skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"Go is designed to discourage developing higher-level abstractions."

Yes, that does seem to be the distinctive thing about Go. It's almost like someone read Paul Graham's "blub" essay[1] and thought, "what would it mean to take seriously the idea that blub is the best language?"

Everyone knows that building abstractions has a cost - the cost of building the abstractions themselves, the cost of figuring out the particular abstractions employed in a given project, and the cost of comprehending a language flexible enough to support these abstractions. The hope is that the cost of abstraction is an investment: the time you put in will be rewarded in faster development when you put the abstractions to use. But at some point increased abstraction is going to give diminishing returns.

Now, most programs written today don't involve that much more abstraction than would have been possible with programs written in ALGOL; that is, we haven't seen a huge widespread increase in the power of abstraction used by most programmers in about 50 years. People like Alan Kay and Brett Victor[2] decry this stagnation, and maybe they're right to. But maybe the current low level of abstraction is so durable because it's a sweet spot between the benefits you get from abstraction and the costs involved in coming to grips with that abstraction.

Most people, particularly most people who develop programming languages, assume that we're nowhere near the point of diminishing returns for increasing abstraction. Go seems like an experiment to test the possibility that the maximum efficiency occurs at a much lower level of abstraction than we usually think. It will be interesting to see whether (or in what domains) that hypothesis turns out to be true.

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html
[2] http://worrydream.com/dbx/
Snowden was not introduced until after OP posted this link
>Has a charge even been brought?

He cannot be charged until they question him. Since he is avoiding Sweden and Swedish authorities, they cannot charge him.

Not that that makes him any more or less guilty of the accusations, but still.
> Is it expected that "the next five billion" will also buy a new phone every two years?

Absolutely! The whole phone market is one huge study in planned obsolescence. It's doing even better than cars in that respect. And the tablet market isn't far behind.
Which in fact Bittorrent already does as a core part of the protocol.
Well, right now Bitcoin allows you to pay anyone online without a centralized currency issuing authority.

This technology exists, but the people who are saying that Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general will change people's lives are way ahead of the curve. People will look at quotes from 2012 and say "Bitcoin came out in 2009 so people were already aware of cryptocurrency for years"

But more than 99% of the population right now are completely missing the boat on cryptocurrency. I think in five years it's going to be bigger than most people imagine.
I hope they take it a bit more seriously once they've watched a bit longer.

I've found that the New Zealander response to many things is one of apparent mocking, and this is sometimes a good thing. The NZ public don't treat much as sacred, and this sometimes looks like dismissal. I'd take comfort in the fact that the current political leaders in NZ are commonly treated to as much, or more, derision than is being shown here towards Dotcom, Assange, Snowden, Greenwald etc.

The NZ populous are generally pretty smart. Let's hope that they take these revelations and act intelligently on them.
Why wouldn't one buy Moto E instead ?
I am suprised they don't mention the Motorola E ( or even G ). They also count towards budget phones and are already selling very good in India.
All about batteries: http://batteryuniversity.com/
European project “pretty Easy privacy” is going to restore privacy for everyone
I was thinking the same too. Never mind chatting twice as fast I was scrolling twice as fast and missed the sales pitch
Well, I thought it was extremely obvious that BitTorrent by itself is perfectly legal, and that it is of course not banned in Germany.

Of course you only get an "Abmahnung" if you use it for copyright violations. But that is by far the largest use case. It can hardly be ignored that most people, especially "non-technical" ones, associate BitTorrent only with illegally downloading media.

What I wanted to say, is that now - as opposed to a few years ago - the probability of getting into trouble when downloading popular episodes via bittorrent has approached ~1.
☕ Let Me Tell You Why That's My Opinion On: www.polymer-project.org
And so sad that so few seem to remember how he became big.

I wouldn't entrust him my shoe size.
I had a traumatic incident with scotch beef pies in my teens - never touched one since.
We are launching now! We are looking for all the feedback that we could receive... thanks in advance to the community!
So if I have a larger language overhead to keep in mind, that's more complexity, but if I have a larger codebase overhead to keep in mind, that's not more complexity? You're trying to have it both ways, IMO.
I'm not sure how applicable this is to the US. But here in the UK the decline of Lard, (which was everywhere when I was growing up as a child) could be also attributed to the fact that there has been an increase in the number of vegetarians and ethnic minorities. These groups dietary demands would have a strong influence on restaurants and takeaways that are looking to cater to the largest audience size as possible.
Request tracing through django with zipkin
I'm well aware of that. So until he's been charged there is no process, until there has been a process he hasn't been convicted (or declared not guilty) and until he's convicted using terms like 'rapist' is - for now - inappropriate.

What you can accuse Assange rightly of at this point in time is being a douchebag and phenomenally stupid. But fame has done similar things to lots of other people and he doesn't have the monopoly on either in this particular case.

The Swedes had him on their soil, declared that there was no case, told him he was free to go, then changed their minds and then a whole circus ensued. In the UK he was at some point in custody.

There is enough fodder for a whole slew of in-depth investigations but so far there is no movement on that and the standing invitation of the Equadorians to interview Assange 'on site' has been steadfastly refused, which is curious indeed.

Other notable points in this case are that Sweden doesn't normally make such a hoopla over much more serious cases (including rape cases) and the too convenient timing.

Lots of food for thought on this one.
Colour me skeptical. The biggest problem, as I see, with all these phones is the obsoletion rate of software. If they had pledged to do their best to keep the platform running on the oldest of Android phones, all those phones would immediately be given away or sold cheaply to poor people. They don't need to port all bells and whistles to each of their previous platforms, just the minimum required to keep simple apps (not games, not multimedia) running across all devices. I have a few such "obsolete" devices myself. The only thing wrong with the hardware is that their easily replaced batteries are dead. I'd certainly give them away if they could be of much use now.
*Receives automatic Android updates for up to 2 years.

http://www.android.com/one/

I guess the poor can replace their phone every two years like the rich.
Probably not... otherwise it'd be much more "well-known"
You threw it out? facepalm

If you had sold it or given it away on ebay or craigslist, there's a good chance that someone could have fixed it or at least used it for spare parts (like transplanting a working console with a damaged case into it). We've got a bad enough e-waste problem as it is with all of the obsolete DVD players, mobile phones, etc. in our landfills, don't add things that people actually want to keep for decades and run cottage industries around the maintenance of to that mix.
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/golang-dev/ZTD1qtpruA8...

Everything in there listed as impractical in Go is possible in D without external tool, with just regular meta-programming:

- generating parsers from grammar https://github.com/PhilippeSigaud/Pegged

- embedding files as array of bytes:

ubyte[] = import("file.jpeg");

- protobuf files at compile-time: https://github.com/msoucy/dproto

- generating tables at compile-time with CTFE

Instead of copying what works the Go leaders pretend it doesn't work.
apart from the moto e, what other cheap smartphones are already available in the west ?

I don't have a smartphone, but I don't want to spend a lot on one.
dupe.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8314354
Does not work; "Couldn't find Post with id=504698"
> If there are complexities that programmers face that can be absorbed by a compiler, it must be

Not sure. If absorbing it would make the compiler much slower, much more complex, or the compiled code less deterministic, or corner cases in the compiler much more numerous, I think it may be reasonable to not go this path.

It looks like the go compiler in itself is a nice piece of engineering, like a F1 race car. And a bunch of guys say they want it with automatic gears. Proposing an automatic version would change too many things in the internals, and the result would be another kind of cars.
Presumably you're referring to the Verizon Galaxy Nexus. That was a unique situation which won't happen again, as no more Nexus phones will be coming to Verizon. Moreover, in the years since the Galaxy Nexus, Google has made huge strides in moving as much of the Android OS into independently updatable apps as possible.
I swear I've heard this messaging before...

http://conversations.nokia.com/2011/02/11/mobile-phones-the-...
your assumptions about cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generators (CSPRNGs for short) are incorrect - one of the key requirements of secure random number generation is the inability to predict future state given previous state. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographically_secure_pseudo..., particularly the part about the next-bit test.

The bit about RSA aiding the NSA is spot-on though, if dual EC DRBG is in fact backdoored.
FirefoxOS has a better price point, and has an opportunity, of course hard job against the Goliaths.
I understand what you think you mean (but disagree), but have you considered the larger implications of your statement?

If Snowden is a "controlled pawn", then isn't everyone in the entire debate a pawn? If so, where would you suggest we look to for updates on this situation?
For really cheap phones it's hard to beat the used market.

Edit: A 2 year upgrade cycle on an original iPhone released in January 9, 2007 means people have replaced it 3 times. Toss in broken screens, work phones etc and you quickly get into the 100 million range.
> Once IBM gains control of a market sector, they almost always stop innovation. They prevent innovation from happening.

It's funny because Apple is now in that same situation. Apple isn't exactly known for innovation anymore (as much as they would like to lead you to believe in their keynotes).
I'm having trouble understanding how you're able to give Assange and Dotcom different treatments.

I'm not trying to pick a fight here, I'm genuinely puzzled. You're having a similar argument with idlewords, but in defense of Assange; your comment upthread acknowledges that Assange has "flaws" and "something to answer for in his personal life", but when it comes to Dotcom, it sounds like you've got a much stronger negative impression of him.

This isn't really that important I guess. I should probably just drop it. It just seems weird.

(FWIW, I've defended Assange too in other conversations, but with full knowledge that he probably is guilty of a sex crime under his country's laws; likewise with Dotcom, after his release. It's good that the battle against mass surveillance doesn't require saints, since we don't get to pick allies for their winning personalities.)
Some of the presentations don't do much. The ability to drill in (varies by your platform) and find hot threads and methods is really useful in tuning.

Other data are more useful for the marketing folks (e.g., geocoded data), though they can also point out abuse or other issues.
FirefoxOS would be able to compete more effectively if it were installable on higher end devices.
They did, but profit has always been a higher priority for them than market share and the 'platform dominance' that goes with it. If they happen to get a large market share, or if their platform becomes dominant anyway that's a nice benefit, but it's not a strategic goal.

A good example of when Apple became a market share elader is the iPod. If you look at Apple's product strategy though, they never did anything to gain market share at the cost of profits and premium branding. The combination of devices and services via iTunes created a dominant platform. They didn't do anything to avoid that, it's not that beign dominant is itself a bad thing, it's just that it wasn't a strategic goal. They never under-cut competitors to achieve it. Yet at the height of their market dominance, when they were best placed to use their position to exert market control, instead of using that power against customers to increase lock-in, they used it to force reluctant labels to embrace DRM free content. They then used it again to coerce the labels to sign up to iTunes Match. They did this becaue these moves ease customer pain points and improve the customer experience, making their products more attractive and therefore more valuable.

Can you imagine Microsoft or IBM making moves like that? I can't. As another example, Apple has always maintained that they don't allow third party keyboards, or third party browsers to use the accelerated Webkit engine for security reasons. These explanations were widely derided as fig leaves to cover a lock-in strategy, yet as soon as Apple has implemented controls to open these restrictions securely, it did so. It turns out their stated reasons for doing that really were their actual reasons for doing it. So if you want to make your 'Apple lockin would be worse than IBM' thesis stand up, you need to explain why their actual behaviour when they're in that situation doesn't match the thesis.
The scary thing to me is that we're currently seeing a reply of a chunk of history with the worst case alternative outcome, closed silos and tremendous user lock-in, nota-bene on top of an open operating system.

Very frustrating.
I don't have a scanner ready, but it was a pretty standard letter. If you search for "Abmahnung Waldorf Frommer" you should find some cover letters (in German). Waldorf Frommer is one law firm that is well known for sending those letters.

It was basically one page explaining that one violated copyright, giving the file name, the date, and the IP address; then a few pages detailing the appropriate laws, explaining how utterly bad piracy is, and telling you how much trouble you are in. Then there was an invoice for a one time "license" for the episode, and the legal fees which were more than the license. Following that, there was a kind of contract you had to sign, agreeing to accept the license, and in case of repeat violation, agree to pay a much higher fee. If I remember correctly, there even was a filled out wire-transfer form you just had to sign and bring to the bank in the end.

If you didn't accept their conditions, and refuse to sign, then they would go to court, which is extremely risky. You might get exonerated, or you might have to pay a lot more, so in the end I just payed the few hundred euros.

Given that the reason I pirated in the first place was that I'm a student and currently can't really afford to buy the media, its especially frustrating...
Dos and Donts of Guest Posting
Why More Trees in the Sierra Mean Less Water for California
If you can replace your dog with a smart phone or any other electronic device, you shouldn't have had the dog in the first place.
Simple is the biggest weasel word in programming.

In practice it's pretty much a measure of the temperature of bear porridge that a given person currently finds just right.
His statement is in no way similar to some random guy making a prediction that electric cars will be huge in the future. Unless that random guy happens to be named Elon Musk: working hard on actually making it happen.

As I recollect the times, computers were rare enough at the time that we passed as a truly geeky family. And in spite of being fairly early adopters of IT as consumers, I can't recollect internet in our household before the early 1990s.

The 1980s was a period where most businesses were beginning to equip themselves with computers. The process took roughly two decades and closed the century with the dotcom bubble. Networking was on the radar all along, yes, but recall that this primarily was for private networks or intranets. Internet as we think of it today was on nobody's radar until into the 1990s.
Full screen pokemon
Some Lumia hit the 99euros or 99$ price tag and are quite decent.
my thoughts precisely.
Not quite. IBM paved the way for Compaq, which in turn led to an explosion of computer brands all around the same Industry Standard Architecture.

Apple first bet on the 68K line, then moved to IBM (the Power series CPU), then finally joined that 'closed' culture with the advent of the second generation iMac.

Each of those machines was as closed as they could make them without welding them shut (and your present day iMac is no exception to this, it doesn't have to be designed in such a way that it is hard to open).
Or survive on a slightly older version of Android?
Really brings home the weirdness of Microsoft's strategy with Nokia.

Instead of selling some Windows Phone in developed markets and lots of Series 40 in developing markets, they've ended up selling next to none in either.
Did your phone stop working? It's annoying but your phone is perfectly usable even without the latest Android version.
Wow. I would have never ever paid.

But I can see why such a strategy would work on their part.

I wonder how many of those letters they send out and how many people stand up to them in court and what the outcome is of those cases.
To be fair, Android One's "up to 2 years" is a huge improvement over the typical update policy in this price bracket: not in a million years.
Just want to say that the name bitgym is super awesome. Not too sure about the service itself though.
> Since his "sexual assault" allegations were, in essence, an orchestrated smear campaign to discredit him and by extension Wikileaks

Is what he wants you to believe.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-...

By Saturday morning, 21 August, journalists were asking Assange for a reaction. At 9.15am, he tweeted: "We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks'. Now we have the first one." The following day, he tweeted: "Reminder: US intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks as far back as 2008."
Guide to white hat SEO using ScrapeBox
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All those off-contract phones have got to end up somewhere...
Ask HN: How can I get started to solve small business problems?
I have been reading, The best of edw519, which is a collection of top comments by our very own Edward Weissman. It contains tons of good advice (although, I don't agree with everything ). One of those that is quite epiphanic is how we are trying to build solutions to problems that no one may want and snubbing those that really require it.

Small and Midcap business run on terrible software, still manually do work which will require few mins to automate, even copy data from the software to MS Excel to get anything useful out of it and the best of it, there are hundreds of thousands of these untapped opportunities. People who don't know that solutions exist.

I would really love, if I can help to solve these problems but don't know where to begin. I have tried emailing some US firms, that I can provide 'specific' solutions to some of their tasks but it hasn't helped.

PS: I am from India
I like the idea, but the sign up process seems weird. Giving your phone number away isn't the nicest thing to have to do, especially since the whole Yo debacle.
After trying Jekyll I decided to move on, this lead me to http://hugo.spf13.com/ which had the benefit of higer speed of generation as well as a more logical file structure.
I also have the benefit of being a single binary install making it very portable.

I made a short performance comparison of Jekyll, hugo and wintersmith: http://internaldeployment.se/post/2014-08-12-Jekyll-and-its-...
Wow, she knows what she is talking about! I think everybody should know that!
It's not about having the latest & greatest, it's about having a secure device. Imagine hundreds of millions of devices with security holes no longer being patched after 2 years.

At least XP was supported for over a decade. Having a device as expensive as a phone (for the market) no longer patched after 2 years isn't a good idea.
Apple’s iPhone 6 Announcement – What does it mean for the Mobile Enterprise?
Are you sure this isn't against Heroku's TOS?
Context Hacks into Canon IoT Printer to Run Doom
Thanks for the information.

This is uncomfortably close to the way I imagine a glitch from something like a FOXACID exploit might look, and youtube is a known exploitable service. Maybe I need to get someone more skilled than myself have a close look at this machine.

Knowledgeable people here, would you please comment if there's reason to rule out concerns about this.
One does not simply "have a patio," especially not in California.
Plusberry Pi – Turn your RPi to a media center (now supports B+)
Feature phones are still the reality in a large swathe of rural India. Cheaper android phones will definitely help change that situation.
I wished that android one phones came with free 2-3 months of 2G packs so that millions of people could have their first taste of 'Internet'.
Team Leader Reminder – 3P-s to Team Success
> I am unsurprisingly frustrated with Go because I prefer more expressive languages, fwiw.

So? My point was not to claim the opposite of the OP, it was to point out that the generalization is false.

> (...and no, I don't think it's particularly wrong to assert that this is the case for other people too; there's plenty of evidence to support that people find the lack of generics in a fully featured language like go frustrating; and it's not surprising what so ever that this is the case)

I guess, if your evidence consists of people on HN and reddit complaining about Go.