Cloudflare is down along with so many other websites. Error 502. - rishiloyola
https://cloudflare.com/
======
martin_a
Why do people even use Cloudflare so extensively?

Using a CDN is not essential for every website. Just get yourself some shared
webhosting or whatever for your tech blog and you are good to go, no need for
fancy CDNs that go down like this.

Or is it just because it's fancy tech?

~~~
skilled
SEO definitely puts a lot of pressure on people. Most guides these days talk
about performance, and performance is directly linked with services such as
CDN's.

But like you say, this can definitely be resolved through Web Servers and
resource optimisation.

For WordPress blogs, OpenLiteSpeed has been a godsend to run a WP blog with up
to par performance.

~~~
martin_a
Yeah, I know. I've developed with/for WordPress for 10 years and most
performance issues can easily be mitigated by optimizing your resources, using
caching and more. I never had to rely on CDNs for good performance, though,
also SEO agencies try to sell you this. Hard to explain to customers, though.

------
macinjosh
Not sure why engineers insist on building their products on top of single
points of failure like Cloudflare, AWS, etc. It is very short sighted to give
a 3rd party so much control over your business.

------
buildbuildbuild
Cloudflare: your uptime is critical to your customers' bottom lines. Please
change your status page to update automatically.
[https://i.imgur.com/qHBM2JW.png](https://i.imgur.com/qHBM2JW.png)

edit: An incident now exists, best wishes to the teams working hard over
there.
[https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/incidents/tx4pgxs6zxdr](https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/incidents/tx4pgxs6zxdr)

------
WildGreenLeave
Their statuspage just update to "Network Performance Issues":
[https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/](https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/)

------
Cub3
Welp there goes everyones uptime metrics for the month

------
mhkool
yesterday the site transferwise.com on cloudflare also was down and when it
came back had intermittent issues.

------
ussrlongbow
Not available along with their dashboard

~~~
rishiloyola
yeah not even their blogs.

------
AliAdams
Link to the relevant incident:
[https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/incidents/tx4pgxs6zxdr](https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/incidents/tx4pgxs6zxdr)

"This incident affects: North America (Ashburn, VA, United States - (IAD),
Atlanta, GA, United States - (ATL), Boston, MA, United States - (BOS),
Buffalo, NY, United States - (BUF), Calgary, AB, Canada - (YYC), Charlotte,
NC, United States - (CLT), Chicago, IL, United States - (ORD), Columbus, OH,
United States - (CMH), Dallas, TX, United States - (DFW), Denver, CO, United
States - (DEN), Detroit, MI, United States - (DTW), Houston, TX, United States
- (IAH), Indianapolis, IN, United States - (IND), Jacksonville, FL, United
States - (JAX), Kansas City, MO, United States - (MCI), Las Vegas, NV, United
States - (LAS), Los Angeles, CA, United States - (LAX), McAllen, TX, United
States - (MFE), Memphis, TN, United States - (MEM), Miami, FL, United States -
(MIA), Minneapolis, MN, United States - (MSP), Montgomery, AL, United States -
(MGM), Montréal, QC, Canada - (YUL), Nashville, TN, United States - (BNA),
Newark, NJ, United States - (EWR), Norfolk, VA, United States - (ORF), Omaha,
NE, United States - (OMA), Phoenix, AZ, United States - (PHX), Pittsburgh, PA,
United States - (PIT), Portland, OR, United States - (PDX), Queretaro, MX,
Mexico - (QRO), Richmond, Virginia - (RIC), Sacramento, CA, United States -
(SMF), Salt Lake City, UT, United States - (SLC), San Diego, CA, United States
- (SAN), San Jose, CA, United States - (SJC), Saskatoon, SK, Canada - (YXE),
Seattle, WA, United States - (SEA), St. Louis, MO, United States - (STL),
Tampa, FL, United States - (TPA), Toronto, ON, Canada - (YYZ), Vancouver, BC,
Canada - (YVR), Tallahassee, FL, United States - (TLH), Winnipeg, MB, Canada -
(YWG)), Middle East (Amman, Jordan - (AMM), Baghdad, Iraq - (BGW), Baku,
Azerbaijan - (GYD), Beirut, Lebanon - (BEY), Doha, Qatar - (DOH), Dubai,
United Arab Emirates - (DXB), Kuwait City, Kuwait - (KWI), Manama, Bahrain -
(BAH), Muscat, Oman - (MCT), Ramallah - (ZDM), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - (RUH),
Tel Aviv, Israel - (TLV)), Asia (Bangkok, Thailand - (BKK), Cebu, Philippines
- (CEB), Chengdu, China - (CTU), Chennai, India - (MAA), Colombo, Sri Lanka -
(CMB), Dongguan, China - (SZX), Foshan, China - (FUO), Fuzhou, China - (FOC),
Guangzhou, China - (CAN), Hangzhou, China - (HGH), Hanoi, Vietnam - (HAN),
Hengyang, China - (HNY), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam - (SGN), Hong Kong - (HKG),
Hyderabad, India - (HYD), Islamabad, Pakistan - (ISB), Jinan, China - (TNA),
Karachi, Pakistan - (KHI), Kathmandu, Nepal - (KTM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia -
(KUL), Lahore, Pakistan - (LHE), Langfang, China - (NAY), Luoyang, China -
(LYA), Macau - (MFM), Manila, Philippines - (MNL), Mumbai, India - (BOM),
Nanning, China - (NNG), New Delhi, India - (DEL), Osaka, Japan - (KIX), Phnom
Penh, Cambodia - (PNH), Qingdao, China - (TAO), Seoul, South Korea - (ICN),
Shanghai, China - (SHA), Shenyang, China - (SHE), Shijiazhuang, China - (SJW),
Singapore, Singapore - (SIN), Suzhou, China - (SZV), Taipei - (TPE), Tianjin,
China - (TSN), Tokyo, Japan - (NRT), Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia - (ULN), Wuhan,
China - (WUH), Wuxi, China - (WUX), Xi'an, China - (XIY), Yerevan, Armenia -
(EVN), Zhengzhou, China - (CGO), Zuzhou, China - (CSX)), Africa (Cairo, Egypt
- (CAI), Casablanca, Morocco - (CMN), Cape Town, South Africa - (CPT), Dar Es
Salaam, Tanzania - (DAR), Djibouti City, Djibouti - (JIB), Durban, South
Africa - (DUR), Johannesburg, South Africa - (JNB), Lagos, Nigeria - (LOS),
Luanda, Angola - (LAD), Maputo, MZ - (MPM), Mombasa, Kenya - (MBA), Port
Louis, Mauritius - (MRU), Réunion, France - (RUN), Kigali, Rwanda - (KGL)),
Latin America & the Caribbean (Asunción, Paraguay - (ASU), Bogotá, Colombia -
(BOG), Buenos Aires, Argentina - (EZE), Curitiba, Brazil - (CWB), Fortaleza,
Brazil - (FOR), Lima, Peru - (LIM), Medellín, Colombia - (MDE), Mexico City,
Mexico - (MEX), Panama City, Panama - (PTY), Porto Alegre, Brazil - (POA),
Quito, Ecuador - (UIO), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - (GIG), São Paulo, Brazil -
(GRU), Santiago, Chile - (SCL), Willemstad, Curaçao - (CUR)), Oceania
(Auckland, New Zealand - (AKL), Brisbane, QLD, Australia - (BNE), Melbourne,
VIC, Australia - (MEL), Perth, WA, Australia - (PER), Sydney, NSW, Australia -
(SYD)), and Europe (Amsterdam, Netherlands - (AMS), Athens, Greece - (ATH),
Barcelona, Spain - (BCN), Belgrade, Serbia - (BEG), Berlin, Germany - (TXL),
Brussels, Belgium - (BRU), Bucharest, Romania - (OTP), Budapest, Hungary -
(BUD), Chișinău, Moldova - (KIV), Copenhagen, Denmark - (CPH), Dublin, Ireland
- (DUB), Düsseldorf, Germany - (DUS), Edinburgh, United Kingdom - (EDI),
Frankfurt, Germany - (FRA), Geneva, Switzerland - (GVA), Gothenburg, Sweden -
(GOT), Hamburg, Germany - (HAM), Helsinki, Finland - (HEL), Istanbul, Turkey -
(IST), Kyiv, Ukraine - (KBP), Lisbon, Portugal - (LIS), London, United Kingdom
- (LHR), Luxembourg City, Luxembourg - (LUX), Madrid, Spain - (MAD),
Manchester, United Kingdom - (MAN), Marseille, France - (MRS), Milan, Italy -
(MXP), Moscow, Russia - (DME), Munich, Germany - (MUC), Nicosia, Cyprus -
(LCA), Oslo, Norway - (OSL), Paris, France - (CDG), Prague, Czech Republic -
(PRG), Reykjavík, Iceland - (KEF), Riga, Latvia - (RIX), Rome, Italy - (FCO),
Saint Petersburg, Russia - (LED), Sofia, Bulgaria - (SOF), Stockholm, Sweden -
(ARN), Tallinn, Estonia - (TLL), Thessaloniki, Greece - (SKG), Vienna, Austria
- (VIE), Vilnius, Lithuania - (VNO), Warsaw, Poland - (WAW), Zagreb, Croatia -
(ZAG), Zürich, Switzerland - (ZRH))."


Mafia Sourcing – How Insiders Game User Generated News for Money - andrewbadera
http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/09/01/mafia-sourcing-the-insiders-game-of-user-powered-news/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+BothSidesOfTheTable+(Both+Sides+of+the+Table)#
======
RiderOfGiraffes
Dup: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1655469>

Much discussion there ...


Pmarca Guide to Personal Productivity (2007) - tosh
https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_personal_productivity.html
======
lqet
While I think that completely avoiding a calendar or any fixed appointments is
a bit unrealistic (think of doctor's appointments), I agree and deeply
sympathize with the gist of it. One of the main reasons I quit my previous job
was that I was unable to get _any_ meaningful work done, because the day was
very tightly organized around a central ticketing system. Oh, you had a nice
idea to solve one of the problems in the long-term project the company is
currently working on? Too bad, because there are already 4, oh wait, 5, high-
priority tickets waiting for you, and by the time you have finished those, you
will have forgotten the idea. This happened so frequently and was so
frustrating that after a few months I just shut off my brain and was basically
a robot finishing off tickets assigned to me. Needless to say, I felt
miserable for 1.5 years.

After I quit, I lived off my savings for 6 months and literally had no
schedule of any kind. I woke up and did whatever I was interested in. I got
more work done in these 6 months than in the 2 years before.

~~~
yawaworht598
wow i feel a lot like you describe. I've been thinking about taking a few
months off just to reset and somehow figure out what I want to really be doing
but... it's scary. I have the money saved up for it to not be a problem. But
after the 6 months... then what?

What did you end up doing? Any advice?

~~~
lqet
If you aren't interested in freelance work, try to look for companies with a
dedicated research team. You usually won't find that in smaller companies, as
they cannot afford a few people trying to solve a problem for 2 years with
only a 60% chance of success.

PS: if you are really unhappy with your job (to the point where it affects you
physically), don't think it will magically get better if you stay. It won't.
This hope wasted 1 year of my life.

------
tuxxy
> When someone emails or calls to say, "Let's meet on Tuesday at 3", the
> appropriate response is: "I'm not keeping a schedule for 2007, so I can't
> commit to that, but give me a call on Tuesday at 2:45 and if I'm available,
> I'll meet with you."

Is it just me, or does this come off as exceptionally arrogant? It's literally
just telling people to plan their lives around yours. It just seems like time
spent with this individual is a token of charitable _grace_. This is the
opposite of what I'd expect professional behavior to look like.

~~~
adrianmsmith
_" It's literally just telling people to plan their lives around yours",_ I
agree, but on the other hand why should people have the right to tell you to
plan your life around theirs, isn't that arrogant of them?

Regarding this, and also not answering the phone, and turning off email, it
depends on what sort of job you have.

For me this is all about: my best work comes from when I'm in the flow. So
I'll do anything to avoid being taken out of it.

I am a software developer, freelance, mostly work from home. I have deadlines,
and I mostly work in fixed-price projects so the longer it takes the less I
earn per unit time. I can get high-quality work done the fastest when I'm in
the flow.

Is it the right of the customer to call me and interrupt me from my flow? I've
agreed to deliver the software by a certain time for a certain price, that's
it. They might be my client, but I did not agree to be reachable at any time
for any impromptu meeting on any topic of their choosing. I agreed to deliver
software, not reachability.

It's literally a zero-sum game. They want help planning something, or they
have a question, they're in the flow about that, they don't want to be taken
out of that flow. On the other hand, I'm in the flow about my thing, and don't
want to be taken out of it. It's perfect for the other people if I always do
what they want, but sometimes you have to stick up for yourself and do what's
best for you.

Calling them back a few hours later when I'm out of the flow, or emailing them
back 6 hours later the same day, has always worked out well for me.

I understand that not all jobs are like that. What I mean to say, it's
nevertheless wrong to assume that no jobs are like that. Mine is like that,
and the approach to using the phone outlined in the article. is great advice.

~~~
tuxxy
The examples you have given aren't really a proper equivalent to what is being
described in this article here.

Scheduling isn't meant to be some Randian, individualistic practice. It's a
collaborative effort between people that should say something of the effect,
"My time is valuable, as is yours. You seem to be interested in something I'm
doing and I'm interested in telling you about it. Let's find a time that's
agreeable to both of us where we are both unencumbered and can freely
associate."

If you're not interested in meeting, then you have options: 1) Ghosting
(controversial, but some requests deserve this response), or 2) Refusing to
meet.

Instead this reads as, "I value my time far more than anyone else I associate
with. If I so happen to be available, then I'll reward you with the charity of
my time."

One of these is professional and makes other people you associate with feel
valued, the other makes you look like an arrogant ass.

------
MRD85
Some of the points in this article I disagree with but others I like. Compared
to my past self I am "super productive". I have a full-time career, a single
parent to two young kids (approx 70% of the time I'm not at work I'm
parenting) and I study nearly full time (3 units per semester) with a perfect
GPA. I somehow still have time for "wasting", like commenting on online
discussion boards, going on dates, etc.

* Keeping lists: This one is huge. I have lists all the time which track what I need to have completed and when. I have watch lists for tasks like "get birthday present for this kids party", etc. I have a job list at work.

 _Procrastination: I use this all the time. It 's currently 7:23pm here, I'm
wasting time now and I have been since 6pm but my deadline is I wake at 4am
tomorrow to work.

_Food: This article touches on food but I feel it's really important. I eat
low carb because I find carbs make me far more tired. I also avoid large meals
because they make me tired.

Something that isn't touched on in the article: Find ways to save yourself
time. I get angry when I see an office worker earning 6 figures typing one
finger looking at the keys. Touch typing doesn't take long to learn but it
saves so much time and effort. Everyone has little quirks that take
time/effort to fix but pay off in a big way once fixed. Do it, it's worth it.

~~~
tosh
ymmv but often typing isn’t the bottleneck, thinking is (typing faster != more
nor better output)

~~~
lordfoom
But not having to think about typing reduces your cognitive load. Touch typing
as a coder isn't about speed, it's about freeing your mind from having to
think about your fingers.

~~~
onemoresoop
Touch typing is somewhat overrated. I never learn to touch type and never had
any regret over it, don't get me wrong, I do t peck for keys either but the
speed of properly touch typing is no need for me, I'm not a professional
typist. I on the other hand am great at remembering shortcuts and I think
that's way more important to my work than touch typing, I feel that using the
mouse to open a menu and click debug as a complete waste of resources and
mental focus.

------
paultopia
Um. "I don't keep a calendar" means "I consider my time more important than
yours, so we'll meet at my sole convenience." I would love to do that, but
everyone else in the world would rightly understand it that way and would
treat it as a refusal to do core elements of my job.

A: "Let's schedule a committee meeting."

B: "I don't keep a calendar."

A: "So what you're saying is everyone else on the committee has to find time
just for you? Fuck you, do your job."

Arnold Schwarzenegger could get away with that crap because he's a fabulously
wealthy A-list movie star. The rest of us, not so much.

~~~
blastbeat
Fully agree. Also the rest of the article has questionable advice. I doubt the
helpfulness of later lists and anti todo lists. Not answering the phone or
pretending to be incompetent sounds like an idiotic idea too.

~~~
operakadabra
Nobody is promising that every suggestion will work for you. Try everything
until you find something that does work.

------
Cthulhu_
If there's anything I'd take from this article, it's techniques to avoid
meeting cultures; there's far too many people that want to book an hour long
block for a meeting about a thing that can be decided on in five. I think
meeting culture is a form of decision anxiety - have we considered all the
facts? What if I'm wrong? Is everyone aware that this is happening?

It was really quite bad at my previous assignment. I'm in a much smaller
setting now and I'm really trying to avoid it from becoming a thing. If
someone asks you for a meeting, always consider if you can discuss it right
there and then.

For a lot of people, discussing it right there and then is already an issue
because they're spending what little time they have in between meetings to
coordinate other meetings. That is, they don't have five minutes to talk about
a five minute thing because they have a meeting in five minutes.

~~~
baby
See pg's article on maker vs manager schedule.

------
glormph
I dont think an anti to-do list makes me more productive. But I sure like to
keep a log of things done in a text file so I can find what I did later. There
is of course a limit to what I keep, but even one-liners etc can be stored in
it. Especially when used seldomly, I dont remember all the bash tools
invocations. And no, I wont "tear it up and throw it away".

~~~
codazoda
I also keep a list of things I've done. Typically I just add those things to
my to-do list and check them off.

There are other good ideas in this post and for me they're timely. I'm
crunching on a business where I teach programming through art work. I'm
definitely going to borrow some of these ideas for that. If that sounds
interesting to you, checkout
[https://splashofcode.com](https://splashofcode.com)

------
OJFord
> \- Anyone who needs to reach you so urgently that it can't wait until later
> in the day or tomorrow morning can call you [...] - Don't answer the phone

...great?

------
ticmasta
>> work on whatever is most important or most interesting,

how often are these two the same thing? Which are you supposed to do when
you've got all this open-ended, distraction free time?

And the whole "no schedule" thing comes off as cherry-picking data and
situations. Even when Arnold was making blockbuster movies do you think they
just filmed whenever he showed up, keeping an entire crew on standby?

Did you notice how all of his examples are individual activities? that's
great, but it's tough to accomplish meaningful, revolutionary work without
collaboration. Schedules are super-useful (and I'd argue required) for
short/mid-term planning and prioritization across teams where everyone is
important.

The approach here is for when there is huge asymmetry between parties - like
an emergency room and patients. You show up with everyone else, then they
triage (hopefully by importance, not interest) and process. Guess what? even
the specialist still have schedules so they can work within a broader system.

The approach here sounds like the "schedule" of a lot of affluent retired
people.

~~~
MaulingMonkey
We tend to be interested in important things we're competent at. That's how we
got competent at them in the first place. Shepherding interest - trying to
figure out what's interesting about something important that you haven't
tackled yet - can be useful to get competent at new things, of course.

In the emergency room, the pathologist will be interested in the sick kid
instead of the guy with the broken leg, even if the latter is "more
important". Unless the staff are getting overwhelmed by a mass-casualties
incident, that's probably actually the right approach. (I'm no doctor though.)

I like email and other asynchronous/recorded communication for collaboration
where possible, in lieu of synchronous meetings interrupting flow. But as you
point out, there's a lot of cases where this doesn't work. And even a bunch of
lone wolves working on solo projects can benefit from synchronizing lunch with
their coworkers for some socialization and facetime. I schedule that. It's
flexible and not super rigid, but it's still a schedule.

------
wj
If you're interested in productivity tips from fellow Hacker News readers:

[https://blog.startopz.com/10-productivity-tips-from-
hacker-n...](https://blog.startopz.com/10-productivity-tips-from-hacker-news/)

Some of my favorites that I compiled over time.

------
fourier_mode
I mean there are so many tips for being productive, book X says maintain a
schedule pre-planned for 2 weeks, book Y says do not maintain a schedule at
all. Book X says do a bit of everything daily, book Y says devote a day for a
single task. Hmph..

The only thing that works is somehow doing getting work done, rest is
irrelevant. And that's why I don't see a point on self-help book in general.


The Other Half of Science - alexalexander
http://www.computerscience-entrepreneurship.ml/2018/01/the-other-half-of-science.html
======
JPLeRouzic
This is a copy without attribution of a post that Josh Mitteldorf made a few
days ago: [https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2017/12/31/the-
other-...](https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2017/12/31/the-other-half-
of-science/)


I built RemoteCV | Reversing the job search model - mousab
Hello everyone
Inspired by by @Levelsio, I decided to start http://RemoteCV.com
My goal is to:
1-Help you find a remote job for free
2-Find and Hire the best Remote Talents for (any role).
Happy to hear any feedback :)
======
useyourloaf
"We helps you effortlessly hire world-class remote talents." -> We help you
effortlessly hire world-class remote talent.

~~~
mousab
sorry for the that, i'll edit it now. Thanks


Evolving Lacing Patterns for Bicycle Wheels - alexggordon
http://master.matsemann.com/
======
matsemann
Wow, cool to see my thesis here! I posted a picture of it [1] to r/bicycling
yesterday titled _I managed to make my thesis in computer science be about
bicycles!_ , and it got some traction. I answered some questions in the
discussion, if anyone is interested.

[1]: [https://redd.it/3p8hua](https://redd.it/3p8hua)

~~~
radarsat1
Can I ask a question, please don't take it the wrong way, as I find
optimisation a very interesting topic, and in fact it was also the subject of
my thesis. However: How is this a computer science thesis, and not a
mechanical engineering thesis? I'm just curious how you managed to pass a
wheel-design topic through a CompSci program. Did you have a co-supervisor in
engineering? Or does your school have a combined CS/engineering program?

~~~
maaaats
It's really a thesis about EMO-algorithms and how to use them to optimize
real-life problems. The wheels just happen to be the chosen _application_ of
the optimization, if you get what I mean?

~~~
radarsat1
Ah ok, I was wondering if that was the case. Wasn't really clear from the way
you presented it. Can you summarize your results regarding the algorithms?
What worked best, what didn't?

------
marktangotango
Building bicycle wheels is incredibly satisfying, I built a set a friend used
to win the local state cyclocross championship one year. There's a lot of
technique in tightening the spokes, when I see the 'bad ride' simulation of
the wheel in the video, it occurs to me you get the same types of visible
behavoir if the spokes aren't tightened correctly. I wonder how spoke tension
is modelled here?

~~~
wiredfool
My guess is that it's not.

From earlier discussion on this article, the wheel was modeled as an
infinitely stiff rim, rather than the more mechanically accurate beam on an
elastic foundation. For a first level linear elastic approximation, the spoke
tension doesn't matter. The spoke tension is really going to only be an issue
once you get into the non-linear effects associated with rim stability, which
is strongly dependent on the rim stiffness.

------
niels_olson
Neat idea. Did the author read Jobst Brandt's book, "The Art of the Bicycle
Wheel"?

Symmetry obviously makes the ride smoother. The real issue is dish and the
incredible strain difference between. The drive side and the non-drive side:
did the author simulate modern rear wheels?

------
mmmBacon
This is interesting for sure in identifying novel spoke patterns that _might_
result in a stronger/lighter wheel. Since the simulator identifies lots of
possibilities it would be useful to have some kind of figure of merit to help
with down-selection. It also seems like things like being out-of-dish or out
of true are things that could be used to eliminate possibilities without user
intervention.

Lastly I wonder if you constrain this enough whether it would spit out
"standard" spoke patterns that are used commonly. I'd like to think that spoke
patterns that we use now are close to optimal due to a kind of evolution based
on lots of trial and error. But maybe that's not the case.

~~~
swimfar
Not exactly what you're asking about. But I talked to a guy who worked on a
project using genetic algorithms to optimize motorcycle wheel designs. He said
one of the best designs that came out looked pretty much like a traditionally
spoked wheel, just a bit more organic in shape.

------
strictnein
I assume it wouldn't function well, but I've always wondered about a wheel
were some of the spokes do not go to the hub, but are instead connected
directly to another spot on the rim.

------
sevensor
I was in a research group with Dave Hadka, who wrote MOEAFramework. I'll have
to tell him about this! Nice work!

~~~
maaaats
I really liked the framework. Powerful out of the box, and not that hard to
modify/add what I needed. Hadka was also very helpful on answering mails with
questions about the framework.

------
sliken
Any comment on how much the new boost 148 standard for mountain bikes helps
with stiffness and/or strength?

------
bro-stick
Neat. Can't wait for the follow-up paper which ranks lacing patterns by
simulated load profile.

------
davidw
Did any of these get built?

~~~
michaelbuddy
Basically until a simulated of a wheel is actually built, I'd dismiss all
this.

~~~
alexggordon
I'd disagree strongly. I think the point of the paper was the evolutionary
algorithms. Whether or not the wheels could adequately replace a modern
bicycle wheel is kind of a side note. The work was entirely about creating a
program that would produce better and better results over time, while
balancing multiple objectives to meet. As you can see in the videos, (and he
even admits in the paper) most of the wheels would not work very well if they
were produced.

That said, I think if you're going to be completely dismissive of a thesis
that I'm sure represents thousands of hours of work, I might put a sentence or
two explaining why you think the algorithm isn't the important part of this.

~~~
wiredfool
I agree. It's really cool that he managed to find the standard 3-cross based
on a pretty rough model and an optimization step.


How a car works (2012) - gshrikant
http://www.howacarworks.com/
======
AlexMuir
This is my site!

This was a pleasant surprise to find my own site on HN this morning! I
wondered why it was getting a few more FB likes than usual today.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

I finished this redesign last week so any feedback is welcome.

The main task was to recreate labels and annotations on the illustrations in
SVG format, and to reformat the articles in a way that flows nicely and is
responsive, but without needing complex markup in the articles. I'll write
about the process if there's interest.

I've previously written a little about this project:

[http://www.howacarworks.com/about/making](http://www.howacarworks.com/about/making)

[http://www.howacarworks.com/a-year-on](http://www.howacarworks.com/a-year-on)

Current traffic is 200k uniques a month and it's taken about two years of
steady growth to reach that point.

~~~
otis_inf
Great work! two points of criticism:

1) The site still talks about carburetors and has no mention about fuel
injection systems, while in Europe all cars sold must have a fuel injection
system for quite some time now, so this looks quite outdated

2) Diesel engines of course don't have spark plugs, but you don't mention
diesel engines.

~~~
AlexMuir
Good points. We do have articles on there about fuel injection and diesel
engines but it's clear that I'm not surfacing this in the best way. Thanks.

------
giancarlostoro
I always feel so uncomfortable about my car considering how old it is, and I
know nothing about it or how it works. Everyone around me just cracks open
their hoods and fixes their car, swaps tires, etc. I can't just move stuff
around without actually understanding what anything is. I honestly have been
wanting to learn more about cars. It also helps keep up with mechanics when
they tell me things I don't fully understand, I don't imagine they want to sit
around all day answering my questions, they probably have other people to work
for. I only vaguely understand the things that have gone wrong with my car and
the symptoms.

Thanks for such a beautiful website, and for everyone else sharing some
interesting links. Being computer savvy is not entirely helpful when it comes
to the mysteries of cars (not entirely anyway).

Btw I would love for there to be an Android app if possible. :)

~~~
alexcabrera
The single best thing you can do is buy the Bentley Repair Manual
([http://www.bentleypublishers.com/](http://www.bentleypublishers.com/)) for
your car. They're expensive, but will show you how to take your model apart
and put it back together again. If you want to learn how a car works, the best
thing you can do is take one apart and then try to get it running again.

When you're working on a car, dead tree repair guides + a beater laptop are
your best friends.

~~~
jokr004
Haynes ([http://www.haynes.com/print](http://www.haynes.com/print)) is also a
great resource.. might not be quite as in depth as the Bentley guide, but
they're a lot cheaper and more than enough info for a novice.

~~~
taco_emoji
Neither of those have my 2012 Forester :(

------
fauria
I highly recommend "Engineering Explained" channel on YouTube:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/EngineeringExplained](https://www.youtube.com/user/EngineeringExplained)

~~~
FrankenPC
I second this. I've sunk quite a bit of time on that channel. Excellent
explanations.

------
jsingleton
De Lorean Owner’s Handbook:
[http://www.howacarworks.com/manuals/doc/d3218-owner-s-
manual](http://www.howacarworks.com/manuals/doc/d3218-owner-s-manual)

Nice. It must have taken guts to build a car in Belfast during the height of
the troubles. Not that it worked out that well in the end, but it is an iconic
car.

~~~
Peroni
There's a fantastic article on that very point:
[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-
delorean-...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-delorean-how-
the-back-to-the-future-car-brought-pride-to-a-troubled-ulster-10334965.html)

------
aunty_helen
This is great. As for the criticism that a lot of the content is old, most of
the core concepts can be explained better with older tech as it's simpler.
This allows you to focus on what is happening and leave the extra details
about what technology a part or process has for a case by case basis.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI)
is a great example of this.

Saying that, an article on direct injection, common rail diesels, efficient
turbo charging, variable valve timing, MAF VS MAP EFI would be worth
considering.

------
Lorento
Seems to be very dated. Plenty on adjusting carburetors, in fact adjusting all
sorts of no-longer-needing-adjusting parts.

~~~
Svip
Modern cars are very locked-in with computer systems. So fixing many aspects
of modern cars is no longer possible for most car owners like it used to be.

This seems like a neat site for people with older cars. Although, if you are
owning a vintage car, then surely one should know a bit about maintaining that
car without having to resort to such a site, but personally, it's nice to know
it is there.

I mean, its articles on break systems, suspension and steering are useless to
me, because I own old Citroëns, but it's nice to know there is a site to go to
if I am curious, because I definitely intend to own more older cars (they tend
to be more interesting than modern cars).

~~~
johngalt
I'm not sure how true this is anymore. An OBD scanner makes the computer work
for you. _Modifications_ are certainly more difficult, but repair is easier
IMHO. It is vastly easier to go replace the one bad fuel injector on a 2005
than rebuild a carb on a 1983.

~~~
Svip
Of course it's easier to replace than rebuild. I doubt I would be keen on
rebuilding a fuel injector, even an old one. But replacing a carburettor on a
1983 is trivial.

------
Kluny
Great site! I'm going to add it to my car fixing workflow. Ie, thing breaks ->
read relevant article so I understand how the system works -> find a good
tutorial -> source parts -> fix.

If you are looking for article suggestions:

\- Article about different fluids and their properties. I'm betting that
you've covered oil weights already, but how about coolants? Regular coolant
has a lower freezing temp than water, but does it have a higher boiling point
as well? Exactly how poisonous is it and what things will it damage when
spilled? Same for trans fluid.

\- Possibly out of scope, but an article about how to source parts for older
cars. This has always been a tough problem for me! I go with something like:
look up parts schematic from manufacturer's website -> search for part by part
number -> try to find the cheapest generic part (though sometimes it's worth
it to pay for quality) -> find that generic parts don't exist -> go on a merry
hunt for used parts on ebay and at scrapyards.

------
abakker
A few pieces of feedback. In the suspension section, it would be worth
explaining a few things about truck suspension, also. Like solid axle, front
and rear suspension, both with Coil and Leaf springs. Also, dampers are
incredibly important in large trucks/SUVs because if they fail, body roll has
much higher likelihood of causing you to lose control. Finally, a "bounce
test" really won't work with many SUVs or truck where there is simply no way
to compress the suspension to any meaningful degree with your hands.

personally, with trucks, I like the "speed bump test" where you drive into a
speed bump and if the truck/SUV continues to oscillate upon returning to the
correct height, your dampers probably need work. Additionally, since most
trucks/SUVs use similar oil volume dampers to cars, the life of their dampers
is frequently lower than in cars. The ones in my TRD Tundra lasted about 40K
miles.

------
matthewrhoden1
I didn't see the article for when it's 2AM and you can't get that one last
bolt off.

~~~
RankingMember
Propane or MAPP gas torch. Heat what the bolt goes through until it's cherry,
then wail on it with an impact wrench. The torch is often referred to as "the
big red wrench". Also, don't underestimate the power of soaking the stuck bolt
in penetrating oil.

~~~
rpcope1
Even better than any penetrating oil you can buy: ATF + Acetone[1]. Also,
having a rosebud torch with Oxygen + Acetylene is a must if you find yourself
dealing with rusty bolts often.

[1] - [http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/penetrating-
oil-s...](http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/penetrating-oil-
showdown.350800/)

------
nogridbag
Neat site. My father was a mechanic and thus I should know all of this stuff,
but I wasted away my life behind the keyboard instead :D

I often find videos do a much better job at explaining some concepts. For
example, the section on differentials:

[http://www.howacarworks.com/basics/how-the-transmission-
work...](http://www.howacarworks.com/basics/how-the-transmission-works)

After reading this I feel none the wiser. Whereas after watching this ancient
Chevrolet training video from the 1930's I feel like I completely understand
how diffs work:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4JhruinbWc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4JhruinbWc)

~~~
AlexMuir
I'll embed that video shortly.

~~~
nogridbag
Previous HN discussion on the diff video if you're curious:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8513209](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8513209)

------
chrismartin
Very nice illustrations, but you are missing important systems that are found
on many/all cars from the past 20 years, like front wheel drive, CV joints,
closed-loop emissions control, OBD-II and CAN bus, distributorless (electonic)
ignition, electric power steering, CVTs and dual-clutch automatic
transmissions, and TPMS.

Diagnosing a check engine light by reading OBD-II codes, for example, is
something that every owner of a car produced after 1996 will eventually need
to deal with.

You should rebuild your content around systems that are found on the majority
of cars on the road today.

------
teh_klev
Previous discussions:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=how%20a%20car%20works&sort=byP...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=how%20a%20car%20works&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

~~~
gus_massa
I only see two small and old discussions about _this_ site in the search
results.

dang found another a previous discussion about _this_ site, with more points
and comments, but it has a very different title.

------
Syrup-tan
There are also some great animations on how a 4-stroke engine works from
animagraffs.com;

[http://animagraffs.com/how-a-car-engine-works/](http://animagraffs.com/how-a-
car-engine-works/)

------
csbowe
The section on how cars are designed is entertainingly out-dated.

------
jshelly
I was disappointed to see that there is no guide on replacing brake pads for
disc brakes. It seems like everyone in the world knows how to do this but me.

~~~
RankingMember
Youtube <model name> plus "brake pads" and there'll be some guy explaining
exactly how to do it on your make and model.

~~~
jshelly
Thanks for the tip

------
ZeWaren
I love the fact that you can buy the pdf using bitcoins.

------
noipv4
Nicely done. Man you should really add a section on the Tesla Model S and
possibly the Roadster.

~~~
JshWright
Or... y'know... any car from the past couple decades (this material is pretty
dated).

------
kiddico
I've been looking for a site like this for so long! <3

------
dang
Previously discussed at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4974055](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4974055).

Edit: after a year or so, reposts are fine. This is just to point out to
readers that the site had appeared before—indeed, was an old Show HN.

------
donkeyd
I heard, that in soviet Russia, the car drives you.


Show HN: MacroPy - bringing Macros to Python - lihaoyi
https://github.com/lihaoyi/macropy

======
stefantalpalaru
This is a very interesting project, even if the Python crowd is unlikely to
appreciate macros.

~~~
lihaoyi
Yep, it's a pity they won't. Even so, many of the macros (e.g. log/trace) are
the sort of thing that will be super useful even if they never get checked
into Version Contrl. I know I spend a lot of time peppering `print "A"` `print
"B"` statements throughout code when debugging, and being able to automate
that would be awesome.


Funny Math Fact Check: de Blasio vs. Uber - simonebrunozzi
http://iquantny.tumblr.com/post/125760518214/funny-math-fact-check-de-blasio-vs-uber

======
greenyoda
_" That would be a 6 month time period, where the number of cars went from
58,295 to 64,500. A total change of 6,205 new cars over 6 months amounts to
roughly 1,000 new for-hire vehicles a month - about one half of the rate that
de Blasio had said in his OpEd."_

This argument assumes (with no justification) that the cars have been added at
a constant rate. But if they were being added at an increasing rate, there
might have indeed been 2000 cars a month added over the last two or three
months (with less than a thousand added in previous months), and the mayor may
have been citing the most recent statistics rather than a yearly average.
Without more reliable data, there's no way to know which is true.

~~~
iquantny
if it was for three months, it would mean 50 a day for all previous months.

------
ColinWright
Could still be true if 2000 _new_ for-hire vehicles are being added every
month, and 1000 _old_ for-hire vehicles are removed.

Net change, an increase of 1000 per month.

Not saying this is what's happening, just pointing out that there may be an
explanation.

~~~
iquantny
He wrote it as cars being added to the streets.


Harvard Online Master’s Degree - tianyicui
http://www.productivity501.com/harvard-masters-degree/6463/
======
petercooper
Related topic, different country. I discovered last week you can take a MSc in
Software Development with the Open University (a partially government-funded
distance learning university in the UK):
[http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/qualification/f26....](http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/qualification/f26.htm)

The really interesting part is if you have enough experience, you don't need
to have an undergraduate degree to get into the prerequisite diploma course.
So you get on to the diploma course which takes two years part time, then do
the Masters project for a year.. no degree to Masters in 3 years. An education
hack, if ever there were one. Who cares if you have an undergraduate degree
when you have a Masters? (Genuine question - if there is a reason, let us
know.)

The only downside, it's not cheap cheap. You're looking at about £1000 per
unit and there are 8 units for the diploma. The Master's part is then £1900
ish. So that's about £10k ($16k) in all over 3 years. Still, only slightly
more than a single year of undergraduate study in the UK from next year..

 _Note: Yes, this is really for people in the UK or Europe._

~~~
bhofmann
When I see CVs with masters degrees I can't help thinking "this person has
been more interested in academic study than real world experience". I value
the latter more. Some formal education is good to see, but I've seen too many
masters students who can't cut it in a real world situation.

~~~
StudyAnimal
Well these part time, distance learning postgraduate degrees are usually
professional degrees, so intended for those wanting to use the knowledge in
their work rather than academic degrees, for those wishing to study further.
They actually require and are normally integrated with actual real world
experience.

My professional masters required me to actually do things at work, things that
I wouldn't have done otherwise, and write about it, and turn it into a project
etc.

Sure academics with academic Masters degrees look down on them, but then there
are a lot of people, like you, who recognize that academic achievement is not
an indicator of being able to get things done.

These professional masters are an ideal middle ground.

To be honest though, if I could have gotten interesting real world experience
in the field I was interested in, I probably would not have considered the
degree, but it was a chicken and egg situation for me unfortunately. In order
to get a job where I could get experience, I had to have experience. So I
started the degree, then switched to a job that was half way towards the area
I wanted, and because I needed to do a project my employers were more willing
to let me take on some work in the interesting area I wanted to work in. By
the end of it, I had both real world experience, and a degree recognizing that
experience. Without starting that course I still don't see how I could have
broken in to either area.

------
derrida
There is an irony in people thinking that this degree awarded from Harvard is
a lesser degree than the other types, when this degree is awarded purely on
academic merit (since admission is based on you already completing some of the
courses), whereas mainstream Harvard is based on the opinions of some
admissions officers.

------
naner
More recent:

[http://blog.markwshead.com/911/harvard-online-masters-
degree...](http://blog.markwshead.com/911/harvard-online-masters-degree-in-
software-engineering/)

Thought this was posted here before but I couldn't find it.

------
Killah911
Well, the real question is, what "value" is derived from said degree? Better
job right away? Most of the times that isn't the case. I can understand the
"value" in actually being on campus and interacting with the next Gates or
Zuckerburg etc. Would attaching the Harvard section to your resume really make
things that much better? Anyone have some stats/studies on this beyond
anecdotal cases? The author doesn't really go into much details about what
came out of his Harvard degree.

~~~
Nrsolis
Interesting fact:

Two of the world's most famous billionaires attended Harvard and didn't stay
long enough to finish a degree. Care to guess who they might be?

~~~
Killah911
Yup, just another reason I ask. Actually, I know a few Harvard Dropouts who've
gone a similar path, while not Billionaires, they've done more than OK. Anyone
know where the Future Harvard Dropout Cafe is, that might be the place to be?
:-P

------
aothman
As an elitist alum, I don't like these programs one bit. I can't help but feel
that they are, in a small but meaningful way, watering down the value of my
degree. And even though it's petty, I'm chagrined that my diploma features
English rather than Latin text.

Harvard's Extension School was designed to teach the greater Boston community,
and I think it should be a vehicle to improve town-gown relations, by
convincing locals to not perceive Harvard as "the other". I certainly don't
think it should have as part of its mission handing out Masters degrees to
people from Kansas over the Internet.

~~~
jonmc12
Can you help me understand your statement 'watering down the value of my
degree'? I'm curious, why do you feel that way?

~~~
kcm11
Like it or not, part of the value of a Harvard degree is the signaling effect
it carries. The signaling effect is, in large part, due to the selectivity of
the school and the coursework.

Put more directly... if the extension school has a 10x higher acceptance rate
and has easier classes, then it is probably diluting the signaling effect a
bit.

~~~
kwis
What evidence do you have that extension classes are easier than their
traditional counterparts? It's certainly easier to get into Extension than
other Harvard colleges, but I see no evidence it's easier to graduate.

~~~
kcm11
Mostly anecdotal, several of my friends have took classes through the program
in high school. That's not to say that extension classes are trivial by any
means.


Gamers solve decade old HIV puzzle in ten days - pjvds
http://www.zmescience.com/research/studies/gamers-solve-decade-old-hiv-puzzle-in-ten-days/

======
niels_olson
So, does this get cycled back into _new_ when someone reposts it?


Ruby - Handling 1 Million Concurrent Connections - slivuz
https://github.com/slivu/1mc2
======
qompiler
I have done this before using Java 7 async nio. The performance would drop
like a brick when data received actually needed some sort of processing. How
does this implementation hold up when you need to perform a O(n) operation on
received data? Experiment with different sizes of n to see how the performance
holds up.

~~~
trailfox
Exactly. Establishing 1 million connections is pretty easy in any language
that supports async io, even scripting languages. The article is super-vague
about the direction of the traffic, the nature and size of the messages and
how much of the application is actually written in Ruby (vs. just being a
glorified wrapper around redis and other systems written in c/c++) and the
amount of work actually being done by the app. 179 requests per second is
hardly something to brag about while you've completely saturated 8 cpu cores.

~~~
hawleyal
Ruby _is_ a wrapper around c.

------
afhof
I have to ask, is there even a practical purpose for this? Is there even some
remote screwball application for having to have one machine handle 1,000,000
requests? One of the things I like about coming to HN is that the items on the
front page are often actionable pieces of advice or clever and interesting
hacks. I don't feel that "$LANG can do $LARGE_NUMBER of things" fits the bill.
For example:

      C - Handling 1 Million Concurrent Connections
      Java - Handling 1 Million Concurrent Connections
      Javascript - Handling 1 Million Concurrent Connections
      Go - Handling 1 Million Concurrent Connections

If it was 10^10 connections, now we are talking about some clever hacks to get
that to work.

~~~
lucaspiller
WhatsApp had over 2 million users connected to their (Erlang) server last
year.

[http://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2012/01/1-million-is-
so-2...](http://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2012/01/1-million-is-so-2011/)

Here is the same in Erlang for reference (from a few years ago, I would be
interested to see if there is a more efficient way now):

[http://www.metabrew.com/article/a-million-user-comet-
applica...](http://www.metabrew.com/article/a-million-user-comet-application-
with-mochiweb-part-3)

~~~
e12e
Thank you so much for that last link especially. Interesting stuff :-)

------
mixedbit
I don't fully get the point of this benchmark. Connection handling is
operating system business, so you should get similar numbers with any
framework that runs on the same OS and correctly uses epoll (or an equivalent
system call).

~~~
willvarfar
Tangent: back when I paid careful attention, all the epoll frameworks were
level-triggered not edge-triggered.

------
dschiptsov
Let's make a bit like a real world.) The test case could be like this:

A lookup. Get any reasonable big publicly available simple data-set and import
it into any persistent storage (a sorted file is OK) and let a client perform
a lookup for a row (preferably utf8 text ,)) then render a simple html table
in response. As stupid as MVC.

or

Perform any simple lookup, but only for authenticated user (against some
passwd-like file, to make it easy).

Then we could see how cool any JVM stuff or over-engineered OO ruby frameworks
really are, with all that shinny graphs and smooth curves.

------
tmartiro
Good job...

You can also open 1 million connections using one linux box a) increase local
port range 1024 to 65535 b) setup 17 ip address. c) open from each ip address
58824 connections

~~~
adlpz
What would be the point of that? The bottleneck here is not the amount of
ports. TCP can handle concurrency over one single input port just fine.

The issue here is concurrency on the service software. If you have to launch a
million instances to listen on a million different ports, you are doing it
wrong.

~~~
Erwin
An TCP connection is uniquely identified by a {local IP, remote IP, local
port, remote port} tuple.

So if you are on 192.168.1.1 and want to connect to a specific port on
192.168.1.2 there aren't enough free port numbers to get 1 million
connections. Thus the extending of the "ephemeral port range" (the local port
number the kernel is allowed to assign) and addition of more local IPs.

~~~
gilgoomesh
Except there's no assumption here that the 1 million connections are between
just two computers. Clients are spread over 50 different EC2 instances (which
each have a unique address). The host does not need more ports in this
scenario and the clients are using 20,000 ports (possible without altering
port allocation).

~~~
Erwin
This was a reply to tmartiro's thread, where he says "You can also open 1
million connections using _one_ linux box" and describes how you could do it a
single instance rather than 50 separate ones; adlpz asked "what would be the
point of that".

------
kenkam
tl;dr OP throws 3 libs together, wrote a few scripts, made a few measurements.
Look, it can handle 1 million connections.

I like what he has done but don't know why it made HN frontpage. I'm guessing
it's because it has Ruby, 1 million, and concurrent in the title.

Not bashing the author, it's good work in its own right. I'm trying to
understand how stuff like this makes frontpage HN. Where's the value of this
article? That Ruby can handle 1 mil connections? Am I missing something (even
if it's obvious?)

I think someone mentioned better real world test cases. I agree that would be
a place to start. Perhaps he could send more meaningful data to clients. Maybe
market data for some stocks or something. '\0' is not very useful after all!

~~~
agentultra
I'm not a genius Ruby hacker by any stretch but if EventMachine is like any
other "async IO framework" in other scripting languages then it is built on
libev or libevent... so Ruby isn't really handling the connections, it's
handling the callbacks. Pedantic, but important to note.

~~~
saraid216
> Pedantic, but important to note.

Pedantic, but "pedantic" actually idiomatically means "not important to note".

~~~
agentultra
In what culture?

In my dictionary it's _"of or like a pedant"_ ; a pedant being someone who is
overly concerned with minor details.

Still... noted!

~~~
saraid216
If the detail is minor, it's not important.

------
kyledrake
The practical purpose of this is to show that Ruby is perfectly capable of
scaling to fit the needs of most companies. It kills the myth that Ruby is not
capable of doing serious infrastructure work.

That is EXACTLY THE POINT of this. We use Ruby for a ton of real work, and we
are sick of seeing it get pummeled on unfairly for the misconception that it
is a slow language and you are guaranteed to have scaling problems if you use
it. Productivity and performance are not necessarily tradeoffs, with Ruby and
some good planning, you can get both.

~~~
darkarmani
Is "179 requests per second" really an example of scaling?

------
peterwwillis
LOL. A couple hundred requests per second? Is that something to brag about?

What the fuck is the point of opening a million connections if it takes you
1.55 hours to process one request from each connection?

~~~
slivuz
mm, strange math.

179 means that while app holding and communicating to 1 million persistent
connections it is still able to process 100+ standard requests per second.
pretty enough to accept new clients to your online game, audio/video chat,
podcast etc.

this graph shows how many requests per second app may process depending on
amount of established persistent connections:

[https://raw.github.com/slivu/1mc2/master/results/requests-
pe...](https://raw.github.com/slivu/1mc2/master/results/requests-per-
second.png)

~~~
trailfox
I don't think your original post is very clear at all. I get the same number
as the post you are criticizing: 1000000/179 / 60 / 60 = 1.55 hours.

Are there other messages being processed too? Which direction are the messages
going? How big are they, what do they contain, how is the data processed.
Also, if you have 1 million clients how do you handle all of them arriving at
around the same time? How long did it take your system to get up to 1 million
connections? Also how sure are you that each micro instance is sending and
receiving the messages at exactly the expected rate and is not getting
overloaded. What server type are you using for your central server?

------
potomushto
I am excited about ec2-fleet tool. How expensive is the tests in your case?

~~~
slivuz
a micro instance costs 2 cents per hour, so $1 per hour for 50 instances.

~~~
nivertech
what's the name of the program with CPU/memory graphs in the right-upper
corner above htop on slides ##13-171?

~~~
slivuz
it is Gnome's System Monitor

------
nurettin
For JRuby Streaming I have used Torquebox (JBoss) successfully.

------
headius
The author asserts that JRuby would consume more than 15GB of memory without
providing any justification. Perhaps it would be better to actually try it
rather than just making sweeping generalizations.

~~~
headius
Here's a case study showing over 500k connections to a Java instance in 2.5GB
of memory using NIO. JRuby's implementation of Ruby's IO is implemented
directly atop NIO. So yeah...that 15GB assertion is nonsense.

[http://urbanairship.com/blog/2010/08/24/c500k-in-action-
at-u...](http://urbanairship.com/blog/2010/08/24/c500k-in-action-at-urban-
airship/)

~~~
slivuz
you right, sorry for pointless blaming, my bad, had to check it first.
updating orignal post

------
marketer
Doesn't Ruby have a limit of 1024 open file descriptors? If some method in
Ruby's standard library calls 'select' internally, with the 1024 limit, what
happens?

~~~
FooBarWidget
I/O is handled through EventMachine, not the normal Ruby I/O calls, and can
therefore scale arbitrarily.

~~~
marketer
It is a little worrying that if some (perhaps inexperienced) developer
arbitrarily calls a method that invokes Ruby's select, the process will crash
mysteriously.

~~~
FooBarWidget
It won't crash. On many platforms, Ruby uses special select() hacks to extend
the number of file descriptors select() can handle. On OS X it can apparently
handle 10556 file descriptors. If you go over that, Ruby apparently simulates
an EMFILES error.

------
toddwahnish
very cool experiment

------
moneypenny
_dumb question_ I thought the GC tunings, e.g. RUBY_HEAP_MIN_SLOTS, were only
available in REE, rather than MRI?

~~~
slivuz
starting with 1.9.3 they are also available on MRI, though not sure about
2.0.0 as there GC are highly refactored/optimized.

> Starting with Ruby 1.9.3, the GC in mainstream ruby can also be tuned

[http://www.web-l.nl/posts/15-tuning-ruby-s-garbage-
collector...](http://www.web-l.nl/posts/15-tuning-ruby-s-garbage-collector-
with-rvm-and-passenger)

~~~
ksec
Would love to see the updated test once Ruby 2.0 is out in a few days time.

------
assente
it would be nice to compare the different ruby implementations with this test.

------
assente
interesting experiment!


Functional Programming with Python – Part 1 - shawndumas
http://blog.dhananjaynene.com/2010/02/functional-programming-with-python-part-1/
======
shawndumas
part 2: [http://blog.dhananjaynene.com/2010/03/functional-
programming...](http://blog.dhananjaynene.com/2010/03/functional-programming-
with-python-%E2%80%93-part-2-useful-python-constructs/)


Stencil – a Grunt templating plugin for generating static HTML files - dawson
http://blog.howareyou.com/post/63377845043/stencil-a-grunt-templating-plugin-for-generating

======
cleverjake
I had something somewhat similar - [https://github.com/patrickkettner/grunt-
compile-handlebars/](https://github.com/patrickkettner/grunt-compile-
handlebars/)

just precompiling handlebars into static html


Sarcasm Seen as Evolutionary Survival Skill  - edw519
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080620/sc_livescience/sarcasmseenasevolutionarysurvivalskill

======
edw519
Aha! I _knew_ there was a scientific basis for using all those <sarcasm> and
</sarcasm> tags here at hn.


Install Chrome Web-Apps from any Site - franze
http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/extensions/inline-installation/

======
dpcan
This seems like such a backwards way to address the actual shortcomings of the
Chrome Web Store.

They can add features like this all day, but it doesn't fix the fact that they
haven't improved the actual Chrome Web Store enough to make developers or
shoppers want to use it.

Especially regarding GAMES

If you open the Chrome Web Store. Go to Games, all you get are the featured
games.

They have categories, but you can't BROWSE them. All you get to do is look at
the top 5 they've chosen.

What's the point in putting an app in the Chrome Web Store, or even developing
for it if you will NEVER get found. What's the point in looking there for new
stuff if you won't be able to browse and find it????

People browse for games. There should be a "More" button next to each
category. If users could browse through games, it would be worth developing
games for the Chrome Web Store.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
It's poorly presented, but you can browse through categories by clicking the
"All" click under Popular.

------
Sephr
This looks extremely insecure and dangerous to me. All you need is for a user
to click anywhere or interact with anything on your page and you then have
full access to their computer, given that you include a native plugin in your
extension. Even if you couldn't include native plugins in extensions, you
would still have full control of the browser, including hiding the extension
uninstall link in chrome://extensions/ and keylogging every page.

Edit: Nevermind, apparently it prompts the user before installation, unlike
the Chrome web store.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
The JS code just prompts an install dialog (controlled by Chrome), so I don't
see the security concern.

------
drivebyacct2
Very disappointed to see that this is all still routed through the Chrome App
Store. It kinda defeats the vision of "the open web" if we're forced to use
unfederated app stores.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Mozilla is doing federated web apps[1] although it's a bit half-baked at this
point (not built into Firefox, requires a rather large not-minified js
library). Google should really be contributing their experience with CWS to
that project.

[1]<https://apps.mozillalabs.com/>

~~~
drivebyacct2
It's a dual edged sword and I love it. Chrome is pushing Firefox and IE in
extreme ways, yet Mozilla remains a more authentic and open "beam of light". I
love seeing them compete and I'm hopeful that as w3c "web app" manifest, etc
specs are fleshed out that they come to Chrome in the more open fashion as
well.


Chops – Make beats with your voice - gregsadetsky
https://www.getchops.app/
======
gregsadetsky
Hey HN! We're Tristan & Greg from Chops
[https://www.getchops.app/](https://www.getchops.app/) . Chops is an iOS music
making app that lets you make beats with your voice. We're currently running a
closed TestFlight beta, and are planning to launch soon.

Tristan and I are both musically inclined without being professional
musicians. Our Voice Memos apps are filled with bits of song ideas that we
recorded as inspiration struck. An issue we've seen with recording these
snippets is that 1) you can't layer your voice easily without using a
specialized looper app and 2) it always sounds... like your voice. We're not
pro beatboxers, so our "voice drums" don't sound that great. Enter Chops.

We've designed a way to create drum tracks using your voice -- you "sing" the
drums and then pick a drum sound (kick, snare, hi-hats, etc.). Check out the
video on our page to get an idea of how it works.

We're super excited to push this idea much further, and to make music making
more accessible, intuitive and fun. We feel that there should be a larger
overlap between music "fans" \-- this includes people that sing along to
songs, that hum tunes, that make up songs for their families -- and
"musicians" as the term is too commonly defined (e.g., people with a musical
education, professional artists, etc.)

If you feel even a tiny bit musically inclined, we'd love to have you be part
of this beta round!

Reach out to us hello@getchops.app for any questions or AMA here. Thanks a
lot!

~~~
bashinator
I've been wanting this for literally decades. I make mouth-click beats all the
time, and it's easier and more tempo-accurate than what I can do with my
fingers/hands. Does Chops support more than one "instrument" at a time?
Typically I use one click for the kick, and then a different one for the
snare. Can it act like a standard MIDI controller for external
software/hardware?

~~~
gregsadetsky
That's... exactly the use case we were thinking about! We've been using Voice
Memos to record song bits / mouth beats, and hopefully this is the better /
smarter version of that.

Chops does support multiple instruments at a time -- right now, you can layer
many drum and audio tracks (drum tracks play built in drum samples, while
audio tracks are those that you record using your phone's microphone).

The app is MIDI-based, but it cannot trigger external software/hardware
devices at this time. This is something that's on the roadmap!

------
phildionne
Love the "make beats with your voice" tagline, it's simple and effective. The
demo video on the landing page makes me think on an idea: why not allow
recording a video of your face while you record your vocal beat? It seems
people are using TikTok as a mean of physical expression (through dance,
mostly) and maybe your app could grow a subculture through the same dynamics?

Curious to see the final version!

~~~
gregsadetsky
Totally a great point, and other apps in this space -- typically those that
target a larger, non-"pro musician" audience -- do have more entertaining /
fun engagement mechanisms, such as recording a video selfie while singing /
karaok'ing, etc.

Really great idea, thanks a lot!

------
plumbus420
Reminds me of Mike Gao's Vocal Beater [1]. Too bad it doesn't seem like he's
been keeping it updated recently. He's able to beatbox and it'll automatically
recognize the instruments too.

Here's a demo of him using it on YouTube:
[https://youtu.be/OS7LeMHImBM?t=232](https://youtu.be/OS7LeMHImBM?t=232)

[1] [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vocal-
beater/id384844110](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vocal-beater/id384844110)

~~~
gregsadetsky
That's fascinating! We're 100% going into that direction, and the necessary
algo work to do this reliably is not trivial.

Thank for the great pointers!

------
dang
It would be better to do this when you launch. Right now it looks like just a
signup page, and Show HN requires that there be something for people can try
out:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html).

~~~
gregsadetsky
Hey dang, my sincere apologies about this!

The app is ready to test and we're reaching out to people who are signing up
with TestFlight links i.e., everyone will get to try out the app.

But you're right of course that there's nothing to try on the launch page --
there's only a demo video.

We'll be more careful for future projects, and will only post again about this
once we're live on the App Store.

Sorry again!

~~~
dang
It's ok! You're welcome to post when people can try it out. I think it will
have some appeal.

------
akimc
Signed up for the beta, seems super creative can't wait to try it. Cheers

------
rb212nyc
Very cool! Will check out.

~~~
gregsadetsky
Thank you! Looking forward to your feedback!

------
dvdsgl
Fun! :D


Ask HN: Current college student with big goals. - Nemisis7654
Hi everyone,
I have been lurking around here for some time and am in love with this site. I figured now would be as good a time as any to ask my question.
I am a current college student majoring in Computer Science. I know that, after I am done with school, I want to start a startup at some point (not necessarily right out of school). I know it's going to involve a lot of hard work, but this is something I have been thinking about for a while now. So, my question is this: what sort of advice can you guys give me that will prepare me for such an undertaking. Thank you.
~Aaron
======
coffeemug
1\. Be good. Be very good. Don't be the "front-end guy" or the "back-end guy",
or some other "guy". Once you know what you want to build, building software
is about five things: algorithms that solve your problem, programming
languages that express your algorithms, computer architecture that makes your
algorithms run efficiently on real hardware, the practical toolchain, and the
management of complexity of real software. So study algorithms, and then
graduate algorithms, and then advanced graduate algorithms. Do every challenge
problem online. Study programming languages to express those algorithms. You
can get away with three: C, Lisp, Haskell. Everything else is crud. Study
computer architecture and compilers to see how your programs run efficiently.
Learn great tools (Emacs/Vim/Visual Studio/bash/Linux/OS X/Windows whatever -
just great ones that you're damn good at). Learn how complexity is managed.
Look at lare open source projects, study how they're organized, and contribute
patches to understand how small changes can effect a large system.

2\. Learn what to build. Once you get really good, your time starts to be more
valuable than gold. There will be very few people in the world who are as good
(the internet will bias you to think that the world is full of great people -
this ain't so, there isn't enough of 'em). You _owe_ it to people and to
yourself not to bother with improving something by 1% or 10% because you're
wasting time in opportunity cost and could be improving something by 1000%.
Make sure what you're building is worth building, and make sure every line of
code you write is worth writing, otherwise you will fail. Break the NIH
syndrome in yourselves now (all good people have it, phenomenal people that
build successful companies broke it in themselves). Learn to infer what people
want.

3\. If you're that good, you will easily get a $100k job after graduation
(probably more by then), and grow to $180k in a few years. That's very, very
comfortable. It's not worth busting your ass 16 hours a day to build another
CRM tool when you can have a $180k job. So don't start a business to start a
business. Start a business to bring a meaningful change in the world. A huge
change. A 1000% change. There are lots of hugely successful companies out
there that do what's not meaningful to you - ignore them. But do make sure
that what's meaningful to you is also meaningful to millions (hopefully
billions) of others. You won't get rich writing Lisp compilers.

This is what matters. Most everything else is fluff.

~~~
olalonde
I agree with most you said except a small detail: how is C good at expressing
algorithms? There are far more expressive languages in the C family. The point
of learning C I would argue is to have at least one low level language in your
toolbox.

~~~
cloudwalking
Learning C is also a very important step to understanding operating systems.

~~~
jeffreymcmanus
Which is actually not vital for doing a successful startup.

~~~
strlen
The parent said _understanding_, not writing your own[1].

To take an example of a web startup (just because the are the most common),
here are some question that require understanding the basics of operating
systems:

1) "why is my database cache constantly being swapped out to disk when there's
enough memory in my machine"

2) "why are the pages taking so slow to load, even though I'm only serving a
few hundred hits a second"

3) "what is my webapp doing that's making python/ruby take up 100% of the cpu"
(to find this out, you'd likely be using gdb, ltrace and strace which very
explicitly require at least a _passing_ familiarity with C and POSIX)

4) "why is there a process showing up in ps/top that I can't kill even with
kill -9"

Finally, you certainly have to be a good programmer to start a startup: not
the best one, not a "10x programmer", but a good one (irrespective of what
sort of applications you write). You can't be a good one without understanding
how your programs work.

[1] That said, I had my hands dirty in Linux source code when debugging an
issue while working in (of all places) an email security company.

------
tjr
Start now. Even if you don't have the time or resources to do something huge,
make projects that can be of real use and benefit to people. Some you may
charge for; others you may offer for free. Your users might be people at your
college, in your community, or all over the world. No matter how small or
large the userbase, whatever experience you can get will be helpful, and one
of these projects may grow into a significant business.

~~~
cullenking
Can't agree more with this comment. Depending on your degree, the amount of
work required will be significantly less than the amount of time you have in
the week. Not to mention that interest rates on student loans are dropping
again, meaning living off student loans while you start your business and do
school is a potentially much more successful way to go than any other.

The problem with starting "some time after" you graduate is how easy it is to
burden yourself with life responsibilities (wife/kids, new car loan, mortgage
etc) when you have real income and stability from a job. When you are halfway
into getting your startup off the ground and ramen profitable and you
graduate, you can maintain your poor college kid lifestyle much easier than a
previously well off wage earner can go back to a poor college kid lifestyle.

This worked well for me, but I also didn't care for any of the other "college
experiences". I got my partying (drinking, smoking, minimal sleep etc) out
when I was in high school and my early 20's, so found most of my younger
college peers boring when I eventually finished my CS degree.

------
michael_dorfman
I'd say: focus. Get as much as you can out of being in school right now--
you're unlikely to get a chance again to spend 4 years dedicated solely to
expanding your knowledge. Learn everything you can. Find out who the best
professors are (ask around, you'll find out quick) and take whatever classes
they are offering. (A good professor can make even the dullest subject come to
life; a bad professor can kill even the most fascinating topic.) Learn what
you can from your friends; don't pass up any opportunity to learn. And,
finally, try to pick up as many good habits and disciplines as you can--
you'll find years from now, you still have some of them.

------
dminor
Get to know all of your classmates as best you can. They are a big part of
your future network, and potential startup collaborators.

~~~
GFischer
Great point. Build a good reputation (both online and in person), hopefully
while trying to help genuinely :) .

It really pays off much better than just being very good.

------
chris_l
Work for someone else's startup. That's the best way to learn how it works on
the inside.

~~~
CytokineStorm
I cannot agree with this advice enough. Working for a startup, even as a
summer intern, will give you a much clearer idea of what it actually means to
run a company than reading HN every day.

You may even realize it's not what you want to do after college.

------
clyfe
1\. The first rule to actually be able to build stuff is to learn _real life
programming_ : know a couple of languages, their libraries and ecosystems.
Tip: use open source tools

2\. Know _algorithms_ to make smart software. If you make a board game, A*
comes in hadndy for the AI. If you make a service like dropbox Minimum
bounding box algorithms lower your costs.

Now you can build some stuff. Time to sell.

3\. Learn the basics of finance and legal stuff of your country to be able to
solve paperwork related stuff.

4\. Learn some marketing to attract users

Profit!

Tip: A lot more in Ask HN Archive -
<http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive>

------
wccrawford
Have some idea what you're going to do.

"I want to have a startup" is not a plan. It is a path to failure. If you
haven't got any idea what you want that startup to do, you're just setting
yourself up for disaster.

Real, productive startups happen when someone wants to do or create a specific
thing, and then creates a startup as a vehicle for that thing.

A startup is not an end. It's a means.

------
grandalf
It depends a lot on what you want to do. Some business problems are not all
that technical, some are highly technical.

Some startups are easy to bootstrap, others aren't.

The main advice I'd give you is this: Figure out what you really, really want
to do... the thing that makes you most excited and passionate. And demand of
yourself that you do it.

There's nothing worse than working very hard at something and realizing that
you've put blood, sweat and tears into something you don't really give a damn
about.

------
jbarham
1\. Read code written by master programmers (e.g., <http://golang.org/src/>,
<http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/sys/src/>) to learn how it's done
and to keep you humble. ;) But beware the opposite danger of becoming
disillusioned when you realize that most of the code you will encounter in the
real world is not written by master programmers.

2\. Understand that much of what you learn to do as an undergraduate CS
student are "historical reenactments"
(<http://research.swtch.com/2008/03/rotating-hashes.html>). The core
algorithms and data structures you need are almost always provided by the
language or libraries.

------
mhewett
1\. Plan to start your company in 10 years.

2\. Between now and then, work at a small company, a just-funded startup, a
raw startup and a big company (maybe in that order, maybe in any order). Watch
the management closely and LEARN.

3\. No matter how frustrating it is to work for someone else, stick to your
plan.

4\. Keep your technical skills current.

5\. Learn management skills.

6\. Save your money - live frugally now so you can self-fund your startup and
keep control of it.

7\. Become an expert or become good friends with an expert in some domain -
gaming, architecture, finance, whatever.

8\. Do your startup in that domain.

9\. Develop a healthy lifestyle. You'll need your all your health and stamina
to make the startup succeed.

10\. Regularly sell things on eBay and/or Craigslist to get used to selling to
people.

11\. Watch how your non-technical friends use computers. They compose most of
your customer base.

~~~
skowmunk
Having followed such a detailed long term plan from almost 14 years ago to
realize my dream of starting a business, when I thought I didn't have the
resources, the personality, the network, the background, the support or the
backup, having worked in a a government R&D lab , a small company, a fortune
500 company, having completed 2 degrees, 1 Advanced Diploma, a Six Sigma Black
belt certification...., with all dew respect to mhewett for the good
intentions behind his advise..... please don't follow this advise.

(edit: Actually all that mhewett says, is right, observe as much as you can
(surprisingly not many really do), try to learn whatever you think can be
useful in the future, except for one very deadly thing(the fatal flaw) - the
'plan to start in 10 years'.)

------
SHOwnsYou
Forget the technical things. While in college, get a job in marketing. Get a
second job in technology if you want, but chances are if you are a CS student
that can actually program, then the technical side is the least of your
worries.

Running a business is extremely hard for some people. Expose yourself to it.
It would be even better if you worked for a smaller company to get a more
holistic view of it.

When I was in college my first job was managing the entire ecommerce side of
our business from building to maintaining to figuring up innovations. There
were 4 of us. I got significant experience in accounting, marketing, cash
flow, customer service... everything. Having that exposure has helped me
immeasurably thus far.

------
skowmunk
Start now.

Start a start up or go execute an idea or help somebody else execute an idea
and use that as a tool for learning relevant stuff that is required to
successfully execute an idea. Whatever reason you are not able to execute it,
thats an indication of where you have to plug holes in your skill set, either
by learning yourself or developing relationships with somebody who is strong
in that area.

If you keep executing and keep plugging the holes in your skill set, you will
have the fastest learning curve that no college education can provide by
itself.

Do complete your college education, it does teach a lot of good basics on
different useful stuff and its a great backup in case things don't work out
with the business end by the time you complete education. But thats what it
gives - basics, useful basics, basics that are not enough for anything but an
entry level job.

College education + loads of experience by the time you complete education =
killer resume.

This is from a guy who has done his fair share of education and waited too
long to go after his dream ( of course, not too long to let the dream die or
go after it now :))

Good luck.

(edit: If you start the action part now, you will also attract a network of
friends and teachers who appreciate a person like you and can probably help
you. That network you start building now can be a deal maker or breaker for
succes later. )

------
phamilton
I'm in similar shoes. I've recommended this essay on HN before, but I found it
to be really insightful.

<http://www.paulgraham.com/college.html>

I've basically come to the conclusion my time here in school is gain enough
knowledge an experience in my field that when startup time comes I'll not just
be quicker than competitors, but I'll know of better methods and techniques
for doing so.

------
jasonlbaptiste
All of the stuff said here re: building a product and working for a startup is
awesome advice. There's one major thing missing: Learn how to acquire
customers and retain them. You can build a great product, but if you don't
know how to acquire customers, it's a disservice to the great product you
built. CREAM- Customers Rule Everything Around Me.

~~~
ericabiz
Strongly agree with this. Also, it's worth noting that many people consider
"startup"=creating a consumer-focused company with millions of users (i.e.
Twitter; Yelp.) Often the most successful businesses focus on selling a lot to
a little. There is a ton of opportunity on the enterprise side of the world.

My company was most successful after we stopped offering small accounts and
focused on the customers paying us hundreds or thousands of dollars a month.
We got pretty quickly to 7 figures after that.

------
noahc
Focus on two things:

1\. Connecting and networking with others in the field. A blog is a great way
to do this and get started.

2\. Build something said network will appreciate. It doesn't have to be the
next twitter, maybe it's some dumb little app that a 5 year old kid will spend
10 minutes playing with and get bored. Remember we are all 5 year olds on the
inside, except pg, he's 7.

------
ganjianwei
Look for potential cofounders. Make friends with people who have similar
interests as you (hacking, startups) and whom you get along with really well.
Building trust and learning what people are really like takes time and being
friends for a longer time gives you the chance to do that.

------
anamax
(1) Learn what people will pay for and how to convince them to do so.

(2) Make friends with and keep track of your talented classmates, especially
those whose talents are in other areas.

(3) Learn how to evaluate folks in those other areas.

------
imp
One thing that hasn't been mentioned much yet is marketing. Read the big
popular marketing books such as "Positioning" by Reis and Trout, because
marketing is tough. There is little technical risk involved with most web
companies. The biggest risk is not finding enough people to give you money.

------
skbohra123
As someone who just passed out from college and is working on a startup, I
would say do as much projects as you can during your college. Hence learn the
art of starting and finishing.

------
Nemisis7654
I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who commented. Really great advice. It
is much appreciated.


Show HN: I made a minimalist spaced repetition tool - mvind
http://memordo.com/launch
======
mvind
Creator here. As a University student I was struggling a lot with the huge
amount of information I needed to remember for my courses. I started using
spaced repetition (Anki) and it worked great! I enthusiastically shared this
method with my family but they got overwhelmed by the complexity of the Anki
interface and all the options. I wanted to change that. So I built memordo. I
focused on creating a minimalist but still productive interface for creating
memory cards that supports image, latex, code and clozes.

I have already received some feedback from the HN community and I would to
hear what you guys think again. Your feedback has proven invaluable as I have
already gotten paid users onboard.

Thanks for reading!


Programming languages, operating systems, despair and anger - cameldrv
http://www.xent.com/pipermail/fork/Week-of-Mon-20091109/054578.html

======
msie
This is just the start of an interesting conversation so don't just read the
one posting. Read the entire thread.


Old usenet maps - bryanrasmussen
http://olduse.net/blog/current_usenet_map/
======
NelsonMinar
These maps were largely a work by Steve McGeady, who later went on to be an
executive at Intel. His testimony in the Microsoft antitrust trial in 1998 had
a big impact.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_McGeady](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_McGeady)

------
rocky1138
Seems like this would be better laid out using a fixed-width font. HTML
supports it, why not use it?

~~~
astrodust
Looks fine here. It's using "GlassTTYVT220", which is a custom font, so that
might not have loaded properly for you.

~~~
rocky1138
That's exactly what it was. After I wrote that I went into the stylesheet and
disabled the custom font. It worked a treat.

~~~
cat199
Man I am telling you, get this font.

It is a 100% clone of the actual vt220 font, and therefore is the ultimate in
green-screen retro awesomeness.

Basically, by getting this font and using it (esp on a BSD) you have the
original 'theme' for the Unix CLI, since pretty much everyone (yes being
hyperbolic) used real UNIX (or 'BSD UNIX' as it was called before the suit) on
VAX with DEC terminals around this time when most of the core CLI tools that
make up the core of the system to this day were being developed.. Things just
look 'right'.

As a vt220 owner and amateur Unixologist, I am very glad for this font.

[http://asdasd.rpg.fi/~svo/glasstty](http://asdasd.rpg.fi/~svo/glasstty)

~~~
andai
That's quite nice actually! Here's what HN looks like in w3m with GlassTTY
[http://i.imgur.com/3Mq6omo.png](http://i.imgur.com/3Mq6omo.png)

------
bane
I kind of can't even imagine the hours that might have gone into laying these
out so they'd work in ASCII.

~~~
astrodust
There are a number of ASCII/ANSI-art specific editors that allow moving
arbitrary rectancular chunks of text in any direction.

Classic example is TheDraw
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheDraw](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheDraw))
which dates from 1986.

~~~
bananaboy
I used to use TheDraw all the time to make screens for games, my bbs, and just
general stuffing around! Is the author still around? Would love to send him a
belated registration fee!

~~~
mwest
Couldn't find any social media links for them, but they are on LinkedIn if you
do a bit of Google searching.

------
jrnichols
I miss the old days of Usenet.

well, except the trolls and spam...