) and performance (it's damn slow).
It's like them running the TypeScript compiler to generate one large JS file
and using that intermediate as what people build against instead of the
original TypeScript source. I'm not sure if this is what they're actually
doing (or if they're somewhat manually doing the equivalent of it), but as a
hopefully short-term workaround that allows them to solve the problems, that
doesn't seem too bad (but it does possibly highlight some TypeScript
problems).
Even if they actually move to a large core JS file that is the active
development target, as long as they keep track of the TypeScript specifics
(and don't code themselves into a corner assuming something works that they
find much later errors), it may not necessarily be hard to go back to
TypeScript from that (possibly with a lot of it automated with a lot of
structured comments).
~~~
esprehn
Part of what's slow is that they're type checking and compiling the code at
the same time. Best practice for a project of this size would be to run type
checking as a unit test and only transpile during the build. An incremental
type check is also super fast, it's possible they don't have caching setup.
To me this reads more like a list of issues in the deno architecture, and how
they integrated TypeScript, than any issue with TypeScript itself.
------
yashap
This makes me generally curious about Deno’s architecture/design. Anyone known
much about it? Would love to learn more!
I know the JS engine is V8 (C++), and the rest is Rust and TypeScript, but
which parts are Rust, which parts TypeScript? Why 2 languages? Is it mostly
Rust, mostly TypeScript, or a bit of both?
Also, what are the hardest problems that Deno solves internally? Like if
you’re working on Deno, are you mostly working on ... the dependency
resolution/package management? Automatic compilation of user TypeScript code?
The standard library? Something else entirely?
------
MBCook
What is ‘deno code’?
~~~
mikewhy
As mentioned, Deno is the new project from the creator of NodeJS.
Here, as far as I can tell, "Deno code" specifically related to the code
shipped to the developer / user using Deno, the compiler / runtime.
~~~
csours
deno
de no
no de
node
heh.
------
ecares
So, you mean the people who were supposed to make the best choices to fix
server-side JavaScript with the ultimate knowledge of what's best just
realized that some of their pre-made opinions are actually not-silver bullet?
Shocking
------
errantspark
This is amazing. I'm legitimately excited for Deno, I will start migrating all
of my dependency-less node over soon.
------
fearingreprisal
At what point are people going to just admit that implementing applications in
Javascript outside the browser is a poor idea? The ecosystem has been in this
poor state for years. It's not like the ecosystem is getting worse. This is
the best it's ever been, and it's still horrible. There's so many better, more
mature alternatives with much better ecosystems: Python, Java, C#, Ruby, Go,
Haskell, Perl... The list goes on.
~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Your comment is somewhat incomprehensible, because this article is not about
building end user applications in Typescript. It's about building _the
container itself_ in Typescript. I switched to Node from Java a couple years
ago, and to Typescript within the past year, and I have never been on a team
that has had this level of productivity.
~~~
fearingreprisal
What part of it couldn't you comprehend? I understand what the article is
saying. I'm talking about the dysfunctional Node.js ecosystem, which includes
Typescript.
In response to your personal experience, I'll share my own: I switched from
C++ to Java, to .net, to Node.js, to Typescript. Working on Node/TS I have
never been on a team that wastes so much time fixing silly problems that a
better language would simply not allow to happen in the first place. I have
also never worked on a team that spends so much time dealing with issues in
poorly written community packages, or arguing with package maintainers who
could never in a million years pass a technical skills test at the company I
work for.
~~~
zdragnar
> arguing with package maintainers who could never in a million years pass a
> technical skills test at the company I work for.
So why on earth are you using their packages?
------
Der_Einzige
Aw, the famous game design YouTube channel "Design doc" is nowhere to be found
here. I thought he was pivoting to dev advice...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Ruby rocks - Skoofoo
http://skofo.github.io/blog/why-ruby-rocks/
======
nopal
I'm sure it does, but I can write the same class in C# just as easily:
class Person
{
public int Sanity { get; set; }
public Person()
{
Sanity = 50;
}
}
And to call it:
var programmer = new Person();
programmer.Sanity += 1000000;
Console.WriteLine(programmer.Sanity);
I don't see much difference between Person.new and new Person();.
What are the real ways in which it will knock my socks off? I'm honestly
asking. Even though I program C# at work, I'm very interested in the
advantages of other languages.
~~~
effbott
Ruby really is a great language. The author just posted a poor example that is
frankly NOT idiomatic Ruby. The proper way to create a getter and setter
method on an instance variable is like so:
class Person
attr_accessor :sanity
def initialize
@sanity = 50
end
end
~~~
jfarmer
All the attr_* class methods do is define precisely the instance methods the
author wrote by hand. Indeed, if attr_reader, attr_writer, and attr_accessor
weren't part of Ruby's Module class you could write them yourself, like so:
[https://gist.github.com/jfarmer/6b4deeb8bcfbe030f876](https://gist.github.com/jfarmer/6b4deeb8bcfbe030f876)
If using an "eval" method seems smelly to you, you can achieve the same result
in pure Ruby using define_method, instance_exec, and instance_variable_get.
There are good practical reasons to use module_eval, though.
Regardless, I think the author's point was more that there's nothing "special"
about getters and setters in Ruby. They're just plain ol' methods. As a class
of methods we write them often enough that we've also defined a higher-order
method that takes an instance variable name as input and dynamically defines
those getters and setters on the underlying object.
We wouldn't "lose" anything by not having attr_reader and friends, though. Our
code would just be slightly more verbose.
~~~
effbott
>Regardless, I think the author's point was more that there's nothing
"special" about getters and setters in Ruby. They're just plain ol' methods.
Ah, that's a good point. That seems to be a more accurate interpretation of
what the author was trying to express.
------
CoffeeDregs
Not needing getters/setters makes Ruby rock? Lots of languages allow this, but
Ruby's allowing you to elide parentheses means you can't assume that a
property is a property or a function. In other languages, the property versus
accessor distinction is more limited and less confusing.
_method_missing_ , which is a bit of a hack and is at least a double edged
sword, makes Ruby rock? Sure, it's handy magic, but it's a pretty dangerous
form of magic.
I'm not sure I could think of less significant attributes for a language.
Note: I work on a large Ruby codebase...
~~~
jamesbritt
_you can 't assume that a property is a property or a function. In other
languages, the property versus accessor distinction is more limited and less
confusing._
Ruby does not have "properties." All data is private and you interact with
objects using messages.
As a user of an object's interface all you need to know is how something
behaves when sent various messages. Whether "foo = 12" is really setting an
instance variable named "@foo" or something else entirely should be
irrelevant. It's an implementation detail.
I realize this sounds possibly condescending and pedantic, but I've seen too
many Ruby tutorials that try to present the language in terms of behavior
found in other languages where the result is a broken mental model of how Ruby
actually works. Hence, confusion.
Unfortunately the conflation of methods that happen to get or set instance
variables with the notion of properties (AKA "attributes") has become
ingrained.
_method_missing, which is a bit of a hack and is at least a double edged
sword, makes Ruby rock? Sure, it 's handy magic, but it's a pretty dangerous
form of magic._
Thinking in terms of messages sent to a receiver, "method_missing" is far less
magical. It's more something you'd expect in a message-handling system.
------
akoumjian
It is my impression that Python does exactly the things listed here, but more
explicitly. With the python approach, instance variables are public by default
(as attributes). There is never any confusion between when you are calling a
method, or referencing an attribute. If you are doing something something more
complicated than getting or setting an attribute, you must either call a
method (this is so you and other developers actually know what is going on),
or alternatively you use a property decorator.
You could do something similar to Ruby's missing_method, by setting the
class's __getattr__, but you'd really have to ask yourself why. What kind of
creation are you building that you are expecting to not know which methods are
available while running your program?
These are the kinds of things that drive me batty with Ruby. Perhaps if I
spent about double or triple the hours on Ruby that I have, I might have an
"aha" moment. However, from what I've seen I can't help but feel that what
it's really trying to accomplish is much more comfortable in functional form
(say Lisp?).
~~~
dpritchett
Try listening to Sandi Metz on the Ruby Rogues podcast. It's a longish episode
but she'll give you an appreciation for message-passing OO and how it makes an
application design more pliable.
In a pinch the (free?) "Barewords" episode of Ruby Tapas will get you close in
five minutes.
~~~
akoumjian
Awesome, will do.
------
laureny
I started programming in Ruby in early 2000 and I really liked it back then,
but when I look at it today, the language feels very old.
I don't know if it's the lack of types, the fact that you see streams of "end
end end" like Pascal used to do, the abysmal performance of the default VM or
just the heavy reliance on monkey patching, but Ruby is not aging very well.
~~~
area51org
_I don 't know if it's the lack of types_
Ruby is a dynamic language, so no, there are no types as such. There are ways
to create types, but if you're doing that a lot, you're probably doing Ruby
wrong. It's not meant to have types. Different way of thinking.
_the abysmal performance of the default VM_
That's a myth, a pervasive one. I'll point you to one source that debunks
this, but there are many. [http://www.unlimitednovelty.com/2012/06/ruby-is-
faster-than-...](http://www.unlimitednovelty.com/2012/06/ruby-is-faster-than-
python-php-and-perl.html)
_the heavy reliance on monkey patching_
Monkey patching is generally considered an anti-pattern. I'm not sure what in
particular has "heavy reliance" on it, but it's not Ruby's libraries
themselves, and it's not Rails. (Metaprogramming is not the same thing as
monkey patching.)
_Ruby is not aging very well._
IMHO Ruby is just now coming fully into its own, and is, for a young language,
just reaching maturity.
~~~
namidark
I would hardly say the performance of the default VM is a _myth_... just look
at performance characteristics under multi-threading and GC pressure.
~~~
bhauer
Speaking of Ruby performance, we haven't received a whole lot of pull requests
improving the performance of the Ruby implementations on our benchmarks
project [1]. If you feel Ruby isn't getting a fair shake on performance
measurements, we'd love to see some pull request love.
[1]
[http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/](http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/)
~~~
laureny
That's quite a weird angle. Surely I can express unhappiness about a product's
performance without being asked to fix it or to shut up?
~~~
bhauer
I think we're on the same side here.
We've measured the performance of the fundamentals of web applications on two
Ruby implementations (MRI, JRuby) and both perform poorly, as compared to the
rest of the field. area51org says that Ruby's reputation of slowness is
undeserved. I feel our data confirms the reputation.
In fact, I don't think there's much room for improvement by tweaking our
tests, but I figured I'd make the solicitation anyway to keep an open mind
about it.
I'm not asking you to fix it or shut up, especially since I feel your point of
view is corroborated by the data. I am asking, however, for those who say
Ruby's reputation is undeserved to consider providing some evidence for that
point of view. And one conceivable way to do that would be to improve our Ruby
tests.
------
xmodem
def sanity
@sanity
end
def sanity=(val)
@sanity = val
end
how are those six lines not boilerplate?
~~~
dpritchett
I believe it'd be idiomatic to use
attr_accessor :sanity
def initialize
@sanity = 0
end
On that note I like Go's default values for primitive types. An int sanity
would be zero by default.
Edit: seeing five simultaneous posts saying the same thing makes me feel
trolled a bit :)
~~~
rmrfrmrf
Nah, Rails devs are just _really_ excited to finally have their chance to
shine in the HN comments ;)
------
swang
Ruby is a pleasure to program in, however...
1\. The drama that surrounds Rails makes a lot of people just throw their
hands up and quit. 2\. There are very few Ruby shops that aren't just Rails
shops.
~~~
Schwolop
I agree. I tried web development professionally; loved Ruby, thought Rails was
pretty decent, but hated web development (and ultimately wasn't at all
inspired by the product we were building).
Now every Ruby meetup I attend, 99% of the presentations are from web devs
about rails and associated infrastructure.
~~~
jamesbritt
_Now every Ruby meetup I attend, 99% of the presentations are from web devs
about rails and associated infrastructure._
That's pretty much why I lost interest in not just local groups but most
online activity.
I use Ruby and JRuby all the time, but for Web dev I'll start with some simple
Rack stuff and evolve to a Ramaze app if needed.
Listening to someone discuss installation and assorted config params for a gem
that only works with a specific framework is not terribly interesting.
There are some bright spots online, Greg Brown's Practicing Ruby site being a
solid example.
[https://practicingruby.com](https://practicingruby.com)
------
wittekm
Showing people boilerplate instead of attr_accessor isn't really a way to
convince people that Ruby's great.
------
andyl
What I like about Ruby: Bundler, Gems, Enumerable, concise syntax, Ruby2,
Rspec, RubyMine, Scripting, rbenv/rvm
What I would like to have: better support for concurrency, less memory
consumption in production
------
grey-area
I'm not sure this really sells what's best about Ruby. Python and many other
languages offer very similar tools, and the example given is nowhere near
idiomatic Ruby anyway - it should be using attr_accessor as others have
pointed out. I can't see that this is markedly different from many other
languages which now have shortcuts for accessors.
method_missing is interesting because it has been criticised in projects like
Rails, precisely because it leaves you with an API which isn't documented
explicitly in the code. As Rails matures they've moved away from dynamic
finders, and more towards defined methods which take options, so instead of
Post.find_all_by_xxx or Post.find_by_xxx
People often use:
Post.where(xxx)
I've never been tempted to use it explicitly myself, in quite a few years of
using Ruby, it just feels too hacky somehow and too akin to monkey-patching,
another early Ruby practice which Rails has moved away from.
In contrast I do love the automatic accessors (not as shown in this post) in
Ruby and the philosophy that everything should be as simple and predictable as
possible, just having to edit header files is so jarring when going back to
something like Obj-C. Ruby feels comfortable to me mostly because of the
attitude of the language and the standard library which is pretty surprise
free and covers most of the bases, but it's not markedly superior or different
IMHO from other languages like Python, and choosing between them is really a
matter of taste.
------
ionforce
I admit I'm being myopic here but that's exactly why I ask. In what scenario
is a genuine message passing/arbitrary methods useful?
I tend to look through everything in an OOP/type safe way, so the idea of
having an unlimited, highly dynamic vocabulary for method calling is very...
Foreign to me.
When does this pattern outshine static interfaces?
~~~
acjohnson55
One spot when it's very useful is in making objects that are proxies for
external resources (file data, executable utlities, etc.). Particularly when
those resources can be inspected, it can be much better from a DRY perspective
to let the interface of your proxy object automatically adapt even as the
underlying resource changes.
------
jasonm23
How is this even on the front page?
------
jamesli
Ruby has many awesome features, like metaprogramming. But methods without
parenthesis, method definitions with operators, etc.?
[edit] I am NOT a native English speaker. Is OP's blog supposed to be a joke
and I don't get it?
------
smoyer
Seems like a pretty weak set of arguments - I'm not for or against Ruby but is
that really a good "five paragraph" description of why I should learn it and
love it?
------
brandonbloom
Setters are an anti-feature.
They give the illusion that they can be set in any order, but most meaningful
classes have invariants that are ambiguous to preserve with single-value
setters. Object Oriented designs jump through some serious hoops to preserve
the pretty `object.property = value` syntax. Besides, there are considerable
advantages to immutability even in the absence of concurrency. `new_object =
frob(object, value)` is generally preferable in the long run.
------
bluedino
Every time I start learning Python, after a few hours I remember "I already
know Ruby", and that's the end of that.
I already know it, so it rocks. Python is fun but I already have Ruby. It's
just a language and there's nothing I can really do in Python that I can't do
it Ruby, and vice-versa (at my level, anyway).
I guess I'm just lucky I have the option of using either instead of say,
______.
------
area51org
While I do appreciate the OP's enthusiasm, there is a lot more to love about
Ruby than its simplicity. Spend some time learning about metaprogramming, and
you may really be impressed.
------
tobias382
Let's talk about Ruby...
[http://destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat](http://destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat)
------
ntaylor
So the takeaway here is that Ruby is great because it has core OOP concepts
built into it? Color me unimpressed.
------
laureny
What year is this, 2005?
------
billsix
On front page? Really?
~~~
billsix
OK, I'll be more constructive.
>There are various interwoven reasons for this, but the biggest thing that
makes Ruby shine in my eyes is its objects
Learn Smalltalk-80. Its been around a long time, and has a rich history.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mozilla Marketplace goes live, install web apps like native PC apps - cpeterso
http://liliputing.com/2012/06/mozilla-marketplace-goes-live-install-web-apps-like-native-pc-apps.html
======
stewie2
people said "webapps are awesome, because there is no need to install."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Attacking Z-Way Controlled Home Automation Devices - rwestergren
http://randywestergren.com/attacking-z-way-controlled-home-automation-devices/
======
jaytaylor
This is a gaping security hole, thanks for sharing, OP!
I'll have to play around with this and see if I can execute a PoC against my
friend who has Z-Wave everything.
I'm surprised this hasn't gotten any HN love.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
NYTimes uses Hadoop, S3, EC2, and some custom code to handle PDF generation for 4TB worth of data - nickb
http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/self-service-prorated-super-computing-fun/
======
andreyf
I'd have imagined that a huge non-tech organization like the NYTimes would be
too full of PHB's to let anything "untested" like S3 or EC2 be used for a high
profile project, but between this and their open sourcing some code
(code.nytimes.com), I seem pretty wrong. What other non-obvious (Facebook,
Google, Amazon) companies do you guys know of that are tech-open-minded?
------
alec
Take-home message: "Amazon is so fast and cheap that I can run computations
over 4TB data sets, notice that I screwed it all up, and run it again."
~~~
foodawg
I think what is equally important was their extensive use of open source
packages of all types using both Java and Python. Xen, Hadoop, and Boto just
are examples showing that more often than not, open source is the way to go.
------
derekg
There is not shortage of PHB at nytimes but there are enough folks that get it
and if you know now to manage the situation good things can happen. Things
have really been changing in the last year and there are many more really
interesting things to come. This was just one fun example.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google - kushti
http://www.wral.com/Raleigh-police-search-google-location-history/17377435/
======
dwighttk
Do cell providers not keep the data long enough for this? Or is this a way
around having to request from multiple carriers? Does Apple get these
requests? Would Google inform their customers they were searched even if they
were allowed?
Great reporting, but there's still a lot of questions unasked.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Autonomous driving's unsolvable deer problem - dev_cartoonist
http://noblackmirrorthanks.blogspot.com/2018/03/autonomous-drivings-unsolvable-deer.html
======
coding123
Never thought of this one before... From what I understand, this is largely
the reason Waymos had the brakes on public release.. they keep running into
simple for human situations, but insane problems for SDVs. I heard that on in
particular was that for construction crew traffic they actually had to write
Ai that would detect the flagger and read whatever sign was up.. for Google
this is all data so it fits well into their goals anyway.. but would a company
like Uber invest in that kind of technical problem?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Menlo Park Police used city funds to taxi homeless woman to SF - coloneltcb
https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2019/11/08/police-used-city-funds-to-taxi-homeless-woman-to-sf
======
nkrisc
Worth highlighting, probably:
> As for why he intervened in the first place, he emphasized, "She wasn't
> doing anything illegal whatsoever."
> All he could do, he said, is ask her not to store her property near the
> business. He said Anderson told him that she wanted to go to San Francisco,
> and he made that happen. It was a "good faith effort to help her get
> somewhere she wanted to, just like we would for any other person," he added.
Sounds as well like the city allows for some degree of discretionary spending
in situations like these. Of course, it can be not a great look, given the
history of shipping of undesirable types to other jurisdictions.
~~~
eldenbishop
I think your missing an important detail here. She didn't say she wanted to go
to San Francisco.
"she was told that she couldn't remain where she was and was asked where she
would go if she could go anywhere other than Menlo Park. She said she recalled
that at Ocean Beach there was someplace to wash her hair, so she said she'd go
there."
Turning that into "She wanted to go to San Francisco" is disingenuous.
~~~
nkrisc
Thanks, that's important context for sure.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How much are we worth? - savoy11
We are a small startup with two founders and no employees. Bootstrapped, no external financing whatsoever. We are selling software and making approximately $200K per year in sales, but we are also growing rapidly, at about 5% each month. We have $0 marketing budget - meaning we just split the revenue. We do not have any expenses other than our hosting ($10 per month).<p>I know that many variables are missing here, but very roughly speaking, how much are we worth at this point? There is interest by our competitors and they want to buy us, however I have no idea how much to ask for.
======
davidwparker
If you want a corporate finance answer...
Assuming you can go on forever, you are a perpetuity with annual growth g =
79.58% = ~80% (1.05^12 - 1), coupon c = $200,000, and some value of discount
rate r, which you could otherwise get with your money. For our example, we'll
suppose you can invest somewhere and get a 10% return.
The formula for a growing perpetuity = PV = c/(r - g), where PV is the present
value. This formula only works if the growth rate is less than the discount
rate... following this rule, we have to use a higher discount rate, so we'll
assume you can get 100% somewhere else (let me know if you have a place where
you can do this.)
If you take the series of system payments, then you would have:
PV = c/(1 + r) + c(1 + g)/((1 + r)^2) + ... + c((1 + g)^n)/((1 + r)^n) which
ultimately equals PV = c/(r - g)
PV = 200,000 / (1.00 - .80) = $1,000,000
So $1,000,000 is the amount someone would be willing to pay for all the
present values of all future earnings on the perpetuity, assuming you have an
r = 100%.
If g > r, then the growing perpetuity would (theoretically) have an infinite
value.
edit: added value = $1,000,000 assuming r = 100%
------
staunch
With your revenue anything less than $1M is probably too low. The upper limit
is almost boundless. If the buyer would have to spend a year, $1M in ads, and
15 employees to get to where you are then it might be worth $5M or more to
them. Avoid pricing it based on revenue alone.
Think about how you're going to feel after you've sold. At what price will you
not regret it? At what price will you be really happy?
------
toast76
5% growth monthly (if you can manage to continue that growth) means you're
just about doubling the value of your company annually. ($16k sales this month
will be $32k in 15mths).
If you keep the company growing at this rate for another 3 years you'll have
an annual income of over a $1M.
So how many years are you planning to run the business for? What is the likely
sustainable growth?
Do some maths on that.
------
curt
Take EBITDA (Earning before income tax, depreciation, and amortization) and
multiply that number by between 5-18. You get a higher multiple through higher
growth, long term consumers, sustainability (your consumers won't leave),
competition, size, etc.
For what you said you likely are around 10, so if the company doesn't need
someone to sustain growth it would be worth around 2M. If it's a talent
acquisition or IP does change the calculation somewhat. Now a year from now I
would raise that multiple to around 12-14 if you maintain your growth rate.
~~~
jumby
ya right 12-14. maybe in 1999.
~~~
curt
At 5% per month, after the first year the EBITDA multiple would go from 12 to
8. After 2nd year, 5 and so on. So the company would pay off the purchase
during the 4th year. A good deal for any purchase.
------
zbruhnke
generally speaking you are worth 5 times your annual revenue ($1M) however
with the growth rates you are experiencing I think you would not be out of
line asking for $1.5-2M maybe even more if ou can prove the growth trend over
sevral months with hard numbers
~~~
petervandijck
3 to 5 times annual revenue is indeed typical. From there on it's all
handwaving about "exponential growth" and "strategic value" to get more than
that.
You are "worth" what they are willing to pay, it's that simple. In terms of
money, you're worth about a million dollars. But it wouldn't be that weird to
get much more, depending on how good you are at handwaving about "strategic
value" and "exponential growth", and playing the negotiation game.
------
MaysonL
How much time are you 2 putting into the business? How much employee time
would a buyer have to put into the business?
If a buyer has to pay a fulltime developer to replace you guys, then your
business wouldn't make them very much, unless it keeps growing for a few years
without cost increases.
~~~
savoy11
Almost full-time. Product is also very support intensive (a lot of email/forum
support that is highly technical).
The product can fit well into competitors portfolio of products and can make
them much more than what we do (they are established, big, have sales
channels, etc)
~~~
jaden
If they want you guys to join the company for some period of time, make sure
to account for that in the price.
For example, if you commit to stay on some number of years and an exciting
opportunity presents itself during that time, you want the compensation to be
enough that you can pass on the opportunity without too much heartache.
------
coryl
You'd have to factor in the industry you're in as well. Some markets are
volatile, and don't last long.
------
noonespecial
The general rule for brick and mortars is:
Assets - liabilities + 5 X last years profit.
This is a starting point. Then you add in all of the confounding factors. Web
businesses are nothing but confounding factors! If I were you, I'd take a hard
conservative look at my 5 year growth potential based on the growth thats
already happened and use that as an average for your 5 X profit.
If your buyers are serious this will open negotiations, if they were just
pulling the handle, hoping for a jackpot, they'll leave in a huff, trying to
make you feel as though you'd demanded an unreasonable sum.
------
LabSlice
I believe that established businesses sell for 3-5 times their annual revenue.
Your situation sounds different. With practically no costs, steady growth, and
the claim that you don't advertise --- well, that can make you quite a premium
company to acquire. And the fact that you are being courted allows you to try
pitch for even higher $$$.
------
jaden
I run a site that pulls in a decent amount from Google Ads. I was contacted by
a potential buyer and after going back and forth quite a bit, we arrived at
around 5x annual revenue. I realize Google Ads != selling software but at
least it's a data point.
~~~
savoy11
btw - somewhat related - how much money can be made of Google Ads out of a
site with 1 million page views per month? Content is technical - developer
oriented. We are currently running a niche ad network and making approximately
$1000 per month off ads, but I believe this is low.
~~~
jaden
From what I've heard (my site isn't technical so I can't say definitively)
technical sites have low click through rates because many developers use
adblockers and may not be as attracted to advertising. But it's hard to
estimate because it can vary wildly depending on how many folks are
advertising in your space. Run a month trial and see how it does.
------
jumby
6.5 multiple seems reasonable for SaaS. 5 is a bit low for software with 0
expenses and no one is going to do >8 in these uncertain times.
------
brudgers
How big is the market segment you serve in terms of total dollars?
What percentage of it are you currently servicing?
~~~
savoy11
Very competitive, established and growing segment. Also, kind of big.
Developer tools, basically. There are are at least 5 very big companies
(revenues of $10mil+) and hundreds of employees each, and like 100 small
companies in this segment.
It's a very hard and competitive field.
~~~
brudgers
The big question is, "do you want to sell right now or hold out for FU money
or have a lifestyle business?"
Unless the answer is "We want to sell right now" then this exercise is a
distraction...and a potential source of stress if you have 50:50 equity split.
If you want to sell now, then what is your ideal outcome when the value to the
purchaser: is your IP? your staff? elimination of competition? And more
importantly, what is your partner's ideal outcome in each of these scenarios?
Keep in mind that if your suitor's goal is to eliminate competition, just
floating the idea of purchase can create enough chaos to cause a divorce. My
best advice is to discuss what your company is worth to each of you first.
As far as value goes, you're producing revenue of $100,000 per full-time
employee. That doesn't leave much cash for a new owner so a valuation based on
current revenue would not be favorable to you. From a revenue standpoint,
you're basically a small business.
If the compeitor sees the potential value is in the IP, the real question
becomes, how much would it cost them to deliver competing functionality? That
number may be a lot less than you would want to sell for.
If the motivation is to bring you and/or your partner onboard, then you're
back to do you really want to sell + do you really want to go work for those
people? So the price is relative to the value you place on the company.
Sorry there's no numbers. My best advice is to determine quickly if both of
you even want to sell and get back to building your business until there's
actually an offer to consider. Good luck.
~~~
savoy11
Yes, thanks, I'll upvote that since it is spot on. You pretty much nailed all
the issues we have.
At this point we have chosen to just keep on. If we manage to sustain this
type of progress for the next 2-3 years, things cannot go worse. All that
potential buying thing puts an extra layer of problems, heavy discussions,
waste of time, lawyers, etc.
As far as out assets go - we might be very valuable since we bring a very
successful open source project (site has 1.2M page view per month) +
commercial products built on top of it. Just the name and open source site
pointing to our competitors may bring them a lot of value alone.
Our usage base (for the open source products) is also huge. The goodwill and
IP are I believe quite expensive at this point.
But we will just move on and keep going. Thanks a lot.
------
crasshopper
Just do the PV. $200*12 = 2400 k
If you can convince them the growth will accelerate, so much the better.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor - paulpauper
https://free.vice.com/en_us/article/ev3dde/most-money-advice-is-worthless
======
aw3c2
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Vimes#Boots_theory_of_soci...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Vimes#Boots_theory_of_socio-
economic_unfairness)
> The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they
> managed to spend less money.
> Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus
> allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an
> affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then
> leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those
> were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so
> thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the
> feel of the cobbles.
> But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who
> could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his
> feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap
> boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would
> still have wet feet.
> This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic
> unfairness.
Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms
~~~
pasta
I don't think this applies anymore.
Cheap is getting better and better. And the rich just buy new because they
like to go with the trend spending hundreds of dollars on boots.
Most people I know (Netherlands) who are not wealthy have mental issues or
don't know how to manage money.
Edit: I don't want to sound like I think the author belongs to those 2 groups.
There are many more reasons why someone is poor.
~~~
tarboreus
I think it's fair to say that this is less true in America, where we have
essentially no social safety net.
~~~
chrisco255
We also have a HUGE, far more diverse, far more spread out population that's
an order of magnitude larger than the Netherlands.
------
PeterisP
This kind of has a very simple point - advice is useful iff your problem is
caused by bad choices, and advising to make better choices can help. If your
problem is caused by external forces that your choices can't change much, then
it's better to devote all your energy to doing stuff instead of looking for
advice on how to do stuff better, because there's no silver bullet, you can't
do significantly better, and you don't need to waste effort on looking for it.
If after non-negotiable expenses you have barely any money to budget, then
budgeting advice is useless as your budgeting choices don't matter much.
Career advice, on the other hand, may be useful in that case.
If you're unable to work because of a disability or other factors, then career
advice is useless as your career choices don't matter much, but financial tips
on how to get the medicine you need in the most affordable way may be useful.
~~~
village-idiot
Also, budgeting and finding ways to save money take time, energy, and skill.
The author of this article literally couldn’t afford one of the more popular
budgeting apps, You Need a Budget, from the liquid cash they had on hand.
Same goes for saving money by cooking at home. It works, but it takes skill
and time. If you’re working 60-80hrs a week then it’s very hard to justify
that time expenditure, and triply hard to justify the up front cost of tools
and ingredients. $20 for a mediocre kitchen knife is 6-10 McDonald’s meals
($1,$2,$3 menu), putting someone who is already broke deep into the red before
seeing any returns.
------
esotericn
Most advice on anything is useless if you're not the target audience.
If you're earning nothing and have no savings, you need crisis mode budgeting.
Think the financial equivalent of malnourishment - you don't want the regular
food pyramid, you need an IV drip.
This doesn't actually change ever. The 'best course of action' changes at
every level.
Poor people money advice is worthless to rich people too. Lower middle class
advice on 'how to save for a home deposit' is completely useless to the
wealthy.
Usain Bolt doesn't take advice from the guy running in the park either.
------
xythian
A shoutout to
[https://www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/](https://www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/)
as a community that is attempting to discuss and distill the kind of financial
advice that is useful for those with little to no means.
> Much of the financial advice online and on reddit is aimed at people who
> have varying degrees of disposable income, ability to invest, lots of free
> time, available transportation, no kids, a partner, access to credit, and
> beyond. This is a place for people who do not have a lot, nor ideal
> circumstances, to help each other get by and hopefully move up in the world.
~~~
dsfyu404ed
Reddit is a crap place to go for advice if you're in a situation where all the
options are sub-optimal because any advice that isn't 100% by the book ethical
or any advice that puts a negative externality on society for personal benefit
results in down-votes and name callings. Often times that means your "best"
options are off the table. It is also very much against "low class" ways of
saving money. Stuff like "just smash your old tube TV and throw the pieces in
the household trash in order to save the $20 disposal fee" or is not exactly
appreciated there. God forbid you tell somebody that they <gasp> shouldn't buy
snow tires. The internet in general is just shit when it comes to being
frugal. It's really easy to tell someone else how to spend their money.
Edit: Anyone want to tell my why I'm apparently so wrong?
~~~
em-bee
you are probably being downvoted because you seem to suggest that illegal or
imoral actions should somehow be acceptable just because you need to save
money.
------
rfugger
The real question here is if the author went to college and got a degree, why
are they working in sandwich shops? I'm not saying there's not a reasonable
explanation for their situation, but any discussion of their particular
problem should start there. Obviously there are people who are doing the best
they can in a sandwich shop, and those people may need better support than
they're getting, but I don't think that's quite the case here.
~~~
RickJWagner
The author's Twitter account shows that she flies from New York to LA for
television projects.
She's not just a sandwich-shop worker, apparently.
------
notacoward
There's a lot more to being poor than not having money. Being poor and healthy
is not the same as being poor and unhealthy, as the most obvious example.
Being poor but healthy, smart and/or educated, non-addicted, connected to
family and friends who will keep you off that last step to oblivion is
different than being poor and none of those things. Poor nutrition and sleep
and being cold all the time can really do a number on your brain. So can the
stress of not knowing where your - or your children's - next meal is coming
from. The isolation and despair and distrust that come with spending any time
at all in that condition can stay with you for years.
So yeah, poor people follow a _very_ different decision process, which might
not seem rational to people who have only ever been poor in the low-bank-
balance sense (if that). Don't tell someone who's already deprived to deprive
themselves further. Those small indulgences might be the only thing keeping
people from giving up entirely. To the extent that the truly poor need advice
from the less poor at all, it's advice on how to secure the most basic of
needs in the short to medium term. Only then, only when the most severe
psychological effects of being poor have been dealt with, is it rational to
expect that people will start looking further up Maslow's pyramid to things
like longer-term financial security.
~~~
zozbot123
> Those small indulgences might be the only thing keeping people from giving
> up entirely.
I might be sympathetic to that point of view... but then what about the
'indulgence' of keeping a rainy-day fund? You know, the one indulgence that OP
fails to acknowledge in any way and even disparages, despite the fact that
indulging in this _gets rid_ of a major source of stress in a poor person's
life? _This_ is why you should save, even at strenuous cost. Because when you
save, you _do_ feel better.
------
username90
I have yet to see a poor person blog written by anyone who are actually too
poor to save, instead its just people who don't understand how much all the
small things they buy actually adds up at the end of the month. In the end you
just need a computer (20$ a month over its lifetime) with internet (10$ a
month) for most non-physical needs, food is dirt cheap if you just buy the
right things (2$ a day so 60$ a month is enough to live healthily) and clothes
last a very long time so no need to buy new ones that often (~20$ a month),
then you have 40$ a month for random things. That is 150$ a month after rent
and transportation, if you got more than that and still can't save you are
doing something wrong.
Personally I lived like that for many years, with 350$ rent on 1000$ income
and thus saved 500$ a month, after a few years you will have saved a couple of
ten thousand dollars. That was enough for me to take time off to learn
programming properly without worrying about money, I am now working as a
software engineer and make lots of money (not sure how people can find enough
important things to spend this much on...) but I hated blogs like this even
when I was poor.
------
bloaf
The one universal piece of money advice is "Spend less than you earn, and put
the difference somewhere that earns interest." Most articles, recognizing this
universal truth, go on to propose ways of spending less and saving more
efficiently. The author of this piece, having reduced his spending as low as
reasonably possible, actually just needs advice on how to earn more.
~~~
Gibbon1
When I was dead broke that's what I did. Reduced expenses and then focused on
bringing in as much cash as I could sustain.
Towards the end of that people on 6th street stopped asking for change and
instead would say things like, do you know if check day is Friday or Monday
this month. That question was when I realized I needed a new jacket.
------
hourislate
Being a first generation American and coming from an environment of poverty,
my parents sacrificed their health and lives to give us kids a better one. My
father did the hardest, dirtiest work that was unfit for a beast and mother
cleaned houses. They had nothing but made sure the kids had everything they
needed (cloths, education, food) and through their sacrifice the chains of
poverty were broken.
Millions of Immigrants come to the USA/Canada with nothing but the cloths on
their backs and somehow they manage to support themselves and their families.
Others are 4th, 5th Generation Americans and can't seem to get off Welfare or
dig themselves out of a hole.
I don't understand.....
~~~
rue
You know, all immigrants can’t do that either. And other “others” do just
fine.
You have what’s called “survivor bias”, and you need to get past it to
understand systemic issues.
~~~
tomcam
Did the parent say all immigrants? Read the post a couple of times and
couldn’t find that wording
~~~
rue
Try looking between the lines.
------
RickJWagner
The author (Talia Jane) has some interesting tweets.
My BS-meter is showing a strong reading after seeing these:
"i’m pretty blindly aggressive against all the manifestations of capitalism so
naturally my takeaway is Eliminate The Stock Market: It Is Stupid And Harmful
And Archaic And, Perhaps Worst Of All, Boring."
"moisturizing in my 20s like i’m in my 40s with the (pointless) hope i won’t
look like i’m in my 50s by the time i hit my 30s"
Here she's offering to help buy some guy a mattress:
[https://mobile.twitter.com/itsa_talia/status/107409983684723...](https://mobile.twitter.com/itsa_talia/status/1074099836847239168?p=v)
Here's she's gone to LA (from New York) for work:
"lemme try this in LA-speak: hey, LA buds! although i’m in town working on a
tv project, i’d love to hang out tonight! let me know if you’re interested!"
~~~
RickJWagner
I'm disappointed someone would down-vote this. Sincerely: Why would you do
such a thing?
In my thinking, this author does not seem to be living the life of a poor
person trying to save.
If you downvote, please share your point of view. I'd really like to
understand.
~~~
zozbot123
I mean, who _wouldn 't_ have trouble saving after Eliminating the Stock Market
and perhaps "all the manifestations of capitalism"? Because isn't that what
capitalism is all about? Saving, and accumulating some capital, some seed
corn, so that you _don 't_ have to live hand-to-mouth?
------
speedplane
This person is clearly a good writer and is persuasive to a degree. He or she
clearly has potential if they find the right place for it.
------
sys_64738
Best advice I ever got is to never listen to other people's advice. They're
usually wrong.
------
your-nanny
if the author has a degree as claimed, then the author is eligible for a
number of better jobs, even part time ones, and doesn't have to work to flip
burgers. Substitute teaching pays better, usually, and is easier to do; also
gives you professional contacts. Getting a credential on top of your
bachelor's is within reach for most people; some districts so desperate for
teachers they'll hire you anyway, provisionally. With a bachelor's you can
also teach SAT prep and tutor, all of which pay better than fast food. And the
guy can write obviously.
I come from a poor neighborhood. I get it. Most of childhood friends are in
jail or are dead. But I have a hard time believing someone with a bachelor's
has to scratch it with the rest of them with multiple part time jobs, not in
this economy for sure.
------
rue
Anybody want odds on 50% of these comments being exactly that worthless
advice?
------
bluedevil2k
> The way I see it, being poor is like having cancer
What a terrible way to look at it, making it seem like it’s entirely out of
your control and you need outside help just to survive. There’s many examples
of people who have climbed out of poverty to middle class, even upper class. I
highly doubt they’d spread the advice that being poor is a hopeless disease.
~~~
paulpauper
I think IQ, which is biological and intrinsic to the individual, plays an
important role in upward mobility. All else being equal, someone with an IQ of
80-100 is going to have a harder time climbing out of poverty than someone
with an IQ higher than 115.
~~~
bluedevil2k
That’s probably a far too simplistic way of putting it - I would actually
think people with a hard work ethic (ie gumption, ie stick-to-it-iveness)
would be more likely to climb their way out of poverty.
------
Raidion
Of course "don't by the avacado toast or lattes" doesn't help save you money
when you aren't buying that stuff in the first place. Complaining that advice
on Google that applies to the 15%-85% bracket doesn't apply to you is similar
in saying that "Most health advice is worthless when you have cancer". You
have a situation that is outside the norm, and you're trying to apply general
information against that, of course it's not going to work.
~~~
EliRivers
Yet in this very thread is someone who read the article, read that these
people do not have the kind of money that enables the creation of savings, and
glibly gave the advice to save up.
The problem isn't _just_ that common advice isn't helpful; it's well-meaning
outsiders just missing this over and over and endlessly giving the same
unhelpful, irrelevant advice.
------
jotm
What a terrible article. Sure, yeah, you're poor, own it, give up. Go buy that
fast food shit, get fat and damage your health. Buy all that alcohol that
helps you get through life, _that will definitely help_. FFS.
No, you try, fail, try again, fail, try some more - to save up, and start
making more. All that advice glosses over just how hard it actually is (not
that it can even convey it properly), and it takes time, but you can't give up
unless you're ready to kick the bucket at any time.
~~~
EliRivers
This advice seems pretty irrelevant. She just said that these people do not
have any spare money to save up, but this advice is "save up".
~~~
jotm
The article's conclusion is "yeah, forget trying, get that fast food, indulge
in what makes you feel better about your shit circumstances"
Which is the worst thing one can say. It's just a short term relief. If you
plan on living, you need to NOT waste money AND always look for better
opportunities.
At the core, there's really three options: Advance (save more, learn more, to
ultimately earn more), survive hoping there's no major personal disasters, or
die. If you plan on living, it's best not to give into the easy choice.
Also typical HN, discuss poverty and pat yourselves on the back for thinking
about the poor (unlike those _other_ cunts), while downvoting people with
actual experience because it makes you feel bad. Waah, waah. Just fucking ban
this account already, I don't even know why I'm here. Upvotes for everyone.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Is a visa required when working remotely? - lizardwalk5
I realize this might be case by case but I frequently see international companies listing a remote working option. If they are based in a different country from my citizenship, should I assume that a work visa is required to work for them? Sometimes the job mentions a contract working option. Is that considered a work-around to requiring a work visa?<p>I will try to google this a little but don't see something clear in the initial results. Thanks.
======
AnimalMuppet
I am not an expert, or a lawyer, but if I understand correctly, a visa is
required for _physical_ presence. I don't have to have a French visa to sell
something to France, or to email someone in France, or to connect to a French
website. Remote work looks a lot like those things... right up until they want
you to be onsite for a meeting. And _then_ you need a visa.
------
ga-vu
No. A visa is required when you're in a country, visiting or working there.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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No More Fake News to Sway Your Views as 'Pants-On-Fire' Detector Comes to Rescue - tefo-mohapi
http://www.iafrikan.com/2017/01/09/no-more-fake-news-to-sway-your-views-as-the-pants-on-fire-detector-comes-to-the-rescue/
======
DoodleBuggy
> "Experts estimate that in about two years, we'll have a perfect 'symbiotic'
> relationship - human judgment and AI/machine learning capabilities will be
> protecting us from blatant lies and untruths."
LOL, that's generous. I strongly suspect bias and ideology will continue to
determine what facts people accept in their own version of reality.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Avalonia UI Framework - evo_9
http://avaloniaui.net/
======
richardjam73
What is the difference between Avalonia and Xamarin?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: OptKit – Enterprise Level Conversion Rate Optimization Kit - acoyfellow
http://optkit.com/
======
gk1
As a conversion optimization consultant, this is very interesting. It's not a
new idea, but the execution is really great. The setup process was easy to do
and understand.
A few comments:
1\. Does the script really need to be at the bottom of the <body> tag? All my
projects use Google Tag Manager -- which is placed at the opening of the
<body> tag -- and it'd be _much_ simpler to plug it in with GTM without ever
touching code.
2\. What does the JSON output look like? I wonder if it's acceptable for
Mailchimp/Mandrill or other mailing list services.
3\. I think it's a bit early to claim you have "enterprise-grade" targeting.
How about IP filtering? Custom event triggers? Etc.
4\. Is A/B testing capability in the works?
5\. Any way to modify the popup code? I'd love to be able to add custom GA
event tracking, and such.
With all that said, "Enterprise Level Conversion Optimization Kit" is really
overselling yourself. Enterprise level? No. Conversion optimization? Only if
your top-priority conversion is getting emails, which is rarely the case. That
definition needs some more work.
Edit: And as several others have mentioned, the actual popup on your site is
wonky. I tried triggering it (by moving my cursor towards the top-right
corner) but all I saw was a very quick flash of the screen, followed by the
small sticky appearing in the bottom-left corner.
~~~
acoyfellow
1\. No, it doesn't. I will refine this soon to make it more clear that you can
place it other places as well. I have yet to run into any place where it won't
work.. (yet!)
2\. The JSON is pretty standard, I just use jQuery serialize on the forms to
POST on your URL. MailChimp won't work right now with our Form Builder, but
you can easily embed your own MailChimp forms by selecting "Use My Form Code"
on section 2) Form Content. Several users already using OptKit with MailChimp.
3\. I say enterprise grade because of the amount of segmentation you can do,
already. Just with timing + geolocation limiting, you can segment messages.
More features coming soon to strengthen this claim as well.
4\. Yup :) You will be able to test any setting with a split test.
5\. You can use your own code in both sections 1 and 2, so there is a hack-y
way to get some GA codes in there.
That popup experience is obviously not ideal.. And not how its working for
me.. Can you tell me what browser you are on?
~~~
gk1
> That popup experience is obviously not ideal.. And not how its working for
> me.. Can you tell me what browser you are on?
Chrome 34.0.1847.116 m on Windows.
~~~
acoyfellow
Tested on Chrome 34.0 on Windows, works as expected for me. Again, sorry it's
not working for you. Thanks for getting back to me
I will get to the bottom of this. Bugs are to be expected, right? At least I
survived 45 minutes on the front page :)
------
sutterbomb
Interesting concept. I'm curious to hear how you tune the decision to display
vs. not display the popup.
For instance I was disappointed that trying to leave the site the first time
didn't pop up your product to try to convert me. Seemed like you should be
trying your own product on your own site. I went back to test it a 2nd time
though and did get the popup when I was trying to leave. 3rd time through I
didn't receive the popup.
~~~
acoyfellow
sutterbomb- thanks for checking it out.
Right now you can either trigger via exit intention (uses mouse detection) or
a timer.
Once you have been "hit" with the campaign once, you are cookied (if enabled),
so you will not be hit with it again, untill the Kit cycle's through. This
setting is customizable as well.
Once you are "cookied" you should see a small tab on the bottom left of your
screen, that gives you an opportunity to re-engage with the campaign. Did you
see this? [http://i.imgur.com/9keLK6h.png](http://i.imgur.com/9keLK6h.png)
This makes it so you don't annoy the crap out of people :)
------
eranation
This is probably a stupid comment, but I was really expecting to see something
trying to stop me when I closed OptKit's own tab. Eat your own food and show
me how you increase YOUR conversion rates, if you manage to do that, I'll
probably buy your product. Don't tell me about your product, show me your
product.
Or perhaps I didn't understand what it's about...
Just my 2 cents.
EDIT: Ok, I tried again and now I got a pop up, I guess it's about timing etc.
I guess if this works _most_ of the time, it's as good as if it's working all
of the time. Will give it a try!
~~~
acoyfellow
eranation- doh! You should have been hit with the popup when you tried to
leave the page. I also have some things coming that will be a fallback, to
ensure that it gets seen more.
Sorry for the initial confusion, and thanks for the second chance. Email me if
you have any issues or questions [email protected]
------
benlarcey
Could only get it to work after a few tries unfortunately. Great to see some
more options in the exit-intent space, but definitely needs some refinement;
the form fields on the pop up won't accept any inputs.
~~~
acoyfellow
Thanks for checking it out, sorry it didn't work as expected. Can you tell me
what browser you were on when you couldn't input the fields?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Effect of One-Legged Standing on Sleep - ph0rque
http://quantifiedself.com/2011/03/effect-of-one-legged-standing-on-sleep/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+QuantifiedSelf+%28The+Quantified+Self%29
======
Tyrannosaurs
Methodologically isn't this close to nonsense?
His measure of how well rested he is is completely subjective. There's
obviously no blinding (as he's subject and experimenter) which makes it almost
certain that as he knows the hypothesis he's looking into and the measure is
subjective, he's going to either subconsciously or consciously push the data
towards proving or disproving it based on his preconceived ideas.
He talks about randomly choosing (possibly sloppy language but if you choose
in any way it's not random, regardless it's not clear) and he's failed to
adjust for or control any other variables that might influence sleep like,
oooo, alcohol or caffeine or stress or a whole bunch of things that will make
more of a difference than standing on one leg which given the relatively small
data set is a pretty big deal (again some of this may depend on the method of
randomisation).
And then the variation is within fractions of one percent (the scale showing
99 and 99.4) which given that the measure is subjective is essentially
insignificant.
Please, please tell me that this is a wind up about how people believe
anything scientific looking and trying to get people to stand on one leg for
lulz rather than something serious?
Given that what he's doing is basically exercise and that linking sleep and
exercise makes some sense, it's not a totally stupid hypothesis, but his
experiment proves nothing.
~~~
ScottBurson
Too many people, like you, are hung up on "proof". Yes, we should be aware of
the difference between hypothesis exploration and a solid demonstration. But
that doesn't mean that hypothesis exploration is pointless!
An experiment like this one is entirely appropriate when trying to decide
whether a hypothesis is worth exploring further; setting up a more elaborate
study would have been premature.
So when you say "his experiment proves nothing" I think you are judging it by
standards it was not, and should not have been, intended to meet. Don't focus
only on the results of science; without the process, there would be no
interesting results.
~~~
grhino
The experimental procedures he went through gave little additional support for
his argument than simply stating: "I noticed I sleep better when I stand on
one leg for a while".
The statistical analysis of the study does not provide any additional weight
to the statement. In fact, the statistical analysis is more of a distraction
because he didn't control for an important influence in self-evaluating
health. If a person expects that taking an action will improve their health,
it's very likely that the person will think he feels better after taking that
action.
~~~
beagle3
While it is not rigorously scientific in the sense that physics is, it is
compares very favorably to findings in the fields of medicine and nutrition.
(Yes, they are much worse than you imagine).
And while this document cannot reflect this, I've been following Seth Roberts
for a few years now -- he is the best kind of scientist, with a remarkable
talent for objective measurement of oneself. While this cannot be generalized
to other people easily, as far as it refers to himself, it's probably way
better than most medical results published in the last 20 years.
------
keiferski
_If I stood on one leg “to exhaustion” — until it hurt too much to continue —
a few times, I woke up feeling more rested_
Wouldn't it be easier to just exercise? Regular physical activity leads to
better sleep, and doesn't require you to stand on one leg.
~~~
jcl
What he's doing _is_ exercise. He's working a muscle to exhaustion, which is
essentially weightlifting without the weights. I guess the value is that he's
found a simple workout that gets the results he needs in eight minutes a day
with no equipment.
It would be interesting to find out if he would get better or worse results
through cardio instead of working a muscle to exhaustion, and whether or not
it is important that the legs be that muscle. Some people suffer from restless
legs syndrome which keeps them from achieving deep sleep, and maybe exercising
the legs is countering this.
(I wish there was some way he could experiment that wasn't subject to the
placebo effect, though, which makes the results moot when applied to anyone
else.)
~~~
keiferski
Well, yeah. It just seems a little strange (and likely less efficient) to do
leg raises, when a decent workout of real exercises would be just as easy and
more effective.
Even if you stick to the legs, exercises like bootstrappers, squats, and
lunges would be significantly better.
~~~
peterwwillis
(see above comment) dynamic exercise is only more effective at increasing
muscle twitch force. isometrics will be more effective at increasing strength
at joint angle. for example, i could do more squats in a minute (up to 90)
after i did isometric holds vs before.
~~~
keiferski
Fair enough. I just didn't get the impression that the OP took an exercise
approach to his experiment. It seemed less isometrics and more "I'm gonna
stand on one leg until I get tired."
------
skittles
Interesting, useless experiment. It was invalid from the start. He went in
'knowing' that standing for long periods 'made' him sleep better. That may or
may not be true. It is anecdotal. Not only that, but he may have drawn the
same conclusion that standing on one leg also worked and that doing 4 sets was
best, etc. I'm not saying that standing's effect on sleep doesn't warrant
proper exploration. I am saying that the placebo effect cannot be ruled out
with this guy's work.
------
klochner
We seem to be approaching self-satire here on HN.
------
Skeletor
My Mom always told me a glass of milk would help me sleep better. It isn't
scientific, but if I'm stressed out and have a glass of milk before bed I'll
relax more and sleep better.
One legged standing could be just a good! I'll definitely try it out.
~~~
p0ckets
The calcium in the milk helps:
<http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/163169.php>
------
JohnJacobs
Why is this on Hacker News!?
------
p09p09p09
Do squats, acquire sleep.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Robots and Firms - quickfox
https://voxeu.org/article/robots-and-firms
======
beisner
This seems to be a fairly obvious finding, doesn’t it? Any change in business
practices that gives you a competitive advantage gives you, well, a
competitive advantage!
The study seems to say: if your company automates jobs away, you’ll actually
create jobs in the long run because you’ll be able to take over competitors’
market share! But I don’t think those jobs are of the same type as the ones
eliminated - probably trading manual labor for strategy/marketing/engineering,
which is not much consolation to current manual workers at your firm.
Also, the study neglects to mention industry-wide effects. Maybe one tech-
savvy company can grow its headcount even after automating a bunch of jobs
away, but given the heavy headcount losses sustained by competitors, will it
still be a net increase in the industry? I would suspect not.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Doing more with less: Apple's most controversial app to date - iMovie '08 - nickb
http://no1s.wordpress.com/2007/08/24/doing-more-with-less/
======
inklesspen
It's either love it (because it lets you get things done easily and quickly)
or hate it (because you were good at iMovie '06). But the goal for iMovie '08
was to be able to make a movie in a half hour with no experience. And I think
they've met that goal.
------
corentin
Except that, apparently, in the case of Movie 2008 it's doing less with less.
| {
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Tourniquet - selenamarie
http://zareason.blogspot.com/2012/07/tourniquet.html
======
selenamarie
For those following the UEFI Secure Boot stuff, good read. Goes into why this
is problematic -- specifically the rebranding of Linux on the desktop as
insecure.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Large – Get anything for your team or office via slackbot - barisser
http://hirelarge.com?hn=true
======
werber
How much of the functionality is a person at a computer and how much is
software? It looks like a really cool project
~~~
bitsweet
It is powered by a distributed network of people but they're bolstered by a
lot of software. This gives a very personalized experience while gaining the
efficiency of software behind the scenes.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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GAPuino (GAP8 / PULP / RISC-V MCU Development SBC) - peter_d_sherman
https://greenwaves-technologies.com/product/gapuino/
======
peter_d_sherman
Excerpt:
"GAP8 is uniquely optimized to execute a large spectrum of image and audio
algorithms including convolutional neural network (CNN), with extreme energy
efficiency, thanks to an integrated 8-core computational cluster combined with
a convolution hardware accelerator.
Vector units, intrinsics and proprietary instruction set extensions help the 8
cluster cores execute faster than traditional parallel processor architecture
without writing a single line of assembly code.
Fully programmable, RISC-V based PULP parallel architecture enables to cope
with the rapidly evolving state-of-the-art in machine learning algorithms."
PULP FAQ: [https://pulp-platform.org/faq.html](https://pulp-
platform.org/faq.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Dust Over India - Arun2009
http://postmasculine.com/a-dust-over-india
======
photon137
The mistake the author made is that he lived in India for three weeks. Had he
stayed for six months or a year, he'd have been able to figure out _what_
makes India tick - India is the very embodiment of clever innovation to
survive - it will ask you very tough questions and it will compel you to
innovate, often rapidly, just in order to survive - not even succeed. This, in
India, is known as "jugaad".
He missed the "jugaad" all around him - people, in their struggle for
survival, do all sorts of things. Lying is jugaad, dishonesty is jugaad, the
Cobra is jugaad, the marijuana in tourist places is jugaad, the beggar's
strategic location is jugaad, the dump-heap is jugaad (not all jugaads are
meant to make society better as a whole).
But maybe that's too naive. The most unfortunate in India are amongst the most
fatalistic - they give up trying - after all, they never won the birth lottery
by being born in Europe or the US, or even in a rich home in India - so why
hope for social justice? Laws are meant to be broken in India, justice is
meant not to be served (India is a study in legal arbitrage - it always has
been). Life is meant to be tough in India, values are meant to eschewed. But
even with all this, "jugaad" survives and serves its own brand of justice. The
mistake most foreigners make in India is that they continue to believe in
their ability to right the wrongs and make a change. A feeling of utter
helplessness is very alien to them. It's coming to terms with that
helplessness and digging out pockets of jugaad from that black mass of
helplessness is what makes India tick.
~~~
alberich
I'd argue that this "jugaad" happens everywhere when people are under extreme
pressure and have no good expectations of getting anywhere following the
rules.
Here in Brazil there are lots of young people that gets into drug dealing just
because they don't have nothing better to do. The grow up in extreme poverty
and society would very much like them to be dead or in prision, so they take
their chances... sometimes its better to risk a bullet to the head to get rich
and respected than to know that you'll be always poor and risk getting killed
by police or drug dealers.
And of course, this is just an example. I don't know if this qualifies as
"jugaad", but sounds a little similar.
~~~
tejaswiy
I would say you're off slightly. I think it's basically improvising very
frugally to make stuff work when it should've been close to impossible. It can
be dangerous, It can hurt others, selfish or just plain useful, but there's no
way you can deny the ingenuity.
Here're some awesome examples of jugaad:
[https://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-
prn1/559248_35987216408...](https://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-
prn1/559248_359872164083623_771453609_n.jpg)
[http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3231/2389399780_7e7c15f2d7.jp...](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3231/2389399780_7e7c15f2d7.jpg)
[http://www.myindiapictures.com/pictures/up1/2012/06/funny-
ca...](http://www.myindiapictures.com/pictures/up1/2012/06/funny-car-music-
system-jugaad.jpg)
[http://www.myindiapictures.com/pictures/up1/2012/06/funny-
ro...](http://www.myindiapictures.com/pictures/up1/2012/06/funny-room-cooling-
fan-only-in-india-jugaad.jpg)
My personal favorite: (Steaming milk on the roadside with a pressure cooker)
<http://sagarmukim.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/jugaad.jpg>
There's tons more examples like this, but you get the point.
~~~
crpatino
This is an universal trait of people trying to cope with limits. I've always
know it as "ingenio mexicano" or "mexicanada", roughly translated as mexican
wit. It is a matter of national pride and accepted wisdom that nowhere in the
world people are as cleaver as we are.
See some examples at: <http://quependejadas.com/tag/gracioso/page/2/>
The most amazing thing is that most of these images are probably not Mexican
at all, but stolen from redneck sites (search for: Look, I fixed it). That is
100% in character with the spirit of mexicanada. Why actually fix anything
when I can find someone else who did it and steal the credit!!!
------
erikpukinskis
People should be aware that this:
_He said Indians will rarely, if ever, resort to violence. As a foreigner,
you never have to worry about being robbed, or having a knife pulled on you,
or getting beaten up by a gang of thugs and having your kidney carved out of
you. And this is true._
Is not true.
It would possibly be true if he changed it to read "As a foreign _man_.."
A female friend of mine just returned from six weeks in India a few weeks ago.
I'm fairly certain that if Sanjay had met her, travelling alone as OP was, he
would've told a very different story. He would've said, as my friend heard
from Indians over and over, "Leave. Now. Get on a plane and go back to the
U.S. You are not safe here."
She was lucky, and only suffered gropings, attempted kidnapping, and attempted
break-ins to her hotel room. But violence against foreign women is on the rise
in India. The U.S. Bureau of Consolate Affairs cautions women not to travel to
India alone[1]. And "alone" in this case means "in a party without men".
Of course, none of this would be visible to you as a foreign man... you just
get treated completely differently. But it's dangerous to spread the idea that
women can just go to India and "not have to worry" about violence.
[1] <http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1139.html>
~~~
swamy_g
I just heard from a friend that her friend also stayed in India for 6 weeks
and suffered exactly the same. Is that person you're talking about from
Berkeley any chance? Could be a weird co-incidence.
------
shawnee_
_I watched the endless poverty scroll by like a demented video game. I had an
overwhelming urge to stop at an ATM and withdraw 25,000 Rupees and start
handing money out to people at random._
"Nothing should be given free. Anything that is given free has no value. " -
Padma Venkataraman
In May of this year, I spent time in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
The exchange rate during my travels was roughly 53 Rupees : 1 US Dollar. So I
can definitely understand how tempting it can be to "do the math" and
rationalize that giving X Rupees to random person will "help". But it's
absolutely not a sustainable solution to the core and underlying problem, and
might even be perpetuating it.
I _"get"_ the concept of _jugaad_. My small solution was to not give Rupees
away, but to tip well: anybody who seemed to be working on improving their
economic situation. (Tipping is not normal practice for most Indians, but I
figured it was better than handouts.)
This video can be hard to watch, but it's an interesting film about an
organization called Rising Star Outreach ( <http://www.risingstaroutreach.org>
) that is working on helping of the "worst" of India's beggars, those who
afflicted with Hansen's Disease (AKA Leprosy)
<http://byutv.org/watch/d0f942b2-6b4f-4923-9f88-7ad8fde4a01c>
Some interesting tidbits from the video:
\- "70 percent of the world's leprosy is in India."
\- "People with leprosy are treated as untouchables ... Every month, people
from the leprosy colony travel to the city to beg. Once they have enough money
to buy food and clothing for the month, they go back to the colony."
\- "Begging reduces people to their lowest level. The worse you look, the
better you're going to be successful at begging."
But the video has a somewhat happy ending: it is demonstrating a work in
progress, and general proof that giving people a way to sustain themselves
economically via microloans really does work.
As far as the general population goes, India is an amazing country:
resourceful, intelligent. But its biggest challenge will be its ability to
cope with population growth.
~~~
jagira
_> > I "get" the concept of jugaad. My small solution was to not give Rupees
away, but to tip well: anybody who seemed to be working on improving their
economic situation. (Tipping is not normal practice for most Indians, but I
figured it was better than handouts.)_
Absolutely. Be generous to your domestic help, drivers, security guards and
other people who work hard to improve their lives. It will reinforce their
belief in hard work.
~~~
kylebrown
> _But it's absolutely not a sustainable solution to the core and underlying
> problem, and might even be perpetuating it._
It reinforces their reliance on the upper class/caste, a polite form of
beggary. The core and underlying problem is not lack of belief in hard work,
but systematic corruption and exploitation of the poor.
------
jagira
I am an Indian and I find this piece quite authentic. However, the OP and most
of the other foreigners who visit India, visit places or deal with people that
are known to be hostile.
I, as an Indian, will be utterly shocked if I visit a ghetto in downtown
Detroit. Heck, there are more chances of getting mugged or shot in such
ghetto. However, I will not visit such places as they are known to be hostile.
India is a weird place and to survive you need to live as Indians live. Some
insights -
a) Yes, we have highest number of beggars. But most of them are cheats. Most
of them will walk away if you offer them a job instead of money or food. Also,
a lot of them work for beggar mafias.
b) They say that all of those 33 crore Hindu Gods, Buddha and Allah have left
India ages ago. Religions are more customary than spiritual and Indians follow
'em just for the sake of customs. It's a common sight to see a young guy
driving by a temple reciting a few shlokas while driving and offer a customary
mini version of prayer.
People who come to India on a spiritual tour make me laugh. If you think that
you can attain enlightenment or get more spiritual by travelling thousands of
miles and spending a couple of weeks at a 500$/night resort near Haridwar,
then you need some serious help.
c) Tourists buy "Indian" stuff that no Indian buys. The clutches or carpets or
the wooden elephants are made specially for foreign tourists and are
freakingly overpriced. The best way to buy Indian stuff, would be to go to
regular markets with a local friend.
d) Garbage is a big problem. Its in our nature to litter. Take an Indian to US
or Australia and he will not spit or litter. While the same person might even
pee on a street back in India. The only option is to live/stay in relatively
cleaner localities.
e) Drivers, hotel staff, guides, store keepers and public servants are
dishonest because they are virtually unaccountable to anyone and the legal
system ain't efficient enough to nab the dishonest. A "x" star restaurant can
continue to function despite serving cockroaches or hair strands in their
dishes. Apparently, identifying the trait of dishonesty is easier if you know
the local lingo/culture.
People know a lot of about American culture because of Hollywood and American
sitcoms. I am not an expert in American culture, but I can identify whether a
person is playing me. I can not do that in any other country (say Italy).
Same logic applies to foreigners who visit India. You either need to know a
few things about Indian culture beforehand or you need to spend some more time
here.
~~~
crag
"I, as an Indian, will be utterly shocked if I visit a ghetto in downtown
Detroit."
Compared to what the OP described, a "ghetto" in old Detroit would be a
paradise.
Also, just to point out, don't talk trash about a town unless you've been
there. Detroit is finally bringing itself out of the pit. Lots of new energy
running around. It's on the rise. Maybe you should visit?
~~~
jagira
Don't be defensive. I am not picking any particular place. What I am trying to
say is there are places everywhere which violate the perception of a
particular nation. The OP had some wrong perceptions about places like Agra or
Gaya.
And, I am not talking trash.
My sister lives in Troy. When she was new to Detroit, she chose a wrong route
while driving to downtown Detroit. While passing through a certain area (
_don't remember the name, will call her and ask_ ) some gangsters tried to
stop her car and rob her. Luckily she escaped.
My sister didn't crib about it like the OP did. She accepted the reality,
changed her driving directions thereafter and moved on. Like thousands of her
fellow Americans do. Likewise millions of Indians accept the harsh realities,
_change their driving directions_ and move on.
_> > Compared to what the OP described, a "ghetto" in old Detroit would be a
paradise._
Also, just to point out, don't base your comparisons on a blog post. People,
here, may try to trick you but will not shoot you. Things are improving here
as well. Though, at a slower place.
_Update: The area where my sister faced gangsters was Highland Park._
~~~
crag
"Also, just to point out, don't base your comparisons on a blog post."
As opposed to what you are basing you opinions on; "My sister lives in Troy.
When she was new to Detroit, she choose a wrong route while driving to
downtown Detroit. While passing through a certain area (don't remember the
name, will call her and ask) some gangsters tried to stop her car and rob her.
Luckily she escaped."
Down vote me all you've want... but unless you actually been to Detroit,
recently, you are taking out of your ass.
From PBS: [http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/the-daily-need/is-
detro...](http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/the-daily-need/is-detroit-the-
new-brooklyn/10290/)
I'll quote a part so you don't have to browse it: "Last weekend, the New York
Times featured a story in its Style section about the onslaught of hip, young
urban pioneers streaming into downtown Detroit. These “creatives,” as they are
being called, are taking advantage of low rents and the opportunity to recycle
this abandoned, blank slate of an urban landscape into something new and
exciting. There are restaurateurs and entrepreneurs of all stripes living
alongside environmentalists and urban farmers. ..."
If you want I can post many other links.. but i assume you can do your own
google'ing.
Edited: typos.
~~~
jagira
a) You still don't get it. I am not trying to pick any place. Maybe Detroit
has improved. Good for you, my sister, the USA and this world. But you may
still warn your tourist friend of certain places in _other American cities_ ,
right?
An uninformed tourist will be shocked if he/she visit such places just like
India.
b) I didn't down vote any of your post. Hence, these replies.
~~~
kamaal
In all fairness, what you call the poorest in US would actually qualify to be
pretty rich people here in India.
~~~
jagira
Agreed.
I am talking about expectations and exceptions. In USA an _uninformed_ tourist
won't expect such places. In Somalia, a person won't expect a super friendly
neighborhood with Audis and BMWs roaming around.
------
suprgeek
This is a fairly honest unflinching piece. A visit to India can induce severe
"Cognitive Dissonance" in the unprepared. There is obscene display of super
affluence right next to shocking Poverty. I see this every single day -
A beggar & her naked child begging at the window of an Audi R8.
The salesman in a high-end TV shop taking the bus to work.
The Marriot main-gate where super high priced cars drive out to be greeted by
a forest of beggars.
Mumbai City simultaneously houses the most expensive residence in the world
[1] and the largest slum in the world [2]
[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilia_%28building%29> [2]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharavi>
and so on and so on...
The leaders and the bureaucrats of the Govt. of India deserve to be shot in a
public square for their sheer corruption and incompetence. They rob the
country blind; feather their own nests and manage thru coercion to get elected
(or posted to plum postings) over and over again.
~~~
Arun2009
> The leaders and the bureaucrats of the Govt. of India deserve to be shot in
> a public square for their sheer corruption and incompetence.
The Indian public deserves an equal or greater share of the blame. Government
is the people's responsibility in a democracy. If governance sucks, the
citizens are not doing their job.
~~~
csomar
You are living in a developed country, right? You got many years of language,
writing, speaking, thinking and maybe higher education. You don't know what
illiteracy means (when you can't read/write; and don't understand anything
about democracy or the banking system).
Your average person in a developing and poor country is not Arun2009. It's a
fairly ignorant person who doesn't know either his rights or his duties.
~~~
awakeasleep
Yesterday an article made it to our frontage about what 'bubbles' we live in.
By bubbles the author meant assumptions that shape how we see and interpret
everything.
I think literacy & education is one of the biggest bubbles. I had to spend a
lot of time thinking about it, and talking to people with experience in the
subject before the vast idea of what it means to be illiterate started to dawn
on me.
For example, teaching a class on how to use computers to people at the
library. They all want to know how to 'look for a job' online. Show 'em how to
use the mouse, what icons represent the internet, how to get email, and see
they're having trouble. Slowly begin to understand they're only memorizing
shapes and patterns of letters, and don't really know how to read or write.
We're all so hyper literate, I can say that about everyone here. We're
practically a different species than people who don't know how to wirelessly
communicate through space and time. It's impossible to hold poor people in
india who basically only have spoken word communication, and oral tradition
historical context, to our standards.
------
nullspace
Sorry about the long post. The post by the author stirred up a strong emotion
from me.
The author is right. It's an extremely honest account of the state of chaos
that is India. There has been a culture of dishonesty that has grown over the
last few decades, because that is the only way many people can afford to live
middle-class lifestyles.
If you take an auto-rickshaw or a taxi, the only thing that goes through the
drivers head is, whether he can scam you for more money, and if so how. It's
quite sad, because on one hand dishonesty is the norm, but on the other that's
the only way he can feed his family, send his kids to school, take care of his
ailing parents and drink away his miseries at night. The middle class ignore
this because they know it's all a game with winners and losers (even if by
pure chance). They would be better off trying to achieve a comfortable
standard of living, than to try and reform India. But these people are often
really honest, and as courteous as the average busy employee in nyc.
Then you see the rich folks who live in walled gardens (literally and
figuratively). They have comfortable lives and are protected from the stark
realities by security guards whose sole job is to prevent beggars from
entering places where they live.
The police here do not have resources to work on most of the civil problems
that happen here. On the plus side, they are less corrupt than what they were
before, maybe because of the fear of irrelevancy. The politicians care more
about the gold in their coffers, than to try and find ways to reform society.
The authors' account, it seems, came from a person who expected India to be a
basket of spirituality, but was then struck in the groin by reality. It's all
well and good. That is the real India, unfortunately. Not the Ashrams or the
Taj hotels or the private resorts.
The situation is changing. The spending power of the middle class is
increasing, along with the awareness that they are the ones who can and should
start the change. The population needs to be decreased or the population
densities should be more evenly spread. People living below the poverty line
need to find some way to sustain themselves, and elevate themselves to a
situation where they can think about tackling societal challenges. These are
hard problems, and need capable minds to solve.
------
ankit28595
Reading this article reminds me a story from "The Great Indian Novel" by
Shashi Tharoor that explains the present state of Indians -
"A man, ... a symbol, shall we say, of people of India -- is pursued by a
tiger. He runs fast, but panting heart tells him he cannot run much longer. He
sees a tree. Relief! He accelerates and gets to it in one last despairing
stride. He climbs the tree. The tiger snarls below him, but he feels that he
has at last escaped its snapping jaws. But no -- what's this? The branch on
which he is sitting is weak, and bends dangerously. This is not all; wood-mice
are gnawing away at it; before long they will eat through it and it will snap
and fall. The branch sags down over a wall. Aha! Escape? Perhaps our hero can
swim? But the well is dry, and there are snakes writhing and hissing on its
bed. What is our hero to do? As the branch bends lower, he perceives a
solitary blade of glass growing on the wall of the well.On the top of the
blade of grass gleams a drop of honey. What action does our Puranic man, our
quintessential Indian, take in this situation?
He bends with the branch, and licks up the honey. "
No matter how desperate the situation, Indians will always find a way to
adjust, to live with it. So despite all the filth, over crowding, corruption,
inefficiency, Indians have learnt how to live and enjoy.
~~~
therandomguy
"No matter how desperate the situation, Indians will always find a way to
adjust, to live with it".
Exactly. And this is NOT a good thing. Instead a putting up with all this they
should be fighting back. That would be a good thing.
------
maddalab
Exaggerations abound. While I agree with aspects of poor governance and
garbage accumulation and many other observations, I realized the author was
out to represent a preconceived notion of a nation, when I read, "homeless
people sleeping on the tarmac, the city is so crowded and disgusting that
people decide they’d rather sleep on the airport runway."
I will pick on that lie to state my point. If you have been to any of the
smaller metros in India, you generally get thru immigration at Mumbai before
taking a flight from the domestic terminal. Getting to the domestic terminal
from the international terminal is cumbersome. You are escorted in a bus
operated by the Airport Authority of India, accompanied by security personel.
The aspect of the ride that is of interest is the route taken by the bus. The
bus operated within the premises of the airport often running along side the
tarmac and taxi way thru numerous and repeated security check-points while it
meanders to or from the domestic terminal. This gives you the best view of the
runways at ground level in slow speed often around 15 kmph and includes a
section of the ride around the cargo terminals.
Most international airlines operate to and out of Mumbai during the night
often after 12 AM. I have taken this ride on at least 3 occasions and have not
seen a single individual sleeping on the tarmac on even one occasion.
What the author might be referring to could be the people you find in a semi
sleep state around the terminal, more so near the cargo terminals. These are
employees in the cargo section often on a break. The employees are usually
uniformed and any one can observe the security batches hanging around their
necks.
You would then have to assume that the intent of the author is intentional
mis-representation and sensationalism. Take everything written with a large
serving of salt.
~~~
tmbsundar
I agree. May be he was confused and mistook people sleeping on the side ways
of the bus route.
Another glaring bias in the observation sequence is that all negative
experiences have been told in a detailed, pictorial manner. And all the good
experiences, on Sanjay cooking the meal, another guy refusing 50 Rs and the
taxi driver being tearfully happy at the 50% tip etc., have been cramped into
single liners or a couple of paragraphs, where as all the other negative
experiences are allotted ample real estate in the article.
~~~
vacri
Westerners can easily relate to a home-cooked meal or vendors refusing
overpayment. They don't really relate so well the the stuff about
overpopulation, so given the intended audience, it's not surprising that
there's more detail there.
------
supersan
I don't know how much truth there is in this from the foreigner's point of
view, but a lot of us believe (me and a lot of my friends included) that a
vast majority of tourists who come to India want to witness this very same
upon coming here.
It also fits one of the many reasons why the density of foreigners is maximum
in areas like Pahar Ganj and Old delhi (the dirtiest parts of Delhi IMO). So
when some "gora" (typically white people) complains that Delhi is so dirty the
biggest wtf going on in my head is.. then why the hell are you staying near
Pahar ganj or traveling by a cycle rickshaw in 42 deg near Nai Sadak. The
place near the Airport is cleaner than New York ( at least after the common
wealth games) but nobody wants to see that. Who wants to come here all the way
to see some old glass building in neat and clean surroundings. What's unique
about that right?
~~~
JonnieCache
I think it is valid to judge a society on how it treats its least fortunate.
You are certainly unlikely to learn much about a country from its suburbs and
its CBDs, they are (relatively speaking) alike the world over in my
experience.
~~~
coastside_geek
Well, then why complain about it? When tourists come to US they may go to
Disneyland, the Statue of Liberty etc. Most tourists don't take pictures of
American ghettos, prisons etc.
Why is it that when you guys go to other countries you constantly focus on why
that country is somehow different in a bad way? India: too filthy and chaotic.
China: no freedom. Middle East: too oppressive. I could go on.
I've noticed that Europeans have a more nuanced approach to the world compared
to Americans. They seem to appreciate differences instead of being smug in
their superiority.
~~~
AaronI
I haven't met any fellow USians that _constantly_ do this. Then again, I guess
that's the problem with making wide generalizations about an entire group of
people.
------
sandGorgon
_There was little else to do after nightfall in India but get drunk._ hmm...
OK [http://www.buzzintown.com/delhi/events/category--
nightlife/i...](http://www.buzzintown.com/delhi/events/category--nightlife/id
--1419.html) <http://delhi.burrp.com/events/Film+and+Theatre#3>
_an Indian will lie to your face ... they’ll hand you fake business cards and
offer to sell you something that they don’t actually have, so that you’ll
voluntarily empty your wallet to them on your own accord._ As opposed to
DecorMyEyes.. sure
_A couple Indians stopped him on the street, and with perfect English
convinced him they worked for a travel agency._ No shit. It's not like any
Indian travel sites are listed on Nasdaq as MMYT right ?
Everyone of the problems has happened to me in various parts of South East
Asia. India is not unique with these issues. With all due respect, I think the
author had a "Gautama" experience. An experience of extreme helplessness when
confronted with extreme poverty at a national scale. I completely empathize
with him, but lets not get too hysterical with helplessness here.
It's hard to herd a billion people along... but we're trying.
~~~
briandear
It's hard to be sympathetic when walking through Paharganj in Delhi and have
hundreds of con artists just outright lying and trying to scam well meaning
tourists. I won't go back to India because of it. It's one thing to pay a guy
to take pictures of you at Taj, it's another to have someone be helpful then
demand a tip for it.
China has a billion people too, but life there is far less horrid, dirty and
bureaucratic. While the Chinese government is pretty deplorable, something is
going right there, compared to India. Another problem with India is the mind-
numbing Colonial-era bureaucracy -- to start a small business in India it
takes months of paperwork just to get a business license. You have to get
papers signed, resigned, rubber stamped by ten different offices and then pay
crazy expensive bribes to everyone along the way. The problem is the
government. It's an obsession with administivia at the expense of
entrepreneurs.
~~~
sandGorgon
The comparison with china is, IMHO, pretty much apples to oranges. You are
comparing industrialized portions of China with India's countryside
(notwithstanding the forced removal of Beijing's slums for the Olympics
[http://olympics.scmp.com/Article.aspx?id=1419§ion=in...](http://olympics.scmp.com/Article.aspx?id=1419§ion=insight)).
If you need to find fault with the slow pace of reforms, I give you democracy
and cite US Health Reforms as an excuse - imagine if you had one billion
rather than 300 million to work with.
As India's MoS-Small Scale Industries' Sachin Pilot once put it - "inclusive
development vs growth".
Hoping that people will not cheat you at Bangkok's KhaoSan road is a bit too
optimistic. Existence of ThornTree and Tripadvisor with their "Tourist Trap"
sections is indeed because this is a human, not a regional phenomena.
I'm sad that you wont go back to India because of it - I really wish you had
not stayed at Paharganj, but instead stayed somewhere inside Delhi. I wish you
had skipped Taj Mahal altogether and instead taken a walk to Hauz Khas
Village, bang in the middle of New Delhi - which completely epitomises India's
bohemian kitsch, shopping, food, music along with monuments that predate the
Taj Mahal by atleast 300 years. Maybe you could have dropped in to have a cup
of coffee at one of the cafe's there that operate on an honor system rather
than a bill.
Your tourist trap experience, colored the rest of your viewpoints and I'm
truly sad at that.
~~~
briandear
Comparing downtown Delhi with downtown Shanghai is no comparison. I've lived
an traveled in the Chinese countryside and that poverty is not even in the
same ballpark as India.
------
therandomguy
I grew up in one of the biggest cities in India. If I was as good with words,
this is exactly what I would write. Or maybe I wouldn't. The problem in
discussing these issues with most Indians is that they quickly become
defensive. Instead of acknowledging the facts (which is the fist step to
finding a solution), the typical response you would receive is, "even in US
there is poverty/crime/corruption... you are being hypocritical and should
fuck off". I'm sure we will see a lot of it in this thread.
~~~
vacri
Pretty much any nation with a modicum of pride in their populace will have
people getting defensive if a foreigner criticises their nation. I can't think
of many first-world nations where I haven't seen symptoms of this.
~~~
therandomguy
Yup. Ignorance and arrogance masked as pride.
------
natep
I double checked, and according to Wikipedia, he's right. The homicide rate is
3.2/100,000/year for the most recent year with data, compared to 5.0 for US.
Although many countries do have lower rates, India is nowhere near the more
violent South American and African countries, which are the worst.
There's so much more in this article to process, I don't think I'll post a
reaction until I've had time to mull it over (at which point, this post will
be dead, oh well). It did strike me that my cousin has been in India for the
last few weeks, and hasn't mentioned the poverty once in her travel blog. I
think I'll send this to her and see if she has anything to say.
Also, am I the only one that finds it weird that a piece with this level of
nuance is on a site otherwise dedicated to dating advice for straight, cis
men? The kind of advice that divides behaviors into 'needy' and 'not needy'
and claims that your behavior will determine what kind of woman you end up
with?
------
cs702
This brings to mind New York City's horse-manure health crisis in the late
1800's (even though that crisis wasn't directly comparable to this one). Back
then, according to the New York Times, there were up to 200,000 horses living
in the city, each one generating between up to 30 pounds of manure a day, for
a total of up to 6 million pounds of fresh horseshit every day. It just piled
up, attracting huge numbers of flies and posing a serious challenge to the
city's Sanitation Department. The whole city reeked of it.[1]
[1] [http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/when-horses-
pos...](http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/when-horses-posed-a-
public-health-hazard/)
~~~
cstross
It's also worth noting the correlation between the reduction in urban horses
and the reduction in human cases of tuberculosis. TB killed up to 25% of the
urban poor in the late 19th century; infective vectors included infected milk
(from bovine infection reservoirs), poor living conditions that enforced
proximity to TB sufferers, and proximity to TB-infected livestock -- of which
horses would have been the main reservoir in urban areas.
------
srean
It is hard to give a well rounded response to the post and yet keep it short.
So I will not even try. A lot has been written about India, so people who want
to know more will dig deep on their own, whereas many will be happy with
_poverty porn_.
One thing that I do want to mention is that India is a very _high variance_
country. For almost any statement one makes, there will be a un-ignorable part
of the country where the statement is not true. To get a truer picture of
India, always keep that in mind. A part of the variance is not only spatial
but also temporal. Depending on the time you choose to travel, your impression
of Mumbai's city train system can be poles apart.
In the post it was claimed that author felt safe in India. That automatically
gave the author's gender away, especially given the names of the places he
visited. India's capital and most of the north and western states (Gujarat
excluded) are highly unsafe if you are a girl and alone. Even the locals will
not venture out in the evening unaccompanied by the opposite sex. Sexual
violence and molestation is a daily affair. It is even ethnically targeted. If
you are a girl from the north-east, India's capital is not a friendly place.
On the other hand visit Chennai, Mumbai, Pune (by no means an exhaustive list)
nobody will give it a second thought if an unattended girl has to travel in
the wee hours of the night, even if wearing a mini fortune in jewelery.
Every so often in 7 years a north/west/central region of it will erupt in
politically motivated inter-religion violence and riots of the worst kind.
There would be thousands dead, injured, burned and raped (yeah, I am not
making this up), but no one will get punished.
On the other hand states like Kerala, West Bengal havent had such violence
ever since the creation of independent India. But measure them along the axis
of economic growth, the latter will come up in very unflattering colors.
In certain regions of India, you will find bribes to be business as usual. In
the south, (barring Karnataka) that is certainly not the norm. Sometimes the
differences are so great that sometimes when you hear the stories from the
other side you cannot help but wonder, "is it the same country !"
Some cities are poster-children of bad traffic, some are pretty decent
compared to Indian average.
In some cities the form of the garbage disposal is that you throw it on the
street, whereas in others you will have regular system that collects it off
the dumpsters and empties it on the landfills. Furthermore it is not
correlated with the perceived wealth of a city or town. Some of the poorer
ones are cleaner and more organized.
Most of India is male-dominated and patriarchal whereas the north-eastern
states are matriarchal. In many states it is still customary for the girl's
family to pay huge amounts in dowry, and a matter of peer pride for the boy's
family, whereas in many parts, (kerala, west bengal) dowry is frowned upon. It
is not completely absent but when such a transaction does take place, it is
sneaked in different ways and peer pressure works against it.
In the northern and western states girl child foeticide is rampant, not so in
the other states.
Lastly: Corruption is practiced differently in India and US. In US there is
this revolving door between corporations and the govt that legitimizes
corruption, whereas in India it is closer to cash under the table. Not
claiming that one is better or worse than the other, just making an
observation about how it is practiced.
~~~
aggronn
In what way is regulatory capture corruption? What is the alternative? I'm
reluctant to consider it corruption in the same sentence as bribery, despite
that it is an inherent conflict of interest.
~~~
dredmorbius
Regulatory agencies are supposed to, by charter, look to the public interest
in overseeing companies.
If they are captured by the companies they regulate, and serve the companies'
interests rather than the public's, by definition their mission has been
corrupted.
Your question is highly disingenuous.
~~~
aggronn
Your assessment of my question isn't fair. Serving companies interests vs
serving public interests isn't a dichotomy, and very rarely is a regulatory
decision as clean cut as 'this is obviously bad and a net loss for the
society, but we're going to let them set do it anyways'. Believing that to be
the case is far more disingenuous.
Regardless, moving between industry and regulatory bodies isn't necessarily
done in a corrupt manner. If you're the president of a state energy board, you
don't need to break any rules to get a higher paying job in industry. you're
already, perhaps necessarily, more qualified than almost any other candidates.
This is not inherently corrupt, this is what OP was referring to (or, this is
a common meme which is associated with what he described).
~~~
dredmorbius
No, it's accurate.
What part of "when a state regulatory agency, created to act in the public
interest, instead advances the commercial or special interests that dominate
the industry or sector it is charged with regulating" don't you understand?
_That_ is the definition of "regulatory capture".
Note that regulatory capture is _not_ "balancing the public interest with
commercial realities" or similar such wording.
If you're perhaps debating some _other_ term, please provide us with an
accepted term and definition of same, rather than creating a Lewis Carrol
"glory" (see: <http://sabian.org/looking_glass6.php>) and passing off as
accepted wisdom.
On my planet, the _appearance_ of impropriety is considered largely as bad as
actual impropriety. Taking an example from a US government website:
[http://ig.navy.mil/Complaints/Complaints%20%20(Appearance%20...](http://ig.navy.mil/Complaints/Complaints%20%20\(Appearance%20of%20Impropriety\).htm)
If the revolving door _consistently_ operates between regulatory agencies and
the organizations those agencies regulate, then yes, I'd say that this
comprises systemic corruption.
~~~
aggronn
It might suffice to say that 'regulatory capture' is used more broadly in
economic literature than what the wikipedia article you're referencing leads
on. Maybe not. We disagree fundamentally on the 'appearance of impropriety'
comment here. I don't consider the reason for changing jobs to be so cut and
dry. I don't see this moving onto a productive discussion.
~~~
dredmorbius
If you're finding an alternate definition, cite your reference.
------
nsns
I have spent years in India, and it's one of my favorite places on Earth. One
thing I quickly discovered is how much Western visitors like to (ab)use their
experiences to misconstrue a sense of superiority. Such a sense would
immediately disappear, IMO, should they make an effort to overcome their own
ignorance of the place.
The piece reads almost like a self-conscious parody of this usual Western
tirade against India.
------
spiredigital
I spent three weeks in India last year teaching in a slum school, and this is
the most candid and accurate description of the country I've read yet. Well
done. I think some people are afraid to really be honest at the risk of being
politically incorrect, and I appreciate the author's honesty.
I had the same reaction the OP did when I saw so many living side-by-side with
the impoverished - especially children - and being so callused. But the
reality is that poverty is everywhere in India, and because it's a way of
live, people simply adjust.
But it doesn't make it any less sad. It's sad to see full-grown, gaunt men
struggling to pedal their rickshaw in flip-flops over washboard roads for
pennies. But it's devastating seeing small children who are really, truly
famished.
We would buy food for hungry children whenever we could, and often they would
stare at us blankly at first. They'd accept the food, but would have no
reaction. I figured they simply didn't appreciate it or couldn't muster a
reaction.
But then I started watching them after we left. And after they realized they
weren't being had - and we really were giving them food with no strings
attached - they were transformed. I looked back at one begging child to see
him absolutely gleeful, grinning from ear to ear. Another child who I gave
some candy and bit of money ran after our departing rickshaw - while holding
his 1 year old sister - waving, smiling and dancing with joy. It almost most
made me cry.
But I didn't cry, not until the night before we left. After three weeks in
India, I was ready to to leave. But at the same time, I felt almost guilty
that I was able to return to such a country of prosperity and wealth while the
children I'd taught would simply stay behind. And while my wife and I had
worked our ass off for 2 weeks to improve the school, the curriculum and the
educational prospects for the kids, ultimately our effort wasn't going to move
the needle, and few if any would ever leave the slums. They had almost no shot
at making a life for themselves. With all these emotions stirring in my mind,
my wife held me as I cried.
If you're living in the U.S. or any Western country, you are incredibly
blessed / lucky. Don't take it for granted. If you haven't been to India, it's
a trip that will forever change your perspective. Before leaving for India, I
simply lived in a home. But I returned with the knowledge that I live in a
luxurious castle.
------
frasertimo
Hey guys, I work for Postmasculine and just wanted to jump in quickly. First,
thanks for sharing this Arun2009. I've been reading HN daily for the last 9
months and love it. Amazing to open up my computer today and see us as the
number one link. I believe my reaction was something like this:
[http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/05/excit...](http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/05/excited5.gif)
Anyway, I mainly wanted to ask what people thought of the site apart from that
article. Did you read anything else and did you like it or dislike it? If so,
what articles did you read?
Thanks!
~~~
modarts
Pretty good site, and the content is refreshingly devoid of the PUA type
garbage you'll read on askmen
~~~
frasertimo
Thanks. One of our unofficial goals is to not be an Askmen ripoff with better
writing. I enjoy reading Askmen articles once in a while, especially when I
need something very specific and practical like how to tie a bow tie, or when
I want to waste some time on a 'top 10 hottest chicks in surrealist Angolian
horror films' list or something equally mindless. But we're aiming to go a
little deeper than that :)
Any more feedback, negative or positive is much appreciated.
------
vardhanw
Discussion on r/india
[http://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/nmnzf/how_accurately_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/nmnzf/how_accurately_does_this_blog_post_describe_india/)
------
ravivyas
I have not read the article yet but I am saddened by the fact that the
discussion , yet again,has become a US vs Them discussion. Getting mugged in
Detroit does not justify any behavior here in India. Just because the US has
poor people does not mean we can too.
The problem with Indians is we will say "I am proud to be a Indian" one moment
and litter the next. We believe we are perfect thus do not work to achieve
more. Yes as Individuals we would have done a lot for the country but we as a
people need to be more patriotic and literally uplift the nation.
------
bhntr3
This is a very accurate portrayal of the hard parts of traveling as a
backpacker in India. I'm not sure it's a totally accurate portrayal of India
itself. I spent six months backpacking around India. A lot of what he said in
the article resonated with me, especially eventually losing it about a few
dollars with a taxi driver, hands shaking with anger over $4.
The thing the author doesn't mention is that being a traveler affects what you
see and who you meet. There are places you go as a backpacker: Agra,
Rajasthan, Bodhgaya, Goa, Bangalore and so on. And there are people there
looking for you, expecting you, or at least someone like you. If you only
speak to people who approach you, then you will meet a lot of dishonest
people. Things tend to look pretty rough from the banana pancake store.
This is true in any poor country that gets a lot of wealthy tourists. Most of
what he said was true in East Africa too. It's really true of anywhere you can
get that damn banana pancake.
So, I don't disagree. It was spot on. But it's also possible that the 100%
accurate description of what a backpacker sees in India is not an accurate
description of India itself.
Also, I'm not advocating "getting off the beaten path" or trying to critique
the "authenticity" of his "Indian experience". I hate that shit. But there is
a bit of an Uncertainty Principle to backpacking. In my experience, you can't
both travel a country cheaply and observe it objectively at the same time.
------
_debug_
As an Indian, I'd like to put in a word about spirituality and "seeking" :
getting trapped by the spiritual tourism hawkers is the worst way to go about
it. Please do not just land up and ask, "So where is the latest and greatest
ashram?". You'll probably get scammed, or worse, physically or mentally
abused. Do not underestimate the charisma and level of brainwashing techniques
that fake gurus are capable of. Even level-headed people can be made to "give
up this wretched materiality" (i.e., write away their property to the ashram)
after a few sessions of strange chemicals in your food, and some effective
brainwashing / hypnotic sessions.
Before coming to India, please have an exact idea of the particular person /
people (guru, gurus, enlightened people, etc;) you are going to meet, what you
seek from them, etc; Please spend time researching the person you want to meet
on the Internet, YouTube, etc; Please try to have Indian friends, or just
register with someone who will check up on you regularly (ideally a local, or
at least by phone) who can help as an emergency contact in case of any
disaster (malaria, hypnotised by the scammer-guru, etc;).
It is a sad fact that this country has some gems of philosophers, but is
equally filled with scammers and worse.
Lastly, a personal opinion : just read Jiddu Krishnamurthi and think for
yourself, you don't need a harrowing India trip! :-)
~~~
aangjie
I would also recommend a quick read of [http://www.amazon.com/Karma-Cola-
Marketing-Mystic-East/dp/06...](http://www.amazon.com/Karma-Cola-Marketing-
Mystic-
East/dp/0679754334/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341848365&sr=8-1&keywords=karma+cola).
It'll give you a perhaps old, but still relevant list of signs to watch out
for.
------
jessedhillon
Why is this being upvoted and still on the front page? In addition to being
totally irrelevant to the site guidelines: the guy goes to India, visits all
the tourist hotspots, and eats at Pizza Hut. While traveling. In India.
Without accepting or denying any of the observations he makes, and at the risk
of sounding like I "lack perspective," I humbly offer that if you travel
halfway around the world and still eat at an American chain restaurant, your
judgment of foreign culture is irrelevant.
~~~
JabavuAdams
> I humbly offer that if you travel halfway around the world and still eat at
> an American chain restaurant, your judgment of foreign culture is
> irrelevant.
Nonsense. For all we know, he ate there once. Homesickness is a common
experience for travellers in a very different culture.
~~~
jessedhillon
The idea that Mr. Manson's heart is brought back home by a visit to Pizza Hut
is even more damning to his credibility! But seriously, he sounds like another
lazy, judgmental tourist.
~~~
JabavuAdams
What would convince you that this is not true?
I remember going to McDonalds when I was traveling in Spain and feeling
homesick and annoyed that everyone was on siesta. I guess I'm just a bad
tourist?
~~~
jessedhillon
Tourism != traveling
Tourists should keep their judgments to themselves. Traveling is about
immersing yourself in the local culture, tourism is about observing it from a
safe distance -- _i.e._ touring.
Making deep conclusions about the people of another culture while traveling
around in hotels, eating at Pizza Hut (okay, just once!) and hopping around
between tourist attractions and ashrams designed specifically to attract white
people is like me trying to figure out if you would beat your wife, just by
looking at your face. There is no correlation.
------
grandalf
Because India is close to the equator, the environment has a greater carrying
capacity than the kinds of first-world, northern nations that the author is
used to.
Thus, for this reason alone, India is likely to have a different ratio of
people to development, since less development is required to sustain one
person's resource utilization.
Contrast this to the US where much of the country is snow covered for 1/3 of
the year and without planning and infrastructure to enable it, there would be
very little food available during the winter. In the US the infrastructure is
a requirement for even moderate population growth.
The same applies to shelter. In India, a hut made of newspaper is adequate
shelter year round. Try that in the Northern US and you'll freeze.
The result of this is that there are more poor people who do not rely as much
on large scale planning and infrastructure for their basic survival.
Yes India's government is corrupt, but not all that much more corrupt than the
US government.
If you want to talk about rights for the poor, in India if someone isn't using
land and you set up a tent on it and start living there, you can't be evicted.
The shantytowns that the author found so disturbing are actually a side-effect
of India's weak property rights laws, which themselves are a result of
democratic pressure from the poor to continue living where their families have
lived for generations. Contrast this to the genocide the US conducted against
native Americans who were in the way.
Basic infrastructure (roads, sewers) is lacking in India, but those are not
easy projects to bootstrap. Bangalore has a massive sewer construction project
going on now.
Frankly, it's not all that bad. Sure the garbage smells bad, but it's mostly
just a matter of learning not to keep inhaling after you catch a whiff of
something rank on the breeze.
If you are concerned about India's political infrastructure, notice that
India's rulers are forming alliances with the US to help thwart Pakistan's
nuclear ambitions. Note that once the US has a stake in one ruling party it
tends to do much to prop up and empower that party, even if there are horrible
human rights consequences.
When I go to India I notice the energy. People sit happily beneath a dirty
tarp in a roadside food stand, enjoying Manchurian Gobi... sometimes 4 or 5
people sharing one bowl of the delicious spicy food. Smiles everywhere. These
are extremely poor people. Also I notice the tiny businesses, some retail
locations are only a few square feet in size but sell a variety of goods and
are staffed by a single motivated shopkeeper who works 18+ hour days.
India is full of hard working people and ingenuity. I found the author's
generalizations about dishonesty, etc., quite offensive.
Consider how much effort is undertaken in the US to hide poverty from view.
Sadly the US ends up putting a very large percentage of its poor population in
prisons and has relocated many to horrific housing projects, where the
violence and horrors are contained away from view.
Consider how much effort is undertaken in the US to present the appearance of
legit, non-corrupt institutions. Yet fraud abounds at all levels of
government. The stuff Wikileaks exposed about the US is nothing more than
fraud, dishonesty, and corruption.
~~~
pdeuchler
"Yes India's government is corrupt, but not all that much more corrupt than
the US government."
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India>
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/world/asia/18iht-
letter18....](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/world/asia/18iht-
letter18.html)
[http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2091100,00.htm...](http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2091100,00.html)
People are holding hunger strikes to stand up against the corruption. When was
the last time that happened in the US?
You are rationalizing away all of the author's points, and just because there
is an explanation for things doesn't make those things okay. Just because "In
India, a hut made of newspaper is adequate shelter year round." Doesn't mean
it's alright for people to live in a shelter of NEWSPAPER.
"Frankly, it's not all that bad. Sure the garbage smells bad, but it's mostly
just a matter of learning not to keep inhaling after you catch a whiff of
something rank on the breeze."
I'm sure that will fix all of the disease and sickness that comes with
festering garbage lingering about in public streets.
"Sadly the US ends up putting a very large percentage of its poor population
in prisons and has relocated many to horrific housing projects, where the
violence and horrors are contained away from view."
Even if this is true (which I'd argue that it's not, but that is neither here
nor there) how does that justify having the poor out in the open begging for a
living?
"If you want to talk about rights for the poor, in India if someone isn't
using land and you set up a tent on it and start living there, you can't be
evicted. The shantytowns that the author found so disturbing are actually a
side-effect of India's weak property rights laws, which themselves are a
result of democratic pressure from the poor to continue living where their
families have lived for generations. Contrast this to the genocide the US
conducted against native Americans who were in the way."
Besides the blatant non-sequitor about genocide (It happened, yes, but what
does that have to do with India?), giving someone the right to squat on land
is hardly "rights for the poor". Congrats on not evicting people from shanty
towns, excuse me if you aren't awarded the next Nobel Peace Prize.
~~~
PakG1
I agreed with most of your post except for this point:
_Doesn't mean it's alright for people to live in a shelter of NEWSPAPER._
Why isn't it alright? Honestly, if it's adequate shelter, why isn't it
alright? I'm trying to think of some reasons, and I figure it has to do with
inability to withstand rain and wind, effects of rot and mold, lack of
security, or who knows what. But then I keep going back to the word
"adequate". What does this mean? Does adequate mean these problems actually
don't exist, and therefore it's adequate? Or is there a different level of
what is considered adequate in the gp, compared to what I think is adequate?
You can't just come out and say that it's not alright for people to live in a
shelter of newspaper just because it's newspaper. You need to have reasons for
it. And if it _is indeed_ adequate, I can't think of any reasons why I would
dislike living in a shelter of newspapers. In the same manner, I cannot think
of any reasons why I would dislike caves in western China, huts in the Amazon,
or igloos in the Yukon. If it's a matter of getting proper Internet, well,
let's just assume that if I'm living there, I must have chosen to forgo some
luxuries. For example, many missionaries throughout history easily decided to
go native and live like the people they were trying to reach.
I need to understand the details behind your point.
~~~
ttrt
You're assuming too much. It's not adequate shelter. You'd get sick living in
a shack in an indian slum or in a hut in the amazon without modern medicine
plus expensive and time consuming precautions--precautions a slum dweller
can't take. Read up on public health in slums, particularly slums in the
tropics.
"many missionaries throughout history easily decided to go native"
Err, no. Missionaries (as well as soldiers and merchants) used to have crazy
high mortality in the tropics.
~~~
PakG1
I'm not assuming anything. I'm questioning what is the definition of adequate
here, because whatever is the definition will determine whether or not I agree
with the original statement.
Whether or not those housing conditions lend themselves to proper sanitation
or not, missionaries decided to go native in spite of the high mortality, also
knowing the mortality rate of their peers (until modern medicine came about to
make things like malaria a much smaller concern). I don't see your point.
Missionaries had a crazy high mortality in the tropics? So what? It didn't
stop their decisions to go native. And they certainly didn't have a crazy high
mortality rate after the arrival of modern medicine. What are you saying no
to?
------
VMG
Cached:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MOYIexE...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MOYIexE5qhAJ:postmasculine.com/a-dust-
over-india+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk)
------
mattront
When making judgements like this, it is good to remember that your experience
of a place depends not only on that place, but even more so on your own state
of mind. When you see confusion all around you, you should honestly ask
yourself how much of it is coming from your side.
~~~
Arun2009
> you should honestly ask yourself how much of it is coming from your side.
That may be true. But I still think that candid, unapologetic appraisals of
what's wrong with developing countries may be just what the doctor ordered for
things to change.
I myself am an Indian and while I'm yet to see someone covered in his or her
own feces in India, I'd agree with the general sentiment of that article: it's
an honest, heart-felt piece. I'd like to change the state of affairs in my
country, but the task is so f*cking huge that you don't know where to start or
even whether you can do anything at all. If perhaps more Indians start feeling
that things are NOT acceptable here, maybe we might see the beginnings of
change, just like how it was with India's own independence struggle.
~~~
vr000m
India probably needs more startups; startups that are solving Indian problems,
employing Indians and if relevant expanding the solution to places outside.
Despite the corruption and incompetence of the government, I believe that the
government also finds itself in the same conundrum--"where to start, or what
to fix first, or in what order".
~~~
btilly
And inevitably decides to fix the fact that those in power do not feel
themselves to be rich enough.
------
braindead_in
I once took my client who was visiting from US to a city tour of New Delhi. It
was routine India Gate, Red Fort, Jantar Mantar stuff. She seemed unimpressed.
But we happened to pass through a slum area and her eyes just lit up. She was
shocked and amazed, but happy that her trip was now complete. It was
disgusting.
~~~
prawn
We marvel in that which is different?
(Had never heard of Jantar Mantar before - only been to a few southern parts
of India - thanks. Will put it on my To Do list!)
------
mayanksinghal
As an Indian who has lived in North India for the entire 23 years of his
existence, I can say that every single word that the author has reported is
true, except one. It is not safe to roam about in wee hours not even for men.
Except may be in Mumbai and a few more cities. I would advice any other visits
against it.
Oh and people who have praised the word 'jugaad', in most cases it is a
illegal-immoral solution. I hate it when people glorify the act. It is a
reality and it is present everywhere in India - but I hope that we grow out of
it.
You can divide the country into three parts: (A) The Powerful (who are always
rich) (B) The not-so-rich and not-so-powerful (C) The poor and powerless.
People of class (A) are leaders, businessmen and politicians who are also
lawmakers. Class (B) is the middle to high income families who think political
dialogue is a stinking business to be a part of. Class (C) is the overwhelming
majority who vote and get paid for it - either directly or through improper
political practices from caste/region/religion based arguments.
We have a huge population with few resources. We don't have enough fuel to
dump our waste, not even enough ground to dump them on. We have very high
unemployment and low literacy. Even the education system that we have is
largely of very low quality. Cross Border Terrorism that is so not a daily
part of western life is now too boring to be covered on Indian television.
North India is so accustomed to it that people have even stopped demanding
action - we don't think our government can take any. We also face Naxalism
[1], a reality that a lot of us don't understand as it is largely based in
Southern/Eastern India.
We regularly see large scale corruption ($1B+), as frequently as once every
year. The culprits come back to power in a few years (An example: [2]). And
people vote for them, because there is no better choice. This is unlike say
USA when similar things would have been ends of political career for people
involved.
BUT, please stop commenting on India as a comparison to the US and the rest of
the western world. We get it, you have cleaner cities, healthier people,
lesser discrimination and no unhappiness. We know it well, we live by it every
day. These commentaries just seem unnecessary. We are innately handicapped in
the race of development. We have started off late [3]. We have started off
behind [4]. It is also very arrogant to impose your morality to the ancestors
of others [5] as even if they may agree to what you say, they cannot comment
on the situation in the previous era as they are unaware of the context
themselves. It is very rude to use it as an argument against the present.
And let's make it clear. India is no more spiritual than any other country on
earth. We just have a lot more temples and monasteries than most places. And
they are also old and diverse. These exact things that attracts most
westerners to India - the ancientness and the abundance, are also very closely
related to what westerners hate about India. You cannot have orthodox,
untainted and non-commercialized establishments without the perils of
unorganized, corrupt and ill-managed institutes. Remove both, and you have a
country that is working just as vigorously towards modern (and very western)
ideologies and standards of living.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalite
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fodder_Scam
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Independence
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Raj#Economic_impact
[5] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4214998 [Sec: Sati]
------
jeisenberg
As they say: "travel to a place for a day, write a novel. Travel there for a
month, write an essay. Travel there for a year, write nothing."
This post, while certainly an honest account, is rife with generalizations and
does not acknowledge the author's own cultural biases in the slightest.
~~~
vacri
What nonsense - he's constantly referring to his own cultural biases,
including finishing on exactly that.
~~~
jeisenberg
Can you please point out to me where, exactly, he finishes on an
acknowledgement of his own biases? His analysis is based on a 3-week excursion
around various parts of the country, with little to no effort to understand
any historical context for what he critiques.
How about even a cursory talk about the historical context? Colonialism, the
politics of development, the political economy of tourism, anything for that
matter.
Mark talks about how emotionally overwhelming travel is, he doesn't talk about
how, if he had stayed there longer or even done some basic wikipedia research,
perhaps he wouldn't jump to so many base conclusions. Instead, we are left
with a poetic bog post laced with comments like this one:
"Indian culture itself is quite disorienting."
Or this little gem:
"There’s no single sentence for India. The place is a fucking mess."
This doesn't even make sense. How can there be no single sentence for India,
and then GIVE A SINGLE SENTENCE FOR INDIA?
Yeah, it's a fucking mess for a well-off Internet blogger. It's a fucking mess
because Mother Theresa can't save the Indians from themselves, "And it’s just
as well, Mother Teresa couldn’t save this society from itself." Critical
development studies has been fighting this kind of arrogance for a long time.
And to be fair, I respect this author's work a lot more than most lifestyle
blogs. I just have a low tolerance for generalizations like this one.
Does that sound like nonsense to you?
~~~
vacri
The reference to shutting out the congitive dissonance with his sunglasses and
ipod is a tacit statement recognising that he is not of this place. If you
don't see that in his writing, there's a lot in that essay you will have
missed. A much clearer example of reporting on his own biases is when he
reports on the email from his mother.
_How can there be no single sentence for India, and then GIVE A SINGLE
SENTENCE FOR INDIA?_
Oh, for fuck's sake. You're choosing to be offended. He didn't give a single
sentence, he wrote a four thousand word essay on it. An essay in which he
covers a lot of variations in the parts of the culture he saw.
Really, you're choosing to be offended. Why should he report on the
colonialism of India in an essay about his personal experiences; why is the
essay bereft of value because of that? And despite your claims that he doesn't
talk about the political economy of tourism, he does do that in the essay. He
talks of the spiritual tourism, and his experiences and opinions of it.
_Yeah, it's a fucking mess for a well-off Internet blogger._
And traveller to 40 countries, so a fair bit more experienced in other
cultures than most. You're committing exactly the same sins of omission as
you're accusing him of making, in order to reframe your argument so that it
benefits you.
~~~
jeisenberg
Fair enough. This was a comment to a short essay. I'll continue to hold my
beliefs, and you'll continue to have yours, as these forums typically work.
------
geekin
Let me summarize the problems of India in my very limited capacity. 1\. India
is a very very old civilization. Hence, there are way too many ideologies,
religions, castes etc in the way of a focused progressive thinking. 2\. India
ceased to be offensive long back - history is very clear about what usually
happens with a non-offensive civilization - they get captured, robbed,
systematically destroyed. It took 600 years to rob India from Moghuls to the
British. In this very long process of invasions and slavery, something very
critical to human survival broke down completely. We Indians do not care of
our own well-being. We are happy with getting away with minimal suffering. We
just do not care. 3\. As India spent most of the modern time in slavery, India
became fatalist - none of our actions are relevant - finally the destiny/wish
of God/karma takes over. So, we do not care about our actions. There is no
causality. 4\. Post independence from the British, India fell into the hands
of a very corrupt political system. Please understand this, to survive in
power the Governments in India need poor people. How can you govern and
control 1.2 billion people? - by keeping them in abject poverty. This is a
very simple mechanism (read Orwell's 1984) proven and tested the world over.
5\. India has a class of enterpreneurial people. They make money for
themselves and help their own. India has no sense of public distribution of
wealth or enterpreneurship. An Indian will NOT help a man living in his own
street if the other guy is from a different caste/religion/etc. 6\. Poverty is
the worst form of violence - but India has no plans to eradicate poverty.
Politics is usually the tool for the rougue to make quick money and loads of
it and as I mentioned earlier, poverty is necessary for the political class to
survive. I have 100 other points - perhaps I will write a blog about it and
share with you people. This article talks about something that hurts me a lot
on personal level - trust me, every Indian has tried atleast once to change
things around him. Most have failed. Even Gandhi failed miserably - he never
got the India he dreamed of.
------
nazgulnarsil
This is why I have trouble relating to my friends' problems.
Oh someone at work got a bigger raise than you? Excuse me while I laugh in
your face.
I'm not too good at parties. I don't know how to compartmentalize.
It also bugs me that talking about this seems like a status move when it
generates negative things in my life.
~~~
guard-of-terra
A human is made for happiness the same way a bird is made for flight. If
people don't feel happy because they are underappreciated or their social life
is lacking, I don't think that should be mocked.
------
neel8986
I am from India..Things that have been described is absolutely true.
But do you know one thing. The actual situation is worse. The beggars author
is talking about actually represts only indian middle class!!.. yes they fall
in the top 50% in economic ladder. If you want to see real poverty go to
kalahandi or vidharba region
Do you know in last 10 years 200,000 farmers committed suicide just out of
poverty. Just imagine 200,000 people (larger than the population of many
European capital) committing suicide just out of hunger..That too is the
official number. Some suspect it is around 500,000..It is a human genocide of
worst form..So many people committing suicide just due to poverty
And you know what..Giving those 25,000 is not going to help. Charity by Mother
Teresa or Diana or Bill gates is not going to solve this poverty of
continental level..They may satisfy your ego..Maybe you can win a nobel prize
but it is not going to solve any problem.
If you really want to help those guys just do one thing..Support outsourcing
from your heart..support any policy that helps transferring millions of jobs
from west to India..In this world only one country is solving poverty of
indian scale and that is china and you know how they are solving it..So next
time you hear that a company is transferring its entire manufacturing jobs to
China or india just support that..it is at least going to save thousands of
poor people from this abject poverty
------
northernswagger
I spent 3 weeks in India in February and have a totally different viewpoint.
Amazing people, true hope at the prosperous future and an incredible will.
All about seeing the glass half empty or half full
------
badclient
This is an uber linkbait article from a pickup instructor turned internet
marketer. Nicely executed.
~~~
frasertimo
Employee of the site here. Just want to point out a few things.
1\. The submitter of the article to HN has no affiliation with Postmasculine
as far as I know, nor did we request them to post it here. We're very grateful
for them doing so however!
2\. While the author of the site was involved in the pickup industry for a
while, he chose to no longer identify with that scene over two years ago, and
specifically moved his content away from its perspective, even going so far as
to systemically deconstruct the flaws and failures of Pickup theory and the
community it created. So we don't feel that 'pickup' really represents what
the site has to say about dating. Although we definitely do talk about meeting
women. A lot. :)
3\. While we're dedicated internet marketing students, we're far from experts
on the subject. We're putting a lot of time and effort into improving the
site's marketing, but our number one focus will always be on providing high
quality content that is as no BS and realistic as possible. Hopefully anyone
who came from HN and spends further time reading the site will agree.
I realize your comment wasn't a criticism, but just thought I'd try and give a
bit more context to the situation. Thanks for assuming we were so
professional!
~~~
badclient
Fair points, mostly.
I would say that it is a new trend for pick-up instructors to distance
themselves from the pick-up industry mostly for marketing purposes. I think
it's mostly semantics and at the end of the day, you're just fearing the
phrase "pickup industries" focuses too much on the negative and not enough
about the positives.
On the otherhand, as someone who's spent fair bit of time observing pickup
companies, I will say that your marketing page seems very reasonable and not
full of false promises common on most PU sites.
~~~
frasertimo
Definitely agree that it was and still is a trend. I won't claim we were the
first to distance ourselves, but I think we were the best!
Our POV on what defines 'pickup' advice versus regular dating advice is that
'pickup' is the decision to objectify your sex life in order to improve it. We
don't believe that this is a healthy or effective mindset, hence we don't
define our material as 'pickup'.
Honestly, I think if you read some more of the site, for example
<http://postmasculine.com/why-its-so-hard> or especially
<http://postmasculine.com/pickup-artist> (warning: long) you'd come to the
conclusion that we're a far shot from what most people associate pickup with.
But it's up to you whether you want to spend the time :)
------
tlogan
Yes - the most horrendous thing about India is take-your-breath-away poverty.
Kid are dying of hunger poverty.
That is the only thing which I really really don't like about India. It just
seems wrong - very very wrong. Especially because it seems like there is
enough money around to help these people.
All other things are ok and you can see in other countries - traffic is
terrible, corruption, trash, ethnic violence, etc.
------
jimgardener
As someone who lived in south India for about 40 years, I can tell you that
spiritual tourism is a good source of money.There are too many godmen and
godwomen (some of them hugs people and some more sophisticated ones speak in
the U.N... You will not find true Gurus here.True Gurus don't sell their wares
in shops).
What you mentioned about dirty garbage strewn over the streets is true in most
Indian cities and towns.If you wake up early enough,you will find women
sweeping the area around their houses.They will not give a second thought
before dumping that swill on the street.The same people will complain loudly
about the local authourities not doing enough to reduce the garbage problem.
Travel to Kochi by road.It is one of the fast developing cities in
Kerala.Coming from Trissur side,the first thing you will notice is the huge
dumps(about 3-4 mtrs high) of garbage on both sides. The people living in that
area are definite candidates for cancer.I wouldn't wonder if another Plague
epidemic happens in the near future.
------
rehack
Its the attitude. And its not because of 'jugaad' as quite a few other
comments make here. Its because of another attitude called 'chalta hai'
attitude. Which simply means 'even _this_ is Okay'.
The reason for this attitude, I think, is because of being one of the oldest
civilizations. Which is a fact, and often it used as a ego-massage and as a
strong point in several discussions.
The point to note is that _this building_ was built thousands of years ago,
and is in a natural state of decay.
On the other hand, a country like US being a country of migrants was forced to
start everything on a relatively clean state. So sort of a natural call to
action - to build their lives.
If one takes anecdotal examples of families one may know of, one will see that
the best ones in the families move on to a different place. The laggards are
left behind.
One idea, comes to me as I write this, is what if we just ask people from two
nearby villages, to just move their huts and belongings to the other village,
and vice versa. Will it bring about any change in the attitude?
------
gshakir
This article is too close to home. I am in Chennai now (South India) and I see
the sights mentioned in the article every day. Heck!, I got people sleeping on
the streets right outside my parent's house doorstep. In the last 10 years or
so, with new airports, 4 lane highways, new shopping malls and numerous kinds
of cars, all these has made ZERO impact on poverty!.
------
sateesh
The problem he outlines about India are real and are serious ones. But the
article is a shallow one and the author makes grand sweeps of imagination to
make some crass generalizations.
Consider a few of these:
_Indian culture itself is quite disorienting. The people can be incredibly
warm and hospitable, or cold and rude depending on the context and how they
know you. The conclusion I eventually came to is that if they already know
you, or if they’re somehow benefiting from you, then they can be incredibly
warm and open people. But if they don’t know you, or if they’re trying to get
something out of you, then they are a prickly, conniving bunch._
Is this a specific Indian behavior ? You can find sycophants in any part of
the world. It is not that Indian culture is wired to sycophancy.
_But what Sanjay told me about Indian people is bizarre but true. He said
Indians will rarely, if ever, resort to violence. As a foreigner, you never
have to worry about being robbed, or having a knife pulled on you, or getting
beaten up by a gang of thugs and having your kidney carved out of you. And
this is true._
Except that it isn't. Cases of foreign tourists being robbed,threatened at
knife point, mugged aren't rare. As a tourist one has to exercise caution in
India as much one would do in any other country as a tourist.
_BUT, Sanjay said, an Indian will lie to your face. He’ll say anything to get
what he wants from you. And most of them don’t see it as immoral or wrong. So
on the one hand, they won’t stick a gun in your face to take your wallet. But
they’ll hand you fake business cards and offer to sell you something that they
don’t actually have, so that you’ll voluntarily empty your wallet to them on
your own accord._
Won't any conman from any part of the world operate the same way ? The author
is stereotyping just because his Indian friend told it to be so.
~~~
therandomguy
"Is this a specific Indian behavior ? You can find sycophants in any part of
the world. It is not that Indian culture is wired to sycophancy."
The problem is when majority of the population demonstrates this behavior. And
with personal experience, I found this to be very true as well. I'm not saying
this is scientific observation, just my personal, which matches with the
author's.
~~~
jhatax
I agree with a number of points made in the article and the general comments
about corruption in India. I disagree with the assertion that Indians are out
to thug you for your money, and that is not the case with businessmen in
America.
Having recently bought a new car, I know full well how so-called, honest,
American car dealers operate. Additionally, I am familiar with the "fair" and
"transparent" lending practices of the bankers. How can you discount the eBay
hood-winking, the mortgage crisis, medicare/Medicaid scams, identity theft,
browser-cookie based tracking, etc. that all originated in the very United
States of America that you consider so virtuous? Is profit not the motivation
behind all of these immoral activities?
Please, get off your holier than thou perch and see the world for what it is:
Everyone that owns a business is out to make a profit. Even the small business
man inside of you that is looking for the best deal regardless of the impact
it has on the business you are under-cutting. Once you see this reality, you
will also realize that there has always been, and will always be, a tug of war
between a consumer and a producer/supplier/business-owner. Except of course if
you are dealing with a not-for-profit.
~~~
akandiah
"Having recently bought a new car, I know full well how so-called, honest,
American car dealers operate."
You'll find that this is the case in most parts of the world. Please enlighten
me if you find an honest one.
------
boltenderus
being an indian and learning a lot about world, history and origins of modern
society from the great gift of internet and spending entire 21 years of my
life in a chaos like new delhi. i conform this article carry a lot of truth.
after advent of capitalism india is just a place for corrupt and greedy
entreprenuers , politicians and government employees who will go to any extent
to be evil and take it all for themselves leaving rest of all the population
to suffer. poor people not having anything to do fuck each other all day
making such a rise in population and middle class or lower middle class people
just prepare there whole lives to be slaves of some company or organisation.
single truth that i discovered being a middle class indian is that india needs
a sexual revolution and more freedom for women. because you cannot get a
productive and creative society when most of the people who run it doesn't get
a good fuck all there lives!
------
akandiah
The problem that India faces are summed up quite nicely in towards the end:
_Obviously, I’m no Mother Teresa. And it’s just as well, Mother Teresa
couldn’t save this society from itself. Sometimes human systems become so
large that they hurt people, not by design, but by inertia. And it’s beyond
any of our ability to grasp, let alone control._
------
coastside_geek
Interesting responses.
I urge fellow Indians to check out theuglyindian.com. A bunch of guys (some
are friends of friends) have got together to make an impact. These little
grass roots efforts are working.
Lets participate and clean things up.
------
lalitm
Looks like a lots of people from West (US and Europe) and many Indian's who
were once in West have lots of Issues with India, primarily because of Out-
Sourcing. Westerners, because they are loosing a lot of jobs to the ones in
India, plus the "dusty" economy of West! Indians, because they were forced out
of their beloved Work-Land, i.e the West, to move back to India. Grow-up
hackers...
------
ChrisNorstrom
Oh Jesus Christ... Not another one of these posts. Guys, why do you write
posts like this knowing the end result?
Someone brings to light an obvious flaw in _someone else's_ country, people
from that country feel like it's a direct attack on them and come up with
bullshit excuses, the bullshit annoys people and the whole conversation
spirals into denials, "I'm not in denial"s, "what about your _____"s, and
"that's not the same as ______"s being thrown back and forth.
Person A: Your country is shitty!
Person B: You don't understand us!
Person A: You're in denial.
Person B: What about your country?
Person A: At least we don't _______!
Person B: That's not the same as _______!
This is the worst way to criticize someone's country/behavoir/business. It's
all logic, no emotion, and humans do NOT respond well to it.
When criticizing some else's country always, ALWAYS, _ALWAYS_ include an equal
list of good and bad otherwise it _feels_ like an attack on that person's
homeland. The whole point of criticizing someone is to help them see their
flaws (which they've normalized to and are oblivious to) and get better, but
they can't get better when they aren't listening to you, and they aren't going
to listen to you if they feel you are attacking them, they will attack back.
~~~
lenkite
I think you are doing the Indian readership of HN a mild dis-service here.
Most here acknowledge the issues raised by the Author. We do feel hurt by his
conclusion, summed up as: "The whole country sucks", but well..things are what
they are.
As several readers have already stated, institutionalized corruption is the
bane of India today and no visible improvement is possible unless we tackle
and eliminate this first. But the political class and bureaucracy would never
allow this to happen.
Our "Lokpal" bill - the anti-corruption bill that that was fought for by a
popular activist with a hunger strike has now been in-definitely postponed by
the current coalition government. Due to a series of elementary media-
mismanagement blunders, the activist team lost the massive support they
initially had and the political class were quick and clever to capitalize on
these mistakes, perform character assassination, and sucessfully shoot down
the Lokpal bill along with it.
Most people I know are highly upset at this - many have even lost hope and
given up change as a lost cause in India. We had the whole of India massively
mobilized and firmly behind an anti-corruption drive for some months before
the activist team got a 'god' complex and attempted to re-direct this support
into their personal, pet agendas - one guy on his Kashmir stance, another on
his anti-alcoholic drive, another attempting to re-direct funds into his pet
charity, etc. They broke one fundamental rule of politics: never give your
political opponents juicy targets to shoot ammunition at. In politics, if you
are going against the norm, you are going to be heavily scrutinized. You need
to be lily-white if you want a chance to change things with people power.
The Indian middle class were dismayed at several of these relevations and
though people could swallow some of them, it become too much to eventually
swallow and the movement lost enough steam that the politicians and
bureaucracy have now put this bill indefinitely on the backburner - possibly
never to see the light again.
The LokPal bill was something originally raised in the 1960's btw.
I no longer believe that it is possible to affect any meaningful and lasting
change in Indian society without revolution - which would lead to its own
separate set of problems. Sure, you can donate a few years to charity and
helping NGO's will will do some trickle of good - a few scattered moments of
goodness in the vast, apathetic darkness and that's about the limit.
~~~
ChrisNorstrom
I am from Bulgaria. Every country has its flaws. If this article was about
Bulgaria. I myself would feel a bit hurt. I would immediately try to lesson
the blow of some of the arguments and accusations.
And just for the record, I'm being brutally honest about my own home country.
India with all its problems has much more of a future than Bulgaria does.
Bulgaria's population is shrinking, business is shrinking, villages are
shrinking. Every 5 years we go back and see how things have shrunk, life is a
bit harder, and corruption shows it's head in more places. Each year Bulgarian
businesses have less potential customers. At least in India everything is
growing, things are incrementally getting better.
My whole argument is that the author writing posts like this is not going to
change anything or do anything productive or constructive. It's just going to
hurt feelings without creating action. It's a useless article for Indians
because it's not encouraging, has no call to action, and just plain hurts. In
fact reading his article just makes me want to stay away from India. Honestly,
India was one of the places I wanted to visit in the next 10 years. After
reading that and mentally combining it with all the other "I went to India and
was shocked and disappointed" articles it makes me want to avoid the country
altogether for the next 30 years.
Everyone's country has _shit_. But if you're going to talk about the _shit_ in
Country_X. Equally talk about the flowers too. Otherwise the people living in
that shit have their motivation and drive to make it better taken away. And
others are given an overly negative view of Country_X.
------
gingerjoos
By being a foreigner and by travelling to touristy places the author is
immediately in the high risk category. There are a lot of people trying to
fleece tourists, especially foreigners. This colors some of his prespective,
for eg.
>But with only a couple hundred dollars lost, I got away fairly unscathed..
------
known
Many in north-east feel they are not Indians.
[http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-china-
she...](http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-china-shelters-
ulfa-leader-as-reply-to-dalai-lamas-base-in-india/20111101.htm)
------
known
For a westerner, the easiest way to understand is _Caste = Corruption_.
For e.g.
1. If you kill somebody, you should be **hanged**, if you're NOT from my caste.
2. If you kill somebody, you did it in **self-defense**, if you're from my caste.
------
donpark
Ironic that a follower of Buddha's path saw and felt exactly what Buddha saw
and felt thousands of years ago yet failed to recognize it.
More ironic is how Buddha's lifeboat for the poor and hungry turned out to be
intellectual's tool for enlightenment.
------
npcomplexity1
Slightly different perspective on poverty, happiness and cultural diversity in
India through the lens of music.
<http://www.youtube.com/show/soundtrippin?s=1>
------
sneak
People allow it to exist because they choose not to think about it, although
perhaps "choose" is too strong a word. It takes initiative to escape your
local worldview.
Great article, btw.
------
cvrajeesh
I don't know where the author is from, what I want remind him is - "Open your
mind, you are blind". Your are seeing what you would like to see, it's your
problem.
------
denzil_correa
Is it just me or does any other Indian find the Pizza Hut - "You've made an
excellent choice" funny? I've never understood it to be honest.
------
j45
India doesn't just have the best and worst of humanity in it. India puts a
real mirror to you on what you think you know.
We live in a bubble. Trying to change our world with startups is quite
different than trying to change the conditions 1 billion people live in.
The spectrum of good and bad in first world societies isn't as side as third
world country. It's maybe why the good isn't good enough in our lives.
Anything we experience in a foreign land as being shockingly bad, or good, can
show how out of touch we are with humanity, and our own humanity.
This begs a deeper issue. Everyone likes looking outward, trying to understand
the world, not themselves. We don't like righting with how little we actually
know, or, more importantly do.
This article in many ways mirrors my experience of India. It's real. Sorry the
education from TV makes it a bit shocking. That's what happens when we take
someone's word on how good things are in another part of the world. There's a
reason people want to leave and get out. Are Americans and Canadians desperate
to leave?
This 0-star India is the majority's India. Not the 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 star India
we can buy and hide in while visiting pretending to take in the foreign eat
pray love exoticness of it all. They say you can tell the true state of a
country by the numbers + health of their poorest. Similar experiences exist in
other countries too. The money at the top does not find it's way down. The
rich build themselves skyscrapers to live in so they don't have to deal with
anything beyond their 4 walls. When the majority is not enjoying the advanced
civilization, is it advanced, or civilized?
These are two good questions and ones worth not shying away from. They only
provide us with more understanding of ourselves, and with dots connected, more
determination to go make your startup fly. If we can't buy our self-worth and
esteem from commodities, brands, and experiences, how can we judge anyone
who's in such a harsh place of life not to improve their own life? Herein lies
the quagmire of duality.
India suffers. From the shadow of it's dark past of brutal oppression of the
masses by Indians themselves -- the masses were forbidden from education,
learning trades, defending themselves from invaders and left to a life of
subservience and suffering. This has carried through far too many generations,
over 600 years. Still I hope is humanity can find some way to correct itself
by the harshness of the original 1% in India.
If you go there, or anywhere, find your one corner of someone else's universe
to make a dent in, whether it's a school for orphaned girls in India, or
helping a homeless person in our own towns that everyone else sees as
invisible and shower animals with more care. The hunger in someone's eyes is
no different than mine when I have to drop what I'm doing and find some food.
When we give up on humanity towards others, we give up on our own too a
little, and feed the monster ourselves. The moment we dare to take a minute to
make strangers into real people, we become more human.
------
pattisapu
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism_(book)>
------
raphinou
Interesting. One note though: I wouldn't put Bill Gates and Lady Diana in the
same league as Mother Theresa.
------
stevewilhelm
If you found this interesting, you might want to read "The White Tiger: A
Novel" by Aravind Adiga.
------
mutex023
Really good article. In India you don't 'live' you 'survive' every day. Hehe.
(I'm an Indian btw)
------
kang
Rich. No other adjectives can convincingly describe the plethora that is
India. It is an experience that will kill you, and leave you discovering life
– discovering you. Take your senses on a ride with its varied geographies that
will raise you - with the tranquility to numb your thoughts - above the
highest Himalayas and send you dipping to the complex of seas - angry some and
transparent the others – not before it coats a layer of earth with the never
ending plains on your humility and etches the burns of beauty on its deserts
delving into the east so green as though you have travelled through the womb
of nature. And all that changes the way your body smells, your senses
perceive, your brain thinks. The sheer variety of a cocktail of experiences
that is shoved towards you – from the dead stone caves of the Deccan to the
fragrances of spice bazaars fighting among themselves, from the historical
makeup of its traditions to the coexistence of its diversity layered with the
shine of modernity all glued together by the religious cores of its life, from
chaotic noises of it populated cities to places pure virgin, unexplored, from
the finest of luxuries that the world has to offer to the free meals of a
temple, from the complexity of languages to the simplicity of the hearts of
its people – jostles your entire being. You learn that taste of food is not by
its ingredients but by the hand that cooks it, that vivacity of culture is not
in the art but in the artist that practices it, that the law of the land in
not by civilization but by the embedded civilization, that modernity is not
evolved from the old but that new is just a function of time and that time has
varying speeds & that it can even stand still or fly by - that relationships
do not necessarily need people to know each other. You may spend all your
money but might not be able even cover India’s peripheries or you may travel
all of India for almost no money. You may be astonished by the dynamics of
families; be warned - strangers may seem too eager to help. You may follow the
trails of most ancient of religions or you may stroll through shiny city
culture. India doesn’t need a preparation. Indian accepts you as you are.
Sometimes India will scare you. Sometimes India will confuse you. Sometimes it
will demand patience and sometimes it will test your sense-of-humor. Other
times, all of it would get so overwhelming that you would want it all to just
stop. And yet there will be times when you will let the experience flow
through you. Most people come to India in search of peace, some inner
philosophy or finding religion. You will be escorted to the most tranquilizing
places on this planet, to the most psychedelic aura that the nature has to
offer and to the most comprehensive of eastern philosophies. But that will not
quench you. And then, in the busiest of the moments, amongst the crowded of
places, you may discover ‘it’. Leaving India, it may not be certain that you
will have your answers but it can be assured that you will be at peace – with
yourself. Incredible. Absolutely unforgettable.
~~~
prawn
Not sure if you need a bit of help creating bullets on HN, or if paragraphs
were the one thing you didn't discover in India! If the former, prefix your
bullet hyphens on each new line with two spaces. If the latter, the Enter key
is free. :)
------
PaulHoule
awesome article
some of my best friends come from India. it's an interesting place.
------
shreyas056
all the debate aside, lets face it India has way more social problems than
most of the other countries in the world.
------
lcusack
I'm searching for the tl;dr?
~~~
prawn
"India has some problems."
To be honest, if you care to read more than that, you might get more insight
from reading some of the longer HN comments instead (from those who live in
India, but recognise these problems).
------
shellehs
after read this article, I wish I'd better never go to India from now then.
------
pwpwp
"[India's] not a pleasant place to be"
What a stupid and close-minded thing to say.
~~~
modarts
Well..it isn't; which is the main reasons I moved from there in the first
place.
------
powertower
I think I understand now why India has historically been the place that
produced enlightenment, at a greater rate than other countries have.... Out of
necessity.
It's hard to live in an environment like that without witnessing the game of
life (the suffering), and hopefully, existing out of it.
And I don't mean the suffering of the poor, but also of the rich, the middle
class, and everyone else there, that's a piece on the gameboard.
~~~
ankit28595
I would like to point out that the extreme poverty that India is known for
today is pretty much a legacy of the British Raj. The 'enlightenment' you are
talking about came much before that, when India was a much more peaceful and
prosperous area.
So the 'Out of necessity' argument you made is pointless.
~~~
tokenadult
_I would like to point out that the extreme poverty that India is known for
today is pretty much a legacy of the British Raj._
Today (2012) is sixty-five years since the independence of India from British
rule (1947). As an American, I have to agree with the general proposition that
British colonial rule is not the best form of government, but as an observer
of the great variety of former British colonies in the world that are now
independent countries, I invite readers here to think about why some of those
countries (including some that became independent more recently than India)
are now prosperous and free. Perhaps there are details about life in India and
policies of the independent government of India that kept India comparatively
poor and backward even after India won independence. It's a backward-looking
set of excuses to say "British rule was bad for us," as it may indeed have
been, without also being curious about "How have other countries thrived since
winning independence from Britain?"
As far as the bad influence of colonialism goes, I think in general French or
Spanish colonial rule have been even worse for most countries than British
colonial rule. And it appears that one way harm was mediated to many places of
the world by colonial rule is that socialism (especially hard-left socialism
like Marxism) was transmitted to colonies by Western colonial officials, and
then many countries pursued ineffective policies for national development for
decades after independence, because they were stuck in socialist ideology for
too long.
~~~
vacri
British rule in the Dominion countries went like this: exterminate or wholly
subjugate the natives, then flood the place with whiteys from Blighty. Same
thing happened in the US, but they took the subjugation a step further into
crusade territory with 'manifest destiny'. In effect, Britain was able to
transplant its culture and laws directly in these places.
British rule in India couldn't do this - half a billion people is a bit too
many to simply overrun. Instead they played factions against each other, one
trick being to give a smaller faction superior arms, they keep the peace and a
slice of the pie, but are wholly dependent on the supply of arms. British rule
in India was a massively different beast to the Dominion countries.
------
MyNewAccount99
why the hell did OP post this old ass december 2011 article to HN?
------
visava
<http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/kmu/kmu03.htm>
------
ashwinm
You haven't seen india fully,not even 10%. You cant blindly say the whole
india is a shit hole. come to south india.It will be much better.
~~~
Arun2009
> It will be much better.
I'm from Kerala - things may be slightly better here than say Bihar but not by
a whole lot.
~~~
ankit28595
Actually, there is strong feeling in at least in North India, that Kerala is
where whole India should be. I am from Haryana and though Haryana is much more
developed economically than Kerala, all my friends agree that Kerala is much
better. And when comparing to Bihar, the state is way ahead. At least the
statistics show that.
Kerala has the cleanest railway stations, the best sex ratio, the most
literate population, second least malnutrition (after Punjab).
~~~
nagarch
I have my friends who sits beside me.. he feels that lot of communal
problems..
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} |
Need salary advice; First time looking for a Rails job after a failed startup - Whitespace
Hey all. I'm a self-taught, 28 year old in NYC, and I've been programming rails for 2 years now. I co-founded an education startup where I was the sole developer, but I can't keep eating hotdogs and ramen after 18 months and being essentially homeless (I sleep on a friend's couch).<p>So now I'm looking for a job, but I don't know what to ask for as far as salary is concerned. I feel awkward asking for even $25/hour (#rubyonrails flipped out when I said that).<p>I'm not having that many problems getting interviews, but the part about the salary mystifies me. One HR guy asked me what salary I was looking for and I wasn't ready for that question at all, so I mumbled, "Oh, fourty... two... ?" and he said "... sooo, 50?"<p>So, one part is me not knowing what the salary range for a programmer is, let alone a rails programmer in NYC. I guess the other part is me selling myself short.<p>Since I'm self-taught and always worked alone, I don't have another developer or shop that can say, "oh, hey, this guy is smart". I also don't have enough OSS contributions or a stupid blog so no one can see that I'm not a complete idiot, but I feel like one because I've never worked alongside a competent developer who can mentor me in the areas that I'm lacking in (BDD, a smarter git workflow). When Ryan Bates and Yehuda Katz are your only metric with which to compare yourself, you feel pretty small.<p>Any advice is greatly appreciated!
======
starkfist
$85/hr minimum for contract work. $100K salary.
NYC has more money than brains so don't sell yourself short.
~~~
nitrogen
$85/hr seems a decent contract rate, even affordable by many standards. Keep
in mind that as a contractor your taxes are greater and there are no benefits.
$25/hr is very, very low for a skilled developer (that's almost junior-year
intern level).
You can also look at median salary data for a region at
<http://stats.bls.gov/bls/blswage.htm>
Edit: after looking at stats for the NY metro area, it looks like you should
expect 90-110k/year on average. Make sure you're clear on your units ($/hr or
k$/yr) when you negotiate.
~~~
metachris
The Bureau of Labor Statistics website says the mean hourly wage of computer
programmers is $35.91
<http://stats.bls.gov/oes/2009/may/oes151021.htm>
~~~
nitrogen
Nationally, yes. $36/hr is ~$75000/yr, which is quite comfortable in many
states (including Utah, which is the densest programming state listed on your
link). Major metro stats are usually higher. That's after employer-provided
benefits and employer-paid taxes. A $150 employee-paid group health plan could
easily cost an employer $850 on top of that, and a contractor has to pay for
his/her own facilities and equipment, so contracting rates necessarily should
be higher than hourly wages.
Also keep in mind that national statistics, and mean statistics in general,
are brought down by lower-cost states and below-market jobs writing VBA macros
that got categorized as computer programmers.
------
gexla
$25 per hour is pretty low for NYC I think. In another part of the country it
would be fine. That's assuming a 40 hr / week job which helps offset some
things like health insurance.
If you can't find a job then you could consider contract work. You will likely
need to ask more than $25 / hour no matter where in the country you live.
~~~
isleyaardvark
$25/hour would be about $50k/year. 50 without benefits, so yes that is low.
------
stretchwithme
I haven't had a regular rails job yet either, but have done some failed
facebook apps, also coding alone. never quite got into BDD either. have a
decade of web app experience before Ror.
just got a contract job in Silicon Valley for a very decent hourly rate, a bit
more than 1.6 times what I was paid as a salaried startup employee. I pulled
that rate out of my hat and can probably get more.
I'd do a lot of interviews if I were you for both contract and permanent and
you'll be asked what salary you're looking for. State a figure and see if they
continue the process. If they do, its in the ballpark. If that happens a lot,
you've got good evidence. Raise the rate and see if they still go for it.
------
xg
Everybody's comments are pretty much on point. If you're contracting, you
should be asking for $75-150 / hour. Shops like Pivotal Labs bill out their
developers at $175 / hour (the firm obviously keeps a chunk of that).
I think your options are to try and take on some small contract work so you
can keep working on your own projects -or- go work for a well known Rails
environment (Pivotal, Gilt Groupe, etc) and work with a team to beef up your
skills.
Even if you get a very junior development position at a slightly larger
company, you'll probably still be looking at a > $75k annual salary.
------
jimm
I work in NYC and get calls from recruiters about Rails positions constantly.
Rails is "hot" now. The rates mentioned elsewhere are in the ballpark; I'd say
$75/hour if you're halfway decent.
If you want to get plugged into the community and meet a few recruiters, then
introduce yourself on the NYC Ruby (<http://nycruby.org/wiki/>) mailing list
(<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ruby-nyc/>). A few recruiters lurk there; all
of them have behaved well and seem very ethical.
------
gaius
Are there no job boards in NYC? If I wanted to know roughly what I was worth
I'd look on JobSite, JobServe etc for jobs similar to mine.
------
shuleatt
how does one get in touch with you?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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How do you find high traffic websites for my private advertising network? - iworkforthem
I am looking for a few high traffic websites for my advertising network. Right now, I am using quantcast.com to help me guess the traffic of my publishers' websites. It is a largely manual process right now, I was wondering if any one has a better way to seek out those high traffic sites?<p>- to bounce ideas off anyone... one way I can think of is to filter those high traffic websites on flippa.com, seek out similar/top search results on google and then make contact with the websites owners. But the problem here is that, most of these websites are largely file sharing/porn in nature.
======
RBerenguel
Are you focusing on some niche or just a broad advertising network? If you are
just niche-ing, just google and browse similar content as the one you found,
then check its stats. It can be slow, but it will be a sure fire way to pick
the best.
Cheers,
Ruben
~~~
iworkforthem
Definitely a niche topics... The issue is with Googling will most likely to
bring back USA/UK websites, and not the tons of Russian, Spanish and Chinese
related websites on the same niche topic which still bring in loads of
traffic. Missing out quite a bit of cheap traffic there.
Anyone got any idea how to solve this? Most of the time, I will use site:.eu
or site:.co.jp to limit the search, but then again, it is not in its native
language/context, the results are often not relevant. :(
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Foreign Languages Fade in Class — Except Chinese - rmah
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/education/21chinese.html
======
Jd
I spent several years of my life learning Mandarin and, although I am about
ready to enter a Masters program so that I will become proficient in both
Japanese and Classical Chinese, I strongly doubt the utility of any and all of
the above for most professionals. While there is certainly a large degree of
discipline and effort necessary to be fluent in these languages (I am
technically fluent in both Mandarin and German, although technical fluency
seems a low bar to meet) this means little all things considered.
Why? Ask yourself what you will do with the language once you have learned it.
Unless you have a strong interest in classical literature or contemporary
politics, both of which would essentially making the transition to an academic
career, it is hard to justify the time invested in learning such a language,
esp. when the best and brightest speakers of that language also speak yours
and have more hours (cumulative over more than a decade) to become proficient
in yours than you do for theirs.
Now, you might say, what if I go to China and attempt to make something of
myself among the economic maelstrom?
Well, what exactly will you do? Have you thought that far ahead? I was there,
in several cities, with part-time work as a translator among other things. My
experience and the experience of close associates is that, despite frantic
generation of infrastructure and cheap consumer products for sale in the
United States, there simply isn't a lot going on that would qualify as
"interesting," and "interesting" and "challenging" work is what I personally
thrive on. Also, since you cannot be a Chinese factory worker, you will be
limited to making dubious investments with generally disreputable business
partners (see the China Law Blog, an excellent resource on this topic and the
enforced opacity of the Chinese Legal system), or serving as a middleman for
cheap consumer products. You could also try to promote human rights or green
tech but, frankly, why do you need to go overseas to do that? There are lots
of opportunities in the US to promote environmental consciousness or reduce
sex slavery.
Moreover, from what folks who invest at a much higher level than I have access
to, corruption is rampant and infects virtually every aspect of public life
and the necessary shift to transparency which should accompany liberalization
(e.g. open media) has not happened, meaning that corruption often increases
instead of being exposed (reporters are routinely dismissed who do not tow the
party line).
So learn Mandarin, sure, if you are really interested in it. I spent
approximately four years of my life on it, worked as a translator, co-founded
for a non-profit dedicated to China-related issues, worked in a think tank on
economic policy and China. I learned a lot about how the world works and,
ultimately, how poorly it all works.
Of course, it might also be an eye-opening experience as to what is happening
in the United States. Another commentator on this thread remarked how trade
will optimally decrease wars. Yes, it is possible to subject virtually
everything to an economic motive and many policy makers in the United States
seem to see complete integration of Chinese and American systems as an ideal.
Decide for yourself what that means.
~~~
wondermnd
Not a total waste. At least you will get better service at the local Chinese
restaurant....
But seriously, from the tech angle, China is becoming a dominant force in the
global technology supply chain, whether it be services or products. Trying to
depend on English only as the sole form of communication is not efficient in
long term. It will indeed become much more useful in commerce. At the very
least some immersion in the language will allow you to understand a little bit
about the culture and country, which is actually much more important....
~~~
Jd
Please explain why dependency on a single language that everyone knows as the
sole form of communication is less efficient than multiple languages.
Please also explain which global tech sectors China is becoming a dominant
force in.
As for immersion and understanding the culture, I completely agree.
------
foulmouthboy
I am very discouraged by how dismissive most of the comments are in regards to
learning another language regardless of what it is. I thought this was a group
of HACKERS. Understanding another language, especially one as challenging as
Mandarin is beneficial education to learning the capabilities, strengths and
structures of communication.
To me, the "English is enough", is totally akin to fanboy mentalities
surrounding technology. I supposed you've only bothered to learn C or Java and
are completely indifferent to even bothering with any other language.
Obviously, this is an extremely limited view.
Additionally, exposure to another language provides exposure to other
cultures. In this day and age of internationalization, exposure to a variety
of cultures beyond what's within walking distance is extremely important.
I know a lot of HNers are dismissive of formal education in general, and maybe
knowing Chinese isn't directly applicable to most, but come on. We need to
teach our kids early on that it's OK to learn for the sake of learning
~~~
silencio
Agreed. Even worse are the comments talking about how difficult
Mandarin/Chinese is to learn compared to English, so let's just stick to
Spanish and French. Well, I wonder just how many people learned English or a
similar language as their first language. Some people fluent in some languages
are going to find another that is completely different to be difficult.
Welcome to reality. (Although if my high school foreign language classes were
any indication, similarity of languages was something most people had a very
hard time grasping...only a few could see that Spanish/French/Portuguese had
some things in common and took advantage of that to learn languages faster. We
had a mandatory Spanish 1/French 1 freshman year curriculum, and some people
just struggled the whole year long and chose the language they struggled with
less for the next year.)
> In this day and age of internationalization, exposure to a variety of
> cultures beyond what's within walking distance is extremely important.
My first languages were English and Korean, and I had no difficulty whatsoever
in a couple semesters' worth of Mandarin classes, and I'd like to think I can
hold some kind of basic conversation in Mandarin and understand basic written
Chinese text. The downside of trying to use my knowledge though, is realizing
just how little i18n/L10n support there is in applications out there (for
starters...TextMate completely fails because it assumes fixed-width - see
[http://img.skitch.com/20100724-kcjdt411djee6u59p4pc9x5qe6.jp...](http://img.skitch.com/20100724-kcjdt411djee6u59p4pc9x5qe6.jpg)).
If for that reason only, hackers should care :)
For what it is worth, I've taken a bunch of language courses just for the hell
of it. Languages intrigue me, even if I never end up speaking it ever again
(ask me how often I speak Spanish in Los Angeles....never...). I never did it
for any economic advantage, I'm probably never going to spend more than a week
of my life in China as a tourist, but it's interesting. I can walk around in
Chinatown and understand what signs say, I know how to address people
correctly, et cetera. That's all.
------
ImFatYoureFat
The problem with this (at least in theory) is that unless US schools devote as
much time to learning mandarin, or spanish for that matter, as chinese and
taiwanese schools spend teaching english the effort is useless. I have studied
mandarin for several years and traveling to anywhere outside of rural china
makes my efforts seem largely pointless. There is always a chinese person who
speaks far better english than I do mandarin. Essentially unless these schools
plan on starting kids in mandarin from kindergarten an going through high
school and using it for at least 3 hours every school day, these kids are
never going to catch up to chinese children's second language proficiency.
~~~
Jd
Moreover, the Chinese do not want to speak Chinese with you but would prefer
English.
That said, this is only true in certain circumstances and among the younger
generation. Among bureaucrats, for example, you will be hard pressed to find
good English spakers.
------
VengefulCynic
Mandarin is spoken by roughly 1 billion people. Most Americans only speak
English. Learning a second language, especially one spoken by that many people
can only be a good thing. That said, while I certainly feel that any efforts
to get Americans to learn languages in addition to English are a good thing, I
can't help but being suspicious of the agent and financial backer of the
program that facilitates these teachers: the Chinese government.
Put it this way, can you imagine the Chinese government being receptive if the
US State Department offered to send over several hundred English-language
teachers and pay part of their salaries?
~~~
alextp
I think, however, that the Chinese government itself pays for americans to
teach english in China.
~~~
dublinclontarf
Not just Americans, anyone from a country whose mother tongue is English. And
not just this, English or at least passign the English exams is a requirement
for EVERY UIVERSITY DEGREE. I teach Tradtitional Chinese Medicine undergrads
and postgrads, and they all need to pass the English tests to get their
degree.
Although the vast VAST majority can only speak a few words, something of a
failure when you think that they study English in School for hours each day
from middle school, all the way through Universty and only 1%(probably less)
have any level of fluency.
In my University of 20,000 students there are about 4-5 students whose English
is good enough for me to have a conversation. Including the teachers, there is
only one person in the Entire college who I would say has excellent English.
So in short, take this with a pinch of salt, China does quantity, not quality.
------
kiba
We should learn X language for X reasons!
Seriously though, it's like saying that you should get a liberal art
education. Most people will just goes around carrying quadratical equations,
biology trivia, bad impression of Shakespeare and biased historical views and
other sort of random information. Now we will remember random Chinese
characters and Chinese phrases too. They are certainly _useless_ to the
average Joe because they're just a bunch of disconnected facts.
There's no emphasis on teaching people to be rational thinkers who can make
use of said random information or learn to cope with imperfect information.
It's _hard_ to teach anyway. Can you imagine finding 6 million teachers who
know these kind of stuff? Never mind launching a serious Chinese language
program so that we don't get people who only know random amount of stuff about
the Chinese language.
------
rsheridan6
How many of these kids will actually achieve any sort of fluency in Mandarin?
When I was in school, everybody took easy languages like French and Spanish,
and almost none of them ended up with any sort of fluency. How are they going
to handle a hard language like Mandarin?
I'm not against learning a second language (I took 4 semesters of non-required
elective language classes and then learned over 2000 kanji on my own), but if
you go into it half-assed it's a waste of time.
------
blintson
I lived in Japan for two months. I've been to China for a week. I'm fluent in
Japanese and I've taken a Mandarin class.
There is no doubt in my mind that English is the superior language and we'd
all be better off if the Chinese would learn English rather than the other way
around.*
* We'd probably be better off still if we all learned Esperanto, oh well.
------
rmah
I know it's an oldish article (from Jan 2010), but I still think it's both a
little frightening (another sign of China's economic rise) and heartening
(we're able to adopt).
One point of interest, the Chinese government now pays to send teachers to the
US to teach Chinese in US schools.
~~~
MoreMoschops
Is not China's economic rise a comforting thing, rather than frightening?
~~~
w1ntermute
Considering the fact that they are a political enemy, of course it's a
frightening thing.
~~~
MoreMoschops
My local council has political enemies on it but we don't frisk them for
weaponry when they come in. Given that China is benefiting more and more from
trade, do you think it's more or less likely that they will attempt to destroy
their trading partners? do you think that they dislike having better, more
comfortable lives, and will want to throw it all away?
------
giardini
Despite any teaching efforts I don't believe they will be _learning_ it soon,
especially the written form. It takes years longer to learn any Chinese
dialect than to learn English.
~~~
w1ntermute
_It takes years longer to learn any Chinese dialect than to learn English._
Do you have any proof of this? It's not like Chinese is inherently more
difficult than English. You are underestimating the difficulty of learning
English as a second language for a native Chinese speaker.
~~~
thailandstartup
I believe it is inherently more difficult -
<http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html>
~~~
w1ntermute
I have read Moser's essays before and agree that passable written Chinese
(have to be able to write the characters correctly) is harder to learn than
passable written English (just get the spelling close enough and the reader
will probably figure it out).
However, giardini said "It takes years longer to learn any _Chinese dialect_
than to learn English", and I'm also referring to the spoken language. In many
ways, spoken Chinese is easier to learn, especially at more advanced levels,
than spoken English. One reason is that most of its word roots are native. For
example, the word for computer literally means "electric brain". In English,
OTOH, most advanced/scientific terms are derived from Latin/Greek roots, which
makes them much more difficult to remember.
~~~
notahacker
In that particular example the English word "computer" simply adds a suffix to
the already-in-native-use Latin verb "to compute" which is a standard English
way of converting to a noun meaning "a thing that computes". The main problem
here is that compute is a relatively uncommon word (especially outside the
context of computers), and English as a language has too many uncommon words.
However there are more important things than vocubulary (which you can learn
by rote given sufficient motivation) when applying basic foreign language
skills learned in your homeland from a non-native speaker. English-speakers
tend to be unusually tolerant of mispronunciations as well as misspellings;
likewise with our excessively complex grammar. When you're not having to
master things like tone usage, communication on a basic level (surely all that
can be expected of most US high-school students) is a lot easier to master.
~~~
w1ntermute
_In that particular example the English word "computer" simply adds a suffix
to the already-in-native-use Latin verb "to compute" which is a standard
English way of converting to a noun meaning "a thing that computes"._
Which is exactly the problem. We shouldn't be using Latin roots to derive
English words - we should use native vocabulary, because then we don't end up
with commonly used words based on obscure roots that are rarely used.
_When you're not having to master things like tone usage, communication on a
basic level (surely all that can be expected of most US high-school students)
is a lot easier to master._
If you think that the Chinese aren't tolerant of accents, you are sorely
mistaken. In fact, a large portion of Chinese TV contains subtitles because of
the various accents from different parts of China that can make it difficult
for them to understand each other.
Also, do you think that English doesn't convey meaning by tone? One English
sentence can have several different meanings based on things such as tone and
stress, and is one of the most difficult aspects of English for ESL speakers
to master.
And in all honesty, the tones aren't that difficult to master. If you take a
Chinese class, you'll spend at least the first month working on them, and once
you've got them down, that's that.
~~~
notahacker
Many Latin words are arguably as native to the language as those with Germanic
or Norse ancestry; compute was present in the language long before the concept
of a computer was conceived. Obviously there are purposely archaic examples
designed by intellectuals to make their new discoveries more impressive.
Borrowed words are a problem for any language, I understand the influence of
Western culture and innovations difficult to express using native words is
increasingly leading to awkward transliterations in Chinese which mislead both
when it comes to semantics and phonetics.
I'm aware of the huge differences between Chinese dialects, but lack of mutual
intelligibility when listening to other Chinese is hardly a sign of
receptiveness to the incoherent ramblings of foreigners.
English intonation is subtle (which might make it hard to learn). It's also a
relatively advanced skill, with it being quite possible to converse in English
without intentionally using tone at all. Tone in English might imply something
about the context of what is said, such as whether it is intended as a
question, but doesn't change the meaning of the word and make the sentence
nonsensical.
------
tkahn6
It's a very common thing to hear that eventually Chinese will become the
language of commerce. I think this is wrong for a few reasons.
1\. Chinese is relatively hard to learn
2\. English is relatively easy to learn
3\. English is part of the standard curriculum in most of the world's schools
and therefore has immense momentum.
4\. Despite America's economic troubles, I believe we're still the leaders in
technological innovation. It's my impression that China's economy is
fundamentally based on manufacturing and exporting Western products. How many
original and innovative products have come out of China in comparison to the
US?
I think Chinese is a good language to learn if you're involved with
manufacturing and international business, but English will remain the language
of technology.
~~~
mootothemax
_1\. Chinese is relatively hard to learn 2\. English is relatively easy to
learn_
I think that depends on what your native language is. Certainly I know that
Chinese people struggle with English.
------
sabat
In the 1980s, we used to get articles about how we'd all better start learning
Japanese. Now it's the Chinese.
I'll believe it when I see it actually happen.
------
jiberishcloth
si
------
Spreadsheet
wo zhi dao zhong wen
| {
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Always. Be. Shipping. A lesson from Jacopo da Pontormo, circa 1545. - Brajeshwar
http://blog.garrytan.com/always-be-shipping-a-lesson-from-jacopo-da-po
======
brudgers
It's probably easier when one hasn't set themselves to the task of
representing divine perfection.
Commercial pursuits are driven by somewhat different considerations.
| {
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Every Weekend Should Be a 3-Day Weekend (2015) - joeyespo
https://www.thecut.com/2015/09/every-weekend-should-be-a-3-day-weekend.html
======
KineticLensman
I’m in the fourth decade of my career and I switched to a three day week
almost a year ago, taking a proportional pay cut. I work Monday, Tuesday and
Wednesday to get the largest contiguous block of time (Thursdays and Fridays)
where the places I want to go to are family/child free. If work needs me to
swap a day (e.g. to go to a Thursday meeting) I’ll often do that and
occasionally I'll work longer one week and then less the next. If I'm not
doing anything on a non-working day I’ll answer my work phone to keep things
moving along but I avoid taking on tasks that mean firing up my laptop. So
far, I haven't accidentally moved back to full time working by stealth. The
precedent at work for me doing this is women on post-maternity three day
weeks, for which all of whom said that the company had treated them fairly.
Here’s my responses to the article’s specific claims:
_You’d be healthier._ Yes, I generally get more exercise. I’d already changed
my eating habits to avoid snacking and this hasn’t changed.
_You’d sleep more._ Not sure. Seems about the same although I can vary my
sleep time to suit my own activities.
_You’d be less of a jerk, probably._ You’d have to ask my wife that.
_All of that, plus, you’ll be better at your job._ Not sure. I'm slightly
less aware of what’s going on in the office and wider industry but in general
more relaxed.
On balance it’s been a really good thing. I haven't managed to progress all of
the side-projects I intended to but I have definitely achieved my primary goal
of improving my life-work balance. The pay cut is tolerable and in any case my
wife and I were planning to scale back some of our more expensive activities
(such as going camping rather than staying in hotels).
It's also sent a clear message to my colleagues and management (all of whom
have been supportive) about my work expectations. I still have
responsibilities (e.g. for deliverables) so there is still pressure that
doesn’t go away. I also tend not be the first pick for activities that require
long term full-time commitment, or for the company to make an investment in my
personal development (e.g. training in new skills). To date this hasn’t been a
real problem – I'd made the decision to scale back because I'd gone as far up
the corporate ladder as I’d wanted to. And I feel the same a year on.
The way I explain my mood to people is “Monday mornings are just as crappy as
they ever were. But when I leave work on Wednesday, it’s already Friday.”
~~~
skizm
i think everyone would choose this for the most part. The problem is heath
insurance (in the us). Even at full pay, if you’re not on your company’s
policy it’s almost unaffordable. And most companies will not allow you to be
on their plan if you classify as “part time”.
~~~
toasterlovin
Health insurane is expensive, but eminently doable for most technical
salaries. Ours is about $950/mo for a family of 5.
~~~
gnfisher
What kind of health plan is that, if you don't mind my asking (Context: I've
been living abroad 10 years, had a family while down here, we are thinking of
moving back but the cost of healthcare and its quality is a big issue for us).
~~~
toasterlovin
That is the highest deductible plan (bronze in Obamacare parlance). Yearly
visits are covered, as are milestone visits for children. Other than that we
pay out of pocket. Our total amount per year that we are responsible for
beyond premiums is capped at $6k per person and $13k for the entire family (I
believe; the actual numbers might be a little different, but these are in the
ballpark).
My take is that if your family is relatively healthy, then you should go for
the lowest tier plan. Then you count on paying the premiums, plus some more
for whatever doctor visits normally take place. Then, in the worst case
scenario (something expensive happens to 2 family members), you would pay a
(roughly) additional 100% of the cost of your premiums in a given year in
medical costs. If you have pre-existing conditions or go to the doctor a lot,
then a higher tier plan might make more sense for you.
Oh, forgot to mention, $950/mo for our family is the unsubsidized cost.
Depending on your family's income, you could qualify for a subsidy from the
government, which can be pretty significant. We qualified for a $400/mo
subsidy this year (so total monthly cost is $550).
My big picture take on the U.S. vs. the rest of the world is that if you're a
high earner, the U.S. is usually better, economically. The pay tends to be way
higher here than in Canada or Europe (especially in the tech industry) and a
social safety net can be purchased (in addition to health insurance, you can
also buy yourself unemployment and life insurance, for example). I've done the
math on moving to Canada (my wife is Canadian) and it ain't pretty. It would
represent a huge reduction in our effective income.
------
2sk21
What I really need is a weekly study day: Spend a whole day just studying and
reading something (which may be completely unrelated to my work). Some of my
most productive ideas have come from such study.
~~~
maxxxxx
What I need is a weekly work day :). My workplace is so distracting that I
barely ever get to do focused work. The background noise drives me crazy and
then always somebody wants to have another meeting about something that has
been discussed dozens of times before.
~~~
chimeracoder
> What I need is a weekly work day :). My workplace is so distracting that I
> barely ever get to do focused work. The background noise drives me crazy and
> then always somebody wants to have another meeting about something that has
> been discussed dozens of times before.
Sounds like bullpen office layouts are the problem. We really need to go back
to private offices.
~~~
maxxxxx
And let's have less people whose only job is to report to each other about
work instead of doing work. Unfortunately managing is paid better than doing
so I don't see that changing.
------
5555624
Based on my personal observations, I don't know that any of those "benefits"
are true. For about eight months of the year, I have a 3-day weekend every
other weekend. (Nine hour days with every other Friday off and eight hour days
on the other Fridays.) Around September, I burn vacation days taking the
opposite Fridays off, so I have at least a 3-day weekend ever weekend for the
remainder of this year. I've done this for a number of years now.
I don't find myself healthier. I eat the same and I'm a little more active;
but, not much. Not enough to make a real difference. Increased physical
activity on one day is not better than spreading it out over a week.
I don't get more sleep. Numerous studies say to keep the same sleep schedule
every day and one day is not going to make a difference,
I'm not less of a jerk. Having Friday off does not do anything to my energy
levels on Monday - Thursday. I try to sleep and eat right all week.
I don't think am better at my job. While there is some less stress because I
have an additional day not to think about it; I am also not around for
anything that might come up on a Friday.
~~~
the_clarence
Why do you do that then?
~~~
5555624
The work schedule with every other Friday off? Because I would end up working
at least nine hours anyway. It's nice if I am going out of town for the
weekend.
Taking the opposite Fridays off, from September/October through December? I
haven't gone on a vacation and I can't carry those vacation days over to the
next year.
------
NKosmatos
Our society is such that we typically work 8 out of 24 hours(33%), 5 out of 7
days(71%) and 11 out of 12 months(91%), with exceptions ofcourse. All those
aeons of evolution so as to come out of our caves and settle for this?
IMHO we should be working less and have more free time for activities that
would be good for our spirits/souls/minds.
Where are the robots, AI and all the other technological wonders that we were
expecting for the 21st century?
~~~
carlmr
>Our society is such that we typically work 8 out of 24 hours(33%)
I always think you should look at the effective free time you have left. I
can't do much in my sleep (-8h), I can't do much on my commute (-1.5h), I
can't do much in my lunch break (I have to take a 45 minute lunch break by
law, it's way too short to use it as actual free time, but takes another
significant chunk out of your day.)
I get to 24h-8h-8h-1.5h-0.75h = 5.75h of E.F.T. that's only 24% of your day
you actually have for yourself, assuming comparatively reasonable western
working times and pretty average commute times.
76% of your day is not effectively free time.
~~~
Fri31Aug
In what city is 1.5h the average commute time, just to make sure I'll never go
there.
~~~
prolikewh0a
Seattle. I work with people who have 2hr commutes, both ways.
~~~
carlmr
That would be 4h in my calculation, because I counted the time per day you
can't freely allocate.
------
strictnein
I'm surprised we haven't seen more of the mixed compromise:
Monday - Thursday: 10 hour days
Friday - Monday: 4 day weekend
Tuesday - Friday: 10 hour days
Saturday - Sunday: 2 day weekend
and then it repeats. Same hours worked overall.
Work longer days, but get 4 day weekends every other week. The people I've
known who've had this setup would generally work 6am-4pm.
~~~
dionidium
My strong impression is that this is a waste of time. You can keep people in
their seats for 10 hours, I guess, but you're not going to consistently get 10
hours of productivity. If we want to give people an extra day off -- and I
think we should! -- then we should just do it. You can't really make up the
time somewhere else.
~~~
strictnein
> My strong impression is that this is a waste of time.
Have you done it or worked with people who have?
Worked really well for the people who I knew who did it. Highly productive and
the two 4 day weekends a month seemed great.
My point wasn't that this was better than an additional day off and less work.
My point is that this should be acceptable today, and I'm surprised there
isn't more buy in for flexible schedules like this.
~~~
jartelt
I worked somewhere that did 9 hour days with every other Friday off. It
basically made Fridays unproductive because half the company was off every
Friday and it seemed like you always ended up needing to talk to someone who
was off that Friday in order to make progress.
I certainly liked the Fridays off. But, I'd say the 9 hours part was not
optimal. Salaried employees typically already put in that much time so it
didn't affect them. Hourly employees didn't seem to be that much more
productive. They were just there longer and probably took slightly longer
lunches...
I feel like just instilling a hard working culture and giving the whole
company every other Friday off would have been better for productivity.
------
village-idiot
One of the great surprises in the 20th century is that per worker productivity
has risen massively, but we still work an unnecessary 40 hours a week.
Realistically 15-18 hours would probably be enough to maintain early to mid
20th century output, and 30 hours would actually increase output a bit.
In my opinion we as a society are addicted to work.
~~~
Fjolsvith
Some work doesn't happen any faster despite worker productivity. The 40 hour
work week isn't determined by the output, but rather by the income the worker
receives. People are free to work 15-18 hours a week, but they don't.
~~~
prolikewh0a
>People are free to work 15-18 hours a week, but they don't.
I'm forced to work 40 hours per week no matter what I'm getting paid or I get
fired, not sure how this is a 'choice'.
~~~
Fjolsvith
Exactly my point. You make the choice to engage at a job that doesn't allow
flexibility. There's more than one job out there.
------
Nursie
I agree. I'm thinking of moving to that model when my current contract comes
up for renegotiation early next year.
A 20% paycut is definitely liveable, and that extra day per week would make a
lot of difference - either in terms of bootstrapping side projects, or just
quality of life.
~~~
imAsking9836
Other option without the paycut could be 4 10-hours a day week. Might save on
gas and other thing and will still have the 3 days weekend, although day to
day activities like exercise might prove more difficult to do with fewer hours
every day.
Tangential question: when people in the US say 9-5 work, do you take into
account the lunch break or that 1 hour is still counted as workable?
~~~
zinckiwi
Purely anecdotal: I feel like it _used_ to mean 9-5, and somewhere in there
you'd have lunch. These days I think it's more of a (misnomer) term for 8
hours of on-the-clock work, and most people are expected to go something like
8:30 - 5:30.
------
Animats
One proposal has been to go to an 8-day week with a 3-day weekend. This only
reduces worked days by 12%, instead of 20%.
~~~
baxtr
I’d rather have every second weekend 3 days off instead. 8 days in a row
sounds just awful
~~~
lippel82
I think they meant 5 day work week and 3 day weekend = 8 day week
~~~
fouc
Unfortunately that doesn't divide too nicely into the approximate 365 days
rotation around the sun.
A 6 day week, 4 days on, 2 days off would be much easier to devise a calendar
for I think.
------
combatentropy
If you work less, you'll be less stressed! Although this article superficially
looks like it's full of facts, it's a bit thin on anything beyond what can be
guessed through common sense.
The interesting questions are: what length of work-week best balances
everything? "Every weekend should be a 7-day weekend, because studies show
that workers will be less stressed." What length of week would be good for
workers, good for the economy, etc., etc.?
One thing that I've realized, having become an adult, is that just because
your job makes you work 40 hours, doesn't mean you only work 40 hours. There
are many other things in your life that you have to do that are also work:
running errands, parenting, cleaning, cooking, etc.
------
a-saleh
I did this when negotiating salary at my last job. I discussed this with my
wife, and we agreed, that having +20% salary wouldn't improve our lives much.
Working 20% less probably would. So far it seems that it worked out :-)
The extra day helps for us to actually get somewhere during the weekend, and I
really appreciate both having more family-time with my wife and daughter, as
well as posibility to get somewhere on my own without the guilt of "but I
should have been with my family".
On the other hand, I sometimes feel that I am not working enough at work and
it has been tricky to align some of meetings within the team I work in, i.e.
we have a lot of meetings on monday or friday :-/
~~~
schrodinger
It’s plus 25%, not 20, since you’d make 5/4 the pay.
~~~
metabagel
They are correctly using the upper salary and hours as a reference point in
both cases. Perhaps the language could be clearer, but it doesn’t make sense
to use different reference points for comparison.
~~~
a-saleh
These are rough estimates :) while comparing offers of my previous and current
employment, there was the thing of having less vacation when working part-time
(only 16 days, no sick-days, compared to 25+5) but the 20% pay-rise vs 20%
less work seemed like the simplest comparison to get across :)
------
Fri31Aug
Those are all advantages for workers. What are the advantages for businesses?
~~~
danilocesar
It's interesting that people are not considering the business point of view...
I read some people mentioning about working 10-hours a day and work from
Monday to Thursday. If I was a business owner I wouldn't allow that. I would
rather offer 5~6 hours work per day than allow him to work more for 4 days.
In my field of work (engineering) as a regular worker, I see people working 8
hours but they are not 8 hours productive. Discussing this with some friends
we concluded that usually an average developer can focus for around 5 to 6
hours, tops. Then, by adding two hours a day, he won't be 7~8-hours-
productive.
My bet (and that's a my own point of view) is that an average developer will
keep being 5~6 hours productive. That's because the development process leads
to mental exhaustion. After some time people will be much more distracted,
leading to mistakes, etc.
Of course there are some folks that will argue that they can do 10~12h work
per day. While this is true, usually they don't do it for long without being
burned out. A very few exceptions can do that without getting stressed.
So, If I'm a business man and I want my employees to have more free time
without affecting my business, I would reduce the hours per day rather then do
10 hours x 4 days a week.
* btw, that's about software engineering only. I don't think the mechanics of other business would work that way.
~~~
nickjj
It really depends on the profession I think. Sometimes you're forced to work
really long hours just based on your business.
For example a dentist might choose to work 3-4 days a week, but be open to
seeing patients from 9am to 8pm to compensate for people unable to go during
normal business hours due to their own work schedules.
Then again I think that business is a lot different than software development.
Technically we could sit there and work on 1 thing for 12 hours, where as a
dentist is hopping between patients and has a bunch of small breaks through
out the day in between patients. It might not be "goof off time" breaks, but
it's something that breaks up the day.
------
knodi123
I just got a 20% raise to go with a promotion. I wished I had an opportunity
to negotiate a 20% reduction in working hours instead- perhaps even along with
a _slight_ reduction in pay.
~~~
Taylor_OD
Did/have you asked? I know a handful of people who have asked and successfully
accomplished this. I know a lot more people who wish they could but don't want
to ask for fear of being seen as a low performer or something.
~~~
knodi123
Um, actually no I didn't think to ask. That's a good point. I'm traveling to
meet my distributed team next month, maybe I'll delicately broach the subject.
------
redwheelbarrow
While I support this in theory, the news source looks less than credible. On
another article they suggest that medical professionals as well as IT
professionals were becoming "dead career fields" which is very odd.If you look
at hiring statistics in the latter at the very least, you will see that this
is somewhat alarmist.
~~~
xfitm3
Both “IT professionals” and “medical professionals” are incredibly vague
terms.
If the author is referring to corporate IT I do agree this niche is dying.
Business support isn’t a great place to be. Operational roles in product
typically pay better and give you a greater opportunity to make an impact.
~~~
redwheelbarrow
That's a very valid point. I was more confused by the point he was trying to
make when he suggested that front-line medical workers are being less in
demand however. In that respect, I was being vague, not the author. They
directly mentioned that primary care workers are dying, which is demonstrably
false.
Front-line/primary care providers in Canada at least are among one of the most
in demand members of the work force. Look at the nurse shortage for example.
If you get yourself a degree in nursing, you are almost guaranteed a job. If I
look at members of my generation that I know who are employed VS not, I
struggle to find any who majored in a professional health program (excluding
premedical programs which are non-professional programs) who were not working
in their field almost immediately after graduation.
In comparison, I know of a handful of people who graduated from highly in
demand engineering programs and are entirely unemployed. As in, no job what so
ever. Many also are not employed in their area.
------
cheschire
A few months ago I switched my time schedule from the standard "five eights"
over to "four tens". I derived two benefits immediately.
First, it was far easier to avoid overtime because I was already working 9 or
10 hour days before anyways. It was just how the tasks worked out. Coming in
early allowed me to help get the team spun up early in the morning, and
staying a little late allowed me to help the team clear any roadblocks so they
could end their day too. Obviously it's more complicated than that, but that's
a decent high level abstraction.
Second, it allowed me to cut Mondays out of my life. According to my Automatic
Labs sensor[0], my worst commuting days are Mondays with easily 25-30% longer
drives each way. Additionally, Mondays are horrible as there's a higher
likelihood of hangovers with colleagues, or residual homelife drama that
absolutely must be described between 7 and 10am. All the worst meetings happen
on Mondays. It just goes and goes.
But after only a couple weeks I started to realize some other benefits. I
started walking my son to kindergarten in the morning, and picking up my
daughter from school in the afternoons, which allowed me many more focused
hours of "play time" with them. I got several hours in the middle of the day
(like right now) to read the web at my leisure, work on personal creative
projects that had nothing to do with work, take some MOOC courses, etc.
Now, the negatives.
First, my wife who works part time 5 days a week imagines I sit at home
drinking beer and watching TV at 9am. It took a while to really establish that
just because I work 4 days a week doesn't mean I'm not still working 40 hours
a week. I also do end up "working" on Mondays anyways, but just on education,
home renovations, even if I do spend the first couple hours on HN articles.
Second, I had to institute a full communications embargo with colleagues on
Mondays. It was just too easy for conversations about BS to slip back into
work talk because that's how we roll in a normal workday anyways, mixing
business and personal anecdotes. This could be hard for others to do.
Third, I find it nearly impossible to do any personal projects during the week
now. Before, after an 8 or 9 hour day, I could come home and find some
motivation for an hour or two of other stuff. Now, after a solid 10 hour day,
I come home, decompress for about 30 mins, then it's time to start the bedtime
ritual for the kids. There's no space or energy left for projects.
All in all, it was a great change. I've seen others who have completely
flexible schedules (40 hours in a week however they want), or simply "five
nines" where they get a day off every second week, and other variations. The
moral of the story is: fuck Mondays.
0: [https://automatic.com](https://automatic.com) (not affiliated, just a
customer)
~~~
maxxxxx
I did 4/10 for a while but I found that during the four days I nothing but
worth, commute and sleep. Maybe without the commute it would have viable but
with an additional hour of driving I was completely shot in the evening. So
for me it didn't work.
------
danny8000
I think we should switch to a six-day week (just drop Wednesday). Two day
weekend, four day week:
[http://calendars.wikia.com/wiki/60-Week_Calendar](http://calendars.wikia.com/wiki/60-Week_Calendar)
~~~
logfromblammo
We could go partial French Revolutionary, and have 36 10-day weeks at
+3-1+3-3, plus an intercalary partial week at -5 or -6. Since we're not [all]
French, the days of the week would be renamed as follows: Workday, Bluesday,
Grindsday, Humpday, Schmerkday, Slogsday, Highday, Lazyday, Gamesday, and
Chillsday. This would be referred to as the "Bactrian week", and the previous
+5-2 week a "Dromedary week". The partial week shall be "Festivus Week".
For essential personnel, they cover all days of the week by working a rotating
schedule of 9-day cycles (+3-1+3-2) plus one vacation week of 9 days off in a
row, which adds to the previous 2-day weekend for a total of 11 consecutive
days off. Festivus has staggered 3 on, 2 off, at double pay. Employees draw
straws at 60% probability for working a leap day.
There's no need to rename the months. Years start on January 1st and follow
Gregorian leap day rules.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar)
~
------
bauc
Even if you have a 3 day weekend, you still need to have proper long blocks
off work. I used to take days off on Friday or Monday to get longer weekends
in lieu of taking whole weeks. It's nice to have a long weekend but I found
since taking more longer blocks (week or more) it's a lot better for you to
fully switch off work (usually takes a few days to switch off completely).
~~~
ghaff
It's sometimes nice to have 3, 4, or even just 2 1/2 day weekends if you want
to go somewhere for a weekend trip. Which I do sometimes. But unless I have
specific plans for the weekend, I'd rather have any days in excess of the
usual two available for use for longer trips.
People obviously vary. I've worked with people who didn't have any particular
trouble taking time off but they just didn't like travel and preferred just
expanded weekends. For myself, I'd rather have most of the time for longer
trips with just some longer weekends here and there.
------
JulianMorrison
Three is too short. Try five?
~~~
JulianMorrison
I'm getting voted down but I'm serious... it is a cultural choice to feed
people by paying them for work. And so work must be procured and time occupied
by what is essentially walking a treadmill until the rent pops out.
~~~
Fjolsvith
In my business, if time is just occupied by a worker, they loose a job. Their
job depends on them doing something that pays for their income.
~~~
JulianMorrison
Then they are probably doing a great if slightly panicked job of pretending to
be "doing something" (as in "don't just sit there, do something!!") every hour
of the workday. Because their rents and ramen depend on convincing some guy
who grumps at people on news.ycombinator.com that a task which will naturally
have surges and lulls consists of continuous machine-like effort.
~~~
Fjolsvith
They can't pretend to produce the final product in my shed manufacturing
business. Their rents and ramen depends on them filling orders that customers
paid for, not the grump who retorts to nitpickers on HN.
------
coolspot
As father of two: no, please no.
~~~
henryluo
As father of five: yes, please yes.
~~~
bendmorris
I don't get this mentality at all. The number one thing I wish I had was more
of in life was quality daytime hours to spend with my family. It's why I have
kids. I've been spoiled by paternity leave for our new little one, and I don't
know how I'll cope with having to go back to work.
~~~
rimliu
People and their needs are different is that so difficult?
~~~
bendmorris
Nah. Having kids is a choice. If you're going to view/treat them as a burden,
just don't do it.
------
lolive
The consequences would be terrible! We would have to wait 18 months between
each iteration of Iphone instead of 12. Amazon would deliver at day+2. Uber
Eats would answer: "No slave available. Sorry, you will have to cook".
Simply unacceptable !!!
Now go back to work 5 days a week!
~~~
Treegarden
Why cant things be more flexible, eg. you have a 7 day workweek but personally
you only work 4 days?
This seems like a good idea especially given more automation and more higher
level jobs.
~~~
krapp
Because most jobs require correlation of schedules between roles, or suppliers
and vendors, a minimum viable number of staff, or deadlines which need to be
met. A cashier, for instance, can't simply decide not to come in to work for
half the week, or to only work overnight when it's easier. Everyone would do
that, and the business would lose money.
>This seems like a good idea especially given more automation and more higher
level jobs.
Automation means fewer jobs and less flexibility, not the opposite. The more
work machines do, the less value human labor has, the harder employers have to
squeeze their employees to even make a profit from them. One just has to look
at a company like Amazon to see how that trend leads.
~~~
jrockway
But many don't. Many things are planned on the scale of quarters, not hours.
In that case, it doesn't actually matter what hours people work, as long as
things are done by the deadline.
I've certainly worked for companies where other companies contracted out their
software development tasks to us. They did not care what hours we worked; they
spent their money and expected a result X months later. Whether we worked on
their project from 9-5 was something they would not even know, much less care
about.
------
biggio
There shouldn't be weekends. People should be allowed to take any 3 days off
during the week. This will reduce unemployment and increase productivity.
~~~
mosselman
Things like weekends and holidays are, in some cases, the only thing that let
people who do certain types of work have any time off work to begin with.
Someone I know worked at a supermarket as a cashier at some point and she
asked for a few days off on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. She asked for
this a few months in advance. Her manager looked at here puzzled and sneered
"What do you want off for?" as if it was strange to want to have a few days
off on Christmas. Luckily for her it was just her student job and she quit
before Christmas came around, but some people are not in a position to
quit/negotiate and have to put up with asshole-bosses all the time.
Here in the Netherlands shops stay open longer and longer and on more days
(they used to be closed on Sunday). This leaves people who don't have an
education that gives them a lot of job security open to exposed to the whims
of their bosses.
I think ideas like having the ability to choosing your weekends (2 or 3 days)
leaves those 2 or 3 days open to discussion and gives some managers a chance
to wiggle them out from under you. You see a similar effect with the
'unlimited holiday'-companies out there; the effect is that people feel
pressured into taking less days off than they would have had with a more
traditional number of days at other companies.
Also, schools are open during the week, not the weekend, so parents are pretty
much stuck with the 'normal' weekend anyway.
~~~
Fjolsvith
> but some people are not in a position to quit/negotiate and have to put up
> with asshole-bosses all the time.
Everyone is in a position to quit/negotiate. People who tell themselves they
aren't are just living in a cage they keep themselves in. Have some initiative
and make a positive lifestyle change!
~~~
SketchySeaBeast
You can negotiate yourself onto the street, I suppose the fresh air could be
considered a positive life change.
~~~
Fjolsvith
A fresh perspective opens up opportunities.
~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Or gives you nothing to work with. If your only skill was "working at a gas
station" and you got fired from a gas station, you better hope that there are
more opportunities for working at another gas station, cause you aren't taking
a "sabbatical" from minimum wage to enhance your skills to move up.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The LG Wing is a “T” shaped, dual-screen smartphone - elsewhen
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/08/the-lg-wing-is-a-t-shaped-dual-screen-smartphone/
======
imposterr
I love that LG is still playing around with new form factors. Between this and
the V60 the line up looks interesting.
That being said, I don't think these will catch on, and that's very
unfortunate as it disincentivizes companies to try new things.
~~~
setr
well, at least software-wise I guess there shouldn't be an issue; android
already supports multi-tasking, and scaling to that size (not sure what they
call it -- but my samsung floating app feature seems to be generally well
supported, and most apps scaling properly)
So it's just an issue of whether consumers will actually go for it.. which is
exactly the incentive/disincentive you want.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Huawei abandoned by Google and major US chipmakers - yashwt07
https://medium.com/@yashwate07/huawei-abandoned-by-google-and-major-us-chipmakers-bf1e085d957a
======
hn45oye
Could turn out as a big problem for Huawei
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Anonymous Money needs Anonymous Exchange (Bitcoin) - kiba
http://bitcoinweekly.com/articles/anonymous-money-needs-an-anonymous-exchange
======
hugh3
kiba, do you think there's some kind of limit to how many bitcoin articles you
can reasonably submit?
~~~
kiba
As long it is not spam and it is interesting content.
~~~
jsavimbi
But the fact that BitCoin does not need an exchange still stands. Just
familiarize yourself with Forex and understand that if the banks thought they
could make money on trading BTC, they would add it to the exchange along with
the major currencies, exotics, derivatives & metals. And for that you would
need volume as without volume you do not have a market.
See: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_market>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Quora Will Never Be as Big as Twitter - kingsidharth
http://mashable.com/2011/01/06/quora-growth-not-twitter/
======
StavrosK
"Why apples will never be as tasty as oranges."
------
kleinsch
I'm personally not sure if Quora will ever be bigger than Twitter, but I do
think they have a potential advantage in the fact that user who ask questions
are looking for answers when using their service. It's similar to the
difference in value of search ads vs display ads. Getting an ad in front of
someone who's searching for something specific is a hell of a lot more
valuable than putting that same ad in front of someone while they're browsing.
Most usage of Twitter is browsing, while Quora users (at least the ones asking
or researching questions) seem similar to searchers, so that portion of their
traffic may be much more valuable, depending on how successful they are at
monetizing it.
One problem with this theory is that some of Quora's traffic right now (don't
know the proportion, but I'd assume it's high in terms of page views) is users
answering questions or browsing updates from friends, who fit more into the
browsers mold than searchers. I think they're going to have the same
difficulty monetizing that portion that Twitter is.
------
ig1
The whole premises of this article is that in-depth Q&A can't have mainstream
appeal, which is just wrong.
Look at the magazine racks at your local store to see what's mainstream. Look
at what people pay money to read.
Now tell me there's no market for Celebrity Q&A or Music industry Q&A.
------
nicksergeant
Comparing Quora to Twitter is massively premature. Quora's not even better
than Stack Overflow, or even Answers.com. Riddled with annoyances, the only
thing I ever hear about Quora on Twitter is something that drives someone
crazy.
~~~
Swannie
I agree. I'm not sure what the whole buzz about Q&A is right now.
Stack Overflow certainly fills a niche that had, before, been filled by lots
of independent "specialist" forums. Having that community under one roof is
great, there are a lot of subjects with strong similarities. The badges system
appears to allow good self moderation.
The value in Quora was the presence of an unusually large number of "over
achievers". Most of the people on there are doing very well for themselves in
the technology world, and found the questions interesting.
Now Quora is expanding, I don't see the added value any more. Really, how is
this different to all of the other q&a services on the internet.
The Stack Overflow approach of creating separate communities will probably
work better than Quora, whose original community is being diluted, not
expanded.
------
citricsquid
Twitter can be useful (or at least they want to use it) to billions of people,
the service is what you make of it. The same can be said of Facebook or
Tumblr, but Quora? Not so much. It has no mainstream appeal. The fact that
this article needed to be written is surely enough evidence that everyone is
clamouring to find the next social media _darling_ that they'll grasp at
anything that shows a hint of being popular and try and force it.
------
plnewman
The author makes that sound like a criticism. A site or service can be
valuable without being "big". The thing that I like about Quora is that its
easy to identify notable people, which is lacking from other sites. I think
Quora could actually become a pay service and do OK.
~~~
fooandbarify
I agree. I don't really want Quora to become as big as Twitter, because then
it would become filled with garbage just like Twitter. (Weird, that sounds
crankier than I want it to.) I'd gladly pay to keep Quora a bit more
"exclusive" for lack of a better term.
------
SriniK
Comments like this are common for most any website/product. Remember everyone
including tc mentioned that twitter was pointless. Wait for few years, as long
as they stick to their game, people will find use cases.
~~~
benologist
Twitter was something new though, Quora's pretty late to the q&a party.
------
erik_landerholm
(yahoo_answers || answers_dot_com) + follow == fail
~~~
SpikeGronim
(concentric elite growth strategy || answers filtered by my friends) + email
notifications == win
Quora has so many respected tech industry people using it that I want to use
it. That's similar to how Facebook was first Harvard only, then Ivy League,
etc. - you want to be where your perceived social betters are.
My Quora feed shows the topics that my friends are interested in. This is
super valuable for finding information slightly outside what I would search
for myself.
Their email notifications keep me clicking back to the site so that I stay
engaged.
~~~
erik_landerholm
yeah, it's cool right now. but, to get big they are going to have to let the
'unwashed masses' in. Expect more questions like, "why is paris hilton such a
sloot?" and less about interesting topics with interesting answers.
Once that happens, and it will have to happen for them to have the number of
users that twitter or facebook has it will descend into yahoo answer hell. I
don't see how they avoid that and get mass user adoption.
~~~
SpikeGronim
That's very much a risk for Quora. But if they're still showing me my friends'
activity that could ameliorate the problem. My friends are still going to be
asking/answering questions that I am likely to be interested in.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Where rump kernels are heading - mrry
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.rumpkernel.user/416
======
valarauca1
History lesson:
The earliest "Operating Systems" as we call them today were developed at
General Motors. The system was a standard stack of punch cards that would be
executed with every program to take are of environmental tasks, provide a
standard library, and standard I/O functionality.
This system was built for the IBM701 in '56, but was used on all 40 IBM704's
that were sold. It influence the development of a lot of early 50's and 60's
OS's nobody ever heard of now-a-days. Namely the Michigan Terminal System,
which was very big and never spoken of.
This was still a batch processing operating system. But it was a far cry from
the automatic tape switching Univac had only 2 years earlier!
Literally a rump kernel.
:.:.:
The ultimate problem with rump kernels is looking into the future, we arrive
back at Unix. Follow the thought experiment.
1) We reach a standard rump kernel for virtualization, that support most users
needs.
2) Its declared an industry success and sees wide deployment.
3) In order to speed up its functionality hypermanagers are ran on native rump
kernels.
4) In order to speed up its functionality hypermanagers have rump features
built in.
5) Duplicate rump features exist in the hypermanager, and its (the hyper-
manager's) own rump kernel.
6) rump kerenels and hypermanagers are re-merged to multi-process OS's to
remove duplicate code and offer speed ups.
What we need is a more multi-process OS, not a multi-user + multi-processing
OS.
TL;DR we are back pedaling.
~~~
bch
This is going to sound sassy, but it's not _entirely_ meant to ---
Follow the thought experiment:
1) valarauca1 comments on rump
... [stuff goes here]
n) valarauca1 is dies
Is there a point to _anything_, if you use "following to logical conclusion"
as measuring stick? We can't tell what will come of this work yet.
-bch
~~~
valarauca1
I understand what your saying, an I agree. its the journey not the destination
that makes scientific progress worth it in the end.
But a lot of the "Rump Kernel" theory sounds like.
"I need a car with less features, and high performance."
"Okay, lets start with re-inventing the wheel, its the logical place to start.
We'll build ground up and move from there."
"I was gonna start pulling the head lights off."
"Nonsense! We must start fresh!"
~~~
justincormack
No part of the rump kernel is about reinventing the wheel. It is about reusing
existing OS code in other situations. So I don't exactly follow. This was a
mailing list post so didn't have all the background...
------
0xdeadbeefbabe
I hope the rototill metaphor isn't lost on anyone. That's a metaphor worth
saving.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
RIAA Wants to Cut Artist Royalties to 9%, Apple Wants Them at 4%, Artists Just Want to Eat - nickb
http://gizmodo.com/352762/riaa-wants-to-cut-artist-royalties-to-9-apple-wants-them-at-4-artists-just-want-to-eat
======
dkokelley
A broken industry? Greed? Starving artists?
I smell a decent startup brewing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Microsoft Edge extensions support delayed until 2016 - wslh
http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/22/9596298/microsoft-edge-extensions-support-2016-release-update
======
mschuster91
As much as I like the direction the new MS is heading, I can't think of
literally any person wanting to use a browser which does not support
adblockers.
------
kup0
The one thing that could actually make the browser decent is the one thing
they delay. Naturally. So frustrating.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Association between gifts from pharma group to drug prescribed by French doctors - hokkos
https://www.bmj.com/content/367/bmj.l6015
======
techaddict009
Its pretty open in India.
Drugs prescribed by a Doctor can be bought and is mostly available only from
the store he mentions in the prescription.
Big doctors have their own store.
You go anywhere else very rarely you can find the same drug.
Most of the times doctors will prescribe additional 2-3 generic seasonal
medicine which you mostly do not need just to achieve targets so that they can
claim their gifts (TVs, Foreign Trips, etc.)
This a serious issue in India which no one is batting an eye on.
~~~
Iv
In France, the prescription is valid in any pharmacy and the pharmacy seller
(who has a degree in pharmacology) can and often do propose the generic
version of the prescribed drug.
There has been some marketing to present generics as cheap knockoffs of bad
quality, leading to many people choosing to pay for the prescribed drug (which
will be reimbursed anyway) but it all comes down to the patient's behavior.
~~~
linuxftw
Generics might be cheap knockoffs. It's uncertain if the purity, formulation,
method of production, and quality control for a generic will yield the same
benefits (or any benefits) for a particular drug. There are countless stories
about how some people like some brands of generics better than others.
There was some reporting around these parts recently that generics don't
really undergo any kind of efficacy studies, they are assumed to just work,
and there's really not much oversight whatsoever.
~~~
derefr
It’s kind of weird. The FDA, and agencies in other countries modelled after
it, usually have two jobs:
• for drugs, such agencies verify that new drugs are safe/effective _in
concept_ (rather than in any particular manufacturing implementation)
• for food, the agency looks at _specific manufacturers and distributors_ of a
food, and—given a particular food they’re _claiming_ to be producing—the
agency verifies that their product meets the agency’s own definition of what
that named food “should” be (i.e. you can’t sell Cheez Whiz as “cheese”
because it doesn’t contain enough [whatever], though you _can_ sell it if you
don’t try to call it “cheese”; you can’t sell beef as “beef” if it contains
toxic levels of thyroid hormones, though you _could_ sell it as something
else, e.g. as a hypothyroidism supplement, since those levels _would_ be
expected for that product; etc.)
But, strangely, these agencies _don’t_ have any mandate to to apply the
“food”-type rules (checking manufacturers and distributors for their output
being within tolerances to a definition) to the drugs—even when those drugs
are known to be produced through a process that can leave harmful reagents in
them if not cleaned properly.
What’s up with that?
~~~
linuxftw
> What’s up with that?
I suspect it's all about who benefits. In the food industry, we've seen the
effects, the industry is consolidating and forcing smaller players out.
In the case of generic prescription drugs, those are still very large players.
There seems to be a cartel for all but the most common drugs, where
manufacturers don't bother competing for market share.
------
guerby
Data point according to:
[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrie_pharmaceutique#Lobby...](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrie_pharmaceutique#Lobbying)
In 2003 pharma industry was pending more than 20 000 EUR per year per doctor
in France. Not far for a full time employee per doctor.
One quarter of revenue on marketing, more than for research.
Most of this is because of government granted monopolies aka patents.
Alternatives are proposed, see Dean Baker for example
[https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/09/23/should-
the-...](https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/09/23/should-the-
government-impose-drug-price-controls/end-patent-monopolies-on-drugs)
[http://cepr.net/publications/briefings/testimony/drugs-
are-c...](http://cepr.net/publications/briefings/testimony/drugs-are-cheap-
why-do-we-let-governments-make-them-expensive)
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15346683](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15346683)
(yes nothing new :)
Book :
[https://deanbaker.net/books/rigged.htm](https://deanbaker.net/books/rigged.htm)
Blog : [http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/](http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-
press/)
~~~
rscho
I very much doubt it's 20'000 EUR for GPs. It's likely much lower, because
what you are citing includes data for surgeons, dermatologists,
ophtalmologists, etc. who all are much higher priority targets for pharma
marketing.
------
Ididntdothis
I bet the doctors’ lobby will deny that payments will have any impact on their
behavior. The same way they deny that working 24 hour shifts and being sleep
deprived has no impact on their performance.
~~~
wpietri
They will certainly deny the impact. Which is absurd given that pharma
companies all spend that money as vigorously as they can. Do doctors believe
that pharma companies are extremely good at optimizing complex systems when it
comes to drug production, but suddenly really bad at it when it comes to how
they sell the drugs?
~~~
wpietri
And as an aside, I think the long-shifts thing is a slightly different case.
I've talked with doctors, and one pointed out that a big threat to patients is
information loss during handoffs. The more you change shifts, the more
information gets lost.
It's similar to how we developers will often keep working on a problem until
it's solved. That's especially true in incident response, where the same
people tend to keep working on an issue until it's solved, rather than saying,
"Oh, it's 5 pm, I'm going home; somebody else can figure out why the site is
down."
That's not to say doctors have the right balance now; they definitely have a
macho-culture problem where people tough it out when it isn't necessary or
beneficial. But it's definitely not as simple as I thought at first.
------
nraynaud
And French doctors have access to a periodical about drug that is anal on not
taking money from big pharma (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescrire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescrire)
).
------
mirimir
In a previous lifetime, I had access to pharmaceutical industry data, at the
level of individual products, which reported the relationship between
detailing (visits to doctors by drug reps) and prescription behavior (for
target drugs and competitors).
Bottom line, pharmaceutical manufacturers employ drug reps because they
increase sales. For up-and-coming brands, detailing is a major promotional
component. And it's carefully managed.
------
ajudson
"During this outbreak, Muyembe has also made a decision many thought
unthinkable even a few years ago. He decided that all of the blood samples
collected during this Ebola epidemic will stay in Congo. Anyone who wants to
study this outbreak will have to come to his institute." not sure if this is a
good idea
------
pkaye
In the US, you can look up your doctor here
[https://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/](https://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/)
Apparently drug and medical supply companies are required by law to report
anything they gift to doctors or hospitals.
------
simosx
It should be common in most European countries that have national health
systems.
edit: Source: [https://blogs.mediapart.fr/emmanuel-
kosadinos/blog/310818/no...](https://blogs.mediapart.fr/emmanuel-
kosadinos/blog/310818/novartis-greece-scandal-unveils-permanent-scandal-
pharma-industry)
~~~
jacquesm
It actually most likely isn't common. In the past it was, but there was a
serious crackdown on doctors improving their golf handicaps in luxury resorts
on the dime of big pharma and all variations on that theme. Surprised to see
this make a recurrence.
~~~
Scoundreller
Sometimes that crackdown is because the big pharma companies are happy with
their current positions, so they propose cutting all of these expenses across-
the-Board.
Then they maintain their incumbency and reduce a lot of their costs without a
huge hit to revenue.
And if you’re a new pharma company with a truly awesome product, good luck
getting anyone to prescribe it when you didn’t buy them a round of golf a
decade ago because you didn’t exist.
------
rscho
GP in France is such a shitty job that people will go to great lengths to
avoid that sector. French GPs earn ~25$ (base price) per patient, so they have
to work their ass off to have a decent lifestyle. The people here talking
about golf courses and living the life just have no idea what they're talking
about. It's VERY different from the issues of the american system and it's no
wonder this is happening.
~~~
Ntrails
> French GPs earn ~25$ (base price) per patient
My GP sees ~10 people per hour, ~7 hours a day. That sounds like it would be
worth 1750 per day. Assume 250 day working year for the ease of my mental
maths, you've got ~450k revenue?
Assuming tests/drugs etc are all extra, and that the surgery takes a sizable
chunk - it still feels a decent distance from the breadline?
~~~
baud147258
I don't know how your GP work, but last time I went to see one it was closer
to 2 or 3 patient per hour.
~~~
krageon
My GP takes 10 minutes per appointment and they sometimes take about 5 minutes
after to enter information. Seeing 4-5 people per hour enter their office is a
normal day.
Edit: To be clear, this will afford them a salary that is a multiple of mine
while still leaving room for about 3 assistants per GP (maybe more, given that
assistant work is something that your insurance or you also end up paying
for), rent for the office and equipment. They're certainly not underpaid. I
don't think they are overpaid either, as the time taken to study before you
can become one is very long and the work is probably quite unpleasant.
~~~
baud147258
I was more wondering about the quality of care.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Paul Graham: Lisp in Web-Based Applications (2001) - tosh
http://ep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/bbnexcerpts.txt
======
tosh
Interesting comment on evolving code (& keyword parameters):
> Rtml even depended heavily on keyword parameters, which up to that time I
> had always considered one of the more dubious features of Common Lisp.
> Because of the way Web-based software gets released, you have to design the
> software so that it's easy to change. And Rtml itself had to be easy to
> change, just like any other part of the software. Most of the operators in
> Rtml were designed to take keyword parameters, and what a help that turned
> out to be. If I wanted to add another dimension to the behavior of one of
> the operators, I could just add a new keyword parameter, and everyone's
> existing templates would continue to work. A few of the Rtml operators
> didn't take keyword parameters, because I didn't think I'd ever need to
> change them, and almost every one I ended up kicking myself about later. If
> I could go back and start over from scratch, one of the things I'd change
> would be that I'd make every Rtml operator take keyword parameters.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The longer passwords in the Last.fm database - ProfDreamer
https://www.leakedsource.com/i/lastfmlong.txt
======
pilif
At first I was really impressed by `1qaz2wsx3edc4rfv5tgb6yhn7ujm8ik,9ol.0p;/`,
but then I watched my keyboard and all became clear. These brute force tools
are getting better and better at trying useful combinations to the point where
I think all "clever" are now known to the tools and the only thing that
remains is completely random passwords as they are generated by password
managers.
Thank you for posting this list - this is very enlightening.
~~~
stargazer-3
To add to the ease of hacking around it, how the hell are you supposed to log
in from a phone? Or a different keyboard layout?
~~~
johnward
Password manager but then in that case it might as well be random.
------
kalleboo
Had a good laugh at this one
<script>alert(document.cookie);</script>
~~~
facorreia
It look like someone fishing for a vulnerability instead of a real password.
~~~
chocolatebunny
Why not both? I mean Robert');DROP TABLE students;--1 seems like a pretty good
password.
------
jffry
See previous discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12409530](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12409530)
Notably, the passwords were stored as unsalted MD5 hashes, which even in 2012
was known to be a poor idea.
~~~
Houshalter
This is a stupid question but how is it possible to reverse such long
passwords from even a poor hashing algorithm? Even if the hashing algorithm is
super fast, testing all combinations up to dozens of characters should still
be impossible. And isn't there the possibility of collisions, so that even if
you find a string that maps to the same hash, it might not be the original
password?
~~~
Pikago
They were obviously testing for combinations of words and not combinations of
single characters. They might even have tested plain sentences. Still very
impressive. After all, the leak dates back to 2012. I wonder how much time did
the first one take for example.
I think strings that maps to the same hash are just inintelligible garbage. If
you find something that looks like human then it's certainly the original
password.
~~~
kijin
The first one is the title of a song [1]. The attackers probably have a lot of
common phrases, song titles, and other catchy excerpts in their dictionary.
[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I915tOiR9sM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I915tOiR9sM)
If it weren't a song title, it would probably have been impossible to crack.
That sentence has 12 words. People say that most English conversations only
use 3000 words. 3000^12 is 2^138. It has quite a bit more entropy than what we
can crack nowadays. Besides, "stripper" isn't part of the 3000-word
dictionary.
~~~
nzp
Those 3000 words are not random in natural language. If they were your
calculation would be correct, but they aren't so the actual entropy of the
system is likely nowhere near 138 bits. In other words, song title or not, if
the sentence was an actual sentence the entropy is _much_ lower. To get
maximum entropy out of sets of words you have to use something equivalent to
Diceware.
------
elaus
Interestingly, many of the longest passwords follow the same principle: A
sentence repeated three times with two scrambled letters in one word each.
~~~
INTPenis
Sentences usually have whitespaces between words though, makes the passwords
much easier to remember and handle.
I'm assuming last.fm does not support blanks in their passwords since none of
these passwords use that character. Or perhaps very few people realize you can
use that character to help make passwords more manageable.
My recommendation to people who ask the past few years has been full,
grammatically correct sentences.
~~~
Jugurtha
The problem is that the vast majority of websites I've seen handle the whole
process involving passwords horribly (registration, resetting, etc), which
induces users to use bad passwords just to get it over with.
Some let you fill out the form and then click on submit and tell you a problem
with your password or something. You change it, then they tell you it has to
be shorter than 15 or 10 characters, and impose such conditions you almost
wait for them to tell you "use: 2Hx,!rJ" as your password. Some don't even
support "special" characters, spaces, or hyphens. By the 4th or 5th attempt to
register, you're basically trying to come up with the stupidest password you
can to feed this monstrosity.
Mind you, somme of these are big companies websites. I think password or
registration management also affects things like talent acquisition. Companies
using Taleo for instance are doing a great job of repulsing normal, mentally
sane, people. The whole approach of registering one account for each company
on a different company subdomain on the same domain (company1.taleo.net,
company2.taleo.net) and for each one fill out the profile all over again is
beyond the realm of my comprehension.
The browser asks you to save the password/username for the website, but it
does so for the domain, not the subdomains which all have different passwords.
I give up on a company if it's using Taleo. I'm not talented or competent, but
I'm sure really competent people wouldn't want to put up with this either and
it hurts recruiting.
~~~
ryandrake
>The browser asks you to save the password/username for the website, but it
does so for the domain, not the subdomains which all have different passwords.
I give up on a company if it's using Taleo. I'm not talented or competent, but
I'm sure really competent people wouldn't want to put up with this either and
it hurts recruiting.
This sounds like your browser's password manager's problem, namely assuming
that users will only have a single password per top-level domain.
------
venning
If I know that I'm going to try to compromise a system and access its
username/password lists, is there an advantage to creating a number of
accounts to which I know the password prior to the break-in?
Does this make it easier to break the other accounts once I have access to
them encrypted? As in, I know that the account with username X has an
unencrypted password Y, so now I have guideposts to tell if my cracking
attempts are pointing in the right direction, trying to get back to password Y
from the hashes. I imagine there would be something of an advantage to already
knowing, say, 10,000 plaintext-encrypted pairs in a big list.
If this is the case, should one be concerned in managing a system that sees a
dramatic uptick in new user registrations as a precursor to an attack?
~~~
snowwrestler
Only if you are not able to characterize the hashing scheme, or if you think
the app uses a static salt that you don't know. Then having a known plaintext
would help figure it out. But I think you would only need one, not a ton of
them.
It seems like if someone hacks a system so badly that they get the whole DB,
they can probably also figure out the hashing scheme while they are in there.
I doubt that a dramatic uptick in new user registrations is a useful precursor
signal.
------
aleem
Any ideas on how they manage to crack these? I can't grok how they would
achieve this via a dictionary attack, especially the likes of:
MgihtyDutchmanMgihtyDutchmanMgihtyDutchman
alapdanceissomuchbetterwhenthestripperiscrying
<script>alert(document.cookie);</script>
~~~
ryan-c
Password cracking "dictionaries" can have phrases in them.
~~~
aleem
I get that but permuting over typos, letter casing, lengths and combination of
words would make the dataset huge.
Is there a massively collaborated rainbow table database that is constantly
growing? Are there other heuristics that come into play such as guessing the
password length or some such thing?
~~~
phpnode
Rainbow tables aren't really a thing any more, you can calculate a hash much
faster than you can download one
------
mnsc
I wonder how my password policy stands up?
I have a memorized "satisfy stupid password rules"-string made up of
lowercase, uppercase, digit, special character. Eg. pA5$word
Then i take use "service name" [space] above string [space] "4-5 word sentence
that first pops into my mind when i think about the service name"
So for netflix I would get:
netflix pA5$word the net is flickering
Serves me well and I have never entered the secret string in any password
manager, only the ending sentence. I can't autotype it though but since it's a
sentence it's remarkably easy to type correctly. It also surprises me how
often I remember the "first sentence that pops into my mind".
The only problem I have with this scheme right now is services that don't
allow something in this pattern (mostly no spaces) and forces me to deviate
which makes my blood boil.
~~~
anotheryou
Depends on what the threat is.
For a brute-force dictionary attack: the "netflix" part is worth as much as a
single random character, the length by the sentence will do you much good. The
special chars are good.
When a hack like this becomes public happens and someone tries to attack you
in specific: the "netflix pA5$word" becomes worthless, but the sentence saves
you.
You forgetting stuff: the sentence will break your neck
I guess a good master-password and a password save with random passwords is
better, but you are doing pretty good! Also you can use a single password on a
untrusted computer without fearing to compromise all other passwords too
(again, thanks to that sentence).
~~~
hollander
> His password: netflix pA5$word the net is flickering
I don't get it that you say that "netflix" in this password has no more worth
than a single character. How can the cracker know that this is "netflix" and
not "netfli " or "neTflix"?
Furthermore, it's not like the password reveals itself during the process.
Untill all characters are found, there should be no logic in the result, or am
I wrong?
~~~
anotheryou
I thought he uses the unchanged service name as a prefix. If I had the chance
bruteforce netflix accounts with a dictionary I'd definitely have "netflix" as
one of my dictionary words to it (and Netflix and netflix.com and Netflix.com
etc).
~~~
mnsc
I assume netflix is in the dictionary for all word based bruteforce attack.
It's just a prefix word in the scheme that is super easy to remember, it's in
the url. And an attacker can't know whether it's www.netflix.com,
www.netflix.se, Netflix, NETFLIX, in the beginning, in the end or any number
of variants that could be used consistently in the scheme. The main part is
that I can remember it as "service name lower case" "breaker string" "words".
------
Desustorm
Would be really interested to know how they cracked these passwords...
~~~
creshal
Brute forced them?
~~~
manmal
I really doubt that they brute-forced
alapdanceissomuchbetterwhenthestripperiscrying. I have no exact idea, but I
guess i would take 1000s or millions of years to bruteforce 1,22680068e65
combinations (taking only lowercase letters into account), if you don't have a
working quantum computer available.
UPDATE: I did some rudimentary math and think that top notch server farms
would take something like 1e35 to 1e42 years to bruteforce 26^47 combinations.
~~~
phpnode
It's not a random sequence of characters, there are only 12 words in there.
The cracker is trying words, not just random bytes and so the search space is
much smaller
~~~
creshal
It's not trying random words, it's not even trying random syntactically valid
English sentences, it's trying out _song titles_.
Which is a laughably tiny password space.
------
andylang_
Last.fm users are clearly big fans of Radiohead.
~~~
ahmetkun
_no surprises_ there, Radiohead were always most scrobbled artist when i used
the site actively. They probably still are.
------
TheAceOfHearts
Well, this was a great promo for the people that built this site. I just paid
$4 for a 24 hour pass to search view all the info of mine that's been leaked.
Well worth the price in my mind.
I'd love to scan my work's customer database for hits, in order to prompt
those customers to reset their passwords. But I think $1k/month is too
expensive for us. Does anyone know of any cheaper alternatives?
In any case, it's a great service to provide. After one of the more recent
leaks I ended up receiving emails from Pandora and Uber, prompting me to reset
my password.
------
mickmock
I'd hate to be David Iceland right now....
------
jve
Not many special characters there. However still notes on what those tools try
1st: Some for keyboard walk, Some for xss thing, one dot at the end and
parantheses or underscores seems not to help that much.
Seems like today a password manager is a must.
------
fotcorn
Kind of counters the idea from this xkcd comic that longer passwords are
better, even when they just contain dictionary words:
[https://xkcd.com/936/](https://xkcd.com/936/)
~~~
bwindels
It is indeed no longer good advice, but not because of longer passwords not
being better:
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/choosing_secu...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/choosing_secure_1.html)
> This is why the oft-cited XKCD scheme for generating passwords -- string
> together individual words like "correcthorsebatterystaple" \-- is no longer
> good advice. The password crackers are on to this trick.
~~~
michaelt
Hasn't it always been the assumption that password crackers know about the
trick?
If I choose 4 words from a dictionary of 50,000 words [1] that produces
50000^4 possible passphrases. That's equivalent to 62 bits of entropy, or a
10-character [a-zA-Z0-9] password. About 8 years to brute force on MD5 with 2x
AMD HD 6990. And obviously an extra word makes it take thousands of years.
It's not ideal, but it's better than a lot of password advice.
[1] cat /etc/dictionaries-common/words | grep -v "'s" | egrep -v 's$' | wc -l
gives me 51726
~~~
reacweb
all the 50,000 words will not be chosen with the same probability. I think we
are more like a random 8 characters [a-zA-Z0-9] password.
~~~
creshal
> all the 50,000 words will not be chosen with the same probability.
Why?
~~~
reacweb
red hammer effect.
~~~
creshal
How does that affect /dev/random?
~~~
snowwrestler
The XKCD comic skips lightly over this by simply stating that the words were
randomly chosen. But being truly random is actually hard for most people to do
off the tops of their heads.
I doubt many people are taking away from that comic that they should use
software to reliably randomly choose the words they memorize. Instead the
advice seems to usually get shrunk down to "choose 4 random words," i.e. out
of your own head. Most people don't carry 50,000 word dictionaries around in
their heads. More like a few thousand. That changes the math considerably.
------
asciihacker
A password is just not enough. 2FA is almost a necessity I would guess.
------
circa
I had a good chuckle at the first one.
alapdanceissomuchbetterwhenthestripperiscrying
~~~
ahmetkun
how about ilikedyoubeforeyouwerenakedontheinternet ?
~~~
asib
Also appears to be a song by From First to Last.
------
necessity
How does leakedsource work? Basically they got password dumps and are selling
this information to companies? Isn't this illegal somehow ?
------
tempodox
These passwords are just abysmal.
------
tom_v
ok, the first one is just priceless!
~~~
DanielShir
Laughed at that one myself. It's an old Bloodhound Gang song -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMGVMtnxXEw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMGVMtnxXEw)
And there's the connection to last.fm :)
~~~
tom_v
That makes much more sense than this being just a random sentence!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Frank Lloyd Wright Paved the Way for Bad Silicon Valley Housing Ideas - rbanffy
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mb3w3y/frank-lloyd-wright-paved-the-way-for-bad-silicon-valley-housing-ideas?utm_source=mbtwitter
======
oldmancoyote
The trouble with the command solution approach (public or private) is that
it's institutions lack correcting dynamics and are too big to fail. Wether
it's FLW or Paolo Soleri, or Google the resulting solutions will be too rigid
to adapt to real-world situations, yet they will be too big to discard.
Perhaps some organic Solari-like design permitting large numbers of
independent housing decisions (some of which could fail) might work, but this
is a very hard design problem. Only tech has the funds to attempt something
like this. But, tech leadership is known for its arrogance and its ignorance
of the complexity of real-world problems. I have little hope tech will find a
viable solution.
------
bob_theslob646
>And tech companies that privatize development instead of investing in public
infrastructure are similarly complicit.
The blame game never works.
hmmm I wonder how effectively state governments spend their money on public
transit?
Where is the transparency in government?
Why don't people want to work in government?
When is the government going to pay private sector wages in order to attract
talent?
If I had to venture a guess, people are not moving to San Francisco to work
for the government.
If the city knows what the problems are, why not tax the hell out of them to
pay for transit. Make owning a car painful. Take a stand!
I might get down voted to hell on this but
>One recent study found a direct correlation wherein the more innovation and
patents that came from a city, the more income inequality increased over time.
Is that necessarily a bad thing? Can everyone live every where? I think the
answer is no.
The increase in inequality is an interesting one. Sure, it's a problem if
equally qualified people have different access to opportunities, but when is
the last time telling someone who does not understand that most of their
success has been achieved through luck and timing , that they need to pay
their share to support people who are not like them. Super hard to do.
------
arcaster
I never thought I'd see the day when VICE articles were posted to Hacker
News...
~~~
icebraining
[https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=vice.com](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=vice.com)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
'Lucky' Woman Who Won Lottery Four Times - jc123
http://www.businessinsider.com/4-time-lottery-winner-not-exactly-lucky-2011-8
======
ColinWright
Same story:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2861390>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2868747>
========
Related - breaking the Massachusetts State Lottery:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2828122> <\- lots of comments
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2829953>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2834002>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2834122>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2839674>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2842018>
========
Also related, breaking the scratch card lottery:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2166555> <\- This has lots of comments
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2166829>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2174333>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2181729>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2186178>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2188198>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2202232>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2241306>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Monitor websites for changes and send scraped data to a webhook - omneity
https://monitoro.xyz/?ref=hn
======
omneity
Hello HN, Monitoro is a service I built to watch websites for changes, scrape
data, and whenever the data changes, send it to a webhook of your choice. 2
months ago, I shared this project on Hacker news and got a very warm
reception.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21398524](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21398524)
Since then, I have learned a lot in this space and from usage patterns from
our several hundred users, as well as extended research and insights from
veterans in the industry.
I refined the concept (including much requested premium plans), added Chrome
rendering and included a programmable layer in Javascript, and would love to
hear your feedback on it!
For an overview of the changes, take a look here:
[https://monitoro.xyz/whatsnew](https://monitoro.xyz/whatsnew)
------
onesmalluser
There seems to be a lot of competition of other people doing this. What is
special about yours?
~~~
omneity
Could you please refer which competition you have in mind exactly?
We're laser focused on extracting data, transforming it and sending it to
webhooks.
No other service to our knowledge achieves a similar result with the same
(low) effort required by Monitoro.
Beyond that, our focus really is to be a trigger to your automations, and in
that regard expect more specific functionality targeted at this space, beyond
what we are providing already.
~~~
egfx
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21781869](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21781869)
recently posted...
~~~
omneity
We’re barely out of the MVP stage, but I already see at least two major
differences:
\- Javascript based custom transformations
\- Specific focus on Webhooks (we’re compatible out of the box with Slack,
Google Chat, Discord and really whatever else has a webhook API)
Not everything that says “Change tracking” is the same product.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Be an Expert in a Changing World (2014) - headalgorithm
http://www.paulgraham.com/ecw.html
======
joncrane
The problem is, in order to operate as human beings, we have to assume the
vast majority of our assumptions about the world are solid. For example,
gravity will continue to push objects down in a fairly predictable way, the
air we breathe will have a certain amount of oxygen, etc.
It's extremely difficult to operate, survive even, without making a vast
number of assumptions.
So there's another, meta-level of thought that's required where we have to
assign a confidence to each assumption. For example, I assume my car is going
to start each morning, my laptop is going to power up each day, etc. But I
also realize there's a nonzero probability that my car will break down or my
laptop won't power on.
It's incredibly mentally taxing to constantly re-evaluate one's assumptions,
so it's incredibly important to triage which assumptions I should question at
any given juncture.
Most people give up and rely on their assumptions, which leads to a lot of
social problems. Old age also severely impacts a person's ability to question
assumptions. I don't want to get political here, but some people and
organizations profit mightily from this phenomenon, much to the detriment of
society as whole.
------
brad0
In short, look for changes in the world and see how they change once well held
beliefs about said world.
There was a lecture I watched years ago that specified the different areas
that change that can allow startups to do well.
I remember Technology and Law. Possibly Social as well. Does anyone know what
I’m referring to and what those areas are? I believe there were 5 of them.
~~~
PakG1
Political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental? PESTLE?
~~~
brad0
Yeah I think that’s the one! Where did you find this? Is it business 101
stuff?
~~~
PakG1
Yeah, business strategy MBA kinda stuff. Although honestly not sure how useful
it really is. I guess it helps you have a broad checklist of things you should
look at.
------
commonsense1234
i really like the people's part. even if something ain't earth shattering. you
can predict if something will work by measuring those important factors
(earnest, energetic, independent minded).
~~~
gnlnx
I was hoping for an example of a startup he has chosen to not fund because the
people didn't meet that criteria but maybe the idea was seemingly bad in a
good way
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
MapD Open Sources GPU-Powered Database - anc84
https://www.mapd.com/blog/2017/05/08/mapd-open-sources-gpu-powered-database/
======
ccleve
I would very much like to see a blog post or some other explanation of how a
GPU speeds up a database query.
Most traditional SQL databases are I/O-bound, meaning that the cost of pulling
index pages from disk into memory overwhelms everything else, and adding more
CPU doesn't do much good. Even for in-memory databases the cost of pulling a
page into GPU memory is likely to be high. The calculations you do are pretty
simple -- you mostly traverse arrays of pointers and do intersections and
accumulations. No floating point, just increment and compare integers.
GPUs really shine when you can parallelize operations on blocks of data that
are already in GPU memory. That's why they're great for graphics and games.
I'm not seeing how they help with database queries over large volumes of data
which cannot fit in GPU memory.
I'd really love to read some kind of tutorial on the topic. There's likely
some kind of magic here that I don't see.
~~~
paulmd
They don't help on large volumes of data which cannot fit into GPU memory.
Obviously. PCIe is even slower than standard CPU memory, pulling non-trivial
amounts of data across the PCIe bus is catastrophic for any GPU program.
GPUs shine because their VRAM has enormous volumes of bandwidth (up to ~512
GB/s for high-end modern GPUs). That's an order of magnitude more than CPU
memory.
So basically you throw indexes and perhaps a few key columns in VRAM, but as
little actual data as possible, and just return the row IDs (or ranges) of
interesting data. That lets you cross-reference back into host memory, and at
that point you would perhaps perform some further limitation criteria based on
something that's not available in GPU memory.
GPU memory isn't super-abundant, but high-end cards have up to 24 GB, and if
you stack a bunch of them in a rack then you are talking about a reasonable
amount of memory for most use-cases. Four cards in a box is easy, and you can
put four cards in a 1U chassis if you use GP100 mezzanine cards. So now we're
talking 96GB of VRAM per box or per 1U, which works out to quite a bit of
index data.
The other use-case would be something that's really computationally intensive
to perform, but for some reason cannot be pre-computed and cached. So - for
example find me all rows where "sha256(INTEGER my_table.my_val AND now() AS
INTEGER) > 256". Which as you can imagine mostly trends towards crypto kinds
of stuff.
~~~
dogma1138
Pascal supports upto 49bit memory addressing which covers 512TB worth of
addresses, AST between the GPU and system memory addresses is done in hardware
which means prefetches via usage hints / branch prediction and page faults are
handled by the GPU.
In this case you are only bound by PCIE bandwidth (or NVLINK if you are using
a supporting GPU) and performance wise it's pretty near native speeds.
You can also access network and other types of storage from within the GPU
since MIMO is universal these days.
AMD will add similar functionality starting with VEGA.
This means that with both vendors you are no longer bound by the GPU onboard
memory.
And if PCIE x16 isn't enough then NVLINK comes with upto 200GT/s these days
and has an infiniband end point.
~~~
paulmd
The problem is "PCIe bandwidth" is really bad. PCIe 3.0x16 is only 16 GB/s,
which again is less than half of you would get from any old DDR4 memory. You
might as well do that on the CPU then.
NVLink is fine as far as it goes... the problem is it's a two-party
transaction, NVLink still has to be fed _by something_ and that's either
another GPU or the CPU or something like a SSD via DMA. With a database type
program, the CPU and GPU use-cases are pointless because you could just be
doing the search there and returning results directly instead of device-to-
device DMA. And NVMe SSDs are usually limited to PCIe 2.0x4 which is 2 GB/s.
Absolute maximum, 16 GB/s, same as any other PCIe-attached device.
Remember, GPUs aren't always used on compute-bound tasks. There is a very
valid use-case for I/O bound tasks where you are just using it as a super-
cache. GPU database programs often (but not always) fall into that category.
You are just searching indexes/target columns like crazy and throwing the
resulting row IDs back over the wall to the CPU.
~~~
dogma1138
NVLINK is GPU to GPU or GPU to CPU link, if you are using it as a GPU to CPU
link you are taking to the CPU at native NVLINK speeds either through a native
NVLINK bus if you are using a POWER CPU which supports it or via an
Infiniband/OmniPath interconnect on Intel/AMD CPUs.
16GB/s is a bit tight but that's where prefetches based on pre-defined usage
hints as well as the branch predictor in the GPU and the CUDA Compiler/Runtime
that feeds the GPU without stalling as much as possible.
OFC you can I/O bound a GPU that's is actually pretty easy these days even in
normal (gaming) workloads (e.g. draw call limit).
Let's say you are building a 4 GPU DB, if you are using NVLINK you each GPU
can see the entire memory space of the other GPUs connected on the same NVLINK
(there is also RDMA which can be done over the network but this is a
complicated scenario) in this case you have 96GB of high speed VRAM + which
ever amount of memory you can put on your CPU which can be upto 1.5TB or so
per socket these days, you also have 64GB/s of bandwidth to feed that 96GB of
memory with which means that it takes a second and a half to completely refill
the memory completely (and I'm still not sure that the same lossless
compression schemes that GPUs use these days for won't work for your data
which would give you much higher effective bandwidth that the
compression/decompression if free on the GPU side).
With these figures I can't see a reason why you can't optimize your memory
residency to have the best of both worlds fast key-value/hash or index lookups
for IO bound tasks and then programmatically prefetching the workload or if
the branch prediction is good enough just letting it roll in processing bound
tasks.
So yes it's not "perfect" but nothing ever will, the question is it much
faster or even orders of magnitude faster for certain tasks / workloads /
implementations than a CPU only DB and clearly it is. How well would it
compete against other contenders like Intel's Xeon Phis, programmable FPGAs
and other emerging technologies that aim to solve this problem from another
direction i don't know.
~~~
paulmd
Even if you have a super-fast interconnect, you can only fill as fast as
something else can send it, right?
I mean, if it's in CPU memory than you are limited to whatever the CPU memory
can deliver. Which is 40 GB/s per socket from quad-channel DDR4, more or less.
You can probably double that with compression, but it's still vastly less than
you'd get from VRAM.
And you get the same speedups from _storing the data compressed in VRAM_
assuming you have some fast method for indexing into the stream, or you're
searching the whole stream. But yes, assuming your data can be dehydrated and
then stored in CPU memory you can squeeze a little more bandwidth out of it
this way.
If it's GPU memory (in another GPU across NVLink/GPUDirect/etc), then you
should be doing the searching on that GPU instead.
The stipulation here has always been "tasks that don't fit into GPU memory
aren't going to work" so if you are assuming that the data lives on another
GPU... then you are violating the pre-condition of all of this discussion,
because it fits into GPU memory.
Yes, if your data fits into GPU memory it's very fast, because VRAM bandwidth
is enormous. The catch is always getting it to fit into GPU memory. That's why
you need a "tiered" system - indexes or important columns live on the GPU,
then you return them to the CPU where you do additional processing with them.
It's like L1/L2/L3/memory hierarchy on a CPU - sure, your program that fits
into cache is super fast, but many real-world tasks don't fit into cache.
If your entire dataset is small enough that it fits in VRAM on one box's worth
of GPUs (4-8 per box), or within a few racks or whatever... that's great, go
hog wild. But it's not very cost effective versus a tiered approach, this is
like asking for a CPU with 16 GB of cache (or enough CPUs to add up to 16 GB
of cache). It's outright impossible for very large datasets (96-192 GB is not
a very large dataset in this context, but it's a reasonable amount of _index
space_ for a 1.5 TB or 3 TB dataset on the CPU socket).
Once you start having to transfer stuff into and out of VRAM, GPU performance
typically starts to rapidly degrade. It's "only a second or two" to you... but
that's a terabyte's worth of VRAM bandwidth that sat idle for that time.
"Rolling" approaches like this do not work very well on GPUs. You want to
avoid transferring stuff on or off as much as possible because you just can't
do it fast enough.
Computational intensity is one way to avoid doing that, both in VRAM and to
host memory. If you can transfer a byte (per core) every P cycles, and you
perform at least P cycles' worth of computation on it... you're compute bound.
And at that point you can probably make a "rolling" algorithm work. But the
problem is doing that (without just being obviously wasteful). In practice, P
is like 1 byte every 72 cycles or something (working from memory here). It's
really hard to find that much work to do on a byte in many cases. So despite
their massive compute power... GPUs are often I/O bound on most tasks. Crypto
tasks (hashing) are a notable exception.
Note that I/O bound here can happen _in different areas_ too. You can be I/O
bound over the GPU bus, or on the VRAM. It depends on where the piece of data
you need lives.
Also, in gaming it's typically _the CPU_ which is bound in draw-calls. The CPU
can't assemble the command lists fast enough to saturate the GPU (at least not
on a single thread). I'm not sure I'd say it's _necessarily_ I/O bound in this
case, either, but it's possible.
Normally GPUs will only use a fraction of their VRAM bandwidth while gaming -
however, like anything else, throwing superfluous resources at it _will_ still
produce a speedup even if it's not really "the KEY bottleneck". Having memory
calls return in fewer cycles will let your GPU get its shaders back to work
quicker, even though it means the memory may be idle for a greater percent of
time (i.e. utilization continues to fall).
Assuming you were going to do a DB where you store literally everything on the
GPU - I'm not sure whether it would be better to go columnar or by row. In a
columnar approach you would have one(or more) GPUs per column, and they would
either sequentially broadcast their resulting rowIDs and all perform set-
intersection on their own datasets, or dump their set of output rowIDs to a
single "master" GPU which would find the set intersection. In a row approach,
you would have each GPU find "candidate" row-IDs and then dump them to the
CPU, and the CPU handles broadcasting and intersecting (since hopefully it's
not a large set-intersection).
Columnar might be faster for supported queries, but row would be simpler to
implement and more flexible (since the critical data processing would more or
be taking place on the CPU).
I would have to play with it to be sure, and I don't have access to a cluster
of GPUs anymore (and never had access to one with NVLink or GPUDirect).
~~~
dogma1138
But the AST is effectively a "tiered system" lets say you have a 20TB of DB,
96GB fits in VRAM, 2 fits in your RAM, 17 and change are on your disks.
Today the GPU can see this as a single continuous memory space, you have it
does the AST and handles page faults when needed and tries to optimize the
execution of each task by prefetching the needed data to the VRAM by it self
through branch prediction or by programming the usage hints yourself.
Here is a short paper/write up on the unified memory in Pascal, look at the
difference between optimizing/profiling your memory usage and using the
prefetch hints, you going from increasing your data set by 4 times of max GPU
memory and getting performance reduced by about 3.8-4 times relying on page
faults alone to only losing less than 50% of your performance while going over
4 times your maximum available VRAM.
The same thing can be done on cards with 24GB, and the magic is that the
performance drop actually levels off at about 2-3 times your maximum available
VRAM which is why the difference between 2 and 4 times the amount of memory
isn't that big in terms of performance hit/gain to over allocation ratio, so 8
times your amount of memory is not that far behind the penalty you already pay
for using 4 times more.
And yes there is no scenario in which you do not lose performance, but the
unified memory solution in NVIDIA GPUs is a very good solution to reduce the
penalty and if you really need to go balls to the wall you'll actually benefit
from the scaling.
------
drej
I ran cloc to get a better idea of the tech in this. Interesting.
Edit: I noticed a lot of Go, but only one live script in the repo. So I
excluded the 'ThirdParty' folder, where some vendored libraries reside. Edit2:
That 90K SLOC single-file C goodness is a full SQLite release, which is not
vendored in the ThirdParty folder, taken it out as well.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Language files blank comment code
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C++ 127 4385 3960 54609
C/C++ Header 158 2960 4273 14301
Java 42 1599 1498 9539
CUDA 8 301 47 3125
CMake 36 377 967 2616
yacc 1 133 156 742
Maven 6 0 126 507
Go 1 72 12 491
Bourne Shell 5 72 43 369
Bourne Again Shell 3 38 0 208
lex 1 28 12 204
XML 1 12 12 182
Python 5 65 25 168
C# 1 12 11 112
JSON 1 0 0 73
SQL 3 0 0 25
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUM: 399 10054 11142 87271
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
~~~
solidr53
Wow thats interesting, most of the languages other than C,C++, CUDA, Go and
Java must be build related things, right?
~~~
mattnewton
I assume they are bindings? But I haven't found an API doc that confirms that.
Edit: never mind, many of the 1-2 file languages are excluded from the latest
list, so they were in the "third party" folder.
------
wesm
I see they are supporting Apache Arrow
([http://arrow.apache.org/](http://arrow.apache.org/)) in their result set
converter, which will be nice for interoperability with other data system that
use Arrow: [https://github.com/mapd/mapd-
core/blob/21fc39fab9e1dc2c1682b...](https://github.com/mapd/mapd-
core/blob/21fc39fab9e1dc2c1682bcf3dcc2b49d5503aea6/QueryEngine/ResultSetConversion.cpp)
(I'm on the Arrow PMC)
~~~
tmostak
Yes its definitely alpha functionality now but we're very excited about this
piece and potentially supporting more of the Arrow spec. In case you missed it
check out the first project we are working on with Continuum and H2O with the
"GPU Data Frame" here:
[https://github.com/gpuopenanalytics/pygdf](https://github.com/gpuopenanalytics/pygdf).
------
Bedon292
Available on the AWS marketplace already set up:
[https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B071H71L2Y](https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B071H71L2Y)
Can test it for as little as $0.90 / hour on a p2.xlarge. I know I absolutely
cannot wait to play with it.
------
reacharavindh
This blog has a few performance numbers based on a NYC taxi rides dataset, and
some setup notes. Might be relevant for HNers here.
[http://tech.marksblogg.com/billion-nyc-taxi-rides-nvidia-
pas...](http://tech.marksblogg.com/billion-nyc-taxi-rides-nvidia-pascal-titan-
x-mapd.html)
I have nothing to do with the blog. Just sharing.
~~~
mmcclellan
This is where I first got interested in MapD. The author has a new post
detailing how to compile MapD: [http://tech.marksblogg.com/compiling-mapd-
ubuntu-16.html](http://tech.marksblogg.com/compiling-mapd-ubuntu-16.html)
------
rsp1984
This is quite cool. I'm curious though what the monetization strategy is now.
After all they're a for-profit company that has taken a lot of VC.
Sure, they could sell integration and maintenance services on top but services
are typically much harder to scale than software -- not quite what gets
investors excited.
~~~
shusson
My understanding is that the distributed[1] capability of MapD is not open
sourced. And I'm guessing a lot of the companies (especially the ones with
money to burn) that would use MapD require at least some horizontal scaling.
[1][http://docs.mapd.com/latest/mapd-core-
guide/distributed/](http://docs.mapd.com/latest/mapd-core-guide/distributed/)
------
wiradikusuma
For the laymen, is this something that I can use to replace MySQL/Postgre
(with ACID), assuming I only use ANSI SQL and no stored-proc?
~~~
remus
Probably not. MySQL and postgres are both very general purpose relational
databases that have a broad range of features aimed at a wide range of use
cases.
MapD is designed for more specific use cases, specifically analytic querying
and visualisation.
------
Meai
The demo
[https://www.mapd.com/demos/tweetmap/](https://www.mapd.com/demos/tweetmap/)
is pretty laggy, I think you should probably make it more performant so people
don't think it's the DB that is causing the problem.
~~~
tigershark
And why finland is "scrambled" with that big rectangle of noisy tweets with
uniform distribution even in the sea? O_o
~~~
tmostak
It's a bot.
------
latenightcoding
After reading a book on RDBMS design I had a similar idea, but after thinking
for a couple of minutes I just could't come up with a use case of a GPU-
powered database, it would be significantly slower in most scenarios.
~~~
_wmd
Just curious, which book did you read?
~~~
latenightcoding
I read a couple this is one of them:
[http://db.cs.berkeley.edu/papers/fntdb07-architecture.pdf](http://db.cs.berkeley.edu/papers/fntdb07-architecture.pdf)
------
polskibus
This is great stuff! I wonder how it makes IBM, Oracle and MS feel right now.
I can even see INSERTs allowed, wonder how it works with JOINs and if it is
ever going to support transactions.
------
red2awn
How does this compares to other GPU database like BlazingDB?
------
ape4
Is processing speed the bottleneck for databases?
~~~
remus
It depends what you're doing. I haven't looked in a while, but last time I did
the idea behind MapD was to produce interactive visualisations over lots of
data. That can certainly get pretty computationally expensive.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Navigating the Postmodern Python World - freyrs3
http://www.stephendiehl.com/posts/postmodern.html
======
bsaul
i've been coding in python professionally for 4 years now, and i'm currently
working on the biggest project i've ever worked on. to me, being scared of
changing the signature of a function because the static analyser will not be
able to spot all the places i've used this function is a real problem ( along
with incomplete autocomplete ). i do unit test everything, but i'd like to
keep unit tests for things a computer can not theorically do.
since i'm still in the early phase of the project, i know that python
expressiveness is an edge, but i'm looking right now at what's going to be the
"definitive" language i'm going to rebuild my product for the next 3 to 4
years.
Python badly needs optional typing. really. i'm pretty sure that would solve
both the speed and tooling issues. right now, for me, it starts to become
unsuitable as soon as you reach 5-10k lines of code and a team of 2.
~~~
spamizbad
I'm surprised you're hitting that boundary at just 5-10K lines. I work on a
team of 6* with about 60,000 logical Python statements (Not including tests)
and aren't running into any language or framework induced roadblocks.
And this isn't even a case of "If you do everything perfect like me,
[Language] works great!" \- We only have 45% code coverage, and our code
architecture, in certain places, is really sub-optimal (Caused by us, not the
language).
When I'm about to make a major change to a function (different inputs or
different outputs) I'll always start by grepping first to get an idea of what
I'm about to get myself into, write or adjust tests for the new 'signature',
change the function, and code/debug/test until it works. My team is in the
loop before my code is committed to a shared branch.
* We have other responsibilities besides the Python code.
Edit: If your team is stepping all over each other at such a low LOC, my hunch
is that its related to a communication problem with the team, your code is too
tightly coupled, or there's not enough architecture planning (Too much is bad,
but so is too little).
~~~
bsaul
I guess it really depends on what you're building. Just to give you a taste
here's the kind of thing i'm doing:
\- tree-structured sqlalchemy managed objects comparaison , generating diffs,
then applying diffs to those trees, and persist everything. I'm using
sqlalchemy declarative approach.
That diff applying is performed in a celery background task, reusing my flask
configuration.
So, in the worst case, i have to deal at the same time with : \- Business
logic on a bunch of SqlAlchemy ORM object ( declarative approach) \- a Flask
request context \- a celery task context \- and sqlalchemy session
At that point, i'm changing the signature of a function that takes pieces of
those three parts to perform some business logic. Now i'm telling that the IDE
(pyCharm, the best one) and python "compile phase" doesn't give you a CLUE on
what you're doing.
You're dealing with so much "magic" that it becomes unmanageable. You don't
need that many lines of code to reach that point.
EDIT : you've got 6 people working on 60 LOC spread on 8 discrete apps. That's
about the same amount of isolated group of LOC per person than me (a person
having to deal with a group of 5-10K LOC)
~~~
aidos
I'm not sure the complexity breaks down that way. More people + more code
means things need to be better organised because things might change under you
without warning (or you may have to work with an unfamiliar part of the
system).
How is your app structured? I'm guessing that Flask is the top level glue and
everything else is scattered around the Flask app. That's the general approach
(in most modern MVC frameworks) and I think it's also the root cause of
complexity.
Celery and Flask (and sql alchemy too) should really be asides to the main
codebase. The code should be layered and discrete libraries for handling
different parts of the system. If you have 6k loc that all cross reference one
another then you have problems in any language. Presumably there are a number
of different components in there. Each should stand on its own with as simpler
api as possible. As ever, too much coupling is going to make it impossible to
reason about your code.
If you're about to change a signature for a function, it should already be
fairly obvious as to where it is called from. If not, you need to ask yourself
why. What is this function that's so fundamental to the system that it could
be called by any module? Why is it buried in another module an being accessed
from elsewhere?
My current app has about 4k loc in python and the same again in js (angular).
It's broken into dozens of parts that I only connect where needed through a
simple api.
At the core is a sort of image processing library (that itself contains lots
of different components). On top of that is a system that works with the image
processing. Above that another system that interacts with the data models,
uses the system below and farms out processing to picloud (though could use
celery). Finally, the Flask layer just provides a web interface to talk to the
system that handles that business processing. I can tap into any of those
layers to drive them. The point is that I can operate at a high level without
needing to consider any details of deeper parts of the system.
These are the layers of abstraction that make a system understandable and stop
it from being brittle.
~~~
bsaul
The problem lies in the interfaces. Components, even when they are
independents, expose interfaces. Those interfaces acts as a contract between
the component and its users.
Python needs a way to make those interfaces automatically verifiable.
It's even worse once you start to use big libraries. If you're using top level
functions, then maybe your IDE can help you, but as soon as you're dealing
with magical properties or parameters, that becomes a mess.
Take for example the "desc" magical function in SQLAlchemy, on things like
"order_by" on relationships. That's extremely useful and clever, but i'd
really like python to give me some "ok, you're not doing things wrong" message
as I'm typing.
Even better, once i enter a relationship declaration, it should give me a list
of all the parameter i can use, along with the things thoses properties accept
for value. This way i wouldn't have to check the documentation every time i'm
writing one. It could also let me discover new things as i'm typing ("hey
what's that property doing ? that looks interesting..."). Autocompletion is
another way of discovering APIs.
But for that, you need type declarations.
EDIT : as for my api, it's really nothing fancy. It's structured in three big
parts "admin / common / public". They each have their "model / business /
service" layers, and each have their modules. Only the service layer is
impacted by flask. I have some "utils" modules for very low-level stuffs (json
serialization, etc). Flask configuration are used a bit everywhere, because i
want my api to have only one configuration file. Nothing special, really.
~~~
boothead
It's not a total solution but I find the zope.interface and zope.component
libraries really good for this. I believe that zope.component provides some
stuff to build unit tests that verify if and interface is correctly
implemented/provided too.
------
jefftchan
(off-topic)
Love the contact page [1] of this website. What are some other effective
filters?
[1]
[http://www.stephendiehl.com/pages/hire.html](http://www.stephendiehl.com/pages/hire.html)
~~~
duggan
Hah, clever. Bonus points if you don't need to run the code to figure it out
(since the cipher is trivial and the ciphertext isn't particularly well
obfuscated in the Haskell version).
~~~
alanctgardner2
The best part is that it's still his name at a common domain. I didn't bother
with the code, but you can pick the common letters and match the positions to
be pretty confident. The hardest part is his middle initial.
edit: To be more on-topic, Dwolla had a pretty challenge for their hackathon
last year: [http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/29/dwolla-etsy-join-up-for-
ny...](http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/29/dwolla-etsy-join-up-for-nycs-first-
ecommerce-hack-day/)
~~~
brdrak
Funny, I also didn't need the code to translate the scrambled address. I knew
his name so that right away gave me most of it:
[email protected] stephen.?.diehl@?????.???
since m=l in the name, assumed the same for domain, considering it's the most
popular email service, gmail.com my first guess.
since n=m in the domain name, I assumed the same for the middle initial, which
gave away the whole thing.
~~~
alanctgardner2
That's what I said? edit: I realize it might now have been entirely clear, I
was trying to be a bit discreet ;)
------
wes-exp
Lisp has had metaprogramming, optional type declarations, speed, and DSLs
since at least the '80s. This isn't some magic new technology just introduced
by the shiny new languages cited by the author.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_tenth_rule](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_tenth_rule)
~~~
foldr
Lisp's optional type declarations don't provide any compile-time guarantees
though, they're just hints. (Although some implementations do use them to make
compile-time checks.)
~~~
wes-exp
Depends what you are going for. If the point of type declarations is speed, I
think most high-quality CL implementations will take advantage of a type
declaration. If the point is compile-time type safety, yeah, that's a more
obscure feature. Of course you can always use check-type for run-time type
safety though.
~~~
foldr
Well, in the context of refactoring, it's presumably compile-time safety
that's relevant.
------
ak217
The article doesn't mention recent/ongoing improvements to PyPy in the "speed"
section, and doesn't mention concurrent.futures in the "asynchronous
programming" section. Seems incomplete to me.
~~~
Permit
I take issue with the idea that you can count PyPy as a +1 for Python's speed
without also counting it as a -1 for libraries. Especially considering SciPy
and NumPy are not yet supported by PyPy, which means you lose out on a lot of
libraries that depend on them. (For example, sci-kit learn).
You can't say that Python has both speed and great libraries. It has one or
the other. Hopefully this will change at some point and I'll be able to reap
the benefits of both.
~~~
MostAwesomeDude
It is not up to PyPy to support non-pure-Python libraries; it is up to those
libraries to fix themselves by evicting their C and FORTRAN balls and chains.
~~~
dbecker
The Zen of Python states that "practicality beats purity."
And the authors of numpy, scipy, pandas, etc seem to agree that it would be
impractical to rewrite these libraries in the way you are suggesting.
~~~
MostAwesomeDude
"Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules."
------
leephillips
"there are variety of technologies encroaching on Python’s niche"
It wasn't clear to me what in particular the author thinks is Python's
"niche", so I didn't understand the point of the article as an article,
although the content was interesting.
~~~
dkarl
I think Python's niche is understood to be as a readable, concise, batteries-
included language suitable for scripting, prototyping, and application
development on a small-to-medium scale (and large scale for some people, but
that's controversial,) and serving as a convenient interface to C and C++
libraries in all those roles. Python differentiates itself from similar
languages in the niche by elevating simplicity, explicitness, and readability
over conciseness and expressiveness. That's the conventional wisdom, anyway.
I'd say the biggest challenge to Python in that niche is the emergence of type
inference for statically typed languages. Not too long ago, the difference
between a statically typed language and Python was
List<Foo> foos = new List<Foo>();
foos.add(new Foo(2));
foos.add(new Foo(4));
versus
foos = [ Foo(2), Foo(4) ]
Now, a static language might look more like this:
val foos = List(Foo(2), Foo(4))
As far as I know, there still isn't a statically typed language that matches
Python's simplicity and low barrier to entry, but I say that as someone who
knows little about Go.
~~~
hellrich
Try Groovy!
def foos = [ new Foo(2), new Foo(4) ]
~~~
dkarl
I've been writing a lot of Groovy recently, and it feels like Scala without
type checking. That's not the worst thing in the world, I'd rather just use
Scala. With Groovy, I get a lot of the expressiveness of Scala, but the lack
of static type checking combined with Groovy doing its best to be magical is a
recipe for bugs. For example, in Groovy, you can overload methods accidentally
without a warning, which can create a hell of a surprise when somebody passes
a null value. Rather than throw an error, Groovy dispatches the call to one of
the methods even if neither one is more specific than the other.
There's also this classic bug:
def printOne(Collection c) {
if (c.empty) {
print("Collection is empty")
} else {
print(c.iterator().next())
}
}
Can you spot the bug? This code works for all Collections... except Maps. If c
is a Map, Groovy translates c.empty to c.get("empty"). Constantly having to be
on my toes to avoid stuff like that is a pain.
------
banachtarski
This might seem very petty, but I avoid python just because of the dichotomy
between Python 2 and Python 3. For me, there are plenty of other scripting
languages at my disposal, and for things like numpy, or twisted, I have better
alternatives too.
~~~
dagw
Honest question. Outside of matlab and octave (both of which fall down in a
bunch of other obvious areas), what scripting language offers anything close
to an alternative to numpy/scipy?
~~~
banachtarski
I use R, Mathematica, Haskell, Julia, or my own CAS that I built.
~~~
bjz_
What do you think of Mathematica? I've been toying with the idea of using it
for sketching out ideas related to my computer graphics work, but it's a big
investment. :/
~~~
banachtarski
I found it's utility primarily is dynamically controlled visualizations, for
example, when I wanted to see how residues were distributed in the C^2 plane
for a certain class of complex functions.
I'm not certain what sort of graphics work you are considering, but if it
involves a lot of nonlinearity or higher level functions, it may be a good
fit.
------
pjlegato
The "postmodern" conceit is a bit of a stretch; link bait to lure in readers
with liberal arts degrees.
~~~
sp332
Or perl hackers. "I think there's still a big streak of Modernism running
through the middle of computer science, and a lot of people are out of touch
with their culture. On the other hand, I'm not really out to fight Modernism,
since postmodernism includes Modernism as just another valid source of ideas."
[http://www.wall.org/~larry/pm.html](http://www.wall.org/~larry/pm.html)
~~~
berntb
Don't go Steve Yegge and pretend you didn't understand that speech was at
_least_ 50% jokingly... :-)
~~~
sp332
pjlegato mentioned postmodern conceit and linkbait, it's right on-topic ;)
------
lifeisstillgood
I like hacker ish approach to extending (abusing) a much loved language to
bring in new ideas.
But I am wary, despite being a python bigot myself, of usin one language for
all these things. At a very early point down this road it is simply better to
pay the cost of adding a new platform and using clojure to make my DSL
In the end, for production, there is a fine line between bending and breaking.
------
k_bx
Really impressed about examples with parametrized types (but I'd still better
switch to Haskell for those :).
------
xrt
I should think OCaml or SML should be added to the mix. Neither has Async
built in, but the other points are handled quite well.
[http://ocaml.org/description.html](http://ocaml.org/description.html)
------
ekanna
Other main strength of golang is no run time dependecy! Making it highly
distributable. And also cross compiles across different operating systems and
different cpu architectures. This also should be mentioned in this article!
------
parkour
"it's simply that is that the" wat
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Drone sets world record for lifting 134 pounds over 37 seconds - ck2
http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/20/drone-sets-a-record-for-carrying-the-heaviest-cargo-ever/
======
ck2
I wonder if this relies on ground-effect for lift?
Didn't someone make a drone that could carry a person?
And then there is the "hoverboard" that self-balance and carry a person, so it
is practically a drone if someone just added a remote - though it doesn't do
altitude.
Ha, check out the human-sized drone at the bottom of the article:
[http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/06/184-delivery-drone-for-
pe...](http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/06/184-delivery-drone-for-people/)
Can it still be called a drone when there is a human onboard piloting it? I
guess not.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Another TechCrunch Hit for Justin: Build Your Own Justin.tv With Ustream - staunch
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/26/build-your-own-justintv-with-ustream
======
pg
This is exactly why we nagged them incessantly to launch. Other people had to
be working on it. But if you launch first, the latecomers are described as
"justin.tv." People need a name to talk about something, and if you're doing
something there's no name for, they just use the name of whoever was first.
~~~
staunch
Ustream was described as a "poor version of Stickam" in the post :-)
We launched over a year ago on Stickam and have done mobile broadcasts at
Techcrunch, Sundance, with Paris Hilton, etc.
We're actually excited about Justin.tv though. It's helping to bring attention
to the concept and there's room enough for at least a few big players. We're
also very friendly and open to working together -- unless Justin guys feel
they need an artificial nemesis :-)
I also personally love it since I'm a big YC fan, enjoyed using Kiko, and
generally love streaming technology.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Young Business (Brad Fitzgerald on young people starting a business) - tomh
http://aptdesignonline.com/blog/young-business-part-1
======
bootload
_"... Brad Fitzgerald on young people starting a business ..."_
Not this <http://bradfitz.com/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What differentiates a “senior” programmer from a “regular” programmer? - acidfreaks
https://www.quora.com/What-differentiates-a-senior-programmer-from-a-regular-programmer?share=1
======
hoodoof
It is arbitrary, up to the people involved.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Computer chips made of wood promise greener electronics - Fjolsvith
http://www.infoworld.com/article/2926806/components-processors/computer-chips-made-of-wood-promise-greener-electronics.html
======
ars
"cellulose nanofibril" ... "The researchers coated the CNF with epoxy"
So it's not actually wood then. It's cellulose with epoxy.
This is not in the slightest "greener".
"Fungi and moisture that exist in the wild are needed for the chips to begin
to decompose"
The chips are encapsulated in a plastic package, they are not going to have
fungi or moisture near them.
And the silicon in a normal chip is not really a recycling problem - the
planet is basically made of the stuff.
This is a solution looking for a problem, and I'm quite certain this is the
last we'll ever hear of it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Covid-19 Crude Fatality Rates, Media Freakouts, and Capacity Analyses - slowhand09
https://medium.com/handwaving-freakoutery/covid-19-crude-fatality-rates-media-freakouts-and-capacity-analyses-8f50c58cfe00
======
xenonite
This certainly explains how a time-buffer can smoothen the workload in
hospitals. However, the article seems to completely miss the exponential
growth in infections. Therefore don't think that the description is valid.
------
IAmEveryone
I get my news from the “mainstream media” almost exclusively, and I am well
aware of the the caveats around CFR. This is some bullshit Streamen the
article starts with.
------
slowhand09
This guy gets science and facts; explains clearly.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
When Unix Learned to reboot(2) - aquabeagle
https://bsdimp.blogspot.com/2020/07/when-unix-learned-to-reboot2.html
======
wahern
> Linux's sync call is synchronous. You get the same guarantees as you do from
> fsync. This behavior was introduced in 1.3.20, released in 1995. Prior to
> that the same sync dance advice was useful since early versions of Linux
> were more aggressively asynchronous in their handling of disk writes than
> other contemporary systems. While this helped it compete in benchmarks, it
> caused data integrity problems when Linux machines started to be put into
> production (which was one of the reasons motivating the change). Modern
> Linux systems flush out all the dirty buffers as part of the shutdown
> sequence and wait for the flush to complete before proceeding to reboot,
> turning the system off or halting.
I developed a habit (more a tick, really) of invoking sync on Linux. Not just
because of shutdown behavior, but because of crash behavior. The Linux
filesystem didn't recover very gracefully on a crash, so many times I found
myself having to reinstall Linux.
3.5" floppy disks, the media I had to use to install Linux, had a penchant for
corrupting themselves while sitting in my desk drawer. A Slackware disk set
required something like 8 or 10 or more disks, invariably one of which would
have gone bad. I only had a 2400 baud modem, so downloading a replacement disk
took forever, and that's _after_ I was lucky enough to find a free BBC (or
later SLIP/PPP) line. And because you would only discover a corrupted disk
during installation, the process of reinstalling Linux could easily take 1 or
2 sleepless nights given it might happen midway through an install, requiring
a reboot back into Windows for downloading and then restarting the process
from scratch. (I had high school during the day, and part-time work many week
nights.)
So, yeah, a handful of bad experiences and to this day I sync almost
religiously. Until recently I would sync three times in a row, manually,
presumably because I had picked up the mythic BSD advice somewhere.
I was also fortunate to have had my first accidental `rm -fr /` experience
back then, which makes me far more cautious in interactive shell sessions than
many others, sometimes to their impatience. Because I had already learned my
lesson and became reflexively cautious, I absolutely hated Red Hat Linux,
which aliased common commands to request confirmation before destructive
operations.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Screenshots of upcoming Mega site: key generator, registration, and file manager - mtgx
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/12/07/kim-dotcom-posts-screenshots-of-upcoming-mega-site-key-generator-registration-and-file-manager/
======
phpnode
I think most of the responses here regarding the crypto are missing the point.
It doesn't matter if the key is not totally random. It just has to be good
enough so that they can plausibly deny that they know anything about the file
contents. It is their attempt to absolve themselves of responsibility for the
copyright issues concerning the content. It is not about making your files
more secure.
~~~
res0nat0r
How is this new service supposed to be viable like the last MU? If the point
of this "encryption" is supposed to provide plausible deniability, then the
whole point of distributing warez via this site "legally" will have to be that
the decryption keys are kept secret or underground.
But for this site to be popular enough to allow for downloads supported by ad
revenue, then the file links and decryption keys will have to be widely
distributed to drive traffic. If someone files a takedown notice with a file
and decryption key that proves the data contained therein is copyrighted then
won't MU be in the same boat they were in previously?
~~~
phpnode
they could be doing something as crazy as putting the key in the "share this"
URL. If they put it after the fragment then it doesn't get sent to the server
and they can continue to deny having the ability to read file contents.
Someone did a "Show HN" with a site that did something similar a month or two
back.
Presumably mega then don't offer a site search but instead rely on google to
index warez forums with links to the site that include the decryption key. I
don't know.
Edit: found the site that did this:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3852649>
~~~
samwillis
Yep, that was me. I strongly suspect that this may be what he is up to. It
occurred to me at the time that there may be a way of doing it with files.
Ultimately I shut down the site as it got very little traction.
------
anonymous
That key generator seems to imply javascript-based encryption. The only
possible use I can see, is encrypting a file on upload, so MEGA's servers
can't look inside. In which case I'd very much insist on having an open-source
desktop client, instead of entrusting encryption to some javascript code which
can be hijacked.
~~~
nwh
Even if the encryption is using a known-good algorithm, there's absolutely no
way for the JavaScript client to generate anything close to a
cryptographically secure random string for the key.
Unless they use random numbers supplied by Mega itself, I just don't see how
that would work. If they are using entropy supplied by Mega, then they might
as well not bother with the whole encryption thing.
ED: The screenshot does mention that they gather entropy via keystrokes and
mouse movements (like modern OS do), but I'm still not sure that would provide
anywhere near the randomness needed.
~~~
onli
Why? The screenshot mentions RSA-2048. At which point of that algorithm is
random input so important that it breaks the encryption if you don't have
access to a true random number generator?
I know that you choose p and q by random. And it is obvious that you want to
choose numbers that an attacker can't easily guess. But not having access to a
hardware number generator doesn't automatically imply you have a real useable
vulnerability here, or does it?
~~~
daeken
Not generating good random numbers is not a huge concern for something like
AES, where there's just such a large search space. But with RSA, generating a
"bad prime" is the difference between something taking until the death of the
sun to break, and taking days.
Edit: To clarify, primes for RSA keys are generated probabilistically -- we
don't really _know_ that they're prime, we just have a fair amount of
confidence to that effect. It's entirely possible to generate bad 'primes'
that really aren't prime at all, which makes factoring the keys trivial.
~~~
onli
Thanks for the answer. But I don't understand that. For generating the prime-
numbers used, you basically guess a number and use the miller-rabin-test or
something like that to test if prim. Maybe you have a better approach, but
generally, that should be equally possible using JS as any other language.
You never want to implement something like this yourself for a real product,
of course, but i don't see that specific issue. They even could build upon
something like jsbn[1]
I thought that this is about a missing random number generator.
[1]<http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~tjw/jsbn/>
~~~
daeken
I am not a crytographer (by any means!), but my understanding from
conversations with folks in that space is that it's very possible for a bad
PRNG to generate primes that pass the standard tests but are still very
breakable. I really don't have any more information than that; I should read
up more there.
Either way, that's by no means the biggest issue here -- some browsers already
have CSPRNGs -- but rather that the code is coming from their server and is
considered to be compromised by default. Browser-side crypto without very
strict security boundaries on key generation and access is just bad news.
------
kapnobatairza
Can someone explain to me the difference between the new Mega and something
like SpiderOak?
~~~
schabernakk
Judging from the past I would guess that Mega will be quite popular in the
web-warez scene as a hoster.
------
buro9
Who holds the private key?
Do you trust them?
~~~
wmf
_Who holds the private key?_
You do. (Or in reality, the whole world since the point of Mega is to share
files.)
_Do you trust them?_
Depends.
~~~
ericbb
> You do. (Or in reality, the whole world since the point of Mega is to share
> files.)
That implication makes no sense to me. Why would you ever share a private key?
The trust question is more about public keys. Do you trust that the key you
think is your friends public key really is? And that's what key-signings are
for.
The screenshot shows in-browser key generation but there's no reason I can
think of that they should not accept keys generated by GPG or similar.
Generate your keypair as securely as you can and however you like--and then
only submit your public key to the Mega site.
~~~
wmf
It's not clear why they're using public key crypto in the first place. But
since the whole point of Mega is _sharing_ files, people will definitely be
sharing the decryption keys.
Do you trust that that copy of _The Dark Knight Rises_ is really from who you
think? Who cares?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Twitter Uses BitTorrent For Server Deployment - aditya
http://torrentfreak.com/twitter-uses-bittorrent-for-server-deployment-100210/
======
Zev
Actual link to code + detailed description that doesn't spend 3/4 the post
describing what bittorrent is and instead discusses what the project is:
<http://github.com/lg/murder#readme>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mass-Scale Cold Fusion a Success? - andrewcross
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-10/29/rossi-success
======
synctext
If it sounds too good to be true...?
No graphs, no public measurements, no scientific publication: no merit.
Honest inventors want to be transparent and have their historical claim
validated by top-ranking organisation. Clearly another case of wired.com
diving into the fantastic and inspirational. Just search and see what their
methodology is over the past months. Just invest a bit more money and we can
do a bigger test... Nice income source, not an energy source.
Just look at how the media is being manipulated. Amusing if it wasn't a waste
of time and resources.
~~~
lutorm
_Clearly another case of wired.com diving into the fantastic and
inspirational._
Actually, _Ny Teknik_ , one of the publications cited in the article, is a
serious engineering/technology news publication. They do voice strong
concerns, so I wouldn't say the media is obviously manipulated.
~~~
anothermachine
That's the problem. It's a classic con technique. They get a few respectable
organizations to cover you and write articles like "2011's Cold Fusion Fraud",
and then they go around promoting their product as "Featured in _Ny Teknik_!"
You can't defeat a con with a rational discussion. The solution is to shun or
propagandize back.
------
jakeonthemove
I really want to believe it works, but this cloak and dagger stuff is killing
me. Anonymous customer, technical glitch preventing it from generating the
advertised megawatt, connected power cable? Is it real or not?
Then again, with Starlite we have real videos showing that it withstands at
least a torch, yet nobody commercialized the stuff, because the inventor was
supposedly too greedy... what a shame.
~~~
powertower
You would think that anyone with half a brain would have foreseen that not
disconnecting the 500KW generator from the set up would look suspicious. But
neither the inventor nor the customer had this insight?
It's also very suspicious for the planned 1000KW output to be reduced to the
exact output level of the generator.
~~~
Sapient
I don't believe this is real for a second, though I would love it to be. But I
wonder why, if it was connected to the grid, did they not just produce the
expected 1MW...
------
njharman
As described, no independent validation, power cable connected, all smoke and
mirrors; it's an egregious wrong to call that a "test".
~~~
mousa
Add to that it's all being done by an ex-convict entrepreneur and it looks to
me like the only reason this is a story is because it's a story. He did a good
job hyping it.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
I don't think, after a very cursory review of some of the reports on this
E-cat stuff, that yours is a fair summary.
He didn't just do a good job "hyping" it, it seems, but a good job selling it
too. I don't mean selling in the exchange of goods/services sense but he
appears to have won some high profile support.
For example:
"Rossi has licensed the technology to a start-up called Ampenergo. Though new,
the company has credentials; one of its founders is Robert Gentile, Assistant
Secretary of Energy for Fossil Energy at the US Department of Energy (DOE) in
the 90's." (Wired, [http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-10/06/e-cat-cold-
fu...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-10/06/e-cat-cold-
fusion?page=2))
"Together with Sergio Focardi, professor emeritus at the University of
Bologna, and Giuseppe Levi, a professor in the university’s Department of
Physics, the trio claimed a low-energy nuclear reaction device that produced
extraordinarily large amounts of excess heat." (from a New Energy Times
article strongly criticising Rossi,
[http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/08/07/rossis-
scientific-...](http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/08/07/rossis-scientific-
failure-in-seven-steps/)).
And again: "On March 29, two Swedish professors went to Bologna, expenses paid
by Rossi, to see Rossi's device in action. Sven Kullander is professor
emeritus at Uppsala University and chairman of the Swedish National Academy of
Sciences Energy Committee. Hanno Essén is associate professor of theoretical
physics and a lecturer at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology and was
the chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Association until April, when he declined
to run again. On April 3, they wrote a report endorsing Rossi's claim." (New
Energy Times again,
<http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/3705report3.shtml>)
Clearly there's a bit more to this than just a convict hyping some vapourware.
I'm not saying you can't fool professors of physics however.
From the little I've read it seems that there is an assumption being made (see
<http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/3705report3.shtml>, "Steam quality
...") that all of the water is being ejected as dry steam when it is probably
wet steam, steam mixed with a fog of droplets of water. This error leads to
vastly inflated calculations for the emitted energy.
However, that wouldn't explain the current ½MW demonstration ...
It's going to be interesting to see how this one breaks down.
------
jberryman
So I'm guessing this guy invented the bit about his secret customer too. Hired
some actors in lab coats to play engineers from said company.
------
jameskilton
Other discussion here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3170907>
Frankly I'm assuming it's a scam, or at best very very badly named, until we
find out more details.
------
SimonPStevens
Leaving aside the speculation about whether this is real or not, the E-Cat is
not cold fusion.
Rossi: "is not cold fusion but weak [force] nuclear reactions."
New energy times quote from Rossi -
[http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/36/3626-energycatalyz...](http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/36/3626-energycatalyzer.shtml)
Wikipedia - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Catalyzer>
~~~
Mizza
"New Energy Times" is published by Rossi. Why are we all still talking about
this nonsense.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
In which case he publishes a lot of dissenting matter,
<http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/3705report3.shtml>. Wouldn't that
suggest that he believes the process works too?
Or is it your contention that this is all part of a huge fraud and that
publicly annihilating his own claims is part of Rossi's method?
------
ck2
If they used US tax dollars to buy this, there would be serious hell to pay.
~~~
cpeterso
What if the secret investor is Solyndra? ;)
~~~
jeffreymcmanus
If that were true then it would represent a microscopically small fraction of
the taxpayer money wasted on experiments and prototypes performed every year
on behalf of the defense department.
------
anothermachine
Question in Headline?
Answer: no.
------
dgregd
They should sell energy, not that power plant. You don't sell duck that lays
golden eggs. Obvious scam.
~~~
hugh3
Not necessarily. If I'd invented a wacko free energy source (and I don't
believe for a moment that they have) then I'd sell the machines, or the patent
to the machine, and not the energy.
Why? Because I don't want to spend the rest of my life running a utility
company.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The metamorphosis of Escher - rbanffy
https://escher.ntr.nl/en/
======
NKosmatos
One of my all time favorite or favourite(sic) artists ever. Here are some
links to keep you busy/entertained
Make your own Metamorphosis:
[https://escher.ntr.nl/en/mmm](https://escher.ntr.nl/en/mmm)
Create your own tessellations:
[http://www.tessellations.org/](http://www.tessellations.org/)
High quality scans from Boston public library:
[https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search?f%5Bcollection_na...](https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search?f%5Bcollection_name_ssim%5D%5B%5D=M.+C.+Escher+%281898-1972%29.+Prints+and+Drawings&f%5Binstitution_name_ssim%5D%5B%5D=Boston+Public+Library&per_page=100)
~~~
FavouriteColour
Why '(sic)' after favourite?
~~~
NKosmatos
Favorite=US Favourite=UK :-)
~~~
invalidusernam3
That's not really a use case for [sic]. As per wikipedia: erroneous or archaic
spelling, surprising assertion, faulty reasoning, or other matter that might
otherwise be taken as an error of transcription.
~~~
Hoasi
One or both of these use
> archaic spelling
> other matter that might otherwise be taken as an error of transcription
fit the description though the case for _archaic spelling_ is arguable.
~~~
invalidusernam3
Both the US English and British English spellings are used extensively, nobody
would think it's a spelling mistake. And calling British English archaic is
quite insulting, it would be like calling US English "dumbed down".
------
evanb
If you're ever in The Hague, the Escher museum is a must-see. Seeing
Metamorphosis II displayed in the round was just fantastic.
------
amai
One of my favorite transformations by Escher:
[http://www.josleys.com/article_show.php?id=82](http://www.josleys.com/article_show.php?id=82)
~~~
irickt
As linked in that article, here the Print Gallery has been un-transformed and
animated:
[http://escherdroste.math.leidenuniv.nl/](http://escherdroste.math.leidenuniv.nl/)
------
WillKirkby
I really wish it didn't do the forced scroll across the whole artwork on first
page load. Makes me feel seasick.
------
agumonkey
I can't stop thinking about E.Coli when I read the man's name.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Use the tools you already know – thats how Simple Analytics reached $5.7K MRR - randymonday
https://www.blog.openstartuplist.com/how-using-the-tools-that-you-already-know-helped-simple-analytics-grow-to-5700-mrr
======
randymonday
Adriaan from Simple Analytics shared tips on how to bootstrap your business to
success and the story of how he went about growing Simple Analytics to a
successful privacy-first business that makes $5.7K in MRR.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: AwayTab – Chrome extension for cheap flights and travel inspiration - MvRemmerden
https://awaytab.com
======
MvRemmerden
Hey HN,
I built a Chrome extension that displays a random travel destination combined
with the cheapest flights from airports 200km around your current location.
You can also test it out here:
[https://awaytab.com/demo](https://awaytab.com/demo)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
USB Typewriter - autumntraveler
http://www.usbtypewriter.com/
======
delish
I'm glad that device convergence and device divergence are happening at the
same time.
I've said this here before, but I cannot recommend highly enough Alphasmart's
Neo. 700 hour battery life, sunlight readable display (!), made in America, no
moving parts 'cept for the keyboard (i.e. durable), plug-and-play USB, thirty
US bucks on eBay[0]. Check out the Dana for a bigger screen and Palm apps (!).
[0] ebay search for alphasmart:
[http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m5...](http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xalphasmart.TRS0&_nkw=alphasmart&ghostText=&_sacat=0)
~~~
julian_t
I've got an old Psion Series 5 that someone gave me... fantastic for taking
notes, and one of the best keyboards I have ever encountered on a pocket-size
device.
~~~
joakinen
I regularly use one of those Psion 5mx machines for taking notes. You can even
exchange documents with MS Office and print through your PC. Sadly the PC
component (PsiWin) barely works on 64-bit Windows so I have a Windows XP
machine for this. Also you must replace the flexi ribbon cable on your Psion 5
after some years of use, but if you do, you have an almost indestructible
pocket computer.
------
derekp7
I had an idea once to hook up a solenoid with a weight attached to it to the
inside of an old Model M keyboard, and have it activate on each keystroke.
That way I can turn my all-to-quiet Model M into something that sounds like a
good old fashioned Selectric typewriter.
~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Still would need a margin bell which, incidentally, the IBM Displaywriter
provided along with more typewriter-like keys.
------
endgame
I emailed a typewriter-collecting friend who expressed concerns about the
platen getting dirty or damaged with conversions like these. Is there a way to
avoid that?
------
arh68
Darn, I was hoping this would be nearly the opposite invention.
Is there a USB teletype out there? I'm trying to imagine something that
converts keystrokes over USB to ink-on-paper. Not a full-blown printer w/
PostScript, just inking one letter at a time, manual carriage return, etc.
~~~
sitkack
I had an idea for something like this, it would be like a daisywheel
typewriter from the early 90s.
[http://www.typewritersupply.com/brother_printwheel.JPG](http://www.typewritersupply.com/brother_printwheel.JPG)
But it might just be easier to use a parallel linkage, two small steppers and
a 500 mw laser diode. Although not faster.
Not sure how much power a mems mirror could take, but it might speedup writing
fancy glyphs.
~~~
arh68
Interesting! I hadn't seen a daisy wheel before. Nice to see they could print
proportional fonts [1]. Pretty good for printing one character at a time.
[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFC5PyJdVIg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFC5PyJdVIg)
~~~
sitkack
I am trying to figure out how to get rid of the ink ribbon. Ink sponge? Silk
dam? Both would require a small pump to soak the medium with ink. Or make it
gravity/capillary fed.
Now that we are on the subject of inappropriate low technologies, why not a
reusable screen printing method? stainless steel screen, uv cured resist (use
an xy laser to create pattern). Resist should disolve in hot water.
Or maybe use aluminum foil and laser to drill holes in the screen? I like
this.
------
andrewfelix
I had a similar idea, but utilizing a microphone instead that listened for the
subtle tonal differences in each key strike.
To the naysayers: Typewriters have all sorts of appeal beyond visual
aesthetics. Just because it doesn't appeal to you personally, does not make it
a silly thing.
~~~
crimsonalucard
What kind of appeal does it have other then aesthetics?
~~~
6stringmerc
1 - It doesn't need batteries to work
2 - The written product does not need batteries to be read
3 - By writing in a "permanent" form of communication, the typewriter
encourages more active engagement with crafting words and sentences
4 - Some of the greatest written works of non-fiction and fiction were
products of typewriters
5 - A good used manual typewriter can be found and purchased for approximately
50 times less than a new Apple Laptop (I purchased a West German Olympia
portable for $25)
~~~
epochwolf
Why use a typewriter instead of hand writing then?
~~~
6stringmerc
I do both, but have you ever written 3-4 pages by hand in one sitting? I've
got exceptionally strong and flexible hand and finger muscles, but even I have
to take breaks and shake out the lactic acid build up. Alcohol only helps so
much. A manual typewriter can take its own toll, but it's different. Pen and
paper are very portable. Manual typewriters are portable and efficient.
My IBM Selectric III is not portable but that monster can bash out words so
fast and with audacity that I'm glad it's an option. Granted, I bought two
Selectrics before (a I and II) and both died due to being worn out and gross,
but for $50 and in mint condition, I've enjoyed it immensely.
------
AbraKdabra
Taking the mechanical keyboards concept to a whole new level.
------
RankingMember
Can you imagine how muscular your fingers would get from using this as your
primary work keyboard?
Or how quickly any coworkers within earshot would want to kill you?
~~~
zyxley
Coworkers? Don't be silly.
What you do is take it to a coffeeshop for typing on your iPad.
~~~
avn2109
In Williamsburg or Bushwick this would be the ultimate social status indicator
and it would probably get your band signed to an indy label immediately.
~~~
mhink
Pssh, it's already passé. I've seen four in Seattle already: three in Capitol
Hill and one in Fremont. The Stranger's already speculating about the possible
opening of a coffee shop/bar down in Georgetown with teletypes available for
rent by the hour.
If you're not carrying printouts of your Node.js microservice written using
'ed', you might as well be using _Windows_.
------
teddyh
Reminds me of this old thing: “ _The Guy I Almost Was_ ” by Patrick Farley:
[http://electricsheepcomix.com/almostguy/](http://electricsheepcomix.com/almostguy/)
------
spc476
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3029144](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3029144)
------
rootbear
I've thought in the past of how I might turn my grandmother's Underwood No. 5
into a terminal. Now I can just get this! As for all of the hipster
references, I'm don't know much about that subculture but I can say that an
Underwood No. 5 computer terminal is Steampunk heaven. Just the thing for my
Analytical Engine!
------
stox
We used to have devices to convert typewriters into output devices. I never
thought about going in the other direction.
~~~
Luyt
I remember having a daisy-wheel printer at the office. It gave nice, crisp,
typewritten and kerned output. Much better than the matrix printers. (This was
before laser printers became commonplace).
------
johntaitorg
I went to the site, looked at its many impressive pages, went to Youtube and
left a joke, came back to site, came to HN comments and finally clocked it
wasn't all a sophisticated joke.
Big shout out to all the other Alphasmart people here though!
------
TeMPOraL
Damn it, someone already commercialized what was my idea for a personal
gift... I even have a typewriter waiting for me to get around modding it...
But anyways. Cool execution of the conversion kit. I like that.
------
yoanizer
I don't understand how people would want to invest in this. But that's just
me.
~~~
dspillett
Its a gimmick. A toy. A silly play thing. A nostalgia trip. Some or all the
above. People spend more money on less useful things all the time!
_> But that's just me._
Exactly. I'd not buy one or invest the tie into making one either, but I don't
assume that because I don't like it nobody else will/should.
------
wbsun
Ohhh, the good old days :)
------
iuguy
For the hipster who thinks hemingwrite.com is too mainstream, perhaps?
~~~
DanBC
Some people just like typewriters.
I can find my typewriter, load an envelope, and type a name and address much
faster than I can open the word processor and then print that name and address
to a sticky label (or an envelope if I'm brave enough to risk a jammed
printer).
I've been working on my hand-writing so it's not as important now as it used
to be.
~~~
stevewillows
I really made a conscious effort to improve my penmanship last year. I started
tracing at first [1] to build up the muscle memory, but it didn't take long
before the movements became natural.
[1]
[http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/flash/cursive/index.htm](http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/flash/cursive/index.htm)
~~~
roel_v
Are you really saying you can't write? Or just that you're trying to write
more beautifully?
~~~
DanBC
Some people can write, but illegibly. So they want to improve their writing so
that other people can read their writing, or so they're not embarresed by it.
Pen and paper is a powerful tool and there's not much in software that matches
it.
------
ofcapl_
with this gadget my hipster level will reach over 9000!
------
datsun
This is every hipster's dream
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Unlike Moroccan ISPs - alexandrerond
http://unlikes.oudy.works/
======
alexandrerond
Context: Moroccan operators have started blocking VoIP services on their
Networks (mobile a few weeks ago and landline DSL recently). Includes
WhatsApp, Skype etc.
Therefore a campaign to "unlike" the companies in Facebook has been launched,
and that's what the website tracks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
RIP SYNHAK: How a midwestern hackerspace tore itself to shreds - tdfischer
https://medium.com/@tdfischer_/rip-synhak-7093ade6b943
======
esbranson
Forget Roberts Rules; The law is the most important set of books everyone has
memorized, yet no one has ever read (and cannot easily access even if they
wanted.) A few of my favorites from Wikipedia:
> _A maximum 900 copies of the Laws of Ohio are published and distributed_
> _The Ohio Revised Code is not officially printed_
I would think that alone would make corporate governance quite difficult in
practice. You can download any book off the Internet for extremely cheap, if
not free--except the law. Am I alone in thinking this _likely_ causes _major_
problems in a society based upon the "rule of law"? IMO poor corporate
governance is just one example of the failure of the rule of law caused by the
_willful_ negligence to _effectively_ publish the law which binds us.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mint 17.3 may be the best Linux desktop distro yet - jalan
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/12/review-mint-17-3-may-be-the-best-linux-desktop-distro/
======
mattlondon
+1 to Cinnamon being great.
I've found Ubuntu's Unity to be really non-intuitive and awkward to use ...
even after several years of using it I've never got used to it and generally
found it frustrating to use. Cinnamon is an absolute joy to use in comparison
- just does its job and gets out of the way.
Sounds like Mint is a sort of "unbuntu-without-unity" which is worth its
weight in gold in my opinion. Wish I could change my work's distro to use it!
~~~
t0mk
how about {x,k,l}ubuntu?
~~~
VonGuard
All the Ubuntu's have terminal GUI problems. They just keep tinkering and
changing things. Gnome did this to itself, too, and thus, we're left with all
these weird GUIs that aspire to be Windows 8, or Mac OS, when Gnome 2 was
fucking perfect and shoulda been left alone.
~~~
noir_lord
> All the Ubuntu's have terminal GUI problems. They just keep tinkering and
> changing things.
Xubuntu doesn't. 4.12 in 15.04/15.10 was much the same as 4.10 in 14.04 (other
than bug fixes and some small tweaks to fix stuff they where near identical).
The XFCE folks reached rough parity with Gnome 2 in terms of desktop usability
then just focussed on small increment improvements and bug fixes and that has
been a _major_ win imo as I can use a desktop that supports modern linux
distro's, is fast on everything and rarely surprises me.
------
SwellJoe
I understand the appeal for sticking with what you know (because ease-of-use
is most often just "what I'm used to"), but I don't really find the modern
Gnome UI and desktop problematic. It has some pretty big annoyances, in terms
of notifications (some of which are seemingly impossible to disable), and the
screen dimming thing that it does when using any menus (which also effects the
secondary display, meaning you simply can't use a Gnome desktop for any
professional video or presentation task).
Nonetheless, I'm not choosing a distro based on the desktop; Fedora has spins
for every major desktop I'd want to use (though no good tiling WM options,
with good integration, unfortunately, but nobody seems to build something like
that).
I do like that they're building based on the LTS release of Ubuntu. The life
cycle of a standard Ubuntu release is too short for comfort, IMHO. (Fedora,
too, though security updates stick around long enough for me.)
------
SeldomSoup
As someone whose desktop needs are pretty simple, I agree with this
assessment. If you want a *nix that's point-and-click configurable, looks
nice, makes it easy to install software, and generally doesn't get in your
way, Mint is definitely the way to go. I've tried all the popular distros,
from (X/K)ubuntu, to Debian, to Fedora, to Arch and others, and I inevitably
keep coming back to Mint. Just my 2 cents.
------
xorcist
Last time I looked on Mint there was no support for upgrading the system. It
doesn't matter how easy installs are, I'm not going to tell my mother-in-law
to reinstall twice per year.
This review consists of someone who clicks through an installation and tell
what it looks like. That's not very interesting. You only install once, and
colors are configurable, if you care about those things. Supported hardware
must work without configuration or drivers, but that's mostly a solved
problem.
Casual users care about longevity. Will my software stop working because of an
upgrade? Will something move because of a redesign, so I don't know how to use
it anymore? Are those things there for Linux Mint yet?
~~~
sampo
> _Last time I looked on Mint there was no support for upgrading the system._
Some years ago, the recommended way to upgrade Mint was indeed to do a full
reinstall [1]. For a couple past years, there has been a simpler way,
involving a bit of command line acrobatics [2]. Still not good for your
mother-in-law.
Apparently [3] only in 2015 Mint finally started to have the "normal" way,
where you just click on an upgrade button, and the system upgrades itself. But
even now, this does not upgrade the kernel. Weird.
[1]
[http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2](http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2)
[2]
[https://gist.github.com/hgomez/7074150](https://gist.github.com/hgomez/7074150)
[3] [http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2871](http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2871)
~~~
xorcist
Weird indeed!
> Level 4 and 5 updates are not recommended unless they bring solutions to
> issues you're facing
What's a level 4 update? And how do I know if it solves an issue I'm facing? I
haven't got the faintest idea what they are talking about and I dare say I'm
an experienced user otherwise. What could my in-laws possibly do with that
information?
> Upgrade for a reason
> "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it".
So don't upgrade it is. Will then bugs continue to be fixed to my system? Will
there be timely security fixes? As an end user, I only want things not to
break.
> Should you decide to upgrade to 17.2's recommended kernel you can do so
So not only are you encouraged not to upgrade, but to mix kernel versions as
well. Not helpful. Their users must run an awful lot of combinations.
I think I'll pass, again. But thanks for digging this up! It does indeed look
like the project is moving forward, and looks a lot improved. There is still
room for an easy-to-use Debian for end users, which Ubuntu managed to be for a
number of years.
~~~
ymse
These concerns are exactly why I don't install or recommend Mint to others.
Terrifying that they haven't fixed it after all those years. It seems more of
an attitude rather than technical issue.
> _There is still room for an easy-to-use Debian for end users_
Does it have to be Debian? I'm looking forward to the inevitable "non-free"
Guix fork that my grandmother can use. That will surely be the year of the
Linux desktop.
~~~
xorcist
> It seems more of an attitude rather than technical issue.
Indeed. All the above concerned what looks like official communication from
the project only, not what they choose to spend their time on. But it's
important to give a fair picture of yoru project to the outside world, if not
for other reasons than simply to avoid hordes of thankless users demanding
support.
It's a bit unfortunate when articles like the Ars one paints this as a desktop
operating system for end users. It's clearly not what they're aiming for, and
it only reinforces the commonly held view that Linux is somehow for nerds
only.
Ubuntu seems to still be the desktop operating system to recommend for non-
technical users, but between Unity and the shopping lenses we desperately need
a plan B.
> Does it have to be Debian?
No, but Debian does bring so much of the solid foundation "for free" that I
feel it is probably the easiest way to get there. Debian has had a mostly
working upgrade path for some 20 years now, which is simply outstanding.
What's missing is mainly a well polished default GUI, including the ability to
discover and install new software. Debian is simply too flexible for a non-
technical user. It must probably also take care not to break the most non-free
software.
------
justinsaccount
I run cinnamon on one of my thinkpads. It's interesting to me how there are a
ton of things is does usability wise better than my work OS X laptop:
* The desktop overview 'expose' like thing gives me a large 2x3 grid of mini desktops, each containing mini windows that I can drag between different desktops. OS X displays a tiny 1x6 list of desktops and you can't drag windows between desktops directly.
* When I click the date in my panel I get a mini calendar popup.
* When I click the volume applet it has a entry right there for switching output devices. on OS X you have to option click the volume thing to get the hidden menu. Right click on an external mouse does not work.
Those are just the ones I notice on a daily basis..
~~~
jrcii
You can fix the calendar popup problem with an app called Day-O, which I agree
should be the default.
~~~
justinsaccount
Cool.. That didn't end up working for me since I use dark mode, but I followed
their suggestion to try
[http://www.mowglii.com/itsycal/](http://www.mowglii.com/itsycal/) instead
which is working nicely.
------
pixelperfect
I installed Mint 17.3 Cinnamon a couple weeks ago. Every time I've installed a
Linux distro in the past 10 years, I have run into major issues with drivers,
and this was no exception. It's related to having both an onboard Intel
graphics card and an Nvidia video card. If I disable the Nvidia card,
performance is fine but I am unable to hookup a second monitor. If I use the
Nvidia card, I can hook up a second monitor, but there are major issues with
screen tearing. If not for this issue, I would be quite satisfied with this
OS.
------
nickpsecurity
I was using Mint for over a year. New one is really glitchy on windowing or
graphics. Sometimes it makes a weird pattern while keystrokes dont do
anything. Also, dragging file save dialog to see a title in background causes
entire window to unmaximize & hide behind dialog. Huh!?
About to ditch it entirely if I dont find work-arounds in a few days.
~~~
VonGuard
MATE or Cinnamon? Want to know before I install. I get weird ass errors like
nobody when I install Linux. Currently, my Ubutntu 10/14 machine randomly
decides to ignore keyboard inputs and replace them with random other letters.
Happens right in the middle of me typing, and I do a lot of interviews. I've
literally had to reboot the damn thing in the middle of an interview because
my typing was onscreen as akusfhlasiuryieuhfisuhefuishfiushefiluhsufh. Never
found a single forum post or bug report anywhere near this...
~~~
nitrogen
It sounds like you may have accidentally triggered a shortcut for switching
keyboard layouts. Try looking through the keyboard shortcut settings for
something too easy to press by accident.
~~~
nickpsecurity
Appreciate the tip. Ill check. You have a guess on why moving a Save File
dialog messes with window for application itself? That's a new bug to me for
Linux in general.
------
Sniffnoy
> it'd be nice to have a keyboard-based way to do this as well, perhaps using
> "enter" rather than return to trigger it
Does F2 not work for renaming files? Maybe that's only a Caja thing, I don't
know...
~~~
barrkel
F2 for rename is a Windows idiom - as is the slow double click mentioned in
the article. I'd be surprised if F2 didn't work, given the way Cinnamon apes
Windows idioms.
(Not that that is a bad thing. I use Cinnamon by choice on Ubuntu 14.04 in my
day job. I far prefer Windows idioms to the Mac conventions that much of Unity
is aiming for.)
------
illuminated
I echo most of the author's excitements but for the ElementaryOS.
I've just stopped looking at any other distro after installing the latest,
Freya, which is also based on 14.04.
Elementary doesn't have many of the UX shortcuts that the latest Mint has, and
has far less developers working on it, but it's still such a joy to use.
------
drdaeman
Not for many laptops as GTK doesn't handle non-integer scaling well, so it
doesn't really support MidPPI-screens. It can work normally and work for HiPPI
with x2 scaling, and that's it.
I'm unaware of any simple way to set larger widgets - I think GNOME had some
knobs but in their quest to "simplify" UIs they were removed long time ago.
There are no theme-based workarounds in Mint (i.e. theme with larger widgets),
either. Their theming team suggest if one's got a 13" FullHD screen they've
just got to have small widgets ([https://github.com/linuxmint/mint-
themes/issues/90](https://github.com/linuxmint/mint-themes/issues/90))
Qt has somewhat better support for such displays, but I think the last Mint
KDE release is 17.2.
------
VeilEm
Reading this post I am reminded just how much more work it is to have a
functional linux desktop that ends up running worse than a Mac or windows box.
More for less. Less battery life, less games, less driver support. Old
hardware. I've been running OS X for many years now but I think in the future
I see myself going back to windows and using docker toolbox to get an easy to
start and maintain linux development environment.
Lot's of Windows tools have matured and there are good terminal options now
for sshing into a local lightweight vm to do dev. On the hardware of my
choosing, no more being locked into overpriced boring silver apple hardware.
~~~
wtbob
> Reading this post I am reminded just how much more work it is to have a
> functional linux desktop that ends up running worse than a Mac or windows
> box.
I'm extremely happy with stumpwm. It runs, it switches between emacs, Firefox
and a good console just fine. It's infinitely more work to get Windows or an
OS X box to the same level of functionality, because neither of them properly
supports all of these key features: POSIX; a Common Lisp tiling window manager
(which means I always have a REPL a slime-connect away); native X11.
I literally _never_ miss Windows or OS X.
~~~
codezero
OS X is POSIX certified, no Linux distribution is but that's a minor point I
assume.
~~~
wtbob
True enough; I edited my comment to indicate that I mean all those features at
once.
~~~
codezero
mostly unrelated – but I wouldn't have known/cared about POSIX compliance
until I ran into it:
On OS X, getopt is POSIX compliant. GNU utilities tend not to enforce POSIX in
getopt, as a result you can do things like ls _.txt -la
On a POSIX complaint system, the optional arguments must come before any file
arguments. This is super annoying to me, after having been using Linux for 15
years :)
Personally, I've been super happy with OS X for all purposes except servers,
but to each their own, and that's where Linux (and the _BSDs) shine – giving
you access under the hood, which is awesome, but some of us just want the car
to drive itself, so to speak.
~~~
wtbob
> Personally, I've been super happy with OS X for all purposes except servers,
> but to each their own, and that's where Linux (and the BSDs) shine – giving
> you access under the hood, which is awesome, but some of us just want the
> car to drive itself, so to speak.
I can understand that, but I just can't live without a tiling window manager.
Every time I have to use a UI with movable windows I feel old-fashioned and
clumsy. If you think about, tiling is the interface folks are used to with
their phones and tablets already.
There's good UI research potential in discovering the ideal ways to indicate
how to split, move &c. windows in a tiling WM.
~~~
codezero
There are a bunch of decent tiling window managers on OS X but I don't know if
any support a Common Lisp connection. Which one do you use on Linux, I'd like
to check it out.
I've tried tiling wms in the past but they never stick for me, probably
because most of my work is isolated to the browser and email, and I typically
have each maximized on separate displays. I've always preferred my terminals
to be backgrounded when not in use and to have all the tabs consolidated.
------
SFjulie1
I migrated from mint/ubuntu/debian insanity to FreeBSD for working and windows
to play and share obediently my private data with criminals (government,
marketing people, companies and VC included).
I stopped fixing stuff because it works, and since then I am happily bored
again doing the minimum work expected from me without stress. Some stuff I
don't have anymore (like weired chars in the console). But I never thought of
it as a good idea in the first place I want ";" to be ";" not a greek question
mark.
Bye bye linux(es). You are becoming an unusable bloatware.
------
fit2rule
I have to admit that the prospect of Ubuntu's future looking not so bright is
a bit disconcerting. Does anyone have any insight into why the author of this
article makes this claim? I know that there is a lot of controversy about
Ubuntu's changes to try to build 'something new' that will compete with the
big players, but I didn't think this meant that Ubuntu has an uncertain
future.
I guess nobody has a time machine, but as a long-time user of Ubuntu, I'm
intrigued by what those in the know feel about its future. Is Ubuntu jumping
the shark?
~~~
tdkl
Probably the fact that after they made Linux much user friendly and popular
they focused on mobile and didn't really touch the desktop significantly
again.
------
giancarlostoro
I don't think I've ever used Mint, or if I did it was brief. I've used
Netrunner which was really nice, but ultimately fell in love with openSUSE. I
may someday give Mint a try though. This is interesting news but the article
is confusing to me at first glance as to what Mint is actually doing. Cinnamon
isn't really for me though. I loved Gnome 2 because it was highly customizable
but now that it's gone my only alternative is KDE or XFCE but XFCE feels like
it's missing something everytime I use it.
------
hsivonen
What's Mint's sustainability model? Does it have many developers? How do those
devs make money to pay their bills?
~~~
qbrass
mint-search-addon tacks their referral code to searches you make using it.
------
Estragon
What is the upgrade path like on mint these days? I ran into real problems
with it when I tried it a few years ago.
~~~
nitrogen
The Mint updater has a menu option for upgrading. You click it, and it
updates, reliably. The KDE version gets the update option later than the
others, though.
------
jamespo
A distribution I'm keen on is the Arch / Gnome Shell based Apricity.
------
twic
I've been out of the desktop Linux world for a while. How does Arch compare to
Mint? I rather like Arch's rolling release model, but Mint sounds like a
seriously polished piece of work.
~~~
collyw
Mint also has a rolling release based on Debian.
I looked at Arch but the install looked difficult, so I ended up on Manjaro.
Arch based with an easy to use installer and package manager. Works great on
the laptop I am currently typing on, but its a bit crashy on my Gigabyte brix
(though Mint had problems on that box as well).
~~~
tomjakubowski
> Arch based with an easy to use installer and package manager.
What's different about Manjaro's package manager? Is it a porcelain for
pacman?
~~~
collyw
There is a graphical one available, which wasn't available when I looked at
Arch.
------
burntcookie90
I've actually just installed Gnome + PaperGTK on a chromebook pixel LS running
arch and I've never been happier with a linux box. Migrated over from a
thinkpad x1 2015
------
scurvy
In 17.3, is Flash still a dependency of the main codecs deb? In previous
versions of 17.x, it was impossible to remove the Flash deb without
uninstalling everything useful.
------
sampo
Does Cinnamon allow for vertical panel placement?
------
callesgg
Thats Mint.
------
nkhodyunya
No, I disallow it.
------
tootie
ChromeOS is the best :p
~~~
evv
Hopefully you still like it when it evolves into Chromandroid
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Help Pay My Bills: A HN Experiment - bendauphinee
http://bendauphinee.com/paythebills
======
skowmunk
Have you tried odesk.com, elance.com, rent-a-coder.com?
You might find some good competition from East European, Russian and Asian
Coders on these sites- some of them are terrific coders/developers, but you
also have some inherent advantages.
From experience of working with contractors/programmers on odesk.com, in my
opinion these would be your inherent advantages that you can use to market
yourself:
1) working and being avalable to work with, during sane hours (for North Am.)
- working with somebody from half way across the world, even if they are very
good, can be tiring in the long run
2) Cultural acquaintance - Many programmers from the developing world have not
been exposed to the day to day life here in the more developed western world.
when websites are dealing with making the day to day life easier, dealing with
those whose awareness of it is next to nothing could be a big challenge
sometimes. (There are some who really good at understanding, though)
Other problem here is, from experience, even if they could speak english, not
eveybody can catch the nuances and subtleties of langauge which does have a
bearing in good comprehension/communication. (to be honest, even my english is
not upto the mark of an equally educated American, though I have lived in the
US for almost 1/3rd of my life)
3) The understanding of confidentiality is next to nothing in many countries.
Even if the understanding is there, the enforceability of related laws is very
poor or next to nothing. So, thats a big biz risk you can market yourself on
to North American customers on these sites, especially when dealing with
unique ideas.
Good luck.
~~~
bendauphinee
Thanks for the suggestions. I've been through both rent-a-coder and odesk, and
the big problem I found with bidding on projects is that most of them are scut
work, and I can't compete with twenty other people from East Europe, Russia
and Asia.
~~~
mootothemax
_The big problem I found with bidding on projects is that most of them are
scut work, and I can't compete with twenty other people from East Europe,
Russia and Asia._
I used to think this when I first started using RentACoder. Then I thought sod
this, and started giving quotes at my full-whack rate, and you know what? It
worked, and it's continuing to work :)
One bit of advice I'd like to add: don't be put off if the price listed for a
project is a bit below (or even _way_ ) below what you'd like to charge; I
find a simple email with questions, a rough timeline and then basic
explanation of why your quote costs so much (you need to work for a while at a
good rate) works well. Good luck!
~~~
bendauphinee
I will have to start trying this approach. Thanks for the tip. That was one of
the problems I had, was that it was so cheap.
~~~
mootothemax
You're welcome :)
There is one downside with RentACoder though, and that's that you won't win
_any_ jobs without having first complete a couple successfully. It's not the
end of the world - find quick and easy tasks, explain that you're looking to
build up your rating, and offer to do them for $3. It does mean that you'll
lose a day or two of income though. Once you have a couple of ratings though,
the only way is up! :)
~~~
skowmunk
I agree with both the excellent points made by motothemax:
Don't back off from bidding higher than the disered "quotes" mentioned by
customers. Once I went for a designer who was quoting more than twice my
initial upper limit for that job. when I looked at his profile, he had a very,
very long portfolio of his freelanching designs as well as designs he worked
on for customers. He had a lot of very high ratings from his past customers
and he justified/explained in a similar way that motothemax mentioned about
why his rates were higher. Another thing was, he was very professional and
upbeat throughout his communications.
So if you did be interested in some feedback on deciding priorites of a
customer:
1) Portfolio 2) ratings from past customers (here the readiness to work
initially for lower rates, may be usable sometimes) 3) scores on Odesk tests
and the distribution of those scores across different tests - its not perfect
system, but its better than no scores
------
jacquesm
Maybe you need a more structural employment to balance the need to pay your
bills?
After all you can't post this sort of thing every day, and if the first day is
successful you will still have the same problem on the next.
~~~
bendauphinee
This is true. I was considering that might be an issue, to get recurring
traffic. I have hope though that enough people bookmark the page to come back
to that I can continue selling my time. Even a few hours a day is better than
nothing.
I have actually started applying for jobs again, which stinks because I love
the freedom that freelance affords. Unfortunately for me, freedom does not pay
the bills :)
~~~
tomedme
I need a copywriter to fluff up some text for SEO on a website.. but it's not
in the list of things on offer, and I'd happily $12 an hour for that kind of
work.
~~~
jyothi
Wondering if $12 for copywriting work is expensive. An article with relevant
content & tuned for SEO within an hour is fairly demanding. A good 500 word
article will cost $15 in the market.
I run SEO services & have been using this new startup mediapiston.com as the
content provider. I have had good experience so far. They have excellent
review process where each article goes through 3 reviewers before it is
submitted back to the requester. You can possibly try such a service.
As far as the author, programming & design work would get best rewards and in
single chunk.
~~~
ekanes
I don't think his intention is to find and match perfect market prices, he's
just throwing this out there to see what happens. Note also that given his
skill set, if one was marketing to a technical audience, $12/hour might be
cheap...
~~~
bendauphinee
This is correct. I'm seeing what happens, and if I can get my bills off my
back. My standard rate for work is $25/hr so I'm currently quite discounted,
just to get some work quickly.
------
lachyg
Have you tried selling stock photography on iStockPhoto? Collis from Envato
said he made something like $6k a year without even touching it. Why not
upload all your photos there?
He also has a site called CodeDen or something, where you can sell PHP
scripts. Why not do some work and upload your stuff there?
There are lots of large communities specialising in the stuff you list there!
~~~
mahmud
I had to look that up because I thought $6k/year was laughably low and you
must have forgotten a zero. Turns out he made $6k in THREE years:
[http://freelanceswitch.com/money/how-i-make-2000-every-
year-...](http://freelanceswitch.com/money/how-i-make-2000-every-year-without-
doing-very-much/)
With the AdSense non-sense, pennies from the appstore and what have you, I am
starting to wonder: are people really that averse to going outside and getting
a non-laptop job? I used to make $500/day washing windows, man. It was me, a
bucket of sprays and a bunch of rags. Should I have blogged about it and
tweeted around?
~~~
skowmunk
Where was that $500/day washing windows job? If i don't get funding, I might
need something like that when I would quit my job and start working on my
start up full time
Would hate to drain up my resources by not having any cash flow.
~~~
c1sc0
How on earth is washing windows worth $500 / day ?! Or am I misunderstanding
and does it involve rope work?
~~~
tomedme
Not difficult at all - I remember paying £25 for someone to clean the 4
windows of a flat I was living in, which was on the 1st floor of a house.
How long do you think it takes to do 4 windows, exterior only, with a mop on
an extended handle? (the answer is: not very long at all)
He was cleaning next door's windows, so I spoke to him as I walked past, and
he dropped an invoice through the letterbox. And then 4 weeks later, he
cleaned the windows again, as if I'd signed up to a subscription... So I paid
£25 again, for not much.
If you can schedule a route of cleaning, you can do 12 houses in just a couple
of hours.
12 x £25 = £300 (which isn't far off $500; $475 at today's exchange rate).
You'd need to deduct your van costs and cleaning equipment out of that though.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
We pay £3 a fortnight to have about 6m^2 of window (ground floor) cleaned to
retail spec including wiping down the paintwork afterwards and a free internal
clean every 6 months or so.
It takes probably as long for them to take the money as it does to actually
clean (about 5mins I reckon).
------
RBr
Here is what I think you should do:
1) Do some research online about legitimate ways to make money. Make a very
long list with no fewer than 100 entries. These don't need to be things that
you're interested in, but each one needs to result in some form of income.
None of these things should cost any money to make money _or_ require you to
pimp out your friends and family for referrals. Don't limit yourself online
either, remember that people earn money in easy ways offline as well and that
something as easy as personal shopping for an elderly person in your
neighborhood can bring in $50 a week for something you're doing anyway. Be
creative and constantly add to this list.
2) Create profiles, sign up or apply to each one of these money making
methods. In some cases, you'll need to create basic websites (storefronts),
etc to facilitate income. Do not spend any more than 4 hours of a single day
stetting up any single method.
3) Start thinking about a portfolio. It doesn't matter what life goals you
have, you need a portfolio - especially if you're going to be earning money
this way. Think about what your "perfect" job / gig / startup looks like and
carefully collect items for your portfolio that support your expertise in your
target area. Opportunistic portfolio work is the only type of work you should
ever do cheap or free.
4) I bet you have already started to do these things. You've identified 4 very
general things on your website that you can do. However, you've put out a
general call for work in common areas. Think about your skills (starting with
the 4 you've listed) and look at the looong list of money making
opportunities.
5) Once you get a couple of bucks in your pocket and you get the bill
collectors (if any) off of your back, a really fun experiment is to have your
bills paid by passive income. One-by-one, if you can slowly discard one bill
at a time using things like affiliate programs, ad income from your blog,
whatever... you'll really start to have fun. The only rule in this "game" is
to define a small number of maintenance hours per week to maintain your
passive income. The natural progression of passive income using this strategy
is to take an item from your looong list of income sources and modularize /
mechanize it to reduce the amount of labor it takes to complete the task to
the absolute minimum. Sometimes, leveraging the low cost labor of others to
preform tasks that are easy to repeat is a great way to move a task completely
passive.
6) Above all else, keep your chin up. Remember the setbacks and failures but
don't let them put you in a bad mood. Staying upbeat and creative is the key.
~~~
bendauphinee
I have been working towards creating passive income. One of the projects I am
working on is a v1 of my own freelance business management tool, but that is
still a few weeks from completion.
And of course, I am keeping my chin up. As disturbing as it is to get calls
about overdue bills, I am not letting that paralyze me (as shown by this
experiment).
~~~
BenSS
Don't fall into the passive income trap. How many hours have you spent
creating this tool that could have been spent freelancing or at a PT job. Or
talking to prospective clients BEFORE creating the tool? There are a ton of
products already out there.
~~~
bendauphinee
While this is true, I am building for myself anyway. I'm using this project to
test several pieces of new code I have constructed, and I have been using it
to manage my own freelance work anyway.
------
dalore
Sorry, but if that site is anything to go by I don't think I would be asking
you to help design a web site.
~~~
bendauphinee
I like my own design for my sites. But here are some other samples of client
sites.
<http://youthrunningseries.ca> <http://ginettejewellerydesign.com>
<http://duncanhadleytriathlon.ca>
~~~
RBr
There are two broad strokes of web designers. Those who are best suited for
true frontend projects and those who are best suited for application design.
Frontend projects require artistic skill and a deep understanding of user
interface design.
I bet that you're an application designer. This is an excellent thing to be
good at - 99.9% of all medium and large design projects require application
development and planning.
If I'm right, you should monopolize on this niche. There are a good number of
artistic designers who don't know very much about code. If you develop some
examples (aka a portfolio) you could be the "go to guy" whenever any number of
large artistic shops needs to integrate or develop an app into their frontend
design.
If there are a lot of small businesses in your geographic area who require web
design (it doesn't sound like there are), I think that you should either rely
on web site templates or subcontracting template design from artsy frontend
folks. What you're doing now is a disservice to your own body of work.
~~~
bendauphinee
Thanks for the feedback. I am more of an application designer than an artsy
one for sure. I guess I will have to start pursuing that angle a bit more in
depth.
~~~
dalore
Find a good designer to work with. A developer with a good designer makes a
good combo since they can produce stuff that looks good.
------
nailer
If you want customers, give them some value. I didn't read your link because
paying your bills is nit in my interests. Perhaps you do something else that
is, and would make a better headline?
~~~
bendauphinee
Do you have a suggestion?
~~~
jasonlotito
How to Win Friends and Influence People. This book. It should be required
reading in school.
~~~
eru
No, it shouldn't be. I never read any of the books that were required in
school.
~~~
jasonlotito
How accurate you are. =) I should say that everyone _should_ read it while
they are still in school.
~~~
eru
Though I do have to admit that you can't avoid learning at least some things
about the books you are supposed to have read in order to fake.
------
midnightmonster
"not have to move back into my parents place while I job hunt"
In your position, I would strongly consider moving back into my parents'
place. I got married right out of college and my wife worked in resident life
while she was a grad student so we could live on campus for free. But if I had
been single and struggling to make a freelance career work (instead of married
and...), I probably would have moved right back home. Saves a bunch of money
(don't forget food savings), which gives you time to build the life you want.
FWIW, I did end up 'giving up my freedom' and took a full-time job in retail
so we could get decent health insurance and have a baby. I did that for a year
and a half, then split work and childcare with my wife for a couple years, and
for the last 2.5 years I've been supporting my wife and three kids solely with
my freelance work. So even if you have to give up freedom for a while, you can
bank the experience and work your way back.
------
wenbert
I can relate to this post. I live in the Philippines have a good steady job
but still not enough money to live comfortably and save at the same time.
I sell my extra time at night to do websites and design as well. I have been
doing it for a few years now (>4years). I sometimes take breaks from it
though.
I never tried odesk or similar sites. I tried to look for a small job there
but there are too many uncertainties. Over the years I have about 1 or 2
clients that come back regularly so I just stuck with them. Although more
would be better because I still have more time left. lol
------
kilomanamolik
I don't get it. Your website looks like crap, your writing is poor, and the
color scheme you chose looks like it came out of the 90's. This is pretty
pathetic. What makes you think that anybody would hire you over someone else
with better, more impressive, credentials?
~~~
bendauphinee
Thank you for your valuable feedback. I believe that there is a market for my
skills, and that has been proven repeatedly. I have gotten work, based on my
current website and projects I have done, and I'm sure I will continue to be
able to find work in the future as well.
------
jason_tko
Sure, I'll throw in.
I need a nice, clean PDF report done up with good typography that will be
offered as a free report on the main MakeLeaps site.
I was planning on hiring a freelance designer for this, but if you're able to
do this, please contact me and lets talk.
~~~
bendauphinee
Emailed you. Thanks
------
joey_bananas
> Rebel XSi, so quality is not a problem
Because the camera is all that matters, right?
~~~
bendauphinee
Well of course not. Before I got that last year, I was shooting with a Canon
PowerShot A640 for over two years. Just the XSi produces cleaner shots,
because of the larger sensor.
------
adnam
Seems a bit lackadaisical.
~~~
jacquesm
Is that another way of saying 'creative'?
~~~
adnam
No, another way of saying 'lacking gusto or spirit'.
This guy might be the bee's knees, but his marketing sucks. The title of the
page is "Pay the Bills" FFS! I'm not interested in paying his bills or his
fancy pricing scheme. I'm not interested in finding out his talents, if
explains he "lives near some parks and trees" before listing any real
accomplishments. It practically comes over as arrogant, and I'm amazed he's
got any work through this at all.
~~~
bendauphinee
I seem to have caught your attention though. For someone who is not interested
in buying my services, you seem rather worked up about my lack of marketing
skills.
~~~
adnam
No I'm not worked up at all. Most things on the front page of HN catch my
attention. Good luck, btw.
------
jw84
You can give TaskRabbit.com a try.
~~~
bendauphinee
I had never heard of them. Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, I do not live in
any of the listed cities.
~~~
aymeric
Try to list your services on <http://TaskArmy.com> (my startup).
------
zackattack
send me an email, i will have php work for you
~~~
bendauphinee
Sent an email. Thanks
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mast Brings You Two Numbers on One Phone with No App - jkingsbery
http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/4/10914764/mast-mobile-carrier-two-phone-numbers
======
solfrombrooklyn
Hey, Jamie, Can you talk a little more about how this works?
~~~
jkingsbery
Mast Mobile acts as a mobile network provider (MVNO), but we've integrated
software into the network routing, we can do lots of cool things. The most
prominent of these features is that we can provide a different caller id based
on who is on the other end. This lets us show, for example, your personal
number to friends and relatives, but a work number to your clients. The same
architecture also lets our users specify that they aren't receiving work calls
at the time, but are receiving personal calls.
All of this is done without the use of an application - you just use your
phone as you normally would, and our software keeps track of which number to
use for each of your contacts. There are a few companies out there that are
attempting to do something similar, but they require that you make some calls
using their app, which is not how people are used to using a phone.
We've done this by a series of integrations with different systems that are
needed for phone account management, routing phones and billing with an
orchestration layer in the middle. We plan on extending this over time so that
more integrations are possible in the future.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The difference between top-down parsing and bottom-up parsing - zniperr
http://qntm.org/top
======
carsongross
I really didn't understand grammars until I started doing hand-rolled top-down
recursive descent parsing for Gosu.
It's a shame that parsing in CS schools is taught using theory and lex/yacc
type tools when a basic lexer and recursive descent parser can be written from
first principles in a few months. It is more incremental, and it gives you a
much deeper feel for the concepts, plus it lets you learn a bit about software
engineering and organization as well.
~~~
ternaryoperator
It is a shame that Gosu has not become more popular as a JVM language. You
guys were doing things that took other languages years to catch up.
~~~
zura
Indeed. Also Groovy++ (aka Groovy with static typing) is worth mentioning.
~~~
vorg
Or even Beanshell. In fact, the ideas behind Beanshell (i.e. closures on the
JVM) and Groovy++ (i.e. static typing) were scooped up and copied into Groovy,
that kitchen sink language, which was bundled as part of Grails, that knock-
off of Rails for the JVM.
The software industry is divided into "Makers" and "Takers". The people behind
Gosu are obviously Makers, whereas those presently behind Groovy are Takers.
~~~
ternaryoperator
> "...copied into Groovy, that kitchen sink language, which was bundled as
> part of Grails, that knock-off of Rails for the JVM. The software industry
> is divided into 'Makers' and 'Takers'. The people behind Gosu are obviously
> Makers, whereas those presently behind Groovy are Takers."
This is all wrong. Groovy predates Grails, as Grails was written in Groovy.
Gosu and Groovy came out at roughly the same time, and IIRC, Groovy had
closures and features like the Elvis operator before Gosu did.
You apparently don't like Groovy's current owners, but slamming Groovy for
implementing static typing and qualifying them as takers for doing so makes no
sense at all.
~~~
vorg
I've gotten the impression over the years that Grails is written in Java and
only bundles Groovy for user scripting, but I haven't checked up recently. I
certainly looked through the Gradle codebase when its version 2.0 came out and
there was hardly a line of Groovy code in there, only Java. It, too, only uses
Groovy for user scripting. If I'm right about the Grails codebase, static-
typed Groovy isn't actually used to build any systems of note. Perhaps Cedric
Champeau, who wrote the static-typed Groovy codebase, will use it to build the
Groovy for Android he's presently working on. It'll be interesting to see
whether he uses it or uses Java because it'll show whether he has enough faith
in what he built to actually use it to build something with it. Until static-
typed Groovy is used to build something, Groovy will remain a dynamically-
typed scripting language for testing, Gradle builds, webpages, etc.
------
Guthur
(facetious-comment "It's a tragedy how much brilliance is wasted on grammar
parsing when it's a solved problem; just use a Lisp")
~~~
skybrian
JSON or XML would also work. Except that few people like languages based on
XML, and I haven't seen anyone seriously try JSON.
Perhaps someone should try to build a JSON-like language that's close to how
most programmers like to write their code?
~~~
kyllo
Yeah, this is why no one likes languages based on XML:
[http://thedailywtf.com/articles/We-Use-
BobX](http://thedailywtf.com/articles/We-Use-BobX)
If you were going to do it, I'm certain you'd want to use a more human-
writable format such as YAML or TOML instead of JSON or XML.
But doing so means you're living out Greenspun's Tenth Rule. Again, just use a
Lisp.
[http://www.defmacro.org/ramblings/lisp.html](http://www.defmacro.org/ramblings/lisp.html)
~~~
green7ea
I know BobX is supossed to be a troll language but it bothers me to no end
that the example code uses <xbobendif> instead of the XML spirited </xboxif>.
I believes this confirms that I suffer from OCD.
------
nachivpn
Bottom up parsing - "If not, it's necessary to backtrack and try combining
tokens in different ways" I feel the way it is put along with shift reduce
parsing is misleading. Backtracking is essentially an aspect avoided (more
like solved) by shift-reduce parsing. They don't go together in bottom up
parsing. Shift reduce parsers posses the potential to predict the handle to
use by looking at the contents on top of the stack.
Good job BTW, there are very few people who write about compiler/language
theory :)
~~~
canjobear
You need backtracking if you have an ambiguous grammar. This comes up in
natural language parsing; I'd guess that it is avoided in programming
languages.
~~~
aardvark179
Actually, many languages which started with hand written parsers do have
ambiguous grammars, or have an unambiguous grammar so hideously unwieldy it is
best ignored.
This sort of thing can be fixed up with predicates added to the grammar but it
always feels like a bodge.
------
zura
One more difference: top-down parsing is European and bottom-up - American :)
~~~
twic
I'm not sure why this was downvoted - it's true(ish), and interesting.
Historically, American computer scientists preferred LR parsers, and Europeans
preferred LL parsers. That influenced the languages they designed.
I think i read about this in Sedgewick's 'Algorithms in C', although i could
be wrong. I struggle to find any online citation. This was mentioned in the
Wikipedia article at one point, but disppeared in edit described as "Removed
heresay":
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=LL_parser&directio...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=LL_parser&direction=prev&oldid=450637859)
~~~
rdc12
That is quite intersting, at one point the main language in AI for Europe was
Prolog and in America it was LISP, or so I read. I wonder what other instances
this kind of cultural differences occured, and if the internet has had any
effect on this.
~~~
lispm
> AI for Europe was Prolog and in America it was LISP,
I wouldn't say 'main language', but Prolog maybe a little more popular in
Europe. The Japanese though based their 'fifth generation' project on logic
programming. I once saw a Prolog Machine, a computer with the architecture
optimized for Prolog and the main software written in Prolog:
[http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/en/computer/other/0009.html](http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/en/computer/other/0009.html)
$119000 a piece...
------
slashnull
I was so happy when I finally grokked LR parsers: it's just a big state
machine! _if_ that token found, push on stack, go to _that_ other state.
Consume token, check the next state transition.
But while fun it was pretty much useless because recursive descents and
combinators are so much easier.
~~~
phyzome
That moment when you finally get it that CFG parsers can be implemented using
push-down automata... :-)
------
vbit
Another good write-up on this topic is
[http://blog.reverberate.org/2013/07/ll-and-lr-parsing-
demyst...](http://blog.reverberate.org/2013/07/ll-and-lr-parsing-
demystified.html?m=1)
------
vorg
I think I read somewhere incremental parsers are better off being written with
bottomup parsers rather than topdown parsers. The reason was that when a small
edit is made to the code being parsed, the artifact from a bottomup parser
often only needs a minor change that ripples only as far as it needs to,
whereas the topdown parser needs to be completely rerun because it can't tell
whether the effect of one small edit is large or localized. Anyone out there
who can verify or refute this?
~~~
seanmcdirmid
I've written parsers both as top down and bottom up. Nite that neither is
naturally incremental and some memoization is required, so for bottom up, you
see if the parent you want to create already exists, for top down, your child.
It is sort of a wash which one is better, but both are pretty trivial.
I use top down recursive descent these days backed up with memoization. When a
change to the token stream comes, you simply damage the most inner tree that
contains the token, or if on a boundary, damage multiple trees.
~~~
vorg
Thanks. I've been writing and using recursive descent parsers a little lately,
both Parsec-style and Packrat-style. If it's possible to do decent incremental
parsing without wrapping my head around LR-parsing, then I'll give it a try
sometime.
~~~
seanmcdirmid
It is actually quite easy if you have a memoized token stream to work on. Just
store your trees based on their first token. When you do a parse, check to see
if a tree of that type already exists for that token. If it does, just reuse
it, and if there is any context to consider, dirty the tree if the context of
its creation has changed.
There are more advanced incremental parsing algorithms that do not require
memoization, but they really aren't worth it (the ability to parse
incrementally is not really a performance concern, but in keeping around state
associated with the tree and in doing better error recovery).
~~~
skybrian
Could you expand on this? What's a memoized token stream?
~~~
seanmcdirmid
A token stream that preserves token identities. Say you have a token stream of
[t0, t1] and add a new token t2 between t0 and t1 to get [t0, t2, t1]. What
you want is to be able to identify t0 and t1 in the new stream as being the
same tokens as in the old stream. If you simply re-lex to get new tokens, that
won't happen, and if you use character offsets as your token identities, t1 in
the new and old stream will have different identities.
Incremental lexing is pretty easy: just convert the tokens around the damage
back into text, re-lex that text, and then work from front and back of the new
partial stream to replace new tokens with old existing tokens if their lexical
categories match (e.g. an old identifier's text can be updated with a new
identifier's contents, but that is ok because parsing only depends on the fact
that the token is an identifier). You might not win any performance awards,
but those reused old tokens make very good keys into various data structures
for incremental parsing, incremental type checking, and even incremental re-
execution (if you are into live programming).
~~~
skybrian
Thanks. To figure out what's damaged, it seems like you have to do a diff
somewhere? It sounds like this is done at the character level rather than the
token level?
~~~
seanmcdirmid
No diff, just do the re-lex and damage the tree on the boundaries of where the
user typed. My techniques (also, see glitch) usually just assume change has
happened since the reprocessing is incremental anyways and won't cascade if
nothing has really changed (when reprocessing a tree, the parent is damaged if
the end token changed, I guess you could call that a diff).
------
jimmaswell
What do you call it if you're just using a big list of regexes? I've seen that
used for a simple dialog scripting language in a game.
~~~
olavk
If the language is simple enough to be parsed with only regular expressions,
then the language does not have context-free grammar, so bottom-up/top-down
distinction does not apply. This also means that the language cannot have
recursive productions, e.g. cannot support expressions.
But it depends on how the list of regexes is used. If it is used as part of a
recursive paring routine, then it is a recursive-descent parser where lexing
and parsing happens in the same pass.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Process of the PhD - yewweitan
http://scrivle.com/2010/11/26/the-process-of-the-phd/
======
naithemilkman
I've always felt academics and entrepreneurs are really cut from the same ilk.
As entrepreneurs, we try to increase the overall wealth of the economy and if
we are able to push it out by a little, we've succeeded. In the same way,
academics are trying to increase the boundary of human knowledge and if they
are able to contribute something new and unique to their field, they be
considered to be successful.
However, once in a while, an entrepreneur/academic makes a complete earth
shattering business/discovery that takes the game to a whole new level. Think
Facebook and Newtonian laws for examples.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Guest lecture feedback - AlexBlom
G'day HN Folk,<p>I was asked to Guest speak at the local University last night on how to start / run a technology company and add a little on social media.<p>The students were first year with only basic understandings of tech and business.<p>I've been asked to go and speak again so would love the communities feedback on how to better the presentation for next time.<p>LINK: http://alexblom.com/blog/2010/08/ryerson-guest-lecture/<p>A
======
anigbrowl
Strange but true entertainment biz protip: after a performance, run to the
nearest restroom, hide in a stall, and listen to the chit chat.
------
exline
Content seems good for first year students. I'd clean up the format of the
presentation a bit. You were inconsistent with spacing between points in some
cases. Lots of switching between back ground colors, images, no images, etc.
It made it a bit harder to focus. I don't think you should have the period at
the end of the titles, seems out of place.
Perhaps you handle it when you are speaking, but I'd put a bit more about
pivoting. Or talking about MVP and iterating (pivoting) as required. Its
really taking most of what you talk about and explain how it is not a linear
process.
~~~
AlexBlom
Thanks for the tip. I tend to agree on the formatting, it was a 5 minute job
and will be fixed for next time.
As for pivoting it is one of those slides where I put the key points up but
spoke for about 10 minutes on the topic. Your tips would make a good second
slide or additional point though, it is non linear.
Thanks for the feedback.
------
Mz
Clickable:
<http://alexblom.com/blog/2010/08/ryerson-guest-lecture/>
~~~
AlexBlom
Oops. Thanks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple is ditching its iconic startup chime with the new MacBook Pro - ricardolopes
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/31/13472920/apple-macbook-pro-chime-gone
======
daughart
Sure it's a nostalgic sound, but I can't tell you how many college lectures
are punctuated at some point by this sound.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Hacking behavior: use the stairs instead of the escalator - wgj
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpUoA5slRX4
======
RiderOfGiraffes
Previously submitted ...
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=873059>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=872759>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=871721>
~~~
wgj
Really I should have known.
------
frossie
What did they do a week after when the novelty wore off?
Certainly giving people a stimulus can reward good behaviour. I recall reading
that drivers of (normal engined) cars with a fuel consumption live readout get
higher mileage than people driving the same cars without the display.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google CIO Ben Fried on How Google Works - itafroma
http://allthingsd.com/20131010/google-cio-ben-fried-on-how-google-works/
======
eshwarramesh
Ask a Roman how Rome works?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Facebook’s Political Rule Blocks Ads for Bush’s Beans, Singers Named Clinton - moonka
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-28/facebook-s-ad-transparency-rules-caused-delays-for-advertisers
======
Eridrus
This should be completely unsurprising; the implementation of rules/laws is
always imperfect, even before you get into the challenges of doing this at the
scale of internet advertising.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case - awqrre
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/doj-drops-case-against-child-porn-suspect-rather-than-disclose-fbi-hack/
======
moomin
So, let's see now: a man is going free who should probably be going to jail
for a long time, because the state doesn't want to disclose the methods of
gathering evidence against him, which we can speculate are because they are
illegal or sourced from non-law-enforcement agencies. A case with near-
identical facts and the same judge _is_ going to trial and, not content with
tapping your email, the state now wants to put viruses on your computer.
It's hard to point to anything in this story that resembles "How the world
should be".
~~~
woolly
While the majority of it probably isn't 'how the world should be', a man is
going free because (we speculate) that the evidence against him was gathered
illegally. This bit probably is 'how the world should be'.
~~~
Huffers2
I've never understood this. If I gather evidence against somebody illegally,
and it proves their guilt, shouldn't we both go to jail?
~~~
tptacek
You're getting a lot of huffy responses to this question, but it is an
entirely legitimate one. In fact, many (maybe most?) western countries don't
have the same exclusionary rules the US has. There are other remedies to
police misconduct. If you were starting a nation from first principles, it's
not an iron law of justice that your courts have that rule.
The reason we believe the exclusionary rule works so well is that it strikes
directly at the incentive structure for the police. We don't have to convince
evidence-gathering officers of their liability or assess liability up and down
the chain of responsibilities on the prosecution's side; we just have to
assess whether evidence was handled properly, and, if it wasn't, the
prosecutors lose the evidence. The one simple rule neatly ensures that nobody
--- in any role --- on the prosecution's side has any incentive to mishandle
evidence (or coerce underlings or partner organizations to mishandle it).
But clearly the rule isn't a _requirement_. We don't generally believe, for
instance, that Canada's criminal justice system is systemically corrupt, and
they don't have a hard-and-fast exclusion rule.
~~~
waqf
> _incentive structure for the police_
That assumes that the police's incentive is simply to convict as many people
as possible. Which, if true, raises other concerns.
~~~
setr
I think it more assumes that the police's incentive is to maximize the ratio
of accusation to conviction as much as possible, which is a reasonable goal.
If they were simply trying to maximize the total number of convictions, then
this wouldn't necessarily help; the police would just make broaden the kind of
cases they'd accuse
And ofc, it's the function of the police to maximize the misdemeanor to
conviction ratio; it's the function of the court to judge the quality of
misdemeanor.
It is the function of whatever social/moral arm of the government to minimize
misdemeanors. A police officer minimizing the number of accusations should
only be doing so for practical reasons; In the ideal world he shouldn't be
trying to interpret the law itself, and if it _should_ exist (because it
should in general be explicit what is and is not legal, and in general, it is
not the policeman's job to decide what is moral, it is to enforce the standing
morals.)
But its not an ideal world, and nobody wants to spend time/effort/money on a
trash case, so the general incentive is to _successfully_ convict; not to
simply try.
~~~
foldr
>I think it more assumes that the police's incentive is to maximize the ratio
of [conviction to accusation] as much as possible, which is a reasonable goal.
Strictly speaking it's not a very reasonable goal. The best way to achieve it
would be to pick, say, the three easiest to prosecute cases every year and
only prosecute those.
~~~
setr
Well shit
Maximize ratio and minimize unaccounted (unaccused?) crime
------
mirimir
Questions about what methods investigators can legitimately use aside, the
practical implications are clear. You can not count on Tor alone for real
anonymity.
So what might these NITs be doing? In the simplest case, they'd be dropping
malware that reports ISP-assigned IP address, local IP address, network
hardware MAC, and whatever to FBI servers. And it's probably Windows malware.
To protect against that, you isolate userland and the Tor process in separate
machines, or at least VMs. So adversaries that compromise browsers etc can't
discover ISP-assigned IP addresses, and can't reach the Internet except
through Tor. Also, you don't use Windows or OSX. Whonix does this, and you can
run it in Qubes.
It's possible that these NITs are exploiting a bug in Tor itself. Even if that
were so, however, isolating the Tor process from userland would mitigate that
risk.
Perhaps the FBI has access to substantial numbers of malicious Tor relays,
operated by the NSA etc. To mitigate that risk, you can hit Tor through nested
chains of VPN services. Even if they identify the final VPN exit in your
chain, they will probably need to track back through the chain to identify
you. And by including unfriendly jurisdictions in your chain, you can make
that harder.
Finally, it's possible that the NSA has sufficient global intercepts and logs
to deanonymize any network connection, no matter how complicated and indirect.
It's impossible to say.
~~~
zkms
> To protect against that, you isolate userland and the Tor process in
> separate machines, or at least VMs.
This applies as well to people who run Tor hidden services that are doorkicker
bait (like drug cryptomarkets).
It should be impossible for a compromised browser or hidden service server or
Tor process to know anything about your hardware or MAC address, your internal
IP address (the RFC1918 one), or your globally routable IP address.
also yeah the Feeb loves to exploit browsers (especially firefox :^) and make
them execute the NIT (which just sends, unencrypted/unauthenticated data of
the MAC address, ethernet interface's IP addresses, username, and stuff like
that, to a computer run by the FBI)
once one of their exploits got leaked, it was pretty fucking lulzy
[https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2016/11/30/fixing-an-
svg-a...](https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2016/11/30/fixing-an-svg-
animation-vulnerability/) [https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-
talk/2016-Novembe...](https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-
talk/2016-November/042639.html)
~~~
mirimir
The NIT used in Freedom Hosting pwnage was originally a Tor/VPN leak test on
Metasploit ;)
------
throwawasiudy
In case it isn't obvious to everyone, the government runs or has tapped most
or all TOR exit nodes. This has been going on forever.
Nobody knows exactly what the attack is...but if they're willing to drop cases
to cover it up, its probably something that either: 1) completely breaks TOR
permanently 2) is easy to bypass/block
Since TOR has withstood a lot of scrutiny I'm betting on option #2. They found
a total break but it's really brittle. Either an exploit in software, or more
likely, some protocol hiccup that allows them to de-anonymize users running
certain popular software or OS.
~~~
dajohnson89
Do you have any evidence for the claim that TOR is so badly compromised? My
understanding of the article is not that TOR was hacked, but rather that a tor
user was tricked into opening a non-tor site and thus giving away his/her IP
address.
Also if just the exit node is compromised, encrypted connections are still
safe (TTBOMK).
~~~
tbrowbdidnso
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/0...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/06/25/can-
you-trust-tors-exit-nodes/amp/)
Not the FBI per se, but it shows that someone is clearly attempting to
compromise TOR users.
Also there's been whispers about it forever. Much like the "black rooms" at
datacentres before all the NSA leaks.
The FBI has a long history of tracking down and compromising CC theft and CP
rings, along with silk road and the hoards of clones. Most of these sites are
primarily or only accessible over TOR.
Running compromised TOR nodes would be an extremely cheap way to monitor a
large portion of illicit Internet traffic. The frequent busts are usually
attributed to other reasons to shift attention away from TOR, but this is
classic parallel construction.
The feds will nearly always get you on secondary evidence when the primary
means is too sensitive... See stingrays. The sheer number of TOR based site
busts however is telling.
Anyone relying on TOR for security is a fool. It's more heavily monitored than
the regular net.
~~~
chii
< Anyone relying on TOR for security is a fool. It's more heavily monitored
than the regular net.
this is why we should encourage more tor traffic for regular, normal use.
making the cost of deanonymization more costly.
~~~
mirimir
I believe that Tor Project ought to encourage bulk data transfer through and
among onion services. That would add chaff to protect other users. There's
resistance because it would increase network load. However, there's
considerable excess capacity for middle relays, because they attract so little
attention. There's even excess capacity for entry guards, and policy could be
changed to increase that. It's exit relays that are rate-limiting, and onion
sites don't use them.
Using multiple Tor instances with MPTCP, I've managed 50 Mbps between onion
sites with gigabit uplinks.
------
MilnerRoute
The prosecutors said they may file charges later (according to the article).
They may just want to keep from revealing the details as long as possible --
but could re-file the same charges years later, right before the Statute of
Limitations.
~~~
bsder
This actually bothers me greatly. Not carrying through once charges are filed
should be equivalent to "not guilty".
~~~
jemfinch
So, in a timeline this:
* "We have an eyewitness! File the charges."
* "Our eyewitness recanted, dismiss."
* "We now have DNA evidence, refile the charges."
You actually think the trial should not be allowed to go forward?
~~~
bsder
> You actually think the trial should not be allowed to go forward?
Actually, yes. If you filed a case on something so flimsy and it collapses,
the case should get dismissed.
It would sure make prosecutors go the extra mile to make sure that there is
_concrete_ evidence before filing charges.
Simply _filing_ charges can destroy someone's life. The prosecution should
have to put something at risk when they do so.
------
sandworm101
I think they want to to disclose. I think prosecutors expected that they would
be allowed to do so by now. They probably assumed the exploit would have been
patched away, or that some better tool would have come allong by this point in
time. Id bet good money that this tool is still in active use by some three-
letter agency. Should it be discovered or patched before the SOL, its intel
value will drop and prosecutions will begin again.
~~~
jlarocco
That was my thought as well. Especially since they dismissed the case in such
a way that they can bring it back later. Might as well use it to collect
evidence while they can, and then bring all the charges when the exploit is
fixed and it's not useful any more.
It sucks that the pervert in the case is going free (for now), but I would
guess the experience scared him enough that he won't be doing it again any
time soon.
~~~
sandworm101
Dont go too nutz about him not going to jail. An arrest on child porn charges
destroys one's life. Guilt or innocence doesnt matter. Jobs are lots. Families
are broken apart. Neighbours now hate you. This man's life will never be the
same. And he hasnt had any day in court. We should not judge too harshly.
------
hackuser
Why is an exploit against a Tor user so valuable? Assuming the attackers can
access the server, which for the FBI seems a reasonable assumption (they can
seize the server, operate it as a honeypot, etc.), all they need is a browser
vulnerability.
Perhaps they did use a valuable exploit in this case, or they used something
not legal (such as something not covered by their warrant or NSA
surveillance).
~~~
ENOTTY
They might be actively using it in other investigations that might be
compromised if this exploit were fixed.
~~~
hackerboos
But can't those cases just be dismissed also? Unless they decide that case is
worth the release of information.
~~~
AlexCoventry
They're probably using it for higher-priority investigations, like keeping
track of terrorist communications.
------
caf
I don't quite see why they can't use the same method they use in espionage
cases in this situation - if there's classified evidence, the defence lawyers
need to get security clearances and are under the same obligation not to
further disclose the information as anyone else (even to their own client).
~~~
angry_octet
It isn't a national security issue so there is no justification for those
measures. In criminal cases there is a strong constitutional and natural
justice basis for the accused being able to examine and attempt to rebut the
evidence.
~~~
caf
As I understand it those issues are covered by the accused's lawyers being
able to examine the evidence on behalf of the accused, which would extend to
having it examined by an expert witness who can attempt to impeach it.
~~~
Retra
Right. How is the accused supposed to provide an honest account to their
lawyer if they can't even know what evidence exists against them? They'll have
nothing to refute, and their lawyer can't ask them pertinent questions about
their own defense.
~~~
caf
I don't really see how that applies to the situation at issue here - the facts
that the state wants to protect seem to be around the technical details of the
way in which the evidence was acquired (the article talks about source code).
The lawyers for the accused don't need to disclose the source code to their
client to be able to say _" The state's expert witness is going to testify
that at such-and-such date and time an IP address which the ISP says was
assigned to your account at the time logged into the site under such-and-such
account name and access such-and-such content"_, which is the part the accused
can refute. Their testimony on the source code itself wouldn't be accepted
anyway.
------
ycmbntrthrwaway
How comes they are charged with "accessing the website"? Is it illegal or
what?
~~~
sandworm101
Yes, but there are a few details that ars is not mentioning. They didnt just
"access" the website. The website needed registration. These people had
registered accounts. They did not stumble upon it by accident. Then the
malware was limited to those accessing the "hardcore" section. Those accessing
only legally grey-area material (ie nude but no sex acts, or images where age
was questionable) were not caught up. Deliberately trying to access material
you know is illegal, then actually doing so, is a crime.
There were no doubt other steps taken to limit the field of people to charge.
Shared computers and shared IP addresses (vpns, school networks etc) seem to
have been deselected. The man living on his own, with his name attached to a
non-proxied internet connection, makes for an easy prosecution. They must have
a far longer list of suspects ... who may now be on some sort of watch list. I
suggest they think twice about boarding an international flight with a laptop.
Expect to be randomly searched.
------
tribby
\- "tor hack," or tor browser user who didn't turn off javascript?
\- is this only an issue for the prosecution because it happened before the
changes to rule 41?
~~~
wheelerwj
i believe thise case was initiated prior to those changes.
------
Esau
This is what happens when the net is more important than the fish.
~~~
wheelerwj
which is pretty crazy, because crimes involving CP are some of the biggest
whales that exist in our society.
~~~
umanwizard
Not really. CP possession convictions happen routinely. They're treated as a
serious crime but usually not as serious as, say, premeditated murder.
Producing it is of course another matter.
------
oxide
This is routine. The accused has money for a lawyer, otherwise this would have
been a plea deal and a conviction with no reveal requested.
~~~
saosebastiao
The lawyer is a public defender in Tacoma.
------
jlebrech
why not jail the guy and pay a fine too.
they jail innocent people all the time a give huge payouts or put people away
in guantanamo and then also pay huge amounts of compensation.
how about the judge fines the law enforce and gives the fine to orphanages or
to the victims.
------
endgame
Won't someone think of the children?
~~~
ryan_j_naughton
Are you serious or being facetious?
If you are being serious, I'd like to direct you to the wikipedia page on the
topic:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children)
"In debate, however, as a plea for pity, used as an appeal to emotion, it is a
logical fallacy"
~~~
endgame
Snarky, mostly. So often the people who want to ram through additional
surveillance will do so using "think of the children" rhetoric, as though they
were the most important thing in the world.
And now we find that when it comes time to actually use these tools to protect
the children, the secrecy of the tools is more important.
~~~
snailletters
From the Wikipedia article, "Community, Space and Online Censorship (2009)
argued that classifying children in an infantile manner, as innocents in need
of protection, is a form of obsession over the concept of purity."
I believe I see what you mean, however in a case of child pornography do you
not think that it's in a human's best interest to keep something from abuse of
naivety?
------
elastic_church
Best public defender ever?
------
teddyh
Does this mean that one of the four horsemen of the infocalypse has been
proven a fake?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Virgin Galactic pilot defied the odds to survive crash - danso
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-virgin-survivor-20141105-story.html
======
hangonhn
If you're interested in the extraordinary characteristics that are needed to
be a test pilot or an astronaut or the early history of the space program,
check out Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" ( [http://www.amazon.com/Right-Stuff-
Tom-Wolfe-ebook/dp/B00139X...](http://www.amazon.com/Right-Stuff-Tom-Wolfe-
ebook/dp/B00139XSBA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1415484020&sr=8-2&keywords=the+right+stuff)
)
It also puts the Virgin and other private space travel experiments into
context. This stuff is really hard and dangerous. It takes a special breed of
people to sign up for it and then figure out how to survive when things go
wrong or when things are less than ideal. It's not just guts but also a lot of
intelligence and the ability to stay calm when you are less than a minute from
oblivion. Chuck Yeager had a number of close calls.
~~~
nisa
> This stuff is really hard and dangerous.
I really don't know why they don't control these prototypes remotely. It's
2014 and while I see that a human is the better choice for space travel
because machines can't yet understand every situation it's kind of strange to
endanger the test pilots for early test flights. Especially in light of recent
fuel changes and aerodynamic problems.
That being said. My uttermost respect for everyone involved in these
endeavours. In the digital age it's more and more looking like a miracle that
humans where on the moon in 1969.
~~~
teleclimber
It's really hard to control these things remotely. If you use remote control
you have to worry about latency, which can make recovering from bad situations
impossible. And if you rely on auto-pilot you are testing both a vehicle and
its autopilot at the same time. For a highly experimental vehicle this is
extremely risky. The reason you need to test the vehicle is because you don't
know 100% for sure what it's going to do. And if you don't know, how can you
design an autopilot that brings it back every time.
Consider what happened with SS1 when it started rolling uncontrollably:
[http://gfycat.com/GargantuanRecentJackrabbit](http://gfycat.com/GargantuanRecentJackrabbit)
can you imagine an autopilot that would properly handle this situation? Good
thing they had Mike Melvill in there.
~~~
kenrikm
Which is worse losing a test vehicle or losing pilots? Latency should be a non
issue at the distances they are dealing with.
~~~
teleclimber
Well you don't want to lose either obviously. You don't go in there thinking
you might lose the vehicle. We're not the 1950s anymore.
------
comrade1
Part of me can understand why test pilots in the 50s, 60s, 70s, etc did what
they did. American test pilots and early astronauts did it for country first
(in the context of the cold war), humanity second.
I have a hard time understanding why a test pilot would risk their life so
that Jerry Seinfeld can fly to the edge of the atmosphere and back.
~~~
pavlov
Acrobats risk their lives while entertaining casino guests:
[http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cirque-du-soleil-
da...](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cirque-du-soleil-dancer-
plummets-death-las-vegas-article-1.1386709)
I suspect that the test pilot who gets to fly a new kind of spaceplane finds
it more gratifying than the acrobat who does the same show every night for a
decade.
~~~
groby_b
As a stage performer, you're grateful for every performance you get to do. It
might get a bit old, but it beats _not_ being on stage. (Also: You don't last
for a decade at any given show. You keep moving on to other things.)
And for many, being on stage is every bit as exciting as flying a space ship.
The emotional energy from a good performance is amazing. (It's certainly not
the pay that keeps them)
~~~
sitkack
Someone should write a book on how to exploit people who do things for a love
that transcends money.
------
rev_bird
The beginnings of what I'm sure is a fascinating story, but there are some
real weird turns of phrase in this story:
>It was a real world case of survival in the face of disaster, _like the movie
"Gravity_."
>In October 1947, he ejected out of one of the first combat jets, the Republic
F-84, and hit the tail at 500 mph, breaking both legs and _busting his face_.
------
teleclimber
This article doesn't say how he got out.
I think it's possible the pressurized cabin stayed in one piece long enough
that he might have stayed in it for part of the descent before bailing out.
I really look forward to hearing his story.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Dust: A Blocking - Resistant Internet Transport Protocol [pdf] - conductor
http://blanu.net/Dust.pdf
======
conductor
Brandon Wiley quote:
"The Dust paper is actually old and documents Dust v1, which only makes the
traffic look random. Dust v2 includes the polymorphic layer, which takes the
randomized output and shapes it to fit the probability distribution of a
target protocol. Unfortunately, there is not yet a paper for Dust v2.
I'm working on making Dust into a library which can be used in other programs,
as well as a SOCKS proxy, so there will be multiple options for integration.
I'm not sure what the best way to integrate it into a Java application would
be, but I'm happy to work with you guys to make this happen."
zzz;)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pandora: From near-death to profitability in a year - jrwoodruff
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/25/pandora-from-near-death-to-profitability-in-a-year/
======
skolor
Pandora is the only service that I regularly think "I should be paying these
guys money". In fact, a while back I decided that the next time I hit the 40
hour limit I will be upgrading my account with them.
In case anyone working with/at Pandora is reading this: you guys are awesome.
I've gotten more new music from you than anywhere else. I noticed you seem to
have changed your algorithm lately (At least, in the past few weeks I've
suddenly gotten a LOT of new music) and I like it a lot.
~~~
rgr
I like Pandora a lot but a couple of months ago I switched to last.fm because
it gave me more variety. Maybe it's time to check out Pandora again -- though
last.fm is still 100% free.
~~~
cmos
I just switched to last.fm from Pandora. The last straw was the same video ad
for 'Mercy hospital' every single time I changed stations.
I have to admit that listening to last.fm is a completely different
experience. There are a much deeper selection of tracks and I was thrilled to
hear a 24 minute DJ Shadow song.
I wish pandora the best, and I was ok with the occasional video ad. But every
time I change a station? If it was every 3rd time I might have put up with it.
~~~
paul9290
Coding at my new job I tried out Pandora and after a few days I kept hearing
the same music. My test is eclectic and I like hearing folk to jazz to
alternative to 80s to etc ... Pandora does not seem to offer this type of
station, but Last.fm does as if you trained it via a plug in it knows exactly
what genres you like and the artists in those genres.
Also, I use Fire.fm firefox last.fm toolbar which is great as it puts play
controls right into firefox and last.fm does not need to be open!
~~~
skolor
I'm not exactly sure about those particular mixes, but I know I end to get
good results mixing genres in Pandora by using the "Add Variety" feature. I
also find that keeping the window open and just pausing it stops the
repetition, they tend to only repeat songs you really, really seem to like, or
they will only once per page load (per station).
~~~
paul9290
Cool thanks. I might give it a try. Though prefer last.fm's toolbar (fire.fm)
as no site needs to be open, there are play controls at the bottom of firefox,
as well it tells you what's playing. As I code/test within one Firefox window
I prefer not to have to switch tabs to control music, learn who is playing, as
well heart or ban the track playing. Though maybe Pandora has similar toolbar?
~~~
skolor
They have a desktop client, but you (apparently) have to be a member for that.
I'm not sure about the features, but I would think it would allow for that.
~~~
AlexMax
It does, and it works on any platform Adobe Air works on. It's 30-something
bucks for a whole year, and totally worth it for not having your music tied to
the browser being open.
------
rscott
I'm a huge Pandora fan as well. For some reason one day I decided to quickly
profess my love for them via email and actually got a response asking if I
wanted a shirt or hat. This blew my mind, and I rock my Pandora baseball tee
often as a result.
~~~
physcab
What's your shirt size? We'll send you a t-shirt (or a few!) if you're willing
to try our service. And actually, I'll extend this offer to any HN
reader/user.
Chris from Grooveshark.
~~~
cmars232
Grooveshark looks nice! Pandora's been recycling the same songs too much for
my tastes lately, and I'm getting bored with it. I also wish I could easily
access the "station logs" later.
I like the fair use policy on the copyrights page a lot.
Are you really going to be able to let users drive to the exact song they want
to hear, even after critical mass builds up? Seems too good to be true. I
always assumed that was how Pandora managed to keep the heat off (by not
letting users pick the exact song when they want to hear it).
~~~
physcab
Thanks! Our new version is even nicer :) You can go to preview.grooveshark.com
to check it out.
To answer your question, yes, we will always have a search-and-discover
interface because that is where our real value comes from.
As far as critical mass is concerned, we are doubling about every 2-3 months
with absolutely no marketing or PR (which is why you don't hear about us on
TechCrunch very often). We've got a lot of work ahead of us in terms of
scaling to meet demand, but so far we're handling it well.
------
blhack
Perhaps I am weird but every time pandora recommends me a song and I really
like it, I bookmark it. I do this so that if I end up deciding I want to buy
it, I can click through to amazon from them and get them some referal money
:).
It really says something about how good you are doing if people will go out of
their way to make sure you get paid.
------
vaksel
I started out with Pandora, but then they added that 40 hour limit, seeing as
how I have the radio on 24/7, I hit that the 3rd day. So I started looking for
alternatives and quickly found grooveshark, they completely blow Pandora out
of the water with their selection and you can actually pick the actual song
you want to play right away.
Their autoplay feature is a little bit less refined than Pandoras, but I
actually like that, since with Pandora I ended up listening to the same 30-40
songs over and over again, since it kept reccomending the same songs.
~~~
physcab
Thanks! I'll pass the good feedback on to the rest of our team. We're working
hard to bring you more features. I'm actually working on the autoplay
algorithm right now so any feedback is quite helpful. Drop me a line anytime.
Chris from Grooveshark
~~~
sarvesh
I use Grooveshark and I agree that the autoplay is very naive compared to
Pandora. A better autoplay algorithm will definitely help but it is hard give
you feedback unless we know what you are trying to do with the new algorithm.
Currently, correct me if am wrong, your algorithm for recommendation is
heavily biased toward genre. It is really hard to discover new songs that I
like with it and that's when I fall back to Pandora.
~~~
endtime
I like how you and vaksel gave diametrically opposed suggestions...poor Chris.
~~~
physcab
Haha you'd be surprised by how many people love the current autoplay despite
it's drawbacks. I have a feeling we're not hearing from the people who don't
like it because they end up going to Pandora for better recs. I think it's a
problem we can solve though. By our next product launch we'll have the logic
in place to make both user groups happy.
------
jrwoodruff
Glad to see these guys doing well, I've been a rabid fan since a friend turned
me onto the service four(ish) years ago.
Although I don't entirely understand the last line of the article "Pandora
will be a textbook case for why execution matters more than vision in tech"
I get that they've worked their asses off to make it a reality, I think the
vision of smart music recommendation and discovery is what drove the
execution. ??
------
manny
just putting out there that pandora totally crushes deezer and last.fm when it
comes to music selection for artists or songs you enter in.
------
zackattack
This is excellent news for Hip Hop Goblin!
~~~
Raphael
Every day you're hustlin'.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why conferences need a code of conduct - telemachos
http://jacobian.org/writing/codes-of-conduct/
======
jsavimbi
> This is a charged issue, and I don’t have the energy to deal with comments.
I cannot take people like this seriously. They spend x hours of energy
thinking about a statement that they want to communicate and demand that said
statement be taken at face value and not called into question because they
"don’t have the energy to deal with comments."
Some people are jerks; it's the way they operate. Why do you think they have
gorillas working the door at strip clubs? The only way to create a safe
environment for people who otherwise may be verbally or physically assaulted
is to confront those whom offend head-on, right then and there and make them
understand that their actions are unacceptable. Sometimes that requires booing
a speaker, tapping someone on the shoulder or calling them out in
public/internet. Some times you'll be in the wrong, but if you have well-
founded convictions and a little bit of brass, more often than not you'll be
in the right. That's not a call to become your own policing agency, it's a
suggestion to not be a coward and look the other way or in this case, refuse
to stand up for the same principles that you claim to have and expect in
others by refusing to take comments.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Save Bletchley Park - ccraigIW
http://weblog.infoworld.com/securityadviser/archives/2008/12/save_bletchley.html
======
jgrahamc
Bletchley Park is one of the 128 places in my travel book for geeks and an
absolute must see for anyone who's interested in computer science or code
breaking.
It would be tragic if it was allowed to fall into disuse or disrepair because
of a lack of funding.
I've started a simple campaign to help Bletchley Park by donating a power of 2
in the currency of your choice: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=387007>
~~~
danw
Where else is on your list of 128 places?
~~~
jgrahamc
See <http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596523206/> and monitor it for updates.
~~~
kennyroo
That seems like a really fun idea for a book. After reading a great deal about
BP, it seems to fit your idea perfectly. Good luck with the book!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
XE.com launches new site in React - herpderperator
https://www.xe.com/
======
amacalac
unfortunately nobody told the designer to expect ads as part of the design,
given the unfortunate position of the first ad right above what looks like an
otherwise really nice design.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New Recurly website launched this morning - what do you think? - danburkhart
http://www.recurly.com
======
ameyamk
Seems like new design comes with major hike in pricing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A tiny step in Android app development and business - revolz
http://appbrood.blogspot.com
======
JacobIrwin
Thanks for sharing your story.
As a side, my ex-roommate is an Objective-C hacker that funded his move to the
Valley from Pennsylvania (my guess is that he netted $10k+ on the app in about
2 months - based off his vague hints) from coding an app for iOS. The app can
most easily be described as a widget that is an add-on for the Safari (mobile)
browser that allows users to view+open recent downloads from a drop-down
embedded in the browser.
So while fun apps like LuckyStar may be a great place to start, utilities that
enhance the user's mobile experience may earn more traction/revenue/downloads.
Good luck on your next project!
~~~
revolz
Well said in the the keyword traction. That is actually the hardest part. But
once we master it, the path will become smoother. Thanks for your advice.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: GitPitch 2.0 – Markdown Presentations on Git.* - gitpitch
https://medium.com/@gitpitch/announcing-gitpitch-2-0-27b10627a984
======
Dowwie
GitPitch looks very useful. Love the code walkthrough feature.
This reminds me of a similar project, remarkjs:
[https://github.com/gnab/remark](https://github.com/gnab/remark)
One feature I really enjoy from remark is the 'P' key toggle for presenter
mode. It doesn't seem to be available yet for gitpitch. :-|
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
We are in an abusive relationship with our phones - pavel_lishin
https://conversationalist.org/2019/09/13/feminism-explains-our-toxic-relationships-with-our-smartphones/
======
ryanolsonx
> “Put up your hand if you like or maybe even love your smartphone,” I asked
> the audience of policymakers, industrialists and students.
> Nearly every hand in the room shot up.
> “Now, please put up your hand if you trust your smartphone.”
> One young guy at the back put his hand in the air, then faltered as it
> became obvious he was alone. I thanked him for his honesty and paused before
> saying,“We love our phones, but we do not trust them. And love without trust
> is the definition of an abusive relationship.”
For this and other reasons, I'm switching to the Light Phone 2 [1]. I get it
later this month. Devices like this don't solve all of our problems, but they
certainly solve many.
[1]: [http://lightphone.com](http://lightphone.com)
~~~
lostmsu
> An abusive relationship is an interpersonal relationship characterized by
> the use or threat of physical or psychological abuse.
I.e. the author is manipulating facts. Trust has nothing to do with it.
Obviously, if a person does not trust anybody, not every relationship they get
into is abusive to them.
~~~
beat
Within the framework applied, trust has everything to do with it. What makes a
relationship abusive isn't the distrust, but rather the distrust combined with
the inability to escape (which is often about love). We love our smartphones,
but we don't trust them. That's very different than, say, distrusting some
random stranger. The way to deal with not trusting a stranger is to not engage
with them. How do you deal with, say, not trusting your father?
------
5trokerac3
Something I like to do to minimize this effect is to forward my calls to a
dumphone whenever I don't need the smartphone.
My family uses alternative messaging with me while I'm at work and you'd be
surprised how people really don't care if you don't text them back until the
end of the day.
When I get home, the smartphone goes upstairs where I'll hear it ring if
someone calls. At this point, it's a glorified GPS and Spotify/Audible device.
The only time I'm actively on it is in between sets at the gym in the morning.
------
teddyh
> _Feminist analysis of Gamergate first exposed the online radicalization of
> legions of angry young men for whom misogyny was a gateway drug to far-right
> politics._
Um. I feel that the article could have done without this snipe.
Like I once wrote¹, this came out of nowhere, and is presented as if every
reader should obviously agree with it. Is “far-right” supposed to be something
which is obviously inherently bad? I can see the case for using the term “alt-
right” in that sense. But right/left? The whole point of the right/left
terminology is that it’s not settled which of them is correct. If it _were_ ,
we’d just call them good/bad instead of left/right.
In an article which has nothing to do with actual politics, to bring up “far-
right” as a stereotypical bad thing, shows that it’s written by someone living
in a bubble.
1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18160488](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18160488)
~~~
derp_dee_derp
keep reading after that sentence and this article continues to undermine
itself by actively portraying feminists as the greatest thing ever and men as
evil.
> Next thing you know, women will be wearing trousers and thinking they can
> vote.
what does this sentence in the article have to do with anything phone related?
Women can wear whatever they and they've had the vote for over 100 years.
the article makes a decent point and then goes full crazy. Too bad.
~~~
ghostbrainalpha
>> Women can wear whatever they and they've had the vote for over 100 years
Women have had the vote for ALMOST 100 years.
August 18, 1920
------
beat
This is a really interesting and spot-on analysis. If it makes you
uncomfortable, it should.
~~~
ReptileMan
What exactly should make us uncomfortable? Except from the writing style.
Everything she writes as harmful side effects from smartphones has been
written before. Probably even in 2012. There is nothing novel
~~~
beat
Using highly developed feminist framework and applying it to cell phones is
novel, or at least I haven't seen it before. Developing solutions to problems
requires understanding the problems, and putting it into a well-understood and
successful framework points to solutions.
Unfortunately, feminist thought makes a lot of men uncomfortable and often
ugly in their reactions. Just read the comments here.
------
ReptileMan
I don't know - judging by the cracked screen, missing pieces, cracked back, I
am not so sure who is abusing who ...
On a more serious note - that we are overdepended on smartphones is common
knowledge and not some epiphany. Ditto with them helping alienating from the
others. The second part of the article is extremely cringe inducing. She is
trying to cram every feminist buzzword and talking point ever.
------
churchianity
She's not wrong on a lot of points about what tech and phones do to
individuals, just it's a super contrived topic that's existed for as long as
tech has - she said nothing even close to new there.
The elephant in the article is _so what?_. What are we going to do about this?
This is why so many people feel as though feminists are plagued with a
victimhood complex - the only agent in the relationship she draws parallels to
is the person. There is only one person to blame.
I understand the vast social consequences of not owning a phone - but I know
plenty of people who have healthy relationships with their phones. Probably
the one thing they have in common is that they don't blame others for their
problems.
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Concurrency is not Parallelism (it's better) - noloqy
http://concur.rspace.googlecode.com/hg/talk/concur.html
======
noloqy
For the video of the presentation: <http://vimeo.com/49718712>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google's Hybrid Approach to Research - Anon84
http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2012/7/151226-googles-hybrid-approach-to-research/fulltext
======
denzil_correa
How many other companies follow a similar model?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Towards practicing differential privacy - Cynddl
http://blog.mrtz.org/2015/03/13/practicing-differential-privacy.html
======
noisydonut
Nice tl;dr written by Nobel prize winner Al Roth:
[http://marketdesigner.blogspot.com/2015/03/reflections-on-
pr...](http://marketdesigner.blogspot.com/2015/03/reflections-on-practical-
market-design.html)
------
Cynddl
See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9184479](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9184479)
from two days ago for more context.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Donald Trump meets with tech leaders - Jarred
https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/donald-trump-meets-with-tech-leaders/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook
======
delegate
Strangely how this is not top news on HN - however you put it , I guess
everyone understands that this is a turning point in our industry.
------
silasi
The emoji issue with Twitter...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Text particle android - mosh_java
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twkDyQby1eI
======
mosh_java
i made a code for android similar to previous web text particle was submitted
here, what should i do next ?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Will AI disrupt education and traditional teaching? - hsikka
======
ocean_child
One of my core beliefs for AI/automation is that by removing the need to do
menial custodial and service tasks, society can focus on cultivating more
artists, philosophers, and programmers. If anything I think that we will put a
much larger focus on learning when we reach this point of automation.
Specifically regarding teaching, I don't expect much to change. We're already
in a position where we could educate students by having them watch videos and
read out of textbooks by themselves, but we don't. At the moment, teachers can
offer alternative explanations to struggling students, respond to questions,
and perform other markedly human tasks. You can emulate this with AI, but I
think we're a far ways off of making this human touch obsolete.
------
sgeneris
Proper education no longer exists. It has been replaced by vocational
training. And FANG dropping college education altogether suggests that even
that will go away.
AI will obviate the need for human intellect altogether -- if machines and
algorithms will do all the "thinking", why bother?
If you want to know how Trump got elected, why the US is in steep decline,
ruled by corporate monopolies and oligarchs and on the verge of tyranny, look
no further.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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WorkerDom – The Same DOM API and Frameworks You Know, but in a Web Worker - guifortaine
https://github.com/ampproject/worker-dom
======
MatthewPhillips
I worked on a similar project a few years ago:
[https://github.com/canjs/worker-render](https://github.com/canjs/worker-
render). It could render jQuery apps in a web worker, it was pretty neat.
The problems I ran into, and I suspect this project will run into many of the
same things were:
1\. Events are synchronous so to make them async you have to preventDefault
them, send to the worker, and then send back and re-dispatch them (if the
worker didn't preventDefault). This works ok for many events like 'click' but
not at all for things like touch events.
2\. The debugging experience in the worker is not very good. Things you take
for granted like being able to do `document.querySelector('.app')` and get a
pretty-printed DOM object in the debugger do not work when that object is a
fake DOM-like object.
3\. There are a lot of DOM APIs and they continuously grow. Trying to
implement everything is impossible. Many things can't (like events described
above) be implemented 1 to 1. So it's a constant game of whack-a-mole.
Of these problems #2 is the biggest though. Devtools has a lot of _really_
nice integrations with the DOM that you just lose when you're not using the
actual DOM. So users have to decide if the tradeoffs are worth it. AMP might
have an advantage in this regard, since you literally have no other choice;
use their worker DOM or you can't run your app at all.
~~~
vincentriemer
When I decided to take a stab at something similar, I settled on a different
approach in taking an existing asynchronous UI architecture, React Native,
instead of just trying to proxy the DOM:
[https://github.com/vincentriemer/react-native-
dom](https://github.com/vincentriemer/react-native-dom)
I think it works better because the original framework wrestles with the same
limitations you mention (though an upcoming rearchitecture doesn't), and while
it is by no means perfect, some early results are promising: [https://rndom-
movie-demo.now.sh](https://rndom-movie-demo.now.sh)
------
Klathmon
So if I'm reading it right, it looks like it's trying to replicate the DOM
interface almost exactly (but in a web worker)! Which means that any UI
library should be able to plug into this system and run mostly off the main
thread for most of the application's life, bringing JS to parity with a lot of
"native" development where you do most of your work on a "main" thread, and
only touch the UI thread when you want to do UI things!
It also reads like it might have some kind of virtual-dom implementation to
kind of optimize the actual renders needed in the UI thread? (although I'm not
very sure about this part).
But this looks incredible from a first glance!
~~~
k__
doesn't the added vdom lead to redundancy?
~~~
bastawhiz
No, in fact it's likely very beneficial. Virtual DOM is meant to avoid the
overhead of interacting with the real DOM (reading and writing to the DOM is
slow). Being inside a web worker means that you're still interacting through
the DOM, just via a web worker now. So the cost of reading and writing to and
from the DOM is still present, plus there's the added overhead of
communicating with the UI thread. So vdom in this case makes a meaningful
difference by allowing the thread to get more work done in a shorter amount of
time.
If you, for instance, blew away the whole DOM and re-rendered it (e.g.,
setting `innerHTML`) on every state change, the cost is going to be far higher
than just tweaking the few things that might need tweaking, like on a
keypress. If you're not keeping a virtual DOM around, there's no way to know
what the diff is between your new and previous state to be able to make those
tweaks.
~~~
k__
I know how VDOMs work. But the WorkerDOM has an extra one to the one current
frameworks bring.
So now there are two VDOMs
~~~
bastawhiz
WorkerDOM has a DOM representation, but I wouldn't call it a "virtual DOM".
It's just propagating mutations back and forth. It wouldn't, for instance,
have the ability to reorder nodes in a list in linear time (like React does
with the key={} prop). When a change takes place, it's not diffing anything,
it's just mapping one representation of the DOM onto another. If you set
innerHTML in the worker, it would set innerHTML in the main thread also.
------
simplecomplex
WebWorkers: Same great JavaScript, now with concurrency bugs!
~~~
acjohnson55
Maybe your new at this but at this point, I've learned not to laugh. SPAs,
Node.js, VDOM, transpilers, and many other things sounded absurd at one point.
------
eridius
If this is exposing DOM operations in a Worker and then replicating them back
to the real DOM in the main thread, what happens if 2 Workers try to make
incompatible changes to the DOM at the same time?
~~~
aikah
I imagine one of these DOM is "fake", i.e. it doesn't really have access to
the UI. After all, the DOM is a generic API to work with structured node based
documents. Changes to the DOM would still need to be serialized in order to be
sent to the UI thread.
~~~
eridius
Yes I know. Which is why I asked what happens if two Workers try to make
incompatible changes at the same time. How does this library resolve conflicts
when applying the changes from the fake DOM to the real one?
In fact, this doesn't even require 2 Workers, you could get a conflict with a
single Worker if you're also making DOM changes on the main thread.
~~~
mygo
This is like asking what happens if two different micro-services try to make
incompatible changes to the same database.
Or what happens when two different users try to make incompatible changes to
the same Google Doc?
Or what happens when you try to GIT Merge a commit that has incompatible
changes?
It’s your code, so it’s in your control what happens, and also in your control
how to react to what you can’t control.
You can write code that avoids conflicting manipulations (let’s say all the
dom manipulations only ever happen on one thread) or you can write code that
handles the case... It’s a case by case kind of thing, there is no one answer.
~~~
eridius
All of these cases have a well-defined conflict resolution mechanism. All of
these cases except for Google Docs explicitly have a way for the client to be
notified that their requested change failed (I believe Google Docs just
defines the editing operations such that a conflict can always be
automatically resolved).
The DOM API does not have any way to even notify the client that their DOM
manipulation failed.
------
ENGNR
Very much appreciate the work
What's AMPs goal here, is it to have untrusted third parties write their own
UI's, but still run that whole site on the google domain? I hate to be cynical
but if so that's the same old walled garden approach to further centralize the
web
It would be far easier to just rate the page performance specs while indexing,
and provide a free google CDN for heavy assets to protect privacy so they can
preload most of them
This does look exciting for things like embedding small components from
untrusted third parties into the middle of an article or page though
------
thrower123
Wow, the contortions we go through trying to make HTML into a full-blown
native application platform, instead of writing native applications.
I'm impressed, but good god do we spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel
within the limitations of browser engines.
~~~
Buttons840
You're probably right, but there are no alternates, so people build what they
want with what's available.
I'm no expert in native or web development, but I don't know of any native GUI
framework that looks as good as browser rendering does, is free, is easy to
distribute, and secure.
~~~
mirko22
Like QML from Qt?
------
ravenstine
Serious question: Could not a similar thing be implemented by running the
"main thread" in an iframe using the browser's own DOM and the postMessage
API? It might lack the optimizations of a virtual DOM, but would probably
require a lot less code to achieve.
------
writepub
Any idea when the jsconf us videos are planned for release? This work was
apparently presented there. [1]
[1]: [https://speakerdeck.com/cramforce/workerdom-javascript-
concu...](https://speakerdeck.com/cramforce/workerdom-javascript-concurrency-
and-the-dom)
------
bcheung
What are the performance implications of this? Does the proxy employ a VDOM
cache? How does this compare to running the DOM manipulations natively inside
the main thread?
------
codedokode
I don't like this. It must be slow and bloated because it is a DOM written in
JS rather than native optimized DOM implementation. And why would anyone need
that?
~~~
ioulian
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you work with DOM, modify/read properties,
they lead to DOM trashing and re-rendering. If you do this 100 times per event
handler, it will become slow.
If you do all that work in a worker and then only update the real DOM once, it
will be much faster.
Render/paint is the slowest part in a JS application.
------
nitwit005
Unfortunately, in my current app, the actual issuing of DOM updates seems to
be what's blocking things. Inserting large tables takes some time.
~~~
Klathmon
That's where stuff like batch inserting the elements (split your table up into
groups of 100 elements, and add one every so often to keep the UI smooth), and
virtual-rendering (only show the part of the list that is actually visible)
are going to be the only real solution.
Oh, and making your DOM simpler if possible, but normally there's not a ton of
gains to be had there in my experience.
~~~
nitwit005
There's a lot of tricks you can try, but even rendering the first set of
visible rows can take more than a 60fps time window will allow.
~~~
Shog9
Don't pick a fixed value for the batch size; render until your time is
exhausted and then wait for the next batch. Yes, this'll be slower overall,
but you ensure that the app stays responsive regardless of device or CPU
availability.
~~~
writepub
Are you recommending an app imposed rendering timer (say 15ms) or is there an
in built API for Opportunistic scheduling of Dom updates?
~~~
ergl
You might want to check out this thread from last week[0] about scheduling
tasks when the event loop is idle. The author also published a library for
it[1]
[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18030848](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18030848)
[1]:
[https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/idlize](https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/idlize)
------
holtalanm
my only concern with this is...with a web worker, my understanding was that
any dependencies to the web worker would be loaded separately from the actual
UI thread, which means you could potentially be loading your javascript twice
if you have the same code being used in the UI thread as your web worker
thread.
At least, that is how it worked a few years ago.
------
fulafel
Link to blog post:
[https://amphtml.wordpress.com/2018/08/21/workerdom/](https://amphtml.wordpress.com/2018/08/21/workerdom/)
tldr; aim is to bring scripting to AMP pages
------
aasasd
I don't quite understand how busy your page must be if you feel that you're
held back by the performance of one thread with the DOM.
You know, DOM isn't really for video games or realtime data visualization.
~~~
dinedal
I think this is more useful from the perspective of, if you have some busy
task and you need to get the data back into the DOM, what can you do? You
either need to build a messaging layer, which was the defacto way, or use
this. I have a few projects that could benefit from this, being able to put a
progress bar in the DOM and have the worker update it in a clean API is pretty
neat.
~~~
ytpete
Often though, a better pattern for that is to have your "compute thread" not
know _anything_ about the UI - it just sends back packets of result data, or
serialized model updates, which the view-model layer back in the "UI thread"
uses to rerender.
If React's virtual DOM diffing is epxensive enough to be a bottleneck in some
applications though, I could see an advantage to moving _that_ off thread...
~~~
acemarke
There's been some experiments with moving React's logic into a web worker, but
the main one I know of was a couple years back :
[http://blog.nparashuram.com/2016/02/using-webworkers-to-
make...](http://blog.nparashuram.com/2016/02/using-webworkers-to-make-react-
faster.html) . Would be interesting to try updating that.
| {
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Is YC bold enough? (warning: possible linkbait) - Sam_Odio
http://www.honorico.com/wordpress/?p=104
======
ubudesign
I don't think that YC is claiming to be a VC. Unless I am missing something?
everybody knows that 10-20k is not worth much. People apply for something
else.
~~~
hank777
Yes, but the question is whether any YC companies have the capacity to be the
next google. I think it is a good question because it really is saying "if you
can't find the gems why expect VCs to be able to". Its a people in glass
houses throwing stones argument. There may be good counter arguments but it is
a very legit question.
------
SwellJoe
Definite linkbait.
| {
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Knuth's 2018 Christmas Lecture: Dancing Links - janvdberg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9OcDYfHqOk
======
johnsonjo
In Fall of 2017 I was still in school and had to write a sudoku solver in one
of my CS classes. I ended up using dancing links to solve my sudoku problems.
My implementation was in JavaScript and it could find solutions for sudoku
problems very quickly. The paper I read on dancing links ended up being my
favorite academic paper I read in 2017 (honestly probably one of the only ones
I read that year.) I wrote about that in this thread [1].
[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16036588](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16036588)
| {
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A New Lawsuit from Microsoft: No More Gag Orders: A Legal Analysis - hackuser
https://www.justsecurity.org/30583/challenge-microsoft-gag-orders/
======
mirimir
Modest proposal: Firms ought to refuse to do business in jurisdictions that do
this authoritarian shit. Seriously. As it is, nobody in their right mind will
do business with US firms where privacy matters. Maybe Apple, Google,
Microsoft etc should just leave. Build a fucking island. Get a decent
military. Isn't it about time?
~~~
jmspring
Reactionary and lacking any semblance of possible reality.
~~~
nickpsecurity
There's companies doing it right now. On islands, too. More are going to
places like Switzerland where lawful intercept might still be an issue but the
implementation is _way_ better than here. Also, it helps to operate in
countries where the government doesn't see their own citizens and businesses
as perpetual targets or subversives. Way less risk.
~~~
jmspring
Do you have an example of a multinational firm, let's say, 1/10th the size of
microsoft doing such and where they don't rely on a large amount of business
from the US?
I'm not being flip, but, in technology, outside of China, when it comes to
things internet, most of the companies are either US based or have a US
subsidiary.
~~~
jmspring
Both examples above still "do business in the US".
Are there large scale examples following the original proposal of "Firms ought
to refuse to do business in jurisdictions that do this authoritarian shit.
Seriously. As it is, nobody in their right mind will do business with US firms
where privacy matters."
Sure there are assorted pre/post snowden terms, etc. But, businesses,
especially multinationals, are still going to do business in the US. That was
my point.
I find it helpful that given the shitacular privacy laws in the US, at least
Apple and Microsoft are being proactive about taking steps.
That said, due to family relations, I hear a lot about european data privacy,
but, well, countries like German and Britain have a pretty cozy relationship
with US equivalents.
~~~
nickpsecurity
"Sure there are assorted pre/post snowden terms, etc. But, businesses,
especially multinationals, are still going to do business in the US. That was
my point"
Oh OK. That's a lesser point that doesn't concern me as much. Our concern is
if the U.S. _controls_ the security of their products. Merely selling them in
the U.S. doesn't allow for that. If anything, they'd compromise a specific
user or product for U.S. targets. This is why the NSA has to hack them whereas
they can just get the FBI to compel the local firms to "SIGINT enable" the
products as the ECI leaks said.
Far as totally outside U.S., there's Asian firms that do that. One guy that
taught me a lot about HW security said his company straight-up refuses to do
business in the U.S. due to patent suits and other issues. He told me there's
plenty of market in Asia and Europe for firms that sell hardware or license
I.P.. So, I know at least one does it.
------
bitwize
Here's your legal analysis:
Government: Your Honor, we move to dismiss on the grounds that complying with
Microsoft's demands would require disclosure of information critical to
national security.
Judge: Motion to dismiss granted.
The deep state plays by its own rules.
~~~
2bitencryption
But luckily, due to separation of powers, that probably won't happen. The
model (sometimes) works!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The GNU Project Is Bleeding into Microsoft - davesailer
http://techrights.org/2020/06/29/gnu-redirects/
======
hannob
GNU has their own code and project management plattform called Savannah. If
you've ever interacted with it you know why this is happening. It's horrible
in every way. I remember once trying to make some suggestions to get some
basic security improvements that never happened. It wasn't even clear to me to
whom I'd have to talk to.
I don't think this has anything to do with the controversy around RMS. GNU has
neglected to provide decent development infrastructure for its projects and
has only provided them the joke that savannah is. So people are naturally
looking elsewhere.
~~~
pinusc
Savannah might be awful, but there are more sensible options. There actually
is a good discussion on the GNU website [1]. Savannah gets an A for ethical
concerns (which to be fair is what's important to GNU, rather than usability);
GitHub gets an F (fully closed source and now controlled by Microsoft...);
However, in the middle there is GitLab, with a respectable C. In my
experience, it's usable and has all the important features that Github also
has. And it's much better from ethical standpoints! I can't imagine any point
of view from where Github is more acceptable than Gitlab.
1: [https://www.gnu.org/software/repo-criteria-
evaluation.html](https://www.gnu.org/software/repo-criteria-evaluation.html)
------
rhaps0dy
I really don't see what the problem is here. Stallman himself is OK with using
proprietary software if it runs on someone else's machine. For example, here
[https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html](https://stallman.org/stallman-
computing.html), he states he uses DuckDuckGo and ixquick, which are not
clearly free software. (Though, they might be free software; their server code
isn't distributed to the user, so even under the GPL they would not have to
also distribute the source).
So what if GitHub is proprietary? So long as you don't run their JavaScript on
your machine, your computing can still be fully free. And, if the problem is
that Microsoft will prevent some project from being developed there, they can
take their local Git (GPLv2 licensed) repositories and push them somewhere
else.
This all seems like a win from the FSF's perspective. Their projects are
easier to discover and to contribute to, the developer's computing can remain
fully free and the FSF does not need to pay for hosting.
Flex being BSD licensed is a slight problem for copyleft, though.
~~~
ancarda
>So long as you don't run their JavaScript on your machine
Do you have much of a choice? I think a lot of GitHub features do not work
properly without JavaScript. For instance, just trying it now:
\- Can't mark notifications as done
\- Can't edit the title or description of an issue or PR
\- Can't dismiss banners or most modals/popups
\- Can't commit files directly on the web interface
\- Can't edit an issue or PR metadata (i.e. labels)
\- Can't edit most, maybe almost all, repo settings
At-least it's not a blank page. If I see websites like that these days, I just
close the tab. Thankfully, you can pretty much use GitHub in "read-only" mode
without JavaScript, but working on it is probably quite hard without running
their non-free code.
It would probably be better if they'd use Sourcehut or maybe GitLab.
~~~
jwilk
> _\- Can 't mark notifications as done_
What kind of notifications?
> _\- Can 't edit the title or description of an issue or PR_
You can if you disable CSS. (Admittedly that's not very convenient…)
> _\- Can 't dismiss banners or most modals/popups_
Any examples? This has (almost?) always worked for me.
~~~
ancarda
Hmm, I went to get you an example and I found they seem to dismiss if you
click elsewhere on the page. I think I was clicking on the close button (the
"x" in the title bar) - which won't work without JavaScript.
------
Gollapalli
It might be better titled "Microsoft is bleeding into the GNU Project".
Honestly, I'm not super bothered by GNU using github, because everybody uses
github. I mean, it's the hub for git repos! At the risk of making more bad
puns... well, I can't think of anything worse than the last one, but my point
stands that github won this war, and while GNU might feasibly use gitlab or
similar, github is where everybody is at, and it's very quickly becoming the
place people search for code. It's almost like, "your code isn't open source
because it's not on github." Github is code google.
EDIT: It should be obvious that github being "code google" is not great for
freedom. It's brilliant on the part of Microsoft, in the same way that
securing a monopoly on OS's 20 years ago was brilliant. With the cloud-
backend->web-frontend being our new defacto operating system, Microsoft is set
to achieve this once again. Azure and GitHub synergize really well together.
At this rate, the default way to deploy open source code will be VS Code ->
.NET 5 -> Github -> Azure, and we will be at Microsoft's monopolistic mercies
once again, enthralled to the cloud instead of running our own software that
we own (even if we don't understand) on our own hardware that we own (even if
we don't understand), and maintaining some semblance of ownership over our own
computing and communication with one another via these computers.
------
Pashai3t
> Interestingly, most of these redirections seem to have made fairly recently,
> not long after Richard Stallman was ousted.
That's factually wrong : Richard Stallman resigned from the FSF, not from GNU.
The very first paragraph on his personal website reads: "I continue to be the
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project. I do not intend to stop any time soon."
Also, while I share author's annoyance of seeing GNU packages on github
(that's what savannah is made for, after all), singling out GNU here seems
sensationalism : it could basically be said that "most FOSS projects are
bleeding into Microsoft", or probably more reasonably "FOSS projects should
consider what it means to be hosted by Github now that Microsoft owns it".
------
orangeshark
It more about how difficult Savannah is to use which is why people use
alternatives. Though the GNU project does evaluate whether a code hosting
service is suitable. [0] They were also looking into hosting their own
alternative to Savannah. [1]
[0] [https://www.fsf.org/news/gnu-releases-ethical-evaluations-
of...](https://www.fsf.org/news/gnu-releases-ethical-evaluations-of-code-
hosting-services)
[1] [https://www.fsf.org/blogs/sysadmin/coming-soon-a-new-site-
fo...](https://www.fsf.org/blogs/sysadmin/coming-soon-a-new-site-for-fully-
free-collaboration)
~~~
savannahisbad
Based on the latest updates[1], it looks likely that they'll try setting up an
instance of Pagure[2].
[1]
[https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Fsf_2019_forge_evaluation](https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Fsf_2019_forge_evaluation)
[2] [https://pagure.io/pagure](https://pagure.io/pagure)
------
SmokeyHamster
> For a number of important reasons, hosting GNU development on a proprietary
> Microsoft platform should be verboten.
What ridiculous hyperbole. Yeah, a "number of important reasons", yet they
list none. I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy, but it's Github. It was
fine to host open source software on them before, but now that they're bought
my Microsoft, it's bad? Why? Because we're afraid Microsoft is going to steal
our free open source code? I've mitigated some of my own projects to other git
sites, like gitlab, just to get more experience and diversify my access, but
it makes no sense to abandon Github.
This level of anti-Microsoft hysteria is a little over the top.
You want to know the real reason why GNU is hosting so many of their projects
on Github? Because their interface is clean and it's free and the GNU
developers want to spend their time writing GNU software, not maintaining
websites.
------
AdmiralAsshat
Some of the projects, like GNU Radio, seem pretty active. I imagine that GH is
simply a more attractive platform than whatever they were using previously
(Savannah?), and it seems to much better facilitate community interaction than
e-mail mailing lists. And honestly, for the sake of developing _free /libre
software_, I'd much prefer that it be hosted on a platform that facilitates
active development, than following a Stallman-approved™ fully libre stack,
that results in the entire project being maintained by two guys in a
university closet.
Is the whole contention solved by just moving over to GitLab?
~~~
robertlagrant
GitLab would certainly "feel" like a better bet. But I don't think there's
much in it. If it's a free platform, perhaps some GNUers like the idea of
their code being hosted on Microsoft's dime :-)
------
savannahisbad
"The GNU Project" is not really a thing. It's just a list, and the list
includes projects with varying degrees of connection to the FSF:
1\. Some projects are owned and controlled by the FSF. All contributors have
to assign copyright to the FSF, and the FSF makes decisions about appointing
maintainers, where the code is hosted, etc. Examples: Emacs, gcc, glibc.
2\. A much larger set of projects are not FSF-owned or controlled in any
meaningful way. The maintainers (or former maintainers) voluntarily chose to
associate with the GNU project, but didn't assign copyright to the FSF, and
basically kept their own project governance. Examples: R[1], GNOME[2], GIMP.
3\. Finally, many projects on the official list[3] are basically abandonware.
They got started because someone thought it was important or useful to have an
open source clone of some widely used piece of software, but they never got
close to feature-complete, were never widely used, and the authors have moved
on. Check the most recent releases for most of the software on the list - it's
often been 2+ years since there has been any activity.
The projects that have moved to GitHub are all in category #2. The developers
and maintainers of those projects don't necessarily share the antagonism
towards SaaS platforms that the FSF has historically had, and they've moved to
a platform with better tooling and a larger community. A few better-resourced
projects that have stronger views on avoiding proprietary SaaS code have set
up self-hosted GitLab instances. The projects I follow that have FSF-appointed
maintainers have stayed on GNU Savannah, although many have GitHub read-only
mirrors.
[1]
[https://www.r-project.org/about.html](https://www.r-project.org/about.html)
[2]
[https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Resources/CopyrightAs...](https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Resources/CopyrightAssignment/Guidelines)
[3]
[https://www.gnu.org/manual/blurbs.html](https://www.gnu.org/manual/blurbs.html)
------
pjmlp
Having been around for a while, I believe that GNU based software was a
generational event, in the upcoming two to three decades future generations
will have back our old shareware and public domain software licenses.
~~~
savannahisbad
Rob Landley argues that a lot of the popularity was due to the fact that the
FSF had a high bandwidth FTP site at a time when that was pretty rare, so
people were willing to sign code to the FSF and license it GPL in order to
have access to that distribution method:
[https://landley.net/notes-2010.html#19-07-2010](https://landley.net/notes-2010.html#19-07-2010)
Obviously that particular advantage is no longer relevant.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What should I learn next? - enduu
For the better part of the last 2 years I've been freelancing part-time as a Wordpress developer, focused mainly on building custom themes and modifying existing plugins. Naturally, this meant PHP was the thing to learn, since I was already familiar with HTML/CSS, and 99% of the time, a bit of jQuery on the side was just enough to get the job done. However, after taking a break for a couple of months in order to focus solely on school, I've realised something pretty scary: I actually suck at programming.
What I mean by this, is not that I can't code ( I've pretty much learned programming by myself and am passionate about it ), but the fact that this entire time I've been half-assing it, and now I find myself in a place where I'm not really good at anything. I mean, I know a little bit of C that I picked up in school ( although no OOP ), enough PHP in order to be able to write simple functions that hook into Wordpress, a little bit of Ruby I picked up while building a Rails app, and although I am pretty good with HTML/CSS I'm definitely not up to date with the latest technologies.<p>So now, after graduating high school and making the decision to get into full-time freelancing, I'm faced with the following dilemma: What would be the the best thing to learn next? I am interested in web development ( although it's not excluded I'm going to learn iOS dev. too sometime in the future ), and after a lot of research I still have no idea what's the right way to go. Foe example, I know I could get serious about learning Rails ( or Django, for that matter ), but then from what I've been reading more recently, javascript ( and javascript-based MVC frameworks ) are the next big thing, and that's what I should focus on.<p>I know this is a pretty subjective matter, but I'm hoping there are some general guidelines which will help me make the best decision. Thank you!
======
fusiongyro
Postgres. Get a book by Joe Celko (SQL for Smarties, for instance) and really
learn relational databases. They're not going anywhere. Any job you take, you
can bet there's a relational database back there somewhere. Postgres is free
and will surprise you less than any other. If you're very good at SQL, you
will write a lot less code in the middle tier to post-process data on the way
out. You won't be hindered by a lack of OO understanding--in fact, it may
benefit you since you won't face the O/R impedance mismatch. Once you're good
at SQL you'll be a lot less worried about other things in the backend, and the
declarative nature will help you reason better. It will pay dividends no
matter what step you take after that.
~~~
buckbova
I'm going to agree, as a Sr Database Architect, that once you have these
skills and some experience under your belt you will never want for jobs.
There is one huge caveat. Sometimes it is so boring that I often daydream of
attempting trephination on myself.
~~~
ianstallings
But man do you guys make a killing. Holy astronomical salaries batman!
------
ianstallings
I'm going to be really generic here and say:
1\. Learn a high-level OOP language. Java, C#, etc.
2\. Learn a functional language. Haskell, Lisp, ...
3\. Learn an imperative language. Such as C.
4\. Learn an "in between". e.g. SQL.
5\. Look for outliers. e.g. Aspect oriented programming, Eiffel (DBC).
Basically learn the different paradigms around programming and the common data
types that span almost all languages. Learn when and where to apply those
paradigms and the strength of each. Knowing those things will help you adjust
to the future fairly well.
I'll give you an example of that in action. I learned some Common Lisp in my
spare time. I then went on to use C# in 2000. So when Monads were eventually
introduced in C#, I knew how and when to use them. My other colleagues at that
time, their eyes glazed over for the most part. What was this new fangled
contraption? It wasn't new at all, it was old school.
Knowing specific frameworks inside and out can be advantageous, but can also
lead to a very narrow vision. If you make yourself well rounded, it leads to a
very flexible skill set. You see something and you say "oh, that's just like
X" and you dive in. I know you want to be a web development bad ass. But a lot
of the knowledge to make you one is _outside_ of the web.
Then, if you're feeling frisky, dive into hardware.
~~~
weavie
Whilst learning these languages, don't just learn the syntax.
Get some good books on algorithms and data structures. Learn these really well
and then study the languages to find out you can implement them.
Each language will lend itself to certain structures. Learn them.
~~~
ianstallings
You just reminded me of something I left out - patterns and anti-patterns.
Knowing those might be just as valuable because then you can recognize and
adapt quickly. For example MVC is basically the same across all platforms,
with minor differences.
------
JonnieCache
Build something with no connection to the web whatsoever, eg. a platforming
game that outputs ascii to the console, or a spellchecking engine, an
emulator, or whatever. Make several versions of it, trying out radically
different ways of conceptualising the problem in code. This stuff can sound
intimidating if you've only done webdev, but it isn't at all as hard as it
might seem.
Having a broader experience of the world of software will give you a wider
range of skills and a wiser perspective on the web stuff that pays the bills
these days. You'll be able to look at some horrible design and say "duh, that
should be a finite state machine" and presto you've just wiped out a whole
load of complexity.
Webdev is sort of a ghetto, the more "outside" knowledge you can bring to it,
the more effective and the more employable you will ultimately be.
EDIT: also, become an automated testing deity ASAP. Just do it. You'll wonder
how people can code without it.
~~~
shicky
how do you become an automated testing deity? Any recommended resources?
------
parfe
I think you'd most quickly benefit from
[http://learnpythonthehardway.org/](http://learnpythonthehardway.org/) or
[http://ruby.learncodethehardway.org/](http://ruby.learncodethehardway.org/)
It sounds like you haven't really moved much beyond googling for code snippets
to solve specific problems. Work through one of the above books so you pick up
some vocabulary and get introduced to a range of concepts.
A lot of the other comments are overly ambitious with their suggestions. Start
small and learn Ruby or Python. I recommend staying away from frameworks such
as Rails because of the high overhead of required knowledge that won't really
benefit you as a programmer in general.
~~~
fantnn
I completely agree, most people I've ever encountered asking "What to learn
next" don't really understand what they think they know. There are 100
different directions you can go from if you actually had a decent
understanding of php/html/css; exploring the PHP source code, learning more
about the network protocols that http/https requests operate on top of, web
application security and security in general, browser implementation of css
rendering/javascript engines/sandboxing, all of these things are natural
extensions of web development, and are really just the tip of the iceberg.
------
davedx
Personally, for me, it's been JavaScript. I started freelancing with PHP. The
second to last freelance project I had was Java backend with AngularJS
frontend, and the tricky bits were all in the frontend. Now I've been working
freelance for the same company on several projects since June, doing 100%
JavaScript; mostly frontend, with bits and pieces of nodejs, grunt and so on
for tooling.
To get off to a good start I suggest learning how encapsulation and modules
are done in JavaScript (e.g. prototype, the module pattern, possibly also
node's exports or something like requirejs). This will allow you to actually
build large JavaScript projects without them turning into a Frankenstein's
"everything in a single file in jQuery's document.ready" monster.
Try to focus on learning the language and its features and not get lost in
DOM-land (use libraries or your framework of choice for manipulating the DOM
unless you have a very good reason not to).
Learn all about how to read and manipulate data using XmlHttpRequests, web
services, REST, JSON and so on. This will be invaluable for any projects that
have third party dependencies, which will be most of them these days.
Spend a little time learning about which frameworks are better for rich
desktop-style browser apps (hint: probably the bigger ones, like Angular or
Ember), and which are more suited to lightweight apps that will also run
nicely in mobile or other embedded devices (hint: probably the smaller ones,
like Backbone).
Polish your jQuery knowledge. It will be popular and useful for a long time
yet, and it's a big library with lots of extremely handy functions and
features.
Maybe pick up other useful "utility" libraries like underscore.
Finally, if you're interested in driving code quality and keeping clients
happy and regressions at bay, I suggest you look into automated unit and
integration testing. Again here there are large, complicated tools like karma
and smaller, lightweight "test logic only" libs like jasmine. If you're like
me, you will get lots of enjoyment and satisfaction figuring out how to wire
up node, grunt, jshint, phantomjs and (your test lib of choice) to get a
single command build/deploy/test script. If you're likely to work in a team,
get that script running in a CI server for bonus points.
If you have any questions hit me up on [email protected], happy to help! :)
~~~
w1ntermute
I'm doing this right now - evaluating Angular vs Ember, then picking one to
focus on learning well.
> probably the bigger ones, like Angular or Ember), and which are more suited
> to lightweight apps that will also run nicely in mobile or other embedded
> devices (hint: probably the smaller ones, like Backbone
Is it inadvisable to use Angular/Ember for mobile? I hadn't heard this before.
------
danaw
Honestly, get a job. What has taught me most about programming is having new
problems to solve that required new skills, techniques and tools. The best way
to "fund" your development is to find someone who will pay you to solve their
problems.
I started out of school doin front-end, then the next project I started with
frontend and then had to learn Django. Job after that was all Django/frontend.
Then, Django to Rails. Now im doing Node/Go/hardware/etc. Each job paid me to
learn new languages, adopt new techniques and find better ways to solve
problems.
I'd hop on Craigslist or one of the millions of freelance sites and contact a
few potential jobs that you think you can pull off but would require you to
learn a bit. It may seem a bit haphazard compared to a more academic approach
but it will be more of a realistic growth curve compared to the realities of
the freelance world.
Also, side projects are a great way to experiment.
Think of it as "job driven development".
------
aethertap
If you have the financial resources to do it, I'd recommend spending some time
exploring other parts of business and computer science. There are some really
great free resources out there for learning (coursera, udacity, etc.). The
reason I say that is that having some solid fundamentals will give you more
flexibility in terms of what you can do, and it'll also let you try some other
potential career paths on for size.
If you can spend a couple of years at the start building breadth in your skill
base, you'll be able to gracefully adapt to changes in your lifestyle, the
online market situation, and other things that come up. I know a couple of
guys who jumped in full bore kind of like it sounds like you're talking about,
and they eventually found themselves pigeonholed into a single career for
their whole lives, because as life went on their obligations accumulated to
the point where they could no longer afford the interruption in income that a
career change would mean (because they would have to learn basically
everything over again). So, if you can keep your expenses minimal and pay them
with your freelancing work, I'd say just try to get some foundational business
management and computer science knowledge under your belt.
As far as what tech/language/etc will give you the best bang for the buck in
today's freelancing market I have no idea. Regardless of that though, I'd say
that learning Internet marketing seems like the most important thing you can
do to ensure success. This is something I failed to understand at the start
and I'm paying for it now.
------
3pt14159
Get serious about learning Rails, then get serious about learning EmberJS. If
you are good at both of those you will be in a great place when it comes to
building web apps.
------
mildtrepidation
Looking for "the next big thing" is a crap shoot.
If what you want is all the consulting work you could ever possibly do, then
learning more PHP will get you that. Stick with Wordpress and/or pick up
Symfony, CodeIgniter, just about anything except Zend (and for the love of all
things holy, do NOT go anywhere near Magento if you value your sanity).
If you're OK working a bit harder to find gigs but likely making more from
them when you do (and facing less competition), Ruby/Rails or Python/Django
would be good choices. You could go for more obscure languages and frameworks,
but at that point you may have a hard time selling your services.
Starting with iOS (or Android) is also something to consider. People often
don't realize that, when you get into full-stack web development, you have to
be proficient with many technologies and software packages just to get a site
working, tested, and deployed. While you'll likely end up having to expand
into more than just ObjectiveC or Java fairly quickly when you work with
mobile (don't get stuck in the PhoneGap/Appcelerator rut), a basic mobile app
on either platform will be simpler to build and manage than a basic dynamic
website.
------
enduu
Ok first of all, holy crap, I can't believe this actually hit the front page,
definitely wasn't expecting that. Thanks again for all the input, I couldn't
have asked for more.
Ultimately, I'm still not 100% sure, but after going through all the comments
a couple of times, I think I've finally made up my mind. For the next month /
couple of months, I'm going to slowly get back into freelancing while giving
PHP a serious go. Although PHP may not be my first choice, I realise now this
is actually the right one since WP development is going to be my main source
of income for the next 6-12 months, so I need to get really good at it. Aside
from that, I plan on sharpening my front-end skills and trying out a couple of
other stuff as well such as SASS and Git.
After I feel I'm comfortable enough with PHP, I plan on trying out the Laravel
framework, and see if I actually like it as much as Rails. Either way, I'm
definitely going to learn Ruby as well ( I've already finished "Learn to
Program" by Chris Pine some time ago ), and eventually spend less time on WP
in order to finally master Rails. In the end, I'm hoping to give up WP
entirely and work only on RoR projects ( either my own or by freelancing ).
I know a couple of you guys were suggesting that I should focus on things
which are not related to web development at all, and I see your point, but
honestly I simply can't get excited about that stuff at all. Maybe later on
I'm going to feel different about it, but for now I'm focusing solely on web
development.
Also, regarding SQL, that's something I may've left out in my original post,
but fortunately I am pretty familiar with MySQL, I even studied it in school.
------
pcx66
I think you should first explore Computer Science in general. You should start
with a good programming language, a high-level, beginner-friendly, very web-
favored one. Pick Ruby or Python. Then grab courses on Algorithms, Databases,
Computer Networks and an other area you wanna explore. You don't need to
complete them, but just get a feel of what they have in store for you. Make
sure you write some code as part of the Algorithms course.
Web development is not just using frameworks. There is real Computer Science
involved for building and maintaining any substantially complex web-app. Apart
from this, there will almost certainly be domain-specific knowledge required
for a complex web-app.
If you get a hang of programming, and love the CS concepts you are trying to
learn, you can then build a career path accordingly (may be college?). If you
are dis-inclined, then you can get to learn Rails/Django, and keep free-
lancing.
I think at the age you are in, you should not miss out on getting a chance to
learn some serious CS.
------
saltcod
As someone in what feels like your exact same boat—though a bit older— I'd say
just pick one. It makes the most sense to me, personally, to pick Python or
Ruby or PHP (Laravel or similar) and learn how to actually program. I think
choosing this path will introduce you all sorts of other stuff — rest, user
input, security, modern front-end tools like LESS, etc.
Even sticking with WordPress could yield a good result for you. WordPress and
PHP are constantly criticized for a number of different reasons, but the
reality remains: WordPress and PHP occupy a huge chunk of a huge market.
I've personally identified this to be one of my biggest failings — not being
able to actually program. At first I thought it was about language, and so I
tried PHP (about 100 different times), I tried Ruby a few times, Python, and
finally, JS. It turns out that all of these languages require the exact same
thing — they require you to think like a programmer.
The furthest I got with it was with Ruby. I went through the entire Ruby
course at Codecademy, read a lot of the Bastards Book of Ruby (fantastic), and
even used Ruby to get through some Project Euler projects. By the end of a few
good months of moderate input, I was absolutely still not a programmer, but I
felt like I was beginning to think more like one.
So that's one piece of advice — if you want to learn to program, I think you
actually need to decide on a language/framework and settle in and learn how to
program. Learn how to think like a programmer, which is to say that it isn't
about syntax and how each language does things slightly differently, but
rather, is about process and patters and abstraction.
The other piece of advice is to be careful with freelancing. Paying the bills
and learning to code don't necessarily go hand in hand. Spending 4 nights a
week writing a WordPress theme for a client project really won't make you a
better programmer. If I've learned anything, it's this. I've made some great
supplemental money doing freelance work and I've learned a ton about
WordPress, but I often think about the time I've put into it, and wonder what
if I'd put that same time into learning and working on projects to further my
ability to actually program.
And finally, the last piece of advice — try stuff out. Try JS, Python, Ruby,
WordPress, Drupal, try setting up a VPS at Linode. Try everything you can to
get sense of what feels right. I think that will help with your decision as
well.
Good luck!
~~~
taternuts
I have a couple friends that are trying to learn how to program and they are
constantly bouncing from java to python to javascript to whatever else, and it
really does them no good because they never sit long enough to learn the
fundamentals of programming, just the basics of that given language. You
really do have to work with one language for awhile and get comfortable with
that language/environment and how to use it to solve problems. Once you get
decent at this, then bouncing to the language du-jour is easier, more
enjoyable, and you take away a lot more from it ('oh wow cool, in language X I
had to do this, this, this and that, with language Y I just have to do this!')
~~~
saltcod
Solid advice. It's taken me years of bouncing around just like that, but it's
finally sinking in. =)
------
kaeawc
It doesn't sound like you have mastered any one particular language. I would
recommend pursuing one of the ones you have some experience in (Rails, PHP, or
JavaScript) and making projects from scratch. Being able to build an entire
application or utility from nothing and understanding all the parts is a great
skill to have. I would not recommend learning any particular framework (web or
otherwise) except as a tool to gain mastery of a language. Frameworks are
scaffolding to allow you to use your understanding of a language to
effectively build your idea into working models, they should not be treated as
the be-all-end-all of a language. Limiting your learning to jQuery or Rails
instead of trying to learn JavaScript or Ruby themselves will not get you the
mastery you need to grow as a developer.
------
zemo
Python, because it's easy to learn and it's super versatile. I don't code
Python full time any more, but I still find a way to use it on a fairly
regular basis. It's a very handy thing to have in your tool belt, regardless
of what you wind up doing in the long term, and there's a lot of literature
related to learning programming that's taught with Python. Python is probably
the most average language you can find, which is why it works well for your
stated purpose of having a more solid foundation. Although it's not the best
tool for most jobs, it sounds like you don't entirely know what you want to
do, and Python is an adequate tool for a _lot_ of different things; it can
expose you to a variety of programming environments.
------
gremlinsinc
I was in the same boat as you, and I swore I was going to learn Rails - and
just 'go w/ it' -so I built an app in Rails..but when it came time to deploy
-- my host only supported a specific version of Ruby -- and I wasn't about to
pay $50 a month to host a hobby so to speak...
Then I decided I was going to try and duplicate it in php --which php is
extremely ugly--UNLESS you're laravel. I found laravel which I am getting
pretty darn good at, and I absolutely love it! It's Rails for php and has
taught me GOOD design principles for php(instead of spaghetti code, like how
to use namespacing and build my own packages, and their's a strong community
for it -- I highly recommend going to #laravel on freenode(irc) -- for help
when you need it.
------
ibstudios
Think of a project, pick the tools, and start building. If you don't stop
until it is done you will learn something.
I just did this with ruby and sinatra. When it was all done I ended up
learning ruby, sinatra, javascript, jquery, redis, passenger, rack, haml, and
how to edit gems in github.
Best of luck.
------
jcmoscon
I would study whatever you will study about programming plus study how to
persuade people by using your writing or your speech. Study classic rhetoric
(Greek) and modern persuasion techniques. This is very important to your
success in business and in live. Learn how to make people do what you want
them to do. This will help you when you are in a meeting with colleagues, when
you are selling your software, even when you are designing your website. By
learning how to persuade you will learn more about yourself and learn about
the others.
------
ronaldx
If you want to learn computer science more thoroughly, why don't you take a
university-level course? You can continue freelancing to pay your way through
it. That would give you broad-ranging skills and a good qualification to
present to clients/employers.
I'm not sure if this is the best option for you, but then I'd be curious why
that's not your first choice. Since you have a clear understanding of what you
need, you can pick a course that fits you and ignore the bullshit that comes
with it.
------
gbog
The next big thing will be the next flop. I'd advise you to learn one of the
good old things, like python.
------
JimmaDaRustla
I too see JS growing to be an all around general purpose language, and it is
definitely a good one to learn to break away from the standard class based
languages. The book Javascript - The Good Parts is a great and explains the
power and weaknesses of Javascript.
~~~
acheron
> I too see JS growing to be an all around general purpose language
Truly this is the darkest timeline.
~~~
JimmaDaRustla
Doomsday ;)
------
esalman
I learned C at school and self-taught myself enough PHP and JS to do web
development. I understand programming logic and OOP pretty well. Now I'm
reading Code Complete by Steve McConnell to gain a better perspective on
software engineering.
------
chuangtzu
Drupal. You already know wordpress, but with wordpress a fixed rate for a
basic site runs $600, premium site $1800-$2000. There are premium+ sites that
you get contract work for. But I've never heard of a boondoggle-scale
Wordpress site. With Drupal that's all there is, boondoggle rates. I've never
seen fixed rate sites done with Drupal, and there's a reason for that I
suppose.
~~~
issa
This cracked me up. But seriously, if you know some PHP and want to quickly be
able to work on larger projects, Drupal is a great idea.
------
dc_ploy
Whatever you do, pick one and OWN it.
------
quattrofan
[http://www.codecademy.com/](http://www.codecademy.com/)
------
VLM
If you went play framework w/ Scala it would be pretty hard to avoid learning
some OO and you could also learn some functional stuff. You've got enough
background to get over the initial hump, now start writing "interesting" stuff
not just yet another CRUD app.
You seem to have a database sized hole... The hard part about databases isn't
the syntax, or peculiarities of specific DBs, or even optimization tricks to
make things faster, but design. What is normalization? Why/When would you want
it? What tasks need a relational design, or not... Even if you never pivot
into being a DBA it helps alot to at least minimally speak a DBAs language
when you write a CRUD app talking to his DB.
Programming as in slinging code syntax stuff, or higher level design? Might
want to crawl inside algorithms for awhile with Knuth and other books. Much
like learning Algebra its not like you'll ever use it, its more to discipline
the mind to figure out other complicated stuff. You should really google for
and spend a lot of time at "project euler" if you're trying to learn higher
level programming. Many of the PE problems aimed at turning you into a better
mathematician can be hacked on brute force-ish to make you a better
programmer. As a hint the first problem you're not "supposed to" brute force
add those together, you're "supposed to" figure out the easy formula. But
writing the brute force adder is none the less an interesting experience if
you've never done it before in your language of choice. (edited to add, buy
and read and "do" the entire "little schemer" series, or at least the first
book)
I don't know if this would make you more employable, but in terms of extending
your greater computer-ish knowledge you could do worse than some embedded
stuff. Get an Arduino and some shields and some servos and some sensors and
make it do something really well. You claimed to know a little bit of C so
here's something fun to do with it.
You also seem to have an OS sized hole in your list of experience so some
systems programming type experience might be interesting. Get a couple free
machines (castoffs) and figure out how to use Puppet to make them jump thru
hoops. Since you have a cluster, there's a lot of fun you can have learning
how clustering/replication tech works and scales. Don't worry about using old
junk computers, there's absolutely no difference between clustering on new big
iron and on a free junkpile P3 other than the new stuff is faster. Make your
own DB host and a bunch of front ends and see what happens. Maybe try a
cluster of DB hosts and FEs talking to the DBs. Much like the DB thing you may
never become a sysadmin but learning to speak their language will help even if
you stick to webdev work.
------
presidentender
Where do you find clients?
------
qwerty_asdf
Using Eclipse to bootstrap into Java represents a pretty reasonable and
comfortable environment to wade into.
Go to: [http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/](http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/)
Download the Java EE version. Create a project with a class named Main.java in
a package like "com.example.test".
In the class:
public static void main(String[] args) {
if (args != null && args.length > 0) {
for (int i = 0;i < args.length;i++) {
System.out.println("Hi there!");
}
} else System.out.println("Hello.");
}
Hey, presto! You're a Java programmer. Try compiling and running it.
To get your feet wet with web programming, here's some quick and dirty bare
bones code:
TestServlet.java
/******************************************************************************/
package com.example.test;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
public class TestServlet extends HttpServlet {
private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
@Override
protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) throws ServletException, IOException {
try {
resp.getWriter().print("<html><body>Hello. <form action=\"\" method=\"POST\"><button>Hey!</button></form></body></html>");
} catch(Exception e) {
System.err.println(e.getClass().getName());
}
}
@Override
protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) throws ServletException, IOException {
try {
resp.getWriter().print("<html><body>Hi there!</body></html>");
} catch(Exception e) {
System.err.println(e.getClass().getName());
}
}
}
/******************************************************************************/
And then...
web.xml
<!-- ####################################################################### -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd" id="WebApp_ID" version="3.0">
<servlet>
<servlet-name>main</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>com.example.test.TestServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>main</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>
<!-- ####################################################################### -->
This will compile and run on Apache Tomcat, if you compile and deploy as a
ROOT.war file.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Making a GUI toolkit - asrp
http://asrp.github.io/blog/gui_toolkit
======
asrp
Maybe I should have used a different title. This is half about making a GUI
toolkit and half about a GUI toolkit maker.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google drops the axe on its internal renewable energy work - evo_9
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/11/google-drops-the-axe-on-its-internal-renewable-energy-work.ars
======
patrickaljord
Here is what Google said:
> We will continue our work to generate cleaner, more efficient
> energy—including our on-campus efforts, procuring renewable energy for our
> data centers, making our data centers even more efficient and investing more
> than $850 million in renewable energy technologies.
So they're still investing close to a billion dollar in renewable energy.
[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/more-spring-
cleaning-...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/more-spring-cleaning-out-
of-season.html)
------
JonnieCache
I always thought it'd be funny if it turned out google solved the energy
crisis in their 20% time. Imagine how smug they'd be. It'd make apple look
pretty stupid.
~~~
mahyarm
Even although they make less money than apple by an order of magnitude, i've
always felt like google was the more innovative engineering organization.
Apple I feel is more of an industrial design organization at heart in all
layers.
~~~
redthrowaway
>Even although they make less money than apple by an order of magnitude,
Google reported revenues of ~30B for FY10, Apple reported ~60B. That's only an
order of magnitude in binary.
------
pasbesoin
This is a mistake. Energy is the next/current big challenge, one in need of
research (including and especially domestic, for the U.S.). Google retained
some of my loyalty by continuing to pursue this, including such research.
Perhaps I'm just taking it personally. Nonetheless, mistake. 1) Google becomes
ever more "just a web site company". (Well, and phones that access the web and
apps hosted on the web.) 2) Google's starting to throw over its non-web
projects the same way it's been discarding its web projects and acquisitions.
This pattern may begin to seriously shake others' belief in and commitment to
long term investments in their products and technologies, in both areas.
Whatever their future, the blush is off the rose (or however that metaphor's
supposed to go), IMO.
Or maybe I'm just pissed that the U.S. cannot manage a coherent "next
generation" energy policy, and the last player I had any hope in just got out.
P.S. I guess I should qualify this by saying my opinion is not tne most
informed. So, again, this is in the nature of a personal reaction.
~~~
synnik
Some of us are working full-time on renewable energy projects - my company is
one of them. The US may not have a policy in place, but the Senators we have
met with are supportive of our efforts, showing us where more general business
policies can be helpful to our business.
FYI, the problem with developing renewable energy is not the actual energy
production itself. Every inventor out there has a "better" turbine to try, The
barriers lie in regulatory limitations and the massive amount of capital
needed to build out projects.
------
marshallp
Because they're shifting resources to google x, expect big announcements on
the scale of self driving car from them soon
~~~
iandanforth
Clearly this is what we want to hear, but do you know something concrete? Feel
free to add teaser dates, vague references to AI, or the word 'space' in your
response.
~~~
marshallp
Watch sergey's interview with tim o'reilly on youtube from last week, he
mentions that something out of x lab will be coming out by the end of this
year. Also, the fact that he's not actively working on google+ and their
cutting of previously ambitious projects like energy, google health, etc and
the new york times article mentions stanford and nyu, welll known neural
network researchers (andrew ng and yann lecunn) means it's probably ai
related, probably neural networks applied to computer vision. Space, i
probably don't think so.
Of course this is all speculation, i don't have any inside info.
~~~
geogra4
The end of Google health was really sad. A centralized medical records system
would be an incredible time and money saver for healthcare.
Although I'd love a self-driving car, and I think it will certainly save a lot
of lives.
~~~
mahyarm
A centralized medical records system is more political, social and procedural
than any sort of technological revolution. The technology to create one has
been around for decades.
------
mathattack
It's easy to sink a lot of money into renewables. (Look at our govt) Great
that Google didn't have the hubris to chase this too long. Being great at
search doesn't mean solving world peace, boiling oceans, or solving the energy
crisis.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Looking for a 'how to hire' type-ish thread from a githubber - killnine
I read a post discussing good hiring techniques on Monday (11/7) between 5:30 and 9:00 by a githubber and have been looking for it too long now -- hoping somebody can remember some better clues about it then I can .. please dont waste time digging for it.. thats what i will be doing. just post if you can remember it off the top of your head.. thank you
======
killnine
found it - [http://blogmyquery.com/index.php/2011/11/knyle-style-
recruit...](http://blogmyquery.com/index.php/2011/11/knyle-style-recruiting/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Latest version of Chrome can't copy and paste urls to Outlook - DerekH
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/chrome/Sqv4fPmgztU/wpWF0HXXDQAJ
======
tssva
This issue is only with pasting copied urls into Outlook. The title should be
changed.
~~~
DerekH
Thanks for pointing that out. I've been reading through the bug reports and
some people have been mentioning other apps in addition to Outlook: Notes.app
and Mail.app. I haven't noticed any others yet.
Source:
[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=618771](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=618771)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Localization platform Phraseapp now offers Gengo powered translation - holdupadam
http://blog.gengo.com/phraseapp-partnership/
======
WolframHH
Very cool!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Logging is the new commenting - smikhanov
http://www.mikhanov.com/2013/07/03/logging-is-the-new-commenting-297
======
drKarl
Logging is a powerful tool to debug a problem, but it comes with a cost, a
high penalty in performance. So debugging should be flexible enough to have
different levels (info, debug, warning, error/fatal) and of course have lots
more logging when debugging but eliminate all logging except for errors or
exceptions when on a production environment. Writing a log to a disk is a
blocking IO operation, and thus terribly slow.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What’s Coming in Go 1.13 [slides] - dcu
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vRo5urog_B76BcnQbIo7I391MZUKFj7l3gku6hypJ-WK1KCFw40A7BiM6NOVsqD17sA9jS7GyzCfnN4/pub?slide=id.g550f852d27_228_0
======
cryptos
This slide deck might be nice as a wallpaper for a presentation, but it is not
a good read.
Is there a blog post targeting readers in the web?
~~~
andy_ppp
If you wanted you could copy every slide into a HN comment and then people
wouldn't have to read the article. There is not much.
------
lovetocode
Finally a better module experience inside of gopath. That was a major hang up
for me
------
andy_ppp
They made Go faster (priorities), added some very niche number types and TLS
1.3 support?
The only language features they seem to have added are small improvements to
error handling.
~~~
NotPaidToPost
A programming language should be stable, not add/change things all the time.
~~~
andy_ppp
Sure, it’s just that Golang deliberately lacks features to create abstractions
which means every time I look at it I’m disappointed.
It’s very frustrating how unstable and slow in terms of dev speed things are
in the last _THREE_ places I’ve worked (as a frontend with the backends all
written in Golang). Go teams seem to rebuild everything from scratch and they
never seem to understand micro services in the context of distributed systems.
I mean we are doing microservices, Golang, grpc, cockroach dB and we have a
few thousand users maximum. It drives me up the wall that this stack is so
popular and the engineers championing it can’t deliver reliable software
quickly in it... most of them can't even optimise queries in SQL and are
concatenating strings together in SQL queries.
Take the Elixir ecosystem; I could outpace a team of three Golang engineers
easily writing stuff in Elixir and my software would almost never crash or
panic and be very flexible when changes were needed. Everything in Golang is
calcified around current product requirements and a nightmare to change. So
forgive me when I think Golang has a long way to go before it's something I'd
want to use for anything but the smallest of command line tools.
~~~
kc1116
Sounds like you worked with shitty backend engineers. I don’t understand how
Go has anything to do with that. Nobody uses elixir bud, and saying basically
“my software would be perfect” is a naive silly thing to say.
~~~
andy_ppp
I just think I've had this happen three times in a row, as if there is
something likely to be wrong with the types of programmer who choose this
technology.
I never said my code is perfect or bug free at all, you just made up a straw
man to weaken my anecdotal evidence.
~~~
apta
> I just think I've had this happen three times in a row, as if there is
> something likely to be wrong with the types of programmer who choose this
> technology.
You can add a datapoint to that based on what I have experienced as well at an
employer. Exactly what you mentioned, so much time wasted either due to
reinventing the wheel, or because of language friction and it being way
underpowered to model the problem at hand. I keep laughing that Java would
have been a way superior fit in practically all fronts.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
RoR developers: looking for feedback on my portfolio - nickplace
http://nickplace.github.io
======
nickplace
I recently graduated and this is my first time looking for jobs using an
online portfolio. Looking for any feedback I can get, I also appreciate "It's
too boring" comments...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Kontera Raises $15.5M For Annoying In-Text Advertising Technology - JournalistHack
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/23/kontera-raises-155m-for-annoying-in-text-advertising-technology/
======
russell
"Annoying" is certainly correct. The damned things pop up even when your mouse
rolls over them. Now I know who to add to my Roast-in-Hell list.
~~~
stilist
I prefer to just add ^://^kontera.com/^ (swap ^ for *) to my adblocker.
Magical things that appear on mouseover—whether ads, Snap-style previews, or
anything else—are annoying and almost certainly unwanted. It’s a pretty bad
interaction model, particularly when it’s something not worth the
interruption.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Subsets and Splits