TSA plans to reduce airport lines by opening enrollment for Pre-Check program - adamnemecek
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/tsa-plans-push-to-reduce-airport-lines-opening-enrollment-for-its-pre-check-program/2013/12/03/3cac8e5e-5c2f-11e3-be07-006c776266ed_story.html
======
molecule
> A racket is a service that is fraudulently offered to solve a problem, such
> as for a problem that does not actually exist, will not be affected, or
> would not otherwise exist. Conducting a racket is racketeering.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_(crime)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_\(crime\))

~~~
joshdulac
While you were likely pointing out that the problem "would not otherwise
exist", I'd like to propose that the problem might "not actually exist".

I was flying a few weeks ago and the pre-check line was backed up with 30+
people, while the normal security line was empty and I passed right through in
seconds. I haven't been to Dulles in years (described in the article), so I'm
not sure if it is worse there.

------
b6
I don't want the TSA to be made tolerable, I want it to go away. I'm not going
to enroll in this program. I opt out of the intrusive type of scanner every
time I go through security. It's troublesome and annoying to them, and I enjoy
the symmetry.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
Wow, I'm always running late--that would definitely make me miss my flight, 7
times out of 10!

~~~
mikeash
Sounds like you should leave for the airport earlier.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
Uh, yeah, I already figured that out :) However I usually am dragging along a
wife and child and that adds 50% more time to everything.

------
alooPotato
Is it just me or does it seem like the bottle neck at most of the checkpoints
is NOT ppl taking off their shoes/coats/laptops out of the bags/etc.

It always seems to me like the bottleneck is the actual xray machine. Ppl seem
to always be waiting to push their stuff through the xray machine before going
through the body scanner.

The human looking at the screen is either the bottleneck or the machine itself
can't run that fast, I'm not sure which.

If a significant proportion of ppl get TSA-Pre then we'll have the same
problem no? It will no longer be fast unless they increase the # of xray
machines per passenger. In which case, why not do that now, without the need
for TSA pre.

~~~
adamnemecek
In my experience both are a bottle-neck. Any queuing theory experts here?

~~~
existencebox
At the risk of oversimplifying, I think you're overcomplicating it. What's
happening is the forced serialization of more "jobs" than there is "processing
power" to deal with it. the problem I've always seen is simply one of, if you
try to cram 500 people through 2 tiny doorways , no matter how efficiently you
do it, it's going to take a while, especially if more people keep on coming.

I don't mean to say that the bottlnecks within the serialization don't make
things worse, but that primary problem is just one of raw pipe width. (to keep
using the beating-dead-horse-computer-metaphor.)

~~~
adamnemecek
The thing though is that you can't really start taking your shoes off, laptop
out of your bag etc. until you get to the conveyor belt and at that point you
are blocking. Furthermore, they seem to adjust the speed so that the bags on
the other side don't pile up as the people who went through are putting their
shoes on again.

------
chrsstrm
It's actually a better move to enroll in Global Entry
[[http://www.globalentry.gov/](http://www.globalentry.gov/)] which gets you
expedited entry at border crossings, includes you in the Trusted Traveler
program (which is what Pre-Check is), and only costs $15 more ($100).

That being said, I don't know why we still need to remove our laptops from our
bags. I look at my SSD MBP and my iPad and wonder, what's the difference? Does
anyone still use those early 2000's 8lb doorstops we used to call laptops?

[edit: Trusted Traveler previously identified as Known Traveler, which was
wrong]

~~~
adamnemecek
As far as I can tell, Global Entry is for re-entry to the US. Selected members
of the program were offered to be in Pre-Check but they don't go hand in hand.
And starting tomorrow, you will be able to apply for Pre-Check directly.

EDIT: Okay, I'm not sure about the relationship between Global Entry and Pre-
Check. The TSA website says "Certain members of CBP's Trusted Traveler
programs, including Global Entry, [...] that have been invited to opt-in
qualify to participate." but other sites say that they are eligible
automatically.

~~~
chrsstrm
Trusted Traveler is what you could call the list that Pre-Check vets you
against, so Pre-Check is really just Trusted Traveler. Yes, Global Entry is
only for returning to the US (you couldn't imagine it would be more, it is a
US-run program), but it does also enter you into the Trusted Traveler program.
The only reason I know this is a recent client of mine is a travel industry
expert who spent time clarifying the programs and how they interact with each
other. Their frugal recommendation is, if you travel outside the US, the smart
move is to do Global Entry, more bang for your dollar.

~~~
Multiplayer
Global Entry is actually available for entry into other countries as well.
Well, at least one. I just used it in Australia.

------
skwirl
"Opening the enrollment centers, 300 in all, will be a step toward TSA
Administrator John S. Pistole’s grander plan to reduce the security hassle for
low-risk passengers so his workers can focus on those who give some reason for
suspicion."

Get ready for cries of profiling. Get ready for endless articles about people
who were denied entry into this program with no reason given.

The reason grandmothers have to take off their shoes and jewelry and be groped
is not for security. I don't know how the TSA plans on implementing this
system without backlash.

~~~
mikeash
The TSA is probably not _using_ these reasons, but there are security reasons
to screen everybody. Any time you make an easy path through security, you
invite your adversary to use it. You talk about screening grandmothers as if
this was irrational; do you think there are no old ladies out there who harbor
a deep hatred of the United States and are willing to carry a bomb onto an
airplane? There certainly aren't a _lot_ of them, but they don't need a lot,
they just need one.

~~~
CamperBob2
And it's not worth the cost of stopping her.

~~~
MrUnknown
I agree with this. I have a much better chance being killed by a local cop
than anything to do with terrorism.

~~~
mikeash
I also agree. But _if_ you accept the premise that you want to put a lot of
effort into stopping these people, _then_ it makes sense to search everyone,
even "little old ladies".

------
malandrew
AFAICT this is just a backdoor attempt at a national ID system.

Anything that requires fingerprints is a huge step towards the same national
ID cards required of Permanent Residents.

A huge question is whether fingerprints from a crime can be run against this
database. IMHO, the fingerprints gathered for this program should come with a
license where you only grant them usage of the fingerprints when IDing you in
airports. Any other use of the fingerprints constitutes misuse and a gross
privacy violation.

Personally, I am a permanent resident (looking to get citizenship), but I
would hope that every American that cares about their individual rights and
the principals that this country was founded upon would fight back hard
against this sort of program.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
> _Any other use of the fingerprints constitutes misuse and a gross privacy
> violation_

And just how do you expect that to be honored? Last time someone revealed that
the government lied about this stuff was...well, Snowden.

------
GrinningFool
When you can pay more ("Preferred Access") to get into shorter security lines
and get through security more quickly, that just serves to underscore how
little actual 'security' is really present. And I say this as someone who has
stood in both the slow line and the fast line - this isn't me being grumpy
because "those people" go through the line faster while I'm stuck.

And now "Pre-Check" is letting us get back to the level of actual security we
had pre-911: reasonably effective and not in the way. Only now it's a
privilege that must be applied for and paid for.

Quite the racket.

~~~
saryant
I'm not sure how the elite lines underscore that. It's the same security, you
just have fewer people in line in front of you.

Those aren't even controlled by the TSA—the elite lines are handled by the
airport because their customers (the airlines) ask them to.

------
blisterpeanuts
This seems like a great idea. It would be more like the pre-9/11 era when you
basically put your stuff on a ramp and then walked through a metal detector,
no messing around with shoes, laptops, and bags of toiletries.

(Now I'd really love it if they could revise the liquids and gels restrictions
so that I can bring 4 oz. yogurts again. Why did they make it 3.4 oz.? Is .6
oz. really the difference between a safe and healthy drink/food and a
potential terrorist weapon?)

~~~
malandrew
What I don't get is what I do with this presciption medicine I take that comes
in a 4oz bottle if I remember correctly. It's a schedule 3 controlled
substance sold by only one pharmacy in the whole country. Taking it in any
container but the original would be suspect since it's also a known street
drug.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
Medical liquids can be brought through in any necessary quantity. Sai (link:
[http://s.ai/tsa/](http://s.ai/tsa/) ) tried this with juice but found that
agents were not particularly willing to play nicely since juice doesn't seem
like a medical liquid...whatever that means. I expect that yours should be a
bit more obvious. In theory.

~~~
malandrew
There's good information there. Thank you.

------
joelrunyon
If enough people join the pre-check program - won't we have the same issue
that we currently do? It seems the more people that join this service, the
less valuable it is.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
Maybe so, or else it might be like the highway toll transceivers (EZ Pass
etc.) -- lots of people get them, and then they can zip right through, yet
even today there are always really long lines piled up in the cash-only lanes.

I suspect that not a lot of people will fork over the $85, either because it
sounds expensive or just on general principles. I would pay, but I imagine a
lot won't.

------
alttab
So wait a second. TSA gets introduced and it makes lines long and horrible. To
get around that, give us full spying rights and $80.

This is a little too problem-reaction-solution for me.

------
FiloSottile
Wow, so finally TSA went full-out on discrimination. "If you look ok, skip
security"

------
mmagin
"TSA Pre✓™"

Are government agencies actually given trademark protection under the law?

~~~
malandrew
I don't see why not. There is value in protecting the mark from unauthorized
use that could mislead people.

What I don't understand is giving government agencies any copyright or patent
protection.


Why now is the best time to study quantum computing (2014) - Phithagoras
http://arxiv.org/abs/1501.00011
======
dheera
Although I have studied the basics of quantum computing, I don't think it will
become necessary for computer scientists to know the gory physics details of
quantum computers. All they will need to know is that a certain function that
is normally O(n^2) now has a magical implementation that is O(n), and another
function that is normally exponential is now polynomial.

Quantum computers will likely manifest themselves as co-processors, and you'll
have a nice well-abstracted API to access those implementations within
traditional languages, i.e.

        #!/usr/bin/env python4
        from quantum import qc
        qc.init(device="/dev/quantum0")
        factors = qc.factor(15)

~~~
s_q_b
Later in the game, sure. Who's going to build the early toolset? Who's going
to own it? Will their be a FOSS API, or will we be locked in?

All of that design infrastructure needs to be built by somebody, and that
somebody stands to make a forunate. The tasks you listed are a decent summary
of the likely eventual outcome.

But:

• Who will do the work to create this beautiful API? • Who will create this
coprocessor architecture? • Will this theoretical stack be built by Microsoft,
Amazon, Google, etcetera, or be FOSS?

These questions are completely unanswered, and will affect my users of
whatever quantum. When analyzing data, one cannot usually just gloss over the
underlying math. All abstractions, by definition, are incomplete.

But that's the exciting thing about right now. Most inventions occur when
science outruns engineering. When engineering and cutting edge science _just
about_ to finally converge, that's when market opportunities are most
prevalent.

~~~
eslaught
How many people/companies did it take to build GPUs? A lot of people, to be
sure, but as a fraction of all software engineers, that number is incredibly
tiny.

The vast majority of software engineers---even if we filter to just the set
who have actually used GPUs for a project---only know the high-level APIs
(OpenGL for graphics, CuDNN for AI, etc.). Fewer engineers are familiar with
the more general-purpose APIs (CUDA, OpenCL, etc.), and even fewer still know
any of what goes on underneath those layers.

Bottom line: it takes a relatively small community of people to build tools
for everyone else to use. People will need to know how to use the highest
level of APIs, but most need not understand what goes on underneath that.

~~~
yeukhon
Or a better way to put it in my own opinion: in the early days of any emerging
technology, most of the founding members have little clue what to do except
the concepts and ideas, so implementing toolsets which can be used on both
quantum computers and non-quantum computers will be a learn-on-job work for
most people, leaving a very very very small pools of experts who devoted
his/her life to this area.

------
ThePhysicist
I gave an introductory talk about experimental quantum computing at the 31C3
where I explain how a basic two-qubit quantum processor works and how we can
run a very simple quantum algorithm (Grover search) on it, here's the video
link:

[https://youtu.be/1PcseLsYZ9Y](https://youtu.be/1PcseLsYZ9Y)

~~~
rburhum
That was the best and easiest-to-follow overview I have seen of a quantum
computing architecture. You clearly have a talent to explain complex concepts
in a way that anybody with a CS undergrad background could understand. Thank
you!

Do you any other videos on this topic you would recommend watching?

~~~
ThePhysicist
Thanks for that great feeedback, I really appreciate it!

I don't know any other videos, but I really like Nielsen/Chuang's book on
Quantum Information. The first chapter is available for free:

[http://www.michaelnielsen.org/qcqi/QINFO-book-nielsen-and-
ch...](http://www.michaelnielsen.org/qcqi/QINFO-book-nielsen-and-chuang-toc-
and-chapter1-nov00.pdf)

Michael Nielsen has a great blog btw where he talks not only about quantum
computing but about machine learning and other interesting subjects as well.

~~~
michael_nielsen
Glad you like the book and blog. I did a short video series on quantum
computing: [http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/quantum-computing-for-the-
det...](http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/quantum-computing-for-the-determined/)
Never completed, but some people tell me they find it useful.

~~~
ThePhysicist
Nice, I did not know those! Your book really helped my to implement quantum
state & process tomography during my PhD btw (much more than most journal
articles on the subject), thanks again for writing it. I think together with
David Mermin's "Quantum Computer Science" (which is much shorter though) it's
still one of the best books on the subject.

------
d0m
If I was still a student, I would definitely go in quantum computing. So much
opportunities for innovation on a very cool subject.

I often wonder what will happen at the 0-day quantum machine where it's not
just a few qbit but the real deal.. I think anyone in possession of such
technology will be able to crack any SSL certificate, and thus gain access to
almost anything online. I wonder if criminal organisations aren't secretly
investing in such thing? And, not to be paranoid, but we're almost certain it
will be possible to build them, wouldn't it be prudent to start investing in
the defense against such things? What kind of security could we have to
counter a quantum computing? Would it only be possible to use quantum
computing to defend against quantum computing?

~~~
digler999
> If I was still a student, I would definitely go in quantum computing

Timing the market would be hard. I remember seeing an article in 1999 talking
about quantum computing, as if it were "just around the corner". Tons of
advances have been made in the field since then, but we could still be 10-20
years out from QC being available/ubiquitous.

~~~
marvy
20 years sounds optimistic for "ubiquitous". Consider: it took over a century
to go from Maxwell's equations (1861 and 1862) to modern cell phones. It took
over a century from the time that Babbage proposed his analytical engine to
the first working general purpose computer. The dawn of quantum computing can
be traced back to, maybe, at earliest, the early 1960s. (Based on cursory
Wikipedia browsing.) It took several decades to get Shor's algorithm, which
finally got people to take quantum computing seriously. If we have quantum
computers comparable to ENIAC by 2060, I'll be pretty impressed.

~~~
davnicwil
I really don't want to just bang the 'exponential progress' drum but you're
probably not accounting for it enough with these examples. The ubiquity of
computers and phones isn't just a consequence of the theory underpinning them
being developed into industrial applications, but of the myriad related ways
that industrial engineering, society, and the economy had to develop to
support and necessitate their existence. Those last two were indeed probably
the most viscous factors in the way of technological progress, up to this
point, more so than the science and engineering challenges involved, though
they are clearly all interlinked.

Now, however, it's probably the case that the scientific and engineering
challenges are the biggest hurdles - we already have the society and economy
hungry for more computing power. Assuming the necessary breakthroughs can be
made to make quantum computing a reality in the next 10-15 years (obviously a
big assumption, and not intending at all to sweep that aside, it could take
decades, but just let's make that assumption) it's not at all difficult to see
how it could rapidly find its way into production and then ubiquitous
industrial application, and 20 years then does not sound outlandish at all.

~~~
marvy
I admit that if you postulate that all needed breakthroughs are done within 10
years, then it starts looking plausible. But as you said, that's a BIG
assumption.

------
Qaw
Are there slim definition-theorem-proof-exercise-repeat style papers meant to
be an introduction into the field? Maybe something in the style of
[http://www.jiblm.org/downloads/jiblmjournal/V090212I/V090212...](http://www.jiblm.org/downloads/jiblmjournal/V090212I/V090212I.pdf)

~~~
dbranes
Nielsen and Chuang certainly isn't slim, but chances are you won't need to
read every chapter. The style is certainly what you're asking for though.

------
kjaer
Arjen Lenstra was my professor for a year. When he we was asked about quantum
computers he replied something to the effect of:

"Back in the 90s, I asked leading quantum computing researchers when quantum
computers would become available, and I was told 'in 10 years' time'. I asked
them again 10 years later, in the 2000s, and was met with the same reply. And
I've asked again just recently, and I was told, once again: 'in 10 years'.
Now, I'm a computer scientist, so I my prediction of the future can only be
that what has repeated itself will continue to do so. According to this logic,
quantum computers will never be available."

(I'm quoting very loosely, because this was just an off-topic remark during a
lecture I attended a year ago, so I don't remember the exact phrasing. But I
do believe that this was the gist of it).

I'm genuinely afraid that quantum computing will just remain a purely
theoretical field, and that we won't see any practical applications to it. To
me, that does not make it worth pursuing. I'd love to be wrong, though,
because it sounds super interesting.

~~~
ycmbntrthrwaway
> According to this logic, quantum computers will never be available.

No, it just means that time until quantum computers are available is
distributed exponentially.

~~~
kjaer
I don't think I really understand what you mean. What he said was that it
stays at 10 years indefinitely. Either way, x+10 and e^x both go to infinity,
so I guess the conclusion is the same, right?

~~~
tgb
I think the joke was to say that 'quantum computing being discovered' follows
a Poisson distribution which models occurrences of events that arrive in a
manner so that each one is independent of the previous one. Such as letters
arriving in the mail or winning at roulette. Regardless of how long it's been
since your last letter, you still guess that the next one will come on
average, say, 5 days from now. Regardless of how long its been since you won
at roulette, you should still expect your number to come up on average 38
tries from now.

The exponential part is more like e^(-x) and refers to the exponential
distribution [1] that gives the distribution of intervals in between Poisson
events. So if its 'distributed exponentially' (whatever that means for a one-
off event), the joke is that this would then give rise to the situation where
researchers are always correct guessing 10 years off, even if they've been
saying that for decades.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_distribution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_distribution)

~~~
ycmbntrthrwaway
> So if its 'distributed exponentially' (whatever that means for a one-off
> event)

One-off event is not a problem. You can clone the world many times at the
moment when scientists made their prediction and find the distribution over
ensemble instead of over time.

------
ivan_ah
Learning quantum mechanics is not a big deal if you have a good background in
linear algebra. I wrote a book on linear algebra that covers the basics of
quantum mechanics as an application.

 _No bullshit guide to linear algebra_
[https://gum.co/noBSLA](https://gum.co/noBSLA)

Here's an excerpt from Chapter 10 on QM:
[https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSguide2LA_previ...](https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSguide2LA_preview.pdf#page=107)
I also give a (non-hype) overview of the potential and obstacles associated
with quantum computing.

------
powercf
Has a quantum computer been built that can solve a problem faster or cheaper
than conventional hardware? Afaict no. From an outsiders pov quantum computing
seems to be advancing, but until the science and engineering can overcome the
challenges and build something that can do something useful, then it seems too
early to study it (outside of curiosity, the theory is kind of interesting).

------
Rexxar
Is there any theoretical proof that quantum computing is inherently more
efficient than current technology ?

We can theoretically make a lot of simultaneous computations but are we sure
we will not need exponentially more energy or time to get the result of
computation when we add more qubits in future quantum computers ?

~~~
davorb
> are we sure we will not need exponentially more energy or time to get the
> result of computation

The minimum free energy that must be expended to operate a computer is
theoretically very close to zero, since it is not strictly _necessary_ to use
irreversible primitives[0], such as NAND gates, which is something that we do
in traditional computers. For irreversible elements the theoretical
requirement is about kT*ln(2) at temperature T. DNA uses about 100 kT per bit
copied.

I really recommend that you take a look at Feynman's introduction to quantum
computing[1].

[0]
[http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/fall04/cos576/pa...](http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/fall04/cos576/papers/bennett73.html)

[1]
[http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/fall05/frs119/pa...](http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/fall05/frs119/papers/feynman85_optics_letters.pdf)

~~~
Rexxar
Thanks for the links !

------
coldcode
I took several classes in Quantum Mechanics around 1980. I am sure it would be
far more interesting today. At least we have a more practical understanding of
what it can do. I do wonder if we have any understanding of how it will change
society?

------
carterschonwald
Another really fascinating connection is with linear / resource logic and
quantum computation. A lot of really neat resource logic connectives have
interpretations as setting up quantum experiments.

------
mathgenius
Some of my noticings.. Many of the "founders" of the field are still quite
young, which is refreshing. Although they tend to say how back in the old days
it was so much easier to get new stuff published. Maybe that is so, but my
personal opinion (as an apprentice) is that we haven't reached the hockey
stick yet.

------
bchjam
Heisenbugs, what will become of you?

in all seriousness though, I heard someone talk about their qc research a year
or so ago and it was fascinating but I imagine debugging such systems could be
quite the challenge

------
onion2k
If we know now is the best time to study quantum computing then we can't know
where the best place to study it is.

~~~
yomritoyj
If we know now is the best time to study quantum computing then we can't know
how much energy it will take to study it.

~~~
curiousgal
Whatever you two are talking about is not a particle so whatever.

~~~
futuravenir
Simultaneously a buzzkill and realistic.

~~~
Falling3
Isn't there generally an overlap?

------
mrdrozdov
How does this compare to Justin Trudeau's explanation?
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rRmv4uD2RQ4](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rRmv4uD2RQ4)

~~~
supergirl
hmm, they both talk about quantum computing? the guy in the video says one
phrase about it. the article says a bit more. strange question.

~~~
dyarosla
The 'guy in the video' is the prime minister of Canada- the question had value
as it asked about someone's understanding of quantum who is in a position of
political power.

~~~
mrdrozdov
What's more interesting in the video is quantum computing being explained to a
general audience. For young people looking for direction, both the video and
the paper serve as persuasive pieces.


Ask HN: Girlfriend hacked by this script. What does it do? - Person6666
https://gist.github.com/person666/3027738764ce31fdc761074c078a4a36<p>My girlfriend's email sent out spam when she clicked on a link that ran this script on android?
What exploit is it using?
What is it doing?
======
danielvf
I didn’t see the actual exploit, but I’m laughing that the script kiddies are
now using webpack+Npm and creating multi megabyte files with hundreds of
dependencies. I saw react in there, as well as quite a few crypto libraries
and primaries.


Bootcamps should be more transparent - Dangeranger
https://medium.com/@novohispano/bootcamps-are-lying-to-you-67f74fe4ed73
======
cwp
As someone trying to hire web developers, it looks to me like Bootcamps are
more like finishing school than trade school. Candidates that come out of a
bootcamp have learned how to signal membership in the Silicon Valley in-group.

Their resumes have all the right keywords, and refer to "projects" they've
worked on, built with all the frameworks and tools currently in fashion.
They've practiced their interview technique and can talk confidently about
continuous integration or opine about React vs Angular or describe how well
they cooperate with their teammates.

If they don't get the job, they'll politely ask for advice on how they can do
better, and maybe ask for a coffee date, so they can learn about the industry
and how to find a mentor.

If you don't look closely at the resume or ask explicitly in the interview,
you might think they have actual work experience, but they don't, it's all
just coursework.

So I'm a bit ambivalent. Yeah, we desperately need more developers in the tech
world. Yeah, startup culture is ridiculously tribal and unfairly biased
against those who don't know the secret handshakes. But 3 months does not a
developer make. When I'm hiring, I now look very skeptically at candidates
that have been to a bootcamp. Experience has taught me that interviewing them
is usually a waste of time.

~~~
mathgeek
> Experience has taught me that interviewing them is usually a waste of time.

So we have a situation where hopeful individuals spend a ton of money on
questionable bootcamps for the promise of a shot at a job... and the employers
think interviewing said individuals is a waste of time. That's a lovely
thought. :/

~~~
xemdetia
It's the same thing that happens with tech certifications which are providing
a similar service. It often doesn't tell you anything unless you happen to
know and are familiar with the ones that have value. It does make it harder to
read a resume or get a good feel for a candidate. They may be able to say the
right things but without the true insight that makes it valuable. It often can
land you with someone who understands the motions but didn't develop the
intuition. It's one of those weird self selecting groups- the people who think
they need a bootcamp or a technical certification to get the job might not not
be the right type of person to begin with, is instructed the wrong sort of
way, or ends up with the illusion that they are near the end of their learning
rather then just starting at the beginning.

On the other hand there are people who really make the most of it and come out
extraordinarily better. But those top of class folks are by definition a
minority. Other people succeed, but don't exceed. Other people pass. It's the
same reason why some people devalue college graduates.

------
antiffan
Love this. Some bootcamps are doing the world a great service, but there are
also an increasing number of sharks in the water.

I run a 4-week "pre-bootcamp" program to help advise students on making the
right choice. I hold my classes in the evenings so students can try out coding
before they make the HUGE commitment of quitting their jobs and shelling out
10-20k for a bootcamp.

Sometimes, the right choice is to not try to be a coder. People get excited
about six figure job prospects, but the truth is that coding isn't for
everyone. The right approach is allow students to "fail fast," just like a
startup. I do believe everyone should at least be exposed to coding so they
can make an educated decision about it though.

On a slight tangent, I'd love to see more coding schools putting their money
where there mouths are by offering income-based repayment (IBR). I've worked
as an instructor at a coding school offering IBR, and I've seen first hand how
much of good thing it is for everyone when success incentives are aligned.

~~~
FLUX-YOU
If someone would have told me I would suck at coding two years ago, I'd be
thanking them immensely.

~~~
antiffan
Interesting. Would you mind elaborating?

------
danreedx86
I like the idea of transparency from these bootcamps, it'd be a great way to
vet them before committing $20k and several months of your time. It makes
sense that bootcamps wouldn't be willing to divulge that information though,
especially if their numbers aren't great.

But it feels a little unfair to hold the bootcamps completely responsible for
people not being able to find jobs. Seems like people have this idea that just
showing up is enough. It's not enough to just show up with a piece of paper
like 'hey I finished a bootcamp/degree, gimme a job!'

I got my first job out of school with a combination of luck (knowing how to
implement conway's game of life) and passion (a side project I had just
shipped). Most every job after that has been because of passion. Whether or
not you went to school for CS (or at all), or finished a bootcamp is
completely irrelevant imho. I probably know more about von neumann
architecture, big O and sorting algorithms than my friends without CS
degrees... but I've worked with or admired plenty of people who never took a
CS class and have mastered lots of things that I haven't. And I can definitely
recall a few friends in undergrad who I was sure would go far and never found
a single job cuz they sat around waiting for Larry Page to call them
personally.

So yeah, tl:dr; school doesn't matter all that much if you're not motivated to
continue learning. And if you don't enjoy programming enough to learn &&
experiment/play you're probably not gonna do well.

~~~
scottwhudson
I almost went through one of the bigger bootcamps in Austin a couple of years
ago, and I'm so glad I didn't for several reasons.

Everything about the application process felt like a for-profit university:
they constantly blasted their impressive placement and salary figures at me,
making it sound almost like I was guaranteed a $100k job right out of the
program. A 96% placement rate and an average starting salary of 100+k allows
them to paint a certain picture in applicants heads, and most people have no
idea how hard it is when they sign up.

Funny enough, this bootcamp had all of their current students use the same job
title on LinkedIn to show the bootcamp as work experience, which made finding
alums VERY easy. I sent several alums who didn't get jobs quick messages
asking about their experiences, and the responses were eye-opening. They were
coached on how to go to networking events, where they wound competing against
all of their classmates for junior gigs. After a few months, they went down in
the bootcamp register as "failures", so they didn't count towards the glowing
placement figures.

But the icing on the cake came years later, when this same bootcamp contacted
a friend about recruiting some of their students. During the conversation,
they disclosed that they were a contingency recruiter for their students:
these junior candidates were going to cost the company six figures with the
recruiting fee, which was crazy.

These students shell out $20+k for these programs and become unattractive
candidates because the school wants a recruiting fee for someone that's been
coding for 12 weeks, and the students probably don't even know what's going
on.

There's absolutely a need for transparency here.

------
jthree
Name three great for-profit colleges.

Ok, name one.

Now you see the average for-profit bootcamps being acquired by traditional
for-profit colleges.

The duty to make financial returns for investors necessitates extracting money
from students. Like an ecosystem with the oxygen slowly extracted out, the
good things happening there eventually die.

I believe the only two non-profits in this space are Ada Academy in Seattle
and our Turing School in Denver. At Tuting, we believe in a world where the
people building technology represent the people using it. We'll still be here
in 10, 25, and 100 years working towards that vision.

------
mmgutz
Code bootcamps have become the modern ITT and Phoenix Universities. Seriously,
you DO NOT need to go to a bootcamp. When I hire and someone tells me they're
from some "prestigious" bootcamp, do they expect me to believe they've become
awesome by going through one?

What did you do until bootcamp? Show me you had initiative on personal
projects. Show me non-trivial projects on Github. Show me pull requests that
you can read and understand other people's code. Show me submitted issues that
you diagnosed a bug and gave enough information for another developer to
reproduce it. Github tells me a lot more about you than graduating from a
bootcamp.

------
yaddayadda
I'm a graduate of an after-hours web development bootcamp who wants to move to
a full-time web dev job.

I certainly can't move to a full-time web dev job at a reasonable salary after
the bootcamp I attended. If I was willing to intern for 6-12 months at minimum
wage, I would be able to - but I could have done that without the bootcamp.

The bootcamp doesn't share stats, only a post-graduation "employment"
percentage. Which is pretty meaningless, for example, I'm employed but not
doing web dev.

~~~
elliotec
Every after-hours bootcamp I've heard of has had awful reviews. You're missing
out on the whole "immersive" part of it, which is really what matters in a lot
of ways.

Like how you learned Spanish a couple days a week in middle school. Do you
remember more than how to count to ten and ask where the bathroom is? No, but
if you had to live in Mexico for 3 months you'd get pretty adept and be able
to make your way around and likely have conversations, assuming you put in the
time to actually learn.

~~~
yaddayadda
I would have preferred to do an immersive, in large part for these reasons,
but couldn't afford both the tuition and loss of income for months.

The BC I attended claimed to have a flipped classroom model, which would have
been _better_ that in instructor in the front of the class demonstrating code.
In addition, I was apparently one of the few students who actually did want to
change careers, so my "peers" were never willing to work outside of class.
Despite my day job, I put in at least 2 hours outside of class for each how in
class.

Even with the after-hours approach, if the classroom model had actually been
flipped, and there were several peers to work with outside of class, it would
have been significantly better, and I think I could get a junior dev job.

~~~
elliotec
I think you could _still_ get a junior dev job, if you just do a bunch of
projects, even if trivial or done before, that demonstrates you know what
you're doing. If you don't know what you're doing, the projects will help you
learn. Win-win.

If you don't mind me asking, what program did you go to?

~~~
yaddayadda
Your main competitor that was just sold.

~~~
elliotec
Your feedback is exactly the same that I get from others coming from that
program. Thanks!

------
alienasa
I like how forthcoming you are in your report, and agree that all bootcamps
should do the same.

Perhaps we'll see an effect where bootcamps that do high quality reporting
will actually be chosen more frequently and thus push other bootcamps to do
the same.

------
wonder_er
Title is a bit click baity, but I agree with the author's points.

He sees it as a negative thing, but I see it as a massive improvement on
college/uni/grad schools, who wouldn't even know where to start with
gathering/publishing this data.

Bootcamps are subject to market forces in a way most colleges are not, and
it's initiatives like this (what the author is proposing) that give me a sense
of optimism for how they'll evolve.

~~~
alienasa
> He sees it as a negative thing, but I see it as a massive improvement on
> college/uni/grad schools, who wouldn't even know where to start with
> gathering/publishing this data.

This isn't true in the US. Many schools do actually try to collect this data,
but they're typically dealing with far larger populations with far less
response rate to surveys, so it isn't as readily available.

Law schools especially report the number of students with jobs, but they're
_notorious_ for gaming the system by doing things like hiring their own
graduates for a year post graduation and similar nonsense.

~~~
wonder_er
True - many schools collect employment data, but unlike the author, they don't
tend to shine light on "total costs of program" (like four years of $30-50k/yr
salary + housing expenses + books)

Ah, law schools...

------
my_username_is_
Thanks for actually getting into the details on graduation outcomes. I've
considered doing a bootcamp but I've been held back by a lot of uncertainty
about graduation outcomes. Being able to go through the raw data and find
people like me is really helpful.

I would be interested in knowing more about the background of people before
they joined. Do they have a STEM background, what was their job title before,
how old are they/how long have they been working, etc. Also if you could
categorize the types of companies they work for (startup, large tech
companies, non-tech companies, etc.) that'd also be interesting to see.

Thanks for providing transparency to your program!

~~~
antiffan
Something else to consider - how sure are you that you enjoy coding and it's
something you can be good at? I highly recommend taking the time to evaluate
this before you commit to a bootcamp as well. Feel free to email me (address
in my profile) if you'd like me to elaborate.

------
vonklaus
I went to a bootcamp, I have a pretty varied but useful skillset in growth
hacking, front & back end dev, the tech industry & tech trends, software &
frameworks ect. I'm unemployed, however I attribute this moreso to moving from
LA to a tiny east coast town, ect. I am just being transparent about my bg to
give context. Also, I have had freelance & worked at a startup, ect. I
finished General assembly ~2 years ago.

I agree with the author but the issue is that it is both very difficult to
measure, track and maintain data and it varies wildly. Consider it almost like
a vc portfolio. some years, everyone applying to bootcamps will get a job
because of timing & numbers ect. However, more bootcamps spring up, and pre
existing ones do more cohorts. All of a sudden, there aren't any "hot
companies" to invest in(to carry on the vc analogy). You have to keep putting
that fund to work though so the pool becomes diluted.

Another issue is accounting for massive disparity within schools & within the
wider ecosystem. Some people in my class were very talented & had a lot of
peripheral experience. Some codecamps are not selective. I taught myself
html/css/js a bit of rails and jquery ect BEFORE, i ecen applied. I laugh at
even typing that now as it is trivial, but some students had never even looked
at web inspector. not only does that change demographics, but 1-2 students can
kill productivity here.

This is why unoversities evolved into what they are. Some schools carve out a
niche as elite and their rep allows them to be selective. sone don't, because
10s of $1000s per applicant is crazy to just add 1.

everyone knows this so i wont beleagure the obvious anymore, however, the last
bit is tracking. I have a job interview tomorrow, and have been working on my
own startup ect. I am financially unsuccessful and sonewhat professionally so.
However, I consider it a success in that I can hacn out projects and build
shit and as long as I can eat, I love it. Other people got jobs for 2 months
right out of bootcamp, were terrible and got fired. Schools with "great"
numbers have no idea how they actually look outside of that snapshot. its
tech. and its a first job. people have freelance gigs and then go to 1-3
conpanies within a year or so.

tl/dr

transparency is inportant and I am for it 100%. However, if you cant/wont be,
then be selective and protect your brand and rep. Being a long term
institution that is selective & well known will help you retain teaching
talent, attract top applicants and be worth way more than the short term $$$.

~~~
shoemai
> the issue is that it is both very difficult to measure, track and maintain
> data and it varies wildly.

Also went to a bootcamp and I agree with this. I think the variance in ability
between students is greater than the variance between bootcamps. People come
in with different levels of experience and backgrounds. People are looking for
work in different places.

I think reviews from former students are a better solution than just numbers.

~~~
vonklaus
Reviews and speaking with someone who attended is huge, and I agree. My cousin
went to a different campus than I did General Assembly NYC and had a much
different experience. Ryan Dahl, used to hang around at NYC and even did a
talk on using Node.

It really is exactly what you said. Speak with teachers, former & current
students and read reviews.

How was your exp. btw?

------
untilHellbanned
Actual data: [http://report.turing.io/](http://report.turing.io/)

------
hanginghyena
Speaking as a hiring manager, I place a much higher value on verifiable
project experience (either I can see it or you can walk me through your
unique/non-trivial app in our interview) than any credentials. I've seen a lot
of candidates who are focused on credentials crumble in the technical
interview.

Granted, there's a huge universe of people out there who are more than willing
to take your money (including Microsoft), but the really good people I've
hired blew me away with their project descriptions and not their list of
certifications.

<edited>

~~~
beetlejuice235
/s/guys/people

------
shawndrost
I'm a cofounder at Hack Reactor, and I also attended this meeting. (Sup
Gregorio!) Here's my 2c on the 3 things he says we could not agree on:

1\. "All programs must report their graduation rate and what constitutes a
graduate (not only their completion rate)." I can't remember this being a
topic, so I feel like I must have missed something.

2\. "All programs must report how many graduates are employed as full-time
software developers, and separate other tech-related jobs, and non-full-time
forms of employment from this metric." Gregorio is right about this: bootcamps
should be transparent about this. Reasonable people can disagree about whether
a bootcamp should count eg "growth hackers" in employment figures (Hack
Reactor would not, per our methodology[1]) BUT bootcamps should DEFINITELY
make that data available. This was shot down.

3\. "All programs must make available the raw data that they used to base
their metrics." Again, I can't remember when we talked about this. It's kind
of a good idea, but unless you have robust non-employment data, an anonymized
data dump is a csv with like 3 columns. Ours just had salaries, outcome codes,
and time-to-hire (which we already published in histogram form), so we didn't
bother publishing it. (Turing's has lots of fun demographic data that would be
out-of-scope for an industry standard about employment.)

~~~
shoemai
Do you find that every student wants to be a full time developer though? What
if the student were fully capable of finding a job as a developer but that's
not what they wanted to do? Or maybe they were just open to many
possibilities. Seems like just have a simple statistic like % of students that
became devs would be 1. misleading and 2. acting against the bootcamp's own
interests.

------
drewrv
In my mind including "tech-adjacent jobs" is a more interesting number. These
programs attract a lot of professionals who are trying to add programing to
their resume, but not necessarily become full time code monkeys.

A designer who can write html/css/js is more valuable than one who does not. A
PM who cannot code is a nightmare to work with. Working with a marketer who
can hook up their own jquery plugin is a godsend.

~~~
runandcode
Why not include both sets of stats? There are a large number of bootcamps
these days and I obviously cannot speak to all. However, for the program I
attended, I'd say 90%+ of students were interested in full-time dev jobs. I'd
want to know if most post-course jobs were not highly technical.

Aside from that reasoning, I see this as a means to differentiate different
types of programs, if they do in fact exist. I don't actually buy that
argument; while I obviously have not read the entire internet, I do have yet
to encounter a bootcamp whose marketing strategy ISN'T centered around the
promise of becoming a full-time developer upon matriculation.

------
adrice727
Reactor Core, the parent company of Hack Reactor, recently proposed a
standardized methodology for the industry.

[http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/reactor-core-
announc...](http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/reactor-core-announces-
new-method-for-standardizing-coding-school-student-outcomes-300262363.html)

~~~
Bahamut
Where's the link to the supposedly methodology? That's a pretty crappy press
release...

~~~
daveguy
They will teach you that methodology in their bootcamp. Sign up today!

~~~
mathgeek
The first step is free, just for signing up for the email list?

------
lowglow
I agree. I originally wrote this article "Are dev bootcamps a scam? A hacker's
perspective."[0] which actually caused quite a bit of drama when I then had
dev schools up in arms about opening up the books and proving their
success/placement rates, etc.

Then I decided there should be a better way to find reliable, quality
bootcamps so I built a review site for Dev Bootcamps.[1] The response has been
great and what was once reviled by dev schools is now seen as a source of
distribution and qualification for validation because we help so many people
decide where to go.

[0] [https://www.techendo.com/posts/are-dev-bootcamps-a-scam-a-
ha...](https://www.techendo.com/posts/are-dev-bootcamps-a-scam-a-hacker-s-
perspective) [1] [http://schools.techendo.com/](http://schools.techendo.com/)

~~~
xentronium
[https://schools.techendo.com](https://schools.techendo.com) certificate is
expired

~~~
lowglow
Yep. In the middle of taking care of that now. Thank you for the heads up.

------
the_watcher
I agree with the author that bootcamp "statistics" should have some kind of
standard (that bootcamps are free to use or disregard, but that way applicants
will know the methodology being used is either the published standard or one
that is not published). My one quibble is with his claim that no one goes to
these schools to become product managers - plenty do. There are enough PM jobs
that require software development experience (reasonably - the best PM's I've
worked with could all code well enough to bang out a prototype or proof of
concept) to justify learning to program. Outside of that, couldn't agee more.

------
bogomipz
Isn't the problem along with these somewhat dubious "Hacker Schools" or
"Bootcamps" the demand side for a "shortcut" to an instant developer title or
less likely an instant $100K/year job?

The reality is that there are no shortcuts. What ever happened to the good old
fashioned "take an entry-level support position and work your way up"? That
gets you both a foot in the door and get real rubber on the road experience?
Is it sexy? No. Does it work? Yes.

------
shoemai
I feel like it's very easy to fudge the numbers just due to all the different
factors involved. Would student reviews be a better way to evaluate bootcamps?
I know I've seen some bootcamps on yelp with reviews. This seems like it would
be better than a self-reported statistic.

------
soham
In California, the Bureau of Private PostSecondary education is coming to
implement transparency standards in a big way. In the next year or two, you
will see several bootcamps forced to be more transparent via approval to
operate, or be forced to shut.

------
devalicious
Went to Maker's Academy London, lots of flavour of the week development
languages,corporate cult vibes, and too expensive for what it was.

------
fuzzybassoon
General Assembly is working towards just such an approach:

[https://generalassemb.ly/blog/measuring-what-
matters/](https://generalassemb.ly/blog/measuring-what-matters/)

Note: Most of the interesting stuff there is in a PDF.

(Also, I work for GA, but am not speaking on behalf of the company.)

~~~
dbpatterson
The PDF is interesting, but reports no actual data from GA... Seems like that
would be relevant, if they are trying to push for more transparency!

~~~
runandcode
Agreed - why make a big deal out of publishing a "framework" and then not
release any data to go along with it?

------
just_aint_right
So tired of bootcamps. I went. It sucked. Don't go.

------
itake
Many people that attend code schools have no interest in getting a software
engineering job. I think asking code schools to base their metrics on
employment rates would have bad side effects.

This would cause schools to reject applicants that are interested in learning
coding for alternatives reasons. These reasons range from Mom's wanting to
learn so they could teach their children, wantrepreneur's wanting to build
their MVP on their own, or just someone that is happy with their career path,
but wants to take a break to learn coding for fun.

Do you think Mom's wanting to teach their children coding should be rejected
from code schools, because they don't want to get a job and thus would hurt
their numbers?

~~~
runandcode
Do you really think that people spend tens of thousands of dollars and
countless hours (away from family, might I add) learning to code just so they
can teach their children?


Show HN: WizAtHome – Work From Home Wellness Management - rog4truth
https://www.wizathome.com/
======
frompdx
I saw this posted a while ago and I would like to provide some feedback.

1\. The new layout is an improvement over the previous. It looks more modern.
However, the navbar and footer are not responsive so if you are using a small
browser window or mobile device half of the nav and footer are hidden.

2\. The login links are confusing. "I'm the wiz" is a login page, the login
link is a login page. There are two additional login links for employers and
employees at the bottom. I think it will be helpful to simplify this.

3\. If your target market is in the United States you may want to consider
somewhat different branding. I understand that the term "wiz" in this context
is intended to refer to wizard or expert. However, in the part of the United
States I am from, and perhaps all parts, the term "wiz" is also a slang term
for urination. For example:

\- "I need to take a wiz" = I need to use the restroom.

\- "My job is making me take a wiz quiz" = My employer is making me take a
urinalysis drug test.

For me, "wiz at home" has similar connotations and it was the first thing I
thought of when I saw the name.

~~~
rog4truth
Hey, thanks for the feedback!

1) We are aware of the problem that navbar and footer are not responsive for
very small browser window. However, we did test it on mobile devices. It is a
different layout but both navbar and footer are showing up correctly on mobile
(just tested on iPhone). Can you clarify what problem you are seeing on mobile
device?

2) Agree that login links can be simplified

3) We did talk to a branding guy rather informally. He mentioned the chance of
misinterpretation, but that the chance is very very small. An alternative is
to use whiz instead of wiz. Looking up the urbandictionary.com, even "whiz"
has this alternative connotation, but much lower in the list of possible
meanings. What do you think? Is Whiz better than wiz? Thanks

~~~
frompdx
Apologies for not replying earlier. From my perspective it's not the spelling
of the word wiz. It's the phrasing.

Computer wiz: No negative connotations. Computer wizard is implied.

Wiz kid: Also fine. Wiz is an adjective implying competence or intelligence.

Take a wiz: Now the meaning of wiz has changed because wiz is the action.

Wiz at home: It's easy to read wiz in this context as an action one is doing,
which is why I say it is the phrasing rather than the spelling.

> We did talk to a branding guy rather informally. He mentioned the chance of
> misinterpretation, but that the chance is very very small.

In the right context this person is right. Used as noun or adjective its
unlikely people will misconstrue the meaning. When it is easy to
unintentionally interpret the use of wiz as an adverb or verb it becomes much
easier to misconstrue the meaning.

~~~
rog4truth
Thanks!


This Week in Servo 43 (submitted via Servo itself) - Manishearth
http://blog.servo.org/2015/11/30/twis-43/
======
larsberg
The killer feature in this week's newsletter is an image of using Servo itself
to post this link to HN :-)

~~~
bttf
I can appreciate the honesty of that video.

~~~
perlgeek
This bug (input field doesn't scroll automatically, but spills its text into
the surrounding elements) is a good demonstration of just how many, many small
details you have take care of when implementing a browser engine.

A really monumental task. The servo devs have my respect!

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Maybe I'm missing something hugely obvious, but shouldn't the input field be
rendered using a native control which would preemptively eliminate that bug
and reduce the need for rewriting code that's been written countless times
before?

~~~
pcwalton
> shouldn't the input field be rendered using a native control which would
> preemptively eliminate that bug and reduce the need for rewriting code
> that's been written countless times before?

Broadly speaking, native controls don't like being composited into OpenGL
scenes (which are necessary for things like 3D transforms).

------
pcwalton
(Copying my comment here from Reddit /r/rust:)

Just to repeat, because this was somewhat buried in the article: Servo is now
a multiprocess browser, using the gaol crate for sandboxing. This adds (a) an
extra layer of defense against remote code execution vulnerabilities beyond
that which the Rust safety features provide; (b) a safety net in case Servo
code is tricked into performing insecure actions.

There are still plenty of bugs to shake out, but this is a major milestone in
the project.

------
thwd
You mentioned the URL-parsing macro twice.

Congrats to the whole team!


Marketers Have Given Up on Context, and Our National Discourse Is Suffering - memexy
https://battellemedia.com/archives/2020/06/marketers-have-given-up-on-context-and-our-national-discourse-is-suffering
======
avmich
Can search engines replace advertisement? Do we need to invent a way to
compare options for consumers, or is it a dead end?

~~~
memexy
The semantic web was meant to be the substrate on which personal agents would
serve people by doing the type of thing you described but it didn't happen

> The entertainment system was belting out the Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out”
> when the phone rang. When Pete answered, his phone turned the sound down by
> sending a message to all the other local devices that had a volume control.
> His sister, Lucy, was on the line from the doctor’s office: “Mom needs to
> see a specialist and then has to have a series of physical therapy sessions.
> Biweekly or something. I’m going to have my agent set up the appointments.”
> Pete immediately agreed to share the chauffeuring. At the doctor’s office,
> Lucy instructed her Semantic Web agent through her handheld Web browser. The
> agent promptly retrieved the information about Mom’s prescribed treatment
> within a 20-mile radius of her home and with a rating of excellent or very
> good on trusted rating services. It then began trying to find a match
> between available appointment times (supplied by the agents of individual
> providers through their Web sites) and Pete’s and Lucy’s busy schedules.

I think Alan Kay is right, the computer revolution hasn't happened yet. There
is much potential that computer networks can unlock but we haven't done the
work to unlock it.

\--

[https://twobithistory.org/2018/05/27/semantic-
web.html](https://twobithistory.org/2018/05/27/semantic-web.html)

------
rmdashrfstar
“For those of you who want a TL:DR summary, here it is: It’s time to get back
to the work marketers used to be really good at: Deciding on the appropriate
context in which to engage your audience. And it’s time to pull back from a
habit most of you have fallen into: Letting the machines choose your audience
for you. Thanks to new approaches which fuse at-scale ad targeting with high-
quality editorial product, you can step into this renewed role without
sacrificing the reach, precision, and targeting afforded by the likes of
Facebook, Google, Twitter, and their kin.”


Pornhub: Bug Bounty Program - Immortalin
https://hackerone.com/pornhub
======
achievingApathy
Now there is finally a legitimate excuse to spend hours scouring pornhub -- to
find security vulnerability, yeah, that's it.


Why is Homejoy still quoted on the YC landing page? - louisswiss

A few weeks after Homejoy announced that they're closing down, YC still has a quote from Adora Cheung on the landing page --> 'Homejoy would not be where it is today without YC...'
Is this an oversight or is there a reason for still displaying the quote so prominently?
Of course I'm not asking whether it was a mistake to invest in Homejoy at all, it just seems like a funny decision to leave them up there when I'm sure they have enough quotations from founders who's companies are still going strong...
What am I missing?
======
marina_shumaeva
Louisswiss, haven`t you thought that today is weekend and maybe administrators
of the web site just didn't have time to change this?

~~~
ColinWright

        > A few weeks after Homejoy announced
        > that they're closing down, ...

If it's been weeks, then maybe the question is valid. Their blog post[0] on
July 17, 2015 announced their imminent closure.

[0] [http://blog.homejoy.com/homejoy-says-
goodbye/](http://blog.homejoy.com/homejoy-says-goodbye/)

~~~
marina_shumaeva
Homejoy officially closed its doors on July 31st.

~~~
ColinWright
So you think that YC should ignore the announcement, and still wait not only
until after the announcement, and after the actual closure, but after the
weekend after the closure after the announcement? That's what the original
poster was asking. Why wait so long?

The announcement was two weeks ago.

The closure was Friday - two days ago.

Why is the quote still there? Why was it not even set up on the 18th to be
removed programmatically on the 31st? It wouldn't be hard - even I do that.

Seems a valid question to me. Given what I know of YC, I find it hard to
believe that it's just because the closure actually happened on a Friday,
they're not working over the weekend, and they'll do it on Monday when they're
back.

~~~
louisswiss
My thoughts exactly.

I'm not assuming that YC _should_ replace the quote, I just don't understand
exactly why they haven't. Perhaps it's to show that failed experiments are a
valued part of the process?


Instant 8-bit alpha PNG converter - ck2
http://www.8bitalpha.com/
======
pornel
I've got improved pngquant that gives significantly better results than
original version, gd2 library and often rivals pngnq:

<https://github.com/pornel/improved-pngquant>

It is a bit slow (converts image several times feeding back result's quality
back to the algorithm), but difference in quality is significant:

<http://geekhood.net/8bitalpha.png> \- converted via website

<http://geekhood.net/imagealpha0.7.png> \- converted with pngquant 1.3

~~~
aw3c2
Any chance to build this with libpng14? I think compiling fails for me because
I do have that modern version installed and not libpng12.

~~~
pornel
It definitely works with 1.4.1, but the bundled Makefile sucks.

Just compile *.c and link it against libpng in whatever way your system
requires.

~~~
aw3c2
Thanks!

I am clueless when it comes to compiling though so for me that stop right at
"linking". I only know that that has something to do with those .o files. :-)

I did find <http://pngnq.sourceforge.net/> and just installed that.

------
thingsinjars
Wow, I go on holiday away from a decent internet connection and next thing you
know, HN front page. Urk.

Hope it all works well for everyone. As mentioned, the source is all on github
(<https://github.com/thingsinjars/8bitalpha>) so if there are any
improvements, fork away.

I'll try and keep an eye on it in case something breaks but I'm a bit limited
to an iPhone SSH client on a foreign country's network so play nice. :D

I'm glad people are finding it useful, though.

~~~
ck2
Great work, many thanks for the source.

Ah, now I see it's a far cry from pngng/pngquant

[https://github.com/thingsinjars/8bitalpha/raw/master/image.p...](https://github.com/thingsinjars/8bitalpha/raw/master/image.php)

Some php gd2 conversion, gets the job done but it's not as sophisticated.

Still, huge potential to slide in other solutions, even via shell.

------
nathos
Mac users should check out ImageAlpha for optimizing 8-bit PNGs:
<http://pornel.net/imagealpha>

~~~
ck2
I was actually looking for a Windows equivalent to that when I found this
wesite.

------
hecticjeff
Source code is available on GitHub:
<https://github.com/thingsinjars/8bitalpha>

------
pedrokost
Thank you a lot for the tool. I had no idea I could compress PNG so much,
without loosing too much quality. I will be a heavy user of this.

~~~
ck2
To clarify, I didn't make this site, just discovered it while googling how to
accomplish this without Fireworks.

The "beauty" of 8-bit png is how it degrades acceptably in IE8, IE7 and even
IE6.

Try comparing a large round icon in 1-bit alpha (ie. gif) vs 8-bit alpha, it's
much much better.

~~~
davej
IE7 and IE8 can display 32bit (24bit for RGB + 8bit for alpha channel) PNGs
fine by the way. IE6, of course, only supports alpha transparency on 8bit
PNGs.

~~~
rimantas

      IE6, of course, only supports alpha transparency on 8bit
      PNGs.

IE6 does not support alpha transparency, in this case it treats colos with
alpha component as fully transparent i.e. PNG8 with alpha transparency is
treated as with index transparency.

~~~
davej
Yes, you're correct.

------
aw3c2
What is the difference to using say optipng?

~~~
beej71
Here's a real example, using a test image that has a lot of different alpha
values in it, and a 24-bit alpha channel:

        Original:    87047 bytes
        optipng -o7: 82489 bytes
        this tool:   22585 bytes

The main difference, other than size, is that optipng produced an exact copy
of the the original, while this tool is lossy, and threw away a bunch of data
from the alpha channel. The win is that for the majority of all web cases, 8
bits of alpha is plenty.

~~~
ck2
Note that it's not perfect for all cases, but it's certainly acceptable for
small icons.

Here's a 32x32 icon I converted down to 8-bit alpha and then 1-bit, and then
resized the whole group so they could be more closely examined:

<http://i.imgur.com/XTksy.png>

~~~
pornel
I was able to convert it without noticeable degradation down to 7 bit:

<http://geekhood.net/bitcoin-32bit.png>

<http://geekhood.net/bitcoin-7bit.png>

(using my pngquant)

~~~
ck2
Yah, after looking at the source I saw they are only using php's gd2 library
on 8bitalpha.com which is definitely inferior to your work.

The problem is lack of Windows binaries, this is the most modern I can find:

<http://sites.google.com/site/bitdepthtools/downloads>

BTW this is the original image I am resampling down to icon size, it seems
very challenging because of the multi-layered round edges and many gradients
internally:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bitcoin.png>

~~~
pornel
For me OS X screenshots are the toughest — lots of shades in transparent
shadow, smooth gray gradients (can't use posterization) AND three small
gradients in close/minimize/zoom and couple of odd pixels for anti-alias of
corners (can't use pick-most-popular algorithm).

------
etherealG
<3


DataTau: HN for Data Science - gk1
http://www.datatau.com/
======
gwern
I check in on DataTau occasionally, but it's not an active community. You're
better off with
[https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/)


Banned by YouTube, gun lovers are taking their videos to Pornhub - mmhsieh
https://therooster.com/blog/banned-by-youtube-gun-lovers-are-taking-their-videos-to-pornhub
======
walshemj
this is a 2018 article bit late hasn't stopped a number of the gun channels I
watch on youtube.

~~~
LinuxBender
Agreed. All the firearm channels I have been subscribed to still exist. The
only words they appear to be afraid to use are related to the pandemic. One of
them holds up a Corona beer instead.


Born in the USA? Some Chinese plan it that way - drewse
http://www.npr.org/2010/11/22/131513165/born-in-the-u-s-a-some-chinese-plan-it-that-way

======
alanh
Amazing someone who immigrated here at 10 years old could never be President,
but someone who was in the US _only_ for their birth — until much later in
life — _could_ become President.

Ever since reading a first-hand account of a grade school student quietly
thinking about how their teacher’s pronouncement that “any of you could become
President!” was incorrect for that student, an immigrant, I have seen this
clause as a bit excessive.

~~~
doyoulikeworms
Agreed. I may come across as xenophobic, or uber-patriotic, or whatever, but I
think the laws regarding eligibility for presidency should be changed, not
relaxed.

For example: Required to be a citizen and resident of the USA for the majority
of his/her life (>50%). Required to renounce all other citizenship. Required
to have spent the last 10 years of his/her life in the US.

Something like that seems fair(er) to me.

EDIT: Clarification.

~~~
mahmud
Those are already the requirements for a basic security clearance.

------
jordan0day
To be honest, I'm not especially bothered by this. You could (and many cable
news and talk radio hosts have) make the case that this is just plain _wrong_
, but isn't there worse things than having the children of affluent foreigners
be American citizens? We're still a "nation of immigrants", I say the richer
the better!

I'll admit my analysis of this is only cursory, so feel free to correct my
reasoning.

Obviously if these children just take advantage of the system, get a cheap(er)
education and return to China, it's a net loss for the USA, but it seems to me
that a great many would stay here, presumably as "productive citizens".

~~~
drewse
Yes, I'd assume that most of these immigrants described by the article will
become productive citizens and will benefit the USA. I don't find anything
wrong with what these people are doing, except for the fact that they have to
"work around the system" to achieve their goals. There will be many more
people who will move with their children to the US shortly after their births
and then live in the US longer than those mentioned in the article. Why should
one group of people be able to become citizens immediately while the others
aren't able to [until they apply for citizenship]? In short, I feel no hard
feelings against those who only come to have their children here, but rather
feel that the system needs to be changed in some way.

~~~
RickHull
Yes, and also we expose them to our ideals. It's a win-win. Either they stay
here and produce and inform, or they go back home and produce and inform.

------
augustflanagan
My college roommate's parents did this (he's from the Philippines) 24 years
ago. Once he was born they went back to the Philippines and his first
experience in America was at age 18 when he came to the U.S. by himself for
school.

It worked out pretty well for him. He has since graduated with a top notch
degree and sponsored his family to come to the U.S. Kudos to them for having
the foresight to do this in the mid 80's.

------
makmanalp
I don't know what part of the world you guys are from, but it's a fairly well
known strategy in Turkey. I've had a friend who did that growing up. He had
dual citizenship, one by right of birth and the other by right of parents.
When you think about it, doesn't it make so much sense?

------
Locke1689
Interesting. The Constitution is pretty clear here -- if you're born on US
soil, you're a US citizen. However, there's no requirement that the State
Dept. issue visas to people who are 6-9 months pregnant.

~~~
sigzero
"if you're born on US soil, you're a US citizen"

Actually there IS debate about what that section actually means. Some take to
mean in context that your parents had to have been under the laws (a citizen)
already and subsequently you cannot just hop the border, have a baby, and the
baby is a citizen. I happen to believe that as well.

~~~
anigbrowl
Not among legal scholars, at least not since 1898.

Oops, left out the citation: US v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 US 649.
[http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3381955771263111...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3381955771263111765)

~~~
JustACommenter
This case, and the idea that being American has a lot more to do with ideas
than with your ethnic origin, are important to my family history.

My grandmother was born in the US. Her mother died when she was young, so she
and some of her siblings were sent back to the old country to live with
relatives for a while. Eventually my grandmother and her siblings returned to
the US, and she married my grandfather, leading to me, a proud American.

The reason this law was important was because my great-grandparents weren't US
citizens. In fact, they were prohibited from becoming naturalized US citizens
even if they wanted to be (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790> ). Without the 14th
amendment, I might not be a US citizen.

Nor would my great-uncle, who served in the US military. It turns out that in
1940 the US military suspected they had a need for Japanese translators. What
better way to learn Japanese than to have gone to school in Japan?

My last thought on this topic is a joke:

Q: Who was the greatest German general of World War II?

A: Eisenhower.

------
julius_geezer
This was popular with Korean moms some years back.


Deep Reinforcement Learning for Robotic Manipulation - gwern
https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.00633
======
gwern
video:
[https://sites.google.com/site/deeproboticmanipulation/](https://sites.google.com/site/deeproboticmanipulation/)

blog: [https://research.googleblog.com/2016/10/how-robots-can-
acqui...](https://research.googleblog.com/2016/10/how-robots-can-acquire-new-
skills-from.html) "How Robots Can Acquire New Skills from Their Shared
Experience"


Comparison of Linux Software Update Technologies [pdf] - transpute
http://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/Comparison%20of%20Linux%20Software%20Update%20Technologies_0.pdf
======
chriswarbo
Unfortunate to see no mention of Nix or Guix :(


The FCC just defined broadband as 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up - jcater
https://gigaom.com/2015/01/29/bam-the-fcc-just-defined-broadband-as-25-mbps-down-and-4-mbps-up/

======
superobserver
Why not 100Mbps D&U ?

The ISP's in the US are atrocious. It's only thanks to Google Fiber that we're
really starting to see a difference. And that's 1Gbps down and up!


Tech founders want California to secede - empressplay
http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/09/technology/shervin-pishevar-california/index.html
======
moyta
Hah, that is highly unrealistic, tech "leaders" have much less power in
California than they realize, and there isn't a sufficient critical mass to
get anywhere near real independence movements like the Catalonian independence
movement.


Scaling Erlang cluster to 10k nodes at WhatsApp [video] - anarchyrucks
https://codesync.global/media/maxim-fedorov-scaling-erlang-cluster-to-10-000-nodes/
======
MawKKe
Direct link to video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJQyv26tFZ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJQyv26tFZ8)


Are coming soon pages, like this, actually effective? Discuss: - applebiz89
http://www.spunlondon.co.uk
I see this link earlier on today on Hacker News - wondered what peoples thoughts are on successful coming soon pages.<p>The reason for them is acquiring validation, but are there other methods which can be adopted to acquire this insight other than market research?
======
bt3
Landing pages are inherently vague so as to not limit their potential
audience. It's a trade off, but being too specific can limit the amount of
users who ultimately convert (enter their email). With the goal of a "coming
soon" page being to build interest, this is usually well accomplished by
requesting a simple email.

Objectively, yes, coming soon/ landing pages are effective.


Show HN: My time tracking tool for your text editor - welder
https://www.wakati.me/
======
lolnope
Great concept, but I'm not sure how comfortable I would be with a plugin that
sends a list of active files to a website (even if it is SSL-secured).

~~~
Heliosmaster
It would be a great concept for a "unhosted" application.

------
eblume
A really cool idea, but probably not useable by anyone working on proprietary
software, I'm afraid. I'd love to use it as a productivity app - particularly
if you could segment the data based on the active git branch - but
transmitting file information over the wire is a non starter for myself (and I
imagine many others).

Have you considered maybe supporting output via some sort of graphing language
instead? (R springs to mind.)

~~~
cadwag
Just curious, would you have made the same arguments against RescueTime? It
too transmits your activity data (and who knows what else) over the wire.

I don't know if you use(d) RescueTime or not, so I don't mean it as an attack
against you. I guess I just don't remember these types of arguments being
leveled against RescueTime (maybe I'm wrong about that, but a quick search
didn't reveal anything) and I'm curious as to the reason. Is it b/c of the
recent privacy concerns being raised by the US govt's actions, that RescueTime
had more cachet when it launched, they got the messaging right to alleviate
these concerns, or something else?

~~~
eblume
I actually have used RescueTime. I would have probably raised the same concern
except that I was using it, at the time, at the encouragement of my employer.
If they were fine with it, then so was I.

I haven't continued to use it, but to be honest I haven't given it much
thought.

~~~
Ashuu
I would like to know your thoughts about using Codeivate. Also what other time
tracking app do you use?

------
gokulk
I would be able to use it if there was a way to just keep the data only in my
computer.

------
goatslacker
For those looking for a local-only version of time tracking; I've had this in
my vimrc for some time now. It's quite vanilla but gets the job done

[https://gist.github.com/goatslacker/6004481](https://gist.github.com/goatslacker/6004481)

------
ccallebs
Just some somewhat-constructive feedback: It's always a pet peeve of mine to
see the default bootstrap theme on new web apps. It doesn't take a lot of
effort to customize it and doing so goes a long way to provide a sense of
authority about your application.

I know it doesn't seem like that big of a deal (and for all I know, I could be
alone with this sentiment) but it makes a world of difference for me.

That being said -- this looks awesome and I look forward to getting some
consulting work to try it out.

~~~
canthonytucci
Doesn't bother me in the least.

Bootstrap offers sane defaults and presents users with a familiar experience.

If my choices are color/design decisions made by someone who's specialty is
something else, or just vanilla bootstrap, I'd encourage the latter.

~~~
RodericDay
I agree.

------
CalinBalauru
Cool idea,

My problem with this type of granular time applications is that they are to
granular :)

I don't only work on a project when I'm typing on a text editor. I actually do
a lot of thinking before using a editor in fact the actual time I spend in the
editor is maybe 60% of the time I work on a project.

So for my case I will have to use it with some other time tracking tool witch
is to much of a hasel.

Keep us the good work, I am sure there is a market out there for this.

~~~
welder
Yea it's not perfect, but you could just open a file and leave the editor open
while you do other things for the project.

------
agentultra
Cool. I just use org-mode in Emacs which tracks all of my tasks and puts a
nice little timer in my status bar. It saves everything in plain-text and I
can export it to various formats such as HTML or PDF as needed. I'd take a
look at it for inspiration if you're interested.

~~~
welder
I was using Org-mode but found it hard to actually use the data I was logging.
That's where WakaTime started.

I also hated when I forgot to check-in or check-out from a task in Org-mode
and had to guess about a timestamp. The whole experience was tedious.

With WakaTime I have many possibilities for data visualization and reports for
my side-projects and contracts.

------
pantoine
For those of you who were commenting and looking for a local only timetracking
, I have a git plugin that supports Redmine timetracking, and is git friendly.
Also, works for gitbranches and git repos, tracks by repo/by branch or
annotated tag - does some other stuff - got to stop adding random features.

[https://github.com/PAntoine/TimeKeeper](https://github.com/PAntoine/TimeKeeper)

(EDIT: correct url/project)

------
brbcoding
Cool idea... It took over my ST2 though. When trying to enter the API key, the
console flashed wildly with a _couldn 't find api key_ message of sorts. Then,
when I finally got the API key to be accepted, I was unable to access package
control via ctrl+shift+p. That functionality was replaced with another cmd
window that instantly closes. Not sure what the deal is with it, but I'm
uninstalling for now.

~~~
adeaver
How did you uninstall? If I remove it from the packages folder it just
installs it again.

~~~
brbcoding
I just opened my User/AppData/Roaming/Sublime Text 2/Packages folder and
deleted it... It hasn't re-installed for me.

------
milin
How does it know if I am doing useful work? If I just leave me vim window on
and leave for lunch, will it know I am idle or log the time? Also, opposite
scenario, when I am concentrated on something, I basically read the code for a
good 30-35 minutes, without typing anything into vim. Can it distinguish it as
useful work rather than otherwise?

~~~
welder
Scenario 1: You leave Vim to read HN for a while.

WakaTime will ask you when you return if you want to log that time to the
current file or not. This happens if you're away for > 15 mins.

Scenario 2: You are reading code without editing it for 30 mins.

At wakati.me you can check the "save" checkbox to filter out any
files/projects that were not written to. That file where you did not make
edits won't be shown on the website.

------
jamesbrennan
Great idea for a plugin, but it made my Sublime Text 2 install unusably slow.
I'm not sure what could be doing that - the fact the developer suggested
installing bind to cache DNS requests makes me think it checks in with the
site very often and I have a poor internet connection where I am right now.

------
jbrooksuk
I'm currently making use of Codeivate -
[http://codeivate.com/](http://codeivate.com/) \- it's pretty awesome!

You can check my progress here,
[http://www.codeivate.com/users/jbrooksuk](http://www.codeivate.com/users/jbrooksuk)

------
civilian
Do you have a bug tracker?

When I left my computer for awhile, I'm now getting infinite "You were away 17
minutes. Add time to current file?"

It's possible that it's not infinite and I just have THAT many files open, but
gah. I have to uninstall this plugin for now. Let me know when it's fixed!

~~~
welder
[https://github.com/wakatime/sublime-
wakatime/issues](https://github.com/wakatime/sublime-wakatime/issues)

I've temporarily switched to using Sublime instead of Vim so that bug will get
fixed today.

------
terabytest
Does this track time even when the window is unfocused? If possible, it
shouldn't: I often leave my editor open but idle even for hours, and this
might skew the tracking by counting a lot of time on a file on which I didn't
really work for that long.

------
janlukacs
We do something pretty similar with PaymoPlus but it works with any app
[http://www.paymo.biz/paymoplus](http://www.paymo.biz/paymoplus) \- not sure
why you would limit the app only to text editors.

~~~
welder
I limited it to text editors because I was making this for myself and I'm a
programmer.

I wanted to visually see the data I was already tracking with Org-mode and
also wanted my time tracked without my involvement.

------
diggan
Tried it out, the search in file went really slow. Also, when I was away, it
asked me if I wanted to log the away time. That's fine but opening up dialogs
until Sublime crashes, not ok.

Will try it out more when/if those two things are fixed.

~~~
welder
It's probably slow now because of the HN load.

Right now I don't have a better way to log AFK time besides the dialog. Just
to clarify, are you worried about Sublime crashing while you're away?

~~~
diggan
No, the whole plugin is slow. When I search for things for example, Sublime is
slow. The website is not slow.

And no, I'm not worried about Sublime crashing when I'm away. The dialog that
pops up when it asks you to log you time, popped up like a thousands of times
and then Sublime crashed.

------
mkramlich
some portion of my project time is while in an text editor. some portion is
not. and use a variety of editors and tools. so if it only captures a narrow
subset of my actual spent project time, it's not a net-win for me personally.
easier to start/stop a stopwatch of some kind. since that's out-of-band, it's
automatically inclusive of all activities, whether an editor involved or not.
reading time counts, thinking time counts, meetings, phone convos, etc.

~~~
welder
Would a day planner view solve this? That view would show you blocks of time
for the day so you could see when you started working and when you stopped
working without worrying about the meetings or breaks in the middle.

~~~
mkramlich
I think the MUT (minimum useful tool that nails it) would be like a stopwatch
app/command, that also lets you specify what project (and optionally task
within the project) is being started/paused/resumed/completed. Then it can
show you total breakdowns by project, task, etc. In a completely private and
local way. In a terminal. With GUI only as an optional bonus. This may already
exist and I just am ignorant of it. Seems like an "old" problem that should
have been solved by now and I just haven't stumbled upon it. I could write it
I guess. But yeah, I don't want a desktop GUI or web app, by default. Give me
a CLI in a Terminal. With text, I can then have lots of easy/obvious ways to
slice and dice that, script it, etc.

------
frankcaron
Awesome idea. Getting devs to track time is always a pain, and this kind of
thing is a great way to get the data needed for less-annoying project
management.

------
jaxn
How is this different from [http://rescuetime.com](http://rescuetime.com)
(other than only tracking the text editor)?

~~~
welder
Good question. WakaTi.me knows what project your working under while
rescuetime.com only knows that your inside your text editor.

~~~
jaxn
That makes sense.

RescueTime gives me information about how much time I spent in each file and
is showing me the project as part of that info, but it doesn't rollup time
spent in a project.

Still seems of limited use since it wouldn't show me time spent debugging in a
browser, working in the database, etc. From a productivity standpoint
RescueTime lets me dictate that [http://myproject.dev](http://myproject.dev)
is "debugging" time, Sublime Text is "IDE" time and that Terminal is also
"development" time. If I could change how Sublime Text displays info in the
title bar then I could probably set it to know that "Sublime Text -> My
Project -> file" was time spent in "development/my project".

~~~
wogg
Actually, RescueTime does know and report on what file / project you have open
inside the text editor, as long as the info is in the window title (which both
these apps do). And it's keyword-searchable by whatever is in that data
point-- usually filename, project name, directory tree etc. It works this way
with just about all text editors.

The key word search method is how people usually accomplish the idea of
project reporting-- but is admittedly not perfect, like you could get if we
actually could consume that meta data.

However, the "document" level details are only exposed to you in the premium
version-- in the free version you just get an open document count, so that is
a significant difference.

I've always thought the long term path for an enriched time measurement
experience would involve plugins like this one. Great to see someone working
on it.

Disclosure: I'm a RescueTime employee.

~~~
jaxn
Ah, I am a premium member, so that makes sense that I saw that in my
dashboard.

------
adambom
Nice. I signed up for an account and installed the sublime plugin. Is there
any way to export data? Even if it's just an API for now.

~~~
welder
Yes, I have a JSON api that the Backbone.js website uses. To export all of
your logged time, just page through this resource:

[https://www.wakati.me/api/v1/actions?page=1&show=file,is_wri...](https://www.wakati.me/api/v1/actions?page=1&show=file,is_write,project,tags,time,endtime)

I'll publish api docs soon to make writing your own plugin easier.

------
thesorrow
This is a great idea but would love to have the same thing for org-mode with
git commit message integration

------
feronull
There is bug on the windows when I changed file terminal window popup.

------
karlhadwen
If it worked with TM2 I'd use it.

------
lucaspiller
Really nice idea. I like it :)

------
markdown
Dat inserted content


Show HN: Turn articles to read into podcasts to listen - liaboc
https://remarkboard.com/?hn1
======
oldschoolrobot
Cool! I prefer listening instead of reading so this is a great service to me!

~~~
liaboc
Thanks a lot! Do you find it hard to understand how the app works?


Is this Animal Magnetism at work? - zupreme
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039520/Stuck-The-magnetic-cousins-attract-lot-attention--odd-knife-fork.html

======
chad_oliver
That looks like a total sham. In the pictures, every utensil is positioned so
that it could be held there simply by gravity and friction.

------
andrewflnr
So has anyone tested this with a compass or some other magnetic field
detecting device?


Why Programming Language X Is Better Than Y (2013) - sanspace
http://joelgrus.com/2013/12/24/why-programming-language-x-is-unambiguously-better-than-programming-language-y/

======
dottrap
Original HN thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6960398](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6960398)


Pyjamas: build AJAX apps in Python (like Google did for Java) - soundsop
http://pyjs.org/
======
ed
I'd also suggest checking out pyjamas-desktop (<http://pyjd.org/>), which
allows you to deploy pyjamas apps to the desktop

~~~
michaelneale
yeah it looks great. I think its a great idea to use more of the web for the
desktop - there is so much work going on in browsers/javascript it makes sense
to use it for offline work as well.

~~~
lkcl
well, the point of pyjamas-desktop is that you can, if you choose, run an
"online" app that happens to be a stand-alone dedicated app that runs on the
user's desktop.

let me rephrase that :)

pyjamas-desktop can be used for "online" apps just as much as it can for
"offline" ones. in fact, you _still_ need a web server, even if it's running
on localhost, because applications that conform to the pyjamas API will
_still_ have to use XMLHttpRequest to interact with the rest of the world.

that interaction is done behind a neat abstraction module, HTTPRequest.py, but
it's still necessary.

so - offline / online, there's no difference.

what you _do_ get with pyjamas-desktop is a speed-increase in your
application, thanks to no longer being forced to utilise javascript. in cases
where your application morphs into something that requires 10,000 on-screen
widgets (not inconceivable for complex business apps) the speed-up of direct
access to the blindingly-quick WebKit (<http://webkit.org>) underlying library
is absolutely essential.

not even GWT can offer this, because google haven't bothered to port GWT to
the desktop: they believe that the "hosting" mode - running from the Eclipse
Development Environment - a whopping 150mb download on its own - is perfectly
sufficient.

~~~
michaelneale
But GWT doesn't require eclipse to run? that 150Meg I assume must mean the 10
tonne eclipse IDE? Not GWT.

~~~
lkcl
if you want to run "hosted" mode, where the javascript and java is executed by
eclipse, then yes, GWT requires eclipse.

GWT itself does not have a "desktop" mode, it does not have a "desktop"
version, and so GWT apps cannot themselves be run as a "desktop" app unless
you use the GWT Eclipse-basesd "hosted" mode - or you run the GWT-compiled
javascript under Adobe AIR, Mozilla's Gecko / Spidermonkey, etc. etc. etc.

~~~
michaelneale
Right yes I don't think GWT is really interested in desktop - unless like you
say you compile it, but then its quite different.

I have run it hosted just fine with no eclipse components (only for dev of
course) - just the JVM and about 10 meg of jars (or 9 meg dev jar) - I am not
sure where you get the 150 meg from though?

------
SingAlong
This is really cool. But wouldn't it be better to generate docs from comments
than refering to GWT docs?

Anyway, they also have an online demo which you won't find on the site. Their
BookReader <http://pyjs.org/book/output/Bookreader.html> (ongoing
documentation) is itself a demo.

EDIT: Oh! just noticed that the Bookreader docs is very linux oriented.

~~~
lkcl
There are several bits of documentation auto-generated from the docstrings -
here's one: <http://lkcl.net/pyjamas-desktop/docs/output/docui.html>

this is one i made by hacking the standard python 2.5 pydoc.py to auto-
generated pyjamas code, which you then either run with pyjamas-desktop -
<http://pyjd.org> \- or you run through the pyjamas compiler -
<http://pyjs.org> and you get the documentation.

so it can and has been done.

re the docs being linux-orientated: yep, i'm a linux baby :) and i haven't
encountered too many windows people who use pyjamas, surprisingly. it's self-
contained and OS-independent, so works perfectly.

------
defrex
Hmm, can this be used for only javascript? As in, I write my own html but use
pyjamas to generate my js (which can manipulate the dom of my html).

I'm down with abstracting javascript (good riddance), but I like to be picky
about html.

~~~
lkcl
yep, that's right. pyjamas has three components:

* a stand-alone javascript compiler

* a DOM-model library that can be used to do things like getElementById

* a UI-widget library that has things like HTMLPanel, Label, Tree, Image

pyjamas-desktop rips out the first of these, rips out all javascript in 2) and
3) and replaces the javascript with Webkit/Glib, thus providing the _exact_
same functionality. it's blindingly quick.


Ways iPhone Users Get Ripped Off - Freebytes
http://news.google.com/news/section?pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&topic=t&ict=ln

======
seancron
I'm going to take a guess that you actually meant:

[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178836/5_ways_iPhone...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178836/5_ways_iPhone_users_get_ripped_off)


Viking school is switching its program from rails to Fullstack JavaScript - aecorredor
https://www.vikingcodeschool.com/posts/learn-full-stack-javascript-in-12-weeks-with-viking-immersive
======
DrScump
Um, I tried on both Chrome and Opera, and in both cases the email-signup box
cannot be entered into.


Ask HN: How often you take Android device full file backup and store it on cloud? - gkrisub
The full file backup means the device folder structure is maintained when stored on cloud (for e.g. Google Drive).
======
krishnaycombi
By full file backup are you referring to copying all the data under
/storage/emulated/0, /sdcard mount points?

~~~
gkrisub
Yes. Storing as it's on cloud. I should be able to browse on cloud storage as
I do on device. Basically, maintaining replica of device on cloud.

~~~
krishnaycombi
That sounds like a good step in the backup strategy.

------
pavan123
Never. I just took backup of my contacts twice in my lifetime when I was
formatting my mobile.

~~~
gkrisub
How about backup of SMS, Call log, photos, music and other files, to avoid
loosing data in case of device lost? The existing backup apps require
scheduling apriori, and I'll loose new data between schedules, when device
gets lost.

~~~
pavan123
It's a good practice to take regular backups of the entire device. Probably I
should do more often.

~~~
subramanyamgv
It's painful to schedule backups. I believe users are less predictable on what
and when to backup. Chances are that users regret on their backup strategy,
after loosing the data for e..g, that they should have scheduled daily rather
than weekly

------
selckin
never

~~~
gkrisub
How do you handle the situation when device gets lost or stop functioning?

~~~
selckin
buy a new one install software, wait for everything to sync?

~~~
gkrisub
For iOS devices, iCloud syncs everything. There is no similar alternative for
Android devices. Google Play syncs some: Contacts, Apps and Gmail etc. But to
sync app data, other files and folders, Google play doesn't have a copy. And
are lost with the device.

~~~
on_and_off
Actually, with Marshmallow, Android apps can now backup themselves just like
iOS ones.


Has the Salvator Mundi Really Gone Missing? Unpacking the Latest Theory - hecubus
https://hyperallergic.com/479260/has-the-salvator-mundi-really-gone-missing-unpacking-the-latest-conspiracy-theory/
======
drcode
Whenever I hear about this painting I wonder if such expert-based attribution
can really be trusted... then I look at the picture again and think "damn,
that is such a fantastic painting, who else could have made it?" And I wonder
if the "experts" are just using the same emotional assessment as I am, at the
end of the day.

~~~
DataWorker
Jerry Saltz points to the perspective being unlike his other work.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhzpRYP48is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhzpRYP48is)

~~~
tlarkworthy
Great burn