skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> DASH is adaptive streaming, and as such, when you select some stream from the client, CDN should support that in their infrastructure

Adaptive streaming is essentially a client side technology, all the CDN needs to do is ensure that it serves up files with the right mime type (not actually a hard requirement, but many players choke if you don't).

Which segment to play next is decided by the player based on current playback conditions and a manifest of available segments and bitrates; it then requests the relevant segment from the CDN, which delivers it as it would a normal file. (A segment is just a very short video file).

The CDN is not expected to keep state for each connected client, which it would need to in order to be able to make the relevant decisions on which file to serve.

For live, you also have the complication that you need to keep adding files, and updating the manifest to indicate where these new files are (The payer checks back every couple of seconds to see if the manifest has changed). Any latency at all in this means that a client may get back a stale manifest, and then not know where the next video segment is supposed to come from, causing stalling. (Numerous ways to work around this, but it is the real hurdle to easy adaptive live streaming).

This is all a gross simplification, but at its most base level, that is how it works.

You can (theoretically) do MPEG-DASH from a normal MP4 file, but that does require CDN support (and possibly a single pass to add more info at segment boundaries).

> Currently CDNs support HLS and Adobe's adaptive streaming, both of which aren't open standards and aren't part of HTML5 video.

HLS is an open standard[0], though not defined by a standards body; more Apple have documented how they do it and others have adopted it as a defacto standard.

And that is the biggest hurdle for DASH adoption - Apple devices.

As a content provider, I have* to support HLS if I want to support adaptive streaming in iOS. Transcoding to another standard (one which is still in its infancy) is just asking for non essential costs and headaches.

*Yes, it is possible to use MPEG-DASH, but not natively supported by Apple, so you are on your own.

Until Apple support MPEG-DASH you still need to provide a HLS stream.

DASH is a sprawling standard, and in theory you can use DASH with existing HLS segments (MPEG-2 .ts files), but no-one supports it (or likely ever will). DASH264 [1] is an attempt to keep it simple, and tie it down to a smaller subset of codecs (x264/5 and the like), and seems to be making headway.

It's early days for MPEG-DASH, and it is gaining traction, helped by the fact it has been learnt a lot of lessons from the likes of Flash and HLS.

0: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-pantos-http-live-streaming...
1: http://dashif.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/DASH-IF-IOP-v3....
Oh man those kvass canisters. So in our area there was an urban legend that once a truck transporting kvass (kind of like a fuel truck) crashed and fell on the side.

Kvass poured out and along with it monstrous worms size of a human leg (nobody ever washes those canisters).

I wonder if that was possible.
An excerpt from http://www.forbes.com/sites/carlodonnell/2014/07/08/how-the-...

"Joseph P. Kennedy’s choice to place his fortune in trusts is possibly the single most critical reason why the family wealth is still around today. The most obvious benefit was to protect the fortune from the prying fingers of ne’er-do-well heirs, said Laurence Leamer, who wrote three Kennedy biographies. Trusts often prevent beneficiaries from tapping more than 10 percent of principal, said Rick Kruse, principal at Kruse and Crawford, which offers estate management advice.

The trusts also protect the family assets from another set of prying fingers: Uncle Sam’s. By holding assets in so called “dynasty trusts,” which are passed from heir to heir for decades, if not longer, the Kennedy family fortune is largely insulated from the estate tax, Kruse said. Handled correctly, a dynasty trust could potentially maintain an un-taxable fortune indefinitely. The oldest Kennedy trust on record dates back to 1936."
The price of Ethereum is soaring because of Ethereum.
I agree. We should instead disallow non-bearing children couples from being married, or remove tax benefits.
IMHO, we could have made it all very clear, however, most people would not understand if government would try to redefine 'family' to require kids, because common understanding of family is a deeply conservative thing, and even most liberals would not feel that change good.

I would go even further, and would provide tax credits for anyone planning to have kids in, say, the next 5 years, and I would take money back after 5 years, if no kid is out.
Was the washer something like this:
http://www.micromatic.com/mmoldimages/galleries/mdd68s/mdd68... ?
That isn't the workflow described in the slides. They talk about signing in via SSO to generate the cert, so it looks like this client is just an example of what would be run at the back end of the web interface you sign into (with 2FA etc), to drop the cert. Look at that as a UI as well, it expects the bastion user to know their own IP to put into the command? Nope. That's a command to be run by something else.

But that just brings up more questions. Generally you want as little as possible running on the bastion; it really is just that choke point. So I presume the SSO front end is also not running on the bastion, but in another subnet, then pokes the key back out...somehow?
One thing to consider is Antibiotics are not actually need very often. I had intestional surgery a while back and they never put me on a course of antibiotics. Now they probably gave me a shot of something in surgery, but we can do a lot to minimize the risks without them.

They are often used as a crutch and end up promoting sloppy technique. Basically infections are a sign you did something wrong, removing that feedback promotes problems.
The Cadillac ELR isn't awful by any means; it just doesn't offer nearly enough features and quality over its Chevrolet stablemate to justify the difference in pricing.
Those are all simple examples. If someone wants a CRUD app thats different than a ride sharing app which is different from a messaging app.

I think we can all agree the floor to make an app is fairly low. Most are simple webviews that point to a single URL.
Cadillac is also an unsexy brand (and a GM brand). It's the luxury car your grandfather buys.
Came here to post this, well said (along with all the others so far). While the post does raise some valid points about ROI being a key consideration, that doesn't change that for most businesses initial capital expenditure is still a very significant consideration. As you say, the fundamental point of a ballpark basically is "so around how many zeros?" It's very easy for a client who honestly has minimal idea of underlying foundations behind every day services or tools to ask for something that genuinely seems simple to them on the surface but is insanely complex, even if they're not in starry-eyed dream mode (or inspired by a ludicrously overoptimistic simplified trade magazine article they read). An experienced contractor should be able to at least say "other clients similar to you have been in ranges from $N to $10xN". It's worth emphasizing that there can be significant ability to scale up or down by an order of magnitude in response to ROI, expected scaling requirements, etc.

But this isn't asking about fundamental physics or the development of a new operating system or something. There are unknowns and more importantly there is tailoring to the clients needs and budget, but the unknown unknowns should be minimal, that's why they're interested in hiring you. There is a big difference between the author's "well $10k vs $50k and what about ROI" versus "What you just asked for sounds like what $MEGACORP started two years ago with an initial budget of $12 million and last I heard it is now up to $30 million". Most development jobs do have a range of budgets they can be tailored to but that range isn't infinite; some requests are just clearly going to be flat out impossible for a given business and they shouldn't have to spend any capital, economic or human, chasing a total dead end.

I also think the author very much overstates software being some inherently different, special thing. He wrote:

"you’re asking me to figure out what it will cost to build something that, by definition, has never existed before."

That's silly, unless it's something extremely cutting edge or aimed with vast scalability requirements, "websites" have absolutely existed before. Not this specific one sure, but lots of others similar to it, made for businesses with needs that also share similarities. The real world is also full of projects that are even more potentially unbounded, like real estate or construction. That sort of place is exactly where the whole question of "ballpark estimates" originates, because it's all too easy for a concept guy to design out some "beautiful and organic structure" that in terms of architecture and engineering is obviously going to be budget busting. A basic reality check matters. Precise estimates are what comes when a project goes out to bid, but any decent professional in the business should be able to eye a bridge or building design and feature set and quickly come up with a rough idea of whether it's even worth pursuing or is just silly.

Edit: Tried to use typical asterisk as multiply symbol, forgot that added emphasis.
It was 1 kopek for regular, 3 kopeks with syrup. Roughly equivalent to $3 and $9 in today's US dollars if calculated proportionally to median income. Prices are shown in one of the pictures, btw: http://gazirovka.15kop.ru/gallery/#10

PS. There's much more info about soda machines in Russian version, and lots of cool graphics too:

http://gazirovka.15kop.ru/machines/ (scrolls horizontally, in case you haven't noticed)

http://gazirovka.15kop.ru/history/

http://gazirovka.15kop.ru/glass/
What an idiotic idea. Python 3 needlessly broke things for features that did not really improve the language. Python 3 is a dead end. The 'slated' end of 2.7 won't happen, just the project leadership will change.
It is concerning how defensive some supporters of the DAO get when the wisdom of the crowd is questioned in this context. IMO vote by majority is the biggest issue with the DAO.

Has anyone come across a DAO where the voting power lies with the board of directors?
I could not help but notice the block at the end that asked one to "Read Tristan's next blog" with a button to Follow him.
Unicode has stubbornly refused to become Turing complete. Will it ever be more than a bunch of character tables?

I think Unicode Emoji were a great step forward but we must redouble our efforts.
> So whichever side is on the side of "X is true" suffers the burden of proof, never the side that says "X is false".

Fish definitely don't have dreams.

Dark Matter isn't real

There are no undiscovered artifacts left in the amazon jungles.

There are no sunken ships in the seas that we are not aware of.

By your logic nobody can contest any of the above claims without the burden of proof being on them. That's great. It means I can say anything negative I want as truth and then everybody else has to do the work to disprove me.
Exactly as you said: old plants. We don't update them as we should to make them as safe as they can be. That's not an engineering problem, that's a political problem.

Waste storage? Same story. We have plenty of useless desert in the US, but people don't want to be anywhere remotely near them.

Recent advances in solar and wind technology might make it within reach...if we were dealing with 1-2 billion people, not close to 10 billion people in our lifetimes. All of these people want to live like we do: they want to eat meat, they want light at the flick of a switch, they want heat at the turn of a dial. Assuming prices will go down and efficiency will go up to match skyrocketing demand is greatly misguided.

Not to mention, extracting and refining the rare earths necessary for a lot of these devices is unfathomably ruinous to the environment, and recycling is just as bad (see my other comment about lead poisoning in Kenyan kids).

You have brought up 2 political problems and 1 technological fantasy. Nothing about economics. Nuclear is fine.
I agree. It's better for design that compels certain actions.

But its worse for helping users control their impulses.

I personally feel the users should bear the overwhelming majority of responsibility for controlling their own impulses.

But the author's own website contains design objects that encourage certain impulsive behaviors and I was pointing that out.
Are you going to stop using Chrome?
Incorrect. That is not what happens when I do that.
Such old trees growing in marginal environments like the rocky cliffs are valuable records of the past environment. Their annual growth is constrained by twmperature and rainfall. By measuring the rings produced in past years, we get information about the temperature and rainfall at those times. Since tree rings are annual, this gives climate data resolved to exact past years. For regions and times with no written records, this is one of the key sources to reconstruct past climate details.
Your impression does come from somewhere though - I think the key point is that the US has (mostly) stopped building record-busting skyscrapers.

We are building lots of skyscrapers, but they are mundane in comparison to the vanity/PR/pride projects that are going up in other countries that are setting records for height, space, etc. So if you're reading the news you're much more likely to read about projects in the UAE or China than here.

IMO this is perfectly fine - I for one like it when buildings can economically justify themselves rather than be subsidized in the name of national/regional pride.
I agree with anything that you just said, and that's not the portion of the previous post that I had a problem with. The Python3 disambiguation is a nice way to handle the former ambiguity.
The big difference now is that the progress is fast enough for people to start to understand that their job may be automated in their life. Smart truck drivers in rich countries know that they have only at most 10 years left. Children from villages need to move to big cities to survive, as they understand the trend that farming jobs will worth less over time. Also more people that I know are getting interested in programming, though they do that for the money, not because they would understand the power of creation with code.
John McAfee and his crew claim to have hacked a WhatsApp Message, But
Designers.
But it is better than a pure gasoline car, yes? For many people a full electric car neither practical nor affordable, whereas a hybrid is both.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
This afternoon, without applying any of the workaround fixes, I somehow was able to apt update and upgrade appstream. Did they somehow make a server-side fix?
The only whitespace rule that users really need to know is that "f(x)" is a syntactically different thing than "f (x)". Similar to how "fg" is a syntactically different thing than "f g" in other languages.
What is there to fix? They've settled it. Why should they care to satisfy your curiosity?
Would someone care to explain the condition of Hempstead without invoking racism?
Where Not to Look for Content Ideas
Exactly. Part of the cost of doing business is seeking out new business, and partially failing at securing that new business. As the professional, the onus is on you to guide the client through the process of figuring out how to begin, how to budget, how to move forward from the initial steps.
I love you guys so hard right now. Great comments, lots of good points that are clearly informed by plenty of client-project experience, and even a couple of things I didn't think to consider.

Real quick:

1) Bear in mind that nowhere in the article do I _refuse_ to give ballpark estimates; I'm simply pointing out the downsides and offering a potential solution.

2) I know my site is horrible, and I knew that YOU would know my site is horrible! The new one is under development and should ship in another week or two, but shrug. The cobbler's children have no shoes sometimes. ;)

3) You folks who are suggesting order-of-magnitude estimates are _spot-on_, and this is more-or-less what I've learned to do over the years when giving some kind of an answer is critical to maintaining the life of a potential deal. _Sometimes_ the order-of-magnitude thing can backfire, though, particularly when the client is thinking in "cost" mode rather than "return on investment" mode.

4) Pointing out the downside of a thing and offering a better alternative does not constitute "complaining" insofar as I understand the term; rather, I think of it as problem-solving.

5) "Dear Programmers: Stop Giving Me a Ballpark Lines of Code Estimate" is fucking hilarious and I love you for thinking of it. :)

OK, that's all I have time for, gotta run!
Hmm. Readability is high on this one.
The World’s Largest Solar Plant Just Torched Itself
> they're effectively plagiarising someone else's work.

In a way, that's what learning something from someone else amounts to.
This is nothing more than a string replace on top of Brainfuck.
I've been running this for only the past week.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.a0soft.gph...

I noticed it has 'Export to csv' functionality, which is convenient. But I haven't yet verified that it works.
The truth is, it's all because most websites are really ads, and they have to follow the fashion - otherwise you risk sending a message that your company or project is bad in some way. Web is a fashion-driven industry and any usability or ergonomics is not even a secondary consideration.
Yep. A common question I'll ask a mechanic is like: My car is making this funny noise when it frobulates. Is that likely hundreds or thousands?
That's not really how evolution works.. there would have to be selection pressure that would favor the smartphone addicted
> Ask any auto diagnostics mechanic. Who, by the way, will still be able to give you some kind of best/worst case scenario and ballpark range verbally. It's not actually that hard.

One of the author's points, and one with which I agree, is that it's significantly harder to estimate software projects than, e.g. repairing an automobile.
When I give ranges, I explain what each end of the range looks like.

$1m - we're only doing x, y and z, within these basic constraints, the scope does not slip without renegotiation.

$10m - you get m-through-z, we'll build in capacity for scope changes and discovery on the way

We should be lowest quartile ($1m-$3m) of that range if we can agree through a discovery phase what is in scope and basic constraints/assumptions.
Yes, that was very much the point lol
The injection of extra keys to your set of public keys on apple's servers is an issue. The counterpoint is you are (supposed) to get a notification on every time a new device/public key is added.
A good idea here is to deliver some tangible value to the client (something more than simply a better view of cost) after the discovery session. A roadmap, prioritized use cases, conceptual designs, or whatever makes sense for any given situation. You can charge more for the session that way too.

Otherwise I completely agree with your 'right answer' and how you framed it: "You're the expert". An estimate by comparison is no bad thing, and demonstrates experience.
cant-stand-ya
It's not by any means outrageous when the average commute for people not living in NY is probably ~30-40 minutes.

Software engineers in Silicon Valley earn $250k+ and many are still willing to live in SF with a 1-2 hour commute one way.
You're not the new generation though
Coders aren't as attractive as Lawyers and Administrative staff. Palo Alto has got to look HAWT! \s.
You're basically saying that people don't have a right to have their work appreciated, and the rest of us should never get a chance to see it, no matter how great it is, unless the creator also has the fairly unrelated skill of withstanding assholes. There's no good reason it has to be this way. I understand that there's a difference between the current reality and what should be, but if someone is pushing the boundary towards a more ideal world, we should support them, not make excuses for the status quo.
The colons are not necessary here, and not in python, either.
It was blindly copied from the ABC language (designed in the 70s for complete novices), where it made a little more sense because all keywords were in all caps and thus harder to read.
You can automatically remove six from your codebase after you're Python 3.x only. So six can be a possible solution (provided you have automated tests).
Well, that, and the definition of terms is necessarily being done by the same people who are trying to answer questions raised after-the-fact.
SCons not supporting Python 3.
I have an overarching theory about people: their solutions create problems.

e.g., According to some, Norman Borlaug saved a billion lives by developing semi-dwarf wheat. But according to some, semi-dwarf wheat is killing our guts and making us generally unhealthy.
FINALLY! Someone who understands the reality of the situation and backs it up with FACTS!

If people weren't so terrified of nuclear energy by movies like Silkwood or TV shows like The Simpsons they might actually look past their own emotional hinderances and do some trivial comparisons, like, say, the extraction-to-power-generation death rates of nuclear energy versus coal and oil (not to mention air pollution) of the last 50 years and come to a simple conclusion: nuclear energy is perfectly safe if you do it right.
> “Who invented the computer?” A 20-year-old might say “Steve Jobs."

It may well be a complex question of who invented the computer. But I think it's safe to say that it was certainly not Steve Jobs.
Yes, very transparent!
I forgot Glenn Beck was alive until I scrolled past this.
And then there's Pando, the largest known living organism, and it's at least 80,000 years old.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)
How would that be different from a traditional VC-funded company?