Xmonad – A dynamically tiling X11 window manager - pykello
http://xmonad.org/
======
mseidl
I've been a xmonad user for a long time, but I'm going to switch to i3.

While xmonad is nice, and haskell is nice, the haskell eco system is a PITA.
And things break a lot(using cabal). And somehow, after a long time of no
changes my xmonad will no longer recompile. Trying to update the haskell stuff
just turned out to be a HUGE pain. Also the libraries take up way too much
space because you have to have then in different ways. I forgot how it went,
but having xmonad(a small wm) required something like 1 to 1,5gb of harddrive
space.

~~~
LukeHoersten
For your WM you probably want to use a precompiled binary form your distro.
What you're trying is equivalent of trying to get the whole gcc stack and deps
to build a c-based WM. Haskell isn't a dynamic language and doesn't require
anything Haskell-specific to be installed on the target system to run a
binary.

If you really do want to compile your window manager from source, newer
versions of cabal, the Haskell package manager, have something called
sandboxes which basically remedy the problems you're talking about. I don't
recommend compiling from source unless you know what you're doing though and
if you're not using sandboxes, you probably don't.

~~~
mseidl
I was using rpms until they broke multi-monitor support, then I switched to
using cabal, which worked when I first installed it, but now it broke on it's
own. And when trying to fix it several packages where broken again. For no
reason. Cabal also doesn't do dependency management. So you have to try to
install something, it'll complain it doesn't have X, then you have to install
X, then it complains it doesn't have Y and so on.

------
ibab
XMonad has been my window manager of choice for years now. I especially like
that the code is short and easy to understand, so you can easily modify it (or
write an extension) if you want.

If you don't have previous Haskell experience, then other window managers like
i3 or bspwm might be more comfortable.

~~~
sevensor
> If you don't have previous Haskell experience, then other window managers
> like i3 or bspwm might be more comfortable.

My biggest beef with xmonad is that its configuration file is itself Haskell
source code. So even if xmonad is the only Haskell project I use, I have to
pull in GHC to compile my configuration. Since I'm not a Haskell guy, this
means that I'm easily tipped off the cliff into cabal hell, which is not where
I want to be when updating my WM config. For all that, xmonad is great when it
works, and I stuck with it from 2011 to 2014 before moving on to i3.

~~~
rlpb
My distribution maintainers deal with the cabal hell so I don't have to. I
just use the xmonad package and it just works, including with a configuration
file.

~~~
sevensor
I found that this approach worked right up to the point where I tried to make
non-trivial changes to the config, following examples from the xmonad website.
If you want your config to use a Haskell package that's not provided by your
distro, as many of the config examples do, you're out of luck unless you want
to take the cabal route.

It's possible this situation has improved since last year, when I switched to
i3, but it can never be fully rectified as long as the config file is itself
Haskell source. I find it surprising that, despite the Haskell community's
claims that Haskell is great for writing domain-specific languages, xmonad
does not expose a DSL for you to configure it with.

~~~
rlpb
> I find it surprising that, despite the Haskell community's claims that
> Haskell is great for writing domain-specific languages, xmonad does not
> expose a DSL for you to configure it with.

I presume it's nice that you can actually customize xmonad with code. So an
appropriate DSL would be a programming language so using Haskell makes sense.
Any other DSL would be more limiting.

> If you want your config to use a Haskell package that's not provided by your
> distro, as many of the config examples do, you're out of luck unless you
> want to take the cabal route.

I can understand that this would cause pain. I suppose it's up to cabal and/or
distros to fix this.

~~~
sevensor
> I presume it's nice that you can actually customize xmonad with code. So an
> appropriate DSL would be a programming language so using Haskell makes
> sense. Any other DSL would be more limiting.

You've hit the nail on the head here --- the problem is that xmonad offers an
unlimited scope for configuration, including extensions to the behavior of
xmonad. I'd rather see a clear separation between mechanisms for configuration
and extension, even if that reduces the power of configuration.

------
djfm
I've been using Xmonad for such a long time I can barely use a non-tiling WM
properly now. Makes me look like a fool on almost anybody else's computer.

But perhaps the greatest thing about Xmonad is that it can lead you to Haskell
and to functional programming in general, and I think this is one of the most
useful and beautiful discoveries a developer can make. Your Javascript or your
PHP will get better just by looking at some Haskell :)

~~~
noobermin
This is encouraging. I switched from Awesome to Qtile just because I liked
python more than lua, although Qtile lacks much in features (specifically,
Awesome's better layouts, in my opinion). However, I've been wanting to learn
Haskell and I was hoping using Xmonad would be a good excuse to learn it. It
sounds like I'd get what I want.

------
rboyd
Anyone know any decent tiling window managers for windows os? I found bug.n
which uses ahk, but it just left me longing for i3.

~~~
DanTheManPR
Not a full window manager, but I've used Winsplit Revolution for years to
manually re-tile my windows. I have it set to use ctrl+alt and then the grid
of keys:

qwe

asd

zxc

...to move windows into corners, sides, or the center of the screen. Hitting
the same key over and over re-sizes it to take up more or less of the screen.
It's sadly no longer being developed, but works fine on Win8 and Win10 (and so
probably will continue to work into the foreseeable future).

------
ranman
XNomad is an xmonad equivalent for OSX:
[https://github.com/fjolnir/xnomad](https://github.com/fjolnir/xnomad)

I made this fork of an actual project in the hopes that this joke would one
day become relevant... unfortunately I'm not that juvenile anymore so now it
just sort of feels stupid:
[https://github.com/ranman/xgonads](https://github.com/ranman/xgonads)

------
ams6110
Another tiling window manger (that I like) is awesome.

[http://awesome.naquadah.org/](http://awesome.naquadah.org/)

Configurable using Lua, though I've actually changed almost nothing.

~~~
fixermark
Xmonad is quite good, but I generally found its greatest strength to be its
greatest weakness: it turns out I didn't actually want to learn Haskell to
edit my wm configs. Nor did I really want to compile my wm configs, but that's
more a question of the speed of the Haskell compiler than the choice of
language.

Lua is not a great scripting language, but its biggest strength is its dog-
simplicity. There just aren't a lot of places for bugs to hide in it.

~~~
switch007
Really, XMonad does not need much configuration to be quite useful when
combined with Gnome/XFCE. Also, there are many, many examples you can copy and
paste. I've been using it for 5+ years with minor adjustments - I wouldn't say
I "know" Haskell. At all.

Further, "xmonad --recompile && xmonad --restart" is not that taxing on the
rare occasion you change your configuration.

------
rgoomar
XMonad is my favorite tiling window manager. I use it on top of XFCE, so I
have a bit of a graphical interface just in case my non-technical friends use
my computer and tiling / shortcuts / all the awesome stuff that comes with
XMonad on top of that.

Although it is written in Haskell, I find the configuration pretty easy to use
and manipulate. It's incredibly powerful and extremely lightweight when
compared to other tiling managers.

TLDR; XMonad is my favorite tiling window manager.

------
dnquark
Does Xmonad work OOTB on recent Ubuntu versions? I remember that after the
switch to Gnome 3 it was a huge PITA to get Xmonad, Xmobar, and trayer (to get
indicator applets) all working; some indicator applets never displayed anyway.

TBH, though, I didn't miss tiling WMs much after switching to OS X, mostly
because I spend 95% of my time in Chrome with hella tabs, terminal with screen
and Emacs.

------
eeZi
On a related note, still no package signing in Cabal (Haskell's package
manager).

[https://github.com/haskell/cabal/issues/936](https://github.com/haskell/cabal/issues/936)

------
foobarqux
Is Xmonad still being updated? It seems moribund.

~~~
dons
xmonad is largely 'finished'. It works. So we don't have to keep modifying it
now.

~~~
im2w1l
I assume you are an xmonad dev? I use it and I really like it. Could I ask you
to look into the focus/unfocus loop issue?

------
nycticorax
How is this news?

~~~
sophacles
From the guidelines: _On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find
interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to
reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one 's
intellectual curiosity._

Also from the guidelines: _Please don 't submit comments complaining that a
submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-
topic, flag it by clicking on its "flag" link._

Sometimes it's OK in a community focused on a topic like "tech things" to
remind everyone that something exists. Also, as HN is growing, and as a large
portion of the people on this site are young (e.g. recent grads, new in the
programming field, or even still undergrads) this is their first exposure.
It's ok that we get beginner level articles - e.g. most of the tutorials
linked here describe stuff that has been around for a long time and tutorialed
many times before. It's still ok. It gets people exposed in a way that is
useful.

Us old hands can add to the discussion by pointing out new features, or better
articles or advanced stuff. It's much more productive than complaining that "i
already knew this".

------
zer0rest
Xmonad(and others) is heavily inspired by dwm. I prefer dwm because it is
configured in C instead of haskell(I don't know haskell) and the bar is much
simpler than xmobar. Xmonad is cool if you like haskell though.

[http://dwm.suckless.org/](http://dwm.suckless.org/)

~~~
dghf
Apply the pango patch [0] to dwm, and you can get nice xft fonts, Unicode
icons and colours in the status bar.

[0]
[http://dwm.suckless.org/patches/pango](http://dwm.suckless.org/patches/pango)

~~~
nyir
Do you perhaps have an update to that patch against git HEAD or 6.1?

~~~
dghf
I don't, but this thread might help:
[http://lists.suckless.org/dev/1407/23054.html](http://lists.suckless.org/dev/1407/23054.html)


How to get Bitcoin from the early adopters to the early majority - andrewoons
http://andrewoons.com/post/93339555434/how-to-get-bitcoin-from-the-early-adopters-to-the-early

======
cbeach
I think social trading apps / websites are the way forward - get friends
helping each other with the learning curve, and P2P transactions well away
from centralised exchanges.

I built CoinTouch to find friends of friends that trade crypto currency. It's
been live since February and has 1700 users now.

There's a critical mass on CoinTouch such that most new signups see orders
within their (two degree) social network. FB and Google+ are supported, and
all transactions are P2P. No fees.

[https://www.cointouch.com/](https://www.cointouch.com/)

Feedback welcome.

------
higherpurpose
It's the other way around :)

~~~
andrewoons
Changed. Thanks for pointing it out :)!


Ask HN: Introducing my wife to programming - salttrail
I am experienced Java developer but I'm not sure whether it's something I should start with or teach her python. She have knowledge about what programing is and she would like to do career change so if you have any tips to share in which direction I should go, it would be helpful.
At the end of the day either web or mobile development is fine as long as she is able to have steady learning curve and less "huh?" moments, until she feel comfortable with whatever hack the programming is :).
My plan is to
1. Tackle OOP fundamentals
2. Introduction in one of the frameworks
3. Build simple apps
======
gt2
I think #3 goes at the top.

Open an editor and start a python script, , new Xcode project
from template, etc.

Then do the minimal amount of work to make a "program". Would be great to have
input from the user and output something interesting. But many programs/apps
are just informational right?

So you start with the most basic program.

And you add to it.

Occasionally jump over to a huge codebase and show her how editing one line
changes the program. Explain how this one just has more layers, time spent on
it, more people working on it, all of the above.

Go back to your small programs. Push until you have a real need for OOP or a
framework. Then she will be A) interested about OOP or the framework and B)
actually understand the point. Imagine someone trying to shove OOP down your
throat when you don't have any use for it. Inexperienced people aren't ready
for that kind of abstract thinking. Maybe they can understand it but they
don't understand the application of it, or worse, they will start to think
everything should use it. Show the simple version first, then show how other
things can make you work faster and the code cleaners (which are really some
of the biggest reasons for OOP and frameworks, right? It's not as if you can't
make something happen without them, they just increase productivity and code
clarity).

Lastly, making something that scratches an itch of theirs or both of yours so
the work is practical. There's plenty of possibilities there to avoid making
tic tac toe if no-one likes tic tac toe.

Good luck

~~~
wingerlang
I think this is quite important as well. A couple of years ago I had a
girlfriend that was interested in programming and she started _directly_
making an iOS application.

I helped occasionally when needed as I had 10 years of random programming
experience at the time (not in iOS though) but she powered through many issues
on her own. While I don't have contact with her anymore, based on her LinkedIn
profile she's still an iOS developer to this day, at a /really/ nice company
as well.

------
d--b
My advice: don’t do OOP fundamentals. OOP should come up out of necessity of
keeping code modular, not as a governing principle.

Building simple apps is the way to go. Don’t do web at first, it’s too messy.
Objective-C is a little harsh as well, so android development is what I’d
recommend. It’s simple enough to not get too frustrated, and it’s good for
motivation cause it’s cool to make an app for a phone.

------
raquo
For all the hate it gets, there is nothing simpler than a small Javascript and
node.js app. Easy to focus on one language initially, and if a _beginner_
wants to build frontend stuff, Javascript is the only option.

Guide her through building a simple app of her choice. Teach her how to find
answers on MDN and SO, but take time to talk her through big picture ideas and
architectures.

------
abledon
Do something with Pinterest API Crawl site to find jewelry or mittens or
puzzle boards or whatever she likes then analyze it with open cv. Forget OOp
altogether for a beginner — it’s useful after dealing with large code bases
and needing a method to organize code.

------
framebit
As somebody who made this career change, do not underestimate how much she has
to learn. It's very doable, but there is really SO MUCH. For somebody who
didn't grow up tinkering with computers (I didn't, my Dad needed that desktop
to write his law briefs so if we messed it up we were in big trouble) there's
so much ground work to lay and jargon to conquer that is second nature to
people who program but very confusing and new for beginners.

For example, early on when I was just starting to program, somebody was trying
to help me use a terminal (a what?) and they said "ok, type L S dash L pipe
grep dot txt." HUH? ok, I typed "ls-l," but what's pipe? No no no, it's "L S
Space dash. ls is the command." It's a what? It's like software that's already
been written that you can call just by typing the name." Oooohhh.

That's just one example. I got it eventually, I got a CS degree and I'm doing
distributed systems stuff fulltime, but man those first few months were rough.
I remember a friend helping me through what I later recognized as Baby's First
Off-by-one error. I remember the victory of writing my first program that
worked the first time. I remember the first time a classmate asked a question
and suddenly I was able to answer it!

My recommendation to start: write a toy program to do something trivial and
run it from the terminal. Like "Hello ___" where you take in ___ from the
command line. Learn how to interpret or compile your code from the terminal,
learn the basics of variable assignment (== vs =), if statements, maaaybe
loops, and go from there.

Never, ever say "It's simple," "It's easy," or "It's trivial." I got very hung
up (still do sometimes) on trying to understand what I'm doing from code down
to bare metal, and that is NOT SIMPLE, and when you're swimming in unfamiliar
terms and confusion it is very hard to articulate a question that clarifies
your confusion. And trying to guide somebody into thinking on a handful of
abstraction levels without going to far is not simple. Many times I needed to
hear "you don't need to worry about that right now" or "just treat this as
magic for the moment and focus on this other thing." That is way more helpful
and encouraging than "it's simple." I think FizzBuzz is simple now, I sure as
heck didn't back then.

Like other commenters said, leave OOP or functional paradigms or whatever for
much later. That stuff matters when you realize your one class has gotten
super unwieldy.

Don't jump too quickly to Android or web development without covering the
basic basics first. Android and web development are not simple and there's
some black-box magic that I don't even think some pros fully understand. It is
nice to visually see the changes that you're making through editing a UI, but
the abstractions can be tough.

This comment got long. In short, be encouraging, help her discern what she
needs to know and what she doesn't, and nothing is ever simple because
ultimately it's all running on a lightning-infused rock, and these days that
rock is probably connected by metal strings or electro-magnetic waves to other
lightning-infused rocks, and that's pretty hard to wrap your mind around.

All that said, I know for a fact that she can do it because I did!

~~~
salttrail
Thank you for such kind words

------
shahbaby
keep her in the kitchen


Hosting for Node.js apps done right - kertof
http://www.evennode.com/
======
pkorzeniewski
One question - does it support TCP sockets? I've evaluated a dozen or so
Node.js hosting solutions and none (0, null, nil) supported TCP sockets.
HTTP/S and WebSockets only. It's ridiculous - a TCP server is a major use case
for Node.js and yet if you want to host it, you must configure and
administrate your own server (on EC2 or whatever).

~~~
Duhck
We had the same problem. We actually wanted to use Heroku just for pre-
production as it was the easiest to deploy / manage, but their TCP socket
implementation is such a joke.

We would up just using AWS, and sunk a few days into dev / sys ops.

I would happily pay for a solution to this problem

~~~
yannski
Could you elaborate a bit on "their TCP socket implementation is such a joke"
? Are you talking about the Ruppell's Sockets addon ? What's your problem with
it ? What could be an improvement to it ?

~~~
pkorzeniewski
I've also evaluated Heroku and the Ruppell's Sockets, so I can answer this
from my point of view. The problem is that it's a workaround solution - all
TCP traffic goes through an external server, which is unacceptable for any
serious use case. How secure is that external server? What if it goes down?
There isn't really anything that can be improved, other than Heroku natively
supporting TCP sockets.

------
marktangotango
I wonder how pricing is determined for these offerings? Ie whats the driver
for profitability?

My thinking is as follows: if I use a popular IAAS for servers to host
customers node.js apps, and if I have instances with 15GB of ram, if I offer
application instances that are allocated at most 256MB, then I can fit about
58 application instances on a server (allowing 500MB for the OS). At 6€ an
instance (for the intro tier) that's 348€ a month

An EC2 M3.xlarge costs about $81 a month (3 year heavy reserved, amortizing
one time payment over 36 months). Today that about 63€ a month. So they intend
to make 290€ per server minus additional costs for mongodb hosting.

Does that jive with how you all figure these things?

------
conradk
This sounds like a joke to me.

1- "Hosting for Node.js apps done right": Like everything else is done wrong?
That's just weird.

2- What does "designed for cloud" mean?

3- "Free support"? How gullible do you think we are? At 6e/mo, anyone that
believes they're getting any kind of "Free support" is wrong. Or else this
service is going to fail big time.

Now some constructive criticism: I see "FTP access". But as a dev, I would
have liked to see something like FTPS, SFTP or better yet, SSH.

~~~
drdaeman
SFTP would be a better idea, but documentation says they do support FTPS:
[http://www.evennode.com/docs/ftp-
access#tls](http://www.evennode.com/docs/ftp-access#tls)

As for criticism... that they charge premium for TLS on custom domains. While
this is probably reasonable business decision, it does community a bit of bad
service - additional costs for security discourages users from having one. And
TLS already has that bar quite high.

------
dewey
No https and the login form is submitted in plain text. That doesn't really
inspire confidence.

------
eddieroger
What are the others doing wrong that these guys are doing right? From the
marketing page, it looks to be as simple as Heroku, except I already have an
account there, and most of my apps run for free already.

------
leichtgewicht
The things I miss in this "done right" approach:

\- Continuous Deployment: automatic load-balancing, proper termination of
instances, all seem to apply without documentation or not?!

\- Redis: MongoDB for persistent data is fine in many cases but for
performance nothing beats a key/value storage (also: some session storage
works well with redis)

\- Where is it hosted? Europe? Unusable for my location :)

------
jain_chirag04
Irony is that their website is powered by PHP rather than node.

~~~
sheetjs
In general, how do you determine what software is running on the server side?
None of the obvious links are to .php documents and the headers only indicate
nginx

~~~
cturhan
Look their cookies. You will see PHPSESSID meaning that session is provided by
PHP.

Although, you can do the same with node session module it seems like php
anyway.

Plus: [http://builtwith.com/evennode.com](http://builtwith.com/evennode.com)

------
marknadal
Really neat to have FTP access for new JavaScript to NodeJS developers that
don't know how to use git yet.

~~~
stephenr
In 2014 ftp access is not a feature, it is an alarm bell to anyone that has
any concern at all for security.

~~~
listic
I _hope_ that when they write 'FTP' they actually mean '(FTP or) SFTP'. Alas,
that's no always true.

~~~
leichtgewicht
They seemingly do:

[http://www.evennode.com/docs/ftp-
access#tls](http://www.evennode.com/docs/ftp-access#tls)

~~~
drdaeman
That's FTPS, not SFTP, to be precise.

The former is classic FTP sessions secured with TLS on all or some (negotiated
at runtime) connections. The latter is a (saner, IMHO) separate protocol
traditionally run over SSH session.

------
randunel
"Dev" price:

€ 6 / month

         1 app instance
         256MB RAM
         1GB storage
        Unlimited custom domains
        FTP access
        Free MongoDB database
        Free support

If they also have a transfer limit, then just forget about it :(

~~~
philbarr
Yes they don't seem to be offering anything above and beyond their
competitors, particularly on price. Not even a free tier.

I'm not saying that companies should have a free tier "by rights", only that
it's a good way to get you sucked in whilst you develop your app and then when
you scale you're unlikely to change provider.

~~~
kertof
I agree that a Free Tier is the best way to get you to adopt a tool. I'd love
to build and test at very small scale, then start paying when I've launched
and scaling.

------
Fastidious
Too expensive, in my opinion. The dashboard looks nice, simple and clean
though.

------
Kiro
How does this compare to Nodejitsu? Also, do you have support for socket.io?

------
sogen
another option: [http://nitrous.io/](http://nitrous.io/) they offer free
development boxes

~~~
listic
Windows and Mac, but no Linux support for their desktop software :(

------
dnns
does anyone know if bower, grunt, etc. are working?

~~~
BinaryIdiot
You'd typically run those and package the results for a deployment. Unless
you're using grunt to run your application it's probably unnecessary to offer
that.


[USA] Supreme Court Case Threatens Representation of Children and Non-Citizens - adnanh
http://www.socialexplorer.com/evenwel/
======
adnanh
[http://www.socialexplorer.com/blog/post/supreme-court-
case-t...](http://www.socialexplorer.com/blog/post/supreme-court-case-
threatens-representation-of-children-and-non-citizens-report-maps-5080)


Electric Generation in Spain – Latest 24 Hours - vinnyglennon
http://energia.ningunaparte.net/en/
======
amazon_not
I think we killed it :( At least I don't get any data plotted anymore when
loading the site.

I agree it's neat, but I dislike that the plot legend has the text at an angle
with poor contrast and in the "wrong" order compared to the plot colors. I'd
also like a better color scheme with more distinct colors. I'm also not s fan
of fading out the colors with time.

~~~
davidklemke
Same issue here on the latest version of Chrome. Seems our hug of death might
have spread to the official data source too as I just get a blank page there
as well.

------
hakcermani
Neat looking visualization. Sorry for the nitpick but personally a straight
line (rather than circular) plot 00:00 - 24:00 will help see the peaks and
compare high-low better. The time could you also show by time of generation
rather than local. (it is weird to see peak solar at 0200 hrs )

~~~
vegabook
Personally I quite like the polar coordinates, though it's a pity that by
convention, a watch face only holds half a day, as we would otherwise have a
nice mapping of generation time to a watch-face equivalent.

My nitpick is that this is ultimately a stacked bar chart, so as with
cartesian stacked charts, it obfuscates some of proportions, in particular the
very interesting cyclicity of renewables. The author has wisely put the
higher-variance variables first, mitigating the problem somewhat, but not
completely, as can be seen by comparing to the gridwatch UK equivalent.

~~~
imdsm
[http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/](http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/)

------
DiThi
It's glitchy in Firefox. Here's the official real time graph
[https://demanda.ree.es/demandaGeneracionAreasEng.html](https://demanda.ree.es/demandaGeneracionAreasEng.html)

~~~
Tharkun
"Alternate HTML content should be placed here. This content requires the Adobe
Flash Player. Get Flash"

Not happening.

------
rlongstaff
The equivalent for the UK:
[http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/](http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/)

------
farhanpatel
Very well done. Here is a similar thing for Ontario [http://media.cns-
snc.ca/ontarioelectricity/ontarioelectricit...](http://media.cns-
snc.ca/ontarioelectricity/ontarioelectricity.html)

------
eofear
Irish Dashboard here -
[http://smartgriddashboard.eirgrid.com/](http://smartgriddashboard.eirgrid.com/)

~~~
paublyrne
Were you involved in building it? Nice.

Does the percentage of renewable generated (wind) go up a lot during the
night?

~~~
eofear
No, we built a simple traffic light on top of it. [Red/Amber/Green] to
indicate how much electricity is wind generated, and so if its a good time to
charge your electric car, etc..

------
Animats
Most grid operators have displays like that. The California ISO has one.[1]
PJM's is the most elaborate; search for "eData Guest view" to view it. It's
too much information at first, but click on the "Big Picture" tab, then change
one of the smaller panes to "Wind", and one to "Load", and you can see current
load and how much wind power is contributing. Note the 5:1 variation in wind
power over a day, across most of the northeastern US. "LMPs" shows the
wholesale price of electricity at various points in the system. (It costs
money to transmit power, so it's not the same everywhere.)

You can view the PJM's network issues by clicking on "Constraints" or
"Emergencies". Typical message today: _" As of 17:10 on 11.20.2015 a Post
Contingency Local Load Relief Warning to maintain WARD 115 KV at 106 KV in the
PN area has been issued for Transmission Contingency Control. Additional
Comments: Pre-contingency voltage too high for caps at Mansfield and Niles
Valley"_ Minor problem, already handled. If you really want to understand all
this, PJM has lots of training materials. Start with "PJM 101".[2] Anyone
running a big network or "cloud" may find it useful to see how a very large
power grid is run. The main control room in Valley Forge, PA usually has less
than 10 people.[3]

[1]
[http://www.caiso.com/outlook/SystemStatus.html](http://www.caiso.com/outlook/SystemStatus.html)
[2] [http://pjm.com/Globals/Training/Courses/ol-
pjm-101.aspx](http://pjm.com/Globals/Training/Courses/ol-pjm-101.aspx) [3]
[http://www.elliottlewis.com/pjm-mission-critical-
site/](http://www.elliottlewis.com/pjm-mission-critical-site/)

------
karambahh
It's a neat tool however please keep in mind that Spain is actually a very big
importer of energy.

Earlier this year a major construction project has ended: a double 65km tunnel
below the pyrenean of 1000MW capacity. It doubled the previous existing
capacity.[1]

Spain is a very large importer of energy, ENTSOE data for October is 525GWh
FR->ES [2] Since the energy mix of France is roughly 75% Nuclear, in reality
Spain relies much heavily on nuclear than what is displayed.

Based on ENTSOE data, Fraunhoffer built another very nice data visualisation
of import/export of electricity between Germany and its neighbours [3]

European electricity networks are very tightly interconnected, and although I
don't have a source at hand, I remember being told that preventing a domino
effect between countries has been a massive feat of engineering. Basically,
the fear of every energy provider/network is something similar to the blackout
that happenned in northern america in 2003[4]

As a side note does anyone know what "balearic exchange" refers to? I guess
something the Baleares islands, but my google-fu failed me

[1] [http://www.inelfe.eu/?Liaison-electrique-
souterraine&lang=fr](http://www.inelfe.eu/?Liaison-electrique-
souterraine&lang=fr)

[2] [https://www.entsoe.eu/db-query/exchange/detailed-
electricity...](https://www.entsoe.eu/db-query/exchange/detailed-electricity-
exchange)

[3] [https://www.energy-charts.de/exchange.htm](https://www.energy-
charts.de/exchange.htm)

[4] [http://www.nature.com/news/is-the-us-grid-better-prepared-
to...](http://www.nature.com/news/is-the-us-grid-better-prepared-to-prevent-a-
repeat-of-the-2003-blackout-1.13559)

~~~
alricb
Spain is a net exporter of electricity; its net exports were 3406 GWh in 2014
(vs. total consumption of 243,530 GWh). It imported 5963 GWh from France and
sent 2395 GWh back; For Portugal it was 6345 GWh imported vs. 7247 exported,
and there was an exportation of 5839 GWh to Morroco (vs. 3 GWh of
importation).

Exports and Imports vary depending on the season. From January to April, when
the most hydro power is produced, Spain is a net exporter to France and a net
importer from Portugal. The rest of the year, the balance is mostly reversed.
The export to Morroco is roughly stable all year.

In 2014, Spain's nuclear power plants produced 57,376 GWh. Assuming all energy
imported from France (5963 GWh) was from nuclear plants, that would add 10.4%
to nuclear-source electricity, for a total of 63,339 GWh, or 26% of
consumption (vs. 23.6% if you don't count French imports).

Edit: source for all that: [http://www.ree.es/es/publicaciones/sistema-
electrico-espanol...](http://www.ree.es/es/publicaciones/sistema-electrico-
espanol/informe-anual/informe-del-sistema-electrico-espanol-2014)

~~~
karambahh
Didn't know that, thanks!

------
ioquatix
New Zealand power generation and transmission, live:
[http://www.em6live.co.nz](http://www.em6live.co.nz)

Shows a breakdown of how the energy is generated and where it is going.

------
light303
same for germany here: [https://www.energy-
charts.de/power_de.htm](https://www.energy-charts.de/power_de.htm)

~~~
the8472
Select "alle Quellen" on the left side to get a finer breakdown and then
"Import Saldo" on the top right for adjustment for imported or exported power.

------
macmac
The lack of solar is completely baffling. [EDIT] I was referring to solar on
average.

~~~
RBerenguel
Lack? It's around 10% during daytime

~~~
thrownaway2424
The times are presented in the viewer's local time. For me it looks like solar
peaks in the middle of the night.

~~~
RBerenguel
Oh, didn't realise since I'm in GMT+1 (actually, I'm in Spain, but well.) In
any case, solar is pretty visible with the color choice and, well, it's actual
presence.

------
slyall
Interesting that Hydro is dropping to almost zero at times. I would have
though at least some of it would be always going to maintain flow of rivers
etc.

~~~
DiThi
In the official graph it actually goes negative.

~~~
alricb
Probably because of pumped storage: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-
storage_hydroelectricit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-
storage_hydroelectricity)

------
ocschwar
We took it out. Can anyone share a cached copy ?

~~~
JorgeGT
Well, at least this is the official data portal of the Spanish grid:
[https://www.esios.ree.es/en](https://www.esios.ree.es/en) if someone is
interested.

------
globile
How can there be solar at 21.15 GMT+1? Even if just 0.30%. Is this from the
accumulated residual during the day?

~~~
ktzar
Concentration solar... It melts salt that still provides energy for a few
hours.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS10_solar_power_plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS10_solar_power_plant)

~~~
gearhart
wiki says they're using superheated water for storage, lasting 30mins and the
salts are under consideration - sounds like a serious improvement, do you have
more info?

~~~
Already__Taken
Click through the list of solar power plants, In particular I found this one:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Pr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Project)

> Melting about 70,000,000 pounds (32,000,000 kg) of salt takes two months.

------
ktzar
I find it so awesome that some days 50% of the electricity comes from wind...
Just great. A good example.

~~~
alvarosm
If you had to pay one of the world's most expensive electricity bills, I guess
you wouldn't find it so awesome.

~~~
pjc50
That appears to be down to weird non-marginal pricing:
[http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/01/01/inenglish/1388590410_230...](http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/01/01/inenglish/1388590410_230748.html)

The wind energy itself is cheap, but all producers are paid at the cost of the
most expensive dispatch!

------
thrownaway2424
Can someone explain "special scheme"?

~~~
alricb
I think it refers to the rest of the production that is done under the
"Régimen Especial":
[https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9gimen_Especial_de_energ...](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9gimen_Especial_de_energ%C3%ADa)

The scheme includes energy generated from waste, biomass, hydro, wind, solar
and co-generation. Since hydro, wind, solar have their own categories, that
part of the graph would correspond to waste, biomass and co-generation.

~~~
alricb
It may include everything, though, because the scheme only applies to
installation of less than 50 MW:
[http://www.endesadistribucion.es/es/oficinaOnline/RegimenEsp...](http://www.endesadistribucion.es/es/oficinaOnline/RegimenEspecial/Paginas/regimenespecial.aspx)

So a micro hydro plant or a rooftop solar installation would be counted under
the special scheme.

------
jaimehrubiks
I have new clock


1922: The Vacuum Tube Amplifier - mikecane
http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/1922-the-vacuum-tube-amplifier/

======
meaty
I nearly killed myself playing with tubes in the early 90s. The 6.3v heater
circuit got a short in the transformer winding and delivered a rather painful
220v between one hand and the other, through the table to earth. Was in
hospital for 3 days with arythmia after being knocked out cold for about 5
minutes.

Still they are one of the coolest devices ever :) I just have a lot more
respect for them and mains now.


A curated catalog of iOS frameworks - danielh
http://iosframeworks.com/
======
aaronbrethorst
Disclaimer: I'm the creator of <http://cocoacontrols.com>, which is a
competitor to iosframeworks.com.

* Provide direct links to the source code where possible

* License info is extremely useful; I'd hate to find something perfect for my app only to discover that it uses an incompatible license.

* Provide ratings support.

* What's a framework in this case? iOS doesn't support third-party frameworks, just static libs and loose bundles of code.

* What differentiated value does this provide vs. my site or <http://cocoaobjects.com/>? I'm not trying to be snarky or cut this down; I think there's a lot of room to differentiate and provide value in this space, it just needs to be articulated clearly.

~~~
featherless
As a developer of iOS frameworks and libraries, I will vouch for cocoacontrols
as a solid site. It's easy to add a new entry and search for existing controls
by license.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
thanks, jeff. glad you like it! :) also, thanks for submitting nimbus just
now!

~~~
featherless
Thanks for providing a solid service :)

------
dan1234
It would be great if the licensing details were included. One of the most time
consuming things is looking into a particular framework only to find the
license is incompatible with what you're writing.

~~~
scompt
Great idea. It'll go on my TODO list.

------
jamieforrest
How can we suggest new frameworks for inclusion on the site? E.g. You are
missing Cloudmade's SDK for OpenStreetMap.
<http://cloudmade.com/products/iphone-sdk>

~~~
scompt
That's a feature that I have yet to implement, but it's on my todo list.
Follow @iosframeworks for updates to the site.

------
scottjackson
Related: a collection of custom UI controls for both iOS and Mac OS X:
<http://cocoacontrols.com/>

~~~
rheeseyb
Nice, thanks!

------
joakin
I'm missing here sort options, by most popular, best rated, etc. Also the
details for the framework are very short, a really small explanation, and
somethimes nothing but the link to their web page.

Maybe adding screenshots and opinions would increase usefulness.

Anyway, added to favs, I really like the idea!

~~~
scompt
Interactivity (most popular, etc) is definitely on my TODO list for the site.
I'll probably end up requiring login with OpenID for commenting and rating.

I agree that the details are pretty slim on frameworks. As part of the
interactivity feature, I plan to add a form for suggesting changes.

Thanks for the feedback!

------
simonw
Feature request: screenshots, if available.

~~~
adamzochowski
Of a framework? As in API? I am not sure if I understand, how would one make a
screenshot of ROR? or Django? or jQuery?

Unless you mean top application using a given framework, but then, it is not
indicative of the framework, but the amount of time one spent on graphics on
top of the framework.

~~~
glhaynes
Screenshots of _UI_ frameworks could be nice.

------
ssharp
Longer descriptions on the homepage:

"Tapku Library is an open source iOS framework built for iPhone & iPad. The
framework include..."

That tells me nothing about Tapku other than it's an open source framework for
iOS, and I don't really need the iOS part because I'm aware I'm on a site for
iOS frameworks.

------
kbutler
\- Search needs to search tags and substrings (e.g., searching for "ASI" or
"http" does not find "ASIHTTPRequest", even though both are substrings of the
library name, and the library is tagged with "http").

\- The search results page needs to include more information. That first line
just isn't enough, especially when the whole summary is just a few words more
(e.g., clicking on "Bullet" adds "and rigid body dynamics.") The search
results should probably include the library tags, and maybe the full first
paragraph.

\- Pages for individual frameworks should probably include links to comparable
frameworks (see osalt.com, for example)

------
yardie
Could you make the listview 2x the size? Really, 5 items per page is not
helping anyone. Especially when you get to frameworks starting with C, I,
HTTP[], etc.

~~~
scompt
Yup, I agree. This is on my todo list.

------
adeelk
It would be great if there was a screenshot of each entry.

~~~
scompt
Good idea. joakin mentioned this too. It's on my todo list.

------
ajg1977
The fact that this site lists oolong engine* makes me suspect that it's not at
all a carefully selected lists of framework.

(oolong is basically a poorly put together collection of sample code with an
'engine' label slapped on it. For example the engine doesn't actually have any
concept of 'lights', instead the 'lighting sample' is a rip-off of an Apple
sample with all light properties hard-coded calls to OpenGL).

~~~
pagekalisedown
Not only that, Box2D and Bullet are not iOS-specific.

~~~
scompt
I've made no effort to ensure that the frameworks available on the site are
iOS-specific. The main point is that they're available for iOS.

------
robjohnson
This is an interesting addition, but I have to agree with the other repliers
that: a sorting mechanicsm is desperately needed and more information about
each framework would be nice. (screenshot, etc) Other than that, this is a
great way to stay on top of these frameworks. I'm sure you thought of this,
but gitHub has a few lists that do this as well that you might want to take a
look at.

------
nbuggia
Great idea (I also love cocoacontrols.com).

Please show more than 5 results per page. PLEASE! How about 25-50?

------
Apocryphon
It'd be nice if there was some way to compare frameworks that have similar
features. For instance, I'd like to compare physics engine frameworks, either
based on their listed features, or if there was some way for users who have
tried multiple ones to leave comments comparing them.

------
davidw
What would a non-curated catalog look like? One generated automatically via a
Google search? Aren't you just saying that a person took the time to go
through and make the catalog?

~~~
frou_dh
Those gigantic download sites full of obscure low-quality shareware are what
non-curated catalogs look like.

------
jawngee
Curated how exactly? You individually test each framework out?

------
kennethologist
I second the screenshots request as well as more thorough descriptions. I
don't want to have go to each framework's site to view the details.

------
chrisballinger
Missing many frameworks (JSONKit, for example), and no ability to add them to
the database! Also lacking license.

------
cschreiner
Great initiative. But please make the site more comfortable for us with an
iPad. Make the buttons bigger!

~~~
scompt
I've never tried it on the iPad. I'll see what I can do!

------
lewispb
It would be great if there wasn't a spelling mistake in the second sentence.

~~~
scompt
Good catch. The framework details were taken, for the most part, directly from
the homepage. I'll fix it when I get the chance.

------
abcd_f
Feature request: drop _curated_. Way too pompous.


Getting started with shaders: signed distance functions - pcr910303
https://jvns.ca/blog/2020/03/15/writing-shaders-with-signed-distance-functions/
======
GuB-42
Here is the article that started everything

[https://www.iquilezles.org/www/articles/raymarchingdf/raymar...](https://www.iquilezles.org/www/articles/raymarchingdf/raymarchingdf.htm)

iq didn't invent the technique, but he popularized it. His website has a lot
of tutorials on making demoscene effects, especially for 4k intros. He is also
one of the makers of shadertoy.

~~~
jmiskovic
I was surprised to learn he was behind the Oculus Quill (VR art and animation
software). He started posting very well produced video lessons on SDFs. I
enjoyed this recent one:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMltMdi1Wzg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMltMdi1Wzg)

~~~
Arelius
You might also be surprised to find out that he was a co-author of shader toy,
and he was previously at Pixar where he did much of the procedural work behind
The Good Dinosaur.

------
fenwick67
There's a disclaimer missing from this article (and many others like it),
writing a frag shader to generate 3d geometry is generally not the ideal way
to actually render stuff unless you're doing demos (with some exceptions).

The other thing that gets me is these articles say "here's how you write a
shader" but shaders are much more than a fragment shader over the whole screen
(like what shadertoy provides).

~~~
gmiller123456
He's using ray tracing, I thought this was the typical way of doing it. Do you
have references on alternate methods?

~~~
Arelius
So, specifically, he is ray-marching a signed-distance field. Which has some
interesting properties.

One of the major down-sides is it's often more difficult to create the
boundary surface, fewer editors and the like. More common methods are
polygons, subdivision surfaces, and nurbs.

So, one common technique as you mentioned is ray-tracing, the key difference
is ray-marching samples the world at intervals (often regularly spaced, but in
SDFs you can search for the boundary since given any location, you know the
distance to the closest surface) where ray-tracing you intersect each
primitive directly, and normally build up data structures (BVH, for example)
to minimize the amount of individual tests you need to do.

Another common technique, used almost exclusively in every real-time case
(games, CAD tools, etc) Is rasterization, where you project the triangles into
screenspace and intersect them with the pixels, the main difference being that
your outer loop is now "for each triangle" rather than "for each pixel"

The differences might seem pretty subtle, and in a sense they are. But they
have pretty enormous ramifications on the design of a renderer, how they
handle content and their performance characteristics.

~~~
Zelizz
It's she, not he: [https://twitter.com/b0rk](https://twitter.com/b0rk)

~~~
Arelius
Thanks for the correction.

------
reggieband
One of my coworkers did a basic implementation of SDF (signed distance fields)
based on the Valve white paper [1]. He was implementing smoothing for fonts
but the work applied to most vector shapes. IMO, it gave exceptional results
and he claimed it was a reasonably simple implementation.

1\.
[https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/apps/valve/2007/SIGGRAPH2007...](https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/apps/valve/2007/SIGGRAPH2007_AlphaTestedMagnification.pdf)

~~~
srgpqt
msdfgen :
[https://github.com/Chlumsky/msdfgen](https://github.com/Chlumsky/msdfgen)

------
jasmcole
I went deep down the art of code rabbit hole on YouTube, a great channel for
learning about shaders.

I wrote this blog post on writing interactive SDF shaders:

[https://jasmcole.com/2019/10/03/signed-distance-
fields/](https://jasmcole.com/2019/10/03/signed-distance-fields/)

------
gh123man
Shameless plug - But if you are interested in 2D SDFs and some interesting
ways they may be practically used in games, I wrote a bit about it here:
[https://blog.sb1.io/intro-to-2d-signed-distance-
functions/](https://blog.sb1.io/intro-to-2d-signed-distance-functions/)

~~~
pengaru
I did something sort of similar for the basic menu controls in a little game I
made, visible here [0].

It's a fun puzzle to work out how to draw things like a question mark or on-
off power icon in a fragment shader. Definitely not the easiest/quickest way
to construct a UI though, especially with weak math-fu like mine.

[0] [http://pengaru.com/~vc/tmp/q.png](http://pengaru.com/~vc/tmp/q.png)

------
etaioinshrdlu
So signed distance functions turn out to be quite hard to design for more
complicated shapes. You can cheat by having the distance far aware from the
surface being not quite accurate -- but there are limits to how much you can
cheat before you have unwanted rendering artifacts such as blobs or holes.

"Boolean" operations on these signed distance fields pretty much always cheat,
except for Union, which can be done with a max(a,b) operation.

Deep Learning can be used to attempt to learn a function approximating a true
signed distance field for a shape. [https://deepai.org/publication/deepsdf-
learning-continuous-s...](https://deepai.org/publication/deepsdf-learning-
continuous-signed-distance-functions-for-shape-representation)

I think signed distance fields may turn out to be significantly better than
old school raytracing if we can have super-optimized distance field functions!

~~~
kevingadd
The union operator also produces incorrect distances for the interior of the
union volume, which is a problem for things like shadow cone tracing. See
[http://iquilezles.org/www/articles/interiordistance/interior...](http://iquilezles.org/www/articles/interiordistance/interiordistance.htm),
I've actually been struggling with this in my SDF implementation.

I'm still a big fan of the union operation since GPU rasterizers can trivially
hardware accelerate it, which means you can render a bunch of objects in one
go and know that it will be performed at near-optimal efficiency by the GPU.
I've been combining that with a packing technique to render 3 depth slices at
once in RGB (plus an extra duplicate slice in A) so that I can accurately
sample any point in space with a single bilinear texture read.


Why passenger jets could soon be flying in formation - Kaibeezy
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/airbus-formation-flight/index.html
======
Kaibeezy
_" They will be 1 1/2 to 2 nautical miles away from the leading aircraft, and
slightly offset, which means they are on the side of the vortex. It's no
longer the vortex, it's the smooth current of rotating air which is next to
the vortex, and we use the updraft of this air." Taking advantage of the free
lift in this updraft of air is called "wake-energy retrieval." ... on long-
haul flights, fuel savings of between 5% and 10% may be achieved, "which is an
enormous number."_

------
stevage
Wow, so interesting. I'm really curious whether planes from rival airlines
would cooperate to fly together like this. And if not, are there really so
many situations where two planes from the same airline travel a long segment
together at the same time?


An open letter to members of the New Jersey District Court, FBI, and DOJ - taylorbuley
http://weev.livejournal.com/405848.html

======
jack-r-abbit
Previously discussed:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7774603](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7774603)


Microsoft to Open Retail Stores Next to Apple’s - nreece
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/07/microsoft-to-open-retail-stores-next-to-apples/
======
icey
If they get into the PC support business (as suggested in the article); I
foresee doom for the Geek Squad / any other consumer tech support shop.

They don't even have to be any good at support; they will get plenty of
customers just by having the Microsoft name.

~~~
drhowarddrfine
The Geek Squad services more than just Microsoft stuff.

~~~
icey
The question is whether they will be left with enough business to stay alive.
I'm positive their bread and butter is windows issues. Why would anyone go see
the Geek Squad with a Windows issue when they can go see "the Microsoft guy"?


Will Everything Stay in New Orleans If Cameras Capture It All? - adventured
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/30/us/new-orleans-security-cameras.html
======
athenot
Two points that always put a dent on "surveillance in the name of safety"

1\. Make all the camera feeds accessible to the public. Afterall, shouldn't
more eyes help a place be safe?

2\. Install cameras around Police HQs. Don't they want to be safe too?

Of course those who advocate surveillance in the same of safety are also the
first ones to ensure they are never on camera themselves...

~~~
techsupporter
> 2\. Install cameras around Police HQs. Don't they want to be safe too?

This is one of the things that makes me laugh with annoyance at the signs at,
say, Customs and Immigration when entering the U.S., or at the entrances to
courthouses, or (formerly) around airport screening areas. "No pictures or
video are permitted. Cell phone use prohibited."

What, precisely, is going on that shouldn't be photographed? If one camera in
the ceiling is good, aren't 931 cameras all that much better?

As always, the safety of the enterprise is paramount.

~~~
tj-teej
Everyone who works in XX-Sec will tell you that every system has weaknesses,
in this case I think that it is those weaknesses which shouldn't be
photographed.

I think the logic is that the bad guys would use the pictures to identify the
weaknesses and evade the screenings.

Now, whether the point of Airline security really is to catch the bad guys is
a whole different story...

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
If pictures can identify weaknesses, can't "The Bad Guys" just go there
themselves, or send their lackies.

~~~
rangibaby
Send someone important: “You got here for your stay in ADX Florence... and we
didn’t even have to extradite, torture, or rendition you to get you here! What
a guy!”

Send someone not important: “You know what? I’m glad I forgot how to light my
liquid-based shoe bombs that need exactly 101ml of fluid to blow a fatal hole
in a plane. The inflight meal was much better than I thought it would be. I
mean it wasn’t great but it was not horrible either. When I got off the plane,
There were infidels and uhhh there was security and umm stuff. I didn’t take
any pictures because there was a sign that said I shouldn’t. It was easy to
find which suitcase was mine because of the rainbow colored strap my niece
chose for me to put on it. What do you think of the mouse ears I got you from
Disneyland? ...boss?”

------
mywittyname
> Kelby Reed, who lives in the city’s Ninth Ward, said he favored expanding
> the presence of security cameras in New Orleans to deter crime.

This isn't about deterring crime, it's about catching criminals. Which is not
the same thing. I wish departments would be more upfront about this.

There's no statistical link between cameras and crime prevention [1].

[1][https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/study-
question...](https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/study-questions-
whether-cameras-cut-crime/)

~~~
ivanhoe
Robberies at British banks have fallen by over 90% in last 2 decades and one
of the reasons quoted are CCTVs. Of course, cameras by themselves are not
enough, they can only be a part of the solution, together with the police and
community efforts.

~~~
guitarbill
Meanwhile, credit/debit card use has soared and cash reserves have declined.
But that can't have anything to do with it, think of the children!

------
Animats
_" The broad public safety plan announced last year, which included an early
version of the camera plan, discussed taking steps to “reduce the culture of
permissiveness” in New Orleans."_

That already happened to San Francisco. Coming next, the San Francisco
Homeless Tracking System.[1]

[1] [http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-s-ambitious-
ho...](http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-s-ambitious-homeless-
strategy-seeks-sharp-12245176.php)

------
danso
Mostly OT: Isn't the phrase "What happens in X stays in X" more closely
associated with Las Vegas, which must be one of the most heavily surveilled
cities in America? [https://lasvegassun.com/youre-being-
watched/](https://lasvegassun.com/youre-being-watched/)

~~~
slededit
I always interpreted the tag line to be more about the social acceptance of
what would be considered deviant behavior elsewhere.

~~~
ghaff
Yes. The implication is come to Vegas and do wild stuff with no one at home
the wiser. The contra is a favorite t-shirt I’ve seen at the airport: What
happens in Vegas stays on Facebook and YouTube forever :-)

------
briandear
Can we fix the title? It should be "Will 1,500 Street Cameras Be a Wet Blanket
in New Orleans?"

The current title makes no sense.

~~~
adventured
The NYT changed the title since I posted it, I suspect they agree with your
assessment.

------
geebee
I read accounts of people responding with hostility to google glass (there was
a time when it was considered bad etiquette to take someone's picture without
asking, and plenty of people feel this way now. I honestly don't really like
being recorded). But the technology to embed this in a way that is
undetectable will almost certainly be developed before long, and could all be
uploaded to the cloud.

Once it's there, I'm pretty sure law enforcement will use various machine
learning approaches to process and scan vast amounts of uploaded visual and
audio imagery in cloud storage (I believe this already happens on a smaller
scale). As for New Orleans? In my opinion, this very likely to happen with or
without the cameras.

------
alant
If it’s done with respect to people’s privacy and able to reduce/deter crime,
why not?

~~~
jandrese
How can you be sure they will respect privacy? That's the $10,000 question
here.

~~~
milkytron
No one can be sure, but if they only place these cameras in public locations
and have them facing public areas, then there should be no expectation of
privacy to begin with.

If they have them facing private areas and use them to record those privately
owned areas, then that's another issue.

~~~
rectang
There's a vast difference between permanent blanket surveillance of a public
location and incidental witnessing of events in a public location.

It's like the availability of mugshots. Decades ago, they were also public
documents, so in that sense nothing has changed. But now that they are so much
more accessible, vile businesses now retrieve mugshots in bulk and publish
them online in order to shake down people who have been arrested.

------
nickthemagicman
I live and work in New Orleans. I don't live in the best part of town.

Bad stuff happens here like everywhere but I very very rarely fear for my
safety.

This is a definite case of 'control/corruption in the name of safety'.

How do we stop it?

~~~
mdarens
There are community groups organizing to oppose the expansion of the security
state in New Orleans, including but not limited to MaCCNO:
[https://maccno.com/join-the-opposition-to-new-
orleans-40-mil...](https://maccno.com/join-the-opposition-to-new-
orleans-40-million-security-plan/)

~~~
nickthemagicman
Thank you!

------
peterwwillis
Rich white people tend to ask the question, "How can we stop the crime?"

Poor black people tend to ask the question, "Why do they keep us at the end of
our rope?"

And never the twain shall meet.

------
ozten
Don't worry, only some of the cameras are maintained and operational, if we
can trust a 3rd season plot-line from the fictional show Treme.

~~~
sjs382
I can say for certain that a lot of the speeding and red light cameras are
_definitely_ in working order.

~~~
pixl97
Profit centers always work.


Systemic traffic jams caused by small groups of drivers, study says - freejoe76
http://www.mercurynews.com/traffic/ci_22328900/key-source-bay-area-traffic-headaches-revealed-by
======
tokenadult
This is a very interesting report. It was based on anonymized tracking of cars
with cell phone GPS signals to better understand the whole traffic network of
the Bay Area. Identifying choke points for traffic led to a policy proposal.

"John Goodwin, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the
region's transportation planning agency, says the best way to spread out
traffic coming from these neighborhoods is to install metering lights at their
freeway onramps, which spaces out the traffic to help both those drivers and
everyone else get to their destinations quicker. Though many important Bay
Area freeways already have metering lights, such as Interstate 280 in the
South Bay and Interstate 680 in the East Bay, others don't."

The Twin Cities metropolitan area, where I live, was the first place in the
United States to gain special federal permission to put on-ramp metered signal
lights on federal Interstate Highways used heavily by commuters. They
empirically help a lot in smoothing traffic. One reason we know that is that
for a while a doofus state legislator shut down the freeway metered ramp
program, until traffic here became so unbearable that the meters were put back
in use. I have heard from friends who travel here from other parts of the
country that the ramp meters (implemented as red-yellow-green traffic signals
just before a car gets onto the freeway) are confusing to people who usually
drive where on-ramps are just unimpeded paths onto the freeway. But they
definitely speed up traffic.

The Twin Cities has one federal highway, Interstate 394, with a pair of
reversible lanes, usually eastbound (into Minneapolis from the suburbs where I
live) in the morning, and westbound (out of the city into the suburbs) in the
evenings. That helps with rush hour commuter traffic, except that a lot of
cars are eastbound for evening appointments even as commuters are leaving the
city, so the reversal of lanes still leaves the regular, nonreversible lanes
badly congested each evening. I wonder if a traffic study like the one
reported in the interesting article submitted here could identify how to
smooth out the traffic problems we still have here.

~~~
mrb
_"It was based on anonymized tracking of cars"_

If it was anonymized, they could in theory release the data, right? However
the article states "all the data gathered in the study will be kept
confidential". Don't these 2 statements contradict each other? Why would they
need to keep anonymous data confidential?

~~~
russell
The two statements are consistent. In order to do the analysis they need to
keep track of the full paths that the individual drivers make. Given the
paths, particularly over a period of time, it is easy to identify individuals,
even if you dont have their names to begin with.

~~~
zzleeper
Maybe they can delete the first 100m of every trip, so it would be harder to
poinpoint locations w/out losing that much

~~~
adrianN
"On the Anonymity of Home/Work Location Pairs"

Abstract. Many applications benefit from user location data, but lo- cation
data raises privacy concerns. Anonymization can protect privacy, but
identities can sometimes be inferred from supposedly anonymous data. This
paper studies a new attack on the anonymity of location data. We show that if
the approximate locations of an individual’s home and workplace can both be
deduced from a location trace, then _the median size of the individual’s
anonymity set in the U.S. working population is 1, 21 and 34,980, for
locations known at the granularity of a census block, census track and county
respectively._ The location data of people who live and work in different
regions can be re-identified even more easily. Our results show that the
threat of re-identification for location data is much greater when the
individual’s home and work locations can both be deduced from the data. To
preserve anonymity, we offer guidance for obfuscating location traces before
they are disclosed.

<http://xenon.stanford.edu/~pgolle/papers/commute.pdf>

------
ryusage
Reminds me of an interesting site[1] I came across a while ago, in which the
guy argues very convincingly that traffic jams occur as waves, which are
started when even a single car does something to cause the car behind them to
slow down (avoiding something, stopping to merge, etc). If it's non-trivial,
then that will begin a chain reaction - a wave propagating through a medium of
cars. The severity of that effect is directly proportional to the density of
the medium/traffic.

Given that perspective, metering lights to reduce density seem like exactly
the right solution.

[1] <http://trafficwaves.org>

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
My father, in grad school, worked in a lab with a guy who pioneered a lot of
this research. He showed the coil like action of these waves and how they
created wrecks. Here are some other things I thought were cool:

He calculated the risk of changing lanes on a highway and estimated how much
people valued their lives in dollars (usually fractions thereof) based on this
one criteria.

He drove vehicles into lakes to study the escape from such a vehicle.

He tracked the eyes of truckers and found that their eyes would fall to the
front of the hood and dart up a few times about 30-45s before they fell asleep
and wrecked.

Another guy tried to make a talking highway by varying the distance of groves
and marks on the road.

Just thought some might find this stuff interesting or amusing.

~~~
gwillen
I'd be curious if you have data on the risk of lane-changes. (Knowing how
dangerous they are would probably cause me to do fewer of them.)

~~~
sliverstorm
I would guess the risk is not all that significant in the scheme of things.
Just another one of those, "Look, you say human lives are priceless, but here
I will prove they do have a price (whatever that might be)" type deals.

------
dmfdmf
I'd like to see a website where I can enter my home address and work address
and it will generate a chart of leave and arrival times for each day of the
week based on prevailing and constantly measured and updated typical traffic
patterns with accident-jams removed. In my experience traffic patterns, even
without accidents, are highly non-linear and leaving 10 minutes early or later
can drastically reduce your drive time. You could even have it rank different
routes so that on any given day of the week you might take a different route
and leave at a different time to minimize your drive time and increase the
probability of arriving on time.

Metering lights have their use but are limited in how long they can hold up a
car whereas if I am at home or work its no problem to adjust my schedule +/-
10 minutes or more to avoid a jam. As more people signed up for such a site it
would also become more efficient since it could take into account where and
when people actually want to go in its planning calcs.

~~~
chaz
I wanted an app to do this, and just let me know when it was going to take
less than x minutes to get to work/home. The simplest workaround was to
bookmark Google Maps directions, so a single click would tell me the expected
time with traffic. I saved it as an Android bookmark as well, so I could
single tap it from there, too.

This works ok if you're interested in waiting until after traffic, and not
"beating" traffic. In my situation, under x minutes meant leaving at 5:30am or
after 9;30am, and going home before 3:00pm or after 7:00pm, so that was fine.
YMMV.

Google Now is somewhere close to this, but I've found it finnicky. Maybe
because of my more flexible schedule was throwing off its ability to predict
my commutes. I would have preferred something more explicit for work hours,
than it guessing based on my GPS'd habits.

~~~
dmfdmf
I was hoping for a solution that can solve (or at least minimize) the problem
between 6-9am and 4-7pm. I think there are a lot of short-lived local effects
that can be avoided. For instance near my office is a government agency that
quits work right at 5pm on the nose. If I leave one minute before 5pm it is
smooth sailing, one minute after 5pm and traffic is snarled until 5:30pm or
so. Also, as far as general commuting, the school start times are one major
effect since these are local and hard set arrival times for the parents. A
smart database could calculate these effects and other cross-interactions that
really impact jams so a small change with x% of drivers can prevent avoid the
log-jams or backups that take time to dissipate once they form. Perhaps the
data could even be used to get schools with interfering traffic patterns to
stagger their start time 30 minutes which could have a huge impact.

------
gbadman
I've always felt that driving in traffic is a sort of prisoner's dilemma.

Consider a two-lane highway that splits into two directions, a very popular
direction and an unpopular direction. Inevitably, we will see a group of
people who will wait to the last second to cut into the popular lane. These
late-comers cause two problems: 1) people to hit the brakes who get cut off in
the popular lane, and 2) people to hit the brakes in the unpopular lane who
are forced to slow down to allow the selfish drivers to merge.

When I take the generous approach and wait in line, I hate people who cut in.
On the other hand, I find myself clever for cutting in at the last second and
saving time when I take that approach. I'm still not sure which approach is
'right'. All I know is that the latter will increase overall delays while
doing the former will have little to no impact on overall delays but a major
impact on my own.

Traffic is a pretty interesting subject.

~~~
lotharbot
> _" I'm still not sure which approach is 'right'"_

If you have a circumstance where 2 lanes are merging into 1 lane, _merge as
late as possible_. It sounds counterproductive, but it's actually best for
traffic as a whole.

See <http://trafficwaves.org/seatraf.html> and the HN discussion at
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=785259> .
<http://drmomentum.com/aces/archives/003800.html> also has a number of nice
links.

~~~
kgermino
My interpretation is that gbadman did not mean the situation where two lanes
merge into one, but rather where you have two lanes traveling in a single
direction approaching an interchange where the lanes split such that the left
lane goes one direction and the right lane goes another.

In gbadman's example one lane (let's say the right hand lane) goes to a road
that does not back up, whereas the left hand lane goes to a road that will
back up through the interchange. In this situation, you have a left lane
congested with people waiting to go on the busy road, and a right lane that
should be almost free flowing. By most understandings (including the
execellent book, Traffic) people wanting to go to the busy road should wait in
line in the left lane, allowing people going to the less busy road to pass
freely. However, many drivers will stay in the right lane until the very last
minute, then attempt to move into the left lane before the right lane splits
off, backing up both lanes.

~~~
gbadman
You are right in your interpretation of what I meant.

I think the lane split is the better example of the prisoner's dilemma. As
others have mentioned that in the two-lane merge situation the global optimum
is the selfish approach.

------
sadfaceunread
This research was published with supporting information in an open access
journal (Scientific Reports [Part of Nature Publishing Group]). See the full
text for more.

[http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/121220/srep01001/full/srep01...](http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/121220/srep01001/full/srep01001.html)

------
ChuckMcM
One of the things I really like about this study is that it captures not only
road congestion but where the drivers enter into, and exit, the freeway
system. And it reconfirmed for me yet again that starting/ending in Sunnyvale
is reasonably optimized for working in the 'valley' part of Silicon Valley.

~~~
jmspring
The problem I have is the study didn't fully factor in road layout/design.
Highway 85 here in the Valley spans from the south Valley up to 101 in
Mountain View. Within months of opening, it was a recurring traffic jam. Boom
or bust in the valley, traffic let up a little in the bust, but the road is
congested pretty much from 6:30am until 9:30/10am in the morning.
Intersections of 85/280/101/237 at the north end impact traffic northbound in
the morning. 85/280 impacts southbound in the evening.

Again - patterns persisted during both the last two booms and busts.

It is more than just a "small group of drivers".

------
JonnieCache
Isn't this a strong argument for better buses?

I guess that's not really the thing if one works in the valley with a huge
salary...

Surely the geek bus would be a cool place to be though?

~~~
chii
the problem with public transport isn't that its uncool, but that you still
ahve the "last mile" problem. Also, you have to plan your life around the
transport, where as if you owned your own car, you dont need to do so.

THe best solution isn't better public transport, but self driving cars that
you can get ondemand (but don't own).

~~~
sliverstorm
_THe best solution isn't better public transport_

I disagree.

\- If public transport arrives and departs often enough, you don't have to
plan your life around the transport.

\- If the public transport network is large enough, you can eliminate the
"last mile" problem, either by making it short enough to walk quickly or by
connecting backbones to local distribution. Classic example, train + bus.

Of course the Bay Area has _nothing close_ to this kind of network, but you
said "the _best_ solution", and I'm pretty convinced an idealized public
transport system is much better than driverless cars. Superior passenger
density, superior fuel efficiency, superior materials usage, etc.

~~~
chii
what you have described - big enough a network, running often enough, etc -
are all the properties of the driverless car. In effect, the public transport
system no longer consists of trains/buses, but a huge pool of driverless cars
you hail.

~~~
jeltz
The difference is the cost. Public transport has superior fuel, space, and
materials usage.

Another difference is that public transport is a known working solution which
has been implemented with great success in many cities since the 19th century.
While driverless cars is something we just now is getting the technology to
build so it is untested.

------
cagey
The first two paragraphs of this article are crap, typical of the "journalism"
of today.

      A groundbreaking study ... has pinpointed a small group of
      drivers making Bay Area freeways miserable for the rest of
      us...

You mean the other drivers, incremental vehicles coming from other sources,
are simply not contributing to traffic misery? Who knew?! At least the
solution is both obvious and simple: the "small group of drivers" should
clearly be "gotten rid of" so the misery of the virtuous is removed. Line 'em
up against the wall...

      ...they come from a few outlying neighborhoods and travel
      long distances together in the same direction like schools
      of fish -- clogging up not only the roads they drive on,
      but also everyone else's.

You mean, they're "everyone else's" roads, and these cheeky interlopers are
taking what rightfully belongs (only) to "everyone else"? And the other
commuter vehicles are not traveling together "like schools of fish"?

Why do the (government) planning departments bear NO responsibility for the
results of _their_ decisions? Specifically, they have the final say regarding
where houses, apartments, roads, shopping centers, ad infinitum, are built.
Yet the ultimate fault is with people who simply chose to live in certain
locations, rather than bad capacity planning prior to their homes being
approved to be built?

~~~
jeltz
The rest of the article discuss government solutions and metered lights
though. Misleading, populist headlines and first paragraphs are staple of
modern journalism.

------
anigbrowl
Driverless cars can't come to market fast enough.

~~~
russell
One of the purported benefits of driverless cars is that they can drive
together in packs. This article would seem to contradict the benefits of that
claim. OTOH they would be less prone to the erratic behavior that can create
standing waves of congestion.

~~~
gregsq
Driving on lengthy highways in Australia is interesting, at least in the state
of Victoria, where enforcement of the speed limit is very strict. The limits
of 100kmh and 110kmh are enforced within a mandated speedometer error limit
that's very tight for new cars. Older ones have looser accuracy, predating the
legislation that enforces the error limit.

One if the consequences is that on long stretches of road, cars that are very
slightly quicker catch up with others. Then, because there's safety in
numbers, and because other cars normalise speed through a kind of meaning
speed check, clusters form. Overtaking is tantamount to breaking the law,
though some attempt to creep by, leading to reduced distance between vehicles,
and increased stress for drivers due to reduced reaction time.

Under these kind of circumstances, a strong argument could be made for
driverless cars, if only to avoid the increased potential for collision due to
driver error. And it demonstrates for one embedded in the packs that form, the
kind of experience that we can expect.

~~~
njs12345
I've been on roads where this happens in Britain, when a police car is driving
at the speed limit (generally quite loosely enforced on motorways) with people
behind forming a cluster which won't overtake out of fear. Quite frightening,
and surely combining the worst of all worlds in terms of accident risk (both a
high risk of an accident and a high risk of an accident causing fatal or
serious injury).

I asked my aunt, who is a police officer, about this, and she said in general
the police try and drive slowly (well below the speed limit) on the motorways
to prevent this phenomenon from occurring. I wonder whether the guy I saw was
doing it deliberately or had just forgotten..

------
swampthing
Pretty interesting. I wonder if any non-technical approaches have been tried -
like educating drivers to move to a right-side lane if they're slow. At least
on the 101, it seems like so much of the congestion would be alleviated if
slow people stayed out of the left-side lanes. It'd be safer too since it'd
remove the incentive for drivers to weave through traffic.

------
kps
Many commuters shouldn't have to be on the roads at all. Fiber is cheaper than
freeways.

------
Nitramp
An alternative are variable speed limit systems:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limit#Variable_speed_limi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limit#Variable_speed_limits)

They can be used to slow down cars heading into a traffic jam to reduce the
arrival rate so the traffic jam can dissolve. Roads with a lower speed limit
also fit more cars (need less safety distance) - driving slower means less
traffic, so traffic jams can be avoided by reducing the speed limit.

These systems are very wide spread in Germany, covering most Autobahns around
major cities.

------
jakozaur
Dynamic pricing might be a good solutions (with reasonable maximal prices).
However, it would be hard to introduce them because of public pressure.

~~~
chii
why would dynamically pricing tolls cause less traffic? Especially in the
morning rush hour - you gotta get to some place by a specific time, you have
to pay the toll no matter what it was (with reasonal maximal prices of
course). its only when there is an unreasonable maximal price (or no maximal
price) that people's behaviour would change - imagine a toll of $500 during
peak. It would put off people from going on the road.

~~~
jakozaur
Well that's true, but the article already points that taking a few % drivers
out of roads could make a huge difference.

See:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/jonas_eliasson_how_to_solve_traffic...](http://www.ted.com/talks/jonas_eliasson_how_to_solve_traffic_jams.html)
You don't need anywhere 500$, most likely 2-5$ toll is good enough.

------
DenisM
In Seattle I noticed that traffic is always light on Monday, but some places
get jammed other days of the week. Apparently, there are many people who don't
have to be somewhere on Monday, and those same people chose to drive during
rush our on other days of the week. What's up with them anyway? If you don't
have to go to work, why drive anywhere during rush hour?

~~~
InclinedPlane
It could be that people with somewhat flexible schedules end up going into
work later or earlier on Monday than average, spreading out the traffic enough
to keep it moving fast.

Also, it could be that there are people who don't normally work on Monday,
which is actually fairly common in many service industries. Many restaurants
are often closed on Mondays, for example.

~~~
goodcanadian
Moreover, more Mondays and Fridays are taken off either for "sick" leave or
vacation. It may only take a small percentage to make a noticeable impact on
traffic flow.

------
Thrall
"These commuters .. travel long distances together in the same direction like
schools of fish"

Sounds like what they need is a train, tram or bus.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Reactionary boomers in Marin county have been slow-rolling the regional rail
plan (SMART) for decades. Don't hold your breath.

If SMART ever comes into any kind of decent service it should relieve a
significant demand among north bay-to-sf weekday commuters. Note, however,
that SMART service to Larkspur Ferry is "planned" and "phase 2" which means
probably not in my lifetime.

------
brini
_"This has enormous potential," said study co-author Alex Bayen, a UC Berkeley
professor of electrical engineering and computer science. "These findings are
going to come into practice in the near future. This is not just a scientific
study."_

``... not just a scientific study.'' Reinforce engineering v. science
stereotypes much?

------
sunnybythesea
I yearn for the day when driver-less cars become the norm. But then, I'm sure
the same people will find ways to jailbreak the software and enable reckless
driving behavior :(

~~~
geoka9
Why wait for driverless cars when there's public transport which lets you
enjoy the same benefits?

Isn't it sad how pefectly fine we're with hauling 2000+ lbs of hardware just
to get 150 lbs of flesh from point A to point B in the morning and back in the
afternoon.

~~~
chii
the single biggest downside of public transport is that you don't control the
schedule (nor where it goes - but lets ignore that for now).

A driverless car is a taxi that's cheap and effective. You don't have to park
it, you don't have to figure out the route. You just hail one, get in and type
in the destination. Its sane public transport.

~~~
jeltz
Actually the schedule part rarely matter for commuting to work since those
routes usually have a high density of buses/trains. In Stockholm during rush
hour the subway arrive every 1 to 5 minutes, commuter trains every 7 to 15
minutes, buses usually every 3 to 15 minutes.

Not controlling the destination usually matters more since that means you may
have to change train or bus several times.

------
malachismith
So, basically, the suburbs are the problem?

~~~
marshray
No, it's the workdays, especially 9:00 AM.

Companies should get tax breaks for randomizing the start time of their
workdays.

~~~
jeltz
It is the combination of both, plus the lack of good public transport.

------
corresation
The title of the submission is deeply misleading, though it follows some
rather ridiculous claims in the article-

 _Instead, they come from a few outlying neighborhoods and travel long
distances together in the same direction like schools of fish -- clogging up
not only the roads they drive on, but also everyone else's._

The notion that _they_ are to blame is asinine. A highway is being utilized
beyond capacity, but picking out any group on the highway adds dramatic
narrative yet little insight. The suggestion that you remove "just 1%" is
surprisingly naive as well, reminding me a bit of this Onion piece -
[http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-98-percent-of-us-
com...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-98-percent-of-us-commuters-
favor-public-tra,1434/)

If the highway had less utilization, it would cause many who use mass transit
(like light rail) to choose the highway. Rinse repeat. It is how highways in
virtually every metropolitan area eventually reach a point of saturation, that
new point becoming the natural balance.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Right. Which is why the only sane way to deal with traffic is to ramp up the
tolls until the utilization falls below 90% or whatever the threshold is. I
don't care if the rush hour toll on the Bay Bridge is $50. It will cost less,
overall, than having thousands of people stuck in traffic for hours.

~~~
Nitramp
As there's no alternative in public transport (that I'm aware of), if you
charge $50 to cross the bridge, you will make it impossible to work in SF for
people living North and earning below a certain threshold.

So these people will either have to move, or find a different job. That seems
like a somewhat extreme outcome.

Offering attractive alternatives to commuting by car might be a better way to
reduce congestion on the roads.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Public transport (BART + AC Transit) already carries the majority of transbay
traffic, so I don't understand your claim that there is no alternative to
driving.

------
gigantor
It may be time we start introducing reverse traffic cameras. Ones that issue
fines for not following a minimum speed in peak commute hours for the vehicle
that is unquestionably the first in a pack responsible for the jam.

Proximity calculations, leading vehicle frequency, trailing vehicle average
speed, etc., using existing technology already in place that can be leveraged
and innovated on to accurately determine culprits.

~~~
nollidge
The article has nothing to say about needlessly slow drivers, just about
traffic volume overall.

~~~
gnu8
You can see how the title of the post might give the idea that it was about
specific drivers. My first thought when I read it was "I bet it's those god
damn hippies hyper-mileing in their priuses", but then I clicked through to
the article and it failed to confirm my preconceived opinion.

~~~
nollidge
Sure, so did I, but then I _read the article_.

------
halis
Oh yeah you mean women?


A Texas Jury’s Guilty Verdict Should Worry IT Admins - moon_of_moon
https://www.wired.com/2016/06/texas-jurys-guilty-verdict-worry-admins
======
moon_of_moon
Peter Thiel .. funding an appeal of this would be a better use of your $$$.


Show HN: Couldn't find good tool to analyze MySQL Slow Query Logs so I made one - DangerousPie
http://nk.gl/slow_queries/

======
zimpenfish
What's the unique selling point of yours over pt-query-digest?

[http://www.percona.com/doc/percona-toolkit/2.1/pt-query-
dige...](http://www.percona.com/doc/percona-toolkit/2.1/pt-query-digest.html)

~~~
DangerousPie
Well the one big difference is that mine is simply a website where you upload
your log file, while pt-query-digest is part of a (apparently linux-only)
toolkit that you have to download and install. This may not be a big issue if
you have your own linux-based server and deal with these logs on a regular
basis, but if you are on Windows and just want to do a one-off analysis I
think my site is a much better solution.

In addition, since I am displaying the summary in a web browser I can add all
sorts of nice enhancements you couldn't have in a simple console, for example:

      - Searching and sorting queries on the fly
      - Syntax highlighting
      - Visualization (like the queries/hour histogram)


Show HN: Libemf2svg, a library/utility to convert Enhanced Metafile (EMF) to svg - kakwa_
https://github.com/kakwa/libemf2svg
======
brudgers
Does it vectorize bitmaps from the Enhanced Metafile?

~~~
kakwa_
No, and it doesn't even handle bitmap blobs yet.

The other big missing parts are clipping and emf+ records as a whole.

However, I am not sure it's a good idea to vectorize a bitmap.

~~~
brudgers
Whether it matters depends on the use case of course.

If the bitmap is not vectorized it can't be styled with CSS. It also means
that the resulting SVG contains arbitrary data from the source or edited as
text.

Anyway, years ago when I was dealing with WMF in a vector context, not SVG,
embedded bitmaps made the imported objects mostly worthless. Years before
that, I would use Corel Draw to vectorize bitmaps and it worked remarkably
well for ordinary cases.

~~~
kakwa_
The trick here is for "ordinary cases" ^^.

Vectorizing bitmap might not be trivial and results in crappy or huge (in
size) outputs.

As far as I can, I would like to keep this conversion library as simple as
possible. Ideally it should be a simple translation between EMF records and
SVG with exceptions only where there is no direct mapping. Bitmap blobs, when
supported, will be converted to png and embedded inside the svg.

However nothing forbids you from adding a post treatment on the generated svg
to handle bitmap/png.

The day I will come back to my initial motivation for this lib (converting
visio stencils to svg, including emf blobs), It's probably what I would do if
I need to.

~~~
brudgers
That makes sense. I have been curious about what would generate enough WMF
files to justify writing a converter since I saw the post.

It might be useful to include why the software was written in the readme. It
could improve discovery for people dealing with Visio.


I love Elixir and want to share my findings and get you excited about it as well - mdekuijper
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/tjeerd
======
DrScump
all this is is a forwarding page to a vanity site, not even the site itself.


Ask HN: Please stop submitting "Bitcoin Exchange Y is down" - mschuster91

Please, for the love of god, stop posting Bitcoin drama. No need to further influence the already instable markets...
======
spoiler
Not to mention it's not _news_ to anyone who deals with bitcoins whilst it is
annoying for anyone who doesn't care about them.

~~~
smosher
This.

Who cares if MtGox is down? The same people who already found out the hard
way.

------
minimaxir
I strongly doubt that a single HN post would "influence the markets."

~~~
mschuster91
The problem is that most of these links link directly to MtGox, thus
involuntarily helping the DDoS attacks.


When did parents get so scared? - apress
http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2015/08/26/when-did-parents-get-scared/dEsGOllSt3zhFPfy1iOzKI/story.html
======
talmand
As I have said elsewhere here on HN, I would like to let my kids play in the
front yard but I don't. Not because I fear they'll be hit by a car jumping the
curb, a serious injury from falling down, or some bad person kidnapping them.

I don't let them play in the front yard because I don't want to deal with the
possibility of someone calling the cops after seeing my kids in the front yard
that will lead to a government employee with more power than their agency is
supposed to have showing up to threaten taking my kids away from me for
playing in the front yard.

------
FrankBlack
I am sure it was a slow change that we hardly noticed. I think a couple things
contributed to this mentality (there are plenty of others): 1) The tragic
death of Adam Walsh became national news and spawned his father's advocacy for
victims of crime. That spawned "America's Most Wanted"; a show that convinced
viewers that each person wearing a sleeveless undershirt was a criminal. Faces
of missing people appeared on milk cartons. No one wanted their child to be
next. 2) Cable TV news needs to fill up 24 hours a day, so it breathes fear
into us with each story so we don't dare change the channel.

Or not...

------
imh
I wonder how much it is related to the fact that we hardly know the people
around us. I don't know my neighbors. I've heard that's a new phenomenon. We,
the adults, might not even step out of our bubbles as much these days, much
less allowing our children to do so.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I wonder if this is a big part of it, I know all my neighbors on a "Hi, how
are you?" basis, and some better than that. We all know each others kids, and
we all look out for each other. One of the reasons I chose the house I did was
so that our kids could walk to the park without crossing any busy streets.

I think you have to be intentional about it though. We walk our dog and say Hi
to everyone we pass.

------
adamio
"With more first-time parents than ever older than 35..."

I would gess this probably has a larger subconscious impact than societal
drivers, I wonder if any studies on this have been done


Complex System Failure: The Whole Is More Than the Sum of Its Parts - ITNEXT
https://itnext.io/complex-system-failure-the-whole-is-more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts-ac1ee9bc4e6c
======
amelius
> there have been critical computer system bugs and defects that have resulted
> in the loss of human life such as the 346 people who died on-board the
> Boeing 737 Max 8 flights in Indonesia and Ethiopia during 2018–2019

Strange example, as that was more a consequence of a failure in management.

~~~
jchw
Something I’ve learned from working in reliability: there is not one cause.
There is also not n causes. There is more like trees of different kinds of
causes where each node has some weight contributing to the incident. So yes,
it is a failure in management for sure, but it isn’t also not other things.

------
jeffreygoesto
I could not really see a conclusion. Is there any? For the list of references,
I'd add
[http://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Sys...](http://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Systems%20Fail.pdf)

------
kunkelast
These larger paragraphs are so difficult to read... The text seem to be
written for Google bot, not for real readers :(


Show HN: Icebreakers – Slackbot for building team relationships with fun Q&A - echo_one
https://www.careerlark.com/icebreakers
======
echo_one
Hi all, wanted to get your thoughts on our Slack app Icebreakers. As a
remote/distributed team from all over the world, this is something we wanted
ourselves because we found it tough to build more of that personal connection
given the time zone differences and everything being digital.

We're currently featured on the Slack App Directory
([https://slack.com/apps](https://slack.com/apps)) and on Product Hunt
([https://www.producthunt.com/posts/icebreakers-2-0](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/icebreakers-2-0)).


Ask HN: What is the popularity of Rails outside of Silicon Valley?  - thisisdallas

Rails has a very high level of popularity on HN as well as in Silicon Valley. I haven't looked at job openings in every major city but it seems like a large majority of Rails jobs are found in Silicon Valley. Clearly, there are Rails jobs all over the US but is the assumption that the majority are found in Silicon Valley correct?
How do other languages compare in the rest of the US? For example, I can almost certainly guarantee that I will never live in San Francisco or even California so would taking the time to learn Rails over another language be beneficial if my end goal is to just have a developer job? I am currently a front end dev but I would love to gain a solid understanding of a backend language as well. I am located in Texas and looking at job openings in Dallas, Houston etc. etc. it seems like they are geared more towards .Net or PHP. Even looking at other cities with a population under or just above 1mil it looks like they have more job openings for languages other than Ruby.
Any thoughts and or comments?
======
scottbartell
Atlanta has a decent size rails community.

You should consider looking more deeply into the positions that are available.
Companies who use .Net tend to be older and more mature businesses (likely
because .Net is not open source) and I am not positive but I would think that
they are looking for highly experienced developers. I would take a close look
at the entry level positions that are available in the area that you want to
work and possibly even contact those companies and ask what exactly they're
looking for.

Also, a possible imperfect way to determine the ROR community size in a city
is by searching for Ruby / Rails meetups in the area.

------
roderick3427
To be honest, I think ruby is a very good backend language to start out with.
The syntax is very clean and easy to understand, the online resources are very
vast and up to date. A lot of startups use ruby on rails because you're able
to build apps very fast with it. That's why you see a lot of rails job
openings in Silicon Valley, because that's where a lot of the startups are.

------
roderick3427
I live in Texas also, I know for sure that Austin has a good community of ruby
developers along with Boston.

~~~
thisisdallas
Oh, yeah, I guess I should have said something along the lines "excluding
Austin".

------
dyeje
Rails is pretty popular everywhere.


How I succeed in delivering every project on time - vavingo
https://vavingo.com/work-better/13-lucky-steps-on-how-to-manage-a-design-project
======
vavingo
These are the steps I've used for some 17-years to deliver projects on time
and have the client complain less during the project. It's done wonders for
me.

Hope it resonates with you.

Let me know if I'm missing something.