skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"serverless" is a new term that people have been using in tons of different ways. To the author, frankly I don't think you get to say what's serverless and what isn't. I think only point 1 is agreed upon - the rest is up in the air. Point 3: that it must be function-as-a-service: I dont agree there. Counter-point: if your backend is google sheets, or plain S3, it's certainly serverless.

Docker? Maybe. Depends how it's architected. I get that they're trying to latch onto the up-and-coming big movement, but since that big term has no definition, they have as much right as the author to claim to belong to it.
> So, you're basically selling your least productive time and you're saying this is OK

I don't see what the problem is here, unless he signed a contract that said he'd give his best hours to the employer.

> Second, if you do your paid job well enough despite being "worn out", then you're not using your full potential, which is a pity.

No one hires you to "use your full potential" - they hire you to do your job. What would be the problem if Albert Einstein were to teach jnr high school[1] science and doodling away on his personal theoretical physics at 4AM?

I see no ethical quagmire of putting ones' interest before the employers while fulfilling the prescribed duties, especially when considering the power balance and the fact that the other party in this relationship is usually a soulless legal construct that puts itself (and shareholders) before any employee.

1. or a Swedish patent office
What programming language is generally used throughout the book?
Yup. The integrated profiler is only in the paid version
> a small group of people

We're talking about games that regularly sell 20+ million copies (65 million for GTA5) at $60 a pop. It's really not that small.

Most people probably only buy one or two full-price games a year, but that's still way more than others spend on apps in the same time period.
Heh, all the basic UNIX tools reek of geek design and bad UX.

cat -> from the obscure verb "catenate". A regular user would never, ever find the connection unless someone points it out. It should be "join" or "merge" or "unify" or something.

dd -> "data description". Really? It should be "blockcopy" or something.

grep -> "globally search a regular expression and print". Again, really? It should be "find" or "search".

ls, mv, cp, rm are kind of ok but in this day and age they should definitely be list, move, copy, remove by default (with aliases if need be). Heck, 99% of Unix commands are too short for their own sake.

cron -> "Chronos". Really?, third edition. It should be "scheduler" or something.

I mean, at this point we've all moved on and have memorized all these commands and parameters, but a lot of brain cells have died for no real benefit to humanity.
I wonder if all of these optimizations are still as helpful. For example, skipping bytes only saves memory bandwidth if you skip whole cachelines.

Also, for --mmap, there are a couple of conflicting considerations. On newer CPUs, large memory copies are very fast. With mmap, though, unless you use MAP_POPULATE, you can get a page fault every few pages, and on CPUs with exception mechanisms as bad as x86's, page faults are very slow (probably 20 times as bad as a syscall).
Kind of shocked nobody mentioned this, even if it is a bit of an aside, but umm, I've been dying for anything at all from Gary Bernhardt - I don't even know what to say except that it makes me hope however unrealistically that will one day get something like the magnum opus that is "Destroy All Software" from him again.
This is true, but I was glad to see Gruber put his money where his mouth is and spend some time in an app developer's shoes.
The title of the article sounds like this is a retirement fund, but it sounds like they are referring their drivers to start IRAs with Betterment. It seems that as contracting companies, drivers could maybe set up their own SEPs.

Some differences

- An Uber Driver with a Full Time job and 401k may not be able to deduct IRA contributions

- An Uber Driver making over 120k wouldn't be able to contribute to a Roth IRA.

- Lower Contribution Limits
Activists call for Facebook 'censorship' change after Korryn Gaines death
I think there's still a need for a simple/practical notes app. Apple's built in app has improved tremendously since so it's hard to judge but IMO there's still a big enough market that extends beyond John's followers.

But... an app that has monthly expenses but only charges a one time fee can't really be sustainable. It's completely misaligned, and that's why it failed.

I blogged about it here https://arielmichaeli.com/my-thoughts-on-vespers-unfortunate...
Dynamic Languages Have Jumped the Shark
Are you aware of any of the recent actions of the Unicode consortium? You can start here. http://www.unicode.org/emoji/charts/emoji-released.html
From Cargo Culter to Yak Shaver in 2 weeks or your money back!
The only thing that fits the bill is C++ with the basic Win32 API that you're guaranteed ships with every version of Windows. But you'll still need to bundle the Microsoft VisualC++ runtime installer. To save yourself from writing raw Win32, I would suggest WxWidgets. You can link statically to the library and compile in only what you need, keeping size manageable.
Branch.io Journeys
I have actually wondered that myself (Scala). I was so excited about Scala years ago (2006). One of my TAs from college was working on the language as well. It finally looked like an OCaml for the masses.

Over time my excitement changed. I assume others may share my thoughts hence the less excitement:

* It is on the JVM and there are lots of languages on the JVM competing with Java.

* While the fusion OOP + FP fusion is interesting I have grown wary of kitchen sink languages. There are so many ways people write Scala. Scala from one project looks vastly different.

* The endless DSLs

* Java 8 is often good enough. Particularly for interop and community support.

* Every time I have to add Scala to a Java project I'm thinking here comes 9MB jar that some classpath scanning thing is going to take its sweet time on (Spring, Servlet 3.0, etc).

But I think most of the reason is Rust has filled that hard core typers niche with the added novelty of unique memory management and competing with other LLVM languages instead of JVM languages. Scala has become "old" like Java and OCaml :) .
I just picked it up. Looking great at the moment. There are diagrams and illustrations throughout, and the ToC is a solid list of things I have had to figure out on the way & things I know of but don't yet understand.

This'll be worth the $30 to me.
Yeah, interested to hear opinions.
3 open source alternatives to Office 365
It's Python's fault for not retrofitting its syntax to satisfy a markup language invented years later?
It doesn't matter whether a tax is progressive or regressive on its own. What matters is its place in the overall system of taxes and transfers. You can have a progressive wealth redistribution system based mostly on regressive taxes (sales tax, carbon tax, vice taxes) by ensuring that transfer payments and tax breaks are heavily directed towards low income residents. "Regressive" is not an end-all reason to reject a taxation scheme that has many other desirable properties, namely internalizing externalities and directing market forces towards less pollution-intensive technologies.
Well companies demand it. You can get a job on work experience alone, but if you're just starting out good luck applying to Google/MS/Facebook/Amazon/etc with only vocational training.
I think it really depends on your skillset. If you're a node/JS person, you can easily make a desktop app with electron.

If you're purely targeting windows, and want this to be a 'traditional' desktop, then go with WPF. If you want this to be a 'store' app, you can use WPF or Javascript.

You can do all of this w/ VS Community edition, or if you're going the JS route, try VS Code!
IAPs do not share within a family. That's a big problem maintaining five or ten devices.
So realistically, does processor architecture matter today from the custkmer's point of view? I mean performance and all that matters, but presumably that will be offset by market forces. But for example I rent a couple of ARM servers from Scaleway as well as a whole bunch of x86-64 servers from various providers, and they all can do all the same stuff. So why is it that x86 is the chip data centers prefer when they could have a variety of chips and let the customers and the market choose?
Open Benchmarks: Live SaaS Metric Benchmarks
The Wii and the Wii U is your friend.
How T-Mobile Became the Hardest Working Provider of Customer Service on Twitter
Thanks. This is awesome. About the only thing they have right about me is under Interests: 'Women'. Ethnic affinity is Asian, which is wrong. I don't have a US Politics box
Overclocking guide: it's easier than you think
Anybody else vaguely reminded of The Fountainhead's cover: http://www.steinerag.com/flw/Book%20Images/Fountainhead1994....

For some reason the combination of "imposter" and the colors evoked memories of an old paperback.
You know he just started to post new stuff, right?

https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog
I do not understand your argument.

To give an example, there is a lot of free open source software mirrored all over the internet, mostly on ftp servers, but also on http, rsync, etc.

If you use Linux or BSD you probably are using some of this software. If you use the www, then you are probably accessing computers that use this software. If you drive a new Mercedes you are probably using some of this software. There are a lot of copies of this code in a lot of places.

Is that centralized? Does anyone hosting a mirror ("repository") "own" the software? Is it the same person or entity hosting every mirror?

Compare Google's copies of everyone else's data, also replicated in a lot of places around the world. Who "owns" this data?
It still needs analysts to work; could they be replaced with machine learning?
Anyone knows if there will be a hardcopy available? I live a paper free live, except for books, I just hate reading from a screen...
Also interesting is that someone with such a large and relevant audience on tap couldn't maintain a level of sales that could pay for the font and cloud service. That's a huge leg-up on what the average developer can work with. And while their roadmap might've been off, it wasn't insane - you can make a $5 productivity app work.

We have an iOS productivity app (at the same pricepoint) of which Gruber was very, very complimentary. We elected to advertise it on Daring Fireball (not cheap) and saw a reasonable return. It's a focused audience for someone with an iOS app.

Personally, I think they should've swapped out the font and maybe sold the app to someone who thought they could get it on track.
Inside Facebook’s (Totally Insane) Political-Media Machine
C# & Javascript/Node. You can find the sample code from projects in the book here: https://github.com/imposters-handbook/sample-code/
Common Mistakes to Avoid in Formal Writing [pdf]
Also, many of us spent the first 20 years (just when our bodies grow) of our life sitting.

On the other hand, we're still growing taller...
Idris – A Language with Dependent Types
Where is the ToC ?
Have a look at bpython.
Another casualty of the internet.

Before the web, you would pretty much only learn about whatever martial arts were available in your area. There was no objective truth. In the absence of evidence, comparisons between martial arts were done on a subjective level: does it look cool?

Now, anybody can look up kung fu on youtube, and if they do they'll see that it's a bit shit, compared with the others. No sane person is going to dedicate years of their life into learning something that is a bit shit.

In general the world has become a lot more factual in the last 25 years.
Turning Instagram into a Radically Unfiltered Travel Guide
My teenage son had his tonsils taken out a couple of years back at a private UK hospital (under my work coverage) and after the operation the anesthetist came up to me and apologized and said there was an extra cost that (for some reason) wasn't covered under my insurance.

Having heard all of the horror stories from the US I was quite worried until he eventually told me how much I had to pay extra - pretty sure it was £4.20. :-)
My take on a better path (of course, hindsight is 20/20, right?):

(a) free iOS app (b) paid sync service _with open API_ (c) let other people build web+MacOS+Linux+Android+whatever apps (d) free artisinal, handcrafted MacOS app

Also, could have skipped the complexity of building sync infrastructure by using Firebase.

Also, I know using an inferior font would pretty much invalidate everything that made Vesper Vesper, but it's painful to see a recurring cost there…
From the "Questions" section:

Will there be a print version?

That's my goal, yes. I want to be sure all the edits are made and, technically-speaking, the book is completed. If I do end up with a paper edition, I'll send out a note to the mailing list in late September, early October.

edit: Formatting.
You're correct, but HN isn't a place to post uncomfortable truths, you'll just get downvoted.

I'd like to see flukus spend a day in a hot sauna with water continuously dripping on the coals.
It's not quite as bad as Salesforce's "No Software" campaign.

I wonder when Salesforce is going to go serverless so we can run no-software on our not-servers.
No love for Xiki[0]? It's, to me, the most promising advanced shell, though the reliance on Emacs for full power might be offputting to some.

[0] http://xiki.org/
I version my docker images. Inside the Dockerfile I usually install the latest version (i.e. pip install without specifying version). By single version bump of my image version I can trigger update of everything.

If I check out an old commit I can look up docker image version in the source control, download exactly the docker image that was running at that time and start shell in this image. Inside the image I can run "pip freeze" to check exact version of each package that was running at that time. I can then update the old Dockerfile with those specific versions by adding the "==x.y.z" e.g. "pip install oauth2client==3.0.0" in the pip install to reproduce the old build.

Additional benefit is that such scheme works for system packages, or for any other language libraries I can think of.
You are right. It seems I skipped that part.
He's using his full potential, just not on work he's selling to others. I don't see anything wrong with doing that, as long as the market value of what he is selling is able to support that practice. Work to live, not live to work.
Well as banks switch over to this we can certainly expect to see our transaction and transfer fees fall...
> Whitespace is included when you copy something. What's the problem?

In addition to the points posted in a parallel thread, selecting and copying leading whitespace reliably is more difficult than just getting the printable characters. Also: it's not something that anyone has any cause to do outside of copying Python text.
ISA 3.0 adds a new instruction 'darn' -- Deliver a Random Number. That's a pretty good asm mnemonic :) I wonder if anyone has dug into the details of how that works yet?
Crowded places often have cctv, they could track you enter and leave. Then continue following you from above as before.

It would be harder though.
After the Communist Revolution, kung fu instructors took jobs as dance instructors. A lot of the modern wushu - very gymnastic and often aerial movements - came out of the altered teaching. Much of what you see in modern movies is non-traditional.

There's been a range of opinion in the Chinese martial arts community about modern wushu. My own opinion is that the new teachings, while not being practical, keep to the spirit of the origins of kung fu in chi kung - promotion of health and better control of your body.

So, the short answer is that it did become dance-like.
So to sum up, more had more features than more but less features than less.
There is Sanshou too, that resemble a more rulebound kickboxing.

And for routines there is a split between the "dancing" for presentation, called "modern wushu", and traditional routines, that are used to practice actual deadly fighting moves.

I used to train traditional routine, but for it to go beyond "dancing" the teacher regularly scheduled sparring session for students to attempt to use in actual combat the moves (the ones we could test... I made the mistake once of wanting to spar with a particularly weird and ugly move, only to almost get a broken shoulder. happily my partner knew enough to make the move against me with just enough force to hurt a lot without damaging me)
I have a degree in CS and I've never found myself in a situation where anyone would discuss bouble sort vs merge sort. Neither have I been in a situation where big-o was relevant beyond the basic concept of not doing obviously stupid shit.

What you've really missed is things like best practices, design patterns and concepts like SOLID, but a lot of people with CS degrees missed some of those as well.

If the book covers this, excellent, but why wouldn't it sell itself on valid points?
Maybe if Gruber hadn't been such a huge voice for reform of the app store, I'd share in your glee that a "partisan" was proven wrong in some way. But he's been consistently on the side of developers while acknowledging that Apple will always put its interests first.

I'm not sure if you actually read Gruber, but he's been critical of Apple when it comes to the app store on a number of fronts over the years.
Which is a shame. I recently started toying with C#, and most of the syntax is eerily similar to PHP7. Obviously the standard library is completely different, but so far I'm right at home with the core language (though I haven't explored more advanced features yet).

Luckily I'm currently working with a PHP7 app, so all is good, but my next app will likely not be PHP at all.
Wisdom: "The key to making programs fast is to make them do practically nothing. ;-)"
> That doesn't really make much sense. GNU grep can tell whether a pattern is just a literal or not.

It does help when the search string comprises of regex metacharacters and you actually wanted a literal search.
I can't help wonder if Intel "won" by bruteforcing the lithography side. But this then made them "blind" to the reduced cost side of Moore's Law (or they tried for the longest time to get people to ignore it).

Their first reminder was perhaps netbooks, using semi-retired Celerons to make small and cheap clamshell web browsers and media players.

Their second, and ongoing, reminder is smartphones/tablets.
Really sorry that I replied about 17 hours too late, had a load of work to complete and find myself constantly falling behind my intended schedules. But I am genuinely intrigued by your service. Also noticed that you opted to start the client-student off with ASP.Net; I wonder if this is because the market signals that it needs developers fairly skilled in the language or perhaps because ASP.net developers have higher salaries...or maybe because your presently available mentors are ASP.net devs. I wouldn't know the difference and strengths between any two computer programming languages even if my life depended on it, but had always felt that Ruby/Python was the way to go for the newbie programmer. In any case, if the service will be around after the next 20-30 days (got work to deliver and deadlines to meet), I will definitely give it a try and see how things work out for me.
Airlander 10: Longest aircraft damaged during flight
Analog DNA Circuit Does Math in a Test Tube
Does it use SIMD instructions? Some newer cpus can do up to 16 comparisons at once. That also might mean skipping will be branchy and not exactly divisible on word boundaries for best vectorization.
I could be used to stalk.
It's not a bad idiom to use. You can keep retrieving the last command, and change the grep term quickly with ^w . When the search argument to grep is in the middle of the line, you can't easily iterate over a bunch of search terms by hand.
This is so true. I often think that people only need to put the word 'Rust' into the title to get a ton of up votes. Maybe because rust is a great game as well as being a popular programming language ;)
Sure, but it's fundamentally wrong. The only upside is that it's catchy.

It's tiresome to point it out from time to time but if I go to a bar and each time I say Jeronimo and each time I get slapped and explained that they don't like it that there, after a while I'll stop and just ask for a beer like normal people do :)
Strongly agree "serverless" is not well defined in general.

> Reducing maintenance by not running your own platform

This is my favorite technique too but it's nothing new.

Heroku, App Engine and Lambda satisfy this for custom code.

But I do agree with the author.

Docker is not a service or serverless.

Swarm, Kubernetes, Mesos are all software in every sense.

You install them on servers and you perform complex operations to keep them running well.

Doing this unlocks all sorts of new utility, but it's the opposite of "use cloud services" in almost every way.
Wow that's pretty good. My other favorite mnemonic is also from PowerPC 'eieio' - enforce in-order execution of I/O.
As the author mentioned Python is good for small stuff. If you are building a huge system where the jobs are spread between a dozen of people things could easily get out of control and you could end up in the dirt.
This is interesting. With the wave of workout studios like Barry's Bootcamp and Core 40 becoming extremely popular in America, I wonder if Kung Fu could be transformed into a workout class in America, or even in Hong Kong. I wonder if turning Kung Fu into a workout in the ethnic Chinese areas could work.

How is karate holding up in Japan and elsewhere? I know kids in the US take it as an after-school activity. Wushu, too, is now a competitive artform, at least for the Asian-American diaspora anyway.
Supercomputing Gets a Shot in the ARM
Amazing that Python 2 vs. Python 3 has still not yet been sorted out. I dipped my toe into Python a couple years ago when looking for a general-purpose scripting language and quickly gave up in frustration—Python 3 was by far the preferable flavor, but many libraries simply didn't work. I picked up Ruby and haven't looked back.
i've seen this getting worse with your typical developer in the age of "push the button to get another virtual machine and someone else will pay the bill."
Kung Fu is sadly sort of ignoring the Internet.

The kung fu academy I went had self defense, routines, championship fighting and flashy presentation classes... sadly, little of it is on Internet, I saw amazing stuff there in person that I can't find on YouTube to show to people.

That said, they recently hired a krav-maga teacher too.
Atomic bombs and oil addiction herald Earth’s new epoch: The Anthropocene
'Bad netizen stuff'? Is this a comment from 1997? Breaking captchas is 'blackhat'? What cozy hippy internet alternative reality does this come from?

These are the same websites and companies that are loading evercookies and doing browser fingerprinting, that break as much as possible the anonymity citizens should enjoy, with Real Name policies, using network analysis to find who your friends are and what your politics and buying habbits are, that routinely rip private information from you cell phone and share it with oppressive regimes.

You're not in Kansas anymore Toto.
Olympics in Brazil Is for Power at Your Expense – Brazil Rio Olympics
As they say, close but no cigar. I come to the comments and find previous discussion because of a helpful user. Not because I knew to look for it.
And here's the link with the complete series about syncing http://inessential.com/vespersyncdiary
Torvalds credits the GPLv2 license for preventing fragmentation of Linux
9 LinkedIn Groups for Entrepreneurs You Must Join Today