skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The problem and the cost is not just the licensing. It's also the logistical overhead and the complexity tax.

Imagine a parallel world, one where you could spin up Windows and SQL Server installations with ease and you just get a bill at the end of the year for your licensing costs, with easy payment and financing terms. If that were the way things work (and it is to some extent for the cloud, one reason why azure is so popular) then it wouldn't be terribly bad to deal with MS technology. But in large part that's not how things work. Instead you have to deal with the overhead of finding out exactly what you need (do I want Windows Server 2016? what's the advantage of getting the Data Center SKU? do I want SQL Server clustering? etc.) then you have to go out and buy it, install it. And then, after all of that, you have to occasionally put up with Microsoft barging into your business and doing an intrusive audit to make sure you're not stealing anything.

Compare that to the alternatives out there. If you have a big beefy server you can spin up a VM host and infinity linux VMs, you can run as many copies of nginx, postres, and all the other great technologies out there that you want. And you don't have to be burdened about the complexity of licensing, let alone the cost. When you are paying developers 500, 1000, 1500 bucks a day that complexity cost, and the opportunity cost from not just feeling free to experiment and try things out can easily be more expensive than the actual licensing.

I love C#, coding in VS with the .NET stack behind you almost feels like cheating or like "easy mode" because there's just so much available to you and so much you can do trivially in that world which takes so much work and pain with other tech stacks. But ultimately the truth is that nginx is pretty much just a better web server than IIS and linux is a better platform than Windows, especially for services. Docker on windows is light years improved today compared to where it was a year ago, but it's still an also ran compared to Docker on linux. The Microsoft platform just doesn't have the edge it used to, which makes it hard to justify the cost.
Maybe swipe will save us from a cashless society. Else ... don't want to think it.
My entire life, I've seen ad campaigns (TV, radio, web, etc) from American politicians; ads which are projected to a wide audience, and which are neither shy nor subtle about bashing their opponents.

I'm curious, how would others describe the line between acceptable influence (American political ads) and unacceptable influence (Russian political ads).

To be clear, I'm not saying there is no line, I'm just curious to read peoples' description of the difference.
This is frustrating. Again, you guys are avoiding the question. I don't understand why you guys are doing this. Not only does it waste your own time and mine to be answering a different question than the one asked, you're also repeating a point others have gotten across already [1] [2]. Could you please, please actually read the question? I had very clearly and specifically asked about the same kind of card (which, lest you found the word "kind" unclear, I explicitly gave an example of: assume both cards are "Visa Rewards Signature"), for the same product, with the same merchant, processed in the same manner, etc. The only difference I am focusing on is the card perks (which, again, I gave an example of lest it was unclear: 1% vs. 2% cash back... or 5x points vs. 3% cash back, or whatever you can imagine) or perhaps the issuer (Citi vs. Chase vs. whatever). Somehow you guys are ignoring everything I've asked and repeating to me how merchant fees are different based on the card type (debit vs. credit), card kind (signature vs. regular), merchant (big vs. small), product (groceries vs. gas), etc... yes, thank you, I understood that part already [2], and I was very, very explicitly not asking about those:

> if I'm buying two of the same product (obviously -- I'm not talking about two gas vs. groceries here) with two different cards, both of which are from the same network and the same "kind" (by which I mean the categorizations listed above, like two that are both "Visa Rewards Signature"), then the merchant will pay the same fee, right? i.e. it's not like the mere fact that one pays 1% cash back and one pays 2% cash back could possibly result in a different charge to the merchant by itself if they're both (say) lumped together as Rewards Traditional?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17658575

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17658479
Eh, you get used to it. I swap between a Kinesis Advantage, a compact with Reds, and a laptop keyboard, which are all about as different as possible and my typing speed and accuracy is about the same on all three. I actually score slightly higher for typing speed on the crappy laptop keyboard from doing speed tests.

Comfort is a completely different story though and I vastly prefer typing on the Kinesis. Being the most comfortable for the task is important when it comes to avoiding RSI.
SQL Server and Windows licensing are actually major inhibitors, even at large enterprises. We have to manage our VL/CALs conservatively to control costs.

Wanna spin up n VMs for production / distributed computing? For Windows, you have to license each VM, whereas with Linux, the incremental cost of another node is nearly 0.

(Side note: I had high hopes for container support on Windows Server 2016 because unlike OS's, containers don't require individual licensing. Unfortunately Windows Containers are still immature, and are ironically second-class citizens in the Microsoft ecosystem compared to Linux containers)

Wanna spin up a n database servers? A single SQL Server (Enterprise) instance is pretty pricey (and it's licensed per core, minimum 4), whereas Postgres is free for any number of users and any number of processor cores. You want several replicas of your SQL Server? It is $$$. With MySQL, every replica is free license-wise (there are other costs of course).

The cloud has changed these calculations somewhat, but if your infrastructure is on-prem, Microsoft licensing can be prohibitive at scale.
My Terminal Setup: iTerm2 and Zsh
I was off - I’ve seen reports of 10 years....

https://www.digitaltveurope.com/2017/11/22/ihs-tv-replacemen...
Probably not in the same salary ballpark as that of a C# developer working on a line of business app for an enterprise shop.
This is huge for justice. Protection for personal property is one of the most fundamental tenets of our society. Don't know why it takes so long for the wheel of justice to get going.
>Putin openly campaigned

>links article where "Putins ally" is interviewed

What even is this?

During the actual campaigns this was never brought up with any seriousness. Only war related thing that was brought up was Clinton's eagerness to move troops into Syria which Putin said would lead into war between Russia and US.

That cowardly downvote without response... What else to expect from HN
I looked at the that tweet for five or six minutes and was stumped. Now this makes more sense, thanks.
Actually, solar cells are perfectly fine if you don't connect the outputs. Your inverter has to handle the float/no-load voltage (20~50% higher than at peak power), but that's it. Now, the inverter in this case has to be throttled by the secondary, instead of just blasting as much amps as it can with the solar power. You might want to have a nice-ish clock reference for the phase of your micro-grid, if you care about mains-phase-locked clocks keeping their accuracy. You'd want to count cycles and compare against those in the main grid, as well as adjust the frequency (much stronger than the large grid, as there won't be anything that initiates an emergency shutdown at the odd frequencies you might need to catch up/slow down to the main grid phase) so that the cycle count matches up when you sync back to the grid.

If your inverter is sufficiently fast, and your transfer switch can at least disconnect external power from the internal system within less than half a period, you might be able to keep the internal power stable without any hickup at all.

And it's not like the required control logic for the inverter is too hard to integrate nowadays with microcontrollers having WiFi etc.
I could never understand this point of view. Can you elaborate?

Windows tax amounts to about 30% bump in AWS ec2 costs.
Typical CRUD startup will have their costs dominated by payroll, not hosting. If I can get my engineers 3% more efficient at the cost of making my hosting 30% more expensive I will do this in a heartbeat.

What is the situation where you experience onerous Windows tax?
I wonder if this is a US-only phenomenon. I've been to a number of weddings in Poland.

The cake is real!

They don't wheel it back to the kitchen for cutting. It's served right there in the middle of the reception hall. I guess it is less elegant than a stream of plated cake slices flowing out of the kitchen. However, you know what you are eating.

Can anyone share their experience?
I think it help if you added some substance to your comment.
Well, I upvoted it.

Word play!
They were directed by the Bush administration to manufacture a case for invading Iraq, and resisted it the whole time.

Also, the agenda of discrediting the US intelligence community is a long-standing goal of Russian intelligence, evidenced by their support of Wikileaks and Snowden.
Really surprised on your comment when it has so many amazing things going for it.

- state of the art language features from .net (linq, async&await,powerful generics)

- Multiplatform runtime and SDK, even development is great via Vscode + omnisharp.

- MIT license

- llvm backend via Ryu jit compiling straight to machine code (Wow!)

- unparalleled language server capabilities via Roslyn's API, even available on Linux / Osx via omnisharp.

And more stuff I'm not thinking of. Almost everywhere you turn .net is the toughest beast in the arena if you exclude ecosystem. I don't see how you could possibly think it doesn't have a fighting chance.
I seem to recall from a previous discussion about the possibility of Amazon buying a bank that such an arrangement would be extremely illegal.

IIRC, there's a law expressly prohibiting any company from both acting as a bank and a retail business.

edit: Yep, there is. The Bank Holding Company Act prevents companies in commerce from engaging in banking activities.
All the more condescending considering some of the biggest software companies in the world (such as facebook) use PHP.
The flipside is also true; as a C# / MS stack focused developer myself, it's quite difficult to find satisfying work that isn't enterprisey, and it seems to be mostly because Microsoft isn't Cool.
How about a scooter? That must be cheaper still, plus it gives you freedom to drive places.
I like my rewards Visa...

That's why Kroger is willing to turn you away -- they don't want to pay for your rewards.

In a business where profit margins can be a thin 1 - 2%, losing some customers that cost a 3% transaction fee while driving others to cheaper transactions can be a net win despite losing business.

Though I suspect that Visa will blink first before other retailers decide to do the same.
You might know exactly what your growth will be and realize that you cannot afford to license certain software after a certain point.
> I saw a discussion on HN a few months back about a survey of computer hardware, and one dev in the comments was shocked - shocked! - to find out that the typical user didn't have 16 GB and a 4k screen. That definitely rustled my jimmies a bit.)

This is extremely common in dev circles, it's an area where we're completely detached from average users. Just to make the point, here is the mozilla hardware survey that shows >50% of users having 4GB or less: https://hardware.metrics.mozilla.com/ .

If we look at the more technical users on steam (https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey) then only ~15% of users have 4GB or less, along with 40% having 8GB.

There's a good reason macbooks top out at 16GB.
Why do you need to stand in line to pay with cash? Maybe the self-checkout machine in particular only accepts cards, but it could look like this: https://www.ecrs.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/fujitsu-gene... - I see these all the time.
There is debit, prepaid, prepaid non-reloadable, business credit, business debit, government/purchasing, payroll, credit cards(gold, signature,infinite) in the US. Add international and there's a lot more like Electron(travel debit). It even gets more complicated because debit can be broken down to durbin and non durbin. You can actually get debit cards that give you rewards that charge at credit card level interchange rates.

If you're talking credit cards, I don't know anyone that discriminates against the different types but it is very possible because you can get that info from the PAN.
Best post this month, possibly this year.

titzer says:"...You cannot find that stuff anymore. It's hidden by a huge layer of commercial bullshit that is designed to lure you in..."

So true. [And wouldn't it be nice if search engines had an option whereby one could first set a date and thereafter search results would display as they once did on that date?]

But again, great post! Kudos to you! Well said, sir!
Honestly if some licensing is that problematic, your start up is doomed from the get go. Granted I will never use Microsoft products or service again because they just aren't my style or very good. That minimal cost should be the least of a startups concerns.
I recommend going to social events that align with your interests rather than ones that are dedicated to being 'social' (for example, bars and clubs).
My Model M says 1987. Works like a champ.
You pay $15,000 / year in property taxes on a lot less than 1 acre? Is that normal for Texas?
> It's really hard to find good C# talent that isn't stuck in an enterprise development mindset.

That's also the reason I avoid Java personally, I find the language alright but the community around is kind of "enterprise" focused.
dataflow, have you considered that just possibly the reason people kept "avoiding the question" and "giving you irrelevant answers" is maybe - just maybe - not out of some inexplicable desire to intentionally waste your time, but is actually because they misunderstood your question, because it was in fact very unclearly worded?
I say this as a .net dev, but when I look at hosting stuff for myself, the few extra dollars influence my decision.
It's weird that the author would include Shopify in a list of companies that don't create their own tools.

Shopify is one of the most prolific technology creators in the tech community. Their CEO was on the original core Rails team and is directly responsible for several common libraries and concepts that have been picked up by other tools.
If I visit your startups site with obscure browser, with JS turned off and leave a bad review since your product was unusable is that fair?

There is only so many avenues of distribution and you literally can not affect who deliveres and handles the package on the way to the customer unless you roll out your own complete chain which is stupid to even suggest.

Just beause post office has a lot of temps and miss handles package doesn't reflect actual review of the product if you think it does then frankly you are an idiot
Speaking of VOA & Russian meddling, I wonder why CrowdStrike would not recant their Russian hacking claims after Ukraine proved to VOA that they were fabricated: https://www.voanews.com/a/crowdstrike-comey-russia-hack-dnc-...
> Or the machine language expression of the most advanced expert systems, though by then the notch might be small enough that Planck’s constant got in the way.

With Planck's length being roughly 10^-35m, I'd say you'd hit the limit trying to store more than 15 bytes.
> When FB moderators can impose penalties outside the context of Facebook, like jailing people.

...or seeding the Internet outrage machine by manufacturing a digital lynch mob to harass the person, dox them, harass their employer and friends and family, and utterly destroy their lives? I mean, this happens on Twitter and Tumblr all the time just by itself; actually controlling the platform would make it so much easier!
I went a bit further on this. Same keyboard, mouse, monitor, HD dock, phone charging pad at work and home. No need to think about anything.
While I don't work too much in it due to the current lack of time, I built cryptocoinalerts.net (https://github.com/AlexITC/crypto-coin-alerts) some months ago, decided to be an open source project from the beginning and while it has served its purpose (put real work in a project that potential clients could evaluate), I ended up extracting a library from it (https://github.com/AlexITC/playsonify) which I have being used in other projects.
Not only fine-grained control, but as they grow they need to consider the cost of growing and maintaining a system built with antiquated tech.
If you are interested in rat poison, you may also enjoy xmonad. I've used both and much preferred xmonad
Lot1: is prime lakefront property, with over a 100 acres next door to neighborhoods where land is in excess of $100k an acre.

As for small scale farming:

https://ensia.com/features/urban-agriculture-is-booming-but-...

edit: To be exact about $720k an acre, given this nearly adjacent:

(.3 acre 4391 sqft, $20k taxes)

http://propaccess.traviscad.org/clientdb/Property.aspx?cid=1...

again the improvements are worth more than the land, but if the guy had a full acre that wouldn't be true.
That’s nothing more than marketing.

Do you ride more because it’s unlimited? When you get to your stop for your office or dinner or whatever, do you go back home and then back again before getting off? Do you go all the way to the end of the line to minimize your cost per mile, then walk back to your actual destination?

Of course not, you use it as efficiently as possible to do the thing you used public transit to actually _get to_.

Do you consider the money you spend for your unlimited pass as rent for housing or office space? Do you just stay on the bus all day, working on your laptop and holding meetings?

Unlimited transit passes are similar to unlimited vacation plans: people normally need and use much less than 100% of the resource offered. People also don’t normally push 100% bandwidth 24/7 through their unlimited plans.

If everyone decides to use their unlimited transit pass in this way, they will go away or increase in price accordingly.
Amen!

And this article doesn't even touch on the bullshit content – I don't want 10 websites that all say generally the same thing with different layouts (and 10 times more total bullshit consumed). I can't stand the internet today. The experience on mobile is even more unbearable.

I want simplicity.

Can we all just band together right here and now and create a subnet with a better set of principles?

- minimize page weight
- minimize duplicate content
- minimize UI variation
- what else?
Knight TV resurrection
Ritual.
What do you mean "used to"? Usenet still exists.
> Is that...bad?

For Microsoft and .NET community — yes.
You were downvoted pretty quickly, but I agree with what you're saying: I don't trust this data. Out of curiousity, I searched up Apple. Of course I got Xcode, Swift, and Cocoa…but not much else. No mention of the hundreds of technologies Apple uses to keep its services (Maps, Siri, iCloud) running, no mention of even Objective-C, which probably outnumbers lines of Swift code ten to one. It seems like this website is just a collection of public perception about companies' tech stacks rather than being an accurate source.
There are people that will argue until they are blue in the face that his recovery software is useless.

But I have also had some success with it.

Everything that he releases is amazingly tiny. It just shows how much bloat modern software tends to have.
Yeah but why bother? Unless you have some legacy code and are forced to use c# I wouldn't waste my time anything Microsoft.
Don't doubt the park and ride! Living in Seattle area, and for work I drive less than a mile to a bus stop with ample parking, occasionally stop for coffee, then get dropped off right at work.

The great outdoors of Washington are too good to waste, be sure to factor that into your numbers.
He solved arsons with amazing ease.  That's because it was him all along
What Facebook use these days is a long way away from PHP. Hack is quite different in various non-trivial ways.

The more typical “99th percentile” PHP is not used by any of the biggest tech companies to deliver their core products.
There seems to be an assault on freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and the right to self defense (life).

Freedom of the press:
The Tommy Robinson episode which is the first time I had heard of the broad government ability to ban news stories from being reported. You don’t have to agree with Robinson’s politics, you just need to realize the precedent it sets.

Freedom of speech:
Chelsea Russell - https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/woman-wh...

Mark Meechan - https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-scotlan...

I’m not defending these people, but think about the chilling effect this has on speech.

Right to self defense:
U.K. took away the right to legally own hand guns in 1996. Since then knife violence has been on the rise. London is now considering “common sense knife control”. There is no longer any legal weapon you can carry that will give you a force multiplier over an attacker. This is especially dangerous for women.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfr...
It's about pricing. If automated driving gets perfected then a ride with an automated bus can be cheaper than with an automated taxi, because a bus have less cost per seat than a car.
The "new" Microsoft and .NET Core has solved much of the licensing issues and burden. Direct support for MySQL/Postgres and containerizing your app is only like 3 lines in your Dockerfile.
I don't see anything encoding-specific in there. It may not be a Unicode string library, but it's also not an ASCII string library. Rurban was right. It's really just a nice membuf library—but there's nothing wrong with that! You could build a great Unicode or ASCII string library on top of this.
HN users/voters seem habituated and predictable. What if this is applied to link titles to predict likelihood of making it to the front page? What words (or sequences of letters) are associated with popularity?

I also wonder how many unique voters are present, especially regulars and those who vote before a link hits the front page. I bet there aren't that many. And I bet they are mostly INTJ. That is, content seems curated/controlled by a handful of users (ie, bubble). What can be done to buffer against bias? How can submissions automatically be surfaced/tested (shown on the front page to patterned/known users) even before receiving any votes?

I've always thought some percentage of the front page should be dedicated to (randomly chosen, though slightly weighted) new submissions. Some percentage of the page some percentage of the time to some percentage of users able to vote. Or maybe the new tab should be shown inline on the right. That is, I'm guessing most only see what's shown on the first page.
Facebook basically doesn't use php anymore. It is a minority and dwindling part of their codebase
That's such a silly SV mindset. Not everyone wants to raise a boatload of vc.
I think a lot of it is that there just aren't as many developers that know it compared to the other tech stacks.

Part of the reason for that is that if you're starting out as a web developer trying to build stuff for fun, you're probably not picking .NET as your tech stack when there are options that are freer (both as in beer and in speech), easier/cheaper to deploy, and have a more active online community that can help you if you get stuck.

And ultimately, if you're a company that is picking a tech stack, you ultimately need to hire people to work with that stack, and it's a lot easier to find people that know Node/PHP/React/whatever than it is to find people that know .NET.